"Choice"

[kalu]

(Post)structuralism generally begins by deconstructing the subject/object. We begin with Husserl, who posits that intentionality, or the structures of consciousness, are directed "toward" an object. Husserl wrote that this does not require an actual object. Derrida then took this assumption further by positing that there is no sovereign, constituting subject either, that writing as differance (deferal-displacement) exists at the origin of knowledge. In a more historically specific vein, Foucault examines how the social sciences "objectify" and "subjectify" the body, producing different forms of subjectivity (for example, the self-disciplining subject of the modern prison). For the comrades wary of poststructuralism, note how Marx himself analyzes "historical forms of individuality" produced by different modes of production. Marx's "capitalist" is a personification of social processes, for demonstrative purposes.

If after the linguistic, pragmatic, and poststructuralist turns in philosophy have radically put into question the concepts of "intention" and "agency," and the correlative "acting individual," what nevertheless accounts for contingency, or "choices"? For example, what does it mean that in my daily, mundane life, "I" choose to pick my nose or not?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

A better idea, when confronted with such questions, is to see how we actually use words like "choice". This will prevent you from seeking an a priori 'super-scientific solution' to what is in fact an empty series of questions, and thus from entering the same cul-de-sac that has trapped traditional philosophers since ancient Greek times (including Husserl, Derrida, Foucault and other post-structuralists).

[kalu]

A better idea, when confronted with such questions, is to see how we actually use words like "choice". This will prevent you from seeking an a priori 'super-scientific solution' to what is in fact an empty series of questions, and thus from entering the same cul-de-sac that has trapped traditional philosophers since ancient Greek times (including Husserl, Derrida, Foucault and other post-structuralists).

I must profess my ignorance (what you have presented though is an intriguing idea): is this a Wittgensteinian view? How does it relate to the (primarily American) philosophical movement known as pragmatism?

[Sleeper]

If after the linguistic, pragmatic, and poststructuralist turns in philosophy have radically put into question the concepts of "intention" and "agency," and the correlative "acting individual," what nevertheless accounts for contingency, or "choices"? For example, what does it mean that in my daily, mundane life, "I" choose to pick my nose or not?

Simply put, anytime you make a conscious decision in which you must physically or mentally undertake an action (or not) where there was some alternative available, you have made a choice.

The inevitable question to this would be, does this make everything that we do a choice? My answer is not necessarily, but probably 99% of the time because there are those occasions that we are forced to take (or not take) a certain action. So, in other words:

Alternative= Choice
No Alternative= No Choice

You did not have to pick your nose, you could have used a tissue (or something tissue-like) so you chose to pick your nose. Even if you had nothing tissue-like, you could have just left whatever was up there alone.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kalu:


I must profess my ignorance (what you have presented though is an intriguing idea): is this a Wittgensteinian view? How does it relate to the (primarily American) philosophical movement known as pragmatism?

Yes, it is a Wittgensteinian view.

And, as far as I can see, it bears no relation at all to Pragmatism, although a few philosophers (such as Richard Rorty) think otherwise.