Date: Sun, 22 Dec 1996 14:02:35 +0200
From: Vadim Linetski <picador-AT-luckynet.co.il>
Subject: to Liano; re: his questions


15 MAY 97
Dear Liano,
my post of 13 May seems to contain some ideas which might be regarded as
an answer to your messages of 14 May, whhereas my post in answer to
Guillaume's query re: time adds some more remarks to the same end (again
and again i have to ask you to forgive me for answering indirectly). Now
i am going to address two issues which remain in suspense.
1. you are certainly right in your critique of Zeno's paradoxes. However
you address them an und für sich, and there's the rub! what justifies my
= of the two paradoxes is their structure and discursive effect dubbed
in my NABOKOV AND SWIFT... essay a self-dimunitive one. On a purely
philosophical level, your critique is quite valid (as Bergson has argued
in MATTER AND MEMORY and Ch.Peirce contended in his notes A. will
overtake the T. - at least as a fact), but i am interested in the use of
this paradox in PoMo theory. Curiously, what i call structure and
discursive effect is situated precisely in the gap /khora (another basic
notion of PoMo) between your two interpretations: in effect, you try to
dissociated the two paradoxes by arguing that that of A&T relies on a
physical setting, that of the Cretan Liar - on psychology of sorst (as
you say we should take into consideration that a Liar could not be a
prioro accused of a continuous flaw of lies). However, it is precisely
the UNCANNY RETURN OF THE REFERENT, a recourse to "naturalism" which
undermines the PoMo project , and this is my theme. In other words, it
is the naturalization which PoMo identifies as one of the logocentric
moves which returns in its own discourse... (In another chapter
,"BAKHTIN'S WORDS...", i further develop the notion of Cretan
discursivity)
2. you are right that what i am arguing against is the view of
deconstruction as a theory which requires smth to deconstruct. This is
one of the most common rebukes. My aim is to conceive of deconstruction
of the second degree as a theory which would not need anything
antedating it , would not be parasitic. However, the sine qua non is the
baring of the discursive moves common to all versions of
poststructuralism. I think that we are justified to speak of
poststructuralISM: consider fo example one of the most radical versions
of feminism: recently Braidotti has  made a special point that the
reconstruction of the female subjectivity requires a consolidated
(oedipal) subjectivity in order to proceed.  there obviousy ARE some
fundamental discursive moves common to all, and it is this moves which
matter.
Thank you very much for your provocative remarks, i am looking forward
to hearing more of them.
Your Friend,
vadim