Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 23:41:42 -0700 From: Judy <jaw-AT-earthlink.net> Subject: Re: methodology and the differend Hi Lois, you commented on my statement here: > >"The question isn't "how do we eliminate or resolve a differend," >because if it's resolved then by definition it isn't a differend..." you said >Perhaps you have a different picture of things. To my ear this is as >specious as arguing that by definition we can't put out fires because by >definition they would no longer be fires. May I ask you more questions >about how you see this? Lyotard, to the extent he is Wittgensteinian, >and to the extent that his work is consonant with postmodern authors >such as Kennth Gergen, John Shotter, Rom Harre, does not impute hidden >motives that the observer innocently discerns without infusing the >motive with her own flavor, her own interpretation. Or am I presuming >you are going in a different direction in your study of differends than >I imagine? What do you think about the ontological status of >"motives"? Do you see them as existing apart from their social >construction in language? What about the rest of you? Well, first, about differends and methodology, for me, the differend is an analytical tool that gives a way of talking about conflicts occuring between different descriptions of the world that focuses on what is unresolved, what is unresolvable, and what happens to what becomes invisible--and it's a political tool for making the invisable visible, for empowering the disempowered. There are lots of theories, lots of analytical tools, it seems to me, for allowing me to talk about conflict resolution, and talking about conflicts as resolved has a hypnotic effect so that exceptions to the veneer of resolution are deferred from awareness. Now, about motives, I don't know what it was in what I said that caused you to think of beliefs in hidden motives discernable to objective observers. Would you show me the connection? As for the ontological status of motives, talk of other peoples' motives seems generally to be a kind of voo doo hocus pocus mindreading that doesn't hold water. But it may be an effective kind of talk if the purpose is served by obfuscation. I'm not sure I see much of anything existing apart from its social construction in language, in a sense. Judy
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