[lit-ideas] Re: SOS -- Autonomy and Influence
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 14:09:09 -0700
Mike:
I agree that you have very likely done this with Rorty and I may very well
have done it with Ferry & Renaut, but this isn't all we "ever do." We only
do this in areas where we have spent time and formed opinions
(presuppositions). The Middle East was not an area I had studied to any
extent before 9/11. I began studying not knowing the difference between
Edward Said and Daniel Pipes. I didn't have any very elaborate
presuppositions - hardly anything beyond an inclination to believe
historians who had argued before 9/11 that the Islamists were dangerous. I
was not inclined to give credence to those like John Esposito who argued
that they were not, but most of what I read was filling in real blanks, not
reinforcing presuppositions. Of course time has past and I now have
presuppositions, but my point is that we may read to reinforce our
presuppositions, or perhaps to give them more clarity, but we may also read
to fill in blanks.
Derrida seem very close to Nihilism and in your poem you seem to be arguing
that you have attempted to be precise, i.e., attempted to do something
Derrida says is impossible and failed. One of the reasons we fail is that
we give up to soon. We don't approach understanding as dialogue. Gadamer
is a philosopher I admire. He was a hermeneuticist who admired Plato. A
reader wouldn't know what a word or a concept meant with any certainty when
a Platonic dialogue began, but he would know as much as there was to know by
the time it ended. Gadamer believed that through dialogue we can more
closely approach truth and understanding.
Lawrence
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Mike Geary
Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2006 12:31 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: SOS -- Autonomy and Influence
LH:
>>Perhaps Mike likes Rorty because he does a good job of expressing certain
ideas that Mike already more or less had. <<
Absolutely! Yes! That's precisely what I mean when I say that I don't need
to read, I know my prejudices. I've said it a dozen times at least over the
last 8 or 10 or whatever years. Maybe 100 times, I haven't kept count. Do
you honestly think that your latching onto the authors you do is out of
some disinterested, reasoned appreciation for their stellar thought and not
simply the recognition of your personal prejudices in their arguments?
That's all any of us ever do, Lawrence, Jesus! Welcome to the world of
Reflect Me. Philosophy is no more independent of contingency than anything
else. If we're dreary pessimists, we like Schopenhauer -- sorry, Erin : )
No one likes Schopenhauer unless they're in search of justification for
their suicidal-homocidal-inclinations -- sorry, Erin : ))).
So, yes, Ferry & Renaut are just silly. We are our history, we are our
genes, we are our community, we are almost determined except for that x.
Mike Geary
Memphis
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