tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24152639.post6306926454356043117..comments2023-07-04T03:53:40.171-07:00Comments on Matt Kundert's Friday Experiment: Cavell at CriticismMatt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05304261355315746372noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24152639.post-27148552177069009892007-02-27T21:27:00.000-07:002007-02-27T21:27:00.000-07:00Firstly, let me say that, as I think I mentioned i...Firstly, let me say that, as I think I mentioned in this post, I have certain doubts about using "ordinary language philosophy" as a handle on a school of philosophy, and those doubts are tenfold when applied to something called "postmodernism." However, I think as long as we acknowledge the difficulties in the very idea of these kinds of handles, especially with these two, we can use them usefully enough for broad brush strokes.<BR/><BR/>The similarity I see between Oxonian philosophy and "postmodernism" (I can't help but use scare quotes for a handle that obfuscates more than it elucidates) is, very roughly, that of antiessentialism. If we define essentialism loosely as "the idea that there is something that is nonrelational or unchanging" both were reactions to the essentialism of Plato that Descartes and Kant carried on with them in various ahistorical kinds of notions (like Descartes' "clear and distinct ideas" or Kant's transcendental method).<BR/><BR/>This isn't everybody's interpretation of either, say, Wittgenstein, Austin, and/or Lyotard. But the way I see things, Rorty's PMN (and his writings in general) is the confluence of most of the stuff that is (or was) good about those authors.<BR/><BR/>A very, very rough outline of the dialectical sequence that led to these trends is something like this: Descartes reacted to scholasticism by rejecting ontology-before-epistemology--we have to get straight about what we can know first. This launched the rationalist projects (which talked about our natural human capacities like reason) which vacillated the next hundred years with empiricism (which talked about how all knowledge comes from the senses), culminating with Hume. Kant eclipsed both rationalism and empiricism by arguing that everything comes to us through the senses, but we can only make sense of them by essential concepts for understanding: "intuitions without concepts are blind, concepts without content are dumb" (or something like that).<BR/><BR/>Then things get tricky. Playing Aristotle to Kant's Plato, Hegel quickly transumed Kant by historicizing his whole framework (concepts are not ahistorical, they evolve through history), thus ushering in the age of Idealism on the Continent and F.H. Bradley transported Hegel to Britain (in his own way). This sets the stage for the reaction to Hegel--on the continent, Husserl reacted to Hegel by inventing phenomenology, an attempt to get at essence of experience, thus leading us back to Kant. In England, Russell and Moore (and Wittgenstein) reacted to Bradley (and thus Hegel) by inventing analytic philosophy, an attempt to analyze and pin down "meanings," thus leading us back, though slightly differently, to Kant also. When anglophone philosophers tell their own history(which is rare, because Hegel is the one who told stories), they usually do the Descartes-Hume-Kant sequence and then skip to Frege and Russell (Frege doing in Germany when Russell did England, and thus creating the Vienna Circle).<BR/><BR/>Thus, ordinary language philosophy arose as Austin, Ryle, and (the later) Wittgenstein's reaction to Carnap (of the Circle) and Russell's search for an ahistorical framework of meanings. They thought that all the problems that arose with logical positivism (and earlier philosophy) arose because ordinary words were taken out of their ordinary contexts and forced into extraordinary service. Ryle in fact, working in the philosophy of mind, links this explicitly with Descartes.<BR/><BR/>What has come to be called "postmodernism" arose as a reaction to not just Husserl, but all that Husserl represented--modern philosophy. The only reason Continental types have the appellation they do (which I believe is more used in anglophone countries than Europe) is because they are much more historically conscious than anglophone philosophers. So, post-modern philosophy.<BR/><BR/>To take Lyotard's example, postmodernism is the eschewal of metanarratives. There are no ahistorical narratives about the course of history (like the kind St. Paul and Marx offered), all we have are competing narratives that we must argue over.<BR/><BR/>That's a very rough and very bad summary. I've had better days. But I'd like to take up a few thoughts you recorded on your blog about the two.<BR/><BR/>You clearly don't think too highly of either, but I think you do point out quite rightly that some people take Wittgenstein's talk about language games too seriously. One category of person who does this in addition to some second- and third-rate literary critics are people who get really upset about Wittgenstein's talk about language games or Derrida's talk about texts. Neither one was denying the world, they were making specifically philosophical points against some of the junk thrown up by Plato, Descartes, and Kant (and Russell and Husserl).<BR/><BR/>I also think it is fair enough to wonder, when Austin or Cavell or, lately, Putnam talk about "the ordinary," "what is ordinary? And why should ordinary be good"? I think its a bit of a wild goose chase to think that the answer to that question, when talking about philosophy, has a lot to do with politics (after all, you list Heidegger third on your list of useful thinkers, and he was an unrepentant Nazi), but it is absolutely well we should ask it. What it brings to consciousness is the idea that words belong in contexts--not _one_ context, which is just as bad as Kant, but whatever context is useful. The funny thing is, this point is one often associated with postmodernism (for instance Alasdair MacIntyre is often identified as some kind of pomo, and think of his book, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?).<BR/><BR/>When you go on your screed about the silly pomos at the end, what I find amusing is the idea that postmodern philosophers are conservatives, considering they are most often identified with radical politics, as still trying to hold true to Marx. The story of the connection between politics and philosophy is a tale for another time, but being a huge fan of Rorty's, I'm used to being thought of as a parochial conservative by people who read too much philosophy. People who don't read much philosophy don't think of me that way at all--they look at, say, my voting record and think of me as left as anybody else.<BR/><BR/>I already alluded to above that I think tying politics together with philosophy is a red herring, for both pomos who think they can create a radical political philosophy and people who hate pomos who think that the physical world is going to tell us who to vote for. I particularly think that kind of tie interesting from someone who likes Heidegger....Matt Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05304261355315746372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24152639.post-6354502905686921302007-02-25T12:12:00.000-07:002007-02-25T12:12:00.000-07:00See any similarity between ordinary language philo...See any similarity between ordinary language philosophy (Cavell and Austin are fine examples) and postmodernism? See any common heritage? (cf. Lyotard taken on Wittgenstein as adumbrated in Wikipedia.)<BR/><BR/>David<BR/>chunkingalong.blogspot.comDavid McCulloughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15011964896032977719noreply@blogger.com