Re: Destructionism

J J R (jrovira@juno.com)
Sat, 12 Dec 1998 13:25:11 -0500 (EST) 

It's good to be so well versed in Science, but your reply demonstrates a
lack of understanding of literary theory :)

You need to take one step back, and assume all your assumptions don't
matter anymore.  Then start over :)

Jim

On Fri, 11 Dec 1998 17:54:14 -0800 "Sean Draine (Exchange)"
<seandr@Exchange.Microsoft.com> writes:
>
>Geraldo Bustamantaguatavini, as quoted by Matt:
>
>> "The most powerful gesture in poststructuralism at this point--the 
>gem it
>> has to offer--is the motion of acknowledging the constructed and
>> arbitrary nature of "truth," reason, science and law, etc."
>
>Literary theorists have this interesting habit of assuming their 
>musings to
>have profound implications for science. This reflects either a
>misunderstanding of science or an inflated sense of self importance. 
>
>There is infinitely more wiggle room in assigning meaning to complex 
>textual
>narratives than there is in say, modeling the solar system based on a 
>rich
>set of observations. Subjective factors do play a role in science, but 
>the
>game of science has a set of well understood rules that require its
>participants to contend with observable events and formal logic before 
>they
>hold forth on the nature of reality. Thomas Kuhn and his ilk have made
>convincing arguments that scientific theories will never get the truth 
>quite
>right, and that today's paradigms will likely be discarded tomorrow, 
>but no
>one has ruled out the idea that paradigm shifts in science involve 
>replacing
>approximate truths with increasingly better approximations. 
>
>People like our dear Geraldo readily dismiss scientific progress, yet 
>they
>take airplanes to their silly conferences, they read their dull 
>journals by
>electric light, and they wash their hands after a crap for fear of 
>spreading
>disease (except perhaps the French ones). All of these actions reveal 
>a
>faith in science advance, and, I think, just a touch of hypocrisy. 
>
>Literary theory may in the end be nothing more than a peculiar form of
>intellectual masterbation. No one will ever convincingly reduce 
>science to
>such.
>
>-Sean
>
>

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