Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 18:35:31 +0000
Subject: Re: BHA: Re: It's only words...


Hi Tobin,

In urging that we 'follow our daimon' I'm not of course invoking a 
bourgeois individualistic attitude but rather the rich kind of 
individuality presupposed by 'the free development of each as a 
condition of the free development of all' which fully recognizes our 
social interconnection but insists on the right (need) to freely 
flourish providing it doesn't interfere with the free flourishing of 
others. From that point of view I am indeed saying that there is no 
problem, any more than it's a problem that a physicist theorizes in 
abstract formulae. Bhaskar's system of concepts is there in all its 
elaborateness, it's where Bhaskar's daimon led him, and the only point 
really is what we can all learn from it. In learning from it though we 
do of course encounter a problem (just as there's  a problem for 'lay' 
people understanding science and philosophy in general). I don't of 
course deny that  in the struggle for emancipation there's a vital role 
for 'plain English' construed as the thinking and language of citizens 
as distinct from scientists and philosophers. The abstract language of 
science and philosophy has to  be appropriated in this language (which 
is itself diverse and context-specific), and yes good ideas and truth 
have to be fought for, we have to strive to close the gap between 
everyday experience and emancipatory philosophical and scientific 
understanding of the real. I take it that this is what most people on 
this list are trying to do in their own way. (Kathryn Dean is btw very 
interesting on all this, notwithstanding that she seems not to 
distinguish between science and the postivistic rationale for it).

By 'abstract universalism' I mean that you seem to want to subsume the 
diversity of texts under some sort of law of good English. So you 
compare Bhaskar to Orwell and when I object that this isn't comparing 
like with like you bring on Benjamin. But Benjamin (and I share your 
high regard for him) is no systematic elaborator of concepts, Bhaskar 
is. Aristotle would be a more meaningful comparison --- and of course 
he's not everybody's idea of a good read. I'm not saying that all 
philosophy should be comprehensible only to people with a PhD, but that 
the kind of systematic philosophy Bhaskar essayed in DPF is necessarily 
going to be pretty demanding and that philosophical meta-theorizing of 
that kind, while by no means everything or the main thing, is 
indispensable to the emancipatory project.

Mervyn


Tobin Nellhaus <nellhaus-AT-gis.net> writes
>Hi Mervyn--
>
>Hm, well I hate to say it, but your critique of Orwell is itself a red
>herring.  Whatever one thinks of Orwell as a person or a thinker, one can
>still believe he hit the mark about certain things, and I cited one of them.
>(As I like to say of Lenin, even a broken clock is right twice a day.)  In
>any case I don't think he's at all saying that (as you put it) thought must
>be cast in the straightjacket of 'plain English' -- his concern is much more
>with flabby writing and verbiage that impresses rather than conveys ideas.
>
>> There is I think no important theory/practice inconsistency where the
>> writing practices of Kant, Hegel, Adorno, Bhaskar are concerned.
>
>But "important" is I think the operative word here.  As I said previously,
>one can acknowledge that there's a T/P inconsistency but deem it a
>relatively minor problem in the face of other matters.  At the very least,
>this is an honest position, which I can respect even if I don't agree the
>problem's quite so minor.  And if this is the position you're claiming, then
>I'll be quite comfortable dropping the subject.  But sometimes I get the
>impression that you believe there is in fact no problem whatsoever, which I
>feel is worrisome.
>
>>                                                        My
>> general point is that what they had to say could only be worked out via
>> writing that is complex, rich and difficult.
>
>I agree!  But complex, rich and difficult writing can still be a pleasure to
>read (in and of itself), or at least not torture.  And bear in mind that I
>say this as someone who has gotten *much* from DPF and has progressively
>integrated it more and more into his thinking.  Still, DPF is rich in ideas,
>but the writing is impoverished.  Walter Benjamin's writing is complex, rich
>and difficult, and it's also wonderful.
>
>>                                                   When emergentists
>suggest
>> that the Phenomenology or DPF could be translated (reduced) into much
>> more accessible works without loss, now *that's* a theory/practice
>> inconsistency.
>
>To say that the writing could be better is not tantamout to saying that it
>could be reduced to pedestrian prose.  At the same time, there's no reason
>to assume that making language more accessible entails a loss in meaning.
>It can lead to an increase in meaning instead.  I've experienced that in my
>own writing -- from time to time I find a sentence I feel is overly
>technical, and when I try to clean it up and make it a little more
>straightforward, the ideas themselves become richer.
>
>>        One does of course have a reponsibility to readers, but
>> I agree with Bhaskar that the basis of this can only be truth to
>> oneself, i.e. one must follow one's daimon.
>
>Mmm, but this is a rather individualistic position, no?  At least when posed
>that way.  When searching for (alethic) truth, yes, one has to be true to
>oneself (in the normative-fiduciary sense); but when bringing that truth to
>others -- when communicating -- one has to be true to the reader (again in
>the normative-fiduciary sense).  How is the reader to trust an argument
>encased in walls of language?  (Maybe you know this joke: "What do you get
>when you cross a Mafia boss with a poststructuralist?  A guy with two
>heavies, who makes you an offer you can't understand!")
>
>>                 If one's ideas are any
>> good people will appropriate them (as they have indeed appropriated
>> Kant's and Hegel's -- two of the most difficult *and* most influential
>> writers of the modern era).
>
>Uh-huh, in the marketplace of ideas, good ideas have a competitive edge over
>bad ideas.  Foo!  If this were true, the world would have become socialist
>in 1918 and nazism would barely merit an historical footnote.  In reality,
>bad ideas usually have the upper hand, and influence is no proof of quality.
>(Saussure, for example, has been very influential and IMHO is total
>poppycock.)  The truth will never survive unless people are willing to fight
>for it, and one front in that battle is to communicate it well.
>
>(Of course, there are those who maintain that good ideas do have a
>competitive advantage, and that that's why socialism failed.  I take it you
>aren't saying that socialism is a crummy idea, right?)
>
>> It seems to me you're applying, in the end, an abstractly universalist
>> notion of what constitutes bad/good prose.
>
>I don't know what this means, actually, or why it might be a bad thing.  If
>it means arguing for prose that's understandable to anyone who survived
>their secondary education (what we Yanks call high school), then no and yes.
>No, in the sense that I'm not a bit interested in anyone churning out more
>lifeless language.  Yes, in the sense that workers with little formal
>education have loved to read Marx, Shakespeare, and other difficult writers.
>Granted, we live in a very different culture -- but why should philosophy
>only be comprehensible to people with a PhD?
>
>Sorry to be flogging the horse again.  I'm going to try really, really hard
>to shut up now.
>
>T.
>
>---
>Tobin Nellhaus
>nellhaus-AT-mail.com
>"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>
>
>
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