Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 10:44:26 -0700 From: Lois Shawver <rathbone-AT-california.com> Subject: Re: the reality check is in the mail Thank you for checking back with Searles on his meaning of denegation. Perhaps what was confusing was that I used a noun (This is a promise) as a performative rather than the traditional verb form, "I promise you." I would argue, however, that "this is a promise" is just another way to say "I promise you." You asked me to explain how I feel the sincerity/insincerity is just one distinction among others when thinking about ruses. Good question. I hope you might join with me in this exercise, even. Will you? For starters, I think one ruse might be to use flattery and another might be to use insults to have an effect. So, we have the flattery/insult distinction An important distinction might be the "inventive/reactionary" distinction. Then we have the subtle/obvious distinction. We might have the simple/complex distinction. Then we might distinguish ruses according to their purpose: One ruse might be for the purpose of winning someone over. Another might be for the purpose of shutting someone up. Another might be for the purpose of teaching something (think of a resistant child that you are trying to teach how to tie a knot, but who thinks he already knows). I have a feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg. The important thing, as far as Iam concerned, is that these distinctions not accumulate as so many pigeon holes that we are going to multiply. They are distinctions we can each make, that are legitimate to make, but we cannot keep them all in mind. And to try to keep them all in mind would be to constrain the game to a particular game. You said: <As you know, I have a diffuse and rather overarching view of ruse and rhetoric, one that recasts sincerity as a particular modality of rhetoric. Nonetheless, ruse in the negative sense is always already dependent upon this modality of sincerity.> It seems to me that it strains language a bit to speak of ruse in a non-negative sense, in a sense of being not-deceptive. However, my purpose is the same as yours here. I want to be able to speak of a non-negative sense of "ruse." I don't want to define away the possibility of speaking of a non-negative sense of ruse. To my ear, at the moment, this is best done by replacing the word "ruse" with "tack." One could say that one kind of "tack" was the "ruse" I suppose where a "ruse" was a deceptive tack. Thanks for your comments on "tacks". You and Hugh seem much more familiar with the origin of this word than I am. It was just recently, I'm afraid, that I learned it was a nautical term. I'm glad you're intersted in this Wittgensteinian concept of assimilation, Colin. I see it as the basis of metanarrative construction. Wasn't it Leibniz that had the theory that everything happens for the good? And then this theory was paralayed into Candide's funny tale? The idea was that no matter what happened to Candide, it was all for the good. Someone chopped off his leg, but somehow this was for the good. I think this ability to find some way to make something true, no matter how much you strain the language, is what Wittgenstein has in mind by assimilitating a case. People can be very creating in assimilating cases, and often it works. If one presents a generalized thesis, say, "it is always better to be honest" then, with a little creativity, one can assimilate every case to such a thesis, don't you think? Suppose someone, in being honest, gave away the secrets to the enemy. You might say, "But it is better that we don't keep secrets." "Ah, but I say, many people were killed." And you might say, "But many more people would have been killed if the secrets had not gotten out." We could go on this way, creatively, with every situation imaginable. Then, we could switch tacks (tacks not ruses) and try to assimilate to the general statement "It is always better to distort the truth" and I think a creative person could assimilate to such a statement just as well, don't you? I think this assimilation of cases to a generalization is the tool most used in constructing metanarratives, and that we are most often not very conscious of the process. If, we are going to fight metanarratives, it might be worth our while to investigate the working of this tool. ..Lois Shawver
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