On Sun, 21 May 2000, Ben B. Day wrote:
> "But wait!" the churchman cries, "You see that you can't criticize our
> criteria for truthood/falsehood/meaningfulness/nonsense without USING
> those very criteria to disprove them! This is proof that, even in order to
> /question/ the Catholic criteria, you must assume that they are valid."
Bullseye, Mr. Day!!! I hope you don't mind if I pocket this argument for
future use (with proper attribution, of course). One thing I think this
imaginary example brings out is how "reason" is always thoroughly
identified with some specific historical/cultural system of values such
that to question them amounts to abandoning rationality, or abandoning
rationality amounts to abandoning that system of values.
> What would happen, for example, if the churchman were to attack the
> rationalist, arguing that, of course reason is not the proper criteria for
> determining the truth of a claim, as the bible and the church provide that
> criteria? How would these two mitigate their claims? BASED ON WHAT SYSTEM
> OF VERIFICATION could two systems of verificaiton be compared? There is no
> such possible system, without having need of an infinite regress:
> interpretation systems all the way down. This is the postmodern
> acknowledgement.
I agree this is the valuable recognition of certain philosophers regularly
called "postmodernists," and this is obscured by claims that such
philosophers merely promote modern versions of nihilism or are
otherwise saying what everyone with a brain already knows. From this
vantage point, the question of how individuals, or traditions and
institutions, surreptitiously "translate" culturally and historically
"Other" systems of verification into their own becomes of great critical
interest.
However, I add that I am not sure all those usually identified with Pomo
see an interpretation of systems that goes "all the way down." Rorty, for
example, in remaining wedded to pragmaticism also remains wedded to
empiricism and to a rather traditional conception of the subject of
knowledge. He can operate in a world of commonsense reference (and
the world of professional American philosophers) while at the same time
claiming there are no absolutes and using that claim to deflect questions
about the critical and political implications of his views. (I write this
having not read any of his recent work. Has this changed?)
I mention Rorty here because I find discussions of "postmodernism" often
very unclear. People speak as if they are all refering to the same thing.
But nobody really seems able to say what that thing is. I think
that the assimilation of French philosophy by Americans (especially
English lit professors) has produced
something in the U.S. that is generally refered to in such discussion with
little distinction from the French sources. But if I can risk a sweeping
impression here, it often seems to me that postructuralist (a term
coined in the U.S) critique of the unitary, bourgeois subject has, in the
U.S., become one more means of exploring "identity issues"--a very
bourgeois/liberal sort of preoccupation. So what is often touted as
object of some pomo challenge is, in the U.S., actually supported and
continued by Pomo, especially where this is seen to uncouple the question
of subject formation from questions of economic and political domination.
hh
.....................................................................
> "But wait!" the churchman cries, "You see that you can't criticize our
> criteria for truthood/falsehood/meaningfulness/nonsense without USING
> those very criteria to disprove them! This is proof that, even in order to
> /question/ the Catholic criteria, you must assume that they are valid."
Bullseye, Mr. Day!!! I hope you don't mind if I pocket this argument for
future use (with proper attribution, of course). One thing I think this
imaginary example brings out is how "reason" is always thoroughly
identified with some specific historical/cultural system of values such
that to question them amounts to abandoning rationality, or abandoning
rationality amounts to abandoning that system of values.
> What would happen, for example, if the churchman were to attack the
> rationalist, arguing that, of course reason is not the proper criteria for
> determining the truth of a claim, as the bible and the church provide that
> criteria? How would these two mitigate their claims? BASED ON WHAT SYSTEM
> OF VERIFICATION could two systems of verificaiton be compared? There is no
> such possible system, without having need of an infinite regress:
> interpretation systems all the way down. This is the postmodern
> acknowledgement.
I agree this is the valuable recognition of certain philosophers regularly
called "postmodernists," and this is obscured by claims that such
philosophers merely promote modern versions of nihilism or are
otherwise saying what everyone with a brain already knows. From this
vantage point, the question of how individuals, or traditions and
institutions, surreptitiously "translate" culturally and historically
"Other" systems of verification into their own becomes of great critical
interest.
However, I add that I am not sure all those usually identified with Pomo
see an interpretation of systems that goes "all the way down." Rorty, for
example, in remaining wedded to pragmaticism also remains wedded to
empiricism and to a rather traditional conception of the subject of
knowledge. He can operate in a world of commonsense reference (and
the world of professional American philosophers) while at the same time
claiming there are no absolutes and using that claim to deflect questions
about the critical and political implications of his views. (I write this
having not read any of his recent work. Has this changed?)
I mention Rorty here because I find discussions of "postmodernism" often
very unclear. People speak as if they are all refering to the same thing.
But nobody really seems able to say what that thing is. I think
that the assimilation of French philosophy by Americans (especially
English lit professors) has produced
something in the U.S. that is generally refered to in such discussion with
little distinction from the French sources. But if I can risk a sweeping
impression here, it often seems to me that postructuralist (a term
coined in the U.S) critique of the unitary, bourgeois subject has, in the
U.S., become one more means of exploring "identity issues"--a very
bourgeois/liberal sort of preoccupation. So what is often touted as
object of some pomo challenge is, in the U.S., actually supported and
continued by Pomo, especially where this is seen to uncouple the question
of subject formation from questions of economic and political domination.
hh
.....................................................................