tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3549928.post6907105539378235023..comments2023-09-06T05:30:01.029-04:00Comments on <br><br><center>An Unenviable Situation</center>: Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3549928.post-64720832752947535002015-12-14T15:26:51.420-05:002015-12-14T15:26:51.420-05:00I'm not very interested in simple truth, I'...I'm not very interested in simple truth, I'm interested in function and problem-solving. You could call that pragmatism, but every solution for a specific problem causes problems of its own if it's generalized. If the cops break into an apartment without a warrant and find proof that the owner is a criminal, the law says the evidence is inadmissible in court. The "truth" doesn't matter because we believe that cops should not be able to break the law to enforce it. We take is as a "truth" that power wielded freely over time becomes self-serving. Two forms of naturalism are in conflict. I prefer the naturalism of courts to the naturalism of scientists. I prefer the naturalism of law and lawyers, of Santayana and Kurosawa's Rashomon. I don't see how any of this is that confusing except to those who think of themselves as above unreason, beyond partiality. The rule of "reason" has led consistently to disaster.<br /><br />Ask me a specific question.D. Ghirlandaiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06283931383770759507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3549928.post-12554309210301483062015-12-14T08:03:21.794-05:002015-12-14T08:03:21.794-05:00Better the hobgoblin one knows, I suppose.
I don&...Better the hobgoblin one knows, I suppose.<br /><br />I don't think my questions are close to being answered, but that's mostly something I shall have to remedy myself. I'll keep reading, thinking, and will write again if something strikes me. <br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3549928.post-14326741833822220962015-12-13T23:22:39.883-05:002015-12-13T23:22:39.883-05:00I prefer to lead with facts and let ideas come on ...I prefer to lead with facts and let ideas come on their own.<br />My writing's called gnomic as often as I'm called a troll. Call it the consistency of hobgoblins.<br />Have I succeeded now in answering your questions?D. Ghirlandaiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06283931383770759507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3549928.post-69057024448306924042015-12-13T22:19:56.777-05:002015-12-13T22:19:56.777-05:00I can honestly say I'm not trying to take the ...I can honestly say I'm not trying to take the piss, I'm genuinely interested. <br /><br />I say 'self-referential' because when you point to old arguments, it's often to another post that itself is larlely unelaborated quotes and/or links to repeats; I follow the repeats but I don't always hit bottom. Or when I do get there, the claims are very gnomic, and I'm not sure what the point is. <br /><br />I only comment on style because I want to cut through to substance. I won't mention style again, however - I've said it, you know my point. <br /><br />From now, on if I comment I'll only mention substance.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3549928.post-89564158975703056742015-12-11T12:56:50.633-05:002015-12-11T12:56:50.633-05:00I read sloppily last night. Also missed who you we...I read sloppily last night. Also missed who you were. <br />My repeats usually include links explaining the argument. There's nothing self-referential at all. I point to old arguments rather than restate them.<br /><br />Panofksy: Mannerism and the Counter-Reformation http://blog.edenbaumstudio.com/2014/10/panofsky-three-essays-on-style-what-is.html<br /><br />Reread the post you're commenting on and the links at the bottom. Do I really have to explain fascism? It's overdetermined formal moral political order, built on fear, loud proclamations of superiority predicated on the speaker's terror of the opposite. If someone says they're really happy do you believe them? If they're smiling manically and just won't shut up about how really, really, happy they are, maybe you begin to wonder that it's a sign they're not happy at all. Maybe their claims to happiness are a lie, and their public persona a pose. Mannerism is a culture of posing, of facades. But to recognize it you have to see and read for subtext. But there's no science of subtext. Was Logical Empiricism an independent intellectual movement or more a symptom of Weimar era decadence? Was it an engagement with the world or a desperate attempt to escape it. History will judge, but I'd say the latter. <br /><br />A philosopher is shocked, shocked!, by the opinions of a historian:<br />"We must, he maintains, avoid treating ancient philosophy as if it were created in a “historical vacuum” even if this threatens most Presocratic scholars’ “control of their subject and the autonomy of ’doing philosophy’“<br /><br />Another historian lost patience:<br />"he shared Cassirer's dismay at the blinkered approach of the analytical philosophers who dominated the Oxford scene: ignoring the historical context of thinkers such as Leibniz, the only thing they wanted to know was whether his statements were true according to their own criteria."<br /><br />"Doing philosophy" as if philosophy were like chemistry. And Quine wasn't an empiricist. He was a logician, not a biologist. <br /><br />You're read me enough. You've seen those quotes before. I think you've been having a bit of fun, but I think now I've answered your questions.D. Ghirlandaiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06283931383770759507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3549928.post-90798873800788363522015-12-11T01:19:19.815-05:002015-12-11T01:19:19.815-05:00I'm agreeing with you. But we're both disa...I'm agreeing with you. But we're both disagreeing with Quine. He has no interest in meanings (and his politics were predictably reactionary), but the multiplicity of meanings is simply a fact were have to face and deal with, stumbling along. No one in the west, and specifically in the US paid much attention to the situation of the Palestinians. The loyalty was to the European refugees who conquered them. The only thing that's changed our perceptions is immigration, mass communication and time. We have social connections to Palestinians we never had. It was the same in a sense with other minorities and gays and even women. They had to yell to get attention. And it was the yelling that worked, not the earnest conversation of the people being yelled at. Rationalists say change comes from above. Even when they say "We know now it comes from below!", they're patting themselves on the back. Evidence says change still comes from below. So when poststructuralists talk about the "other" they're simply observing an obvious relation. It's when they turn around and try to build a program out of finding a cure that things get PC and absurd. Philosophers all want to be judges. I want my own lawyer and I don't want him sleeping with the prosecutor. Our justice system is predicated on the fact of "others". Adversarialism is bloodsport, not theory. Everyone hates lawyers until they need one and that's doubly true for philosophers.<br /><br />I'll get back to you later on Mannerism. It's about culture not art history. But it's Friday and I need a drink. The links on the bottom of the post are a good start. And then the "Panofsky" tag. Or wait until tomorrow.<br />cheersD. Ghirlandaiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06283931383770759507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3549928.post-47851926745904563592015-12-11T00:10:10.477-05:002015-12-11T00:10:10.477-05:00That's why I put 'real' philosophy in ...That's why I put 'real' philosophy in inverted quotes. I know your aversion is equally directed at scholastic analytics. I happen to think they're less wrong than the scholastic continentals, since they at least try to be sensitive to empirics - I don't think it's wholly pretend. <br /><br />Two things: <br />i) I'm not quite sure what my Tutsi/Hutu reference is the perfect lead in to - are you agreeing or criticising me? (I don't mind either way, but I'd like to know). My assumption is that the Quine quote supports my idea that distinguishing them was in fact important..?<br />ii) What's mannerism, and what's the relevance here? I have no background in art history, though I've picked up a bit since I started reading you here. I know I could go and read your long pdf, but as I once said before, your writing is so self-referential (everything is repeats! ha!) that it's often obscure to the uninitiated layman like me. I follow one link to another, but I don't get to the bottom. Help a guy out.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3549928.post-60390224709492596572015-12-10T22:43:06.219-05:002015-12-10T22:43:06.219-05:00Scholastic poststructuralism or scholastic analyti...Scholastic poststructuralism or scholastic analytics. One form of bullshit universalism or another. Your example of Hutu and Tutsi is the perfect lead in, though I repeat this so much I lose readers:<br />"Once the theory of meaning is sharply separated from the theory of reference... meanings themselves, as obscure intermediary entities, may well be abandoned." Quine.<br /><br />If "evening star" and "morning star" refer to the same thing that's all we need to know. Other "imposed categories" are unnecessary at least until you have to come to terms with the plot of land called "Israel" and "Palestine".<br /><br />"doing violence to the world by imposing categories" Since there's no way for us not to do that, you'd think cultivating an ironic self-awareness and empiricism would be the order of the day. But after dreams of utopia the only irony available is nihilism. After giving up on fantasies of heaven the only option is a fantasy of hell. Earth isn't interesting enough, for analytics or poststructuralists. That's the root of the highbrow amoralism the author above is worried about. But Ludlow and McGinn are just as sleazy. It's all the same crap: curdled idealism, perfect empty order, perversity, autism. Historians have a name for it. We live in a mannerist age. But no one reads history and historians live in the past, so no one's able to point out the obvious.<br /><br />Cultural studies only works as reciprocal exchange. You can't study yourself. We need a return to empiricism, to history and philology and anthropology, and real politics. It's happening of course, but it won't be enough. People are lazy and technocracy gets things done. Whether what it gets done is destruction of the planet is another question. <br /><br />I've been making this rant since I was about 16. No joke. D. Ghirlandaiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06283931383770759507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3549928.post-20176958928644400322015-12-10T20:36:40.710-05:002015-12-10T20:36:40.710-05:00"Now every teacher is a philosopher or theori..."Now every teacher is a philosopher or theorist or analyst." This.<br /><br />English departments have become the catch-all for everyone who wants to be a philosopher, but can't get into a 'real' philosophy department. Once 'English' became shorthand for 'cultural studies' it became a license to write about everything in society, without having the training to talk about anything empirically. They slide imperceptibly between cultural manifestations and society itself, as if they were one and the same, as if the former were not self-conciously artificial. <br /><br />I remember going to listen to a paper by someone summarising their thesis on Deleuze and ethics. It was about how 'recognition' involves doing violence to the world by imposing categories. I asked a question: if you were in Rwanda, don't you think it would be ethically important to recognise who was tutsi or hutu? Her reply, well, yes, of course, but...<br />After that I lost her. An hour of scholastic poststructuralism, only to fold at the first pushback.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com