File spoon-archives/baudrillard.archive/baudrillard_1998/baudrillard.9803, message 54


From: "Soren Pedersen" <122509816228-AT-post2.tele.dk>
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 12:30:35 +0000
Subject: Re: Why?



> >You're right. Realism would not deny that our "truths" are 
> >ontologically dependent upon our conceptual apparatus, 
> 
> by my reading of most of the most recent realism/anti-realism literature,
> realism would deny just that. realism argues that for something to be true,
> it has to be true independent of our observations/interactions/conceptual
> frameworks. anti-realism argues that truths cannot be independent of such
> things. the battle between realism and anti-realism is mainly one of the
> independence of th\ruths.

Before exploring this issue, I suggest you stop wasting your time 
with the realism/anti-realism debate. It's trivial, and tends to 
decline to the absurd ontological/epistemological question of whether 
there's a table in front of me and how I can obtain perfect knowledge 
of it.

The early Wittgenstein is probably the only recent Realist who 
(consistently) claimed that truths are ontologically independent 
of the conceptual frameworks in which they are articulated in the 
first place. His picture theory of meaning is well-known. 
Propositions (i.e. true statements) mirror reality because they share 
a basic structure: "What any picture --- must have in common with 
reality, in order to be able to depict it - correctly or incorrectly 
- in any way at all, is logical form, i.e. the form of reality".  
(Tractatus, 2.18). And later he squares pictures with language: "A 
proposition is a picture of reality" (T, 4.01).

Compare with contemporary Realism (represented by Searle): "All 
representation, and a fortiori all truthful representation, is always 
under certain aspects and not others. The aspectual character of all 
representations derives from such facts as that representation is 
always made from within a certain conceptual scheme and from a 
certain point of view" (Seale: Construction of Social Reality, p. 
176).

The early Wittgenstein claimed that propositions (true 
statements) are wordless immediacies of reality-in-itself. In 
other words, should nature ever decide to speak back to us, it would 
use the language of the Wittgensteinian proposition. That's what I 
call perfect reference between language and reality.Searle happily 
admits that truths are dependent upon conceptual schemes (and 
therefore not ontologically independent).


> >Baudrillard would consider the philosophical discourse of modernity 
> >and postmodernity obsolete, because they both represent philosophy 
> >from the subject's point of view. How exceptionally arrogant it is to 
> >think that we possess the conceptual power to render the world either 
> >true (modernism) or useful (postmodernism). 
> 
> what, don't you own a toaster? of course we have the power to make things
> useful. somethings use does not depend upon truth. a hammer doesn't have to
> be truth to knock nails into wood. computer enginering doesn't have to be
> true for my computer to work. utility doesn't depend upon truth.

Perhaps it is the manufacturer of the toaster who has found a way to 
make you useful for his wallet.

 
> >ASSUME THE POSITION OF THE OBJECT and take a look at 
> >humanity. Tell me what you see (if you can stop laughing)? 
> 
> assume the position of the object? you cannot - it would be like trying to
> stare at the back of your head. but you could try and assess your position
> as an object - and i think this is something more like what Baud. tries to do.
> 
Read the final pages of Fatal Strategies! And by the way: objects do 
not exist. Fatal Strategy is about utilizing (and adding) to the 
critical potential residing in the simulacrum.

-Soren


   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005