File spoon-archives/baudrillard.archive/baudrillard_1998/baudrillard.9803, message 64


Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 03:50:06 -0500
From: nik <mabnb-AT-hunterlink.net.au>
Subject: Re: Why?


>> soren, you seem to be a bit on the confused side...
>
>My Fatal Strategy has succeeded if I managed to confuse you too.

very droll...
>> >
>> >> >You're right. Realism would not deny that our "truths" are 
>> >> >ontologically dependent upon our conceptual apparatus, 
>> >> 
>> >> >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.
>> >
>> i wouldn't have wasted my time with the realism/anti debate unless you had
>> brought it up. kind of unfair to claim it's trivial after using it to make
>> a point.
>
>Baudrillard is about breaking the codes governing what's 
>fair/un-fair.

hmmmm...not sure about this one. no doubt that Baud would love to break the
code (and have us use him to break the code), but can a discussion of
realism and anti-realism contain the poetics necessary for such a breakage?
The philosophy of science is such a dry thing...

>> 
>> >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).
>> >
>> i only point that i would like to make in reply to this is that the later
>> wittgensteim totally destroyed the early wiit.'s philosophy. 
>
>No quarrels here although the elegance and mysteriousness of the 
>Tractatus beats the Investigations.


on this point we must violently disagree. the Tractatus has nothing on the
Investigations. 
>> 
>> >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).
>> >
>> but as far as the realism/anti debate go, niether philosopher could be
>> considered to be in any way at the forefrount of the field...for a
>> contemporary realist viewpoint i would try hackings "representing and
>> intervening", its fairly representative of contemporary (experimental)
>> realism...
>
>I might check it out although I promised myself never to engage with 
>realist/anti-realist literature after failing to convince my teacher 
>of the ontological existence of the tree outside the classroom 
>window 

hacking is well worth the read, if only to see the limits (and the end) of
the realist program.

(p.s. Baudrillard is neither realist nor anti-realist, but 
>hyperrealist, and the world is a holodeck and the tree a simulacrum).

i would have thought he was a reluctant anti-realist, seeing as
anti-realisms only binding tenent is the world (as we know it) is not
independent of our conceptual schemes

>> >
>> >> >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.
>> >
>> its still use.
>
>I was merely asking you to consider the possibility that it is the 
>toaster that uses you (and not the other way around).

a point i wouldn't disagree with you on...

>> 
>> > 
>> >> >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. 
>> then how can i assume the position of the object?????
>> 
>
>A simulacrum is in a certain sense an (ecstatic) object insofar as it 
>exist - albeit in a different ontological sphere than "normal" 
>objects.

sorry, you've lost me on that one. can you expand upon your point for me. 
nik


   

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