The late Derrida penned those words knowing full well that they were just that, penned words.
He must have seen those as an affront to his very ideas, the philosopher’s critique on meta-statements being a meta-statement itself. A critique, so named, because it was long thought (among philosophers) that philosophy was the queen of thought. She’d ask the most fundamental questions and these questions demanded answers and, as such, demanded an unparalleled gravity. In other words, they set the rules of the game. Derrida dared to question the question (he was not the first):
The interesting thing is that this gives Being and words (signs of vocables of beings) a strange polarized power. On the one hand, language could become a great means of power for those who best commanded and shaped it, but, on the other, it causes a break between the thing and the thing signified rendering language vacuous. Both ideas have equal merit depending on the presuppositions on is drawing from.
The consequences of these ideas is that there is no privileged, absolute perspective or language that stands above the rest: scientist, philosophers, and theologians command equal power. None trumps the other, instead we are to read each perspective as its own rhetoric in its most unpejorative sense (hopefully). At least, that is my reading of Derrida.
Regardless of one’s pressuposition, however, it is clear that we live in a world where signs and signs of signs of things capture our imagination. We call there collection media and, when we are not consuming it, we are talking about it or trying to monitize it.
If we take David’s argument seriously, then the need to parse and present visual language should be placed in the same category as other forms of language and should be understood as rhetoric, given my current line of thinking. Consequently, the interaction of these things in media, which is called design demands as much attention as philosophy or science.
A classic essay by Albert Camus which you need to read.
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina, the daughter of Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Esopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.
It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife’s love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods was necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.
You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward tlower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.
It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.
If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.
If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in man’s heart: this is the rock’s victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Edipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: “Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well.” Sophocles’ Edipus, like Dostoevsky’s Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.
One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. “What!—by such narrow ways–?” There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd. Discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. “I conclude that all is well,” says Edipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
All Sisyphus’ silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory’s eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Phaedrus: A ridiculous question! But tell me what you say you have heard.
Socrates: I heard, then, that at Naucratis, in Egypt, was one of the ancient gods of that country, the one whose sacred bird is called the ibis, and the name of the god himself was Theuth. He it was who [274d] invented numbers and arithmetic and geometry and astronomy, also draughts and dice, and, most important of all, letters. Now the king of all Egypt at that time was the god Thamus, who lived in the great city of the upper region, which the Greeks call the Egyptian Thebes, and they call the god himself Ammon. To him came Theuth to show his inventions, saying that they ought to be imparted to the other Egyptians. But Thamus asked what use there was in each, and as Theuth enumerated their uses, expressed praise or blame, according as he approved [274e] or disapproved. The story goes that Thamus said many things to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts, which it would take too long to repeat; but when they came to the letters, “This invention, O king,” said Theuth, “will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memories; for it is an elixir of memory and wisdom that I have discovered.” But Thamus replied, “Most ingenious Theuth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another;
[275a] and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem [275b] to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.
Phaedrus: Socrates, you easily make up stories of Egypt or any country you please.
Socrates: They used to say, my friend, that the words of the oak in the holy place of Zeus at Dodona were the first prophetic utterances. The people of that time, not being so wise as you young folks, were content in their simplicity to hear an oak [275c] or a rock, provided only it spoke the truth; but to you, perhaps, it makes a difference who the speaker is and where he comes from, for you do not consider only whether his words are true or not.
Phaedrus: Your rebuke is just; and I think the Theban is right in what he says about letters.
Socrates: He who thinks, then, that he has left behind him any art in writing, and he who receives it in the belief that anything in writing will be clear and certain, would be an utterly simple person, and in truth ignorant of the prophecy of Ammon, if he thinks [275d] written words are of any use except to remind him who knows the matter about which they are written.
Phaedrus: Very true.
Socrates: Writing, Phaedrus, has this strange quality, and is very like painting; for the creatures of painting stand like living beings, but if one asks them a question, they preserve a solemn silence. And so it is with written words; you might think they spoke as if they had intelligence, but if you question them, wishing to know about their sayings, they always say only one and the same thing. And every word, when [275e] once it is written, is bandied about, alike among those who understand and those who have no interest in it, and it knows not to whom to speak or not to speak; when ill-treated or unjustly reviled it always needs its father to help it; for it has no power to protect or help itself.
Phaedrus: You are quite right about that, too. [276a]
Socrates: Now tell me; is there not another kind of speech, or word, which shows itself to be the legitimate brother of this bastard one, both in the manner of its begetting and in its better and more powerful nature?
Phaedrus: What is this word and how is it begotten, as you say?
Socrates: The word which is written with intelligence in the mind of the learner, which is able to defend itself and knows to whom it should speak, and before whom to be silent.
Phaedrus: You mean the living and breathing word of him who knows, of which the written word may justly be called the image. [276b]
Socrates: Exactly. Now tell me this. Would a sensible husbandman, who has seeds which he cares for and which he wishes to bear fruit, plant them with serious purpose in the heat of summer in some garden of Adonis, and delight in seeing them appear in beauty in eight days, or would he do that sort of thing, when he did it at all, only in play and for amusement? Would he not, when he was in earnest, follow the rules of husbandry, plant his seeds in fitting ground, and be pleased when those which he had sowed reached their perfection in the eighth month? [276c]
Phaedrus: Yes, Socrates, he would, as you say, act in that way when in earnest and in the other way only for amusement.
Socrates: And shall we suppose that he who has knowledge of the just and the good and beautiful has less sense about his seeds than the husbandman?
Phaedrus: By no means.
Socrates: Then he will not, when in earnest, write them in ink, sowing them through a pen with words which cannot defend themselves by argument and cannot teach the truth effectually.
Phaedrus: No, at least, probably not. [276d]
Socrates: No. The gardens of letters he will, it seems, plant for amusement, and will write, when he writes, to treasure up reminders for himself, when he comes to the forgetfulness of old age, and for others who follow the same path, and he will be pleased when he sees them putting forth tender leaves. When others engage in other amusements, refreshing themselves with banquets and kindred entertainments, he will pass the time in such pleasures as I have suggested.[276e]
Phaedrus: A noble pastime, Socrates, and a contrast to those base pleasures, the pastime of the man who can find amusement in discourse, telling stories about justice, and the other subjects of which you speak.
Socrates: Yes, Phaedrus, so it is; but, in my opinion, serious discourse about them is far nobler, when one employs the dialectic method and plants and sows in a fitting soul intelligent words which are able to help themselves and him [277a] who planted them, which are not fruitless, but yield seed from which there spring up in other minds other words capable of continuing the process for ever, and which make their possessor happy, to the farthest possible limit of human happiness.
Phaedrus: Yes, that is far nobler.
Posted: October 16th, 2008
Categories: Philosophy
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This is an old-ish, revised work written during my Derridean phase of ’07 which was something of a philosophical blue period. (I was trying to be clever.)
The Ego, To Wit
The most frustrating thing about reading Derrida is the dizzying force of his writing. In the turns, the circularity, the ipse-isms of his thought we find a resting the autos, the “I” which, consequently, is also the “he” (were one to speak in his voice). The interalism, the ultimate, excessive, etymological, endemic, elliptical (not to say, alliterative) egotism is the self-same force that propels him outward to get knowledge, but this knowledge is not a knowledge of rest but of progress. This progress, in turn, reveals a nonprogress for the very ceaseless progression is no progression at all.
“Changing, it rests.”
Yet, it is in this ceaseless (non)progression that, by constantly searching for the other, we find ourselves returning to ourselves (all by moving away from ourselves toward what was once ourselves but is not, toward the “not-ourselves” which will/is now ourselves, for the time being). For this progression always involves a query which presupposes a querier that is always asking a query. But even this querier queries because of some other question which one sees posed. This heaping of question upon questions, the ceaseless wondering who is the Sphinx and who, Oedipus —by its very repetition— renders the query null and void. Its ceaseless repetitious lays its meaning to rest since the circularity unhinges itself because the self cannot justify oneself by oneself, thus this ceaselessness becomes status quo which is to say standard, stock, the norm, natural and, consequently, may be named “static”.
The consequence is the need to outwit oneself which involves a double duplicity: (1.) in order to outwit oneself, one must, of necessity, dialog with oneself which is to say he must become twice “half witted,” from this comes the doubling double (this double bind) for (2.)it is impossible to half-wittingly outwit ([3.?]let alone outwit oneself or “half wit” oneself). The very duplicity, which may be a quad-plicity, is the very moment when (4.) the self is most honest . For, in order to outwit oneself, half-wittedly, one must first admit to himself the half-wittedness. Once one recognizes this, one may proceed merely by one’s own wits (for in order to know one is foolish, one must be wise).
Therefore, through this enfolding of oneself, one (that is to say “you” which is really, were one as honest as Buddy Glass, “me”) may move outward towards the Other away from the autos to that which is not the autos, which is to say that which is not ipse-istic —and this is a purgative, salvific (in the most etymological and thermatological sense of the word) progression; hence, we are finally unable to escape from ourselves (for progress is nonprogress). So, in our constant state of difference (differance?), we eke out the very nature of who we are, rather than the thing in question, for all questions, both because they are asked by and posed because of self, must refer to self, the ever shifting and undefinable “I”.
An interpreter is a decipherer and communicator of meanings. He is a translator between languages, between cultures and between performative conventions. He is, in essence, an executant, one who ‘acts out’ the material before him so as to give it intelligible life. Hence the third major sense of ‘interpretation’. An actor interprets Agamemnon or Ophelia. A dancer interprets Balanchine’s choreography. a violinist a Bach partita. In each of these instances, interpretation is understanding in action; it is the immediacy of translation.
Such understanding is simultaneously analytical and critical. Each performance of a dramatic text or musical score is a critique in the most vital sense of the term: it is an act of penetrative response which makes sense sensible. The ‘dramatic critic’ par excellence is the actor and the producer who, with and through the actor, tests and carries out the potentialities of meaning in the play. The true hermeneutic of drama is staging (even reading out loud of a play will, usually, cut far deeper than any theatrical review). In turn, no musicology, no music criticism can tell us as much as the action of meaning which is performance. It is when we experience and compare different interpretations, this is to say performances, of the same ballet symphony or quartet, that we enter the life of comprehension.
A few weeks ago I did a couple of posts over at Arbitrary Marks. This is a shortened version of a longer, more cofusing response to ck’s post. I apologize for its lopsidedness, I am looking for a blog post here, not an essay. Please ask questions if you are confused. I’ll try to answer them.
One caveat: I don’t pretend to be an expert on anything I am writing here, but I do promise I have thought long and hard about it.
Derrida, in Of Grammatology writes:
Thus, with this epoch, reading and writing, the production or interpretation of signs, the text in general as fabric of signs, allow themselves to be confined within secondariness. They are preceded by a truth, or a meaning already constituted by and within the element of the logos. Even when the thing, the “referent,” is not immediately related to the logos of a creator God where it began by being the spoken/thought sense, the signified has at any rate an immediate relationship with the logos in general (finite or infinite), and a mediated one with the signifier, that is to say with the exteriority of writing. When it seems to go otherwise, it is because a metaphoric mediation has insinuated itself into the relationship and has simulated immediacy; the writing of truth in the soul, opposed by Phaedrus (278a) to bad writing (writing in the “literal” [propre] and ordinary sense, “sensible” writing, “in space”), the book of Nature and God’s writing, especially in the Middle Ages; all that functions as metaphor in these discourses confirms the privilege of the logos and founds the “literal” meaning then given to writing: a sign signifying a signifier an eternal verity, eternally thought and spoken in the proximity of a present logos. The paradox to which attention must be paid is this: natural and universal writing, intelligible and nontemporal writing, is thus named by metaphor. A writing that is sensible, finite, and so on, is designated as writing in the literal sense; it is thus thought on the side of culture, technique, and artifice; a human procedure, the ruse of being accidentally incarnated or of a finite creature. Of course, this metaphor remains enigmatic and refers to a “literal” meaning of writing as the first metaphor. This “literal” meaning is yet unthought by the adherents of this discourses. It is not, therefore, a matter of inverting the literal meaning and the figurative meaning but of determining the “literal” meaning of writing as metaphoricity itself.
There is quite a bit there and the reader would do well to read it again before you continue on (even if you read it twice before reading this sentence). You would also do well to read from 278a in the Phaedrus and recognize that the story of Thoth is a story in the story.
I do not understand everything in that little paragraph–at least not all of the implications. I have suspicions my tangled assumptions stem from my confusions–and its implications for violence narratives–in my earlier posts. Essentially, Derrida is trying to sketch the genealogy of writing in Western thought, starting with philosophy’s Father, Plato. The “discourses” he refers to is the Great Discourse, the Great Conversation of Western Philosophy. And, if we grant his conclusion, “It is not, therefore, a matter of inverting the literal meaning and the figurative meaning but of determining the “literal” meaning of writing as metaphoricity itself.” Then we are forced to talked of Being/being (i.e., ontological/Metaphysical studies) from the Heiddegarian posture Being under erasure, or Being, since the immediacy of the referent/signifier is ruptured; there is no simple arrow to the referent, no “one to one” correspondence between a vocable and the signified: it is an approximation, a best guest, not “certain.” (The best analogy I have found for Being is negative theology, i.e., in speaking of God’s goodness we do violence to his goodness. Instead it is “Supra-Good,” a Good which cannot be described.) Writing–under the Western philosophic tradition, thus, effaces itself.
The practical implication is the (best) rhetoric (i.e., narrative) rules (dominates?). If there is only approximation, then there cannot be a final discussion of Truth or Being as Western Philosophy has described according to its own understanding of language (i.e., description). Some have claimed, consequently, that analytic philosophy becomes an impossibility–as far as its postivistic goals are concerned–since the “deep,” the abstract, is either too distant (Heiddeger’s ontology of Being) or non-existent (the denial of both the traditional ontology of Being and Being: nihilism).
This leaves with two possible definitions of “violence:”
1. From The denial of the ontology of Being and the affirmation of traditional ontology (be it Platonic or Aristotelean):
A knowable discontinuity between the reality and the expression, treatment, articulation, etc.
2. From the affirmation of the ontology of Being and the denial of its more traditional form or the denial of both:
Two competing narratives describing the same problem or situation which, in turn, negates its Other and can never finally be resolved (i.e., knowledge of discontinuity is impossible).
And so we get to the heart of the matter: the confusion about violence. The student of philosophy, I hope, should clearly see that all of this discussion about violence is itself a Nietzschean discussion. The question of Will to Power is the heart of the postmodern dillemma, it is the source of violence. My confusion, if my limited reading of Nietzsche is correct, is the same as Nietzsche’s. I have always reckoned that on the one hand he critiques philosophy–particularly metaphysical philosophy–under the rubric of our first definition, but then demands “Truth” falls under the second. I suspect (and only suspect) that scholarship would bear this out. Regardless, the postmodern critique is the application of the will to power on itself: those who buy into the Nietchzean perspective have themselves be “dominated by another’s will to power” and it is this tension, rooted in the second definition, which is most immediate and demands attention.
Simply put, whether or not you agree with Nietzsche, there are fundamentally differing perspectives of what truth is in the West and this finally stems from some sort of metaphysic. The two possibilities that the history of philosophy has granted us could be described as ontologies of peace or violence (These are terms I first discovered in David Bentley Harts book, The Beauty of The Infinite and are apparently employed by folks in the Radical Orthodoxy camp).
So, when I write, “until philosophy can comfortably situate itself in the difficulties of the pluralisms which these narratives of violence draw strength from, it will not progress and has no business talking safely about metaphysics,” I am speaking of the “difficulties of pluralisms” as violence between competing narratives (“Competing narratives” is, in a certain sense, a tautology since narratives which differ, by that very difference, negate each other) whereas the philosophy’s comfort must be understood through the faux-peace of the Heracletian Turn, a tension which falls under definition number one.
An ontology of violence would basically argue that Being constantly effaces itself (which is why language as an expression of beings does so). one often hears that “fiction is the new truth” and the violence ontology is its most basic expression, as Heraclitus said “Changing, it rests.” If this is so, then Being and Truth are in constant flux (do we see Nietzsche here, I should think so) and Pluralism’s “strength” its validity is the (perceived?) legitimacy of the claim. Faux-peace, then, is the inversion of violence for peace, progession for nonprogression, change for status quo. Despite classical claims (and according to the above perspective), the mind does not crave rest but requires consistent pressure and force to know. It is fractured knowledge which can never be resolved because:
a.) (Classical Skepticism) True knowledge cannot be determined because we can never know what continuity between expression and truth is
or
b.) (Consequences of Nietzsche) True knowledge cannot be determined because there cannot be continuity between between expression and truth because there is NO SUCH THING as Truth qua firm foundation (i.e., God, Being, etc.)
So, if we take my comments of phobosphic humanity to be true, I would argue it stems from the commodification of ideas: we name something true because it “appeals to us.” Appeal, in itself, is not bad but coupled with phobosophism it can become a problem. In the case of Christianity, I think many of the ideas are ridiculous and offensive but for some bloody reason–despite their lack of appeal–I believe the bible to be true. But to make this claim “rationally” yet give other perspectives there fair due, I would have to appeal to something higher, some sort of metaphysic (via Reason) to moderate the perspectives (or so it seems) lest we fall back into the clashing rhetorics (contra Reason) of differing narratives. In short, the consequences of Nietzsche moves us away from rational discourses and proofs and prima face justifications towards rhetoric and political spin which assumes a latent or hidden ontology of violence (the Will to Power’s assumption). Pluralism’s strength disarms Reason. While this is not bad, it is dangerous.
I suppose my posture is mostly rhetorical at this point. I don’t really have a clear solution, just a concern that we think and operate, particularly academics, on a level of utility that does not do justice to our ideas. We don’t live them, we just trade and bludgeon with them. We shouldn’t forget that in a capitalistic systems money is power and, therefore, economic metaphors are shaped by this perspective. When I speak of “commodification”, I am speaking of more the bare bones “utility.” I want to bring all “commodification’s” connotations in to stark view.
“But it is this very reality–the tragedy of being in its dispensation–that is the secret of philosophy’s power; for it can thrive as a deductive enterprise, able to move from the world to the world’s principles, only insofar as what is, is what must be; only because being must appear thus, constrained to these manifestations, and only because being must express itself in beings, is metaphysics possible. With these maxims presumed, it is a matter less of discernment than of sensibility or style whether the philosopher will build according to the immense crystalline architectures of the Platonic universe or seek to tear the edifice of idealism apart in a delirious abandonment to the pathos of inescapable immanence; whether he will pursue the adventure of the Concept or wallow in the carnage of ‘difference’; whether he will while away the hours in a ceaseless discrimination of substances from their accidents or remain in a condition of suspenseful and thoughtful attendance, awaiting the next glimpse being grants of itself through the veil of its ‘destinal’ epoch.” — David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite
In other words, philosophy finally comes down to rhetoric.
There was once a young boy who had to choose between his parents. The boy with his sister was led to the judges chambers and asked, ‘If you had a choice, who would like to live your mother or your father?’
The boy thought to himself, ‘this is an impossible question. A child is supposed to live with both his parents,’ and, while he was mulling this over, his younger sister blurted out, ‘my mother.’
The boy was caught in a quandry. He, after his sister answered, felt a desire to live with his father (for a boy, after all, loves his father in way that he cannot ever love his mother). Yet he did not want to choose between his parents for he loved them both very much. Besides, he was still a naive child who figured this answer was final. This terrified him.
But it was too late: the question had been posed–whether or not he choose to answer the judge–and, in turn, had become a legitimate, academic question (these are the most terrible of ALL questions) in his mind. The boy, thinking it was better that he and his sister live together, made his decision, against his own judgement, and declared that he would prefer to live his mother. And so they did.
‘But teacher,’ said the most beloved disciple, ‘I am unsure whether the boy’s decision was the right choice.’
The teacher said, ‘Dear friend, the boy’s choice is irrelevant. Violence was done when he first began to look at his parents as options.’
Not long after college I had the opportunity to talk to Landon Jones who, last I heard, still resides in Princeton. To be honest, I do not remember much of the conversation. I am sure it was good advice but what I most remember is a brief statement he made, “most people, I find, are concerned with either/or when it is often a case of both/and.” Almost obsessively, I have been wondering why someone–anyone–would claim such a thing. Don’t hear what I am not saying: it is perfectly reasonable (and possibly correct) to conclude such a thing, but it does lead one to wonder what sort of suppositions cause the conclusion. Besides, what about the “neither/nor” option?
Upon reflection, I came up with this loose categorization:
either/or — Grounded in the classical thesis/antithesis, those who find this appealing also tend to favor the Greeks and scholastics.
both/and — Hegel synthesis of thesis/antithesis, there is a tendency to prefer historical development.
neither/nor — Deconstruction, the desire to step outside of the traditional categories, think outside of the box, distaste with the historical but not for the same reasons as classical thought.
I am sure these ‘pathologies’ have their problems, but there is merit, no?
“What Would Jesus Deconstruct?
A Conversation about Justiceâ€
a conversation with John D. Caputo,
and featuring Richard Kearney
$145 before March 1, 2007
$160 after March 1, 2007
Eastern University, Philadelphia, PA
Monday, April 16 (7 p.m.) – Wednesday, April 18 (12 noon)
READING LIST Philosophy and Theology by John D. Caputo (this book is included in your registration cost, and everyone who registers by March 1 will receive a copy in the mail)
The question of what makes a free man is quite contemporary and yet I wonder why the culture as a whole gives such little thought to the sort of education we ought to provide. Even the institutions themselves, overly-concerned with the business, neglet their proper end. There is little liberality and even less education and it sickens me. Peter Berkowitz, tackling the problem, pens aptly:
The dominant opinion proclaims that no shared set of ideas, no common body of knowledge, and no baseline set of values or virtues marking an educated human being exist. To be sure, the overwhelming majority of all American colleges adopt a general distribution requirement. Usually this means that students must take a course or two of their choosing in the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities, with perhaps a dollop of fine arts thrown in for good measure. And all students must choose a major. Although departments of mathematics, engineering, and the natural sciences maintain a sense of sequence and rigor, students in the social sciences and humanities typically are required to take a smattering of courses in their major, which usually involves a choice of introductory classes and a potpourri of more specialized classes, topped off perhaps with a thesis on a topic of the student’s choice. But this veneer of structure provides students only the most superficial guidance. Or rather, it sends students a loud and clear message: The experts themselves have no knowledge worth passing along concerning the core knowledge and defining qualities of an educated person.
Take two political science majors at almost any elite college or university: It is quite possible for them to graduate without ever having read the same book or studied the same materials. One student may meet his general distribution requirements by taking classes in geophysics and physiological psychology, the sociology of the urban poor and introduction to economics, and the American novel and Japanese history while concentrating on international relations inside political science and writing a thesis on the dilemmas of transnational governance. Another political science major may fulfill the university distribution requirements by studying biology and astronomy, the sociology of the American West and abnormal psychology, the feminist novel and history of American film while concentrating in comparative politics and writing a thesis on the challenge of integrating autonomous peoples in Canada and Australia. Both students will have learned much of interest but little in common. Yet the little in common they learn may be of lasting significance. For both will absorb the implicit teaching of the university curriculum, which is that there is nothing in particular that an educated person need know.
What Berkowitz is recognizing is a similar problem articulated by Boyd: the inability to see a unity because of the excessive paranoia of violence to ‘The Other’ has caused a rift in different avenues of knowledge. (The irony, of course, lies in the ubiquity of perspectives in the different departments.)
Personally, I think this transcends the epistemic problem of how we relate different bodies of knowledge and pushes forward to a broader metaphysical question: how are the universal and particular (un)related? It is a perennial question and, I think, it will always be a perennial question. Nevertheless, the answerable question must be found for us, now: this must neccesarily reach back into the ‘historical’ perspectives but still find contextualization (a loathesome word) in our contemporary world. What is our link between Liberal Education, Then and Now? The answer will require great finesse.
Fellow #1: It seems to me that the end of epistemology is not a justification of how we know, but rather a description of how we know. Further, this is the end of all thought: Description, testing of the description with the thing known/experienced/apprehended, refining of the description, etc.
Fellow #2: Yes, but this seems to frame all things merely in the subjective. How could we then describe anything? The force of language is only as strong as those who command it. Further, one word means one thing to one man and to another man, something else. We can never be sure of communication.
Fellow #1: Firstly, your use of “merely” betrays your assumption that the subjective is not really a valid way of knowing, instead the objective trumps all. Secondly, although you demand the objective as the way of knowing, you deny it as a possibility. The reality is that we can only communicate because of commonality in language. This, again, is not an argument but rather a description of this very conversation. We go back and forth assuming —no, understanding that we grasp each others words. Why must we be constrained by the classical dichotomy of subjective/objective?
Fellow #2: Because that is our historical backdrop. You see, for me there is a leap of faith in language. We assume the other grasps our meaning, we cannot every know for sure because we cannot get into the other persons mind. Subjectivity reigns; consequently, we can neither be certain of communication with those outside of our cultural context, nor legitimately appropriate others myths/religious beliefs.
Fellow #1: That is just silly.
Fellow #2: Naming calling won’t sway me.
Fellow #1: Perhaps, but your recognition of it just proves my point.
Lately, I have been conceiving wisdom in a bit of a different light. Perhaps this way of framing it will be unhelpful to some but I believe it has merit. Fundamentally, my current reflection on wisdom, stems from my recent interaction with authors and cohorts who seem to misconstrue what philosophy is all about, namely love of wisdom, not onanistic joy of theoretical systems (I am accusing no one who reads this blog of making that mistake).
Why describe it as onanistic joy?
Because only engaging (calculating?) the theoretical, that is to say the general or "universal" does not produce. It cannot be truly productive, i.e. productive in the world —there are certainly no fruits of love. It is nearly pornographic, looking at everything in general without recognizing the particular presented. One might (might, mind you) call it objectifying.
On the flip side, solely engaging the event, the happening, the singular experience in history does not simply do it justice either. Firstly, to call each event singular, is to catch oneself in a generalization of a particular, that is to say commit a "contradiction" (in the most etymological sense: contra-diction). Secondly, to singularize the event would be to place it outside of the category of other events in such a way that it is utterly incomparable which is to say it is a non-event, and each event then, being singular, is also a nonevent (for to use a word is to speak in a generality). This, too, de-values (in its least economic sense) the event, rather than objectify it turns it into a ghost, an almost non-thing.
To call a woman beautiful is to set her apart, to say she is other, that is, except-tional —she is a singularity. Yet, in order for this to have meaning, for the women to accept it as compliment, she must see herself as comparable to other women, still comparable in a way that is dis-comparable. There must do violence to be comparable but not too much.
It is in this space, between the universal and the particular, that one practices sophia, wisdom: a place where one may respect a thing's or event's uniqueness and its commonality without doing violence (or, at least, not too much violence). To be wise one must stand between, to see both with balance, which is to say act according to good judgment. This is the sort of thing which cannot be completely taught but must be learned with experience: it is an art as much as it is a skill.
Posted: December 12th, 2006
Categories: Philosophy
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Comments: 1 Comment.
What is the difference between these two statements?
1. The House is on Fire.
2. I believe the statement "the House is on Fire" is true.
As far as truth claims, there is no difference. But in terms of tone, it can make all the difference in the world. And tone comes from consciousness. Conscious comes from the Latin con + scio meaning "I know with." But what is it we “know with?” Words. The consequence of those overly-conscious can, then, drive one mad. If the overly-conscious always thinks, "I believe ‘x’ is true," there would be constant reassessment of all truths. This is the logical extension of the Cartesian principle "doubt all things until proven true." The constant application of this principle, in the way I have outlined, results in madness. The mind feels always assaulted by the need to justify itself rather than just think; thus, one is left to pacing about his house, repeating what he thinks; there cannot be progress.
However, if that is true then our only option in order to have faith is to doubt doubt itself. This is the ultimate critique of this skepticism. But why must we doubt doubt itself, if all reasoning is in question? Then there cannot be a reason to doubt doubt itself. Therefore, we must give a reason to doubt doubt itself? But this is absurd; yet, we must do it if we are to trust anything to be true.
Perhaps we approach wrongly. Because one does not trust his wife for a reason and yet, one’s trust is not unreasonable for both have made a commitment to each other. This is because one’s wife has shown her faithfulness to her husband. This cannot be “logically proven” but still it is seen—that is, it is experienced in history. Hindsight is 20/20 and so, the husband trusts in his wife’s faithfulness which is to say he trusts in the wife herself. One believes the statement “my wife is faithful” is true. Yet one would not think “I believe the statement ‘My wife is faithful’ is true,” one would simply believe that his wife is faithful. Further, if one were to demand that his wife prove her faithfulness, then it would imply that we see her as unfaithful. Consequently, the demanding of proof means doubting. Conversely, to doubt means one has seen the proof; for one cannot doubt what one has not seen. Hence, to earnestly doubt is to implicitly profess faith.
Are we not like the husband and is not God like the wife? I have doubted that God has snatched a small, weak, slave nation, Israel, out of the oppressive hands of a greater nation, Egypt. Further, I have doubted that I have been a slave to something (sex? drugs? money?) and that I have been delivered. I have doubted that God Himself sent His Own Son to deliver us, like He did Israel, through His Own death. I have doubted God’s faithfulness. I have doubted God Himself. It is because of I have earnestly doubted God’s faithfulness that I implicitly professed faith for I have seen His faithfulness.. And, if I have seen it implicitly, then I cannot help but proclaim explicitly. Otherwise, I will not be earnest. How did I come to implicitly profess faith? That is a great mystery. How can a man explain what he has seen; he can only admit that he saw it. Similarly, one can not explain why one has faith, only that one possesses it.
by John D. Caputo