[lit-ideas] Re: The Donalling of Donal
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 09:05:13 +0100 (BST)
First of all leave me out of this.
Second, my comments are below:-
--- Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
>
> In a message dated 10/5/2004 12:10:55 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> NYCEric@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
> Isn't "Donal" the doing of Donal?
>
> ----
>
>
> Well, yes.
Well, no.
Donal is not reducible to what Donal does: Donal is, in part, a *self* and
Donal is a complex of *dispositions* and neither of these are reducible to
what he does.
> For Deleuze, it is the _making_ of Donal, rather.
Well, we do in a sense make ourselves through our activities [cp.
muscle-building and character-building] but this is a different point. It
does not mean we are reducible to what we do.
> For Derrida, it is the _constructing_ of Donal -- hence his (Derrida's)
> theory of 'deconstruction'.
This may be right in a sense but since it apparently leads to
'deconstruction' I suggest on general principle that Derrida can go screw
himself.
> This was indeed good ole W. V. O. Quine's attempt with proper nouns: to
> turn
> them into verbs.
Ah Quine - one of the few modern/analytic philosophers Popper actually
respected.
> Quine's famous example:
>
> Pegasus pegausises
>
> ('On what there is', _From a logical point of
> view_).
>
> Quine's technique avoids essences, and perhaps Deleuze's and Derrida's,
> too.
> It's the featuring of the operator "Nec." -- it is _necessary_ -- which
> brings back certain features (to the Donalling of Donal without which Donal
> would
> just _cease_ to exist).
How does this support any idea of essences? JLS seems to admit it doesn't but
not unequivocally enough for my liking.
Consider my essence not as anything I do, nor even as my self, nor even as
the totality of my dispositions: accept instead that I am a process without
an essence.
The introducn. of essence here is unsatisfactory for many reasons, including
that it is unexplanatory. For my essence, or say my human nature, is so
vacuously wide it is compatible with any kind of thing I do or might do -
unless we artifically stipulate otherwise. This is why attempts to predicate
morality on human nature as opposed to what is 'unnatural' fail: for, if I
rape, murder and bugger people, who is say - artificial stipulation as to
what is *real* *essential* human nature aside - that this is not human
nature?
Donal will cease to exist when Donal ceases to exist [a tautology perhaps],
but what is added to this by claiming that without the Donalling [sic] of
Donal that Donal would cease to exist? How is the concept of "Donalling"
independent of Donal?
Donal
Donalling differently daily
Still anti-essentialising
London
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