Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 19:06:11 -0500
Subject: RE: Inner experience vs. Descartes


>===== Original Message From bataille-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ====>Hey.
>I wonder if anybody has any thoughts about the "inner" experience to
>Bataille and the "inner" mind to Descartes: thinking here about the strange
>dilemma between transgressing the limits set by "rationality", but still
>maintaining the "rationality" to be able to experience the transgression.
>
>
>Cheers
>Einar

---------------------------

Actually, it is entirely unclear to me that any such thing is possible.  As I 
understand it, the limits of rationality are the limits of intelligibility and 
the limits of logical possibility.  To violate them is to abandon the very 
business of sense-making, to say nothing of truth-tracking.  Therefore, to 
"transgress" rationality is just to utter either:

	(1)	supervacuous (and ultimately meaningless) rubbish, or;
	(2)	a demonstrably false set of propositions (i.e. propositions that are
		either logically false or else mutually contradictory)

Is there a third alternative I'm missing?  Honestly, I'm just not aware of 
any....

I joined this list just a few days ago for this very purpose-- I very much 
want to know why postmodernists are postmodernists and why they reject the 
obvious criticisms of their views.  I have similar interests in coming to 
understand the "poststructuralists"/deconstructionists.  Lately I've been 
going through _Simulation and Simulacra_ and _The Postmodern Condition_, plus 
I'm re-reading _Of Grammatology_ (when I find time).<<1>>  Thus far I have not 
found any plausible arguments for these philosophers' central claims.  Derrida 
came just short of providing phenomenological arguments for his antipathy 
toward Western metaphysics in a few of his earliest papers found in _Writing 
and Difference_ and _Margins of Philosophy_, but even there he fell short as 
far as I can tell.

Can anyone *PLEASE* help me??  I'm familiar with the varieties of 
argument-types that someone might make, but neither Lyotard nor Bataille seem 
to provide anything that fits any of those categories.  To help people see 
where I am at this point, I'll list them:

	(1)	deductive arguments
		(a)	Kantian/Hegelian transcendental arguments
		(b)	arguments from definition/linguistic meaning
		(c)	mathematical arguments
	(2)	inductive arguments
		(a)	predictions    ---___
		(b)	retrodictions	  ___}-- causal inferences
		(c)	analogical arguments
		(d)	arguments from authority (can't imagine why they'd use one of
			these, though)
		(e)	inductive generalizations
		(f)	statistical arguments
		(g)	etymological arguments
	(3)	phenomenological arguments
		(a)	Husserlian transcendetal-phenomenological arguments
		(b)	Heideggerian phenomenological arguments

Seriously--- I am *NOT* trying to be combative or dismissive, here.  I am 
trying to understand.  I really do want to understand (1) why Bataille and 
Lyotard believe what they certainly seem to believe, (2) precisely *what* it 
is that they honestly do believe, and (3) why they set about trying to make 
their case the way they do.  The fear of Enlightenment era philosophy that 
they and their ilk evince perplexes me to no end.<<2>>

Do they have compelling arguments for why Enlightenment philosophy is such a 
terrible thing and/or for why the laws of reason are anything other than 
universally applicable and binding?  After all, their critics have what seem 
like *very* compelling arguments for why their claims are either demonstrably 
false or else merely vacuous and therefore (dommage) philosophically 
insignificant.<<3>>  If postmodernism is to survive on any academically 
significant level, these critics must be answered and they must be answered 
with very specific and carefully reasoned responses to their specific critical 
arguments.  Are such responses out there or in the works?  Might we, as 
members of this list, pool our collective resources, so to speak, and start 
formulating such responses?

Many people I know are already convinced that postmodernism is dead.  I am not 
prepared to go that far just yet, but I have to admit the situation looks dire 
these days.  If anyone else on the list has the time and is willing to share 
in the work, I would love to examine the options and see whether or not there 
are any plausible lines of argument whereby something like postmodernism might 
survive.


Sincerely,

David Schenk


Notes
-----

<<1>>	Over the years I've read quite a bit of Derrida in connection with my 
strong
	interest in Heidegger's philosophy.  I've read a decent amount of Lyotard,
	but am just getting moving with Bataille now.  I know the likes of Gramscii,
	Adorno and the Frankfurt school tolerably well, but am no kind of expert,
	plus I went through a fair number of Foucault's books years ago.  I hope
	this information can people on the list get a feel for where I am in my
	grasp of the relevant material and suggest possible readings to fill
	whatever philosophical lacunae are preventing me from properly understanding
	the basic arguments of postmodernism.

<<2>>	I mean, if they were serious about their skeptical conclusions regarding
	reference and semantic content (the existence of a "signified" and the
	process of "signification" as such), they could not ever establish any kind
	of epistemological vantage-point from which they would be able or qualified
	to criticize the laws of Reason, Enlightenment philosophy, Platonic realism,
	transcendetal philosophy, the concepts of truth and reality, or much of
	anything else.  Therefore, it seems they cannot *really* be the skeptics
	they pretend to be.

<<3>>	Philip Kitcher and Paul Boghossian do what looks like a very good job of
	this in _A House Built On Sand_.  I found similarly nasty arguments in Sokal
	and Bricmont's _Fashionable Nonsense_ and, of course, Gross and Levitt's
	_Higher Superstition_.  Even Al Plantinga gives postmodernism what-for in
	_Warranted Christian Belief_.  These philosophers seem to make a good case
	and I doubt the Stanley Fish's of this world could ever stand up to them.
	Am I missing something???  Have these people misconstrued postmodernism, and
	if so, how?  I *DO* *NOT* want to sell the postmodernists short, here.  I
	honestly do want to give them a fair shot at making their case and to that
	end I fully intend to employ the principle of charity as best I can.