Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 22:42:01 -0800 (PST)
From: Paul Bryant <levi_bryant-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Dialectics


TMB--

You are right to point out the importance of semantic analysis as
central to any discussion.  I particularly like your example
surrounding multiple ways of viewing a computer program and the need
to clarify which perspective is at work when conflicts arise. 
However, as I saw it, I had clearly demarcated my concept of
"critique" and your replies struck me as gesturing to the effect that
they appeared to say "but what about this, isn't there something
else?"  Of course there's something else, but I wasn't talking about
that something else at that time.  One can't talk about everything
yanno.  Taking up Deleuze-speak for a moment, the concept of critique
that I offered marked the singularities embedded in the practice of
critique well enough to cover the systematic variations or different
forms of critique found in diverse actualizations of this event. 
Here, "singularity" is roughly equivalant to what you seem to mean by
"boiling point" or "crisis point".  As such, it's what might be called
a well-formed concept.  Further, that concept also anticipates what
takes place in critique, which is to say, something is produced.  This
differs from a straight argumentative approach insofar as such
approaches tend to set two positions in opposition to one another so
that one position might be summarily dismissed upon failing to meet
the requirements of reason or some other criteria.  In this context,
nothing really changes except for the fact that were left with one
alternative where before we had two.  Critique, on the other hand,
provides us with new concepts or modes of motion as can be aptly seen
in Foucault's archaeologies and geneaologies.  As such, it's a
positive project, despite the fact that it destroys as it produces. 
Wasn't it Sartre that said we have to destroy in order to create?

As for your questions why someone uses this term or that term in order
to describe their project, I can only say that is a thinker's way of
naming his or her particular style of critique.  For there is not one
way of carrying out critique, but many.  Along these lines, it is
always interesting to look at the presuppositions of these particular
modes of critique, to determine what values they embody, what their
aims are, what their strengths are, what their limitations are.  This
would be a critique of critique, or, perhaps, the perspectivism that
Deleuze describes as the only means of total critique in _Nietzsche
and Philosophy_.  Well, that's about all I have to say about that.

Regards,

Paul



---TMB <tblan-AT-telerama.lm.com> wrote:
>
> 
> Ok. Sure. I don't think semantics are quite so
uninteresting/meaningless
> as you do, though. In thinking, the semantic cache of a word has a
lot of
> strength to it. To use an analoguy, assuming you are using a
windows-based
> computer (or not, for that matter, just any with a menu bar), consider
> what it means to pop open a menu bar. Hit "file" and several,
single-word
> menu items come down. Each has a definite, effective, and
put-in-pratice
> cache in the program that is operating. Your view is: I am concerned
with
> what one does with the computer, what one writes, what programs one
runs,
> etc., not what a specific menu item means. Call it "a,b,c,d, etc."
rather
> than "file, options, view, edit", etc. I think, honestly, that is a
little
> naive. This is not to say that I am interested in meaninless debate or
> simply "defending my position". I'm not. It's just that as one gets
*into*
> matters of critique, philosophy, thinking, or at least as *I* do so
(and
> certainly, Derrida is *all about* this, for example), and part of
doing
> that is, indeed, as you suggest, getting past superficial semantic
debate,
> sematics as meaning, as effective evocation, meaninful *resonance*,
> efficient, sufficient, reductive, or expansive indication re-emerges
as
> important, in the depths of critique, in the depths of deconstruction,
> construction, etc. Partly one might as how many "short cuts" one
might be
> taking, for example. If I compare a general view of, say, Derrida to
> Deleuze and Guattari and think this according to the computer
analogy, I
> think that Derrida puts a lot of emphasis on the nuances of what is
in the
> menu, while D/G are perhaps more oriented to a certain machinic mode
of
> combination, production, effective connection, etc. I think something
> turns into "meaningless semantic debate" when one gets *stuck* at that
> level, like pulling down a menu and fussing over one word, like
"file" for
> a very long time. But if the semantic moment is made room for, as it
were,
> but one goes back into things, one might see the role of the cache,
etc.
> For example, I'd be much more interested in any event in going into
> Foucault's work on critique, or looking at the
analytic-synthetic/web of
> belief stuff. I might more more refernces to semantic cache than you,
> though. Incidentally, as much as I appear to have been pushing "my"
> "definitin" of critique kind of hard, I generally don't use it that
way
> but just more as a helpful rule of thumb.
> 
> In how I'm putting it here, there is, in part (and only in part) a
general
> conflict between short term and long term, even of a certain "faith of
> philosophy" or "faith of thinking". All of this breaks down to some
> extent, but for a time and in a place this captures a bit of what
goes on.
> If one pulls down the menu thing and stops the marco sequence long
enough
> to problematice "what is meant by 'file'", some might get impatient,
> others might get stuck, and otehrs might just have this as part of a
> pression that is, in fact, fully concered with "the things
themselves".
> How this last concern works out in part throws the moment of "faith"
as
> such into crisis, since someone might be working "meaning" not in
"faith"
> at all, but because, dues to knowledge and experience, they have no
need
> for "faith" at all; they already know that the cache has important
effects
> and is quite involed in issues of, if you like, power/knowledge.
> 
> You're right about Derrida vis "decon", I imagine. As for how well
> "critique" sums things up, I don't know. I also would refer you back
to
> what is meant, in and by Foucault, by "genealogy", and *why* he uses
that
> word, what he means by it, or by "archeology" and so forth. Those
things
> are not "semantics", or, "semantics" is not what it is often taken
to be.
> I guess that might ential a semantic discussion of "semantic". You
might
> not want to do that, and i might want to. If you don't let me, I might
> submit your work (this is obiously just hypothetical, I'm just playing
> with you a little here) to *critique* to bring out the crisis
points, as
> in, for example, your take on how it is regarding "semantics" can be
> shown, when pushed to certain crisis, to actually entail more of
what you
> dismiss as the simply uninteresting and unimportant. But who knows. If
> you're really totalist about it, I might need to *deconstruct* your
work,
> if only in order to think along your lines while making room for the
> semantics I see as being part of power/knowledge but which you may
not. I
> might do a geneology of your power/knowledge regime concerning
semantics
> and see a certain positive progression of "getting beyond meaning"
to "the
> thing itself", the interesting, etc. I might do any of these things,
or
> not, depending. Are you a big important writer in this century? Are
you
> important for me, as an email lister? Do I need to undertake such
critique
> of your positino regarding critque and semantics? What kind of "room"
> might be in question here? What kind of room might I need, and why? Or
> you, and why? Etc. Again, I'm just playing on this stuff a little,
though
> perhaps I am saying something meaningful and pertinent to what we are
> briefly (thus far) discussing.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> TMB
> 
> 
> On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Paul Bryant wrote:
> 
> > TMB--
> > 
> > It sounds like our difference of opinion here is merely semantic,
> > which is to say, uninteresting.  If I claim that the projects of
> > Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze and much Anglo-American philosophy
> > "Critique" this is because they describe themselves in this way as
> > well.  Foucault devotes an entire book to critique, and Derrida (who
> > rarely used the term "deconstruction" himself by the way)describes
his
> > own project in this way in numerous places.  Similarly, Deleuze
claims
> > that "philosophy is at its best as critique", and devotes
attention to
> > what this concept means throughout his career.  Now, the most
> > difficult question of critique is how critique itself is
possible... 
> > That is, how is it possible to give a form of critique that assumes
> > nothing?  I would be more than interested in exploring that
question,
> > or the question of the variety of forms of critique open to us. 
But I
> > really don't like semantic debates.
> > 
> > Paul
> > 
> 
> 

_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free -AT-yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com