why do middlebrow morons detest postmodernism?
sirb...@hotmail.com
traditionalist conservatives love to think of art as some sweatfest
where the artist is supposed to copy and glorify the powers that be, or
where artists are supposed to compete with each other in serving these
middlebrow morons. the moral panic over postmodernism is rather amusing.
knucmo
sirb...@hotmail.com wrote:
And yet, there is something about postmodern which makes it laughable.
Take music. Especially the avant-garde stuff. It is humourless
avant-gardists who fail to see the funny side of it when you laugh at
it. The avant-gardists in everything they do, are defined by their aim
to change our concepts about music, which is a moral stance about what
music *ought* to be. The conservatives think music *ought* to be
something else, accusing postmodernists of being immoral. You can
enjoy avant-garde or postmodern stuff and still laugh at it. And you
can laugh at the conservative morons who think art ought to be staid
imitations of realism.
The point is, both postmodernists and conservatives are as bad as each
other for presupposing moral standpoints!
Nick Macpherson
The moral panic isn't really over postmodernism so much as it's over
the moral relativism of most postmodernism. The traditionalist
conservatives need that belief in good and evil and right and wrong and
that's what they see as missing in postmodernism. Of course, the Bush
administration is as postmodern as they come, "the reality-based
community" and all of that. But that might be making it more
complicated than it is. Maybe right wingers just aren't smart enough
to understand modern art or read a Thomas Pynchon novel so they react
against it and start talking about much better Hollywood was in the
good old days or how Picasso can't draw or how hip hop is nothing but
talking.
Atalanta, original G.
Except you're not understanding something. Post-modern does NOT mean
"only recent things."
Post-modern (unlike modern) embraces modernism, traditionalism,
primitivism, nihilism - and any other 'ism you can develop. That's
what it means to *be* post-modern.
So, a post-modernist enjoys Bach, Rachmaninoff, Cal Tjader and Incubus,
if they wish, while admiring Lascaux, Rembrandt, Boticelli, Kandinsky
and Franz. Or whatever. Attention to the structure and scope of art
is essential to post-modernism, preferring any particular genre or
temporal form is not necessary - I would argue, in fact, that such a
view is distinctly NOT post-modern.
A.
Calvin
> ... Maybe right wingers just aren't smart enough
> to understand modern art or read a Thomas Pynchon novel so they react
> against it and start talking about much better Hollywood was in the
> good old days or how Picasso can't draw or how hip hop is nothing but
Or maybe left wingers just aren't smart enough to understand
right wingers.
Actually left and right are more a matter of psychology than IQ.
(Though having just seen Cindy Sheehan again on TV, I'm tempted
to reconsider.)
Flasherly
Flactime. Conservatives impose values of judgement. Whether staid or
realistic values remains to be seen. Something in one point of time
may be seen socially as an artistic phenomena. However, that doesn't
mean the same phenomena will withstand acceptance or refinement from a
conservative standpoint in the future. Fine art is a culmination of a
few hundred years. Before fine art is imperfect art lacking depth to
grasp, such as the geometry of perspective. Fine art is to a
conservative standard as perspective is to composition. And, so, a wall
came to be exist to contain these fine things, which delineates a
boundary for so-called liberal modernists to assail sensibilities as a
reoccuring theme in postmodernist constructivism. The bad moral
standpoint from an assailant's standpoint is simply a measure of what
may or may not be germane to what a future will endure as relevant for
inclusion.
Francis A. Miniter
To me, postmodernism has always been a method of interpretation. It has nothing
to do with a form of writing, art or music. Postmodernism advocates
interpretation of the text without reference to outside things, such as the
writer's or artist's life etc. Reading an author's "intent" becomes irrelevant
and determination of what interpretation or interpretations the text can bear is
more to the point. Thus, for instance, de Sade's Justine can be read as a
feminist text, showing the depravity to which a weak woman can fall, while
holding out a counterexample (Justine's sister Juliette) to show what a strong
woman can achieve.
One reason why an author's overt intent [e.g., that de Sade just liked writing
about sex) is irrelevant is that those conscious intents may be subverted by
unconscious intents. In that case, the text alone can bear the weight of
interpretation.
Francis A. Miniter
Flasherly
> > A.
> >
>
> To me, postmodernism has always been a method of interpretation. It has nothing
> to do with a form of writing, art or music. Postmodernism advocates
> interpretation of the text without reference to outside things, such as the
> writer's or artist's life etc. Reading an author's "intent" becomes irrelevant
> and determination of what interpretation or interpretations the text can bear is
> more to the point. Thus, for instance, de Sade's Justine can be read as a
> feminist text, showing the depravity to which a weak woman can fall, while
> holding out a counterexample (Justine's sister Juliette) to show what a strong
> woman can achieve.
>
> One reason why an author's overt intent [e.g., that de Sade just liked writing
> about sex) is irrelevant is that those conscious intents may be subverted by
> unconscious intents. In that case, the text alone can bear the weight of
> interpretation.
Donatien Alphonse François' intent was very much a part of sexual
liberties derived by imposing an uncomfortable mien over subjects, his
apparent noble breeding facilitated to advance as an inner struggle and
by some account live out before a magistrate of the law. As an
interpretative foray into French history, he's rich bounty, as were a
number of so-called pornographic essays into church influence. The
Story of O, I've heard, is one such, even if I should find dubiety in
an eminent motif entirely divorced from, say, an anonymity of
pornographic counterpart Victorian standards presume.
"My tears will keep no channel, know no laws to guide their streams,
but like the waves, their cause, run with disturbance till they swallow
me as a description of his misery."
-John Cleveland, poet, friend to Alexander Pope, and Victorian
pornographer.
sirb...@hotmail.com
knucmo ha escrito:
good point, but no. close. ill take a postmodernist anytime over a
conservative traditionalist libtard.
Lewis Mammel
Flasherly wrote:
> -John Cleveland, poet, friend to Alexander Pope, and Victorian
> pornographer.
There's a neat trick.
Wordsmith
tooly
<sirb...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1168302418....@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
aesthetics demands foundations which new generations must first ascend to a
degree to find thier own loft from which to take flight. Without that
continuity, well...any child can scribble, true enough. But the avant
guarde sometimes tries to veil 'nonsense' under the guise of 'new
inspiration', while our foundations become a litmus test for true genius.
Scribble all you want, but if the product is not aesthetically useful back
to the observer in some way, then it gets flushed. This would seem to imply
art's definition contains the interaction between artist and beholder and
not just the expressive desires of individuals. Like language, one cannot
simply invent their own and expect everyone to speak it.
Milan
<sirb...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1168326485.9...@51g2000cwl.googlegroups.com...
Postmodernists are conservatives.
regards
Milan
Flasherly
Written in a gaol, Fanny Hill was, yes indeed!
AlanS
There's no problem with post-modernism per se, but by its nature, it
attracts lazy artists, wanna be ideaologists and talentless hacks more
than other movements, since such people find it rather easy to
camouflage their ineptitude under the blanket of post-modernism.
Flasherly
You forgot to include the neoclassicists, but that's OK when an innate
predispostion to talent is busy at work.
"[Per Alexander Pope (1734):]
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated, needs but to be seen
But seen too oft, familiar with her face
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
. . .I began as Snow White but I drifted."
Rest in peace Mae West.
Flasherly
tooly wrote:
> Like language, one cannot simply invent their own and expect everyone to speak it.
Don't tell that to Orwell, brother, or Burgess. Viddywell.
Calvin
You missed his/her point, and seized on one sentence.
steve
<NMacp...@AOL.com> blindly formulated
the following incoherence:
> > traditionalist conservatives love to think of art as some sweatfest
> > where the artist is supposed to copy and glorify the powers that be, or
> > where artists are supposed to compete with each other in serving these
> > middlebrow morons. the moral panic over postmodernism is rather amusing.
>
> The moral panic isn't really over postmodernism so much as it's over
> the moral relativism of most postmodernism. The traditionalist
> conservatives need that belief in good and evil and right and wrong and
> that's what they see as missing in postmodernism.
I got my first taste of postmodern literary analysis last year when I bought
a book of essays on Joyce's Ulysses*. Front to back, it struck me as purely
idiotic wanking. Theories on how to interpret text without reference to the
intentions of the writer ignore the most fundamental and obvious truth; that
the text is a communication. It is the product of a human mind for the
purposes of consumption by other human minds or for the purpose of cathartic
expression. It may provoke ideas and emotions that are unintended, but to
attempt to ascribe some objective meaning is simply a pointless academic
exercise. Art is a human endeavor, and if it has any meaning at all it is
in one of the two human minds involved; the artist or the consumer. Neither
is objective. The supposition that there is an objective meaning of the
text is to fail to understand the nature of meaning as well as to ignore the
nature of the text. It makes no more sense than wandering the streets of
Chicago attempting to follow a map of Boston.
I find PM anaysis infuriating. It's nothing more than an attempt to develop
a language of nonsense and secret handshakes.
steve
* "A Companion to James Joyce's Ulysses" edited by Margot Norris
--
"The accused will now make a bogus statement."
James Joyce
trotsky
For persecution purposes?
Atalanta, original G.
Hi. You are one of the most educated and enlightened posters I've had
the pleasure of reading, in many years, on usenet. I'm amazed that
anyone was willing to put forth so succinctly such a great
interpretation of postmodernism - which cannot, as you properly point
out, actually be *defined*.
I agree that postmodernism advocates (generally) a text-based
interpretation of a text (although many, like Derrida, Ricouer and
others) have noticed that there is a "reader in the text" or an
"audience in the text" - in other words, the text doesn't sit by itself
with no author and no audience and then get picked up from a shelf,
read by people who have no knowledge whatsoever of the language or
culture in which the text originated. That *could* happen, but
post-modernists allow themselves a great deal of cultural knowledge in
their "taking" of the text.
I disagree with the group of post-modernists who assert such a formal
influence by the unconscious - but I find that post-modern
interpretations are useful and of value to me, anyway. I guess I'm
post-post-modern?
A.
>
>
> Francis A. Miniter
Erik A. Mattila
It's hard for me to understand why you would find the "intentions" idea
objectionable. When you read Melville, do you understand what
Melville's intentions were? Moby Dick may have been Herman's way of
dealing with his father alcoholism - who knows. When the novel hits the
street, we don't know the author's intentions. And even if we do, we
might find something else there that is important to us. A lot of folks
read "racism" in Mark Twain, for example, and can argue the point with
considerable merit. But I don't think that Clemmons *intended* racism,
it just came out because he was a man of his times. And that's what a
lot of literary theory is interested in - not Mark Twain, but what
Tom Sawyer said through a social voice, which has little to do with
Twain's biography.
Mani Deli
>hmm?
Middlebrow don't detest postmodernism, they don't give a damn about
it. In fact postmodernism is yesterday's cult, it's the avant-gone.
>traditionalist conservatives love to think of art as some sweatfest
>where the artist is supposed to copy and glorify the powers that be,
-if you were taught Modern Academic Art bullshit and only look at the
work in modern sections of museums.
or
>where artists are supposed to compete with each other in serving these
>middlebrow morons. the moral panic over postmodernism is rather amusing.
Postmodernism is the same old mystical baloney coached in newer
circuitous rhetoric.
steve
<e...@nospamimpix.com> blindly formulated
the following incoherence:
> It's hard for me to understand why you would find the "intentions" idea
> objectionable. When you read Melville, do you understand what
> Melville's intentions were?
My objection is to the idea that there can be an objective meaning to the
text that exists outside of the authors thought process or intentions and
the readers reaction. The authors intentions may be unknowable, and each
readers reaction will be different, but that is the nature of
communication...and art is just another form of communication.
> When the novel hits the
> street, we don't know the author's intentions. And even if we do, we
> might find something else there that is important to us.
Of course. That's your reaction to the text, and that's what it's all about
as a consumer of art, really. There are no rules for reacting to art.
> And that's what a
> lot of literary theory is interested in - not Mark Twain, but what
> Tom Sawyer said through a social voice, which has little to do with
> Twain's biography.
That's where I raise objection. Tom Sawyer doesnt say anything. It's Twain
who speaks, directly or indirectly, ironically, satirically, or otherwise.
What he intends may be unknowable, yet we do know that there are intentions,
thoughts, and emotions behind the text, consciouse or otherwise. To ascribe
such things to the text itself is an absurdity.
Observing, predicting, or describing the reaction of a reader or readers is
fair game...one might even call it a scientific question and treat it as
such. Likewise for attempting to divine the authors thought process and/or
intended meaning. But ascribing some objective meaning to the text is the
postmodernist's error. The text has no objective meaning. To suggest that
it does is to deny that it is a communication and to merely invent.
steve
Mani Deli
wrote:
>The point is, both postmodernists and conservatives are as bad as each
>other for presupposing moral standpoints!
I see, can you now tell us what's left?
Mani Deli
>I find PM anaysis infuriating. It's nothing more than an attempt to develop
>a language of nonsense and secret handshakes.
>
Careful, they might just accuse you of being "middlebrow."
Mani Deli
wrote:
>. But the avant
>guarde sometimes tries to veil 'nonsense' under the guise of 'new
>inspiration', while our foundations become a litmus test for true genius.
>Scribble all you want, but if the product is not aesthetically useful back
>to the observer in some way, then it gets flushed.
In other words, If it looks like it was done by a ten year old its the
artist's problem , not the viewer's.
No skill no art.
Kingo Gondo
"steve" <st...@steve.com> wrote in message
news:6vqdnUqMYPAmjTnY...@rcn.net...
So your bill of particulars against pomo critics is that they are
objectionable because they believe texts have what you refer to as
"objective meaning"? Is that it?
OMG.
You know, I first knew for certain you were a dumbfuck when you went on and
on about IP as "real property", whipping out your lame understanding of
terms like "a priori", etc.. Here, however, you are SO far beyond
dumbfuckery--out past satire, lampoon, etc.
You are truly the most clueless fuck I have ever read in this NG. I am sure
you are a competent fellow in whatever technical field you endeavor. On all
other subjects, you really should just keep your mouth shut. At least no one
would know the depth of your ignorance from your silence.
Erik A. Mattila
So are you saying "neither a lender or borrower be" has no objective
meaning unless we know that Ben Franklin wrote it? Sorry, that doesn't
fly with me.
CB
"Erik A. Mattila" <e...@nospamimpix.com> wrote in message
news:E4mdnao5CLa5hznY...@adelphia.com...
> So are you saying "neither a lender or borrower be" has no objective
> meaning unless we know that Ben Franklin wrote it? Sorry, that doesn't
> fly with me.
Interesting though that there he was addressing an American audience, while
encouraging the French state to go bankrupt borrowing to finance the
American War for Independence. :)
Cheers;
Chris
steve
<e...@nospamimpix.com> blindly formulated
the following incoherence:
> So are you saying "neither a lender or borrower be" has no objective
> meaning unless we know that Ben Franklin wrote it? Sorry, that doesn't
> fly with me.
I think Shakespeare beat him to it, but that's beside the point. That
phrase could be the punchline to a joke, delivered with irony or sarcasm,
simple fatherly advice (as it was in Hamlet), or endless other variations.
If you heard two high flying wall street speculators exchange those words
and break out in laughter, you would interpret it differently than you would
hearing the words from a father to a son leaving the nest. You could apply
the accepted dictionary definitions to the words in the sentence and
construct what you believe to be the objective meaning, but that phrase can
be used to communicate many different attitudes and ideas. Im sure you can
see that.
Erik A. Mattila
Sure, I can see that. But I'm arguing the phrase has objective meaning
and communicates something regardless of Franklin's biography. You
haven't addressed that (but your deconstruction of what I actually wrote
is pretty kewl).
moviePig
steve wrote:
> On 9-Jan-2007, smacked up and reeling, "Erik A. Mattila"
> <e...@nospamimpix.com> blindly formulated
> the following incoherence:
>
> > It's hard for me to understand why you would find the "intentions" idea
> > objectionable. When you read Melville, do you understand what
> > Melville's intentions were?
>
> My objection is to the idea that there can be an objective meaning to the
> text that exists outside of the authors thought process or intentions and
> the readers reaction. The authors intentions may be unknowable, and each
> readers reaction will be different, but that is the nature of
> communication...and art is just another form of communication.
Art is stimulation. Only to the degree to which the stimulation's
intentional is it (intentional) communication.
> ... ascribing some objective meaning to the text is the
> postmodernist's error. The text has no objective meaning. To suggest that
> it does is to deny that it is a communication and to merely invent.
To single out text as having no 'objective meaning' is to imply that
other things *do* ...which they don't, What you're probably talking
about is 'consensus'... which renders "objective" the meaning of text
as well as it does anything else, anyway...
--
/---------------------------\
| YOUR taste at work... |
| |
| http://www.moviepig.com |
\---------------------------/
smw
Francis A. Miniter wrote:
...
>
> To me, postmodernism has always been a method of interpretation. It has
> nothing to do with a form of writing, art or music. Postmodernism
> advocates interpretation of the text without reference to outside
> things, such as the writer's or artist's life etc.
That's text-immanent reading. It doesn't have anything whatsoever to do
with any even slightly credible use of the term "postmodern" -- I
suspect you're thinking of post-structuralism, where your definition
doesn't apply either, but at least I could see where you're coming from.
smw
steve wrote:
...
>
> I got my first taste of postmodern literary analysis last year when I bought
> a book of essays on Joyce's Ulysses*. Front to back, it struck me as purely
> idiotic wanking. Theories on how to interpret text without reference to the
> intentions of the writer ignore the most fundamental and obvious truth; that
> the text is a communication. It is the product of a human mind for the
> purposes of consumption by other human minds or for the purpose of cathartic
> expression. It may provoke ideas and emotions that are unintended, but to
> attempt to ascribe some objective meaning is simply a pointless academic
> exercise. Art is a human endeavor, and if it has any meaning at all it is
> in one of the two human minds involved; the artist or the consumer. Neither
> is objective. The supposition that there is an objective meaning of the
> text is to fail to understand the nature of meaning as well as to ignore the
> nature of the text. It makes no more sense than wandering the streets of
> Chicago attempting to follow a map of Boston.
I few questions, if you don't mind. To which book are you referring?
Which of the essay writers talked of "objective meaning"? How do you
interpret an intention without that, too, being an interpretation of a
text? Why do you ascribe disregard for authorial intention to postmodern
critics rather than, say, to Plato who seems to have coined the strategy?
smw
steve wrote:
> On 9-Jan-2007, smacked up and reeling, "Erik A. Mattila"
> <e...@nospamimpix.com> blindly formulated
> the following incoherence:
>
>
>>So are you saying "neither a lender or borrower be" has no objective
>>meaning unless we know that Ben Franklin wrote it? Sorry, that doesn't
>>fly with me.
>
>
> I think Shakespeare beat him to it, but that's beside the point. That
> phrase could be the punchline to a joke, delivered with irony or sarcasm,
> simple fatherly advice (as it was in Hamlet), or endless other variations.
Quite so. I notice that your list doesn't refer to authorial intention
anywhere. How come?
Immortalist
Francis A. Miniter wrote:
> Atalanta, original G. wrote:
>
> > knucmo wrote:
> >
> >>sirb...@hotmail.com wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>hmm?
> >>>
> >>>where artists are supposed to compete with each other in serving these
> >>>middlebrow morons. the moral panic over postmodernism is rather amusing.
> >>
> >>Take music. Especially the avant-garde stuff. It is humourless
> >>avant-gardists who fail to see the funny side of it when you laugh at
> >>it. The avant-gardists in everything they do, are defined by their aim
> >>to change our concepts about music, which is a moral stance about what
> >>music *ought* to be. The conservatives think music *ought* to be
> >>something else, accusing postmodernists of being immoral. You can
> >>enjoy avant-garde or postmodern stuff and still laugh at it. And you
> >>can laugh at the conservative morons who think art ought to be staid
> >>imitations of realism.
> >>
> >>other for presupposing moral standpoints!
> >
> >
> > "only recent things."
> >
> > Post-modern (unlike modern) embraces modernism, traditionalism,
> > primitivism, nihilism - and any other 'ism you can develop. That's
> > what it means to *be* post-modern.
> >
> > So, a post-modernist enjoys Bach, Rachmaninoff, Cal Tjader and Incubus,
> > if they wish, while admiring Lascaux, Rembrandt, Boticelli, Kandinsky
> > and Franz. Or whatever. Attention to the structure and scope of art
> > is essential to post-modernism, preferring any particular genre or
> > temporal form is not necessary - I would argue, in fact, that such a
> > view is distinctly NOT post-modern.
> >
> > A.
> >
>
> to do with a form of writing, art or music. Postmodernism advocates
> interpretation of the text without reference to outside things, such as the
> and determination of what interpretation or interpretations the text can bear is
> more to the point. Thus, for instance, de Sade's Justine can be read as a
> feminist text, showing the depravity to which a weak woman can fall, while
> holding out a counterexample (Justine's sister Juliette) to show what a strong
> woman can achieve.
>
That Juliette is one huge novel I wish I had never read when young.
Thanx for the comparison because I never thought of them as the old;
Dionysian vs Apollinian?
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.philosophy/msg/1afc980a3eb06a36
Apollo
order
lawfulness
perfected
form
clarity
precision
self-control
individuation
Dionysus
change
creation
destruction
movement
rhythm
ecstasy
oneness.
JUSTINE
The plot concerns Justine, a twelve-year-old maiden ("As for Justine,
aged as we have remarked, twelve"...) who sets off, impecunious, to
make her way in France. It follows her until the age of twenty-six, in
her quest for virtue. At every turn she is presented with vice and
abuse, hidden under a virtuous mask that lures her. Just some of the
unfortunate situations include when she seeks refuge and confession in
a monastery, but is forced to become a sex-slave to the monks, who
subject her to countless orgies, rapes and other abuses. When helping a
gentleman who is robbed in a field, he takes her back to his chateau
with promises of a post caring for his wife, but she is then confined
in a cave and subject to much the same punishment. These punishments
are mostly the same throughout, even when she goes to a judge to beg
for mercy in her case as an arsonist, and then finds herself openly
humiliated in court, unable to defend herself.
These are, of course, described in true Sadean form. However, unlike
some of his other works, the novel is not just a catalogue of sadism.
Rather it purports to show, albeit in a hideously extreme way, an
inversion of poetic justice: how those who live a life of vice prosper,
whilst the virtuous suffer. Nonetheless, Sade invites us to live
virtuously in hope of heavenly reward.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justine%2C_or_the_Misfortunes_Of_Virtue
JULIETTE
...Whilst Justine, Juliette's sister, was a virtuous woman who
consequently encountered nothing but despair and abuse, Juliette is an
amoral nymphomaniac who ends up successful and happy...
...Juliette is raised in a convent, but at the age of 13 she is seduced
by a woman who immediately explains that morality, religion and other
such concepts are meaningless. There are plenty of similar
philosophical musings during the book, all attacking the ideas of God,
morals, remorse, love, etc, the overall conclusion being that the only
aim in life is "to enjoy oneself at no matter whose expense." Juliette
takes this to the extreme and manages to murder her way through
numerous people, including various family members and friends.
During the novel, which follows Juliette through the ages of 13 to
about 30, the wanton anti-heroine engages in virtually every form of
depravity and encounters a series of like-minded libertines, such as
the ferocious Clairwil, whose main passion is in murdering young men,
and Saint Fond, a 50-year-old multi-millionaire who commits incest with
his daughter, murders his father, tortures young girls to death on a
daily basis and even plots an ambitious scheme to provoke a famine that
will wipe out half the population of France.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Histoire_de_Juliette
http://www.cd.sc.ehu.es/FileRoom/documents/Cases/178marquisDeSade.html
But I ain't readin those perversions again just to see it in this new
light. I just thought they were like the two poles in "Vanity Fair" by
Thackery of the prim and proper and the peasant challenging the royals.
Or like the people in "Pride & Prejudace" and the huband getting
occupation.
> One reason why an author's overt intent [e.g., that de Sade just liked writing
> about sex) is irrelevant is that those conscious intents may be subverted by
> unconscious intents. In that case, the text alone can bear the weight of
> interpretation.
>
>
> Francis A. Miniter
steve
formulated
the following incoherence:
> > I think Shakespeare beat him to it, but that's beside the point. That
> > phrase could be the punchline to a joke, delivered with irony or
> > sarcasm,
> > simple fatherly advice (as it was in Hamlet), or endless other
> > variations.
>
> Quite so. I notice that your list doesn't refer to authorial intention
> anywhere. How come?
Did you read the rest of the discussion? It's there.
1Z
sirb...@hotmail.com wrote:
> hmm?
>
> traditionalist conservatives love to think of art as some sweatfest
> where the artist is supposed to copy and glorify the powers that be, or
> where artists are supposed to compete with each other in serving these
> middlebrow morons. the moral panic over postmodernism is rather amusing.
Not all opponents of PoMo are cons, eg. Sokal.
steve
blindly formulated
the following incoherence:
> > My objection is to the idea that there can be an objective meaning to
> > the
> > text that exists outside of the authors thought process or intentions
> > and
> > the readers reaction. The authors intentions may be unknowable, and
> > each
> > readers reaction will be different, but that is the nature of
> > communication...and art is just another form of communication.
>
> Art is stimulation. Only to the degree to which the stimulation's
> intentional is it (intentional) communication.
I dont see that. Communication doesnt have to be effective. But I fail to
see the relevance of your point. If I simply call it attempted
communication (and I allow that art can be mere cathartic expression as
well), then my argument is still on track.
> > ... ascribing some objective meaning to the text is the
> > postmodernist's error. The text has no objective meaning. To suggest
> > that
> > it does is to deny that it is a communication and to merely invent.
>
> To single out text as having no 'objective meaning' is to imply that
> other things *do*
Only in the art world where omission is often taken as comission. No, Im
simply using text as an example. You could broaden the discussion to any
form of art/expression, I suppose.
> What you're probably talking
> about is 'consensus'... which renders "objective" the meaning of text
> as well as it does anything else, anyway...
I dont follow you. Consensus and objectivity are two very different things,
and one does not support the other.
steve
formulated
the following incoherence:
> I few questions, if you don't mind. To which book are you referring?
See the footnote in my original post.
> Which of the essay writers talked of "objective meaning"?
Your going to make me work for it, arent you? Actually I dont recall if any
if the essays used the term explicitly (though I suspect I did see it one
place or another), but the interpretive methods outlined implicitely treat
the text as standing alone. That amounts to a theory of objective meaning.
> Why do you ascribe disregard for authorial intention to postmodern
> critics rather than, say, to Plato who seems to have coined the strategy?
LOL! I read some of Plato's Republic 20+ years ago and found it to be utter
bullshit, so perhaps he is the source of the problem.
moviePig
steve wrote:
> On 9-Jan-2007, smacked up and reeling, "moviePig" <pwal...@moviepig.com>
> blindly formulated
> the following incoherence:
>
> > > My objection is to the idea that there can be an objective meaning to
> > > the
> > > text that exists outside of the authors thought process or intentions
> > > and
> > > the readers reaction. The authors intentions may be unknowable, and
> > > each
> > > readers reaction will be different, but that is the nature of
> > > communication...and art is just another form of communication.
> >
> > Art is stimulation. Only to the degree to which the stimulation's
> > intentional is it (intentional) communication.
>
> I dont see that. Communication doesnt have to be effective. But I fail to
> see the relevance of your point. If I simply call it attempted
> communication (and I allow that art can be mere cathartic expression as
> well), then my argument is still on track.
If a tree falls unheard in the forest, does it make a sound? You're
linking inextricably the artist's (presumed) message to the one that
(we agree) we hear. Sure, there's an empirical connection, but not an
ontological one.
> > ... The text has no objective meaning. ...
> >
> > To single out text as having no 'objective meaning' is to imply that
> > other things *do*
>
> Only in the art world where omission is often taken as comission. No, Im
> simply using text as an example. You could broaden the discussion to any
> form of art/expression, I suppose.
>
> > What you're probably talking
> > about is 'consensus'... which renders "objective" the meaning of text
> > as well as it does anything else, anyway...
>
> I dont follow you. Consensus and objectivity are two very different things,
> and one does not support the other.
'Meaning' itself is a totally subjective phenomenon, perhaps a
symbiotic partner/facet of consciousness. (Or, so it seems to be.)
What we call 'objective meaning', or even 'fact', is merely stuff the
vast majority of us seem to repeatably agree on. (And it's all subject
to revision...)
steve
<e...@nospamimpix.com> blindly formulated
the following incoherence:
> Sure, I can see that. But I'm arguing the phrase has objective meaning
> and communicates something regardless of Franklin's biography. You
> haven't addressed that (but your deconstruction of what I actually wrote
> is pretty kewl).
In fact I have addressed that. The meaning you perceive in the text is not
an objective meaning within the text. It is your reaction to the text. You
agree that the same phrase can convey multiple ideas, so, in effect, my case
is made. If you must choose between many possible meanings, then clearly
the text doesn't have an objective meaning.
To illustrate further, we agree that the phrase "neither a lender or
borrower be" conveys different meaning when delivered father to son and
between wall street speculators. Consider the meaning of that phrase if it
was typed randomly by a chimp at a keyboard. What meaning does it convey?
Is it advice, mockery, or does it convey some other meaning? It is not the
product of a will or thought process, so it doesn't actually convey
anything. It isnt the communication of an idea (or an attempt to do so),
rather it's just a random collection of words that happen to fit the
grammatic formulation of a sentence. It may well provoke thought (the
father nods in agreement, and the wall street speculator chuckles to
himself) but each reader must lend his own meaning to the text. It cannot
be said to have an objective meaning because many meanings are possible and
there is no objective process for selecting one over the other.
smw
steve wrote:
> On 9-Jan-2007, smacked up and reeling, smw <sm...@ameritech.net> blindly
> formulated
> the following incoherence:
>
>
>>I few questions, if you don't mind. To which book are you referring?
>
>
> See the footnote in my original post.
The footnote in your original post refers to a book that includes
chapters such as "Feminist and Gender Criticism and Ulysses" or
"Reader-Response Criticism and Ulysses," so that can't be the book
you're talking about.
>>Which of the essay writers talked of "objective meaning"?
>
>
> Your going to make me work for it, arent you? Actually I dont recall if any
> if the essays used the term explicitly (though I suspect I did see it one
> place or another), but the interpretive methods outlined implicitely treat
> the text as standing alone. That amounts to a theory of objective meaning.
Um... no, it doesn't.
>
>
>>Why do you ascribe disregard for authorial intention to postmodern
>>critics rather than, say, to Plato who seems to have coined the strategy?
>
>
> LOL! I read some of Plato's Republic 20+ years ago and found it to be utter
> bullshit, so perhaps he is the source of the problem.
There you go. Postmodern all the way down to turtle no. 1.
steve
formulated
the following incoherence:
> > See the footnote in my original post.
>
> The footnote in your original post refers to a book that includes
> chapters such as "Feminist and Gender Criticism and Ulysses" or
> "Reader-Response Criticism and Ulysses," so that can't be the book
> you're talking about.
That's the one. What's the issue?
> > Your going to make me work for it, arent you? Actually I dont recall if
> > any
> > if the essays used the term explicitly (though I suspect I did see it
> > one
> > place or another), but the interpretive methods outlined implicitely
> > treat
> > the text as standing alone. That amounts to a theory of objective
> > meaning.
>
> Um... no, it doesn't.
Really? Tell me what you mean.
smw
steve wrote:
> On 10-Jan-2007, smacked up and reeling, smw <sm...@ameritech.net> blindly
> formulated
> the following incoherence:
>
>
>>>See the footnote in my original post.
>>
>>The footnote in your original post refers to a book that includes
>>chapters such as "Feminist and Gender Criticism and Ulysses" or
>>"Reader-Response Criticism and Ulysses," so that can't be the book
>>you're talking about.
>
>
> That's the one. What's the issue?
No feminist or reader-response theorist would (or even could) ever argue
that a text must be read immanently.
>
>
>>>Your going to make me work for it, arent you? Actually I dont recall if
>>>any
>>>if the essays used the term explicitly (though I suspect I did see it
>>>one
>>>place or another), but the interpretive methods outlined implicitely
>>>treat
>>>the text as standing alone. That amounts to a theory of objective
>>>meaning.
>>
>>Um... no, it doesn't.
>
>
> Really? Tell me what you mean.
Even the strictest text-immanent readers would not argue that a literary
text has objective meaning. They would argue that the text is all we
have and that external influences are impossible to determine, while the
text is right there in front of us, with all its inherent ambivalences
and ambiguities.
steve
formulated
the following incoherence:
> > That's the one. What's the issue?
>
> No feminist or reader-response theorist would (or even could) ever argue
> that a text must be read immanently.
Well, they have thier own variant of nonsensical interpretation, and it
certainly doesnt consider the intention of the author..in fact, it ignores
the author in an attempt to read thier own agenda into the text.
> > Really? Tell me what you mean.
>
> Even the strictest text-immanent readers would not argue that a literary
> text has objective meaning. They would argue that the text is all we
> have and that external influences are impossible to determine, while the
> text is right there in front of us, with all its inherent ambivalences
> and ambiguities.
That's silly. We often do have information about the author, the culture he
worked within, and the definitions of words in common usage at the time and
place. Generally, the text is not all we have.
steve
blindly formulated
the following incoherence:
> If a tree falls unheard in the forest, does it make a sound?
That question is often offered up as something philosophical, when it is
purely definitional.
> You're
> linking inextricably the artist's (presumed) message to the one that
> (we agree) we hear. Sure, there's an empirical connection, but not an
> ontological one.
Im not presuming we know the artists intention, nor am I equating a
consensus (if there is one in any particular case) on that intention with
the intention itself. Truth may be unknowable, but it is truth just the
same.
> 'Meaning' itself is a totally subjective phenomenon, perhaps a
> symbiotic partner/facet of consciousness. (Or, so it seems to be.)
> What we call 'objective meaning', or even 'fact', is merely stuff the
> vast majority of us seem to repeatably agree on. (And it's all subject
> to revision...)
'Meaning' itself is a totally subjective phenomenon
We agree. Meaning (in the sense we are discussing) is a product of human
will and thought.
What we call 'objective meaning', or even 'fact', is merely stuff the
> vast majority of us seem to repeatably agree on. (And it's all subject
> to revision...)
We disagree. Objective fact ("truth" is a better word) exists apart from
perception and belief.
ffoulkes
> [her usual good stuff]
In the end, those of us amateurs of Lit & Lit Crit
both willl glom on to whatever theory - or none -
we find most attractive. For myself, once I had read
Eco's *Lector in Fabula*, I was hooked on what I
take to be Umberto's Private Label of what might,
I suppose, be callled post-structuralism.
Or should I have said "-ismo"?
ffoulkes
Francis A. Miniter
> On 9-Jan-2007, smacked up and reeling, smw <sm...@ameritech.net> blindly
> formulated
> the following incoherence:
>
>
>>Why do you ascribe disregard for authorial intention to postmodern
>>critics rather than, say, to Plato who seems to have coined the strategy?
>
>
> LOL! I read some of Plato's Republic 20+ years ago and found it to be utter
> bullshit, so perhaps he is the source of the problem.
You probably read it literally, rather than ironically, with encouragement from
Popper et al. I certainly hope you did not read the abominable Cornford
translation. Although you may not have caught the subtleties, it is a dialogue
and Socrates deliberately changes his interlocutor from time to time after Book
1 in order to get the desired response (since Glaucon and Adeimantus display
very opposite personalities).
Try the Bloom translation.
Francis A. Miniter
Francis A. Miniter
> On 10-Jan-2007, smacked up and reeling, "moviePig" <pwal...@moviepig.com>
> blindly formulated
> the following incoherence:
>
>
>
>> What we call 'objective meaning', or even 'fact', is merely stuff the
>>vast majority of us seem to repeatably agree on. (And it's all subject
>>to revision...)
>
>
> We disagree. Objective fact ("truth" is a better word) exists apart from
> perception and belief.
The problem with "objective fact" is that it is for the most part unreachable.
All we have, in one form or another, is a re-presentation of the fact. Take the
Rodney King beating. Both the prosecution and the defense relied heavily on the
videotape of the incident. That tape was played over and over and over at trial
with both sides attempting to persuade the jury as to what the "objective facts"
were.
Francis A. Miniter
Erik A. Mattila
> On 9-Jan-2007, smacked up and reeling, "Erik A. Mattila"
> <e...@nospamimpix.com> blindly formulated
> the following incoherence:
>
>
>
>>Sure, I can see that. But I'm arguing the phrase has objective meaning
>>and communicates something regardless of Franklin's biography. You
>>haven't addressed that (but your deconstruction of what I actually wrote
>>is pretty kewl).
>
>
> In fact I have addressed that. The meaning you perceive in the text is not
> an objective meaning within the text. It is your reaction to the text. You
> agree that the same phrase can convey multiple ideas, so, in effect, my case
> is made. If you must choose between many possible meanings, then clearly
> the text doesn't have an objective meaning.
I'm inclined to agree with you here, except I don't think you've
addressed the author's role. What you've written is to a large extent
what semiology is about. Sign, signifier and signified. So the sign
"rose" (text or image) signifies all sorts of things in our culture.
But the signification is the work of the reader, not the author.
Granted, knowing what the author intended to signify is an interesting
project, but also interesting is, say, a literary critic's project of
knowing what the range of meaning is from the reader's pov, regardless
of the author's intent. You have said, if I understand, that that is
absurd. My position is that it's a perfectly legitimate scholarship.
I think, for example, that it would be very interesting to collect and
analyse reader's responses to J.R.R. Tolkein. The author denied
repeatedly that he was writing any sort of allegory to modern life and
politics, but many readers do read allegory in his works. A study of
that range of significations that come from the readers would tell us a
lot about culture.
>
> To illustrate further, we agree that the phrase "neither a lender or
> borrower be" conveys different meaning when delivered father to son and
> between wall street speculators. Consider the meaning of that phrase if it
> was typed randomly by a chimp at a keyboard. What meaning does it convey?
> Is it advice, mockery, or does it convey some other meaning? It is not the
> product of a will or thought process, so it doesn't actually convey
> anything. It isnt the communication of an idea (or an attempt to do so),
> rather it's just a random collection of words that happen to fit the
> grammatic formulation of a sentence. It may well provoke thought (the
> father nods in agreement, and the wall street speculator chuckles to
> himself) but each reader must lend his own meaning to the text. It cannot
> be said to have an objective meaning because many meanings are possible and
> there is no objective process for selecting one over the other.
But where does the author's intent fit into this? I go along with what
you're saying - but I can't see where "objective" says much. Literary
criticism - most criticism, in fact - deals with "theoretical objects"
which are only objective within the context of theory (a parallel
universe, like mathematics). In the real world, you'd have to call them
"meta-ojects" or something like that.
*Anarcissie*
On the other hand, if you have a set of different sentences
and an audience who understand the language in which the
sentences are composed, it is very likely that the audience
will be able to differentiate between the sentences and, very
likely, locate them in sets, sequences and other structures.
This indicates that something _is_ being communicated
and that although the audience participates in determining
whatever is communicated it does not create it ex nihilo.
That in itself does not constitute evidence of an objective
meaning but it certainly leads in that direction.
smw
steve wrote:
> On 10-Jan-2007, smacked up and reeling, smw <sm...@ameritech.net> blindly
> formulated
> the following incoherence:
>
>
>>>That's the one. What's the issue?
>>
>>No feminist or reader-response theorist would (or even could) ever argue
>>that a text must be read immanently.
>
>
> Well, they have thier own variant of nonsensical interpretation, and it
> certainly doesnt consider the intention of the author..in fact, it ignores
> the author in an attempt to read thier own agenda into the text.
When Aristotle writes that the female mammal contributes the matter and
the male one the forming force, his intention is not to bullshit his
readers, and nonetheless he is incorrect according to present-day
knowledge of reproductive biology, and it is not a stretch to read his
account as one informed by the bias of a culture that views females as
inferior to males.
>>>Really? Tell me what you mean.
>>
>>Even the strictest text-immanent readers would not argue that a literary
>>text has objective meaning. They would argue that the text is all we
>>have and that external influences are impossible to determine, while the
>>text is right there in front of us, with all its inherent ambivalences
>>and ambiguities.
>
>
> That's silly. We often do have information about the author, the culture he
> worked within, and the definitions of words in common usage at the time and
> place. Generally, the text is not all we have.
Apart from the fact that what you "have" is usually another text, we can
only speculate as to anybody's intentions or a text's relationship to
its cultural and historical context. What is silly is denying a fact as
basic as that.
smw
ffoulkes wrote:
> smw wrote:
>
>> [her usual good stuff]
>
>
> In the end, those of us amateurs of Lit & Lit Crit
> both willl glom on to whatever theory - or none -
> we find most attractive.
Absolutely. Let pleasure be the guide.
For myself, once I had read
> Eco's *Lector in Fabula*, I was hooked on what I
> take to be Umberto's Private Label of what might,
> I suppose, be callled post-structuralism.
>
> Or should I have said "-ismo"?
Semiotismo?
smw
Francis A. Miniter wrote:
> steve wrote:
...>>
>> LOL! I read some of Plato's Republic 20+ years ago and found it to be
>> utter
>> bullshit, so perhaps he is the source of the problem.
>
>
>
> You probably read it literally, rather than ironically, with
> encouragement from Popper et al.
Possibly so -- however, irony or no irony, anybody who denies that it is
a scandalous text kids herself. The argument that a truly just state
would first have to abolish the family strikes me as entirely correct
and entirely appalling.
Francis A. Miniter
I have to disagree.
The text
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be."
is a complete text capable of interpretation on its own.
The text
"Polonius to Orestes: 'Neither a borrower nor a lender be.'"
is a different text, one that is broader but which comes with its own internal
context. But we do not have to know who Shakespeare slept with in order to
interpret it.
The text
"A chimp at a keyboard typed 'Neither a borrower nor a lender be.'"
is a third text. It too has its own internal context.
But do not confuse the simple text with the larger texts.
Francis A. Miniter
What you are
steve
> But the signification is the work of the reader, not the author.
> Granted, knowing what the author intended to signify is an interesting
> project, but also interesting is, say, a literary critic's project of
> knowing what the range of meaning is from the reader's pov, regardless
> of the author's intent. You have said, if I understand, that that is
> absurd. My position is that it's a perfectly legitimate scholarship.
My position is that it is absurd to claim that the readers POV is the
meaning of the text, and even more absurd to develop an extensive insiders
vocabulary and complex theories about how a text should be read. There is
sensible analysis with perspective maintained, and then there is pointless
wanking. What I read in the Ulysses essay book was clearly the latter.
> I think, for example, that it would be very interesting to collect and
> analyse reader's responses to J.R.R. Tolkein. The author denied
> repeatedly that he was writing any sort of allegory to modern life and
> politics, but many readers do read allegory in his works. A study of
> that range of significations that come from the readers would tell us a
> lot about culture.
I'd call that a sociological experiment, and I will grant the possibility
that something valuable might be revealed...though I wouldnt hazard a guess
as to what that might be and I certainly wouldnt leave the experiment in the
hands of a college english department.
> But where does the author's intent fit into this? I go along with what
> you're saying - but I can't see where "objective" says much. Literary
> criticism - most criticism, in fact - deals with "theoretical objects"
> which are only objective within the context of theory (a parallel
> universe, like mathematics). In the real world, you'd have to call them
> "meta-ojects" or something like that.
Divining the authors intent isnt sacred or anything, but it is a defensible
definition for the "meaning" of the text and a limited framework for
analysis.
steve
steve
formulated
the following incoherence:
> > We disagree. Objective fact ("truth" is a better word) exists apart
> > from
> > perception and belief.
>
>
> The problem with "objective fact" is that it is for the most part
> unreachable.
> All we have, in one form or another, is a re-presentation of the fact.
> Take the
> Rodney King beating. Both the prosecution and the defense relied heavily
> on the
> videotape of the incident. That tape was played over and over and over at
> trial
> with both sides attempting to persuade the jury as to what the "objective
> facts"
> were.
I dont intend to make this thread my full time job, but I'll address this
point.
I find confusion between the concepts truth and belief to be mystifying.
Truth is a simple concept: that which is. Perception and belief are human
mental activities. That truth may be unknowable should be no barrier to
understanding the difference between truth and belief. In fact, that
distinction is of paramount importance precisely because of the difficulty
in knowing truth. You may not know your gas gauge is broken and you may
believe you have half a tank, but drive long enough and you will run out of
gas. Time, tide, and truth wait for no man.
steve
formulated
the following incoherence:
> Apart from the fact that what you "have" is usually another text, we can
> only speculate as to anybody's intentions or a text's relationship to
> its cultural and historical context. What is silly is denying a fact as
> basic as that.
I'll deny it, especially if the text in question is not from the distant
past. Would you claim that James Joyce's work springs from historical
obscurity, and we have nothing but his text to guide us?
steve
<anarc...@gmail.com> blindly formulated
the following incoherence:
> On the other hand, if you have a set of different sentences
> and an audience who understand the language in which the
> sentences are composed, it is very likely that the audience
> will be able to differentiate between the sentences and, very
> likely, locate them in sets, sequences and other structures.
> This indicates that something _is_ being communicated
> and that although the audience participates in determining
> whatever is communicated it does not create it ex nihilo.
> That in itself does not constitute evidence of an objective
> meaning but it certainly leads in that direction.
As I stated early in the thread, one can always apply accepted and common
definitions to the words in the text (as we naturally do when we read) and
come to an understanding or opinion regarding the "meaning" of the text.
The question, as I have also said, is of relevance. The basic topic here is
understanding or experiencing art. My point is that art is a form of
communication, and that is the only defensible perspective in which it can
be viewed for meaning. You can enjoy art any way you like, and it may
provoke all sorts of thoughts and ideas, but to develop any method of
analysis that loses sight of it's nature as a communication is pointless
beyond the entertainment value such an exercise may provide. And when
extensive disciplines and specialized vocabularies are developed and touted
as intellectual rigor, they become not merely pointless, but offensive.
With that, I think it is time for me to exit, stage right. Gotta earn a
living, you see.
steve
Erik A. Mattila
> On 10-Jan-2007, smacked up and reeling, "Erik A. Mattila"
> <e...@nospamimpix.com> blindly formulated
> the following incoherence:
>
>
>>But the signification is the work of the reader, not the author.
>>Granted, knowing what the author intended to signify is an interesting
>>project, but also interesting is, say, a literary critic's project of
>>knowing what the range of meaning is from the reader's pov, regardless
>>of the author's intent. You have said, if I understand, that that is
>>absurd. My position is that it's a perfectly legitimate scholarship.
>
>
> My position is that it is absurd to claim that the readers POV is the
> meaning of the text, and even more absurd to develop an extensive insiders
> vocabulary and complex theories about how a text should be read. There is
> sensible analysis with perspective maintained, and then there is pointless
> wanking. What I read in the Ulysses essay book was clearly the latter.
Aren't you saying that you just don't understand the vocabulary, Steve?
I mean, really, you're talking about people who make a career of
criticism, saying they are involved in pointless wanking, while saying
you don't understand their vocabulary. Don't you see a wee bit of
arrogance in that?
>
>
>>I think, for example, that it would be very interesting to collect and
>>analyse reader's responses to J.R.R. Tolkein. The author denied
>>repeatedly that he was writing any sort of allegory to modern life and
>>politics, but many readers do read allegory in his works. A study of
>>that range of significations that come from the readers would tell us a
>>lot about culture.
>
>
> I'd call that a sociological experiment, and I will grant the possibility
> that something valuable might be revealed...though I wouldnt hazard a guess
> as to what that might be and I certainly wouldnt leave the experiment in the
> hands of a college english department.
But that's what lit crits do. You can call it anything you like.
>
>
>>But where does the author's intent fit into this? I go along with what
>>you're saying - but I can't see where "objective" says much. Literary
>>criticism - most criticism, in fact - deals with "theoretical objects"
>>which are only objective within the context of theory (a parallel
>>universe, like mathematics). In the real world, you'd have to call them
>>"meta-ojects" or something like that.
>
>
> Divining the authors intent isnt sacred or anything, but it is a defensible
> definition for the "meaning" of the text and a limited framework for
> analysis.
And what would you be analyzing beyond the author's intent? That's not
literary criticism, it's biography. Do you even know what "criticism"
means?
>
> steve
Randall Coleman
"moviePig" <pwal...@moviepig.com> wrote in message
news:1168440022.3...@p59g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...
I think that post modernism must include semiotic analysis, and my
understanding of that mode of analysis is this: Meaning is produced by the
code (read knowledge base) that the reader of a text is in possession of.
So, you can take one novel or one movie and have a Marxist or Freudian
interpretation of that work, depending on what you bring to it. Similarly,
a play like "Oedipus Rex" would have one meaning for the Greeks who lived in
the society in which the play was written, yet it has universal themes that
still speak to us today? Did the classic Greeks see the same meanings in
the play that we do? Who knows?
Randall Coleman
steve
<e...@nospamimpix.com> blindly formulated
the following incoherence:
> Aren't you saying that you just don't understand the vocabulary, Steve?
> I mean, really, you're talking about people who make a career of
> criticism, saying they are involved in pointless wanking, while saying
> you don't understand their vocabulary. Don't you see a wee bit of
> arrogance in that?
Im not saying that at all. I think I see it for what it is; a scientism.
> > I'd call that a sociological experiment, and I will grant the
> > possibility
> > that something valuable might be revealed...though I wouldnt hazard a
> > guess
> > as to what that might be and I certainly wouldnt leave the experiment in
> > the
> > hands of a college english department.
>
> But that's what lit crits do. You can call it anything you like.
Really? And who are the test subjects in this sociological experiment?
English students? No, that is not what English professors teaching
post-modern analysis in the classroom are doing.
> > Divining the authors intent isnt sacred or anything, but it is a
> > defensible
> > definition for the "meaning" of the text and a limited framework for
> > analysis.
>
> And what would you be analyzing beyond the author's intent? That's not
> literary criticism, it's biography. Do you even know what "criticism"
> means?
I would simply enjoy the work. But if I were to analyze anything, it would
be the writing style and mechanics of the authors I enjoy.
> Do you even know what "criticism"
> means?
I'll have to analyze that text and get back to you.
Cheers.
Mani Deli
>There's no problem with post-modernism per se, but by its nature, it
>attracts lazy artists, wanna be ideaologists and talentless hacks more
>than other movements, since such people find it rather easy to
>camouflage their ineptitude under the blanket of post-modernism.
Not really. What's under the blanket is incompetence.
PM got a lot of its lingo from Artspeak. Read the FAQ for some neat
samples. If it needs a long sermon to proclaim its art, it probably
bullshit.
sirb...@hotmail.com
Mani Deli ha escrito:
> On Tue, 9 Jan 2007 04:26:22 -0500, "tooly" <rd...@bellsouth.net>
> wrote:
> >. But the avant
> >guarde sometimes tries to veil 'nonsense' under the guise of 'new
> >inspiration', while our foundations become a litmus test for true genius.
> >Scribble all you want, but if the product is not aesthetically useful back
> >to the observer in some way, then it gets flushed.
>
> In other words, If it looks like it was done by a ten year old its the
> artist's problem , not the viewer's.
irreverent artists are preferable to pleasing servile gourmets. you
believe in that socialist libtard conservative middle class concept of
art, well Become a tourist and visit vienna, gambia, german and english
castles and palaces. or those lame ass traditionalist museums and, like
our hero stewe, hilariously- wishfully- conflate biography with
criticism.
art as mimesis vs art as language
empiricism vs metaphysics
common middlebrow sense vs poststructuralism
The Author vs the death of the author
God vs. the death of god
know vs feel
name dropping vs name drooping
inherited entangled mutually enslaved ownership vs must we mean what we
say?
metric verse vs free verse
inherited enforced straitjacket language vs. our own invented one.
work ethic vs poststructuralism
the majority vs the minority
common emotionalism vs. particular perception
golden age of hollywood vs romantic, modernist and postmodernist margin
cinema
copyright vs. copyleft
corruption of postmodernism vs. banality of postmodernity
im owned by myself! vs what a myth!!
organic finished miracle vs hordes of invading semiotic barbarians
fixed identity vs. bollocks!
sweatfest work ethic fetish vs. art is just text
a haiku vs a haiku with 18 syllables instead of 17
cognitive plant-like emotionalism vs subconscious postfreudian nookie
alert
my 4th novel vs the last 4 books stewe, brian or doberboots read
more:
no more inherited dead author bollocks. birth of the magnificient lazy
reader
discredited figures of authority and a freer mind.
division of labour in a postmodern world: everyone slaving for each
other: no time to explore: so self-serving artists much more
interesting than mass/popular ones touching common already present
chords. something already present cannot be art so let's tend to the
extremes; all is art, nothing is art, so why not endlessly quote and
enjoy.
the charm and pleasure coupled with pity and dismay with a touch of
destiny's entropy with which i gaze at the triviality and banality to
which a thread-as-platform-for-the-libtard-stewe Becomes.
epilogue:
thou information, the final magnificient task of postmodernism is
anti-information, subverting and ridiculing its exponents for their ad
homynems and socialist tendencies. their imprisonment in the
having-to-write mode. despite contributing to ridicule the paradigm you
love, they are extremely limited.
let's have fun (and, baby, don't cum)::
godard vs spielberg
ming liang vs george lucas
heimat 2 vs dawson's creek
giardini di miró vs norah jones
albert frossjean vs david beckham
miami vice vs rush hour
baudrillard vs rand
heidegger vs friedman
bozulich vs aguilera
farting vs the opera
meredith monk vs (boots, fill in the blank, you sad git!)
rolling barthes vs rubber kimball
sensesofcinema vs thenewcriterion
my magnificient self vs flaubert's blogosphere
los angeles plays itself vs shrek
the square root of kath n kim vs john simon
the valentines present i gave to gf at age 13 of a photo of me mooning
vs bach's 27th sonata fourth section.
the time i shitted in me pants as an experiment vs. your finely
tailored suit.
robbe grillet vs jane austen
alain resnais vs john ford
>
> No skill no art.
exactly, no skill no art. but you're not capable of understanding the
meaning of skill. and your website sucks.
sirb...@hotmail.com
1Z ha escrito:
> sirb...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > hmm?
> >
> > traditionalist conservatives love to think of art as some sweatfest
> > where the artist is supposed to copy and glorify the powers that be, or
> > where artists are supposed to compete with each other in serving these
> > middlebrow morons. the moral panic over postmodernism is rather amusing.
>
> Not all opponents of PoMo are cons, eg. Sokal.
if sokal gets lovingly quoted by neorightard neolibtards, any anarchist
tendencies are doubtful.
sirb...@hotmail.com
here, see this zizek thing. i've only found a third of it, but it's
more than fairly amusing. flush!
tooly ha escrito:
> <sirb...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1168302418....@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> > hmm?
> >
> > traditionalist conservatives love to think of art as some sweatfest
> > where the artist is supposed to copy and glorify the powers that be, or
> > where artists are supposed to compete with each other in serving these
> > middlebrow morons. the moral panic over postmodernism is rather amusing.
> >
>
> aesthetics demands foundations which new generations must first ascend to a
> degree to find thier own loft from which to take flight. Without that
> continuity, well...any child can scribble, true enough. But the avant
> guarde sometimes tries to veil 'nonsense' under the guise of 'new
> inspiration', while our foundations become a litmus test for true genius.
> Scribble all you want, but if the product is not aesthetically useful back
> to the observer in some way, then it gets flushed. This would seem to imply
> art's definition contains the interaction between artist and beholder and
> not just the expressive desires of individuals. Like language, one cannot
> simply invent their own and expect everyone to speak it.
sirb...@hotmail.com
Randall Coleman ha escrito:
art is pleasure. NOT communication.
sirb...@hotmail.com
Mani Deli ha escrito:
and if it doesn't, it's prolly kylie minogue.
*Anarcissie*
For example, here's Andy Warhol's explanation of his art.
"What's behind your work, Mr. Warhol?"
"There's nothing behind it. It's what you see."
A long sermon indeed.
sirb...@hotmail.com
*Anarcissie* ha escrito:
duchamp was up to gay anonymous sex in highway restrooms. spotted him
in something bout mary.
sirb...@hotmail.com
Milan ha escrito:
> <sirb...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1168326485.9...@51g2000cwl.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > knucmo ha escrito:
> >
> >> sirb...@hotmail.com wrote:
> >>
> >> > hmm?
> >> >
> >> > traditionalist conservatives love to think of art as some sweatfest
> >> > where the artist is supposed to copy and glorify the powers that be, or
> >> > where artists are supposed to compete with each other in serving these
> >> > middlebrow morons. the moral panic over postmodernism is rather
> >> > amusing.
> >>
> >> And yet, there is something about postmodern which makes it laughable.
> >> Take music. Especially the avant-garde stuff. It is humourless
> >> avant-gardists who fail to see the funny side of it when you laugh at
> >> it. The avant-gardists in everything they do, are defined by their aim
> >> to change our concepts about music, which is a moral stance about what
> >> music *ought* to be. The conservatives think music *ought* to be
> >> something else, accusing postmodernists of being immoral. You can
> >> enjoy avant-garde or postmodern stuff and still laugh at it. And you
> >> can laugh at the conservative morons who think art ought to be staid
> >> imitations of realism.
> >>
> >> The point is, both postmodernists and conservatives are as bad as each
> >> other for presupposing moral standpoints!
> >
> >
> > good point, but no. close. ill take a postmodernist anytime over a
> > conservative traditionalist libtard.
>
> Postmodernists are conservatives.
>
> regards
> Milan
depends on who you stack em up against these days.
it's raoul ruiz's geneologies of a crime vs spielberg's minority
report. and so on.
Arindam Banerjee
Can goats (incestuous creatures, with no notion of family values) ever
form a state?
Lauri Levanto
snip
. You can enjoy art any way you like, and it may
> provoke all sorts of thoughts and ideas, but to develop any method of
> analysis that loses sight of it's nature as a communication is pointless
> beyond the entertainment value such an exercise may provide.
I have difficulty to apply this for classical music.
Whar does music communicate? Maybe it has an entertaiment value only,
but what a great value.
Much of contemporary art is entertainment. Sometimes good.
Most of literature is read for entertainment.
-lauri
Erik A. Mattila
rigourous. Here's my example. Rolena Adorna, at Yale, has done an
exhaustive study of the Cabeza de Vaca books (there were actually 5
books written on his adventure, and they all contradicted one another.)
One of the things that C. de Vaca wrote was that the Karankawa of
Galveston Island thought the he and his companions were gods. It was
because the term these Indians used for the Spaniards literally meant
"comes from the sky." But Adorno researched that out, and discovered
that gourds were also called the same thing. Gourds were important to
the Karankawa's material culture, but they didn't cultivate them.
Instead, when inland storms caused the rivers to flood gourds would be
washed out to sea and then was up on the beach. So the Karankawa were
actually calling the Spaniards "something that washed up on the beach."
It was surprisingly accurate - they were shipwreck survivors.
James Whitehead
"*Anarcissie*" <anarc...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1168450404.9...@o58g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
>
> On the other hand, if you have a set of different sentences
> and an audience who understand the language in which the
> sentences are composed, it is very likely that the audience
> will be able to differentiate between the sentences and, very
> likely, locate them in sets, sequences and other structures.
> This indicates that something _is_ being communicated
> and that although the audience participates in determining
> whatever is communicated it does not create it ex nihilo.
> That in itself does not constitute evidence of an objective
> meaning but it certainly leads in that direction.
>
How do you know the audience are understanding the same thing. If its as
you say its locating them in sets, sequences, a fairly mechanical task then
computers understand - and computers work on having been created with a
purpose to do this... but i think locating them in sets etc is nothing like
understanding. Understanding strikes me more as an interpretation - which
is creative - and so moves away from the idea of an objective meaning. You
only seem able to have objective meaning if such meanings already existed -
and therefore didnt need thinking up. So the idea of 'rice pudding' is and
was always out there for us to discover?
Anarcissie
That I don't know. I'm simply pointing out the rather obvious
fact that people can differentiate between messages and that
messages can differentiate between (among other things)
objects in the physical world, that is, they can represent
things which almost everyone perceives. We are not talking
about understanding or experience here, but reference not
already present in the receiver or audience -- objective
content, in a manner of speaking.
James Whitehead
"Anarcissie" <anarc...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1168544372....@77g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
And i'm saying that there is no objective *content* - how can there be?
01010100 could be data - a colour pixel - a character or an Op Code - by
examining the *contents* of the message we have no way of knowing.
Further that one of the computer hackers tricks is to get the CPU to execute
data- now what is the "objective" content - is it data - or code. Its
certainly entered into the system as data - accepted as such - then becomes
code....
Anarcissie
None of that matters. The problem for those who argue
that messages can have no "objective content" is as I
have stated it -- polyvalence and ambiguity of codes is
irrelevant. I do not claim to know what the form of the
content is, anyway.
steve
blindly formulated
the following incoherence:
> None of that matters. The problem for those who argue
> that messages can have no "objective content" is as I
> have stated it -- polyvalence and ambiguity of codes is
> irrelevant. I do not claim to know what the form of the
> content is, anyway.
If I might interject: The claim is not no "objective content", but rather
no "objective meaning".
Carry on.
moviePig
steve wrote:
> On 11-Jan-2007, smacked up and reeling, "Anarcissie" <anarc...@gmail.com>
> blindly formulated
> the following incoherence:
>
> > None of that matters. The problem for those who argue
> > that messages can have no "objective content" is as I
> > have stated it -- polyvalence and ambiguity of codes is
> > irrelevant. I do not claim to know what the form of the
> > content is, anyway.
>
> If I might interject: The claim is not no "objective content", but rather
> no "objective meaning".
If I might distract:
'Content' is always objective; 'meaning' never is. This is because
'meaning' is extracted (necessarily subjectively) by the
receiver/viewer/audience. Now, if & when the extracted meaning happens
to match the sender/author/artists's intent, then that's a
'coincidence'. And if the coincidence is frequent, then we call it
'communication'... or maybe even 'objective meaning', if it's *really*
frequent.
Meanwhile, 'art', it seems to me, isn't so much a matter of
communicating as it is of inducing 'experience'. Moreover, the
experience is usually one that's new to the experiencer... and who can
be sure what he'll come up with? Even if variability and
uncertertainty weren't already lurking, this new-ness alone would
introduce enough to gum up any would-be artistic "communication".
(Note. btw, that most artists will happily sacrifice a controlled
effect for a more intense one.)
*Anarcissie*
steve wrote:
> On 11-Jan-2007, smacked up and reeling, "Anarcissie" <anarc...@gmail.com>
> blindly formulated
> the following incoherence:
>
> > None of that matters. The problem for those who argue
> > that messages can have no "objective content" is as I
> > have stated it -- polyvalence and ambiguity of codes is
> > irrelevant. I do not claim to know what the form of the
> > content is, anyway.
>
> If I might interject: The claim is not no "objective content", but rather
> no "objective meaning".
>
> Carry on.
No objective meaning-content.
By _meaning_ I mean, refer to, the ability to refer to.
(Hence my introduction of physical objects, or rather,
of the idea of physical objects.) By _objective_ I
mean "the same for all or nearly all observers."
Tedious thought experiment: a dozen reasonably apt,
non-colorblind ten-year-olds; table, with red, yellow,
green, etc., balls. Ask each child to bring red ball.
Most do. Evidently then the request message
contains a reference which was the same for most
observers, therefore must contain objective reference
or meaning.
Bill Johnston
AlanS wrote:
> On 8 Jan 2007 16:26:58 -0800, sirb...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> >traditionalist conservatives love to think of art as some sweatfest
> >where the artist is supposed to copy and glorify the powers that be, or
> >where artists are supposed to compete with each other in serving these
> >middlebrow morons. the moral panic over postmodernism is rather amusing.
>
> attracts lazy artists, wanna be ideaologists and talentless hacks more
> than other movements, since such people find it rather easy to
> camouflage their ineptitude under the blanket of post-modernism.
Yeah, a lot of PM writing strikes me as the ultimate expression of, "if
you can't impress them with your brilliance, baffle them with
bullshit". PM in general seems to be remarkably unrewarding to read in
terms of valuable ideas, relative to the effort required to decode the
writing.
smw
*Anarcissie* wrote:
> steve wrote:
...
>>If I might interject: The claim is not no "objective content", but rather
>>no "objective meaning".
>>
>>Carry on.
>
>
> No objective meaning-content.
>
> By _meaning_ I mean, refer to, the ability to refer to.
> (Hence my introduction of physical objects, or rather,
> of the idea of physical objects.) By _objective_ I
> mean "the same for all or nearly all observers."
>
> Tedious thought experiment: a dozen reasonably apt,
> non-colorblind ten-year-olds; table, with red, yellow,
> green, etc., balls. Ask each child to bring red ball.
> Most do. Evidently then the request message
> contains a reference which was the same for most
> observers, therefore must contain objective reference
> or meaning.
But not to the object if by object you mean the ball; the signified is a
concept abstracted from a sense perception.
Francis A. Miniter
> On 10-Jan-2007, smacked up and reeling, min...@attglobalZZ.net blindly
> formulated
> the following incoherence:
>
>> Steve wrote:
>>>We disagree. Objective fact ("truth" is a better word) exists apart
>>>from perception and belief.
>>
>>
>>The problem with "objective fact" is that it is for the most part
>>unreachable. All we have, in one form or another, is a re-presentation of the fact.
>>Take the Rodney King beating. Both the prosecution and the defense relied heavily
>>on the videotape of the incident. That tape was played over and over and over at
>>trial with both sides attempting to persuade the jury as to what the "objective
>>facts" were.
>
>
> I dont intend to make this thread my full time job, but I'll address this
> point.
>
> I find confusion between the concepts truth and belief to be mystifying.
> Truth is a simple concept: that which is. Perception and belief are human
> mental activities. That truth may be unknowable should be no barrier to
> understanding the difference between truth and belief. In fact, that
> distinction is of paramount importance precisely because of the difficulty
> in knowing truth. You may not know your gas gauge is broken and you may
> believe you have half a tank, but drive long enough and you will run out of
> gas. Time, tide, and truth wait for no man.
First, I did not use the term "belief". Nor did I use "perception". Nor did I
use "truth". Rather I used "objective fact", where you used truth; and I used
re-presentation, meaning some form of recounting or narration, whether aural or
visual, where you used perception or belief. As a lawyer, I care a lot about
evidence, but not much about belief.
Second, I want to comment on your reformulation about truth being unknowable.
Truth is a broader concept than objective fact, which may be just a subset of
truth. Truth would include, for instance, laws of physics and logic and
mathematics in accordance with which objective facts occur, but they are not
objective facts as such. Such laws are clearly knowable. I was concerned only
with the subset of objective facts, by which I mean events that occur in space
and time. Such facts, having occurred, are in my phrasing "unreachable", not
necessarily unknowable, at least not such that nothing at all can be known about
them. By unreachable, I mean that once the instant has passed, there is only
narration left, and sometimes not even that. And the problems with narration
are manifold. First, it is imprecise, using a limited set of symbols drawn from
an historical context that may have left the symbols (words) with baggage that
clouds meaning. Second, the interpreted experiences of the narrator colour the
narration, so that no two narrators sitting side by side and viewing the events
will ever tell the same story. Just sit in any courtroom for a while. Third,
there is the inability to fully observe anything. The Rodney King videotape is
a good example. As good as the tape was, it meant one thing to a Simi Valley
jury and another thing to an L. A. County jury. Each jury thought it could
divine the mental state of the police officers by viewing their actions, and
each jury came to a different conclusion as to those mental states.
I like Eco's formulation in the inner Prologue of "The Name of the Rose", where
Adso narrates: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. This was beginning with God and the duty of every faithful
monk would be to repeat every day with chanting the one never-changing event
whose incontrovertible truth can be asserted. But now we see through a glass
darkly, and the truth, before it is revealed to all, face to face, we see in
fragments (alas, how illegible) in the error of the world, so we must spell out
its faithful signals even when they seem obscure to us and as if amalgamated
with a will wholly bent on evil."
Francis A. Miniter
*Anarcissie*
I'm going along with the very common assumption that
mental objectifications correspond in some reliable way
with features of the physical world, that the physical
world is "real", and that one can refer to it (designate
particular features of it and not others). I agree that
these are assumptions and that we could be brains in
vats, etc.; I was hoping to avoid the usual ontological
and epistemological divagations unless they became
really necessary. Of course, if we are all experiencing
only illusions then there is not much one can say about
the content of messages other than that they, too,
are only illusions.
smw
*Anarcissie* wrote:
I realize that this is what you were doing; it seems to me that the
arguments supporting my take are stronger than the ones supporting this
"common assumption."
> I agree that
> these are assumptions and that we could be brains in
> vats, etc.;
Not only are they "assumptions," they are assumptions proven to be false
over and over again according to the standards of evidence our shared
culture has developed. But you should as always feel free to propagate
your trademark "oh who the hell knows it's all the same anyway" style of
deliberation, though it seems to me particularly unsatisfying to anybody
in possession of, Nietzsche, "that enigmatic truth drive."
ObEssay: take your pick of "Truth and Lie" or "What is it like to be a Bat?"
Lewis Mammel
I don't see that they are incompatible. That is:
"the signified is a concept abstracted from a sense perception."
... and
"mental objectifications correspond in some reliable way
with features of the physical world"
>
> > I agree that
> > these are assumptions and that we could be brains in
> > vats, etc.;
>
> Not only are they "assumptions," they are assumptions proven to be false
> over and over again according to the standards of evidence our shared
> culture has developed.
I can't think what you have in mind here. Certainly not interplanetary
navigation.
> But you should as always feel free to propagate
> your trademark "oh who the hell knows it's all the same anyway" style of
> deliberation, though it seems to me particularly unsatisfying to anybody
> in possession of, Nietzsche, "that enigmatic truth drive."
>
> ObEssay: take your pick of "Truth and Lie" or "What is it like to be a Bat?"
More to the point would be, "What is it like to be dead?". Tell me
you don't believe that the world will survive your own demise.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
James Whitehead
>
> > And i'm saying that there is no objective *content* - how can there be?
> > 01010100 could be data - a colour pixel - a character or an Op Code - by
> > examining the *contents* of the message we have no way of knowing.
> > Further that one of the computer hackers tricks is to get the CPU to
execute
> > data- now what is the "objective" content - is it data - or code. Its
> > certainly entered into the system as data - accepted as such - then
becomes
> > code....
>
> None of that matters. The problem for those who argue
> that messages can have no "objective content" is as I
> have stated it -- polyvalence and ambiguity of codes is
> irrelevant. I do not claim to know what the form of the
> content is, anyway.
>
I'm not sure youve stated it - i certainly cant see it? you seem to see
agreement as a move towards it. I argued that the idea of objective content
though at first appealing has a number of problems. Ambiguity of codes being
one of them- at its extreme this removes communication from us completely in
the sense of objective decoding. A message coded using a one time pad has
content which without the pad impossible to decode - the receiver needs this
pad first - how then do we first communicate this pad - that seems a big
problem - but what i think is more interesting that the idea of objective
content runs counter to the development of communication in the first place
which relies on difference -
*Anarcissie*
You have a strong argument that mental objectifications
have no correspondence with the physical world, or that
the physical world is not real, or that one cannot refer to
features of the physical world? (Notice the absence of
the word _directly_.) How do you explain my thought-
experiment?
> > I agree that
> > these are assumptions and that we could be brains in
> > vats, etc.;
>
> Not only are they "assumptions," they are assumptions proven to be false
> over and over again according to the standards of evidence our shared
> culture has developed. But you should as always feel free to propagate
> your trademark "oh who the hell knows it's all the same anyway" style of
> deliberation, though it seems to me particularly unsatisfying to anybody
> in possession of, Nietzsche, "that enigmatic truth drive."
I am simply recognizing people's ability to throw up
smokescreens of ontological and epistemological
quibbles which I don't want to contest at the moment,
like "We could all be brains in vats," etc.
1Z
Great stuff. So if a creationist quotes SJ Gould,that means he is
really a closet creationist. It's not like they are just making a
mistake, no sirree.
1Z
that's a non-argument. The claim that the "signified is a
concept abstracted from a sense perception" doesn't mean
that objects cannot be referred to, or that sense perceptions
are being referred to instead of objects.
steve
formulated
the following incoherence:
> > I find confusion between the concepts truth and belief to be mystifying.
> >
> > Truth is a simple concept: that which is. Perception and belief are
> > human
> > mental activities. That truth may be unknowable should be no barrier to
> > understanding the difference between truth and belief. In fact, that
> > distinction is of paramount importance precisely because of the
> > difficulty
> > in knowing truth. You may not know your gas gauge is broken and you may
> > believe you have half a tank, but drive long enough and you will run out
> > of
> > gas. Time, tide, and truth wait for no man.
>
>
> First, I did not use the term "belief". Nor did I use "perception". Nor
> did I
> use "truth". Rather I used "objective fact", where you used truth; and I
> used
> re-presentation, meaning some form of recounting or narration, whether
> aural or
> visual, where you used perception or belief. As a lawyer, I care a lot
> about
> evidence, but not much about belief.
And, therefore...?
> Second, I want to comment on your reformulation about truth being
> unknowable.
> Truth is a broader concept than objective fact, which may be just a subset
> of
> truth. Truth would include, for instance, laws of physics and logic and
> mathematics in accordance with which objective facts occur, but they are
> not
> objective facts as such. Such laws are clearly knowable.
Im not sure I agree, nor do I see the relevance of your distinction between
truth and objective fact. Assuming the laws of physics are correct (truth)
then it is objective fact that the behavior of the physical world is
described by those laws. The two are actually one.
Are such laws knowable? Only if the physical world is knowable, and it is
not.
As for math and logic, we agree. Knowable.
> I was concerned only
> with the subset of objective facts, by which I mean events that occur in
> space
> and time. Such facts, having occurred, are in my phrasing "unreachable",
> not
> necessarily unknowable, at least not such that nothing at all can be known
> about
> them. By unreachable, I mean that once the instant has passed, there is
> only
> narration left, and sometimes not even that.
The problem is worse than that. We cannot know that what we sense is real.
We cannot know if we actually have senses, and that there is a physical
world. We can only know that we are (that I am, to be more consistent) a
thinking entity. The rest, we/I (sensibly, in my opinion) accept as true
while properly reserving judgment on our ability to perceive it accurately.
> Third,
> there is the inability to fully observe anything. The Rodney King
> videotape is
> a good example. As good as the tape was, it meant one thing to a Simi
> Valley
> jury and another thing to an L. A. County jury. Each jury thought it
> could
> divine the mental state of the police officers by viewing their actions,
> and
> each jury came to a different conclusion as to those mental states.
Something of a digression: As a lawyer, you must know that the two juries
were charged with different tasks, and the LA jury was given very specific
instructions as to what facts they must find in order to convict the
officers of excessive force (I dont know the specific legal charges). Many
of them said a guilty verdict was made impossible because they were
instructed to identify the specific blows that were excessive, etc.
Back to the discussion: I made my comments about perception/belief vs fact
because your example deals with differing perceptions/beliefs as if they
inform us about fact. And, to be honest, I'm not quite sure where we're
trying to go with this discussion. I'd have to revisit the thread to see
what we're trying to accomplish...which I dont have time to do at the
moment. Sorry...short attention span.
> I like Eco's formulation in the inner Prologue of "The Name of the Rose",
> where
> Adso narrates: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God,
> and
> the Word was God. This was beginning with God and the duty of every
> faithful
> monk would be to repeat every day with chanting the one never-changing
> event
> whose incontrovertible truth can be asserted. But now we see through a
> glass
> darkly, and the truth, before it is revealed to all, face to face, we see
> in
> fragments (alas, how illegible) in the error of the world, so we must
> spell out
> its faithful signals even when they seem obscure to us and as if
> amalgamated
> with a will wholly bent on evil."
Wonderful language. In enjoyed it. Thanks.
steve
1Z
It seems to me that you are completely wrong. Scientific realism
is alive and well.
smw
Lewis Mammel wrote:
If you accet a), you must accept that the correspondence can only be
within the system of perception, not with a world beyond of which we can
know absolutely nothing, least of all whether it is constituted of
distinct "objects."
>>>I agree that
>>>these are assumptions and that we could be brains in
>>>vats, etc.;
>>
>>Not only are they "assumptions," they are assumptions proven to be false
>>over and over again according to the standards of evidence our shared
>>culture has developed.
>
>
> I can't think what you have in mind here. Certainly not interplanetary
> navigation.
You don't need objects an sich for practical purposes of any kind. What
I have in mind is somewhere between Kant, Nietzsche, Saussure and
Nagel's cute bat essay. As I said before, take your pick.
>>ObEssay: take your pick of "Truth and Lie" or "What is it like to be a Bat?"
>
>
> More to the point would be, "What is it like to be dead?". Tell me
> you don't believe that the world will survive your own demise.
I believe that my mental objects will die with me. Apart from that, das
Ganze ist das Wahre.
smw
*Anarcissie* wrote:
> smw wrote:
...
>
>
>>>I agree that
>>>these are assumptions and that we could be brains in
>>>vats, etc.;
>>
>>Not only are they "assumptions," they are assumptions proven to be false
>>over and over again according to the standards of evidence our shared
>>culture has developed. But you should as always feel free to propagate
>>your trademark "oh who the hell knows it's all the same anyway" style of
>>deliberation, though it seems to me particularly unsatisfying to anybody
>>in possession of, Nietzsche, "that enigmatic truth drive."
>
>
> I am simply recognizing people's ability to throw up
> smokescreens of ontological and epistemological
> quibbles which I don't want to contest at the moment,
> like "We could all be brains in vats," etc.
At issue is not your unwillingness to address "we could all be brains in
vats" but what is either your unwillingness or your inability to address
or contest the basic difference between an hypothesized object and its
mental representation.
smw
1Z wrote:
Well, yes, that's what it means.
smw
1Z wrote:
> smw wrote:
...
>>
>>I realize that this is what you were doing; it seems to me that the
>>arguments supporting my take are stronger than the ones supporting this
>>"common assumption."
>
>
> It seems to me that you are completely wrong. Scientific realism
> is alive and well.
As, apparently, is the belief that there will be a moment where the
virtuous will be sucked out of planes while the not-so-virtuous get to
take over the controls. The fact that it is alive and well by no means
implies that it is well-founded. While I may still be completely wrong,
I'd have to be completely wrong for different reasons.
*Anarcissie*
Mental representation of the hypothesized object doesn't
matter. We're merely using "object" as a convenience.
A is sending messages to different instances of B. Each B receives
the messages and acts differently on the features of the physical
world according to features of the messages in such a way that
(almost) all observers observe a correspondence between differing
features of the messages and differing actions upon features of the
physical world. _Features_ is to be understood not as a set of
perhaps dubious objectifications but as a mass noun of
undetermined structure referring to our experience of the world
and requires only that the phenomena of the physical world
not be totally uniform.
What I describe is rather frequently observed, so I am surprised
that anyone is having trouble with it.
Mentation in instances of B is neither required nor prohibited.
B could be a human being, a computer, a dog, a space alien,
a ghost, whatever.