Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 08:55:21 -0400 From: derekh-AT-yorku.ca (Derek Hrynyshyn) Subject: Re: Derrida, Bhaskar, etc. Colin: I am not sure how far I can go with you on Derrida; a close read of Grammatology provides much more evidence for the idealist interpretation and I get really annoyed when I come across quotes by JD saying "I am not an idealist" when he says idealist things so often. But I do agree that there is evidence both ways. I have read Norris and think he makes a pretty case but try p. 20 of "Derrida" where Norris has to say "Oh, well, Derrida didn't really mean what he said there..." and so on. I just want to blame Derrida for not being careful in his writing, and not being clear enough to avoid being read as postmodernist and being "appropriated" by Baudrillard, etc. The biggest reason for rejecting Derrida, imho, is the real inconsistency I see between the need for an intransitive transitive dimension and the collapsing of everything into text. Maybe Derrida is not an idealist, but he argues clearly that there is no way to divide ideas into those that refer to the real world and those that refer to other ideas. This seems to me to serve the function of making any ontological depth, or at least knowledge of such, to disappear, leaving us with a flat, depthless world that exists entirely at the level of Bhaskar's intransitive. I get this out of Grammatology, but as you say, when we get to Spectres, it turns out that JD's long-awaited discussion of Marx contains practically no reference to economics, and what reference there is, is actually pretty darned naive. Without an intransitive, there can be no economic science. derek. Derek Hrynyshyn, Graduate Program Phone: 650-2276 in Political Science, derekh-AT-yorku.ca York University Ross S609 Communications Officer, CUPE local 3903 cupe3903-AT-yorku.ca * Fax: 736-5480 * Office: 736 - 5154 http://www.yorku.ca/org/cupe/cupe3903.htm
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