Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 21:40:08 -0800 (PST)
From: Michael Rooney <rooney-AT-tiger.cc.oxy.edu>
Subject: RE: dialectic (can clumsy pragmatists read?)




On Tue, 19 Jan 1999, michelle phil lewis king wrote:

> >> > it is (in my view) the writing that Derrida continually
> >> indicates.
> >> > It is 'beyond' in  the sense (direction) that it includes the
> >> unknown, in
> >> > the sense that it is 'experimental'and can loose its direction.
> >>
> >> Derrida loves to talk about such things -- see,
> >> e.g., his remarks on the aleatory in essays like
> >> "Mes Chances" and "The Time of a Thesis".
> >
> he probably does.. so whats your point.. are you saying that talking 
> about and doing are the same thing? 

You say the "beyond" is (a) beyond Derrida and
(b) experimental and can lose direction.  Derrida 
has said and would say that his work is (b).
If you think that's not actually the case, fine.
You might consider backing that up with some
evidence.


> >> But this "beyond" still sounds like vague hype:
> >> the sciences "include the unknown", experiment,
> >> and lose their direction.  Advertising assures
> >> us of nothing, with neither certitude nor result.
> >> Are these pursuits Bataillean-Derridean-Deleuzean
> >> too?
> >
> I never claimed I was making a specific sound. It is an interesting 
> suggestion to think of advertising and science as kinds of writing. 
> Mental graphitti perhaps. Thanks.

You're welcome.


> >> Yes, I get your general point of comparison:
> >> Derrida reads Bataille as indicating an extra-
> >> textual "scream", which is prima facie akin to
> >> Deleuze's attack on semantic or semiotic linguistic
> >> philosophy in favor of pragmatics, true.  But
> >> this is an exceedingly general common point.
> >> By the same standard, you may as well enrol
> >> H.P. Grice or John Searle as Bataillean beyonders,
> >> too.
> >
> Please demonstrate. Who says that I was setting standards? 

You say that Deleuze is like Derrida's reading
of Bataille: both practice a writing "beyond" 
philosophy.  Thus you are setting a standard:
that that claim is true.


> How do you 
> judge notions? It seems a specific activity on your part to try and turn 
> them into points in a 'discourse'. Please explain the basis of your 
> activity.

Reason.


> >> On more specific grounds, the differences over-
> >> ride the superficial similarity.  For example,
> >> the above quotes have little to do with the two
> >> sides Derrida is talking about (trangression and
> >> prohibition).  That dyad, supreme for Bataille,
> >> is a non-issue for d+g.
> >
> their warnings of the  dangers of a massive reterritorialization of a 
> too hasty detterritorialisation seem to me to make a similar point. 
> hence their much discussed plea for caution. 

And hence quite different from Bataille.  Have
you read much of his writings?


> >> > Writing as philosophy. philosophy
> >> as writing.
> >> > Philosophy beyond Philosophy. (Le plus denue de culpabilite de
> >> "faire de la
> >> > philosophie").
> >>
> >> Okay.  How does this differ from philosophy?
> 
> At last a good question.

And....?


> you are a clumsy pragmatist.

So you say.


> >> It strikes me as an improvement over stringing
> >> together random quotes with free association,
> >> or using the vaguest of similarities to justify
> >> ignorance.
> 
> please explain how fetishizing talk and ignoring action is an 
> improvement over the pragmatic activity of associatively linking 
> passages.

As soon as you explain how I'm in fact
fetishizing talk and ignoring action.


> I got from  a description of a specific action of Nietzsche's ignorance 
> of Hegel as pointed out by Bataille and Klossowski,  to a general 
> justification of ignorance as an (absent) basis for writing through 
> Derrida's work on Bataille. I would say that I haven't been vague 
> enough. 

Great.  So is ignorance justified as a
basis for wirting?



> >> > I think his thought
> >> > operates as writing in Derrida's sense (about Bataille for
> >> example) .. and
> >> > Derrida says a lot about writing..as a dangerous supplement..   
> derrida
> >> > indicates  writing is a  critique of Hegel in itself.. as an
> >> activity.. as
> >> > production.. as movement.. as trace.. as operation.
> >>
> >> I think it's in "Restricted to General Economy"
> >> that Derrida says something like "Il n'y a qu'un
> >> discours, il est significatif et Hegel est ici
> >> incontourable".
> >>
> Who is talking about discourse?

Derrida says that that's all there is.  And 
you're the one who finds this Derrida essay
so persuasive. 


Cordially,

M.