>I like to read derrida as suggesting the inverse of there is nothing outside
>the text (perhaps i am making him lacanian): everything is always already
>withIN text.
This is actually a position Derrida advanced, 'there is no text which isn't
already a pretext' .
>for example, to get away from "actual pasts" and move "on" to "actual
>reality" consider quarks. these are not pure idealist abstractions; and to
>say that it is the theory that makes the reality of quarks real is not
>idealism. why? because it is a complex apparatus of practices,
>institutions, discourses, performances that is what actually makes quarks
>actual.
No, quarks, may well have effects beyond which the theories, linguistic
uttereances and practices can presently describe, which may impact onto
other theories, linguistic utterrrances, and or practices without our having
any knowledge of them. However, I wholeheartedly endorse your use of the
word 'actual' to denote the way theories practices etc., make them known to
us. The actual is not the real, although the actual is real. As Charcot
once said to Freud, 'Theory is good but it doesn't stop things from existing'.
But your position despite the denials still functions as idealism, whether
transcendental, absoloute, coneptual or linguistic, if it entails that the
existence of quarks is dependent upon some attribute and/or practice of
man/woman. Its also very anthropocentric.
Malcolm and Quetzil, seem to object to the charge of Idealism (I wonder why)
but still manage to come up with such things as:
>the reality of quarks was precisely to be created in the "speech acts" and
>performativity of language/discourse.
This, put alongside the denial of idealism, is a form of lingusitic gymnastics.
and the correct question, as malcolm,
>poses, is not do quarks really exist? but at whose and what cost is it to
>come into existence? WHO PAID/PAYS THE BILL (literal and physical) FOR THE
>ONGOING CONSTRUCTION OF THE so called ACTUAL PAST and of the so called
>REALITY OF THE PRESENT?
No, it's not only those questions, I want to know How? and Why?. Because the
question of the existence of quarks can NOT be separated form those you
pose. That is, who is going to pay the bill for something they believe to be
real if it is only fictional? Also, of course the existence of quarks,
despite the fact that the Japanese at Hiroshima had no knowledge of them,
had a devastating effect upon them. So I think they might have some interest
in whether they are real or not.
Thanks,
--------------------------------------------------------
Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA
--------------------------------------------------------