File spoon-archives/bataille.archive/bataille_1999/bataille.9908, message 107


Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 07:33:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: Paul Bryant <levi_bryant-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: silence


J. Foster--

Apologies for interrupting this thread, but I have a
few question regarding your remarks on concepts.

--- "J. Foster" <borealis-AT-mail.wellsgray.net> wrote:

<The concept is timeless, but is it a general concept
<openfor discussion, or
<is it an absolute concept that is not open for
<discussion?Is this concept
<yours alone or is it shared? As a rule, absolute
<andgeneral concepts have
<the power to annul time. Since philosophy does
<notconstruct concepts but
<merely defines or explains concepts, perhaps you can
<tellme how something
<like masculinity can be defined in this way? You
<supplied asimple predicate
<timelessness but you have not demonstrated a proof
<yet. Howwould that be
<done is my question? Mathematics supplies
<rigorousdefinitions to supportive
<of proofs, it is axiomatic in definition, but in
<philosophythere is no such
<rigour. Mathematics constructs concepts, while
<philosophylooks on only.
<Philosophy in large part only corrects the
<understanding ofconcepts, and it
<does not create concepts. Your concept of man thus
<isdiscursive since it is
<not self-evident that masculinity is timeless in a
<purestate. What is meant
<by timeless? 

Minimally, it seems to me that your remarks on the
difference between mathematical and philosophical
approaches to concepts presuppose a particular concept
of what a concept is.  This is especially evident in
your claims that mathematics offers rigorous proofs
for its concepts, whereas philosophy does not.  The
claim that one ought to provide a proof for a concept
strikes me as particularly strange.  We do not prove
concepts, but conclusions following from particular
sets of propositions.  Perhaps you can elaborate a bit
more on what you believe a concept is and what it
means to prove a concept.

Secondly, what is the difference between constructing
a concept and analyzing a concept, and why does the
former practice only belong to mathematics?  Your
statement that philosophy only analyzes concepts seems
to lead to one of two conclusions:  Either (1) on
concepts are created by mathematics and thus
philosophy is parasitic on mathematics insofar as it
analyzes the concepts produced by mathematics (a
rather strange consequence insofar as we are then led
to wonder what rigour mathematics could possibly have
if it has not analyzed its own concepts, or (2) the
concepts that philosophy analyzes are natural kinds or
essences that are simply there at hand to be analyzed.
 Either of these results follows from your initial
claim that only mathematics constructs concepts.  But
it's also questionable to assert that philosophy
constructs no concepts of its own.  Certainly
Descartes concept of the Cogito, Spinoza's concept of
Conatus, Kant's concept of a Transcendental Condition,
Hegel's concept of a Dialectical Contradiction, or
even Bataille's concept of Death are not merely the
result of analysis but represent real constructions
and interventions in the field of discursivity... 
Which is to say that they represent interventions in a
Problem in much the same sense that mathematical
constructions intervene on a Problem.

Finally, the claim that a concept remains discursive
is tautologous and doesn't really represent any
counter-argument to the timelessness of a concept. 
Discursivity and conceptuality just are the same
thing.  Your suggestion seems to be that the
discursivity renders it arbritrary or contingent in
nature.  Is that really the case?  Just as in
mathematical construction, there are many "conceptual"
solutions to a particular problem, so too in
philosophy we can imagine that there are many
conceptual productions that are adequate to a problem.
 The fact that there are many solutions to a problem
in no way counts as evidence against the solution, but
only demonstrates that a solution admits of many
actualizations that are nonetheless timeless. 
Demonstrating that Marsha's concept of Man is
contingent and arbritrary depends on much more than
simply showing that there are other competing concepts
of Man...  It would consist in demonstrating that
these concepts (1) arise out of the same problem
space, since problematicity is a necessary condition
for the construction of concepts, and (2) that the
concepts (actualities) that arise out of this problem
space are actually at odds with one another or
represent solutions to a *false problem*.

Paul
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