Re: text and links some might like to see

Jim said:
<< I agree that historically, taking a view over the last 600 (or 2500 for
that matter) years, science is one of the humanities. >>

One need not even go so far as six-hundred years. The divide was largely
the product of the early 20th century. A mere hundred-and-fifty years ago
you'll find physicists and biologists writing -- and prefacing scientific
treatises with -- poetry (usually not very good poetry, but . . .) and
philosophers carrying out experiments and writing treatises on optics. This
was a time when studying the liberal arts was taken to mean being most fully
human and most fully free, and virtually the responsibility of every man who
had the means -- today it usually means being too indecisive to choose a
major.

And:
<< I would say that today, now, in universities as they exist now, in the
culture we actually live in and work in and think in, science and the
humanities, for the most part, exist at completely opposite poles
ideologically, methodologically, and philosphically. >>

I don't disagree that the distance is there today. It certainly is, much to
my dismay, and, I dare say, to our society's misfortune. My assertion is
that the distance is artificial and problematic, and that good scientists
are not precluded from philosophy merely by a commitment to science (and
that you yourself and not precluded from Newton or Einstein, or any other,
merely by your commitments, so long as you're up for a tough read).

And:
<< Just 150-200 years ago Hegel could claim his philosophy proceeded on a
"scientific" basis. Today, I don't think he could make that claim and be
taken seriously. >>

Whether or not he could make it today and be taken seriously, I do believe
that he could certainly make it today and be right. And that's what I'm
seeing as important, here.

(And I expect that many scientists -- not all, but many, and many of the
best -- would have no problem taking him seriously.)

And:
<< The rejection of Derrida by the philosophers you quoted is
predictable -- not necessarily because of "bigotry" in the worst sense of
the word, but because of their prior commitments -- which reflect the prior
commitments of someone working within the same philosophical paradigms that
science at large works within. Empiricism, materialism, and logocentrism
with regard to language. >>

Most scientists are not empiricists, strictly speaking (one of them in
question -- Chomsky -- in fact rails against empiricism), and it could just
as well be called incompatible with good science. There are certainly many
materialist scientists, but no small percentage of them are not materialists
at all, or are materialists only insofar as they recognize that their work
deals with the material.

I don't know what logocentrism means beyond a simple account of its Greek
derivation, and not at all in this context. But if, as I suspect, you mean
it with a similar sense as some of what you said in your other post -- that
scientists cannot question the underpinnings of language -- I quite
disagree. It seems to me that undermining the stability of language is far
more threatening to the humanities than the sciences. I suppose that one
might argue that it would be something of a scandal to scientists of
language (like Chomsky), but even they are concerned with the mechanics and
biology of language, grammar and how the brain makes it, while complex
literary meanings aren't really the issue. Unless the denial of
accessibility of authorial intent includes a denial of the literal meanings
of simple declarative sentences (the hint of which might suggest something
of why it has been so vehemently opposed, but I'm not at all sure that such
a denial is a part of the claim made by you or John O.), it shouldn't
threaten scientific linguists.

And:
<< Those who claim Derrida as the primary source for the rejection of
authorial intent as the ground of textual meaning are simply ignorant of the
history of literary theory. >>

I don't think that anybody has claimed that he was the primary or original
source. He is the big name attached to the idea, though, which makes him
relevant to the issue and an appropriate target for the idea's opponents.

And finally:
<< If you admit that we pretty much always maintain a "final ignorance"
about authorial intent, then what good does it do to make reference to it?
What difference does it make -- specifically and methodologically -- to
assert that this forever hidden and never known authorial intent is really
the ground of textual meaning? >>

I've been meaning to make a longer and more detailed contribution to this
discussion (in some way, perhaps, answering to your request for
counter-examples to John O.'s treatment of Kafka), and assuming that I do
get to it I expect to answer to this in more detail. I hope to get to it
later today or tomorrow -- this weekend shouldn't be TOO tight for me -- but
if not then it'll most likely wait until next weekend.

But to answer something of this now:
What difference does it make? Usually, I expect, somewhere between very
little and none at all. One difference is that it makes the standard of
textual support not at all or by any means arbitrary. For reasons that I'm
still thinking about, calling such a standard "arbitrary" seems to me
downright bizarre and unnatural. I expect that John O. however subtly feels
this too, or else I'm not sure why he would have said "almost" arbitrary.
If his hedge was a mistake, and it IS absolutely arbitrary, then I don't see
why a reading that made little or no use of textual support could be denied
the same status as any other -- why can't we, sometimes, suspend or change
the standard if it's arbitrary?

Another difference that it makes is that it gives a solid basis upon which
we can reject certain readings. If they weren't available at the
construction of the text, they aren't valid. You might (even rightly, I
suppose) deny the value of this, but it does seem to me to have a powerful
and important appeal which I hope to explore a bit in my later post.

Another difference is one of approach and might ultimately be no difference
in effect at all, but seems to me significant nevertheless. I can say, for
instance, that Hegel, the man, was no slouch. I can say that he was, in
fact, an extraordinarily brilliant man. I can say that he probably said
many true things that I wouldn't have figured out myself, and that whatever
he said that isn't true he probably said because he made some interesting
mistake -- not the mistake of a fool, but of a very smart man -- and that I
can learn from him either way, from his truths and his mistakes. I can then
read Hegel with the question in my head: "What is this guy saying?" It
might be that the result of reading is the same, but if I instead ask "What
am I creating in these words?" the whole endeavor, perhaps purely as a
personal fault of mine, seems much less interesting and important. This, of
course, is no evidence against your assertion (it would only make the truth
of your assertion disappointing), and cannot be used as an argument. It is
merely a difference in the approach, which seems pertinent to your question.

It does, in the end, seem to me that usually it won't make any difference at
all, or that it will make only a negligible one. Likewise it usually
doesn't make any difference at all whether I believe that the moon is kept
in orbit by heaviness ("gravitas" - the same force the makes apples fall out
of trees) or by its being embedded in a sphere of divine, celestial matter,
or if it is moving in a track like a roller-coaster car. By as I currently
understand the different positions -- as inconsequential as they might be --
one of them makes a bit more sense to me. That is the basis of belief.

I hope to explain it better later.

-robbie

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Received on Sat Mar 8 18:10:34 2003