Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 00:16:00 -0700
Subject: Re: SERIOUS SOKAL/Ross, Aronowitz, and postmarxism...


  Jeff Johnson wrote:
  
>The first is the issue of private language.  I believe that the postmodernist 
>argument logically requires some sort of private language.  As both 
>Wittgenstein 
  
  Could you please explain why you think pomo requires some 
  sort of private language?  I would have thought that most
  pomos would be very sympathetic to Wittgenstein's 
  anti-private language argument, since that argument is 
  useful for defending anti-foundationalism in epistemology, 
  a thesis which I would have thought pomos would rejoice 
  in. 
   
>Without the existence of private language, I don't believe that the 
>post-structuralists can maintain their argument.
                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  Could you specify which argument you think this is?
  
>The second is based on Peirce's concept of the continuity of ideas.  Peirce 
>argued that past ideas are present through a series of "real infinitesimal 
>steps" that allows the past to influence the present.  If language is public, 
>then ideas (which Peirce showed are signs) can be communicated.  As ideas are 
>communicated, they then can become a part of other people's cognitive history 
>and determine their present cognitions, just as any other past cognition 
>would. Rather that past cognitiove histories making signs independent of 
>meaning, continuity allows us to associate signs and meaning among 
>ndividuals.
  
>This is the heart of my argument against pomo.  Since it is also the major 
>thesis of my paper, I'd appreciate any comments anyone has.
  
  Jeff, same comments apply as above.  Why would pomos NOT
  be sympathetic to this idea of Peirce?
  
  Peter
  pburns-AT-lmumail.lmu.edu
  
  


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