[lit-ideas] Re: Sounds right to me
- From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:17:35 +0700
John McCreery wrote:
"The difficulty, however, is not the absence of a grand unifying
theory that extends beyond these basic propositions. It is the absence
of shared information, allusions, root metaphors, a common sense of
how the world works--all at a sufficiently concrete level to make
negotiation and problem-solving possible. There is, moreover, no need
for this common ground to be uniformly distributed. As anthropologists
Ralph Linton and A. Irving Hallowell pointed out quite a long time
ago, partial sharing suffices if there is sufficient overlap to
support consensus-building. And, depending on circumstances, party A
may be able to reach agreement with Party C, if there is a Party B who
shares sufficient common ground with both, even if A and C start far
apart."
This makes sense to me. However, it seems to undermine the argument
for the claim regarding the need to unify propositions. If there is
only overlapping agreement, there is neither the possibility of a
unity of propositions nor is there need to attempt any such unity.
Instead of working on unifying propositions, what we need to be doing
is working on the ability to translate propositions across 'languages'
so there can be as much agreement as possible.
John continues:
"I suggest that the fragmentation I mentioned operates at this level,
at a moment in history when students graduating from the same
university may have no courses or books or the same art, music or
sport as part of a shared experience and their teachers, in pursuit of
professional goals, read little outside the bounds of a specialty
within an already specialized discipline."
I understand and am quite sympathetic. The answer, however, does not
lie in pining for the return of empire, but rather in teaching people
how to interact with other people who are different. Living in
Nigeria and now Indonesia, I have been surrounded by people who grow
up speaking at least three different languages. What impresses me is
how this training makes it more likely for people to find common
ground despite differences. The answer is not a return to a single
vocabulary that unites people across vast geographic expanses but
training people to become polyglots. For example, I see myself as
teaching my Indonesian Muslim students how to connect with the Western
philosophical tradition so that, in the future, they will be better
able to navigate relationships with the West.
John, in response to my comments about Javanese rhetoric:
"It is always unwise, however, to assume puffery when the main barrier
to communication may be the listener's (or, in the case of our
business, the translator's) ignorance."
I agree. Perhaps I was not clear enough that obviously the Javanese
are engaged in significant communication but I am missing the
'content' because I don't recognize it. It sounds to _me_ as though
the speaker is saying nothing. I have not been here nearly long
enough to catch the significance of most of what is being said.
However, if cultural differences can become a large barrier to
communication, then the goal of preciseness and economy, as was
recommended in the original post, becomes something of a moving
target. Precise according to who? Economical according to who?
Here, again, I would suggest that the goal is not a single standard
that unites all people and forms of knowledge but rather the pragmatic
task of being better translators.
I don't think I am saying anything that hasn't already been said
better by people like Quine and Davidson. (Except that bit about
living in Nigeria and Indonesia.)
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
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