Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 00:01:15 -0800
Subject: HAB: Imagining deconstruction


Structure, agency---system, lifeworld--metaphoricity, recursion--image,
form--symbol, pattern, and invisible means that perpetuate blinders over
reflection.... A sequence of postings this weeek that seem to move
toward inwardness--or is it a “spirit”-calling toward deepened
reflexivity?

Whatever.  But quite obviously, a discussion here could go
anywhere--anywhere, that is, that words can refer one.

But there’s some non sequitors in the sequence of postings--some willful
(maybe) misreadings of the previous post that foster the sense of
topicalness of whatever the poster wants to say. Brian misreads me, in
order to seque into some very interesting points. Steve overreads Brian,
perhaps, in order to seque into some very, VERY interesting points. And
Antti!

Ideally, though, one might wish for another to write in *accurate*
response to oneself. And nothing prevents a person from asking for
this--or pointing out a sense of having been misread, if that is
perceived.

On and on I could go with aspects of the ideal speaking situation that
are easily exhibitable in interaction. Erik is quite misinformed about
what Habermas has in mind by a notion of ideal speaking situation.
Indeed, Erik’s posting is the most unrelated of the lot--which is no
critique of Erik’s posting, because who says he’s supposed to post in
accord with a particular ethic?  Be that as it may, one can be as clear
as seems appropriate about guidelines or norms of interaction, without
in the slightest cutting off any freedom of appreciation for
marginality-- what Antti anticipates (maybe anxiously) as a “fall into
nothingness,” perhaps like the existential dread that stands in the
shadows of Christopher Gontar’s query?

In all cases, a mentality of unappreciated individuality seems to
beckon, like a shared spirit that might motivate some emergent consensus
of understanding about semiosis that is ambivalent toward Habermas’
interest in articulation and clarity that can be shared.

As interesting as the inarticulated force of images, is the impressive
richness of language that can be brought to bear upon the image--or in
framing the image. The power of the word vis-a-vis the image is a
beautiful thing.

The escape from reflectivity that the image so commonly expresses (and
tacitly registers in the permeability of one’s attention) is so little a
matter of the image and is so *much* a matter of the conditions of
perception--conditions we (who would subscribe to such a list as this)
feel compelled to, in the long run, *articulate* or “consciously”
understand.

Contrary to Antti’s estimation of Habermas, I don’t think he’s at all
“uneasy when it comes to the limits of rational justification,” because
the indication of such limits (by those in a state of alienation from
Habermas) is always so expressively vehement, which is something always
opening itself to understanding and interpretation, as if expressing--if
not longing for--the sharable cogency of what is allegedly beyond the
pale.

Anyway, I agree with Brian that “there is [not] an exact parallel
between [a] system and life world and [b] structure and action.”  What I
indicated with respect to John Goldsworthy’s concern about a pair of
concepts (structure and agency) that are *not* fundamental to Habermas’
analysis is that (it seems to me) his categorial pragmatics serves as
the bridge between lifeworld and system *“in terms of which”* Habermas
would consider the notions of structure and agency.

The uselessness of a notion like structure is that it applies to
everything!  There’s nothing especially “social” about the notion, for
it applies just as readily to everything psychological or everything
physical.

Granted, though, the notion of recursion is very constructive. I think
of contemporary notions of emergence in discourse about properties and
natural kinds in some venues of epistemology. I share Brian’s
association to metaphor, and think of Hayden White’s pioneering “tropics
of discourse” that preceded the new rhetoric of the human sciences by
more than a decade.  I’m glad that Brian elaborated a little on his
sense of figuration vis-a-vis system. I would like to read more.

I’ve noticed that Habermas too has a notable appreciation of figuration,
and I would argue that his entire “pragmatics” has a non-ontological
status kindred to that of other modes of discourse in the human
sciences--but with the advantage of being integrated with the empirical,
normative, and critical tradition of discourse more in accord with a
philosophical appreciation of “structure” and “agency” than most any
other rhetoric or rhetorician.

“Even modern, largely decentered societies,” writes Habermas, in *The
Normative Content of Modernity,* “maintain in their everyday
communicative action a virtual center of self-understanding,..., as long
as they do not outgrow the horizon of the lifeworld. This center is, of
course, a projection, but it is an effective one. The polycentric
projections of the totality--which anticipate, outdo, and incorporate
one another--generate competing centers.  Even collective identities
dance back and forth in the flux of interpretations, and are actually
more suited to the image of a fragile network than to that of a stable
center of self-reflection” (359). “Rationalization of the lifeworld
means differentiation and condensation at once--a thickening of the
floating web of intersubjective threads that simultaneously holds
together the ever more sharply differentiated components of culture,
society, and person” (346).

I heartily endorse Steve’s association of deconstruction of the image
and Habermas’ sense of critique. Christopher Norris, among others, has
heralded this association of deconstruction and critical theory for many
years, albeit in a more philosophical vein than most persons entertain
Critical Theory (recently, e.g., _Against Relativism_, Blackwell, 1997).

I share Antti’s reticence to endorse a sense of absense of appreciation
of symbolic power in Habermas. After all, Habermas was advancing a sense
of language as fundamentally “symbolic interaction” in the 1960s and has
been emphasizing the “post-auratic” character of modern subjectivity
(which presumes an appreciation of the auratic) more years than he has
associated himself so strongly with Durkheim’s analysis of the Sacred
(in vol. 2 of TCA, 1981).

I wish that Antti would share more about “image-guided world
disclosure.”  Steve’s mention of deconstruction resonates with Antti in
a fascinating way I want to read more of. But, yes, what *is*
“deconstruction” for Steve--or, for that matter, for Antti?

I’m optimistic “about the extent to which we can hope to lift the
blinders,” contrary to Antti's lament, but it's a longview--more hope
than expectation.

Cheers,

Gary



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