Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 18:17:10 +0100
Subject: Re: Paralogy in psychology


S

I'm afraid I am non the wiser - how does the use of paralogy improve the science
of psychology? Is there something more substansive I can refer to?

The question Lyotard asks regarding legitimation of knowledge but never
satisfactorily answers remains relevant - " The problem is to determine whether
it is possible to have a form of legitimation based solely on paralogy..." (P61
PMC). His use of the 'petit narrative' as the fundemental form of imaginative
invention remains as dubious and questionable today as it was when he wrote the
text. It is questionable because of the partial selection of narratives being
refused in the proclaimed end of the 'Grande narratives...' (some of whom are
reinventing themselves presently.)

But since he is dealing with what he defines as 'an ideal usage...of opinion' -
see for example the discussion in Just Gaming where Lyotard relates paralogism to
Kantian idealism... I have some difficulty in relating such a usage to the
science of psychology....  However it seemingly fits within the type of grand
narrative which works through legitmating the variety of of fields of knowledge
in developing the knowledge and and education of knowing human subjects. This
variety of human subject is proposed as the core of the telos of knowledge and
the real, expanding on all the roads of science and legitimates them...


regards

sdv



Sissy wrote:

> Matthew Asher Levy wrote:
>
> > Would you be willing to cite for us a few sentences from your psychological
> > sources where they use "parology"?  It would be interesting and easier for
> > us to comment....
>
> Hi
> Sorry it's taken me a bit to get back to you.  I was hit with an email
> virus, and my comuputer was out of commission.
> These are two excerpts from the psychologists where parolgoy is
> being utilized.
>
> Subject:      my ambivalence
>
> Nick, Tom, Leonard, and all the rest.  I want to tell you that I'm here,
> and that I'm here looking over your shoulder and that I am admiring what I
> imagine you to be doing -- but I'm reluctant at the moment to join you.
> I believe in your vision, but I am ambivalent about creating a
> conversation while people are telling us how terribly vulnerable they are
> when people say things that challenge them, how dramatically unsafe
> opposing views make them feel.  Maybe the world isn't ready for paralogy
> in every spot.  Do you really think it is ready for it here?
>
>  Subject: Re: My view on paralogy on MFTC? (a list community now disbanded)
>
> Both Habermas and Lyotard were eager to distinguish their work. For one
> thing, Habermas has presented himself as one who believes in the "project
> of modernity," and Lyotard represents himself as "postodern." This has
> framed their ongoing debate which only ended when Lyotard died a few years
> ago.  Perhaps these notes will be helpful to your comparison of Habermas
> and lyotard. They are taken from Lyotard's classic text, The postmodern
> Condition, pp.65-66.
>
> [I]t sems neither possible, nor even prudent, to follow Habermas in
> orienting our treatment of the problem of legitimation in the direction of
> a search for universal consensus through what he calls 'Diskurs', in ohter
> words, a dialogue of argumentation.  This would be to make two
> assumptions. The first is that it is ossible for all speakers to come to
> agreement on which rules or metaprescriptions are universall valid for
> languge games, when it is clear that languge games are heteromomorphous,
> subject to heterogeneous sets of pragmatic rules.  The second assumption
> is that the goal of dialogue is consensus. But as I have shown in the
> analysis of the pragmatics of science, consensus is only a particular
> stage in the discussion, not its end. Its end, on the contrary, is
> paralogy." (pp.65-66)  .