John
This is all dreadfully anthropocentric. What does it mean for you to say:
If no humans were
>around, however, it wouldn't be "true" that the cat slept fourteen hours a
>day, simply because truth is a strictly human convention that is not
>found in the minds or beings of any other creature or object. Without
>humans around, my cat would sleep fourteen hours a day but it wouldn't be
>"true" that my cat slept fourteen hours a day,
Then what would it be. Is or is not your cat sleeping fourteen hours a day?
Truth most certainly has a referent, without such a thing there could be no
truth. Of course, the cat would not strictly speaking be sleeping fourteen
hours a day, since fourteen hours and days are indeed human constructs, but
the cat (well, and this is a joke, it might atually sleep a lot less if you
weren't around reading Foucault to it night and day, give Marx a try) would
still be carrying out, we presume the same activity, just we wouldn't be
around to describe it.
>
>I don't understand. Both social objects and beliefs about those social
>objects are -- to be redundant -- socially produced, vero?
Yes, of course if the social world wasn't socially produced who did do it
then? This point is trivial, but of course, we, those of us here now, didn't
make it, rather the metaphor is one of reproduction and/or transformation.
This relates to your point about unemployment.
>
>Unemployment's not an ontological object! It's a social category!
Which is still ontological, what is the logical bar on social categories
being ontological?
And of
>course there isn't any brute fact of unemployment anywhere out there.
>Indeed, the attempt to objectively label such phenomena is itself
>ideological; a decidedly ontic activity. What if instead of "unemployment"
>we called it "surplus labor"?
Ah shades of Heiddegger methinks. I'm sorry to have to engage in polemics
John but this is simply an idealist absurdity. Yes we can call unemployment
what we want, we can call it gobbledegook, for example, but if we use this
term (gobbeldegook) to refer to the process of being excluded from certain
spaces and being unable to purchase the delights of a rampant capitalism
masquerading as postmodernism then we can still refer to it (get that, a
reference to it, not the words that define it but it, an ontological claim).
Equally, of course, the absudity of your position comes home if we take a
text book example. A fish is only a fish because we say it is, likewise
environmental degradation of the seas as a result of untreated sewage is
only so because we name it thus. Hence the distinct possibilty emerges that
through the process of redescription we can do away with two major problems
in one go. Simply rename untreated sewage fish. Simple. Enjoy your dinner
tonight John.
>
>On a separate point: it may be true that the belief one need not concern
>oneself with ontology is itself ontological, but it does not follow from
>that that everyone must do or does do ontology.
But you have already admitted the point, you are doing ontology, just very
badly in my humble opinion. It is no wonder that many Foucaultians get so
distressed to be charged with discursive idealism. You just don't get it do
you. Amazing, I just fail to see how you fail to see it. Even though you
admit it.
>
>Discourses are about things. They're just not about ontological things.
I simply fail to see how you are using the term ontological here John. What
for you is ontological? Are you suggesting a Kantian empty realism
(transcendental idealism actually) where you say 'oh yes there really is a
realm of the ontological but we can never know it'? Look if I and you
construct a discourse of Discipline and Punish, Discipline and punish is our
ontological object, we are engaged in referring to it. And of course, only
this allows us to think the possibilty of one of us being wrong about it.
>Also, please notice how you rephrased Miles' comment in order to turn it
>into a strawman argument. Miles says:
>
>> >the truth that HIV causes AIDS can only socially
>> >function as a truth if it is embedded in discursive and related non-
>> >discursive activity.
>
>and then you say:
>
>> The truth of the HIV virus causing AIDS, is
>> independent of our discourse of such a link, as Foucault found out to
>> his cost.
>
>But Miles doesn't say that "the truth of the HIV virus causing AIDS is
>independent of our discourse of such a link," does he?
No he doesn't, that is exactly my point. No strawmanning occurred. Because
'the truth that that HIV can only socially function as a truth if it is
embedded in.....' is exactly the error. Death is a social event and a lack
of knowledge of the transmission of AIDS via HIV will not stop you dying.
The truth of the link between HIV and AIDS, if there is one, is not
dependent on anyones articulation of it. unfortunately, since if only things
were as you believe them to be John.
>
>> But religion deals in things that only have an effect if they are believed.
>> Medical things "care", amongst others, little whether they are believed or
>> not. Religous entities, and not wanting to upset anyone, are wholly social
>> constructed, diseases may not be.
>
>So you disagree with Rousseau on this point. That's cool.
I don't know Jean is not one of my fave raves. what does he say?
But what would
>you say about Attention Deficit Disorder? How about Bulimia? Alcoholism? I
>would say these medical things care quite a bit whether they are believed
>or not.
But you are making my point for me, and I would like to thank you, so we
agree, some things are wholly socially constructed and some not. Yes some
things only get their affect if we believe in them, but no, not everything
can be reduced to this monvalent view of the world. Existence is not purely
linguistic, the world is differentiated. Try typing your reply just by
thinking the words as opposed to performing the actual activity.
>Wouldn't you agree that there is no such thing as truth independent of
>human cognition?
No truth is of things. Yes there is a linguistic problem, but truth denotes
a state of affairs, and some states of affairs hold whethr or not we
articulate them, this is the truth of those states of affairs. Now, the
epistemological problems of knowing when we know, now there's a problem.
Thanks,
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA
--------------------------------------------------------
This is all dreadfully anthropocentric. What does it mean for you to say:
If no humans were
>around, however, it wouldn't be "true" that the cat slept fourteen hours a
>day, simply because truth is a strictly human convention that is not
>found in the minds or beings of any other creature or object. Without
>humans around, my cat would sleep fourteen hours a day but it wouldn't be
>"true" that my cat slept fourteen hours a day,
Then what would it be. Is or is not your cat sleeping fourteen hours a day?
Truth most certainly has a referent, without such a thing there could be no
truth. Of course, the cat would not strictly speaking be sleeping fourteen
hours a day, since fourteen hours and days are indeed human constructs, but
the cat (well, and this is a joke, it might atually sleep a lot less if you
weren't around reading Foucault to it night and day, give Marx a try) would
still be carrying out, we presume the same activity, just we wouldn't be
around to describe it.
>
>I don't understand. Both social objects and beliefs about those social
>objects are -- to be redundant -- socially produced, vero?
Yes, of course if the social world wasn't socially produced who did do it
then? This point is trivial, but of course, we, those of us here now, didn't
make it, rather the metaphor is one of reproduction and/or transformation.
This relates to your point about unemployment.
>
>Unemployment's not an ontological object! It's a social category!
Which is still ontological, what is the logical bar on social categories
being ontological?
And of
>course there isn't any brute fact of unemployment anywhere out there.
>Indeed, the attempt to objectively label such phenomena is itself
>ideological; a decidedly ontic activity. What if instead of "unemployment"
>we called it "surplus labor"?
Ah shades of Heiddegger methinks. I'm sorry to have to engage in polemics
John but this is simply an idealist absurdity. Yes we can call unemployment
what we want, we can call it gobbledegook, for example, but if we use this
term (gobbeldegook) to refer to the process of being excluded from certain
spaces and being unable to purchase the delights of a rampant capitalism
masquerading as postmodernism then we can still refer to it (get that, a
reference to it, not the words that define it but it, an ontological claim).
Equally, of course, the absudity of your position comes home if we take a
text book example. A fish is only a fish because we say it is, likewise
environmental degradation of the seas as a result of untreated sewage is
only so because we name it thus. Hence the distinct possibilty emerges that
through the process of redescription we can do away with two major problems
in one go. Simply rename untreated sewage fish. Simple. Enjoy your dinner
tonight John.
>
>On a separate point: it may be true that the belief one need not concern
>oneself with ontology is itself ontological, but it does not follow from
>that that everyone must do or does do ontology.
But you have already admitted the point, you are doing ontology, just very
badly in my humble opinion. It is no wonder that many Foucaultians get so
distressed to be charged with discursive idealism. You just don't get it do
you. Amazing, I just fail to see how you fail to see it. Even though you
admit it.
>
>Discourses are about things. They're just not about ontological things.
I simply fail to see how you are using the term ontological here John. What
for you is ontological? Are you suggesting a Kantian empty realism
(transcendental idealism actually) where you say 'oh yes there really is a
realm of the ontological but we can never know it'? Look if I and you
construct a discourse of Discipline and Punish, Discipline and punish is our
ontological object, we are engaged in referring to it. And of course, only
this allows us to think the possibilty of one of us being wrong about it.
>Also, please notice how you rephrased Miles' comment in order to turn it
>into a strawman argument. Miles says:
>
>> >the truth that HIV causes AIDS can only socially
>> >function as a truth if it is embedded in discursive and related non-
>> >discursive activity.
>
>and then you say:
>
>> The truth of the HIV virus causing AIDS, is
>> independent of our discourse of such a link, as Foucault found out to
>> his cost.
>
>But Miles doesn't say that "the truth of the HIV virus causing AIDS is
>independent of our discourse of such a link," does he?
No he doesn't, that is exactly my point. No strawmanning occurred. Because
'the truth that that HIV can only socially function as a truth if it is
embedded in.....' is exactly the error. Death is a social event and a lack
of knowledge of the transmission of AIDS via HIV will not stop you dying.
The truth of the link between HIV and AIDS, if there is one, is not
dependent on anyones articulation of it. unfortunately, since if only things
were as you believe them to be John.
>
>> But religion deals in things that only have an effect if they are believed.
>> Medical things "care", amongst others, little whether they are believed or
>> not. Religous entities, and not wanting to upset anyone, are wholly social
>> constructed, diseases may not be.
>
>So you disagree with Rousseau on this point. That's cool.
I don't know Jean is not one of my fave raves. what does he say?
But what would
>you say about Attention Deficit Disorder? How about Bulimia? Alcoholism? I
>would say these medical things care quite a bit whether they are believed
>or not.
But you are making my point for me, and I would like to thank you, so we
agree, some things are wholly socially constructed and some not. Yes some
things only get their affect if we believe in them, but no, not everything
can be reduced to this monvalent view of the world. Existence is not purely
linguistic, the world is differentiated. Try typing your reply just by
thinking the words as opposed to performing the actual activity.
>Wouldn't you agree that there is no such thing as truth independent of
>human cognition?
No truth is of things. Yes there is a linguistic problem, but truth denotes
a state of affairs, and some states of affairs hold whethr or not we
articulate them, this is the truth of those states of affairs. Now, the
epistemological problems of knowing when we know, now there's a problem.
Thanks,
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA
--------------------------------------------------------