Date: Fri, 05 Jun 1998 16:07:51 -0700
From: hugh bone <hughbone-AT-worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Foucault and Lyotard


jon roffe wrote:

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Jon, 

I pretty much agree with your message (below) and I think Rorty,
Barrett, Lyotard demonstrated, to a certain degree, original thought,
which is not quite the same as the Foucault concept.

I don't know if Barrett is still alive.  He would be very old.

Always wanted to hear more from Lyotard and Rorty.

Rorty has a new book, which has been panned by Geo. Will in Newsweek,
and that might mean I would like it.  From Will's piece, it sounds 
political and partisan without philosophical depth.  I give little 
credence to some of Will's ideas and despise others, so I can't be 
impartial.

I include at the end of this post a little essay for another list,
which doesn't mention Lyotard by does have some relevance to some ideas
expressed in "Le Differend", which may be of interest. 

Best regards,
Hugh
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
> a long time ago, Hugh wrote:
>> > In this context, I think of Rorty, Barrett, and Lyotard,
> > who wrote books (not many) that went beyond name-dropping
> > and explaining what a voice from the past "really meant".
> >
> > They became, perhaps, "specific intellectuals", interested
> > in "ideas".
> 
> After some time, Hugh, I've made it back to this post of yours.
> 
> The notion of specific intellectual I think has a more programmatic
> meaning than this, at least on my reading of what Foucault says about
> it.  A specific intellectual is someone who deals with localised
> questions.  It involves the rejection of both the idea of the general
> reality (or the general activity of power) and the position of
> intellectual-as-superhero.
> 
> In my mind, the SI is the only model of engaged thought and thinker
> which seems promising and avoids falling into too many enlightenment
> traps.
> 
> Lyotard has importance for me particularly with regard to his notion of
> differend, because this seems a tool, an analytic perspective, a way of
> ordering things, that provides a way forward, a way out of impasses of
> thought.  Much like Derrida's 'differance'.  These tools, organising
> themes, are able to be used in specific, localised philosophical
> activities.
> 
>  > I don't understand "microphilosophy".  Scientists immersed
> > in "reductionist" theories seem to chop matter into finer and
> > finer bits until it becomes indescribable - maybe just a
> > prejudice.
> 
> I can see how you might make this reading of it, sure.  The influence of
> Deleuze/Guattari, this term. 'microphilosophy' is my attempt to find a
> way of describing the activity of the specific intellectual; to focus on
> a small area of discourse, a certain manifestation of architecture, a
> habit of language in a workplace, a way of ordering books in a library,
> the use by Plato of one word rather than another.  This seems to me the
> most fruitful kind of investigations - the small scaled ones (an attempt
> to keep grand narrative deflated).  I look to Deleuze, Wittgenstein and
> Derrida myself to outline this kind of work for myself.
 
>%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% 

ENCLOSURE:

I. NATURE LAW

We live in a vastly different environment from
Kant and Hume.

The divinity of gods, or nature, the reality
of events, objects, perception itself, has
been subjected to decades of intense
skepticism in modern times.

The Nature we know now was unknown then.

The environment we live in, the content of
our daily lives, our perception of "things"
non-existent in earlier times, our thoughts
and concepts relating to such objects,
could not have been dreamed by Kant and Hume.


II. NATURE ARTS

Yesterday I scanned a book of "Architecture
Today", published 1997.  Architecture has been
a respected form of emotional experience for
the handful of millenia we call civilization.

I was impressed by the diversity, simplicity.
and beauty, of new buildings in many
countries, some of them could not have been
built before Space-Age technology came to
architecture.

And a TV interview of the cast of a play
(candidate for Tony awards) whose director
employs techniques of ancient Greeks in
simplifying, intensifying, staging, and
emotional interplay of the leading actor and
actress.

The director guides his cast to express post-
modern needs and conflict with dramaturgical
techniques of the ancients.


III. PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE

Philosophy, sometimes defined as the pursuit
of wisdom, relates to techniques and problem
solving as well as being, and expressing
the experience of being.

Recently I read that concepts of "problems",
and problem solving, grew out of the ancient
Greek custom of posing riddles to celebrants
at wedding feasts.

Somewhere down the road was modern science.

Presumably science would wither and die withou
problems to solve.


IV. BRAVE NEW WORLD (DEJA VU)

Since Kant and Hume the "world" in which we
have our "being" has changed and is changing
because of the "things" we "know", the acts we
"do".

Changes inform, infuse, expand consciousness
and memory.

And they may, with a little luck, be
communicated with visual and audio art,
architecture, drama, as well as words and
graphics from the domain of science.


V. NATURE, SELF, SOCIETY

For me, a philosophical triad is Nature,
Self, Society.

Ancients explained Nature with gods.
Contemporaries explain Nature with science.

Both ancients and contemporaries have depended
on language which conveys personal experience
from one "self" (locus of experience) to
another.

The interaction of Nature's "phenomena" with
the senses of the "self" creates what we call
reality, and accumulates as knowledge.

If this process is successful, we certify
tentative knowledge in both arts and sciences,
as "true" or "false".

We speak of "qualia" with respect to
senses/emotions.  We speak of "reason", logic,
or computation when we talk about scientific
observation of the so-called "real" world.

The process of accurately communicating
knowledge to others, i.e. witness, testimony,
and acceptance of concepts, or views, seems to
be the essence of social knowledge, and
basis of Society.

Our posture vis-a-vis an anticipated future,
a horizon of possibilities, is a function of
personally witnessing events plus dependence
on the witness of others.


VI. KNOWLEDGE AND SURVIVAL

Other species abundantly demonstrate less
complex versions of such knowledge, but (we
think) they do not have a language of words
and concepts transmitted by words.

They do transmit body language, sounds,
scents.  Like human offspring, other
young animals learn by observation and
experiment.

Whatever doubts and misgivings we have about
the "reality" of external events, we "act"
upon premises of cause and effect which the
relatively short life of our species has
demonstrated to be essential for survival.

Whether one blames gods or nature, phenomena
rule.

Genetics is the language of Fate.

The observation of regularities enables
mankind to formulate beliefs called "laws"
which anticipate the recurrence of similar
"effects" from similar "causes".

But not the recurrence of singular events such
as a "The Big Bang???", your "life" or mine.

HB