Deconstruction
Puss in Boots
Shane R Hoversten:
> > I was wondering if someone could give me a comprehensible synopsis
> > of what Desconstructionist literary theory is. I tried looking this up in
> > many places and I can't figure out what the hell they're talking about.
> > One book (Oxford Companion to Philosophy) said something like "To say
> > 'Deconstruction is x' is miss entirely the point" or something. Yeah,
> > thanks.
> > Can someone give me a no-bullshit idea of what this theory is
> > about and how it's practiced? Obviously I'm not asking for a
> > comprehensive definition that will stand for all time. But if you could
> > cast a little light, that'd be nice.
"-H." <wh...@virginia.edu>:
> I'm sure to get slamed for this but I would try Jonathon Culler's *On
> Deconstruction* and Terry Ellis' *Against Deconstruction* [...]
I wouldn't slam you for saying that -- but it does make me wonder.
As you've probably found out from Culler, Ellis, or both,
deconstruction is linked to the work of Jacques Derrida, a philosopher,
and the literary criticism of Paul de Man. So wouldn't it make more
sense to send Shane to them? Culler's book is a long, undistinguished
report on Derrida, et al.; Ellis offers a short, uninspired attack.
Somebody interested in learning about the subject would do better, I'd
think, to begin by reading Derrida and de Man than to start with the
accounts provided by their enemies and disciples.
Besides, Shane wants an answer in twenty-five words or less, so I
doubt he's going to be pleased with five hundred pages or so of
reading. Of course, the Oxford folks are right; sorry, Shane, but "To
say "'Deconstruction is x' is to entirely miss the point" _is_ the no-
bullshit idea, and anybody who tells you different is bullshitting.
Assuming that you're not full of shit, you won't mind having a look at
Derrida and de Man, instead of depending on a summary. You don't have
to plow through _Grammatology_, either. Reading a few essays should
give you a sense of what they're up to and how they work -- from there
you can decide if you want to go on.
Here are some of the best starting points: de Man, "Semiology and
Rhetoric," in his _Allegories of Reading_. (Don't be put off by the
title; it really is a good place to begin.) Derrida, "Structure, Sign,
and Play" (the one that started all the fuss, historically); "Force
and Signification" (both in _Writing and Difference_); and "Differance"
(in _Margins of Philosophy_). None of them are very long -- they
average a bit over twenty pages -- so this isn't a lifetime of reading.
And even _one_ of them would give you a notion.
Alternatively, you could begin with something on a topic that you
already know about -- that way you've got a point of reference. For
example, if you're familiar with psychoanalysis, then Derrida's "Freud
and the Scene of Writing" (in _Writing and Difference_) might be a
good place to start. If you know Nietzsche, de Man has several essays
on him in _Allegories of Reading, and Derrida wrote a small book
called _Spurs_. Etc.
-- Moggin
Puss in Boots
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots):
[...]
> > Somebody interested in learning about the subject would do better, I'd
> > think, to begin by reading Derrida and de Man than to start with the
> > accounts provided by their enemies and disciples.
ssco...@sol.uvic.ca (Stephen Scobie/Maureen Scobie):
> I agree. But if you *must* go to the secondary sources, then Christopher
> Norris is still your best bet: "Deconstruction Theory and Practice" (1982)
> and "Derrida" (1987) are both short, readable, careful accounts. They
> might impress on you that deconstruction is an intellectually responsible
> position, and not the kind of wild-eyed anarchic relativism it is too
> often portrayed as.
Got to quarrel with you here. I see Norris the same way as you,
but as far as I'm concerned, he's much _too_ busy denying that
deconstruction is "wild-eyed anarchic relativism," and trying to make
it into "an intellectually responsible position." Screw that. But
since I'm rejecting your suggestion, I ought to supply another one --
so "if you *must* go to the secondary sources," I'd say try _Modern
French Philosophy_, by Vincent Descombes (a nice, lavender paperback).
-- Moggin
Stephen Scobie/Maureen Scobie
In article <moggin-ya02408000...@news.mindspring.com>,
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots) wrote:
> Shane R Hoversten:
>
> > > I was wondering if someone could give me a comprehensible synopsis
> > > of what Desconstructionist literary theory is. I tried looking this up in
> > > many places and I can't figure out what the hell they're talking about.
> > > One book (Oxford Companion to Philosophy) said something like "To say
> > > 'Deconstruction is x' is miss entirely the point" or something. Yeah,
> > > thanks.
>
> > > Can someone give me a no-bullshit idea of what this theory is
> > > about and how it's practiced? Obviously I'm not asking for a
> > > comprehensive definition that will stand for all time. But if you could
> > > cast a little light, that'd be nice.
>
> "-H." <wh...@virginia.edu>:
>
> > I'm sure to get slamed for this but I would try Jonathon Culler's *On
> > Deconstruction* and Terry Ellis' *Against Deconstruction* [...]
>
> I wouldn't slam you for saying that -- but it does make me wonder.
> As you've probably found out from Culler, Ellis, or both,
> deconstruction is linked to the work of Jacques Derrida, a philosopher,
> and the literary criticism of Paul de Man. So wouldn't it make more
> sense to send Shane to them? Culler's book is a long, undistinguished
> report on Derrida, et al.; Ellis offers a short, uninspired attack.
> Somebody interested in learning about the subject would do better, I'd
> think, to begin by reading Derrida and de Man than to start with the
> accounts provided by their enemies and disciples.
I agree. But if you *must* go to the secondary sources, then Christopher
Norris is still your best bet: "Deconstruction Theory and Practice" (1982)
and "Derrida" (1987) are both short, readable, careful accounts. They
might impress on you that deconstruction is an intellectually responsible
position, and not the kind of wild-eyed anarchic relativism it is too
often portrayed as.
>
> Besides, Shane wants an answer in twenty-five words or less, so I
> doubt he's going to be pleased with five hundred pages or so of
> reading. Of course, the Oxford folks are right; sorry, Shane, but "To
> say "'Deconstruction is x' is to entirely miss the point" _is_ the no-
> bullshit idea, and anybody who tells you different is bullshitting.
And there is no "25 words or less" answer anywhere.
> Here are some of the best starting points: de Man, "Semiology and
> Rhetoric," in his _Allegories of Reading_. (Don't be put off by the
> title; it really is a good place to begin.) Derrida, "Structure, Sign,
> and Play" (the one that started all the fuss, historically); "Force
> and Signification" (both in _Writing and Difference_); and "Differance"
> (in _Margins of Philosophy_). None of them are very long -- they
> average a bit over twenty pages -- so this isn't a lifetime of reading.
> And even _one_ of them would give you a notion.
Not bad suggestions, though I think "Structure Sign and Play" has been
given far too much prominence. At a slightly greater length, try
Derrida's "Limited Inc" -- and once you're really hooked, "The Post Card."
Stephen
--
Stephen Scobie Maureen Scobie
Stephanie Tai
In article <moggin-ya02408000...@news.mindspring.com>,
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots) wrote:
> Somebody interested in learning about the subject would do better, I'd
> think, to begin by reading Derrida and de Man than to start with the
> accounts provided by their enemies and disciples.
I suppose so, but then again, I don't go around recommending primary
spectroscopy texts to those outside the field to someone with just a
general passing interest in it. Deconstruction equivalents (as you
mention later) to the sort of "general science" texts we see around has
their place. Not that in general one shouldn't check out the primary
literature for any field, but realistically, does everyone have the chance
to do that? Secondary survey texts are a good tradeoff between balancing
time expended with expanding one's knowledge.
(I have to admit, partly I'm being a bit reactionary because I've been
told, many a time, "Go read Derrida, go read Foucault" when I ask a simple
question like this, whereas when someone asks me a spectroscopy question,
I don't say "Go read Wilson, Decius, and Cross, go read Person and Zerbi"
because I know they're not looking for the detailed information that those
texts would give.)
-steph
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
st...@diamond.tufts.edu st...@alum.mit.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
G*rd*n
| ...
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots) wrote:
| > Besides, Shane wants an answer in twenty-five words or less, so I
| > doubt he's going to be pleased with five hundred pages or so of
| > reading. Of course, the Oxford folks are right; sorry, Shane, but "To
| > say "'Deconstruction is x' is to entirely miss the point" _is_ the no-
| > bullshit idea, and anybody who tells you different is bullshitting.
ssco...@sol.uvic.ca (Stephen Scobie/Maureen Scobie):
| And there is no "25 words or less" answer anywhere.
| ...
So we have three species of writing about Deconstruction.
The first, which attempts to describe it in 25 words or
less, doesn't exist. The second asserts that it can be
described in 25 words or less (I take it this is what 'x'
means) and it is bullshit. Finally, there is the
no-bullshit description, which is longer than 25 words. But
how long? 500 pages suggests that the answer is ten or
twenty million, but we're not told whether this is a minimal
figure. However, it's implied that there is an _n_
somewhere, where descriptions of Deconstruction suddenly
escape into the realm of the possiblity of non-bullshit,
bullshit and non-bullshit being two mutually exclusive
realms of potentiality in the Platonic system.
I have a different idea about this. First of all, it's
clear that Deconstruction can be described in less than 25
words. I'll do it right now: "Deconstruction is a calico
cat." Five words. Is it good? Here is one of the first
problems we encounter: we want the definition to be good for
some purpose. This definition was good for my purpose here,
but it might be less good in an academic environment, or in
a bull session at the local Starbuck's. So before we can
determine _n_ we need to know to what purpose the definition
is going to be put, so we can know what _good_ is. We need
to know what the reader is trying to do. We need to (heh)
_situate_ the act of reading. For some purposes -- a
cocktail party (do they still have them?) 25 words or less
might do quite handily.
"As Derrida has said, 'Deconstruction? C'est un chat a
calicot.'" You could give it a try.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Jeffrey A. Del Col
>
>
>ssco...@sol.uvic.ca (Stephen Scobie/Maureen Scobie):
>> I agree. But if you *must* go to the secondary sources, then Christopher
>> Norris is still your best bet: "Deconstruction Theory and Practice" (1982)
>> and "Derrida" (1987) are both short, readable, careful accounts. They
>> might impress on you that deconstruction is an intellectually responsible
>> position, and not the kind of wild-eyed anarchic relativism it is too
>> often portrayed as.
Indeed, it is the very model of contemporary academic philistinism.
Be prepared to enter a land where nothing is as it seems to be, and
where, with enough practice, you can demonstrate that to be revealed as
a lying nazi collaborator after you are dead (De Man) is a veritable
martyrdom , equal to or perhaps surpassing the
sufferings of the Jews.
Its adherents generally dismiss the reality of any
"authors" except Derrida.
J. Del Col
--
A-B College, Philippi, WV
"...where feeling for a story is absent, theory will not supply it"
--Flannery O'Connor--
Ron Hardin
G*rd*n wrote:
> I have a different idea about this. First of all, it's
> clear that Deconstruction can be described in less than 25
> words. I'll do it right now: "Deconstruction is a calico
> cat." Five words. Is it good? Here is one of the first
That would determine deconstruction as female, which nails it
down excessively
--
Ron Hardin
r...@research.att.com
On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.
Jeanne Ewert
In article <5spkn7$p...@panix2.panix.com>,
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> "As Derrida has said, 'Deconstruction? C'est un chat a
> calicot.'" You could give it a try.
Calico cats are (nearly) always female.
-H.
Puss in Boots wrote:
>
> Shane R Hoversten:
>
> > > I was wondering if someone could give me a comprehensible synopsis
> > > of what Desconstructionist literary theory is. I tried looking this up in
> > > many places and I can't figure out what the hell they're talking about.
> > > One book (Oxford Companion to Philosophy) said something like "To say
> > > 'Deconstruction is x' is miss entirely the point" or something. Yeah,
> > > thanks.
>
> > > Can someone give me a no-bullshit idea of what this theory is
> > > about and how it's practiced? Obviously I'm not asking for a
> > > comprehensive definition that will stand for all time. But if you could
> > > cast a little light, that'd be nice.
>
> "-H." <wh...@virginia.edu>:
>
> > I'm sure to get slamed for this but I would try Jonathon Culler's *On
> > Deconstruction* and Terry Ellis' *Against Deconstruction* [...]
>
> I wouldn't slam you for saying that -- but it does make me wonder.
> As you've probably found out from Culler, Ellis, or both,
> deconstruction is linked to the work of Jacques Derrida, a philosopher,
> and the literary criticism of Paul de Man. So wouldn't it make more
> sense to send Shane to them? Culler's book is a long, undistinguished
> report on Derrida, et al.; Ellis offers a short, uninspired attack.
> think, to begin by reading Derrida and de Man than to start with the
> accounts provided by their enemies and disciples.
>
> doubt he's going to be pleased with five hundred pages or so of
> reading. Of course, the Oxford folks are right; sorry, Shane, but "To
> say "'Deconstruction is x' is to entirely miss the point" _is_ the no-
> bullshit idea, and anybody who tells you different is bullshitting.
> Derrida and de Man, instead of depending on a summary. You don't have
> to plow through _Grammatology_, either. Reading a few essays should
> give you a sense of what they're up to and how they work -- from there
> you can decide if you want to go on.
>
> Rhetoric," in his _Allegories of Reading_. (Don't be put off by the
> title; it really is a good place to begin.) Derrida, "Structure, Sign,
> and Play" (the one that started all the fuss, historically); "Force
> and Signification" (both in _Writing and Difference_); and "Differance"
> (in _Margins of Philosophy_). None of them are very long -- they
> average a bit over twenty pages -- so this isn't a lifetime of reading.
> And even _one_ of them would give you a notion.
>
> already know about -- that way you've got a point of reference. For
> example, if you're familiar with psychoanalysis, then Derrida's "Freud
> and the Scene of Writing" (in _Writing and Difference_) might be a
> good place to start. If you know Nietzsche, de Man has several essays
> on him in _Allegories of Reading, and Derrida wrote a small book
> called _Spurs_. Etc.
>
> -- Moggin
I thought the point was not to direct Shane to a primary source but to
someone with a clear [which may or maynot be accurate] presentation of
what the deconstruction thang was. I think Culler and Ellis do this
very well; plus I think Ellis is hysterically funny. [But maybe that
wasn't intended-But to Hell with authorial intentionality!!! I'm free
free FREE do you hear?! Free of the text!!]
This point has already been made at length in another thread: that is is
probably better and easier to do as you suggest and track down an essay
or two on a subject that interests you. Pretty easy to do with Derrida.
But if people son't want a primary source; What would suggest then?
-H.
G*rd*n
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > "As Derrida has said, 'Deconstruction? C'est un chat a
| > calicot.'" You could give it a try.
jew...@mindspring.com (Jeanne Ewert):
| Calico cats are (nearly) always female.
That's just part of the risk. If you're speaking French,
you're on thin ice. Skate fast.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Ted Samsel
In rec.arts.books Ron Hardin <r...@research.att.com> wrote:
: G*rd*n wrote:
: > I have a different idea about this. First of all, it's
: > clear that Deconstruction can be described in less than 25
: > words. I'll do it right now: "Deconstruction is a calico
: > cat." Five words. Is it good? Here is one of the first
: That would determine deconstruction as female, which nails it
: down excessively
I thought it was the tortoiseshells that were exclusively female.
ObMovie: Cat Ballou
--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net
"do the boogie woogie in the South American way"
Rhumba Boogie- Hank Snow (1955)
Puss in Boots
H:
>I thought the point was not to direct Shane to a primary source but to
>someone with a clear [which may or maynot be accurate] presentation of
>what the deconstruction thang was. I think Culler and Ellis do this
>very well; plus I think Ellis is hysterically funny. [But maybe that
>wasn't intended-But to Hell with authorial intentionality!!! I'm free
>free FREE do you hear?! Free of the text!!]
Agreed on the point; and the best way to present deconstruction is
to recommend places where it's on view. That's exactly what I did by
suggesting some essays by Derrida and de Man (ones that should serve as
good starting-points). I don't see the advantage of reading somebody
else's long-winded description of what de Man and Derrida have written.
H:
>This point has already been made at length in another thread: that is is
>probably better and easier to do as you suggest and track down an essay
>or two on a subject that interests you. Pretty easy to do with Derrida.
>But if people son't want a primary source; What would suggest then?
I gave my choice for a secondary source (Descombes' _Modern French
Philosophy_); but honestly, someone who firmly refuses to read even a
single, short essay just isn't interested -- my suggestion is that they
skip the subject and find something else to divert themselves with.
-- Moggin
Puss in Boots
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots) wrote:
[...]
>> Somebody interested in learning about the subject would do better, I'd
>> think, to begin by reading Derrida and de Man than to start with the
>> accounts provided by their enemies and disciples.
st...@diamond.tufts.edu (Stephanie Tai):
>I suppose so, but then again, I don't go around recommending primary
>spectroscopy texts to those outside the field to someone with just a
>general passing interest in it. Deconstruction equivalents (as you
>mention later) to the sort of "general science" texts we see around has
>their place. Not that in general one shouldn't check out the primary
>literature for any field, but realistically, does everyone have the chance
>to do that? Secondary survey texts are a good tradeoff between balancing
>time expended with expanding one's knowledge.
>(I have to admit, partly I'm being a bit reactionary because I've been
>told, many a time, "Go read Derrida, go read Foucault" when I ask a simple
>question like this, whereas when someone asks me a spectroscopy question,
>I don't say "Go read Wilson, Decius, and Cross, go read Person and Zerbi"
>because I know they're not looking for the detailed information that those
>texts would give.)
The question here, Steph, is, "What is 'deconstruction'"? And the
simple answer is exactly the one I gave -- it's a practice closely
associated with the work of Derrida and de Man. So if you want an idea
of what it looks like in the wild, the best thing is to glance at a
couple or three of their essays. That's a better use of time than your
suggestion of going to the secondary sources, since it means less
reading (twenty-five pages or so an essay vs. three hundred for Culler).
Just as importantly, it lets you see deconstruction at work and play,
instead of making you sit through somebody's long, boring lecture about
it.
If you want to know about deconstruction, the essays of de Man and
Derrida _are_ the information you need -- whoever told you to go read
Derrida was telling you right. Things may be different in the field of
spectroscopy. I wouldn't know about that. (I've proved in the past
that I can't even spell "spectroscopic.") A better analogy would be to
something in the humanities: if a person asked about Emily Dickinson,
you could give them the two-volume Sewall biography and say, "Read up!"
But it might be better to reply, "She's a 19th century poet. Try
reading some of her stuff. _Final Harvest_ is a nice collection. It's
even in paperback. Hope you like it -- let me know what you think."
-- Moggin
Puss in Boots
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots) wrote:
> | > Besides, Shane wants an answer in twenty-five words or less, so I
> | > doubt he's going to be pleased with five hundred pages or so of
> | > reading. Of course, the Oxford folks are right; sorry, Shane, but "To
> | > say "'Deconstruction is x' is to entirely miss the point" _is_ the no-
> | > bullshit idea, and anybody who tells you different is bullshitting.
ssco...@sol.uvic.ca (Stephen Scobie/Maureen Scobie):
> | And there is no "25 words or less" answer anywhere.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n):
> So we have three species of writing about Deconstruction.
> The first, which attempts to describe it in 25 words or
> less, doesn't exist. The second asserts that it can be
> described in 25 words or less (I take it this is what 'x'
> means) and it is bullshit. Finally, there is the
> no-bullshit description, which is longer than 25 words. But
> how long? 500 pages suggests that the answer is ten or
> twenty million, but we're not told whether this is a minimal
> figure. However, it's implied that there is an _n_
> somewhere, where descriptions of Deconstruction suddenly
> escape into the realm of the possiblity of non-bullshit,
> bullshit and non-bullshit being two mutually exclusive
> realms of potentiality in the Platonic system.
It _is_? Where? I see a statement that "To say '"Deconstruction
is x" is to entirely miss the point' _is_ the no-bullshit idea, and
anybody who tells you different is bullshitting." Nothing there about
length, but the plain implication is that "deconstruction is x" is
bullshit at 25 words, or at five hundred pages, or anywhere in between.
> I have a different idea about this. ...
Clearly.
-- Moggin
Jeffrey A. Del Col
In a previous article, g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) says:
>| ...
>>| > Besides, Shane wants an answer in twenty-five words or less, so I
>| > doubt he's going to be pleased with five hundred pages or so of
>| > reading. Of course, the Oxford folks are right; sorry, Shane, but "To
>| > say "'Deconstruction is x' is to entirely miss the point" _is_ the no-
>| > bullshit idea, and anybody who tells you different is bullshitting.
>
>ssco...@sol.uvic.ca (Stephen Scobie/Maureen Scobie):
>| And there is no "25 words or less" answer anywhere.
>
>| ...
>
>
>I have a different idea about this. First of all, it's
>clear that Deconstruction can be described in less than 25
>words. I'll do it right now: "Deconstruction is a calico
>cat." Five words. Is it good? Here is one of the first
>problems we encounter: we want the definition to be good for
>some purpose. This definition was good for my purpose here,
>but it might be less good in an academic environment, or in
>a bull session at the local Starbuck's. So before we can
>determine _n_ we need to know to what purpose the definition
>is going to be put, so we can know what _good_ is. We need
>to know what the reader is trying to do. We need to (heh)
>_situate_ the act of reading. For some purposes -- a
>cocktail party (do they still have them?) 25 words or less
>might do quite handily.
>
>"As Derrida has said, 'Deconstruction? C'est un chat a
>calicot.'" You could give it a try.
>
>
Well, we certainly don't want to privilege the academic realm; nor should
we accept the logocentric demands of prolixity, so I think this
five word formula notion is a good idea. Here's one.
"Jargon salad with French dressing."
Another
"Nihilism with a gallic taint."
G*rd*n
| > | > doubt he's going to be pleased with five hundred pages or so of
| > | > reading. Of course, the Oxford folks are right; sorry, Shane, but "To
| > | > say "'Deconstruction is x' is to entirely miss the point" _is_ the no-
| > | > bullshit idea, and anybody who tells you different is bullshitting.
ssco...@sol.uvic.ca (Stephen Scobie/Maureen Scobie):
| > | And there is no "25 words or less" answer anywhere.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n):
| > So we have three species of writing about Deconstruction.
| > The first, which attempts to describe it in 25 words or
| > less, doesn't exist. The second asserts that it can be
| > described in 25 words or less (I take it this is what 'x'
| > means) and it is bullshit. Finally, there is the
| > no-bullshit description, which is longer than 25 words. But
| > how long? 500 pages suggests that the answer is ten or
| > twenty million, but we're not told whether this is a minimal
| > figure. However, it's implied that there is an _n_
| > somewhere, where descriptions of Deconstruction suddenly
| > escape into the realm of the possiblity of non-bullshit,
| > bullshit and non-bullshit being two mutually exclusive
| > realms of potentiality in the Platonic system.
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots):
| It _is_? Where? I see a statement that "To say '"Deconstruction
| is x" is to entirely miss the point' _is_ the no-bullshit idea, and
| anybody who tells you different is bullshitting." Nothing there about
| length, but the plain implication is that "deconstruction is x" is
| bullshit at 25 words, or at five hundred pages, or anywhere in between.
I interpreted "x" to mean "a brief, precise, quasi-
mathematical term." As you say, it can be interpreted
otherwise -- perhaps more precisely. Along with the sex of
certain cats, it formed the decor of my remarks, which
has proved more entertaining than the point. Such is life
in postmodernity. Or, no, not life -- this is the Net.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
the Robot Vegetable
In rec.arts.books Ted Samsel <te...@sl001.infi.net> wrote:
> In rec.arts.books Ron Hardin <r...@research.att.com> wrote:
> : G*rd*n wrote:
> : > clear that Deconstruction can be described in less than 25
> : > words. I'll do it right now: "Deconstruction is a calico
> : > cat." Five words. Is it good? Here is one of the first
> : That would determine deconstruction as female, which nails it
> : down excessively
> I thought it was the tortoiseshells that were exclusively female.
It's calicos, but not exclusively. There are some males, although
they are usually mules.
Here's my description:
Deconstruction is D, e, c, o, n, s, t r, u c, t i, o, and n.
veg
kabob: _The Human Use of Human Beings_ Weiner
Stephanie Tai
I just want to caveat *everything I say below* that I don't mean anything
as an attack on deconstructionism, these really are questions that I've
been wondering for awhile. I do not mean any of these questions as any
sort of attack on the validity of deconstructionism.
Puss in Boots (mog...@mindspring.com) wrote:
: suggestion of going to the secondary sources, since it means less
: reading (twenty-five pages or so an essay vs. three hundred for Culler).
: Just as importantly, it lets you see deconstruction at work and play,
: instead of making you sit through somebody's long, boring lecture about
: it.
Why do secondary sources necessarily *have* to be long and boring in this
area, as you seem to imply in your last sentence? If that is the case with
the secondary sources out there, I would suggest that that is a problem
the writers of those secondary texts, and not with the nature of secondary
sources in general. If someone can make quantum theory simplified and
interesting, why not deconstruction? You seem to be saying that it is not
possible. Why so? Why can the works of Mundell/Fleming be simplified
into a macroeconomics book, but not Derrida? Why can deGaulle be
simplified into an intro to military strategy book, but not Foucault? Why
can Freud and Jung's works be simplified in an intro to psychology book,
but not Kristeva?
: If you want to know about deconstruction, the essays of de Man and
: Derrida _are_ the information you need -- whoever told you to go read
: Derrida was telling you right. Things may be different in the field of
: spectroscopy. I wouldn't know about that. (I've proved in the past
: that I can't even spell "spectroscopic.") A better analogy would be to
Okay, perhaps then this is where I have misunderstood deconstructionism by
seeing it more analogous to the works of say, economists, psychologists,
anthropologists, than to works of poets and novelists. Yes, I know that
this is debateable as an artificial distinction, and if you think that the
artificiality of this distinction is particularly relevant to this
discussion, let me know.
While I understand the analogy of Emily Dickinson, I had previously
thought that deconstructionism, while invented/revealed/created (I am at a
loss for verbs tonight) by Derrida/de Man and somehow incorporates (again,
at a loss for verbs) Foucault/Lacan, was more analogous to Platonism (vs.
Plato), which I think *can* be understood (in a simplified manner, of
course) by reading summaries. And then, if one is *still* interested,
those summaries could further point to original texts. If I were to ask a
question about Nietzsche, yes, an original text would provide a more
complete understanding of what Nietzsche thought. But there are plenty of
"intro to western philosophy" texts that give all right working summaries
as well.
Anyway, is that it? Is that the "point" at which my "understanding" of
deconstructionism is awry? Because if deconstructionism is more akin to
Dickinson than deGaulle, than I totally see your point.
Puss in Boots
Steph:
> I just want to caveat *everything I say below* that I don't mean anything
> as an attack on deconstructionism, these really are questions that I've
> been wondering for awhile. I do not mean any of these questions as any
> sort of attack on the validity of deconstructionism.
O.k., understood. I'll try to not get my hackles up.
Moggin:
> : suggestion of going to the secondary sources, since it means less
> : reading (twenty-five pages or so an essay vs. three hundred for Culler).
> : Just as importantly, it lets you see deconstruction at work and play,
> : instead of making you sit through somebody's long, boring lecture about
> : it.
Steph:
> Why do secondary sources necessarily *have* to be long and boring in this
> area, as you seem to imply in your last sentence? If that is the case with
> the secondary sources out there, I would suggest that that is a problem
> the writers of those secondary texts, and not with the nature of secondary
> sources in general. If someone can make quantum theory simplified and
> interesting, why not deconstruction? You seem to be saying that it is not
> possible. Why so? Why can the works of Mundell/Fleming be simplified
> into a macroeconomics book, but not Derrida? Why can deGaulle be
> simplified into an intro to military strategy book, but not Foucault? Why
> can Freud and Jung's works be simplified in an intro to psychology book,
> but not Kristeva?
I don't suppose they _have_ to be long and boring. It's a problem
with the people who write them, the people who _read_ them, and more
than likely with the people who publish them. The goal, most often, is
to make things understandable by systematizing them -- a recipe for
tediousness. Or maybe I have it backwards, and the goal is actually to
make things tedious by means of understanding them. After all, a
person with an interest in deconstruction has lots of interesting stuff
to read already, courtesy of Derrida, de Man, et al. So it follows
that _these_ books are for some other audience -- presumably the people
who aren't interested in Derrida, and want to learn about him from a
properly dull account.
Did de Gaulle say very much about military strategy? I never knew
that was one of his strengths. Freud and Jung have been simplified
countless times, with spotty results. And there, too, I have to wonder
about the need. It's a very curious thing. You can get them in
paperback, they're available in translations, and they're in a thousand
libraries and bookstores. They even offer intros to their own work.
Yet people _still_ want them simplified, _still_ insist on explanations,
accounts, summaries and introductions. It's a textual neurosis.
Incidentally, the consensus seems to be that the pop science books
on QM are unreliable, not to say crap. I'm no judge, but I've seen
them criticized countless times by people who know, or claim to, what a
good account would be. So apparently somebody _can't_ make QM
"simplified and interesting," and be accurate about it at the same time.
(Feynman is the only one I've seen even nominated as an exception.)
Could be I've heard wrong, of course. If you know about some good ones,
I'd be interested.
Moggin:
> : If you want to know about deconstruction, the essays of de Man and
> : Derrida _are_ the information you need -- whoever told you to go read
> : Derrida was telling you right. Things may be different in the field of
> : spectroscopy. I wouldn't know about that. (I've proved in the past
> : that I can't even spell "spectroscopic.") A better analogy would be to
Steph:
> Okay, perhaps then this is where I have misunderstood deconstructionism by
> seeing it more analogous to the works of say, economists, psychologists,
> anthropologists, than to works of poets and novelists. Yes, I know that
> this is debateable as an artificial distinction, and if you think that the
> artificiality of this distinction is particularly relevant to this
> discussion, let me know.
Oh, they're all artificial -- but we can use this one for a short
spell, even if we wouldn't want to cling to it indefinitely. With
that understanding I'd say yes: deconstruction belongs on the side with
poetry and literature. Of course, anthropology may be there, too;
ditto for psychology. But that's another debate, isn't it? The object
here is to draw broad distinctions we can blur some other time -- and
in that spirit, I'd lump deconstruction in with the humanities, instead
of the social sciences. Sticking with Derrida and de Man as the two
representative figures, we're in philosophy (Derrida), and lit crit (de
Man).
> While I understand the analogy of Emily Dickinson, I had previously
> thought that deconstructionism, while invented/revealed/created (I am at a
> loss for verbs tonight) by Derrida/de Man and somehow incorporates (again,
> at a loss for verbs) Foucault/Lacan, was more analogous to Platonism (vs.
> Plato), which I think *can* be understood (in a simplified manner, of
> course) by reading summaries. And then, if one is *still* interested,
> those summaries could further point to original texts. If I were to ask a
> question about Nietzsche, yes, an original text would provide a more
> complete understanding of what Nietzsche thought. But there are plenty of
> "intro to western philosophy" texts that give all right working summaries
> as well.
But that's just it: there aren't. Not for Nietzsche, anyhow. He
doesn't fit into a summary, and the ones you'll find are misleading.
Reading Nietzsche would _not_ give you a "more complete understanding."
More the opposite: it would make you realize how little the idea of
a "complete understanding" applies. But it would also give you a small
understanding, at the least, of what Nietzsche is like. And _that's_
something the intro text _wouldn't_ give you _at all_.
Going back to deconstruction, yes: Derrida and de Man are the two
main figures. Derrida coined the term (although he wasn't trying to
name anything with it at the time). Deconstruction doesn't incorporate
Foucault or Lacan, although you can classify Derrida and Foucault as
post-structuralists, along with others like Barthes. Deconstruction is
similar to the Platonic dialogues in that it's a type of performance,
rather than a system, a doctrine, or a methodology. In deconstruction,
though, the performance is a reading.
> Anyway, is that it? Is that the "point" at which my "understanding" of
> deconstructionism is awry? Because if deconstructionism is more akin to
> Dickinson than deGaulle, than I totally see your point.
I haven't read de Gaulle, or even a summary -- I think that I read
_Day of the Jackal_ a long time ago, but I don't remember too well.
Nonetheless, I'll bet that Derrida is more like Dickinson (other things
being equal) than de Gaulle (unless you mean some other de Gaulle, in
which case all bets are off). So yes -- that's it. I wouldn't want to
claim that Derrida much resembles Dickinson. They're nothing alike
(and Derrida can't hold a candle to her, is my opinion) -- but I _would_
say that their work is similar in one, fundamental way: it requires
_reading_, as distinct from summarizing, systematizing, or paraphrasing.
And if you demanded an answer to "deconstruction is X," that's what
I'd say it is -- reading. Closely, with care, patience, attention, and
a willingness to explore the labyrinth without any string.
-- Moggin
G*rd*n
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n):
| > I interpreted "x" to mean "a brief, precise, quasi-
| > mathematical term." As you say, it can be interpreted
| > otherwise -- perhaps more precisely. Along with the sex of
| > certain cats, it formed the decor of my remarks, which
| > has proved more entertaining than the point. Such is life
| > in postmodernity. Or, no, not life -- this is the Net.
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots):
| Just a misunderstanding, then; I could have been more precise --
| I might not have been able to be any _less_ precise than "x." Even
| though it traditionally marks the spot. I'm fully with you about the
| cats. The calicos make a lovely image -- and besides, supposing
| truth is a woman -- what then?
The truth is several women, including at least one somewhat
tipsy Russian. They were at a party I attended last
Thursday evening, on the roof of a building on 25th street.
If only I had known this question was going to arise, I
could have asked them -- "Chto dekonstruktsiya?" Instead,
as the sun went down and the lights rose from the city, I
stared up at the Empire State Building, my own private
Andy Warhol movie, while their voices fluttered and
swooped around me. Written in the air....
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Stephanie Tai
Thanks. I started to realize I was treading on sticky territory. And
thanks for patiently answering my ignant questions. ;)
: make things tedious by means of understanding them. After all, a
: person with an interest in deconstruction has lots of interesting stuff
: to read already, courtesy of Derrida, de Man, et al. So it follows
: that _these_ books are for some other audience -- presumably the people
: who aren't interested in Derrida, and want to learn about him from a
: properly dull account.
Hmmm...I'd forgotten about that alternative. I can think of analogous books
to those, too, with regards to the fields I'm more familiar. I guess I'd
like to express my wish that there were more available than that.
: Did de Gaulle say very much about military strategy? I never knew
: that was one of his strengths. Freud and Jung have been simplified
(So my boyfriend tells me. He's interested in military strategy. He may
mean some other deGaulle, I really shouldn't write to usenet and have a
conversation at the same time. ;)
: about the need. It's a very curious thing. You can get them in
: paperback, they're available in translations, and they're in a thousand
: libraries and bookstores. They even offer intros to their own work.
: Yet people _still_ want them simplified, _still_ insist on explanations,
: accounts, summaries and introductions. It's a textual neurosis.
But you could say the same about *anything*. In most seminal texts, the
original is available, in paperback, in translations, with intros.
Einstein's Relativity is available for everyone to read in many bookstores.
Nevertheless, I think there is the need for summaries/explanations. Is it
neurosis? Maybe. But if such neuroses are so prevalent among the general
readership, then wouldn't it be better to *have* these available so that
people can take baby-steps, should they so neurotically choose?
I agree that Jung and Freud (and Derrida, though I've only *just* (read: on
and off in the last two weeks) aren't impossible to read. However, I do
still see the need for simplified/compendia/explanation/secondary texts.
: (Feynman is the only one I've seen even nominated as an exception.)
: Could be I've heard wrong, of course. If you know about some good ones,
: I'd be interested.
Well, I would've named Feynman. ;) But the fact that it's been done shows
that it's possible. Any simplified text will have its problems, sure. But
I think the benefits of many (exposing people to information/ideas of which
they may have otherwise been ignorant) of such texts outweigh the flaws.
: Oh, they're all artificial -- but we can use this one for a short
: spell, even if we wouldn't want to cling to it indefinitely. With
: that understanding I'd say yes: deconstruction belongs on the side with
: poetry and literature.
Okey doke. This is definitely helpful to my understanding.
: Of course, anthropology may be there, too;
: ditto for psychology. But that's another debate, isn't it? The object
Yeah. :)
: here is to draw broad distinctions we can blur some other time -- and
: in that spirit, I'd lump deconstruction in with the humanities, instead
: of the social sciences. Sticking with Derrida and de Man as the two
: representative figures, we're in philosophy (Derrida), and lit crit (de
: Man).
Okay, I suppose, then, the place where I might have been thrown off is from
the use of the word "theory", which I tend to (wrongly so, it seems)
associate with science (social or otherwise) rather than the humanities.
(Again, all caveats about artificial distinctions applied.)
: doesn't fit into a summary, and the ones you'll find are misleading.
: Reading Nietzsche would _not_ give you a "more complete understanding."
: More the opposite: it would make you realize how little the idea of
: a "complete understanding" applies. But it would also give you a small
It seems that we have different definitons of what a "more complete
understanding" means. To me, realizing how little "the idea of a complete
understanding" applies *does* provide a greater understanding - when you get
a better idea of what you don't know, you've added to a different sort of
knowledge, one that includes an understanding of context/placement. I've
found papers that say "here's an area we need more results in" about as
helpful as papers that say "here's the results."
: Going back to deconstruction, yes: Derrida and de Man are the two
: main figures. Derrida coined the term (although he wasn't trying to
: name anything with it at the time). Deconstruction doesn't incorporate
: Foucault or Lacan, although you can classify Derrida and Foucault as
: post-structuralists, along with others like Barthes. Deconstruction is
: similar to the Platonic dialogues in that it's a type of performance,
: rather than a system, a doctrine, or a methodology. In deconstruction,
: though, the performance is a reading.
No real response except thanks, this is more of the sort of thing I wish
someone would've said to me awhile ago. Context such as this is really
helpful to an "outsider", believe it or not.
: claim that Derrida much resembles Dickinson. They're nothing alike
: (and Derrida can't hold a candle to her, is my opinion) -- but I _would_
No, I understand you're not saying that Derrida resembles Dickinson, just
that in this particular comparison, they're analogous.
: say that their work is similar in one, fundamental way: it requires
: _reading_, as distinct from summarizing, systematizing, or paraphrasing.
What makes something able to be summarized (or more able to be, since it is
probably more of a gradient than a binary opposition?) than something else?
Just wondering. I suppose this is a topic for another thread.
G*rd*n
G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| : The truth is several women,
Ted Samsel <te...@sl001.infi.net>:
| ....who were flying on a Lockheed Electra from Tegucigalpa to San
| Pedro Sula, Honduras. Most were contestants for the Miss Honduras
| pageant in 1974 and were accompanied by their due~nas. There was some
| rough air and most of them began barfing into the handy bags with
| great fervor. The air was awash with the fumes of their concentrated
| Latina foo-foo and the heady stench of recycled breakfast. I was
| amused, though not too hungry.
|
| (Yes, I was there. This is true.)
Did you remember to ask them about decontruction?
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
G*rd*n
Ted Samsel <te...@sl001.infi.net>:
| > | ....who were flying on a Lockheed Electra from Tegucigalpa to San
| > | Pedro Sula, Honduras. Most were contestants for the Miss Honduras
| > | pageant in 1974 and were accompanied by their due~nas. There was some
| > | rough air and most of them began barfing into the handy bags with
| > | great fervor. The air was awash with the fumes of their concentrated
| > | Latina foo-foo and the heady stench of recycled breakfast. I was
| > | amused, though not too hungry.
| > |
| > | (Yes, I was there. This is true.)
G*rd*n wrote:
| > Did you remember to ask them about decontruction?
Ron Hardin <r...@research.att.com>:
| I think it was the Electra that tended to shed a wing, producing
| the first 600 mph commercial airline craters - a rotary instability
| of damaged engine mounts, as I recall; they strengthened the mounts
| and the problem went away, but not the reputation (assuming I have
| the right airplane).
So, as an approach to deconstruction, you recommend J.G.
Ballard?
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
the Robot Vegetable
Ted Samsel <te...@sl001.infi.net>:
....who were flying on a Lockheed Electra from Tegucigalpa to San
Pedro Sula, Honduras. Most were contestants for the Miss Honduras
pageant in 1974 and were accompanied by their due~nas. There was some
rough air and most of them began barfing into the handy bags with
great fervor. The air was awash with the fumes of their concentrated
Latina foo-foo and the heady stench of recycled breakfast. I was
amused, though not too hungry.
I like the story of the woman who had, what do you call it,
lipospewtion, she had her lips surgically enlarged. She took
an airliner somewhere into the air, where the cabin lost a bit of
pressure and her lips blew up.
veg
kabob: _Life's Devices_ Steven Vogel subtitled _The Physical World
of Animals and Plants_. This is a fascinating book I've only dabbled
in, "entertaining and informative book describes how living things
bump up against nonbiological reality.
Jeffrey A. Del Col
In a previous article, g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) says:
>G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>| : The truth is several women,
>
>Ted Samsel <te...@sl001.infi.net>:
>| ....who were flying on a Lockheed Electra from Tegucigalpa to San
>| Pedro Sula, Honduras. Most were contestants for the Miss Honduras
>| pageant in 1974 and were accompanied by their due~nas. There was some
>| rough air and most of them began barfing into the handy bags with
>| great fervor. The air was awash with the fumes of their concentrated
>| Latina foo-foo and the heady stench of recycled breakfast. I was
>| amused, though not too hungry.
>|
>| (Yes, I was there. This is true.)
>
>Did you remember to ask them about decontruction?
>
Indeed, a very important question when flying on an Electra.
(Just because the engine vibes shook the wings off, is that any
reason it wasn't a great airplane?)
Puss in Boots
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n):
> I interpreted "x" to mean "a brief, precise, quasi-
> mathematical term." As you say, it can be interpreted
> otherwise -- perhaps more precisely. Along with the sex of
> certain cats, it formed the decor of my remarks, which
> has proved more entertaining than the point. Such is life
> in postmodernity. Or, no, not life -- this is the Net.
Just a misunderstanding, then; I could have been more precise --
I might not have been able to be any _less_ precise than "x." Even
though it traditionally marks the spot. I'm fully with you about the
cats. The calicos make a lovely image -- and besides, supposing
truth is a woman -- what then?
-- Moggin
Ted Samsel
In rec.arts.books Puss in Boots <mog...@mindspring.com> wrote:
: g...@panix.com (G*rd*n):
Well, does her Dad have a big boat and a deer lease? Will her brother
try to borrow money from you and show up with his rowdy friends and
set the davenport on fire after micturating on the azaleas?
Does she have any sisters? Does her Mom dislike you?
ObBook: Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis
Ted Samsel
In rec.arts.books G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
: g...@panix.com (G*rd*n):
: | > I interpreted "x" to mean "a brief, precise, quasi-
: | > mathematical term." As you say, it can be interpreted
: | > otherwise -- perhaps more precisely. Along with the sex of
: | > certain cats, it formed the decor of my remarks, which
: | > has proved more entertaining than the point. Such is life
: | > in postmodernity. Or, no, not life -- this is the Net.
: mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots):
: | Just a misunderstanding, then; I could have been more precise --
: | I might not have been able to be any _less_ precise than "x." Even
: | though it traditionally marks the spot. I'm fully with you about the
: | cats. The calicos make a lovely image -- and besides, supposing
: | truth is a woman -- what then?
: The truth is several women,
....who were flying on a Lockheed Electra from Tegucigalpa to San
Pedro Sula, Honduras. Most were contestants for the Miss Honduras
pageant in 1974 and were accompanied by their due~nas. There was some
rough air and most of them began barfing into the handy bags with
great fervor. The air was awash with the fumes of their concentrated
Latina foo-foo and the heady stench of recycled breakfast. I was
amused, though not too hungry.
(Yes, I was there. This is true.)
ObBook: El Ciclon by Asturias
Ron Hardin
G*rd*n wrote:> Ted Samsel <te...@sl001.infi.net>:
> | ....who were flying on a Lockheed Electra from Tegucigalpa to San
> | Pedro Sula, Honduras. Most were contestants for the Miss Honduras
> | pageant in 1974 and were accompanied by their due~nas. There was some
> | rough air and most of them began barfing into the handy bags with
> | great fervor. The air was awash with the fumes of their concentrated
> | Latina foo-foo and the heady stench of recycled breakfast. I was
> | amused, though not too hungry.
> |
> | (Yes, I was there. This is true.)
>
I think it was the Electra that tended to shed a wing, producing
the first 600 mph commercial airline craters - a rotary instability
of damaged engine mounts, as I recall; they strengthened the mounts
and the problem went away, but not the reputation (assuming I have
the right airplane).
Ron Hardin
Jeffrey A. Del Col wrote:
> >Did you remember to ask them about decontruction?
> >
>
>
> (Just because the engine vibes shook the wings off, is that any
> reason it wasn't a great airplane?)
The surviving pilots loved it
Jason Stokes
In article <sscobie1-110...@p18-96.dialup.uvic.ca>,
ssco...@sol.uvic.ca (Stephen Scobie/Maureen Scobie) wrote:
> > I wouldn't slam you for saying that -- but it does make me wonder.
> > As you've probably found out from Culler, Ellis, or both,
> > deconstruction is linked to the work of Jacques Derrida, a philosopher,
> > and the literary criticism of Paul de Man. So wouldn't it make more
> > sense to send Shane to them? Culler's book is a long, undistinguished
> > report on Derrida, et al.; Ellis offers a short, uninspired attack.
> > Somebody interested in learning about the subject would do better, I'd
> > think, to begin by reading Derrida and de Man than to start with the
> > accounts provided by their enemies and disciples.
>
> I agree.
The irony is, when it's deconstructionists attacking science in long,
furious tracts they don't tell you "go read the primary sources before you
listen to us." No, it's enough that you read their book.
--
Jason Stokes: j.stokes (at) bohm.anu.edu.au
I use a spam block (annoying but effective.)
Replace (at) with @ to discover my email address.
.sigvert:
Linux, the free operating system -- <http://www.linux.org>
Jeffrey A. Del Col
In a previous article, r...@research.att.com (Ron Hardin) says:
>Jeffrey A. Del Col wrote:
>> >Did you remember to ask them about decontruction?
>> >
>>
>> Indeed, a very important question when flying on an Electra.
>>
>> (Just because the engine vibes shook the wings off, is that any
>> reason it wasn't a great airplane?)
>
>The surviving pilots loved it
True, once the boys at Lockheed got that one little bug fixed,
the Electra was considered a sweet ship to fly.
They are still around, both as commerical haulers on Marginal Airways
everywhere,(thoroughly appropiate so far as decon goes)
and as the P3V Orion anti-submarine patrol craft--though the
P3V has a shorter, somewhat tubbier fuselage.
I used to watch modified Electras taking off and landing at Cleveland
in the 1960's. Those ships belonged to Lake Havasu City and were used
to ferry potential home buyers to and from LHC.
Ob book: --the Oberver's Book of Aircraft--1958 edition
Ron Hardin
Jeffrey A. Del Col wrote:
>
> In a previous article, r...@research.att.com (Ron Hardin) says:
>
> >Jeffrey A. Del Col wrote:
> >> >Did you remember to ask them about decontruction?
> >> >
> >>
> >> Indeed, a very important question when flying on an Electra.
> >>
> >> (Just because the engine vibes shook the wings off, is that any
> >> reason it wasn't a great airplane?)
> >
> >The surviving pilots loved it
>
> True, once the boys at Lockheed got that one little bug fixed,
> the Electra was considered a sweet ship to fly.
They liked it before too; a tendency to auger in came up
now and then, is all.
G*rd*n
G*rd*n (g...@panix.com) wrote:
| : I interpreted "x" to mean "a brief, precise, quasi-
| : mathematical term." As you say, it can be interpreted
| : otherwise -- perhaps more precisely. Along with the sex of
| : certain cats, it formed the decor of my remarks, which
| : has proved more entertaining than the point. Such is life
| : in postmodernity. Or, no, not life -- this is the Net.
tw...@mercury.thepoint.net (David Lynch):
| I'd just like to say that G*rd*n here is doing the best parody of
| postmodernism I've ever seen. Completely cracks me up.
It's not a parody. It's the real thing.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Puss in Boots
Shane:
> > Can someone give me a no-bullshit idea of what this theory is
> > about and how it's practiced? Obviously I'm not asking for a
> > comprehensive definition that will stand for all time. But if you could
> > cast a little light, that'd be nice.
"-H." <wh...@virginia.edu>:
> I'm sure to get slamed for this but I would try Jonathon Culler's *On
> Deconstruction* and Terry Ellis' *Against Deconstruction* [...]
Moggin:
> > I wouldn't slam you for saying that -- but it does make me wonder.
> > As you've probably found out from Culler, Ellis, or both,
> > deconstruction is linked to the work of Jacques Derrida, a philosopher,
> > and the literary criticism of Paul de Man. So wouldn't it make more
> > sense to send Shane to them? Culler's book is a long, undistinguished
> > report on Derrida, et al.; Ellis offers a short, uninspired attack.
> > Somebody interested in learning about the subject would do better, I'd
> > think, to begin by reading Derrida and de Man than to start with the
> > accounts provided by their enemies and disciples.
> The irony is, when it's deconstructionists attacking science in long,
> furious tracts they don't tell you "go read the primary sources before you
> listen to us." No, it's enough that you read their book.
Reading doesn't seem to be one of your strengths. I didn't tell
you what to read: I suggested some good starting points for anyone
interested in the subject of deconstruction. In specfic, I mentioned
three or four essays by Derrida and de Man, because I think that
you'll get a better sense of their work from reading them than you'll
get from reading what somebody wants to tell you about them. Of
course you'll read what you choose.
In any case, Derrida and de Man don't have one "long, furious"
tract attacking science between them, and it's not clear who else you
might mean. If you're going to criticize "deconstructionists
attacking science in long, furious tracts," how about naming them and
citing the tracts you're referring to? (Remember, you're talking
about deconstructionists, in particular.)
-- Moggin
Ted Samsel
In rec.arts.books Jeffrey A. Del Col <br...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu> wrote:
: Well, we certainly don't want to privilege the academic realm; nor should
: we accept the logocentric demands of prolixity, so I think this
: five word formula notion is a good idea. Here's one.
: "Jargon salad with French dressing."
: Another
: "Nihilism with a gallic taint."
Do they come with fries?
ObBook: Crazy In Berlin by Thomas Burger...
G*rd*n
| > > As you've probably found out from Culler, Ellis, or both,
| > > deconstruction is linked to the work of Jacques Derrida, a philosopher,
| > > and the literary criticism of Paul de Man. So wouldn't it make more
| > > sense to send Shane to them? Culler's book is a long, undistinguished
| > > report on Derrida, et al.; Ellis offers a short, uninspired attack.
| > > Somebody interested in learning about the subject would do better, I'd
| > > think, to begin by reading Derrida and de Man than to start with the
| > > accounts provided by their enemies and disciples.
| >
j.st...@bogus-address.anu.edu.au (Jason Stokes):
| The irony is, when it's deconstructionists attacking science in long,
| furious tracts they don't tell you "go read the primary sources before you
| listen to us." No, it's enough that you read their book.
They're not supposed to. It's the _attackee_ who is
supposed to tell you to read the primary sources, and in
fact that's just what we've observed from science fans when
science is attacked, or rather, allegedly attacked, since
it's in fact not attacked _per_se_ very often. (If you know
of any long, furious tracts you ought to post some cites --
they might be amusing.) I think you get about the same
behavior from fandom in general. The Urtexts represent the
pristine, ineffable heights from which the divine afflatus
flows. Down on Marx, and haven't read _Das_Kapital_? Hmph.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Ron Hardin
> j.st...@bogus-address.anu.edu.au (Jason Stokes):
> | But, ummm, science is the embodiment of (phal)logocentrism and oppressive
> | forms of binary logic, don't ya know? It's a tired epistemé in a state of
> | crisis upon transition to the postmodern age.
The diacritical marks go flooey when an episteme gets tired
Jason Stokes
>in fact that's just what we've observed from science fans when science is
>attacked, or rather, allegedly attacked, since it's in fact not attacked
>_per_se_ very often.
But, ummm, science is the embodiment of (phal)logocentrism and oppressive
forms of binary logic, don't ya know? It's a tired epistemé in a state of
crisis upon transition to the postmodern age.
>(If you know of any long, furious tracts you ought to post some cites --
>they might be amusing.)
It's all to do with the famous "science wars" as mentioned in the book
"Higher Superstition", and of course the "Alan Sokal commemoration edition"
of "Social Text."
>I think you get about the same behavior from fandom
>in general. The Urtexts represent the pristine, ineffable heights from
>which the divine afflatus flows. Down on Marx, and haven't read
>_Das_Kapital_?
Sure. I've read "The Poverty of Historicism" instead.
john konopak
Jheez whiz, moggin. good poste-carte. Wish I wuz there.
Less seriously: con su permiso, I'd like to anthologize this in my
collection of post-... tostados. You may defer, demur-ly, n'est pas?
Thanks
konopak
--
?_
Puss in Boots
Moggin:
> > Freud and Jung have been simplified
> > countless times, with spotty results. And there, too, I have to wonder
> > about the need. It's a very curious thing. You can get them in
> > paperback, they're available in translations, and they're in a thousand
> > libraries and bookstores. They even offer intros to their own work.
> > Yet people _still_ want them simplified, _still_ insist on explanations,
> > accounts, summaries and introductions. It's a textual neurosis.
Steph:
> But you could say the same about *anything*.
And it might be true about anything. I don't know if it applies to
_everything_, but there are plenty of cases.
> In most seminal texts, the
> original is available, in paperback, in translations, with intros.
> Einstein's Relativity is available for everyone to read in many bookstores.
> Nevertheless, I think there is the need for summaries/explanations. Is it
> neurosis? Maybe. But if such neuroses are so prevalent among the general
> readership, then wouldn't it be better to *have* these available so that
> people can take baby-steps, should they so neurotically choose?
They _are_ available, in practice, and I don't think that it's been
much for the better. But then, what has? Anyway, _I'm_ the one who's
suggesting small bites, remember? H. recommended a couple of big chunks
(Culler's three-hundred page opus and Ellis' book, which adds about
another two hundred). My advice was to begin with a few short essays by
Derrida and de Man (especially the ones I named).
> I agree that Jung and Freud (and Derrida, though I've only *just* (read: on
> and off in the last two weeks) aren't impossible to read. However, I do
> still see the need for simplified/compendia/explanation/secondary texts.
Maybe I'd better clarify: I don't mean to imply that it's necessary
to read Derrida in silence and isolation. I'm suggesting that anybody
who wants to learn about his work would do well to begin by reading some
of it, even just a couple of essays, instead of relying on second-hand
accounts -- that doesn't mean you have to _ignore_ other sources of info.
[...]
Moggin:
> : The object
> : here is to draw broad distinctions we can blur some other time -- and
> : in that spirit, I'd lump deconstruction in with the humanities, instead
> : of the social sciences. Sticking with Derrida and de Man as the two
> : representative figures, we're in philosophy (Derrida), and lit crit (de
> : Man).
Steph:
> Okay, I suppose, then, the place where I might have been thrown off is from
> the use of the word "theory", which I tend to (wrongly so, it seems)
> associate with science (social or otherwise) rather than the humanities.
> (Again, all caveats about artificial distinctions applied.)
Now I see what's up. "Theory" is the catch-all you mentioned that
includes deconstruction, post-structuralism, Derrida, Foucault, etc. --
the whole nine yards. (Same goes for that other favorite, "post-
modernism.") But "theory" here doesn't have the same meaning as in the
sciences -- it doesn't refer to the process of building and testing
models. The easiest way to understand the meaning of "theory" would be
to read it as "philosophy." That obscures some arguably important
distinctions, but never mind -- "theory" is short for "critical theory"
and "literary theory," which you could reasonably translate as
"philosophy of..." Building scientific theories isn't a parallel -- a
better analogy would be to reflecting on the way they're built, what
they mean, and so on (i.e., the philosophy of science).
[...]
Steph:
> No real response except thanks, this is more of the sort of thing I wish
> someone would've said to me awhile ago. Context such as this is really
> helpful to an "outsider", believe it or not.
I believe it, and I'm happy to offer whatever help I can -- if you
have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask. There are probably
three or four people here, maybe more, who would be glad to fill you in.
-- Moggin
G*rd*n
G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| >in fact that's just what we've observed from science fans when science is
| >attacked, or rather, allegedly attacked, since it's in fact not attacked
| >_per_se_ very often.
j.st...@bogus-address.anu.edu.au (Jason Stokes):
| But, ummm, science is the embodiment of (phal)logocentrism and oppressive
| forms of binary logic, don't ya know? It's a tired epistemé in a state of
| crisis upon transition to the postmodern age.
Well, I know _my_ phallogocenter often becomes tired sooner
than I'd like, so I imagine science's episteme might have
the same problem.
G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| >(If you know of any long, furious tracts you ought to post some cites --
| >they might be amusing.)
j.st...@bogus-address.anu.edu.au (Jason Stokes):
| It's all to do with the famous "science wars" as mentioned in the book
| "Higher Superstition", and of course the "Alan Sokal commemoration edition"
| of "Social Text."
Oh, dear, these horse carcasses have long been flogged to
dust. Come on, we want some new stuff.
G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| >I think you get about the same behavior from fandom
| >in general. The Urtexts represent the pristine, ineffable heights from
| >which the divine afflatus flows. Down on Marx, and haven't read
| >_Das_Kapital_?
j.st...@bogus-address.anu.edu.au (Jason Stokes):
| Sure. I've read "The Poverty of Historicism" instead.
And you don't _believe_, do you? Q.E.D.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Puss in Boots
Gordon:
> >(If you know of any long, furious tracts you ought to post some cites --
> >they might be amusing.)
Jason:
> It's all to do with the famous "science wars" as mentioned in the book
> "Higher Superstition", and of course the "Alan Sokal commemoration edition"
> of "Social Text."
_Higher Superstition_ and Sokal's hoax are both attacks on parts
of the humanities -- which means that you still haven't named any
"long, furious tracts" written by deconstructionists in attack on the
sciences. A shame -- I'd like to hear about them. Care to try
again?
-- Moggin
G*rd*n
Gordon:
| > >(If you know of any long, furious tracts you ought to post some cites --
| > >they might be amusing.)
Jason:
| > It's all to do with the famous "science wars" as mentioned in the book
| > "Higher Superstition", and of course the "Alan Sokal commemoration edition"
| > of "Social Text."
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots):
| _Higher Superstition_ and Sokal's hoax are both attacks on parts
| of the humanities -- which means that you still haven't named any
| "long, furious tracts" written by deconstructionists in attack on the
| sciences. A shame -- I'd like to hear about them. Care to try
| again?
Oh, don't be so picky. I'd be satisfied with _any_ long,
furious tract, whether it was written by a deconstructionist
or calico cat. Jason is just being mean; he's probably got
a whole box of them hidden away.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Daniel Weiskopf
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots) writes:
> Incidentally, the consensus seems to be that the pop science books
> on QM are unreliable, not to say crap. I'm no judge, but I've seen
> them criticized countless times by people who know, or claim to, what a
> good account would be. So apparently somebody _can't_ make QM
> "simplified and interesting," and be accurate about it at the same time.
> (Feynman is the only one I've seen even nominated as an exception.)
> Could be I've heard wrong, of course. If you know about some good ones,
> I'd be interested.
_Quantum Mechanics and Experience_, by David Z. Albert. Albert,
formerly a practicing physicist, is now a professor of philosophy.
This isn't "pop science" exactly, but it is an excellent introduction
to the apparent paradoxes of quantum mechanics for those who lack the
mathematical background to deal with the theory in its pure form (this
includes me). It does introduce a simplified vector formalism to
demonstrate how the algorithms of quantum mechanics operate; this
should be easily understood by anyone who is capable of handling
elementary first-order predicate logic. The chapters are as follows:
"Superposition", "The Mathematical Formalism and the Standard Way of
Thinking About It", "Nonlocality", "The Measurement Problem", "The
Collapse of the Wave Function", "The Dynamics by Itself", "Bohm's
Theory", "Self-Measurement". Published by Harvard University Press,
1992.
--
Daniel Weiskopf
Department of Philosophy
Brown University
Jason Stokes
> Jason:
> | > It's all to do with the famous "science wars" as mentioned in the book
> | > "Higher Superstition", and of course the "Alan Sokal commemoration
edition"
> | > of "Social Text."
>
> mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots):
> | _Higher Superstition_ and Sokal's hoax are both attacks on parts
> | of the humanities -- which means that you still haven't named any
> | "long, furious tracts" written by deconstructionists in attack on the
> | sciences.
No, the "Science Wars" edition of "Social Texts" specifically deals with
"The Science Wars", and has some moderately hostile texts on science, and
cites lots more. So does the book "Higher Superstition." I'm citing some
books which have cites. And I've encountered a science-hostile genre of
advocacy research called "feminist research", which was used by some ACT
social workers to demonstrate Canberra is rife with satanic sexual abuse.
Not all of the science-hostile tracts of our times use deconstruction of
course,
but they all fall into the general postmodern genre.
> Jason is just being mean; he's probably got
> a whole box of them hidden away.
Oh, you're calling me a liar are you?
Puss in Boots
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n):
> | > >(If you know of any long, furious tracts you ought to post some cites --
> | > >they might be amusing.)
Jason:
>|> It's all to do with the famous "science wars" as mentioned in the book
>|> "Higher Superstition", and of course the "Alan Sokal commemoration edition"
>|> of "Social Text."
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots):
> | _Higher Superstition_ and Sokal's hoax are both attacks on parts
> | of the humanities -- which means that you still haven't named any
> | "long, furious tracts" written by deconstructionists in attack on the
> | sciences. A shame -- I'd like to hear about them. Care to try
> | again?
Gordon:
> Oh, don't be so picky. I'd be satisfied with _any_ long,
> furious tract, whether it was written by a deconstructionist
> or calico cat. Jason is just being mean; he's probably got
> a whole box of them hidden away.
I'm not familiar with a large number of cat-written tracts --
_Kater Murr_ is one, although it's not especially furious, and there
are probably others. (The RABble will know -- they always do.) I
wonder if some Wittgenstein would be good enough? He doesn't write
long, but I don't think that's a fault -- and while you can't really
describe him as _furious_, he's an awful alot less than pleased.
"The hysterical fear of the atom bomb now being experienced, or at
any rate expressed [1946], by the general public almost suggests that
something really salutary has been invented. The fright at least gives
the impression of a really effective bitter medicine. I can't help
thinking: if this didn't have something good about it the _philistines_
wouldn't be making an outcry. But perhaps this too is a childish idea.
Because really all I can mean is that the bomb offers a prospect of the
end, the destruction, of an evil, -- our disgusting soapy water science.
And certainly that's not an unpleasant thought; but who can say what
would come _after_ this destruction?"
...
"The truly apocalyptic view of the world is that things do _not_
repeat themselves. It isn't absurd, e.g., to believe that the age of
science and technology is the beginning of the end for humanity; that
the idea of great progress is a delusion, along with the idea that the
truth will ultimately be known; that there is nothing good or desirable
about scientific knowledge and that mankind, in seeking it, is falling
into a trap. It is by no means obvious that this is not how things are."
...
"Science and industry, and their progress, might turn out to be the
most enduring thing in the modern world. Perhaps any speculation about
a coming collapse of science and industry is, for the present and for a
_long_ time to come, nothing but a dream; perhaps science and industry,
having caused infinite misery in the process, will unite the world -- I
mean condense it into a _single_ unit, though one in which peace is the
last thing that will find a home.
Because science and industry do decide wars, or so it seems."
(Wittgenstein, _On Culture and Value_, 48 56 63.)
-- Moggin
Puss in Boots
Jason:
>>|> It's all to do with the famous "science wars" as mentioned in the book
>>|> "Higher Superstition", and of course the "Alan Sokal commemoration
>>|edition" of "Social Text."
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots):
> > | _Higher Superstition_ and Sokal's hoax are both attacks on parts
> > | of the humanities -- which means that you still haven't named any
> > | "long, furious tracts" written by deconstructionists in attack on the
> > | sciences.
Jason:
> No, the "Science Wars" edition of "Social Texts" specifically deals with
> "The Science Wars", and has some moderately hostile texts on science, and
> cites lots more. So does the book "Higher Superstition."
So as I said, you still haven't named any "long, furious tracts"
written by deconstructionists attacking science -- the total so far
is none. If you want to criticize any, particular article you saw in
_Social Text_, go ahead. It might be interesting to hear what you
have to say. But you began by talking about some "deconstructionists
attacking science in long, furious tracts." That was intriguing --
but now it seems you can't come up with the goods.
[...]
> Not all of the science-hostile tracts of our times use deconstruction of
> course, but they all fall into the general postmodern genre.
Be honest, Jason: you have yet to mention one, single, "science-
hostile tract" (specifically of the long, furious variety) that's
written by a deconstructionist. I don't say it's impossible that one
could exist. There could even be many, as you implied. I'd
certainly be interested in learning about them -- but you have yet to
give a solitary example.
-- Moggin
mj devaney
Puss in Boots wrote:
>
> g...@panix.com (G*rd*n):
>
> > I interpreted "x" to mean "a brief, precise, quasi-
> > mathematical term." As you say, it can be interpreted
> > otherwise -- perhaps more precisely. Along with the sex of
> > certain cats, it formed the decor of my remarks, which
> > has proved more entertaining than the point. Such is life
> > in postmodernity. Or, no, not life -- this is the Net.
>
> I might not have been able to be any _less_ precise than "x." Even
> though it traditionally marks the spot. I'm fully with you about the
> cats. The calicos make a lovely image -- and besides, supposing
> truth is a woman -- what then?
Well, then, it would be time to subvert that and suppose instead that it
is a man.
--MJ
mj devaney
Puss in Boots wrote:
>
> The question here, Steph, is, "What is 'deconstruction'"? And the
> simple answer is exactly the one I gave -- it's a practice closely
> associated with the work of Derrida and de Man. So if you want an idea
> of what it looks like in the wild, the best thing is to glance at a
> couple or three of their essays.
Shane, I'll give it to you straight: you can't read Derrida or de Man to
find out what deconstruction is because they don't practice it. Well,
let me qualify that--because Derrida occasionally indulges in silly
pseudo-philosophical posturing on the subject of deconstruction, in,
e.g., _Positions_, you can read Derrida to find out what deconstruction
is. But when he isn't doing that, he's mostly doing what literary
critics refer to as "close reading," with which no methodology is
associated except that of, well, closely reading texts. Ditto de Man.
> A better analogy would be to
> something in the humanities: if a person asked about Emily Dickinson,
> you could give them the two-volume Sewall biography and say, "Read up!"
> But it might be better to reply, "She's a 19th century poet. Try
> reading some of her stuff. _Final Harvest_ is a nice collection. It's
> even in paperback. Hope you like it -- let me know what you think."
Not really a great analogy, Puss, since you can't ascertain what it is
that the word "deconstruction" is suppose to signify by reading
Derrida's or de Man's work. You may well form an opinion about the
quality of their work by reading it, but it's just not going to happen
that you spontaneously think to yourself: "it's got that certain 'je ne
sais quoi' that a term of art like 'deconstruction' just beautifully
captures!"
--MJD
Jason Stokes
In article <moggin-ya02408000...@news.mindspring.com>, Puss in
Boots <mog...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> Be honest, Jason: you have yet to mention one, single, "science-
>hostile tract" (specifically of the long, furious variety) that's
>written by a deconstructionist.
Oh well, if you can't be bothered to follow up a couple of references,
there's nothing I can do for you. I don't live for the science/anti-science
debate, and I don't have the time to dig through issues of "social text"
right now. Perhaps later.
Be honest, Pussy; I think you already know all about anti-science feelings
in the humanities. And as far as "furious" goes, all deconstructionist
writings, to me, have a measure of fury simply by virtue of their employment
of condemnatory moralistic language: "violence", "logocentrism",
"oppression", etc.
Puss in Boots
Moggin:
> > The question here, Steph, is, "What is 'deconstruction'"? And the
> > simple answer is exactly the one I gave -- it's a practice closely
> > associated with the work of Derrida and de Man. So if you want an idea
> > of what it looks like in the wild, the best thing is to glance at a
> > couple or three of their essays.
MJ:
> Shane, I'll give it to you straight: you can't read Derrida or de Man to
> find out what deconstruction is because they don't practice it. Well,
> let me qualify that--because Derrida occasionally indulges in silly
> pseudo-philosophical posturing on the subject of deconstruction, in,
> e.g., _Positions_, you can read Derrida to find out what deconstruction
> is. But when he isn't doing that, he's mostly doing what literary
> critics refer to as "close reading," with which no methodology is
> associated except that of, well, closely reading texts. Ditto de Man.
There you are -- deconstruction _is_ a species of close reading --
in particular, the type practiced by Derrida and de Man. So good
advice for anyone who wants to find out about it is take a look -- i.e.,
a look at some of their essays. Of course, some of them make better
entryways than others: that's why I recommended three or four I thought
were good places to begin. I'm glad you mentioned _Positions_ -- it
has interviews from around the same time as the essays that I suggested,
and helps clarify them.
I'll also mention de Man's "Resistance to Theory" (easily found in
_The Resistance to Theory_), where he talks about the responses to
deconstruction and other parts of the "ill-defined and somewhat chaotic
field of literay theory," as its developed since the 60's. Worth a
look for anyone interested in the subject.
Moggin:
> > A better analogy would be to
> > something in the humanities: if a person asked about Emily Dickinson,
> > you could give them the two-volume Sewall biography and say, "Read up!"
> > But it might be better to reply, "She's a 19th century poet. Try
> > reading some of her stuff. _Final Harvest_ is a nice collection. It's
> > even in paperback. Hope you like it -- let me know what you think."
MJ:
> Not really a great analogy, Puss, since you can't ascertain what it is
> that the word "deconstruction" is suppose to signify by reading
> Derrida's or de Man's work. You may well form an opinion about the
> quality of their work by reading it, but it's just not going to happen
> that you spontaneously think to yourself: "it's got that certain 'je ne
> sais quoi' that a term of art like 'deconstruction' just beautifully
> captures!"
And your objection to the analogy is...what? I've never found any
quality that the name "Dickinson" perfectly captures -- or the term
"poetry," for that matter. Nonetheless, if you ask me about Dickinson,
I'll suggest you read some of her work. ("Poems," they're called,
what she wrote. Also some other things called "letters" -- but just go
ahead and read, I'd say. Worry about the terms-of-art later.) If
you're interested in deconstruction, ditto -- best to begin with de Man
and Derrida.
-- Moggin
Puss in Boots
Moggin:
> Be honest, Jason: you have yet to mention one, single, "science-
>hostile tract" (specifically of the long, furious variety) that's
>written by a deconstructionist.
Jason:
>Oh well, if you can't be bothered to follow up a couple of references,
>there's nothing I can do for you.
You could, in theory, support your assertion about long furious
science-hostile tracts written by deconstructionists by giving examples
-- three or four would be good, one would be more than you've come up
with. And there's my point -- in practice, you've completely failed to
produce any of those items. Which is too bad -- they sound as though
they might have been interesting.
> I don't live for the science/anti-science debate ...
I would hope not. But then why did you introduce it? This is, or
was a discussion about deconstruction, until you decided to start
arguing about science, and "science-hostile tracts," and all that sort
of thing.
>... and I don't have the time to dig through issues of "social text"
>right now. Perhaps later.
You cited the famous "Science Wars" issue, in particular -- and
that doesn't have any long, furious, science-hostile tracts written by
deconstructionists.
>Be honest, Pussy; I think you already know all about anti-science feelings
>in the humanities.
Sure -- I just posted several remarks of Wittgenstein's, where he
attacks "our disgusting soapy water science" and says that it's
pleasant to think of it being destroyed. (He says a few other things,
too.) But you were talking specifically about deconstruction as a
source of long, furious, anti-science tracts -- not merely about vague
"anti-science feelings" located somewhere in the humanities.
> And as far as "furious" goes, all deconstructionist
>writings, to me, have a measure of fury simply by virtue of their
>employment of condemnatory moralistic language: "violence",
>"logocentrism", "oppression", etc.
Debatable; also irrelevant -- you didn't talk about "a measure of
fury." Instead, you complained about long, furious tracts, hostile
to science, written by deconstructionists. But you haven't produced a
single one.
-- Moggin
G*rd*n
Jason:
| > And as far as "furious" goes, all deconstructionist
| >writings, to me, have a measure of fury simply by virtue of their
| >employment of condemnatory moralistic language: "violence",
| >"logocentrism", "oppression", etc.
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots):
| Debatable; also irrelevant -- you didn't talk about "a measure of
| fury." Instead, you complained about long, furious tracts, hostile
| to science, written by deconstructionists. But you haven't produced a
| single one.
Let us not hold Jason to a tedious facticity. In the spirit
of the mythopoeia of heroes out of a confusion of disparate
memories, of the Lost Chord and the One That Got Away, might
there not be as well a virtual Ur-text, a long furious tract,
hostile to science, written by a deconstructionist? In
Heaven if not on Earth, preparing to manifest itself in the
fullness of Time.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Andy Lowry
On Sat, 16 Aug 1997, mj devaney wrote:
> Not really a great analogy, Puss, since you can't ascertain what it is
> that the word "deconstruction" is suppose to signify by reading
> Derrida's or de Man's work. You may well form an opinion about the
> quality of their work by reading it, but it's just not going to happen
> that you spontaneously think to yourself: "it's got that certain 'je ne
> sais quoi' that a term of art like 'deconstruction' just beautifully
> captures!"
I see the point, but this is just a good reason to read 2 or 3 things by
de Man, not just one. You can then get a feel for that vertiginous
moment. Moggin's recommended "Semiology & Rhetoric" & "The Resistance to
Theory," which ought to give a sense for how de Man's mind works
"deconstructively." Except that people to this day insist on reading the
last paragraphs of "S & R" without the slightest trace of irony ... or are
they really just reading Frank Lentricchia _on_ "S & R"? I often suspect
the latter.
If somebody wanted a quick example of a deconstruction, I'd tend to cite
that moment in "What Is Metaphysics?" when Heidegger pulls the Nothing out
of the hat. It might technically not be a full-fledged deconstruction,
but it has that "je ne sais quoi" you were talking about.
And generally, I've seen Mark Taylor's anthology "Deconstruction in
Context" at the bookstore, & it might be worth a look to the seriously
curious who're coming into deconstructing without a philosophy background.
The thought of Heidegger made me throw that in there, I guess.
-- Andy Lowry
I know neither science nor art, but am a philosopher.--Heraclides Ponticus
mj devaney
> Moggin:
The question here, Steph, is, "What is 'deconstruction'"? And the
simple answer is exactly the one I gave -- it's a practice closely
associated with the work of Derrida and de Man. So if you want an idea
of what it looks like in the wild, the best thing is to glance at a
couple or three of their essays.
> MJ:
Shane, I'll give it to you straight: you can't read Derrida or de Man to
find out what deconstruction is because they don't practice it. Well,
let me qualify that--because Derrida occasionally indulges in silly
pseudo-philosophical posturing on the subject of deconstruction, in,
e.g., _Positions_, you can read Derrida to find out what deconstruction
is. But when he isn't doing that, he's mostly doing what literary
critics refer to as "close reading," with which no methodology is
associated except that of, well, closely reading texts. Ditto de Man.
>Moggin:
There you are -- deconstruction _is_ a species of close reading --in
particular, the type practiced by Derrida and de Man. So good advice
for anyone who wants to find out about it is take a look -- i.e., a look
at some of their essays. Of course, some of them make better entryways
than others: that's why I recommended three or four I thought were good
places to begin. I'm glad you mentioned _Positions_ -- it has
interviews from around the same time as the essays that I suggested, and
helps clarify them.
>MJ:
A _species_ of close reading. Why species?
My point in part is that what they do isn't, for the most part,
"deconstruction." "Deconstruction" is what the disciples
do--"overturning binary oppositions, not by simply inverting a given
opposition, but by problematizing the opposition as such, etc., etc.,"
so that if you want to know what deconstruction is, read the disciples,
or read the interviews with Derrida. I don't recommend the interviews,
for the same reason I wouldn't recommend the work of the disciples, but
if you want to know how deconstruction is conceptualized, either source
will suffice.
Maybe you find that that the overturning-binary-oppositions thing is a
characteristic of Derrida or de Man's work, but if you do, then you'd
have to admit that it is possible to summarize or define
"deconstruction." Ditto if you're prepared to explain what it is that
makes deconstruction a species of close reading.
>Moggin:
A better analogy would be to something in the humanities: if a person
asked about Emily Dickinson, you could give them the two-volume Sewall
biography and say, "Read up!" But it might be better to reply, "She's a
19th century poet. Try reading some of her stuff. _Final Harvest_ is a
nice collection. It's even in paperback. Hope you like it -- let me
know what you think."
> MJ:
Not really a great analogy, Puss, since you can't ascertain what it is
that the word "deconstruction" is suppose to signify by reading
Derrida's or de Man's work. You may well form an opinion about the
quality of their work by reading it, but it's just not going to happen
that you spontaneously think to yourself: "it's got that certain 'je ne
sais quoi' that a term of art like 'deconstruction' just beautifully
captures!"
>Moggin:
And your objection to the analogy is...what? I've never found any
quality that the name "Dickinson" perfectly captures -- or the term
"poetry," for that matter. Nonetheless, if you ask me about Dickinson,
I'll suggest you read some of her work. ("Poems," they're called, what
she wrote. Also some other things called "letters" -- but just go ahead
and read, I'd say. Worry about the terms-of-art later.) If you're
interested in deconstruction, ditto -- best to begin with de Man and
Derrida.
>MJ:
The objection is that you can, e.g, find out what close reading is by
reading Derrida or de Man, but you can't find out what deconstruction
is; if you read any number of essays by either, at the end you are
likely think that what you've read is a "close reading"; if you were
asked to describe what Derrida does in a given essay, you might say,
"well, he analyses at great length single sentences, and sometimes only
a single word." "Close reading" is a phrase most people understand, and
that would occur to a lot of readers as they read Derrida or de Man.
"Deconstruction," on the other hand, is not. You wouldn't know what it
was that supposed to be deconstructive about their work, in the way that
you would know what it was about it that made it a close reading.
--MJ
-Mammel,L.H.
In article <5t9bj5$h...@panix2.panix.com>, G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>Jason:
>
>Let us not hold Jason to a tedious facticity. In the spirit
>of the mythopoeia of heroes out of a confusion of disparate
>memories, of the Lost Chord and the One That Got Away, might
>there not be as well a virtual Ur-text, a long furious tract,
>hostile to science, written by a deconstructionist? In
>Heaven if not on Earth, preparing to manifest itself in the
>fullness of Time.
Think of it this way. Science is a great dumb ox that used
to be worshipped and pampered, but now finds itself laboring
in the field under torment by Woolgar, Feyerabend, Haraway,
Ross, and Latour, among other gadflies, until it bellows out,
"Help me! I'm being eaten alive by the great ogre Deconstruction!"
The lesser gadflies pipe up, "You stupid ox, there is no such
ogre. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!". Yet the ox is not entirely
mistaken.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
mj devaney
Andy Lowry wrote:
>
> On Sat, 16 Aug 1997, mj devaney wrote:
>
> > that the word "deconstruction" is suppose to signify by reading
> > Derrida's or de Man's work. You may well form an opinion about the
> > quality of their work by reading it, but it's just not going to happen
> > that you spontaneously think to yourself: "it's got that certain 'je ne
> > sais quoi' that a term of art like 'deconstruction' just beautifully
> > captures!"
>
> de Man, not just one. You can then get a feel for that vertiginous
> moment. Moggin's recommended "Semiology & Rhetoric" & "The Resistance to
> Theory," which ought to give a sense for how de Man's mind works
> "deconstructively." Except that people to this day insist on reading the
> last paragraphs of "S & R" without the slightest trace of irony ... or are
> they really just reading Frank Lentricchia _on_ "S & R"? I often suspect
> the latter.
But what exactly is that sense in which he writes "deconstructively"?
> If somebody wanted a quick example of a deconstruction, I'd tend to cite
> that moment in "What Is Metaphysics?" when Heidegger pulls the Nothing out
> of the hat. It might technically not be a full-fledged deconstruction,
> but it has that "je ne sais quoi" you were talking about.
>
So does Berkeley's immaterialism. So do Leibniz' monads. So do Lewis'
possible worlds that are actual. So do many passages and ideas in
western philosophical texts. Does the term "deconstructive" have
anything over the phrase "a certain 'je ne sais quoi'" or more
alternatively, "strange" or "eccentric" or "uncanny"?
--MJD
Mic...@www.chonju-tc.ac.kr
In article <moggin-ya02408000...@news.mindspring.com>,
> >writings, to me, have a measure of fury simply by virtue of their
> >employment of condemnatory moralistic language: "violence",
> >"logocentrism", "oppression", etc.
>
> fury." Instead, you complained about long, furious tracts, hostile
> to science, written by deconstructionists. But you haven't produced a
> single one.
>
>>> Here are some text long on fury, short on substance: Zygmunt Bauman,
>>> Legislators and Interpreters; Fred Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German
>>> Philosophy from Kant to Fichte; Paul Bove, Intellectuals in Power:
>>> A Geneology of Critical Humanism; Malcolm Bowie, Freud, Proust,Lacan...:
>>> David Carroll, Paraesthetics: Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida; William Corlett
>>> Community without Unity: A Politics of Derridean Extravagance...on so on.
>>> _Michael_
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Puss in Boots
Moggin:
>> You complained about long, furious tracts, hostile to science, written
>> by deconstructionists. But you haven't produced a single one.
> >>> Here are some text long on fury, short on substance: Zygmunt Bauman,
> >>> Legislators and Interpreters; Fred Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German
> >>> Philosophy from Kant to Fichte; Paul Bove, Intellectuals in Power:
> >>> A Geneology of Critical Humanism; Malcolm Bowie, Freud, Proust,Lacan...:
> >>> David Carroll, Paraesthetics: Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida; William Corlett
> >>> Community without Unity: A Politics of Derridean Extravagance...on so on.
I'm familiar with the Bové -- it isn't furious, it has substance,
Bové isn't a deconstructionist, and the book isn't about science.
You've missed on each and every count. (Doubtless your other examples
are equally well-chosen.)
-- Moggin
Puss in Boots
G*rd*n:
> >Let us not hold Jason to a tedious facticity. In the spirit
> >of the mythopoeia of heroes out of a confusion of disparate
> >memories, of the Lost Chord and the One That Got Away, might
> >there not be as well a virtual Ur-text, a long furious tract,
> >hostile to science, written by a deconstructionist? In
> >Heaven if not on Earth, preparing to manifest itself in the
> >fullness of Time.
Lew Mammel, Jr.:
> Think of it this way. Science is a great dumb ox that used
> to be worshipped and pampered, but now finds itself laboring
> in the field under torment by Woolgar, Feyerabend, Haraway,
> Ross, and Latour, among other gadflies, until it bellows out,
> "Help me! I'm being eaten alive by the great ogre Deconstruction!"
> The lesser gadflies pipe up, "You stupid ox, there is no such
> ogre. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!". Yet the ox is not entirely
> mistaken.
Oddly enough, the only one hereabouts who's piped anything like
that is MJ, who counts herself as an anti-gadfly (or as she would
say, a "critic of 'postmodernism'"). Of course, criticizing science
is nothing new -- an earlier gadfly named Blake comes to mind, for
instance. What's interesting here is that the the ox mistakes a few
gadflies, and some even allies, for a great ogre -- and then
misidentifies the ogre. Whatever else you can say about him, the ox
is badly confused.
-- Moggin
mj devaney
G*rd*n wrote:
>
> Jason:
> | > And as far as "furious" goes, all deconstructionist
> | >writings, to me, have a measure of fury simply by virtue of their
> | >employment of condemnatory moralistic language: "violence",
> | >"logocentrism", "oppression", etc.
>
> | Debatable; also irrelevant -- you didn't talk about "a measure of
> | to science, written by deconstructionists. But you haven't produced a
> | single one.
>
> of the mythopoeia of heroes out of a confusion of disparate
> memories, of the Lost Chord and the One That Got Away, might
> there not be as well a virtual Ur-text, a long furious tract,
> hostile to science, written by a deconstructionist? In
> Heaven if not on Earth, preparing to manifest itself in the
> fullness of Time.
>
--MJ
Mic...@www.chonju-tc.ac.kr
In article <Pine.SOL.3.96.970818...@Ra.MsState.Edu>,
Andy Lowry <a...@Ra.MsState.Edu> wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, 16 Aug 1997, mj devaney wrote:
>
> > Not really a great analogy, Puss, since you can't ascertain what it is
> > that the word "deconstruction" is suppose to signify by reading
> > Derrida's or de Man's work. You may well form an opinion about the
> > quality of their work by reading it, but it's just not going to happen
> > that you spontaneously think to yourself: "it's got that certain 'je ne
> > sais quoi' that a term of art like 'deconstruction' just beautifully
> > captures!"
>
> I see the point, but this is just a good reason to read 2 or 3 things by
> de Man, not just one. You can then get a feel for that vertiginous
> moment. Moggin's recommended "Semiology & Rhetoric" & "The Resistance to
> Theory," which ought to give a sense for how de Man's mind works
> "deconstructively." Except that people to this day insist on reading the
> last paragraphs of "S & R" without the slightest trace of irony ... or are
> they really just reading Frank Lentricchia _on_ "S & R"? I often suspect
> the latter.
>
> that moment in "What Is Metaphysics?" when Heidegger pulls the Nothing out
> of the hat. It might technically not be a full-fledged deconstruction,
> but it has that "je ne sais quoi" you were talking about.
>
> Context" at the bookstore, & it might be worth a look to the seriously
> curious who're coming into deconstructing without a philosophy background.
> The thought of Heidegger made me throw that in there, I guess.
>
> -- Andy Lowry
>
> I know neither science nor art, but am a philosopher.--Heraclides Ponticus
>>> Well anyway everyone wrote a lot of stuff. But the best way to "appropriate"
>>> Deconstruction is to take three books: One _Deconstruction and Criticism_
>>> a collection of essays by Harold Bloom, de Man, Derrida, Hartman, and Hillis
>>> Miller and set that over against another book entitled _The Structuralist
>>> Controversy, also a collection of essays by Rene Girard, Macksey, Moraze,...
>>> and right next to that _The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology_ another
>>> collection this one edited by Theodor Adorno...and then dip into each book
>>> back and forth, slight see saw motion between respectives essays...you'll
>>> not only enjoy it, you will be DECONSTRUCTED.
>>> _Michael_ (who does not eat)
mj devaney
Moggin:
The question here, Steph, is, "What is 'deconstruction'"? And the
simple answer is exactly the one I gave -- it's a practice closely
associated with the work of Derrida and de Man. So if you want an idea
of what it looks like in the wild, the best thing is to glance at a
couple or three of their essays.
MJ:
Shane, I'll give it to you straight: you can't read Derrida or de Man to
find out what deconstruction is because they don't practice it. Well,
let me qualify that--because Derrida occasionally indulges in silly
pseudo-philosophical posturing on the subject of deconstruction, in,
e.g., _Positions_, you can read Derrida to find out what deconstruction
is. But when he isn't doing that, he's mostly doing what literary
critics refer to as "close reading," with which no methodology is
associated except that of, well, closely reading texts. Ditto de Man.
Moggin:
There you are -- deconstruction _is_ a species of close reading --in
particular, the type practiced by Derrida and de Man. So good advice
for anyone who wants to find out about it is take a look -- i.e., a look
at some of their essays. Of course, some of them make better entryways
than others: that's why I recommended three or four I thought were good
places to begin. I'm glad you mentioned _Positions_ -- it has nterviews
from around the same time as the essays that I suggested, and helps
clarify them.
MJ:
A _species_ of close reading. Why species?
Moggin:
Why not?
MJ:
Why? (We can do this indefinitely, of course, but you might want to
consider answering the question).
MJ:
My point in part is that what they do isn't, for the most part,
"deconstruction." "Deconstruction" is what the disciples> >
do--"overturning binary oppositions, not by simply inverting a given
opposition, but by problematizing the opposition as such, etc., etc.,"
so that if you want to know what deconstruction is, read the disciples,
or read the interviews with Derrida. I don't recommend the interviews,
for the same reason I wouldn't recommend the work of the disciples, but
if you want to know how deconstruction is conceptualized, either source
will suffice.
Moggin:
Your point, then, is that you can conceive of "deconstruction" in
a way which makes the term inapplicable to de Man and Derrida. I'm sure
you can -- define it as a red wheelbarrow and much may depend on it, but
it won't have anything in particular to do with either of them. Still,
that's no objection to suggesting Derrida and de Man as good reading for
anyone interested in deconstruction, unless red wheelbarrows happen to
be what they're asking about.
MJ:
If they were asking about red wheelbarrows, what would you say?
MJ:
Maybe you find that that the overturning-binary-oppositions thing is a
characteristic of Derrida or de Man's work, but if you do, then you'd
have to admit that it is possible to summarize or define
"deconstruction." Ditto if you're prepared to explain what it is that
makes deconstruction a species of close reading.
Moggin:
See above.
MJ:
Why?
Moggin:
As an aside, I've never found that _characterizing_ is tantamount to
_summarizing_ or _defining_. I can say that it's characteristic of
Susan to take a skeptical attitude, without claiming I can define her or
sum her up.)
MJ:
That's just you and your pedantry: no one is expecting to you to sum up
Susan by characerizing her as skeptical. That's a non-issue. The term
"deconstruction," on the other hand, should be dropped from the
vocabulary unless it can be shown to have a meaning that warrants its
existence.
Moggin:
A better analogy would be to something in the humanities: if a person
asked about Emily Dickinson, you could give them the two-volume Sewall
biography and say, "Read up!" But it might be better to reply, "She's a>
19th century poet. Try reading some of her stuff. _Final Harvest_ is a
nice collection. It's even in paperback. Hope you like it -- let me
know what you think."
MJ:
Not really a great analogy, Puss, since you can't ascertain what it is
that the word "deconstruction" is suppose to signify by reading
Derrida's or de Man's work. You may well form an opinion about the
quality of their work by reading it, but it's just not going to happen
that you spontaneously think to yourself: "it's got that certain 'je ne
sais quoi' that a term of art like 'deconstruction' just beautifully
captures!"
Moggin:
And your objection to the analogy is...what? I've never found any
quality that the name "Dickinson" perfectly captures -- or the term
"poetry," for that matter. Nonetheless, if you ask me about Dickinson,
I'll suggest you read some of her work. ("Poems," they're called, what
she wrote. Also some other things called "letters" -- but just go ahead
and read, I'd say. Worry about the terms-of-art later.) If you're
interested in deconstruction, ditto -- best to begin with de Man and
Derrida.
MJ:
The objection is that you can, e.g, find out what close reading is by
reading Derrida or de Man, but you can't find out what deconstruction
is.
Moggin:
Oh, sure you can; it's what you just read -- i.e., close reading as they
practice it. Naturally it's possible to think up more complex
definitions, but if you remember, we're looking for a simple answer to a
"simple question" -- and there it is.
MJ:
No, your answer is an evasion. Tell me why I can't just call it close
reading.
MJ:
If you read any number of essays by either, at the end you are likely
think that what you've read is a "close reading"; if you were asked to
describe what Derrida does in a given essay, you might say,"well, he
analyses at great length single sentences, and sometimes only a single
word." "Close reading" is a phrase most people understand, and
that would occur to a lot of readers as they read Derrida or de
Man."Deconstruction," on the other hand, is not. You wouldn't know what
it was that supposed to be deconstructive about their work, in the way
that you would know what it was about it that made it a close reading.
Moggin:
I don't see how any of this is relevant -- apparently you prefer to talk
about what term might or might not pop into people's heads ("most
people" or "a lot of readers") if they read "any number of essays by" de
Man or Derrida. Why that interests you I've got no idea, but it's
probably testable: just go find alot of people who never heard of them,
hand out some reading, and tally up the results. That won't support
your objection, but maybe you can publish somewhere.
MJ:
Well, then the problem is that you, amongst us all, know what
deconstruction is, but won't tell anybody.
--MJ
mj devaney
G*rd*n wrote:
Let us not hold Jason to a tedious facticity. In the spirit of the
mythopoeia of heroes out of a confusion of disparate memories, of the
Lost Chord and the One That Got Away, might there not be as well a
virtual Ur-text, a long furious tract, hostile to science, written by a
deconstructionist? In Heaven if not on Earth, preparing to manifest
itself in the fullness of Time.
Think of it this way. Science is a great dumb ox that used to be
worshipped and pampered, but now finds itself laboring in the field
under torment by Woolgar, Feyerabend, Haraway, Ross, and Latour, among
other gadflies, until it bellows out, "Help me! I'm being eaten alive by
the great ogre Deconstruction!" The lesser gadflies pipe up, "You stupid
ox, there is no such ogre. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!". Yet the ox is not
entirely mistaken.
Moggin:
Oddly enough, the only one hereabouts who's piped anything like that is
MJ, who counts herself as an anti-gadfly (or as she would say, a "critic
of 'postmodernism'"). Of course, criticizing science is nothing new --
an earlier gadfly named Blake comes to mind, for instance. What's
interesting here is that the the ox mistakes a few gadflies, and some
even allies, for a great ogre -- and then misidentifies the ogre.
Whatever else you can say about him, the ox is badly confused.
For the record, I don't mistake a few gadflies or even allies for a
great ogre because I don't think that either "postmodernism" or
"deconstruction"--and I mean by "postmodernism" and "deconstruction"
their conceptualization, mostly by English-speaking theorists and
critics (though, as I've noted, Derrida has made his contribution)--are
interesting enough to be threatening. My critique of theories of
postmodernism, e.g, is centered around the banality of the claims made
on its behalf.
--MJ
xe...@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu
My take on "deconstruction" (which my be hopelessly naive, as this is
not my field) is that deconstruction is an art form, which entails
approximately the same relationship to the the thing deconstructed
as painting does to a box of paints.
-x
ps. This group seems to be a lot more interesting than it was the last
time I lurked here.
emgo...@prairieweb.com
What is meant by the often repeated use of the term
"deconstruction". Is it just a buzzword meant to
mean anything?
Jason Stokes
In article <33FB6C...@unlinfo.unl.edu>, mj devaney
<mdev...@unlinfo.unl.edu> wrote:
>G*rd*n wrote:
>
>Let us not hold Jason to a tedious facticity.
>Think of it this way. Science is a great dumb ox that used to be
>worshipped and pampered, but now finds itself laboring in the field
>under torment by Woolgar, Feyerabend, Haraway, Ross, and Latour, among
>other gadflies, until it bellows out, "Help me! I'm being eaten alive by
>the great ogre Deconstruction!" The lesser gadflies pipe up, "You stupid
>ox, there is no such ogre. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!". Yet the ox is not
>entirely mistaken.
Well, poetic yet fatuous. Obviously the method of "deconstruction" is
pretty neutral. So while there is no inherently "deconstructionist"
criticism of science, there are plenty of critiques of science written in
the deconstructionist mode. It's well adapted to the task, given that it
provides a convenient smokescreen for actually _understanding_ scientific
theories. If it's all the result of differed textuality (or whatever the
jargon is) you don't have to consider the actual epistemological validity of
a particular science -- there is none.
Semiosis
>Is it just a buzzword meant to
>mean anything?
Try Derrida's Of Grammatology
Also the anthology called "Contemporary Literary Criticism" ed. Robert Con
Davis has some interesting (dis)seminals in its "Deconstruction and
Poststructuralism" fold...not a bad intro either, though, as some intros
tend to be, a bit simplistic.
This is assuming you have a "literary" slant. For philosophical
methodology, bone up on Heidegger, and read any/every Derrida you can get
yr hands on.
:)
Semi
Puss in Boots
I'd be glad to -- as soon as you explain what the question is.
I'm sure you understand the meaning of the words, so you can't be
asking about _that_. You might be making an objection -- but since
you agree "close reading" fits, I don't know what you could be
objecting to. In short, "Why not?" (You could have spared us both
this tedium by answering.)
MJ:
> My point in part is that what they do isn't, for the most part,
> "deconstruction." "Deconstruction" is what the disciples
> do--"overturning binary oppositions, not by simply inverting a given
> opposition, but by problematizing the opposition as such, etc., etc.,"
> so that if you want to know what deconstruction is, read the disciples,
> or read the interviews with Derrida. I don't recommend the interviews,
> for the same reason I wouldn't recommend the work of the disciples, but
> if you want to know how deconstruction is conceptualized, either source
> will suffice.
Moggin:
> Your point, then, is that you can conceive of "deconstruction" in
> a way which makes the term inapplicable to de Man and Derrida. I'm sure
> you can -- define it as a red wheelbarrow and much may depend on it, but
> it won't have anything in particular to do with either of them. Still,
> that's no objection to suggesting Derrida and de Man as good reading for
> anyone interested in deconstruction, unless red wheelbarrows happen to
> be what they're asking about.
MJ:
> If they were asking about red wheelbarrows, what would you say?
Depends on what they were asking and what they wanted to know.
In this instance, the question is "what is it and how is it
practiced?" We also have some criteria for the answer (simple and
"no-bullshit"). Applied to a red wheelbarrow, I'd say "Come to
the window -- you can see what it is and how it's used if you look
right over there." You, on the other hand, would say, "If you
want to know what a red wheelbarrow is, study the Disciples of the
Red Wheelbarrow." And you would criticize red wheelbarrows by
stating, "Those disciples are no good."
MJ:
> Maybe you find that that the overturning-binary-oppositions thing is a
> characteristic of Derrida or de Man's work, but if you do, then you'd
> have to admit that it is possible to summarize or define
> "deconstruction." Ditto if you're prepared to explain what it is that
> makes deconstruction a species of close reading.
Moggin:
> See above.
MJ:
> Why?
Because that's where I addressed your point.
Moggin:
> As an aside, I've never found that _characterizing_ is tantamount to
> _summarizing_ or _defining_. I can say that it's characteristic of
> Susan to take a skeptical attitude, without claiming I can define her or
> sum her up.)
MJ:
> That's just you and your pedantry: no one is expecting to you to sum up
> Susan by characerizing her as skeptical. That's a non-issue.
It's an aside, just as I said, but it addresses what you were
arguing. According to you, if I find that something "is a
characteristic of Derrida or de Man's work," I "have to admit that
it is possible to summarize or define 'deconstruction.'" That's
not merely an expectation: you're positively _insisting_ that if I
name a _characteristic_, I "have to admit" that a _summary_ is
possible. Doesn't follow, as you now agree.
> The term
> "deconstruction," on the other hand, should be dropped from the
> vocabulary unless it can be shown to have a meaning that warrants its
> existence.
Non sequitur -- but since you raise the subject, Basic English
has 850 words. You're welcome to restrict yourself to them, if
you please. Alternatively, you could take a more liberal position:
rig yourself out in black robes, equip yourself with a bench and
gavel, and decide which words you feel like giving warrants to, and
which ones you'll send to the Big Chair. (I don't promise they'll
listen.)
Tell me why it's an evasion. Meanwhile, I'll answer you. You
can call it anything you like -- but your decision to call it this
or that doesn't pose any objection to my analogy. It's also not an
argument against my advice that Derrida and de Man make good
reading for somebody interested in learning about deconstruction --
so your complaints have nothing to them.
MJ:
> If you read any number of essays by either, at the end you are likely
> think that what you've read is a "close reading"; if you were asked to
> describe what Derrida does in a given essay, you might say,"well, he
> analyses at great length single sentences, and sometimes only a single
> word." "Close reading" is a phrase most people understand, and
> that would occur to a lot of readers as they read Derrida or de
> Man."Deconstruction," on the other hand, is not. You wouldn't know what
> it was that supposed to be deconstructive about their work, in the way
> that you would know what it was about it that made it a close reading.
Moggin:
> I don't see how any of this is relevant -- apparently you prefer to
> talk about what term might or might not pop into people's heads ("most
> people" or "a lot of readers") if they read "any number of essays by" de
> Man or Derrida. Why that interests you I've got no idea, but it's
> probably testable: just go find alot of people who never heard of them,
> hand out some reading, and tally up the results. That won't support
> your objection, but maybe you can publish somewhere.
MJ:
> Well, then the problem is that you, amongst us all, know what
> deconstruction is, but won't tell anybody.
You seem to have invented a problem. It's well-known "amongst
us," even though it isn't common knowledge, and I just took the
trouble to explain to everybody else who cared. (I'll be surprised
if you've forgotten, since that's what we're arguing about.)
-- Moggin
Mic...@www.chonju-tc.ac.kr
In article <moggin-ya02408000...@news.mindspring.com>,
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots) wrote:
>
> Moggin:
>
> >> by deconstructionists. But you haven't produced a single one.
>
>
> > >>> Here are some text long on fury, short on substance: Zygmunt Bauman,
> > >>> Legislators and Interpreters; Fred Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German
> > >>> Philosophy from Kant to Fichte; Paul Bove, Intellectuals in Power:
> > >>> A Geneology of Critical Humanism; Malcolm Bowie, Freud, Proust,Lacan...:
> > >>> David Carroll, Paraesthetics: Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida; William
Corlett
> > >>> Community without Unity: A Politics of Derridean Extravagance...on so
on.
>
> I'm familiar with the Bové -- it isn't furious, it has substance,
> Bové isn't a deconstructionist, and the book isn't about science.
> You've missed on each and every count. (Doubtless your other examples
> are equally well-chosen.)
>
> -- Moggin
>>>] Right Moggin, right you are. So let's get down to the real stuff.
>>>] How about The Rhetoric of Science by Alan Gross or perhaps Radical
>>>] Hermeneutics by Alan Gross and William Keith? And some other choices
>>>] equally irrelevant: James Kirwan Literature, Rhetoric, Metaphysics...
>>>] Kreiswirth and Cheetham Theory Between the Disciplines...
>>>] And less we forget...Malachowski Reading Rorty...Critical Responses
>>>] to the Mirror of Nature...and so on. Undsovitur.
Puss in Boots
Moggin [to Jason]:
> You complained about long, furious tracts, hostile to science, written
> by deconstructionists. But you haven't produced a single one.
Mic...@www.chonju-tc.ac.kr
> Here are some text long on fury, short on substance: Zygmunt Bauman,
> Legislators and Interpreters; Fred Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German
> Philosophy from Kant to Fichte; Paul Bove, Intellectuals in Power:
> A Geneology of Critical Humanism; Malcolm Bowie, Freud, Proust,Lacan...:
> David Carroll, Paraesthetics: Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida; William
> Corlett Community without Unity: A Politics of Derridean Extravagance...
> on so on.
Moggin:
> I'm familiar with the Bové -- it isn't furious, it has substance,
>Bové isn't a deconstructionist, and the book isn't about science.
>You've missed on each and every count. (Doubtless your other examples
>are equally well-chosen.)
Michael:
> ] Right Moggin, right you are. So let's get down to the real stuff.
> ] How about The Rhetoric of Science by Alan Gross or perhaps Radical
> ] Hermeneutics by Alan Gross and William Keith? And some other choices
> ] equally irrelevant: James Kirwan Literature, Rhetoric, Metaphysics...
> ] Kreiswirth and Cheetham Theory Between the Disciplines...
> ] And less we forget...Malachowski Reading Rorty...Critical Responses
> ] to the Mirror of Nature...and so on. Undsovitur.
Agreed, your choices still seem pretty irrelevant -- could be I'm
wrong about that, since I haven't read them. But what have you got
here? Let's see: responses to Rorty, a neo-pragmatist. Is that even
in the ballpark? Guess it depends what they contain. Doesn't sound
promising, though. Same goes for most of the others: something about
hermeneutics, something else about literature and philosophy.
Remember, we're looking for "long, furious tracts, hostile to science,
written by deconstructionists" -- does anything here fit the bill?
_Theory Between the Disciplines_ is one possibility, but _The Rhetoric
of Science_ makes the best candidate, since it's on the right topic.
Now all you've got to do is establish that it's long, furious, hostile
to science, and written by a deconstructionist -- oh, and "short on
substance." If it meets those criteria, we'll finally have an example
to discuss. Does it?
-- Moggin
Mic...@www.chonju-tc.ac.kr
In article <moggin-ya02408000...@news.mindspring.com>,
mog...@mindspring.com (Puss in Boots) wrote:
>
>>>>] Well let's see. It's 242 pages long. Now long is a relative term. If I
>>>>] can make the same case in twenty pages then it is long. If I need 242
>>>>] pages to make my case then I suppose it isn't long. "Furious"...that's
>>>>] a tough question. Many books are animated by fury. Even if the author is
>>>>] not aware of that. But then the claims of psychoanalysis are always being
>>>>] disputed. Is that repression and miscognition or is it honesty?...written
>>>>] by a deconstructionist. Well that reminds me of McCarthyism. Does one
>>>>] actually have to join the party or can one be a "fellow traveller"??
>>>>] The problem with the phrase "short on substance" is that we no longer
>>>>] know what Substance is. First we had Aristotle telling us that it was
>>>>] always a problem for philosophy and then we had Locke claiming "I know
>>>>] not what"...today we have your friend Bove' (my machine will not give the
>>>>] proper placement of the accent mark) editing Sub/stance.
>>>>] Let's begin our exploration with the following quote: According to Geison
>>>>] science depends on rhetorical skills. Some scientist conceal the
>>>>] shallowness of their research by the skillful use of rhetoric. Fleming
>>>>] on the other hand just put everyone to sleep. Good research needs no
>>>>] rhetoric only clarity. Geison resents the application of rhetoric to
>>>>] the study of science. Gross however thinks there are two important points:
>>>>] Geison accepts that rhetorical considerations are already commonplace
>>>>] among people who study science. " This represents a sea-change" from
>>>>] a decade ago. So until 1987 few scholars accepted the rhetorical aspects
>>>>] of science. Secondly scientists look at rhetoric contemptuously. They
>>>>] see it as window dressing. But Gross wants to say that it deals
>>>>] rather with the necessary and sufficient conditions for persuasive
>>>>] discourse.
sayan bhattacharyya
Seung, in his book "Structuralism and Post-structuralism", has some
pretty damning things to say about both Derridean deconstruction
and de Manian deconstruction. It would be interesting to see how
Derrida's and de Man's defenders on this group counter those criticisms.
-Mammel,L.H.
> O.k., great -- so how about naming plenty of them? So far you've
>offered no examples. Count 'em: none. Remember, you're talking
>about criticism written specifically "in the deconstructionist mode."
I would certainly nominate Sandra Harding's THE SCIENCE QUESTION
IN FEMINISM and LaTour's WE HAVE NEVER BEEN MODERN. Maybe this
requires a broad definition of "deconstruction", but I think
it would be a fair characterization. Feyerabend is a
deconstructor too, I think.
Also, Woolgar uses the term "deconstruct" explicitly in
SCIENCE: THE VERY IDEA, although in a curiously simplistic
sense meaning something close to "debunk".
Lew Mammel, Jr.
mj devaney
Puss in Boots wrote:
Moggin:
MJ:
MJ:
Moggin:
I'd be glad to -- as soon as you explain what the question is. I'm sure
you understand the meaning of the words, so you can't be asking about
_that_. You might be making an objection -- but since you agree "close
reading" fits, I don't know what you could be
objecting to. In short, "Why not?" (You could have spared us both this
tedium by answering.)
MJ:
I asked, as you can confirm for yourself by scrolling up a mere ten
lines or so, "A _species_ of close reading. Why species?" I don't see
how I can make the question any clearer. It has all the elements of a
question, a "why," a noun, a question mark, and as there are only two
words in it, it's hardly a complicated question. What gives, Puss?
MJ:
My point in part is that what they do isn't, for the most part,
"deconstruction." "Deconstruction" is what the disciples
do--"overturning binary oppositions, not by simply inverting a given
opposition, but by problematizing the opposition as such, etc., etc.,"
so that if you want to know what deconstruction is, read the disciples,
or read the interviews with Derrida. I don't recommend the interviews,
for the same reason I wouldn't recommend the work of the disciples, but
if you want to know how deconstruction is conceptualized, either source
will suffice.
Moggin:
Your point, then, is that you can conceive of "deconstruction" in a way
which makes the term inapplicable to de Man and Derrida. I'm sure you
can -- define it as a red wheelbarrow and much may depend on it, but it
won't have anything in particular to do with either of them. Still,
that's no objection to suggesting Derrida and de Man as good reading for
anyone interested in deconstruction, unless red wheelbarrows happen to
be what they're asking about.
MJ:
If they were asking about red wheelbarrows, what would you say?
Moggin:
Depends on what they were asking and what they wanted to know. In this
instance, the question is "what is it and how is it practiced?" We also
have some criteria for the answer (simple and "no-bullshit"). Applied
to a red wheelbarrow, I'd say "Come to the window -- you can see what it
is and how it's used if you look right over there." You, on the other
hand, would say, "If you want to know what a red wheelbarrow is, study
the Disciples of the Red Wheelbarrow." And you would criticize red
wheelbarrows by stating, "Those disciples are no good."
MJ:
1. This is like comparing apples and oranges--no, wait, this is like
comparing red wheelbarrows and schools of thought. There are no
Disciples of the Red Wheelbarrows; there are, on the other hand,
disciples of Derrida and de Man.
2. The empiricism of your approach is admirable; you've just got to work
on extending it: when you point to the red wheelbarrow, you pick out an
object that has a set of properties you can identify (red, three wheels,
and so on); indeed you are able to identify the object to me as a red
wheelbarrow, rather than, say, as a green ship, because you know red
wheelbarrows have these properties and green ships don't. So apply this
to the work of Derrida and de Man: what kinds of properties make their
texts "deconstructionist"? You have identified one property thus far:
"deconstruction _is_ a species of close reading." Your unwillingness to
elaborate on the point nothwithstanding, you have a conception of what
aspects of their work render it "deconstructionist"; if you didn't, you
couldn't point the curious in the direction of Derrida and de Man in the
first place. Unless you're just using the word "deconstructionist" as a
synonym for, like, "writer" ("You want to know what writing is? Well, go
look at, e.g., a book. Writing is the black marks that books are made
of."). So just tell us what those aspects are, just as you would tell me
what aspects make a red wheelbarrow a red wheelbarrow (and so here red
wheelbarrows and schools of thought cross paths, as it were).
MJ:
Maybe you find that that the overturning-binary-oppositions thing is a
characteristic of Derrida or de Man's work, but if you do, then you'd
have to admit that it is possible to summarize or define
"deconstruction." Ditto if you're prepared to explain what it is that
makes deconstruction a species of close reading.
Moggin:
See above.
MJ:
Why?
Because that's where I addressed your point.
MJ:
No, I feel obliged to tell you, that's where you asked "Why not?" in
answer to my question about why deconstruction is a species of close
reading.
Moggin:
As an aside, I've never found that _characterizing_ is tantamount to
_summarizing_ or _defining_. I can say that it's characteristic of
Susan to take a skeptical attitude, without claiming I can define her or
sum her up.
MJ:
That's just you and your pedantry: no one is expecting to you to sum up
Susan by characerizing her as skeptical. That's a non-issue.
Moggin:
It's an aside, just as I said, but it addresses what you were arguing.
According to you, if I find that something "is a characteristic of
Derrida or de Man's work," I "have to admit that it is possible to
summarize or define 'deconstruction.'" That's not merely an
expectation: you're positively _insisting_ that if I name a
_characteristic_, I "have to admit" that a _summary_ is possible.
Doesn't follow, as you now agree.
MJ:
The implicit assumption in the Susan example, I took it, was that we
can't sum up Susan by characterizing her as skeptical because there are
other aspects of her personality that are as pronounced as her
skepticism--in other words, I was making the point that a person can
have a certain disposition without us reducing her to that disposition.
Given both that she has other features and that she doesn't have _all_
other features, however, then, it will still be possible to characterize
her or sum her up. If she has only one characteristic, it is possible to
characterize her or sum her up on the basis of it; if she has more than
one, it's also possible to characterize her or sum her up on the basis
of them. So with deconstruction. So with any person, place, thing, or
abstraction. I'm quite happy to abandon any vocabulary that you can
convince me is inadequate here, or to rethink my understanding of the
words "characterize" and "summarize." But I think you'll find that my
point in principle is sound.
MJ:
The term "deconstruction," on the other hand, should be dropped from the
vocabulary unless it can be shown to have a meaning that warrants its
existence.
Moggin:
Non sequitur -- but since you raise the subject, Basic English has 850
words. You're welcome to restrict yourself to them, if you please.
Alternatively, you could take a more liberal position: rig yourself out
in black robes, equip yourself with a bench and
gavel, and decide which words you feel like giving warrants to, and
which ones you'll send to the Big Chair. (I don't promise they'll
listen.)
MJ:
Now, now, you know I can't give any warrants unless you tell me what the
words mean. You know how the language game works, Puss: "If a lion
spoke, would we understand him?"
Moggin:
A better analogy would be to something in the humanities: if a person
asked about Emily Dickinson, you could give them the two-volume Sewall
biography and say, "Read up!" But it might be better to reply, "She's a
19th century poet. Try reading some of her stuff. _Final Harvest_ is a
nice collection. It's even in paperback. Hope you like it -- let me
know what you think."
MJ:
Not really a great analogy, Puss, since you can't ascertain what it is
that the word "deconstruction" is suppose to signify by reading
Derrida's or de Man's work. You may well form an opinion about the
quality of their work by reading it, but it's just not going to happen
that you spontaneously think to yourself: "it's got that certain 'je
nesais quoi' that a term of art like 'deconstruction' just beautifully
captures!"
Moggin:
And your objection to the analogy is...what? I've never found any
quality that the name "Dickinson" perfectly captures -- or the term
"poetry," for that matter. Nonetheless, if you ask me about Dickinson,
I'll suggest you read some of her work. ("Poems," they're called, what
she wrote. Also some other things called "letters" -- but just go ahead
and read, I'd say. Worry about the terms-of-art later.) If you're
interested in deconstruction, ditto -- best to begin with de Man and
Derrida.
MJ:
The objection is that you can, e.g, find out what close reading is by
reading Derrida or de Man, but you can't find out what deconstruction
is.
Moggin:
Oh, sure you can; it's what you just read -- i.e., close reading as they
practice it. Naturally it's possible to think up more complex
definitions, but if you remember, we're looking for a simple answer to a
"simple question" -- and there it is.
MJ:
No, your answer is an evasion. Tell me why I can't just call it close
reading.
Moggin:
Tell me why it's an evasion. Meanwhile, I'll answer you. You can call
it anything you like -- but your decision to call it this or that
doesn't pose any objection to my analogy. It's also not an argument
against my advice that Derrida and de Man make good
reading for somebody interested in learning about deconstruction --so
your complaints have nothing to them.
MJ:
It's an evasion because if I can call it anything I like, then there's
no point in calling it "deconstruction." Your analogy is bad because
Emily Dickinson is not an intellectual movement, whereas deconstruction
putatively is. To say someone is a "deconstructionist" is to say that
she/he is doing something we can ostensibly identify as being
"deconstructionist." We don't say that someone is an "Emily Dickinson."
In other words, you can tell someone to read Emily Dickinson's poetry to
find out what Emily Dickinson's poetry is like; indeed it only stands to
reason that Emily Dickinson's poetry will tell you what Emily
Dickinson's poetry is like. The force of logic is with you on that. But
it does not stand to reason that by reading Derrida's work, you will
come to know what deconstruction is; by reading Derrida's work, you will
find out what Derrida's work is like, but you won't necessarily find out
what deconstruction is. Your analogy, then, looks something like this:
Emily Dickinson's poetry is identical with Emily Dickinson's poetry (you
and the law of identity agree on this); just so, Derrida's writing is
identical with deconstruction (something no law of logic supports).
MJ:
If you read any number of essays by either, at the end you are likely
think that what you've read is a "close reading"; if you were asked to
describe what Derrida does in a given essay, you might say,"well, he
analyses at great length single sentences, and sometimes only a single
word." "Close reading" is a phrase most people understand, and that
would occur to a lot of readers as they read Derrida or de
Man."Deconstruction," on the other hand, is not. You wouldn't know what
it was that supposed to be deconstructive about their work, in the way
that you would know what it was about it that made it a close reading.
Moggin:
I don't see how any of this is relevant -- apparently you prefer to talk
about what term might or might not pop into people's heads ("most
people" or "a lot of readers") if they read "any number of essays by" de
Man or Derrida. Why that interests you I've got no idea, but it's
probably testable: just go find alot of people who never heard of them,
hand out some reading, and tally up the results. That won't support
your objection, but maybe you can publish somewhere.
MJ:
Well, then the problem is that you, amongst us all, know what
deconstruction is, but won't tell anybody.
Moggin:
You seem to have invented a problem. It's well-known "amongst us," even
though it isn't common knowledge, and I just took the trouble to explain
to everybody else who cared. (I'll be surprised if you've forgotten,
since that's what we're arguing about.)
MJ:
Huh? Are you saying that what deconstruction is is well understood
amongst those participating in this thread? Where's the evidence for
_that_? And what have you explained? You've explained nothing really,
though you could, though you don't in fact have any qualms in principle
about explaining anything or anyone you get involved with (e.g., in
recent months, Job, Nietzsche). If the debate isn't explicitly about the
question of whether it's possible to say what a thinker meant or was
about, you seem to forget that you like to make this point about the
impossibility of summarizing. You only make these unconvincing gestures
when someone explicitly asks for a summary of a thinker's position. It's
only then that you become self-conscious about some imagined theoretical
impasse; otherwise, you're quite happy to make all sorts of
pronouncements.
--MJ
Andy Lowry
On Tue, 26 Aug 1997, mj devaney wrote:
> It's an evasion because if I can call it anything I like, then there's
> no point in calling it "deconstruction." Your analogy is bad because
> Emily Dickinson is not an intellectual movement, whereas deconstruction
> putatively is. To say someone is a "deconstructionist" is to say that
> she/he is doing something we can ostensibly identify as being
> "deconstructionist." We don't say that someone is an "Emily Dickinson."
Maybe a good rejoinder is that if you ask someone what deconstruction is,
or if you read a summary of it, you get something that's at least as
boring as if you asked someone "what's Emily D. up to, what's her poetry
about?" Whereas if you read Derrida or de Man you will (or at least, I
do) find something interesting, not to mention something that isn't very
well captured by any of the definitions, which tend to have a simplistic
quality that doesn't at all resemble the sophistication of the primary
works.
> it does not stand to reason that by reading Derrida's work, you will
> come to know what deconstruction is; by reading Derrida's work, you will
> find out what Derrida's work is like, but you won't necessarily find out
> what deconstruction is.
In fact, you may become skeptical whether there "is" anything, any thing,
that matches up to "deconstruction" beyond a cocktail-party sense of the
term, one which may not even distinguish it from multiculturalism,
postmodernism, or even close reading. Then you may get into long and
somewhat tedious e-mail debates about whether deconstruction can or should
be defined ...
("or should" -- there's an ethical dimension here.)
> If you read any number of essays by either, at the end you are likely
> think that what you've read is a "close reading"; if you were asked to
> describe what Derrida does in a given essay, you might say,"well, he
> analyses at great length single sentences, and sometimes only a single
> word."
Such a boring & unspecific reply would not recommend its utterer very
highly, who might as well be talking about Ruskin in "Of King's
Treasuries," or god knows what commentary on the book of Isaiah. Are you
sure you're not being deliberately simplistic here? Would the kind of
reader you describe get anything out of a primary or secondary source on
deconstruction?
When Jeanette Winterson ("Art Objects") asked her wine-connoisseur
friend how to get to know about wine, he told her, "Drink it."
Robert Teeter
Andy Lowry (a...@Ra.MsState.Edu) wrote:
: Socrates, true, could drink quite a lot, but he remained
: sober, which rather defeats the purpose & hence any "knowledge."
Didn't he get drunk in the _Symposium_?
: I hope there are lots of posts on wine in the great philosophers.
ObMontyPython:
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable...
-- "Philosophers Song"
--
Bob Teeter (rte...@netcom.com) | http://www.wco.com/~rteeter/
"On the Internet, we are not all wise children" -- E. G.-M.
"Government may not reduce the adult population to only what is fit for
children" -- U.S. Supreme Court, Reno v. ACLU, June 26, 1997
Andy Lowry
On 27 Aug 1997, sayan bhattacharyya wrote:
> Andy Lowry <a...@Ra.MsState.Edu> wrote:
> >
> > (1) When Jeanette Winterson ("Art Objects") asked her wine-connoisseur
> >friend how to get to know about wine, he told her, "Drink it."
> > (2) I know neither science nor art, but am a philosopher.--Heraclides Ponticus
>
>
> Putting (1) and (2) together, can we conclude that philosophers can
> get to "know" about wine without drinking it ?
Depends on the school of philosophy. (I see a T-shirt here.)
Characteristically they would probably scoff at the notion of attempting
to really _grasp_ the essence of wine through its purely phenomenal
qualities. Socrates, true, could drink quite a lot, but he remained
sober, which rather defeats the purpose & hence any "knowledge."
I hope there are lots of posts on wine in the great philosophers.
-- Andy Lowry
Puss in Boots
Andy Lowry:
> I hope there are lots of posts on wine in the great philosophers.
Drinking at Night in the Bamboo Pavilion of Chao Tun-Li
in Yung-Chou, We Hear the Drunken Singing of the Frogs
We meet at night in the Thatched Pavilion
and look down at ten thousand bamboos.
The early moon is pale, outshone by the tall candles.
Our host keeps urging us to drink, and soon, in a daze,
we have fallen to the Land of Intoxication.
Suddenly, in the grass, we hear the croaking of frogs;
they seem to laugh at us for drinking so little.
Their singing is beautiful frog music:
why insist that it should sound like flutes and drums?
I remember when we climbed together
to the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Stones
how we leaned on the balustrade, hands dangling,
gazing at the cold, green bamboo.
Now we are actually in the cold green --
the bamboo will be unhappy if we don't drink some more.
Yang Wan-Li
-- Moggin
Paul D. Lanier
I don't know about the drinking bit, but that is beautiful poetry-
especially the line about the frog music not needing to be flutes and
drums.
Paul Lanier
By the Book
Andy Lowry <a...@Ra.MsState.Edu> wrote in article
<Pine.SOL.3.96.970827...@Ra.MsState.Edu>...
>
>
> When Jeanette Winterson ("Art Objects") asked her wine-connoisseur
> friend how to get to know about wine, he told her, "Drink it."
>
And maybe if you want to know literature you should read it... and not
theory.
That said, has anyone read _Signs of the Times_ (David Lehman)? A
non-academic view (not a deconstruction, I trust) of De Man and the
movement/philosophy/theory/world-view (Lehman posits that
deconstruction=CON+DESTRUCT). The early chapters give an interesting take
on the whole thing.
Still looking for _On Signs_.
lee
On 30 Aug 1997 02:53:28 GMT, you wrote in <01bcb4cd$e3a57ca0$06cdaec7@default>:
Allow me:
_On_Signs_ was edited by Marshall Blonsky
and published by Blackwell of Oxford,
I think in 1985 but definetly reprinted in 1985
Classmark: PP99On.
If you still can't find a copy by Monday, drop me a line and I'll pop into the
library and get a copy of the ISBN (the electronic catalogue I link into doesn't
have such useful info as that).
I wonder if there is an electronic version of the text availible?
Lee
lee
On Sat, 30 Aug 1997 10:18:43 GMT lee @ jove.u-net.com (Lee Goddard) wrote in
<5u8ruf$h4q$1...@despair.u-net.com>:
> Allow me:
Further details:
the full title of the chapter/essay in question is as follows:
Roland Barthes: Textual Analysis of a Tale By Poe
Analysis of Facts in the Case of M. Valdimar
It pretty much follows on from _Myth_Today_ in the second edition of
_Mythologies_.
Lee
Puss in Boots
MJ:
> Why is deconstruction a _species_ of close reading? I can't, as I say,
> make the question any clearer, but I can hold your hand and provide you
> with the first few words of the answer: "What renders deconstruction a
> species of close reading, as opposed to just close reading, is that . .
> ." (the dots indicate where you would fill in what qualities make
> deconstruction one kind of close reading as distinct from
> some other kind of close reading). Got it?
Sure: but why do you need me to do it for you? Isn't it
a job you're capable of doing yourself? You've read the New
Critics and you've read Derrida and de Man. I would think you
could tell them apart, i.e., that you wouldn't find yourself
regularly mistaking _Allegories of Reading_ for say, _The Well-
Wrought Urn_. If, by any remote chance, you find that all
close readings blur together, a visit to the optometrist might
be the thing.
[...]
MJ:
> Sure, in your example, as you elaborated it, there are Disciples of the
> Red Wheelbarrow. I can see that. So what? You think because you posit
> these Disciples, I am under an obligation to accept their existence?
> Your example was meant to show that one comes to understand what a red
> wheelbarrow is and how it is used and what deconstruction is and how it
> is practiced in like fashion; my point is that that one doesn't because
> a red wheelbarrow is a very different class of thing from
> deconstruction.
What point? You asked a question -- "If they were asking
about red wheelbarrows, what would you say? Then, when you
saw my reply, you decided that you wouldn't like to talk about
red wheelbarrows, after all. Which is alright with me. I'm
not attached to the example. You _did_ have a point, a little
while ago -- not necessarily a good one, but a point all the
same. "My point," you wrote, "in part is that what they do
isn't, for the most part, 'deconstruction.'" And why isn't it?
Because, you continued, "'Deconstruction' is what the
disciples do." From there it followed as night after day that
a person wanting to "know what deconstruction is" was best
advised to "read the disciples," rather than de Man or Derrida.
Logical enough -- but as I replied, your point was merely
that you could conceive of "deconstruction" in a way which
made the term inapplicable to de Man and Derrida. No dispute:
you could go even further and conceive of it as a red
wheelbarrow, making Derrida, de Man, and their disciples _all_
irrelevant. A tool catalogue would then be the appropriate
place to turn (garden tools or construction equipment, I'm not
sure which). However, that isn't the least objection to my
suggestion of reading Derrida and de Man, unless it happens to
be the case that red wheelbarrows are what the subject-who-
wants-to-know wants to be the subject-who-knows-about, when he
or she is asking about deconstruction.
[...]
MJ:
> 2. The empiricism of your approach is admirable; you've just got to work
> on extending it: when you point to the red wheelbarrow, you pick out an
> object that has a set of properties you can identify (red, three wheels,
> and so on); indeed you are able to identify the object to me as a red
> wheelbarrow, rather than, say, as a green ship, because you know red
> wheelbarrows have these properties and green ships don't.
Moggin:
> Well, no -- I don't, can't, etc. If that _was_ my approach, in
> this instance, I'd have all the usual, well-known difficulties. I
> wouldn't be able to identify an object with one wheel and two wooden
> legs as a wheelbarrow; or else I _would_, and my definition would
> immediately break down. And red -- I don't even want to get started.
MJ:
> Well, if this were your approach, you must, or else you couldn't have
> said, as you did above, that "Applied to a red wheelbarrow, I'd say
> 'Come to the window -- you can see what it is and how it's used if you
> look right over there.'" You couldn't bring me to the window to point
> out a red wheelbarrow to me unless you had an idea of what a red
> wheelbarrow was (your idea could be wrong, as mine was (three wheels
> instead of two legs and one wheel, but you would still have to have an
> idea to be able to point
> (indeed your idea could be wrong and you might still be able to point
> correctly; even though I said "three wheels," I'd have been able to pick
> out the object with two legs and a wheel as a wheelbarrow)).
I wouldn't say that your idea was wrong -- why _couldn't_
a wheebarrow have three wheels? Granted, there's some small
danger of it turning into a tricycle, but the usual spells and
incantations should ward that off. Anyway, I can point to a
red wheelbarrow without having to "conceptualize" it -- I only
need to know, as I said, that "red wheelbarrow" refers to a
certain object visible from my window; then, if I'm asked what
a red wheelbarrow is and how it's used, I can reply simply,
"Look over there."
> Likewise, if you identify an object as being red, you have a conception
> of "redness." There's no point in denying that you do. You might want to
> explore other issues, like how do we know that by "red," we mean the
> same thing. But insofar as you are prepared to take me to the window and
> point to an object with two legs and a wheel that is painted and say
> "that's a red wheelbarrow," then you have a conception of "red."
That doesn't follow. All you can conclude is that when I
happen to be asked about red wheelbarrows, I point to a
certain object visible from my window -- what "concepts" I may
or may not associate with it are something else again.
Moggin:
> But luckily for me, I don't have to worry about all that -- I'm
> just answering a simple question, and it's my job is to provide a
> no-bullshit answer. Nothing more complicated. So how do I go about
> it? I draw on my knowledge that "red wheelbarrow" refers to a
> certain object visible from my window. Then I can answer, "You want
> to know about red wheelbarrows? Look over there."
MJ:
> Right: on the no-bullshit model (though it seems the no-bullshit and
> the, well, I guess it would have to be, bullshit model, are the same,
> since you advocate the pointing method in both), you have a conception
> of what a red wheelbarrow is. So . . . what's the objection?
Just this once, I'm not raising objections -- I gave some
helpful advice on learning about deconstruction, is all. You
want to object to my suggestions, but you've had difficulty in
locating an objection that would stick.
> You say "Well, no -- I don't, can't, etc" (etc. ?) in response to my
> claim that you are able to identify the object to me as a red
> wheelbarrow, rather than, say, as a green ship, because you know red
> wheelbarrows have these properties and green ships don't. But if you
> draw on your knowledge that "red wheelbarrow" refers to a certain object
> visible from your window, then you are indeed able to identify the
> object to me as a red wheelbarrow because you know it has certain
> properties that green ships don't (note that the question of whether
> or not these properties _inhere_ in the red wheelbarrow or green ship
> is not the issue).
Agreed. But don't stop there. The _properties_ of green
ships and red wheelbarrows are simply not at issue. And my
knowledge that "red wheelbarrow" refers to a particular object
doesn't say anything about my knowledge of its properties
(whatever they may be). What you _can_ say is that I know (or
at least claim to know) what "red wheelbarrow" applies to --
which is all that I _need_ to know in order to point you to it.
MJ:
> So apply this to the work of Derrida and de Man: what kinds of
> properties make their texts "deconstructionist"?
Moggin:
> I'm already applying a satisfactory approach to the question --
> obviously you'd prefer it if I switched to another.
MJ:
> You've been gesturing towards an approach that suggests you'd be able to
> specify what kinds of properties render the work of Derrida and de Man
> "deconstructionist." Since I'd like to know what those properties are,
> no, I wouldn't prefer it if you switched to another approach.
Yet you would, since the approach you're describing here
isn't the one I've been taking. In order to do what _you_
want, namely "specify what kinds of properties render the work
of Derrida and de Man 'deconstructionist,'" I would have to
adopt another method. That might or then again might not be a
good idea -- but your preference for a different approach is
no criticism of the one that I'm presently taking. And that's
the one you're attempting to quarrel with.
Moggin:
> But you were attempting to criticize the answer that I gave; not just to
> persuade me to use a different method. In the event, you're not being
> the least persuasive: you're simply giving orders.
MJ:
> It would be hard to be persuasive when you're asking questions (I asked
> a question: "what kinds of properties make their texts
> 'deconstructionist?'"); it's when you're giving answers that adjectives
> like "persuasive" or "non-persuasive" come into play.
Highly debatable. Take this instance: you're suggesting
that I should answer the question that you prefer to pose,
instead of the one that I was replying to. Plainly that isn't
any criticism of my answer. Setting that issue aside, it
could be that _your_ question is somehow superior to the one I
addressed. Clearly you believe that I _should_ have replied
to it. But that's precisely where you haven't been persuasive.
Moggin:
> And now I notice it, you've gone and changed the question. It's _not_
> "what kinds of properties make texts 'deconstructionist'?" If that's
> what you want to discuss, I suppose we could pursue it -- but the
> question here is "deconstruction -- what is it and how is it
> practiced?" Criteria for the answer are "simple" and "no-bullshit." I
> answered it just that way. If you have any relevant criticism, I'd be
> glad to listen.
MJ:
> Well, since I think that what deconstruction ostensibly is and what
> kinds of properties make a text "deconstructionist" is the same
> question, I would be pursuing the same question either way.
Obviously you would -- but to me, "What is deconstruction
and how is it practiced?" isn't the same as "What kinds of
properties make texts 'deconstructionist'?" And my answer was
addressed to the former, not the latter.
> I've already issued my criticism of your simple and no-bullshit answer.
> One way of summing up that criticism would be to ask you: what if, when
> asked what deconstruction was, I said "Well, start with Plato's
> _Dialogues_ and Aristotle's _Metaphysics_." If you tell me that's fine
> by you, well, then it looks like "deconstruction" has no meaning, since
> it looks like it can apply to everything and therefore nothing;
> if, on the other hand, you say "No, Plato isn't a deconstructionist
> because of x and Aristotle isn't one because of y," well, then you have
> a conception of what "deconstruction" is independently of any specific
> text, and so you could share that conception with us.
Funny thing -- somebody _did_ ask what deconstruction was.
I offered a reply. You claim something is wrong with my
answer, but for the most part, you talk about anything else --
the questions _you_ would have asked, instead, the answers you
might hypothetically give, etc., etc. I'm still waiting to
hear what you think is the matter with the reply I made in the
form I made it, addressed to the question I was replying to.
MJ:
> You have identified one property thus far: "deconstruction _is_ a
> species of close reading." Your unwillingness to elaborate on the point
> nothwithstanding, you have a conception of what aspects of their work
> render it "deconstructionist"; if you didn't, you couldn't point the
> curious in the direction of Derrida and de Man in the first place.
Moggin:
> Sure could.
MJ:
> I take it you're saying you could point the curious in the direction of
> Derrida and de man without having a conception of deconstruction?
Right.
> Well,
> that can mean only one thing: that if they've been identified by others
> as deconstructionists, that's good enough for you--that is, you don't
> know what it is, but you know Derrida and de Man have been cited as
> being it. Which means that Shane, e.g., should read those who
> identify Derrida and de Man as deconstructionists in order to find out
> what deconstruction is, which was my original suggestion.
That doesn't follow; since "deconstruction" refers to the
work of Derrida and de Man, the simple reply to "What is
deconstruction and how is it practiced?" is, "Read them." One
could even suggest some starting points. There may be reasons
to read what people say about them. I wouldn't rule it out.
But a person with an interest in learning about deconstruction
would do well, I think, to begin by reading Derrida and de Man,
rather than to start by studying somebody else's opinion of
their writing. (Much as someone interested in Dickinson might
want to begin with her poetry, rather than her critics.)
MJ:
> Unless you're just using the word "deconstructionist" as a synonym for,
> like, "writer" ("You want to know what writing is? Well, go look at,
> e.g., a book. Writing is the black marks that books are made of."). So
> just tell us what those aspects are, just as you would tell me what
> aspects make a red wheelbarrow a red wheelbarrow (and so here red
> wheelbarrows and schools of thought cross paths, as it were).
Moggin:
> You're confused. If you ask what a red wheelbarrow is, and how it's
> used, and I point out the window, then there isn't any need to discuss
> "what aspects make a red wheelbarrow a red wheelbarrow."
MJ:
> I'm confused? Did I say anything about _discussing_ what aspects make a
> red wheelbarrow a red wheelbarrow?
Yes -- you did. In particular, you wrote, "...just tell
us what those aspects are, just as you would tell me what
aspects make a red wheelbarrow a red wheelbarrow..."
> I agree with you completely that
> there is no need to _discuss_ what aspects make a red wheelbarrow a red
> wheelbarrow, though I'm willing to do it if you want. You can just
> _tell_ me what those aspects are, just as I can just _tell_ you what
> those aspects are (i.e., it's an object with a wheel and two legs).
If I tell you "what aspects make a red wheelbarrow a red
wheelbarrow," then I'm discussing red wheelbarrows with you.
As I said, though, pointing out the window makes that into an
unnecessary discussion. (Naturally we could choose to have
it, anyhow.)
Moggin:
> I already answered your question. Clearly you're the sort of person who
> likes to ask _other_ types of questions, as well, e.g., "What aspects
> make a red wheelbarrow a red wheelbarrow?" That's something else we
> could go on to discuss, if we agreed it was worthwhile.
MJ:
> 1) Ah yes, "clearly you're the sort of person . . . " Hmmm, for someone
> who appears to be of the persuasion that it's not possible to
> characterize people, places, or things, that's a rather bold statement,
> don't you think? Would you care to retract it?
Nope; for one thing, you've mischaracterized me. And for
another, I have the evidence to back up my observation --
since you've asked about "what aspects make a red wheelbarrow
a red wheelbarrow" and "what kinds of properties render the
work of Derrida and de Man 'deconstructionist,'" I can figure
you're the sort of person who asks those questions. Of
course, I might have to qualify that. For instance, it could
turn out that you're the sort of person who pretends to ask
those questions. Or you might be the _only_ person who likes
to ask them, in which case I couldn't talk about a sort --
all I could say is that you're a person who likes to ask them.
Or maybe you dislike asking them, but feel compelled. Etc.
> 2) No, I don't feel the need to discuss it, as, as I've said, I know
> what makes a red wheelbarrow a red wheelbarrow.
Probably would've been boring, anyhow.
Moggin:
> Your point, then, is that you can conceive of "deconstruction" in a way
> which makes the term inapplicable to de Man and Derrida. I'm sure you
> can -- define it as a red wheelbarrow and much may depend on it, but it
> won't have anything in particular to do with either of them. Still,
> that's no objection to suggesting Derrida and de Man as good reading for
> anyone interested in deconstruction, unless red wheelbarrows
> happen to be what they're asking about.
MJ:
> I can't sort this out. I can say, though, that you haven't given any
> reason for thinking that Derrida and de Man would be good reading for
> anyone interested in deconstruction.
Simple enough, really; you claim that I'm wrong to advise
a person asking about deconstruction to read de Man and
Derrida. Why? Because, according to you, "deconstruction" is
"what the disciples do." On the Humpty-Dumpty principle you
can define it any way you care to -- even as a red wheelbarrow,
if that suits your fancy. But that doesn't constitute an
objection to my advice.
Moggin:
> See above. (As an aside, I've never found that _characterizing_ is
>tantamount to _summarizing_ or _defining_. I can say that it's
>characteristic of Susan to take a skeptical attitude, without claiming I
>can define her or sum her up.)
Moggin:
> Can't say as I do.
MJ:
> Why not?
It's moot, given what you say below.
Moggin:
> But the main thing is that you've given up your claim that citing any,
> given characteristic proves the possibility of constructing an adequate
> summary or definition; as a principle, that was anything but sound.
MJ:
> I never made this claim to begin with, so it would be kind of hard for
> me to give it up.
You said, "Maybe you find that that the overturning-
binary-oppositions thing is a characteristic of Derrida or de
Man's work, but if you do, then you'd have to admit that it is
possible to summarize or define 'deconstruction.'" That's
false, since identifying a given characteristic doesn't entail
an admission of the possibility of summarizing or defining.
Moggin:
> Now you want to say, if I follow, that all people, places, and things
> are fundamentally sets of identifiable characteristics; therefore they
> can all be fully described by the relevant laundry list. Is that it? Do
> I have the "sound principle" right? Or would you like to correct me?
MJ:
> Nope, you obviously don't follow, since I didn't say that all things are
> _fundamentally_ sets of properties, first of all, and, second, even if
> I had, it wouldn't follow from that that all things can be fully
> described. Given that, I'll pretend you didn't attempt to make the
> argument (your grasp of both formal and informal
> reasoning, I have to say, seems weak, and so you might want to try to
> avoid "therefore" formulations and the like, at least until you learn
> what such formulations entail), and just note that I nowhere suggest
> that all people, places, and things can be "fully described"--if you
> look at what I said, it was that all persons, places, and things can be
> characterized or summarized. "Characterizing" or "summarizing" is not
> the same as "fully describing."
What argument do you want to pretend I didn't make? The
argument here, if there is one, is yours; the logic, ditto. I
was asking you to tell me if I understood you correctly.
According to you, the answer is no -- I didn't. Fine. That's
what I was checking to see. It's just as well, considering.
Since you say that "characterizing" and "summarizing" _aren't_
full accounts, you _don't_ say that full descriptions are
necessarily possible, and you're not claiming the identifiable
characteristics of people, places, and things are basic to
them, you have a sound principle: incomplete descriptions and
superficial accounts aren't hard to produce.
MJ:
> The term "deconstruction," on the other hand, should be dropped from the
> vocabulary unless it can be shown to have a meaning that warrants its
> existence.
Moggin:
> Non sequitur -- but since you raise the subject, Basic English
> has 850 words. You're welcome to restrict yourself to them, if
> you please. Alternatively, you could take a more liberal position:
> rig yourself out in black robes, equip yourself with a bench and
> gavel, and decide which words you feel like giving warrants to, and
> which ones you'll send to the Big Chair. (I don't promise they'll
> listen.)
MJ:
> Now, now, you know I can't give any warrants unless you tell me what the
> words mean. You know how the language game works, Puss: "If a lion
> spoke, would we understand him?"
Moggin:
> If you don't know the meaning of more than 850 English words, I don't
> see how you can set yourself up as judge of the others. You make a poor
> candidate for the bench; I'm not sure this is a position that needs to
> be filled, but if it _is_, we'd better get someone qualified.
MJ:
> A _non sequitur_, Puss, since I didn't say I knew the meaning of only
> 850 English words (or less). That aside, no one can give warrants or
> pose the objection to warrants without knowing what the words mean, a
> point you blatantly fail to address in the above. Me and my putative
> qualifcations are a moot point.
I suggested you set yourself up as judge (you already had,
to give credit where it's due) and render a verdict on the
words that fell outside the 850 of Basic English. You replied
that you couldn't unless I told you what the words meant.
Implication: those 850 are the only ones you know the meaning
of. And you just did it again: if you know the meaning of
words beyond the scope of Basic English, you can go to work as
a judge immediately. But since you keep talking about not
knowing what the words mean, I take it that your vocabulary is
the prohibiting factor. That doesn't seem likely to me, but
what am I going to do -- call you a liar?
Moggin:
> A better analogy would be to something in the humanities: if a person
> asked about Emily Dickinson, you could give them the two-volume Sewall
> biography and say, "Read up!" But it might be better to reply, "She's a
> 19th century poet. Try reading some of her stuff. _Final Harvest_ is a
> nice collection. It's even in paperback. Hope you like it -- let me
> know what you think."
MJ:
> Not really a great analogy, Puss, since you can't ascertain what it
> isthat the word "deconstruction" is suppose to signify by reading
> Derrida's or de Man's work. You may well form an opinion about the
> quality of their work by reading it, but it's just not going to happen
> that you spontaneously think to yourself: "it's got that certain 'je ne
> sais quoi' that a term of art like 'deconstruction' just beautifully
> captures!"
Moggin:
> And your objection to the analogy is...what? I've never found any
> quality that the name "Dickinson" perfectly captures -- or the term
> "poetry," for that matter. Nonetheless, if you ask me about Dickinson,
> I'll suggest you read some other work. ("Poems," they're called, what
> she wrote. Also some other things called "letters" -- but just go ahead
> and read, I'd say. Worry about the terms-of-art later.) If you're
> interested in deconstruction, ditto -- best to begin with de Man and
> Derrida.
MJ:
> The objection is that you can, e.g, find out what close reading is by
> reading Derrida or de Man, but you can't find out what deconstruction
> is.
Moggin:
> Oh, sure you can; it's what you just read -- i.e., close reading as they
> practice it. Naturally it's possible to think up more complex
> definitions, but if you remember, we're looking for a simple answer to a
> "simple question" -- and there it is.
MJ:
> No, your answer is an evasion. Tell me why I can't just call it close
> reading.
Moggin:
> Tell me why it's an evasion. Meanwhile, I'll answer you. You can call
> it anything you like -- but your decision to call it this or that
> doesn't pose any objection to my analogy. It's also not an argument
> against my advice that Derrida and de Man make good reading for somebody
> interested in learning about deconstruction -- so your complaints have
> nothing to them.
MJ:
> It's an evasion because if I can call it anything I like, then there's
> no point in calling it "deconstruction."
Moggin:
> That doesn't follow, i.e., it doesn't follow that I made an evasion,
> _or_ that there's no point. That you can call it whatever you like
> doesn't bear on the question of whether or not calling it
> "deconstruction" has any particular point.The two don't have any
> relation. At least none that I can see, and none you've mentioned.
MJ:
> It sounds to me like you're saying that you can call the work of, say,
> Derrida, a number of things in addition to calling it deconstructionist,
> so that whatever I might call it aside from that doesn't bear on whether
> or not there's reason to call it deconstructionist. But if that's the
> case, you've missed my point, because my point had only to do with
> reasons for calling Derrida's work, e.g., deconstructionist.
It's not entirely clear that you've _got_ a point to make.
You wanted to register an objection; that much seems plain.
Specifically, you claimed to find an error in in my analogy --
I pointed out where you were mistaken, and you accused me of
being evasive; so I asked where you found this "evasion." You
made a nonsensical reply. I said as much. Now you tell me
that I'm missing your point: one that so far you haven't made.
All I know about is that it's about the "reasons for calling
Derrida's work, e.g., 'deconstructionist'" -- which means it's
irrelevant here. _You're_ discussing the question, "Why
should Derrida's work be called 'deconstructionist'?" -- while
the question that I _addressed_ is, "What is deconstruction
and how is it practiced?"
Let's try this once more -- yes, I'm saying that there is
no connection between what you call Derrida's work and the
question of whether there's any point in calling it something
else, e.g., "deconstruction." And that was precisely your
argument: "If I can call it anything I like," you said, "then
there's no point in calling it 'deconstruction.'" Which
doesn't follow -- your ability to call it what you will has no
bearing on whether or not there's a point to calling it
"deconstruction" -- there's no then there. But this is all an
aside, since, to repeat, I was replying to a question about
what deconstruction is and how it's practiced -- not about the
point in calling it by that name.
Moggin:
> You also haven't shown any signs of this supposed "evasion" I committed
> -- it's possible that you want to claim I've evaded the task of
> demonstrating that there's some "point in calling it 'deconstruction.'"
> But that's not at issue: the question was never, "What's the point in
> calling it 'deconstruction?'" It was, "What is it and how is it
> practiced?" Which I answered some time ago in a simple, no-bullshit way.
MJ:
> Sure, I've indicated how you've evaded the question; you've evaded it by
> not saying what sorts of things pick a piece of writing out as
> "deconstructionist."
Once again you're just changing the question. It's silly
to accuse me of evading the question "What sorts of things
pick a piece of writing out as 'deconstructionist'?" when that
isn't the question I was addressing, to begin with -- I was
answering the question, "What is deconstruction, and how is it
practiced?"
> The question, what's the point in calling it
> "deconstruction" is intimately connected to the question, what is it,
> and how is it practiced. (If one determines, e.g., that it is just
> another word for close reading, then a lot of the mystifcation that
> surrounds the term could be undone by simply not using it, or by
> admitting that that's what it means).
"What's the point in calling it 'deconstruction'?" is not
the question that I was replying to. It may be that "what's
the point?" relates to "what is it?" But I don't need a reply
to the former to help somebody find out about the latter --
in other words, I can say, "If you want to find out what it is,
look over there," without going into a song-and-dance about
what the point of it is. It's even possible the person asking
will arrive at her own ideas. Or is that what worries you?
I'm offering a simple and unmystifying approach -- if you
want to know what it is and to find out how it's practiced
(those _were_ the questions), look at the stuff yourself. You
say that anybody who wants to learn about deconstruction
should limit themselves to the "disciples." To me that sounds
like cultish nonsense. You can't see the way that it's
practiced from a second-hand account. Besides, why settle for
a disciple's opinions when you could make up your own mind,
instead?
-- Moggin
-Mammel,L.H.
In article <moggin-ya02408000...@news.mindspring.com>,
>
> O.k., I see where the misunderstanding is: it's about the term
>"deconstruction." I'm using it in a narrow sense, where it refers
>to Derrida and de Man, and by extension to anyone similar. _You're_
>using it to mean -- well, I'm not sure, but something that covers
>alot more territory. It's not hard to list books that criticize the
>sciences in some way, shape, or form. But if you recall, the
>question came up when jstokes replied to a post of mine about de Man,
>Derrida, Culler (_On Deconstruction_, meaning Derrida, et al.) and
>Ellis (_Against Deconstruction_, ditto) with his complaint about the
>"deconstructionists attacking science in long, furious tracts."
>Which means we need examples of _those_ kinds of deconstructionists,
>attacking science in _that_ sort of way. Unfortunately, they
>haven't turned up. Not yet, anyhow.
I guess I should have excerpted the rest of your stipulation:
----------------
You've dropped the claim it's long and furious, so no need to worry
about length or tenor. You just have to produce some deconstructionist
critiques of science. I hope you can, since I'd like to learn about
them -- all I can think of is Plotnitsky. So come on, already -- list
plenty more. Then you can explain where you think they go wrong.
----------------
( I picked this article to reply to because it had it )
So are you reinstating "long and furious"? Or are you really
asserting that Harding and Latour have not written "deconstructionist
critiques of science" ?
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Anonymous
>Moggin:
>
>The question here, Steph, is, "What is 'deconstruction'"? And
the
>simple answer is exactly the one I gave-- it's a practice closely
>associated with the work of Derrida and de Man.
The question here, Steph, is, "What is Newtonian physics?", and
the simple answer is exactly the one I gave-- it's a practice
closely associated with the work of Isaac Newton and his
followers.
So if you want an idea
>of what it looks like in the wild, the best thing is to glance at
a
>couple or three of their essays.
So if you want an idea of what it looks like in the wild, the
best thing is to glance at the _Principia Mathematica_, or a
couple or three of their articles in _The Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society_.
>
<Further grotesqueries deleted>
I haven't seen so much evasion and obfuscation since last Sunday's
political talkshows.
Any subject I know of can be explained, however distortedly and
incompletely, in a few sentences. Once the student understands the
initial explanation, for whatever it's worth, he can be given more
detail, and led gradually to a fuller understanding.
Moggin seems to think that nothing can be said about
deconstruction to relate it to the outside world: you simply read
the sacred books and whenever you think you understand it, then,
you understand it. Maybe you can parrot from the scriptures and
get a position 'teaching' the stuff.
This smacks of intellectual con-artistry at its worst; though
maybe that's uncharitable: Moggin and his ilk may be sincere and
simply not know the truth from a hole in the wall.
Thank God he and his fellow 'post-modernists' weren't teaching
when my kids were in school.
G*rd*n
nob...@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous):
| I haven't seen so much evasion and obfuscation since last Sunday's
| political talkshows.
|
| Any subject I know of can be explained, however distortedly and
| incompletely, in a few sentences. Once the student understands the
| initial explanation, for whatever it's worth, he can be given more
| detail, and led gradually to a fuller understanding.
| ...
The Russian language, for example.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Puss in Boots
Lew Mammel, Jr.
> I would certainly nominate Sandra Harding's THE SCIENCE QUESTION
> IN FEMINISM and LaTour's WE HAVE NEVER BEEN MODERN. Maybe this
> requires a broad definition of "deconstruction", but I think
> it would be a fair characterization. Feyerabend is a
> deconstructor too, I think.
> Also, Woolgar uses the term "deconstruct" explicitly in
> SCIENCE: THE VERY IDEA, although in a curiously simplistic
> sense meaning something close to "debunk".
Moggin:
> > O.k., I see where the misunderstanding is: it's about the term
> >"deconstruction." I'm using it in a narrow sense, where it refers
> >to Derrida and de Man, and by extension to anyone similar. _You're_
> >using it to mean -- well, I'm not sure, but something that covers
> >alot more territory. It's not hard to list books that criticize the
> >sciences in some way, shape, or form. But if you recall, the
> >question came up when jstokes replied to a post of mine about de Man,
> >Derrida, Culler (_On Deconstruction_, meaning Derrida, et al.) and
> >Ellis (_Against Deconstruction_, ditto) with his complaint about the
> >"deconstructionists attacking science in long, furious tracts."
> >Which means we need examples of _those_ kinds of deconstructionists,
> >attacking science in _that_ sort of way. Unfortunately, they
> >haven't turned up. Not yet, anyhow.
Lew:
> I guess I should have excerpted the rest of your stipulation:
[Moggin:]
> You've dropped the claim it's long and furious, so no need to worry
> about length or tenor. You just have to produce some deconstructionist
> critiques of science. I hope you can, since I'd like to learn about
> them -- all I can think of is Plotnitsky. So come on, already -- list
> plenty more. Then you can explain where you think they go wrong.
Lew:
> ( I picked this article to reply to because it had it )
> So are you reinstating "long and furious"? Or are you really
> asserting that Harding and Latour have not written "deconstructionist
> critiques of science" ?
It's like this -- in a thread about Derrida and de Man, Jason
complained about "deconstructionists attacking science in long,
furious tracts." That requires some examples; to be relevant, they
need to be long, furious attacks on science that resemble
deconstruction as practiced by Derrida and de Man. Later on, Jason
dropped the "long and furious" part. O.k. That should make it
easier to find illustrations; but they've still got to be something
"deconstructive" in the narrow sense of the term. Now you make a
contribution, using a "broad definition of deconstruction." That's
fine. There are plenty of books criticizing the sciences; if you
want to call some of them "deconstructionist," then who am I to say
you nay? To help out Jason, though, we need to find examples of
attacks on science that are deconstructionist in the stricter sense.
(He's set aside "long and furious," so that's not essential.) Do
you think Harding and Latour do the trick? Or are you content with
giving "deconstruction" a meaning broad enough to include them,
along with Feyerabend and whoever else?
-- Moggin
-Mammel,L.H.
>complained about "deconstructionists attacking science in long,
>furious tracts." That requires some examples; to be relevant, they
>need to be long, furious attacks on science that resemble
>deconstruction as practiced by Derrida and de Man. Later on, Jason
>dropped the "long and furious" part. O.k. That should make it
>easier to find illustrations; but they've still got to be something
>"deconstructive" in the narrow sense of the term. Now you make a
>contribution, using a "broad definition of deconstruction." That's
>fine. There are plenty of books criticizing the sciences; if you
>want to call some of them "deconstructionist," then who am I to say
>you nay? To help out Jason, though, we need to find examples of
>attacks on science that are deconstructionist in the stricter sense.
>(He's set aside "long and furious," so that's not essential.) Do
>you think Harding and Latour do the trick? Or are you content with
>giving "deconstruction" a meaning broad enough to include them,
>along with Feyerabend and whoever else?
In short, yes I think Harding an Latour are deconstructive.
Anyway, I guess anything anyone ever did on earth satisfies
your "strict" definition, since you refuse to give any concrete
characterization of this practice, and beg the question entirely
by saying it has to be "like" Derrida, so you know, technically,
it could be "like" Derrida insofar as at uses words, or something.
If you think this is silly, go ahead and give a characterization.
I already did, in response to mj devaney, but I suppose everybody
will say " I didn't get that at my site" ( sigh ) . What's
certain is that I didn't see any followup to it. Anyway, my
characterization was ( to me ) very much in line with Andrew
Lowry's in a related thread.
Also, I don't think you should have to hold a work up to Derrida
as a template to characterize it, as though the important thing
were to ape him somehow.
Anyway, it's not all that complicated. Look at Derrida's
Intro to Husserl's Origin of Geometry. What is the upshot?
The upshot is that there is no geometry, just words,
words, words. Crude? OK. But this is the idea that gets the
ball rolling, and which ball is pushed along by Latour and
Harding, and which causes such vehement reaction. What's
the point of trying to wash Derrida's hands of it?
BTW, are you familiar at all with, say, Latour? If Derrida
is the exemplar of True Deconstruction ( is this like True
Science? ) Then maybe we could make Latour the exemplar
of faux "deconstruction" and dispense with the problem
of "whoever else".
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Puss in Boots
Lew:
>>> So are you reinstating "long and furious"? Or are you really
>>> asserting that Harding and Latour have not written "deconstructionist
>>> critiques of science" ?
Moggin:
> > It's like this -- in a thread about Derrida and de Man, Jason
> >complained about "deconstructionists attacking science in long,
> >furious tracts." That requires some examples; to be relevant, they
> >need to be long, furious attacks on science that resemble
> >deconstruction as practiced by Derrida and de Man. Later on, Jason
> >dropped the "long and furious" part. O.k. That should make it
> >easier to find illustrations; but they've still got to be something
> >"deconstructive" in the narrow sense of the term. Now you make a
> >contribution, using a "broad definition of deconstruction." That's
> >fine. There are plenty of books criticizing the sciences; if you
> >want to call some of them "deconstructionist," then who am I to say
> >you nay? To help out Jason, though, we need to find examples of
> >attacks on science that are deconstructionist in the stricter sense.
> >(He's set aside "long and furious," so that's not essential.) Do
> >you think Harding and Latour do the trick? Or are you content with
> >giving "deconstruction" a meaning broad enough to include them,
> >along with Feyerabend and whoever else?
Lew:
> In short, yes I think Harding an Latour are deconstructive.
> Anyway, I guess anything anyone ever did on earth satisfies
> your "strict" definition, since you refuse to give any concrete
> characterization of this practice, and beg the question entirely
> by saying it has to be "like" Derrida, so you know, technically,
> it could be "like" Derrida insofar as at uses words, or something.
> If you think this is silly, go ahead and give a characterization.
We seem to be having a misunderstanding -- I'm _not_ demanding
that you use "deconstruction" in a way that satisfies a strict
definition, e.g, the one I haven't given -- you can and will put it
to work as you see fit. In this case, you said clearly that you
were applying a broad definition. O.k. But we were, once, looking
for examples to fit a _narrower_ sense of the term; since you're
applying it _broadly_, as you say yourself, your candidates may not
serve the purpose.
> I already did, in response to mj devaney, but I suppose everybody
> will say " I didn't get that at my site" ( sigh ) . What's
> certain is that I didn't see any followup to it. Anyway, my
> characterization was ( to me ) very much in line with Andrew
> Lowry's in a related thread.
You're right -- I didn't see it. Just did a quick search, in
case I missed it, but didn't turn anything up. Maybe you could
re-post it, or e-mail me a copy, if you've got one. Meantime, I'll
go look at what Andy said.
> Also, I don't think you should have to hold a work up to Derrida
> as a template to characterize it, as though the important thing
> were to ape him somehow.
Did anyone call that important? Of course not. Important to
_what_, anyhow? Apparently you feel that it's very important to
label an assortment of people "deconstructionists." So far you've
named Feyerabend, Woolgar, Harding, and Latour in addition to
the ones we were already talking about -- as you've stated, you're
using a broad definition of "deconstruct." Well, you would have
to be. But there you are -- you've got a broad notion and a broad
set of people to apply it to. You ought to be happy as a rabbit
in clover.
> Anyway, it's not all that complicated. Look at Derrida's
> Intro to Husserl's Origin of Geometry. What is the upshot?
> The upshot is that there is no geometry, just words,
> words, words. Crude? OK. But this is the idea that gets the
> ball rolling, and which ball is pushed along by Latour and
> Harding, and which causes such vehement reaction. What's
> the point of trying to wash Derrida's hands of it?
I've heard it said a butterfly in China can cause a hurricane
in Ft. Lauderdale, thus lowering the value of the Mammel, jr.
family beachfront property. _Bad_ butterfly! _Naughty_ butterfly!
_Reprehensible_ butterfly! But anyone familiar with the natural
sciences should know better than to try and hang an albatross on a
butterfly's neck.
> BTW, are you familiar at all with, say, Latour? If Derrida
> is the exemplar of True Deconstruction ( is this like True
> Science? ) Then maybe we could make Latour the exemplar
> of faux "deconstruction" and dispense with the problem
> of "whoever else".
Your reason needs a new veneer.
-- Moggin
Puss in Boots
Andy Lowry <a...@Ra.MsState.Edu>:
> > When Jeanette Winterson ("Art Objects") asked her wine-connoisseur
> > friend how to get to know about wine, he told her, "Drink it."
"By the Book" <byth...@sprynet.com>:
> And maybe if you want to know literature you should read it... and not
> theory.
Do you always attack strawmen?
> That said, has anyone read _Signs of the Times_ (David Lehman)? A
> non-academic view (not a deconstruction, I trust) of De Man and the
> movement/philosophy/theory/world-view (Lehman posits that
> deconstruction=CON+DESTRUCT). The early chapters give an interesting take
> on the whole thing.
The early chapters are a hatchet job with a dull blade -- the
later ones, ditto, but they've also got some biographical info.
One virtue of the early chapters, though, is that Lehman assembles
examples of "deconstruction" in common parlance: "Last night the
Hawks deconstructed the Weathercocks, 7 to 3." That sort of thing.
-- Moggin
-Mammel,L.H.
Well, if you don't think Harding and Latour are deconstructionists,
fine. I think they stand in very well for what Jason Stokes
had in mind, but if you still think he's making the whole thing
up, and there never has been a "deconstructive critique of
science", have it your way.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
mj devaney
MJ:
Why is deconstruction a _species_ of close reading? I can't, as I say,
make the question any clearer, but I can hold your hand and provide you
with the first few words of the answer: "What renders deconstruction a
species of close reading, as opposed to just close reading, is that . .
." (the dots indicate where you would fill in what qualities make
deconstruction one kind of close reading as distinct from some other
kind of close reading). Got it?
Moggin:
Sure: but why do you need me to do it for you? Isn't it a job you're
capable of doing yourself? You've read the New Critics and you've read
Derrida and de Man. I would think you could tell them apart, i.e., that
you wouldn't find yourself regularly mistaking _Allegories of Reading_
for say, _The Well-Wrought Urn_. If, by any remote chance, you find
that all close readings blur together, a visit to the optometrist might
be the thing.
MJ:
Well (and we now see that you did know what I was asking), that's the
thing, I _could_ mistake _The Well Wrought Urn_ for _Allegories of
Reading_ in terms of the notions that inform their practice of
close reading. Consider, e.g.:
"For us today, Donne's imagination seems obsessed with the problem of
unity; the sense in which the lovers become one--the sense in which the
soul is united with God. Frequently, as we have seen, one type of unity
becomes a metaphor for the other. It may not be far-fetched to see both
as instances of, and metaphors for, the union which creative imagination
effects. For that union is not logical; it apparently violates logic and
common sense; it welds together the discordant and the contradictory."
(_The Well Wrought Urn_, p. 18)
"The grammatical model of the question [in this case, Yeats' "how can we
know the dancer from the dance?"] becomes rhetorical not when we have,
on the one hand, a literal meaning and on the other hand a figural
meaning, but when it is impossible to decide by grammatical or other
linguistic devices which of the two meanings (that can be enitrely
incompatible) prevails. Rhetoric radically suspends logic and opens up
vertiginous possibilites of referential aberration." (_Allegories of
Reading_, p. 10)
I think both Brooks and de Man need a course in Logic 101, but the
rightness or wrongness of their claims aside, they express very similar
concerns.
[. . .]
MJ:
Sure, in your example, as you elaborated it, there are Disciples of the
Red Wheelbarrow. I can see that. So what? You think because you posit
these Disciples, I am under an obligation to accept their existence?
Your example was meant to show that one comes to understand what a red
wheelbarrow is and how it is used and what deconstruction is and how it
is practiced in like fashion; my point is that one doesn't because a red
wheelbarrow is a very different class of thing from deconstruction.
Moggin:
What point?
MJ:
The point that your analogy between Red Wheelbarrows and deconstrcuction
doesn't work because a red wheelbarrow is a very different class of
thing from deconstruction.
Moggin:
You asked a question -- "If they were asking about red wheelbarrows,
what would you say?"
MJ:
Speaking of de Man and rhetorical questions . . .
Moggin:
Then, when you saw my reply, you decided that you wouldn't like to talk
about red wheelbarrows, after all. Which is alright with me. I'm not
attached to the example.
MJ:
No, it wasn't that I didn't want to talk about them; in fact I did, at
some length, talk about them in explaining why the comparison between
red wheelbarrows and deconstruction didn't work.
Moggin:
You _did_ have a point, a little while ago -- not necessarily a good
one, but a point all the same. "My point," you wrote, "in part is that
what they do isn't, for the most part, 'deconstruction.'" And
why isn't it? Because, you continued, "'Deconstruction' is what the
disciples do." From there it followed as night after day that a person
wanting to "know what deconstruction is" was best advised to "read the
disciples," rather than de Man or Derrida.
MJ:
Right--the problem in re the matter of red wheelbarrows is that there
are no disciples of them, and hence you can't find out about red
wheelbarrows from them. Since they're non-existent, and all that.
Moggin:
Logical enough -- but as I replied, your point was merely that you could
conceive of "deconstruction" in a way which made the term inapplicable
to de Man and Derrida.
MJ:
You haven't show how it is applicable to de Man and Derrida. You've
merely asserted that they are deconstructionists. You can make any term
applicable to anyone, for yourself in any event, by fiat. It's
not likely to be convincing to others, though. I'm not even denying that
the term is applicable; I just want to know _why_ you think it is.
Moggin:
No dispute: you could go even further and conceive of it as a red
wheelbarrow, making Derrida, de Man, and their disciples _all_
irrelevant. A tool catalogue would then be the appropriate place to
turn (garden tools or construction equipment, I'm not sure which).
MJ:
_Now_ you see the problem with the analogy that you posed.
Moggin:
However, that isn't the least objection to my suggestion of reading
Derrida and de Man, unless it happens to be the case that red
wheelbarrows are what the subject-who-wants-to-know wants to be the
subject-who-knows-about, when he or she is asking about deconstruction.
MJ:
This isn't about _objecting_ to your suggesting Derrida and de Man. It's
about _why_ you suggest them.
[...]
MJ:
2. The empiricism of your approach is admirable; you've just got to work
on extending it: when you point to the red wheelbarrow, you pick out an
object that has a set of properties you can identify (red, three wheels,
and so on); indeed you are able to identify the object to me as a red
wheelbarrow, rather than, say, as a green ship, because you know red
wheelbarrows have these properties and green ships don't.
Moggin:
Well, no -- I don't, can't, etc. If that _was_ my approach, in this
instance, I'd have all the usual, well-known difficulties. I wouldn't
be able to identify an object with one wheel and two wooden legs as a
wheelbarrow; or else I _would_, and my definition would immediately
break down. And red -- I don't even want to get started.
MJ:
Well, if this were your approach, you must, or else you couldn't have
said, as you did above, that "Applied to a red wheelbarrow, I'd say
'Come to the window -- you can see what it is and how it's used if you
look right over there.'" You couldn't bring me to the window to point
out a red wheelbarrow to me unless you had an idea of what a red
wheelbarrow was (your idea could be wrong, as mine was (three wheels
instead of two legs and one wheel, but you would still have to have an
idea to be able to point (indeed your idea could be wrong and you might
still be able to point correctly; even though I said "three wheels," I'd
have been able to pick out the object with two legs and a wheel as a
wheelbarrow)).
Moggin:
I wouldn't say that your idea was wrong -- why _couldn't_ a wheebarrow
have three wheels? Granted, there's some small danger of it turning
into a tricycle, but the usual spells and incantations should ward that
off. Anyway, I can point to a red wheelbarrow without having to
"conceptualize" it -- I only need to know, as I said, that "red
wheelbarrow" refers to a certain object visible from my window; then,
if I'm asked what a red wheelbarrow is and how it's used, I can reply
simply, "Look over there."
MJ:
Well, I guess you could just memorize, as it were, references. I don't
know. But the conditions--partly causal, partly descriptive--that make
the word "red wheelbarrow" refer to a red wheelbarrow obtain, whether
you conceptualize it or not. I just assumed you weren't a robot whose
only ability was to point to a red wheelbarrow outside a window when
asked what one was. Well, "assumed" is wrong; I _know_ you're not. So,
given that you're not a robot, on what conditions are you able to point?
On the first point, a wheelbarrow could have three wheels; but once, and
if, this machine were no longer identifiable as a wheelbarrow in some
respect, it would probably be called something else. Language is rather
continuous in this respect.
MJ:
Likewise, if you identify an object as being red, you have a conception
of "redness." There's no point in denying that you do. You might want to
explore other issues, like how do we know that by "red," we mean the
same thing. But insofar as you are prepared to take me to the window and
point to an object with two legs and a wheel that is painted and say
"that's a red wheelbarrow," then you have a conception of "red."
Moggin:
That doesn't follow. All you can conclude is that when I happen to be
asked about red wheelbarrows, I point to a certain object visible from
my window -- what "concepts" I may or may not associate with
it are something else again.
MJ:
Well again we're back to the robot scenario. The long and the short of
it is, then, that either you simply point without knowing why or you
point because you have a conception of a red wheelbarrow and you see an
object from your window that matches that conception.
To be continued.
--MJ
mj devaney
Lewis Mammel wrote:
> > I already did, in response to mj devaney, but I suppose everybody
> > will say " I didn't get that at my site" ( sigh ) . What's
> > certain is that I didn't see any followup to it. Anyway, my
> > characterization was ( to me ) very much in line with Andrew
> > Lowry's in a related thread.
Moggin:
> You're right -- I didn't see it. Just did a quick search, in
> case I missed it, but didn't turn anything up. Maybe you could
> re-post it, or e-mail me a copy, if you've got one. Meantime, I'll
> go look at what Andy said.
MJ:
I didn't either, and I can't figure out what the context is from this.
So I can't even reply at this point. But I can say that I have a certain
amount of sympathy for Lew Mammel's point of view, in so far as he and I
seem to agree about the problems that issue forth from moggin's
unwillingness to identify the features of deconstruction that make it
deconstruction and not something else.
--MJD
-Mammel,L.H.
In article <3411F7...@nebraskapress.unl.edu>,
mj devaney <mdev...@nebraskapress.unl.edu> wrote:
>Moggin:
>> You're right -- I didn't see it.
>MJ:
>I didn't either, and I can't figure out what the context is from this.
Here is my answer to your query: ( as previously posted )
>Yes, and what is that broad definition?
Going by Culler, mainly, I take it to mean that it picks
up on the excluded and the marginalized to show how the
purified object is merely one case among these. Culler
uses the example of a play being "not real", but then
"real life" is a form of play acting. ( This is an important
example for the pomo point of view, of course. )
Science excludes all the "nonscientific" and "pseudoscientific"
modes of thinking and doing, and the deconstructor then shows
how Science is just doing the same thing that all these
excluded systems are doing, but is "privileged" by the
esteem in which it's held, etc. Obviously, any form of
"Science ain't so special" can be construed to be of this form.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Puss in Boots
MJ:
> Why is deconstruction a _species_ of close reading? I can't, as I say,
> make the question any clearer, but I can hold your hand and provide you
> with the first few words of the answer: "What renders deconstruction a
> species of close reading, as opposed to just close reading, is that . .
> ." (the dots indicate where you would fill in what qualities make
> deconstruction one kind of close reading as distinct from some other
> kind of close reading). Got it?
Moggin:
> Sure: but why do you need me to do it for you? Isn't it a job you're
> capable of doing yourself? You've read the New Critics and you've read
> Derrida and de Man. I would think you could tell them apart, i.e., that
> you wouldn't find yourself regularly mistaking _Allegories of Reading_
> for say, _The Well-Wrought Urn_. If, by any remote chance, you find
> that all close readings blur together, a visit to the optometrist might
> be the thing.
MJ:
> Well (and we now see that you did know what I was asking), that's the
> thing, I _could_ mistake _The Well Wrought Urn_ for _Allegories of
> Reading_ in terms of the notions that inform their practice of
> close reading.
I still have no idea what you were asking. You knew the meaning
of all the words that I used, and you agreed with me that "close
reading" applied to deconstruction. What you're asking here is much
easier to grasp; but as I said, it seems like something that you
could answer for yourself. I'd be surprised if you couldn't find any
distinctions between the New Criticism and deconstruction.
>Consider, e.g.:
> "For us today, Donne's imagination seems obsessed with the problem of
> unity; the sense in which the lovers become one--the sense in which the
> soul is united with God. Frequently, as we have seen, one type of unity
> becomes a metaphor for the other. It may not be far-fetched to see both
> as instances of, and metaphors for, the union which creative imagination
> effects. For that union is not logical; it apparently violates logic and
> common sense; it welds together the discordant and the contradictory."
> (_The Well Wrought Urn_, p. 18)
> "The grammatical model of the question [in this case, Yeats' "how can we
> know the dancer from the dance?"] becomes rhetorical not when we have,
> on the one hand, a literal meaning and on the other hand a figural
> meaning, but when it is impossible to decide by grammatical or other
> linguistic devices which of the two meanings (that can be enitrely
> incompatible) prevails. Rhetoric radically suspends logic and opens up
> vertiginous possibilites of referential aberration." (_Allegories of
> Reading_, p. 10)
> I think both Brooks and de Man need a course in Logic 101, but the
> rightness or wrongness of their claims aside, they express very similar
> concerns.
Allow me to distract you from the motes in thy brothers' eyes at
least long enough to consider the beam in thy own. I agree that
there _are_ similarities between the New Criticism and deconstruction.
That's a commonplace. But you weren't saying merely that they
resemble each other in some respects -- you've suggested that they're
completely indistinguishable.
MJ:
> Sure, in your example, as you elaborated it, there are Disciples of the
> Red Wheelbarrow. I can see that. So what? You think because you posit
> these Disciples, I am under an obligation to accept their existence?
> Your example was meant to show that one comes to understand what a red
> wheelbarrow is and how it is used and what deconstruction is and how it
> is practiced in like fashion; my point is that one doesn't because a red
> wheelbarrow is a very different class of thing from deconstruction.
Moggin:
> What point?
> MJ:
> The point that your analogy between Red Wheelbarrows and deconstrcuction
> doesn't work because a red wheelbarrow is a very different class of
> thing from deconstruction.
You misunderstand. You criticized my reading suggestions on the
grounds that "deconstruction" doesn't refer to Derrida and de Man:
[MJ:]
> My point in part is that what they do isn't, for the most part,
> "deconstruction." "Deconstruction" is what the disciples
> do--"overturning binary oppositions, not by simply inverting a given
> opposition, but by problematizing the opposition as such, etc., etc.,"
> so that if you want to know what deconstruction is, read the disciples,
> or read the interviews with Derrida. I don't recommend the interviews,
> for the same reason I wouldn't recommend the work of the disciples, but
> if you want to know how deconstruction is conceptualized, either source
> will suffice.
To which I replied:
[Moggin:]
> Your point, then, is that you can conceive of "deconstruction" in a
> way which makes the term inapplicable to de Man and Derrida. I'm sure
> you can -- define it as a red wheelbarrow and much may depend on it, but
> it won't have anything in particular to do with either of them. Still,
> that's no objection to suggesting Derrida and de Man as good reading for
> anyone interested in deconstruction, unless red wheelbarrows happen to
> be what they're asking about.
There you have it.
Moggin:
> You asked a question -- "If they were asking about red wheelbarrows,
> what would you say?" Then, when you saw my reply, you decided that you
> wouldn't like to talk about red wheelbarrows, after all. Which is
> alright with me. I'm not attached to the example.
MJ:
> No, it wasn't that I didn't want to talk about them; in fact I did, at
> some length, talk about them in explaining why the comparison between
> red wheelbarrows and deconstruction didn't work.
My analogy was to Dickinson. The red wheelbarrows are something
else again. You tried to criticize the suggestions I made, but you
merely substituted a concept of "deconstruction" that excluded de Man
and Derrida. As I was saying, you can conceive of it any way you
please -- for example, as a red wheelbarrow. But that's no criticism
of the advice that I offered.
Moggin:
> You _did_ have a point, a little while ago -- not necessarily a good
> one, but a point all the same. "My point," you wrote, "in part is that
> what they do isn't, for the most part, 'deconstruction.'" And
> why isn't it? Because, you continued, "'Deconstruction' is what the
> disciples do." From there it followed as night after day that a person
> wanting to "know what deconstruction is" was best advised to "read the
> disciples," rather than de Man or Derrida.
MJ:
> Right--the problem in re the matter of red wheelbarrows is that there
> are no disciples of them, and hence you can't find out about red
> wheelbarrows from them. Since they're non-existent, and all that.
Oh, but there are such disciples; I mentioned them to you before.
You don't want to talk about them, is all, so you raise objections
about their ontological status. I don't see how that's relevant here.
Moggin:
> Logical enough -- but as I replied, your point was merely that you could
> conceive of "deconstruction" in a way which made the term inapplicable
> to de Man and Derrida.
MJ:
> You haven't show how it is applicable to de Man and Derrida. You've
> merely asserted that they are deconstructionists. You can make any term
> applicable to anyone, for yourself in any event, by fiat. It's
> not likely to be convincing to others, though. I'm not even denying that
> the term is applicable; I just want to know _why_ you think it is.
Actually, you _are_ denying it: according to you, that's a part
of your point. Speaking about Derrida and de Man, you wrote, "My
point in part is that what they do isn't, for the most part,
'deconstruction.' 'Deconstruction' is what the disciples do..." As I
keep saying, you can make any term inapplicable to anyone, for
yourself in any event, by fiat -- it's not likely to be convincing to
others, though.
Moggin:
> No dispute: you could go even further and conceive of it as a red
> wheelbarrow, making Derrida, de Man, and their disciples _all_
> irrelevant. A tool catalogue would then be the appropriate place to
> turn (garden tools or construction equipment, I'm not sure which).
MJ:
> _Now_ you see the problem with the analogy that you posed.
I see you can assign any concept to "deconstruction" you like --
you can even think of it as a red wheelbarrow, if that's what you
choose. Then you can say confidently that it doesn't include Derrida
or de Man.
Moggin:
> However, that isn't the least objection to my suggestion of reading
> Derrida and de Man, unless it happens to be the case that red
> wheelbarrows are what the subject-who-wants-to-know wants to be the
> subject-who-knows-about, when he or she is asking about deconstruction.
MJ:
> This isn't about _objecting_ to your suggesting Derrida and de Man. It's
> about _why_ you suggest them.
You've been doing your level best to raise objections. We began
when I recommended reading Derrida and de Man to someone interested
in learning about deconstruction. "You can't read Derrida or de Man
to find out what deconstruction is," you objected, "because they
don't practice it." (You also disliked my analogy to Emily Dickinson:
"Not a great analogy, Puss....")
A robot might be able to do it. "This pointing is _not_ a hocus-
pocus which can be performed only by the soul" (_Philosophical
Investigations_ 454; emphasis W.'s). The condition is the one I gave:
that "red wheelbarrow" refer to an object visible from my window.
> On the first point, a wheelbarrow could have three wheels; but once, and
> if, this machine were no longer identifiable as a wheelbarrow in some
> respect, it would probably be called something else. Language is rather
> continuous in this respect.
MJ:
> Likewise, if you identify an object as being red, you have a conception
> of "redness." There's no point in denying that you do. You might want to
> explore other issues, like how do we know that by "red," we mean the
> same thing. But insofar as you are prepared to take me to the window and
> point to an object with two legs and a wheel that is painted and say
> "that's a red wheelbarrow," then you have a conception of "red."
Moggin:
> That doesn't follow. All you can conclude is that when I happen to be
> asked about red wheelbarrows, I point to a certain object visible from
> my window -- what "concepts" I may or may not associate with
> it are something else again.
MJ:
> Well again we're back to the robot scenario. The long and the short of
> it is, then, that either you simply point without knowing why or you
> point because you have a conception of a red wheelbarrow and you see an
> object from your window that matches that conception.
Why should _those_ be the only choices? I can know why I point,
and not rely on matching a given "conception of a red wheelbarrow"
with something I happen to see; as I've already explained, I can draw
on my knowledge that "red wheelbarrow" refers to a certain object
visible from my window in order to answer the question -- "What is it,
and how is it used?" -- in the most effective way; i.e. by saying,
"Look there." By comparison, you insist on promoting your concept of
red wheelbarrows (which turns out to identify red wheelbarrows with
their disciples).
-- Moggin
Puss in Boots
Lewis Mammel:
> > > I already did, in response to mj devaney, but I suppose everybody
> > > will say " I didn't get that at my site" ( sigh ) . What's
> > > certain is that I didn't see any followup to it. Anyway, my
> > > characterization was ( to me ) very much in line with Andrew
> > > Lowry's in a related thread.
Moggin:
> > You're right -- I didn't see it. Just did a quick search, in
> > case I missed it, but didn't turn anything up. Maybe you could
> > re-post it, or e-mail me a copy, if you've got one. Meantime, I'll
> > go look at what Andy said.
MJ:
> I didn't either, and I can't figure out what the context is from this.
> So I can't even reply at this point. But I can say that I have a certain
> amount of sympathy for Lew Mammel's point of view, in so far as he and I
> seem to agree about the problems that issue forth from moggin's
> unwillingness to identify the features of deconstruction that make it
> deconstruction and not something else.
Strange, then, that neither of you has yet been able to identify a
problem -- or even a necessity. The question I'm replying to ("What
is deconstruction and how is it practiced?") doesn't require my opinion
about how deconstruction is properly "conceptualized." A good
response (I suggest) is one that says, "Look and see." (Certainly that
meets the criteria of "simple" and "no-bullshit.") My reply has gone
over poorly with some of our local control freaks, but none of them has
raised a substantial objection.
-- Moggin
mj devaney
I think I've been clear enough: I want to know what the process is that
you go through that enables you to say "look and see."
--MJ
mj devaney
-Mammel,L.H. wrote:
>
> In article <3411F7...@nebraskapress.unl.edu>,
> mj devaney <mdev...@nebraskapress.unl.edu> wrote:
>
> >Moggin:
> >> You're right -- I didn't see it.
> >MJ:
> >I didn't either, and I can't figure out what the context is from this.
>
> Here is my answer to your query: ( as previously posted )
>
> >Yes, and what is that broad definition?
>
> Going by Culler, mainly, I take it to mean that it picks
> up on the excluded and the marginalized to show how the
> purified object is merely one case among these. Culler
> uses the example of a play being "not real", but then
> "real life" is a form of play acting. ( This is an important
> example for the pomo point of view, of course. )
I don't think I asked what the broad definition might be, so I'm not
sure how this is supposed to be addressed to what I've said, but I can
say that the definition offered here fails to pick out deconstruction in
any distinctive way, since, e.g., Plato's conception of the relation
between art and life approximates the one Lew describes above.
I would add, though it's not relevant to the above, that the idea that
real life is a form of play acting should be important for the pomo
point of view shows how cliched and uninteresting that point of view is.
-MJD