Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 18:38:12 -0800 (PST)
From: Michael Rooney <rooney-AT-tiger.cc.oxy.edu>
Subject: RE: dialectic (can clumsy pragmatists read?)




On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, michelle phil lewis-king wrote:

> > 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.
> 
> D+G specifically define what they mean by experimental. I'm not aware of
> Derrida's definition. I certainly consider his work experimental yet more
> concerned with remaining within that which is known. Just an impression. For
> me reading him is an experiment in the d+g John Cage sense however.

Thanks for sharing your impressions again.
Now: is Deleuze "beyond" Derrida, as your
impressions claim, and if so, how?  Some of 
us here are, on occasion, interested in the
facts of the matter.



> > > >> 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.
> >
> (How do you know I'm welcome?)

Like, duh.  *I* am the one doing the welcoming,
half-wit.



> > > >> 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 how H.P.Grice and John Searle (who I don't know) can be
> enrolled as Bataillean beyonders according to the standard that my claim
> that both Bataille and Deleuze practice a 'comic operation' beyond
> philosophy) is true.

I have no need to demonstrate something you
just pulled out of your ass.  Tell me what
you mean by practicing "a 'comic operation' 
beyond philosophy" and we'll talk.



> > > 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.
> >
> You 'get' the point: you set the standard. I wasn't making a point.

Of course you weren't.  Here are some of your
recent non-points to that non-effect:

}}} In Derrida's Bataille's case:
}}} 'Blimey! That's what Deleuze does but without the guilt etc.'

}}} I think his [Deleuze's] thought operates as 
}}} writing in Derrida's sense (about Bataille for example)

}}} he was going (beyond)further than philosophy by an
}}} experimental writing 

Obviously, it was me setting those words in your
non-point-making posts.



> > > 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 what basis? What do you mean by Reason?

The practice of asking for a basis.



> > > >> On more specific grounds, the differences over-
> > > >> ride the superficial similarity.  [...]
> > > >
[...]
> > > 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?
> 
> I have in the past. Not at present. This comes back to the 'caution' debate
> on the list. Where Nick Land's Deleuze is seen to betray the call for
> deterritorialization in a.o by the caution of t.p.

Whatever.  It's irrelevant to my point: that the 
differences between Bataille and Deleuze outweigh
the superficial similarities you have observed.



> Derrida's pointing out that Bataille's transgression of discourse (by
> laughter, scream whatever))can only be affirmed by Bataille in discourse is
> in my view a call for a pragmatism that is on the dark side of discourse.
> Beyond it.

And this is similar to Deleuze ... how?



> > > >> > 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....?
> >
> It's philosophy but not as we know it. The difference is an open problem. 

If you can't tell the difference, how do you
know that it's "beyond" anything?



> > > you are a clumsy pragmatist.
> >
> > So you say.
> 
> So I wrote.

So you should prove it, else it be dismissed
with the rest of your prattle.



> > > 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.
> 
> You are so fixated on talk as an object (ie Deleuze's voice speaking for
> himself)that the movement of any writing not subservient to a logical voice
> appears unnacceptable to you. 

Back to fallacies again, eh, Phil?

Q: "How am I fetishizing talk?"

A: "You are fixated on talk."

There is a difference between assertion and
justification.  Look into it.


> Please explain how elevating (written) spoken
> discourse as a fetish object to which your words are obsessively attatched
> is better than the sovereign action of associately linking passages of
> writing with a sense of direction.

Sure thing, kemosabe.  Working with what someone
has actually said is far superior than selectively
arranging quotes because it is honest.  E.g.: 
working from Nietzsche's works is superior to 
associatively linking passages in the direction
of fulfilling one's anti-Semitic impressions.



> > > 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 writing?
> >
> Yes. "a writing knowing nothing ... of meanings and aims." A-o pp370

And a reading knowing nothing, apparently.  Or
perhaps you would like to share the impression
which draws a justification of ignorance from
the cited passage?
 

> > > >> 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.
> >
> I'm using it as a means of persuading myself to 'talk' to you.

What a pleasant non-answer.  Do you agree with
Derrida on this point or don't you?


Cordially,

M.