Re: 'Actual past'

On Sun, 5 May 1996, Quetzil Castaneda wrote:

> I would hate to have argue about complexities, that some are more complex
> than others. complexity and simplicities are questions of (evaluated from)
> perpectives and predilections and motives. I do not know really that the
> complexities of the lanugage games of science are any more complex than the
> language games of politics or of religion, or of ...?; and, certainly as to
> one or another being more effective than the other, I cannot imagine the
> criteria that one would create in order to evaluate such a comparative
> evaluation. certainly, once one comprehends science not as revealing the
> "Truth" but as a language game, then the assumption that there is a
> universally valid criteria to measure the differences between language games
> in terms of greater/lesser complexity and more/less effectiveness would
> become impossible to acccept -- or so i imagine.
>
Yes, it would be hard to measure how complex language games are,
especially as they aren't rigidly defined areas - is a 'government
expert' speaking on TV about mad cow disease playing science, politics or
self-aggrandizement? But you could define science vis-a-vis, say,
politics as a different aspect of the sum of statements made. Something
like this:

Science is a language game (and the institutions that support it) which
has as its goal the realization of mastery over the non-human world by
the accomplishment of practical effects.

Politics is a set of competing and intersecting language games (and the
competing institutions and interests that support them) which have as
their goal the realization of increased social power by the attainment of
authority (in Weber's sense).

Those are just shots in the dark, but they might be something to work
from. If we want to examine language in its practical effects (as F
defines discourse) we have to look at the different orientations
different langages have to each other and I would say to reality.


Dave Hugh-Jones
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'Yes, that's my mother all right, but my mother's the Virgin Mary, you know.'
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