First of all, Yoni (or should I be prefixing that with Prof. or Dr.? (I’m finding myself energized by this exchange (or what I like call a jam: an American term (perhaps even western (referring to what musicians do when they improvise and bounce off of each other. And it is good thing since I came to today’s task feeling a little tired. I am grateful for and flattered by the opportunity you have offered me.
That said, one of aspects of my rhizomatic approach is that I work these posts out on Word by posting your point then breaking it down point by point. So I apologize for the repetition. The other aspect of it is that I like to cross-pollinate by re-posting what I’ve done on one board in the hope of provoking discourse elsewhere. That has the added benefit of letting other people know what is out there –in this case, Philosophy Now. That said:
“Feel free to steal as much as you want. I wouldn’t be a good follower of Derrida if I said anything different.
I must say I am not a big fan of pragmatism but I see where you are coming from. As I see it pragmatism has a certain conservative/reactionary aspect to it. If you stick to what works you will never ask the question of the power of such structure and even less the question of changing it (I am aware I might be misrepresenting the theory but I think there is something to my description even if it is simplistic). I like to talk of a more aesthetic use of language. Language as fiction, as an attempt to create a narrative and therefore as a performance of a profession. Every use of language is an “as if…” but not in a sense of being untrue, rather in the sense of being a an action in the world so as to not have any truth value (or at least this value not playing a central role). So Rorty’s question of pragmatic interpretation is relevant but it does not cope with what I am trying to argue about language. Perhaps your example of seduction helps me explain myself. In seducing someone you are not only pragmatically using language and therefore playing with the code and its interpretation. You are acting (in all senses of the word) since you are pretending to be interesting (“as if…”), you are professing your qualities and values and you are asking to be taken seriously as a candidate. Or in other words, you are creating a fiction where you are the hero and asking the other person to believe you.
I must confess I am not that acquainted with Ayer’s work but from the limited range of contact I had I did not find the performative there. In fact I think he represents the exact opposite perspective on language (but I might be wrong). As to Wittgenstein I think he is a big influence and he does call our attention to some performative aspects of language but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that all there is not the performative is language-games or the other way around. I think the obvious source of the performative is Austin’s theory. There I think we have a serious challenge of the purely descriptive aspect of language and the argument that we actually “do things with words”. –Yoni (A.K.A Yonathon Listik: forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopi … 23&t=15253
“I must say I am not a big fan of pragmatism but I see where you are coming from. As I see it pragmatism has a certain conservative/reactionary aspect to it. If you stick to what works you will never ask the question of the power of such structure and even less the question of changing it (I am aware I might be misrepresenting the theory but I think there is something to my description even if it is simplistic).”
One might get that impression, especially based on Rorty who liked to joke that he was basically a bourgeoisie liberal. And reading him, you get the feeling of some upper middle class intellectual from the New England area. As Deleuze and Guattarri said in a sly aside in What is Philosophy: “dinner and conversation at the Rorty’s.” And were one to stop at the criteria of “what works”, they would be treading dangerous ethical territory since we can assume that the criteria by which Neo-Nazi’s prop up their ideologies is that it works for them. So there is something to your theory.
However, it gets a little more complex when it comes to what we mean in terms of something working. We also have to ask other questions like how it is working, for whom it is working, and why it is working for them. This also requires the reverse issue of who it is not working for and why. This is illustrated in the issue of Global Capitalism and the 1% it is working for and the other 99% it is not. And I would also note that the cornerstone of Pragmatism is the pragmatic truth test which served as a synthesis of the inductive and deductive truth tests and then some. What it recognizes is that both are only useful because they work while recognizing that there are ,yet, other ways of working that don’t fit neatly into either category. A good example of that is religion which works for the individual that is practicing it while not not working for the individual that doesn’t. If it works for people to believe in ghosts, it should equally work for people who don’t since such a belief has no real effect on their life.
But then that is the uptake. The downside lies in a point made by Rorty in Philosophy and Social Hope that even if someone like Heidegger could be or was pragmatic in disposition, that would be no guarantee against the kind of moral folly that he wandered into. But then what ideology is? The pragmatist, if they are a pragmatist, must recognize the futility of thinking any ideology will, by necessity, change human activity. Ideology, along with the language we use to express it, is a tool by which we deal with a given environment. And ideology presupposes language. Hence Rorty’s emphasis on discourse over transcendent epistemological systems that could underwrite any assertion we might make as true and Deleuze’s (w/ Guattarri (emphasis on social production: the network of machines rooted in his transcendental empiricism. And your point concerning Derrida’s Performance fits easily into this –at least for me. This is because I believe that, in evolutionary terms, the advancement of our culture must be a process of brainstorming (simple discourse between a lot of different people using a lot of different methods (without the constraints of transcendental criteria, of throwing it all on the table and picking through it to find what works and, ultimately, what keeps working: the gift that keeps on giving –a little like evolution.
Anyway, ran out my window on one point. And I am exhausted. Will have to take this up again tomorrow: Same Bat time; Same Bat place……