On Wed, 17 May 2000, David Schenk wrote:
> Actually, it is entirely unclear to me that any such thing is possible.
> As I understand it, the limits of rationality are the limits of
> intelligibility and the limits of logical possibility. To violate them is
> to abandon the very business of sense-making, to say nothing of
> truth-tracking. Therefore, to "transgress" rationality is just to utter
> either:
>
> (1) supervacuous (and ultimately meaningless) rubbish, or;
> (2) a demonstrably false set of propositions (i.e. propositions
> that are either logically false or else mutually
> contradictory)
Look at what you've, in effect, argued here David. When the question of
the "limits of rationality" arise, you complain that there are no limits
to rationality because anything beyond it would be... irrational. Your
argument is circular - you defend a challenge against reason by /using/
reason.
This is the first step to becoming a postmodernist: admit that one must
accept whatever basic "laws" of reason or logic you decide upon on faith.
Clearly, there is no way to /prove/ any structure of proofs. The second
step is to understand that this faith isn't simply arbitrary, but rather
plays an important role in empowering certain speakers and disempowering
others. At any time, what is considered "rational speech" is used as a
tool of exclusion in order not to disagree with a certain class of
speakers, but rather to place them out of the realm of "real" debate.
Modernist discourse naturalizes certain types of speech (which will be
different in different times and places) in the context of
ongoing power relations.
You'll have to be more clear how you're using "rational," though. If in
the Weber-Habermasian sense, you find yourself in an entirely different
field of debate than if you simply mean Frege-Russelesque use of logic
and/or science. Nietzsche is a good place to start if one wants to begin
understanding postmodernism (a rather diffuse realm of thinkers...) and a
phenomenal writer as well.
Shrug,
----Ben
> Actually, it is entirely unclear to me that any such thing is possible.
> As I understand it, the limits of rationality are the limits of
> intelligibility and the limits of logical possibility. To violate them is
> to abandon the very business of sense-making, to say nothing of
> truth-tracking. Therefore, to "transgress" rationality is just to utter
> either:
>
> (1) supervacuous (and ultimately meaningless) rubbish, or;
> (2) a demonstrably false set of propositions (i.e. propositions
> that are either logically false or else mutually
> contradictory)
Look at what you've, in effect, argued here David. When the question of
the "limits of rationality" arise, you complain that there are no limits
to rationality because anything beyond it would be... irrational. Your
argument is circular - you defend a challenge against reason by /using/
reason.
This is the first step to becoming a postmodernist: admit that one must
accept whatever basic "laws" of reason or logic you decide upon on faith.
Clearly, there is no way to /prove/ any structure of proofs. The second
step is to understand that this faith isn't simply arbitrary, but rather
plays an important role in empowering certain speakers and disempowering
others. At any time, what is considered "rational speech" is used as a
tool of exclusion in order not to disagree with a certain class of
speakers, but rather to place them out of the realm of "real" debate.
Modernist discourse naturalizes certain types of speech (which will be
different in different times and places) in the context of
ongoing power relations.
You'll have to be more clear how you're using "rational," though. If in
the Weber-Habermasian sense, you find yourself in an entirely different
field of debate than if you simply mean Frege-Russelesque use of logic
and/or science. Nietzsche is a good place to start if one wants to begin
understanding postmodernism (a rather diffuse realm of thinkers...) and a
phenomenal writer as well.
Shrug,
----Ben