File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_2001/foucault.0102, message 127


Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 01:09:57 -0600
Subject: Re: Recent postings on Kant and relativism
From: Donald E Van Duyse <devanduyse-AT-juno.com>


_______________
Larry wrote:

I do not think that all relativistic theories can be written off as
simply giving in to crude impulses. At a minimum, one would want a
psychological analysis of how sophisticated people can fall into such
traps.
__________________

I did not mean to suggest that relativistic theories give in to crude
impulses. But any kind of relativistic theory (ontological,
epistemological, moral, linguistic) can be misconstrued. The Worf-Sapir
Hypothosis, for example is not best applied as a theory about how all
cognition and culture can be collapsed into an "originating" linguistic
causality. I think Worf, at least, would allow that cognition and
perception can exceed the orderliness of language. At the same time, it
is impossible for us to imagine a state of cognition or culture that is
not significantly determined by linguistic structures. It might be more
interesting to talk about how the degree of linguistic determinism
fluctuates, and what competing variables might occasionally upset the
presumed ratio. How would I know, at a given point, when I am more or
less linguistically determined? I am more interested in problems of 
"linguistic uncertainty" than simple determinism. And that distinction
comes pretty close to the difference beteween relativism, as an "ism"
(like determinism) vs. relativity, as an attempt to appreciate a state of
flux. 

   

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