Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 18:12:21 +0000
Subject: Re: anthropology...




Eric

'the symbol and the sign ' reference was related to the late 
structuralist/post-structuralist turn of levi-strauss and others who 
began treating our societies as homes for  their 
anthropological/mythological work on the symbolic and sign exchange.

Forgive my shorthand... time remains short...

However I begin to understand that the anthropology you have in mind is 
not one founded on the discipline, the science but rather a 
philosophical anthropology. Where Lyotard critiques the 
techno-scientific apparatus (see especially 'time-today') and identifies 
rationality as being part of this apparatus - whilst I question the 
placing of rationality inside the capital-techno-scientific apparatus 
(see p69 for example) subsuming it as part of this construct and 
attempting to suggest that science is in some sense absolutist which 
given that science is in fact probablistic, hence the importance of 
'reason'. But what Lyotard is critiquing is the rationality that 
supports the inhuman tendencies of the techno-scientific apparatus. But 
where tension would be most apparant in the use of this work as an 
anthropology (unless considered as resistance) is in Lyotard's 
development of the concept of the 'monad' to further conceptualise the 
inhuman. I am thinking of the way that he places the 'monad' as the 
inhuman structure that is 'more complete than humanity itself has ever 
able to be...' (p64 terrible translation...) and is the inhuman 
successor to us poor gendered humans.  How then can your proposed 
anthropology address this ?

A further problem seems to present itself in that language is presented 
as having to opposing poles - language as a rationalistic instrument 
destined to provide the mind with an exact knowledge of reality  - or - 
as a field of perception capable of 'making sense' by itself 
independently of any any intention to signify? (p71 and 72) but this 
assumes that the techno-scientific apparatus is not probablistic but 
purely ideological both in its rationality and also in the sense of 
Deleuze and Guattari's notion of royal/state science. Given that I am 
confirming that science is nothing if it is not considered probablistic, 
it cannot, by its nature, be a 'totality' or produce a totalising 
thought (ignore the dreams of Hawking its simply impossible) - which is 
contrary to Lyotards understanding of  the goals of techno-science. 
 Lyotard's preference for the latter form of language is inevitable 
esopecially given that the former does not exist except perhaps in some 
discredited understanding of mathmatics.

In a brief article in the guardian this week, the arch rationalist 
Richard Dawkins suggested that genetic engineering, by enabling the 
thought experiment of our (humans that is) being able to create 'lucy' - 
the imaginary proto-human creature who stands in evolutionary science 
between the human and our primate predecessors and neighbours would 
effectively destroy forever the absolutist belief in the supieriority 
and uniqueness of the human. Of course the actual act of creating 'lucy' 
is deeply problematic not actually because of science but because of the 
appalling behavior of the media and the probability that 'lucy' would be 
hounded to death by the tabloid media...

The questions then are do you believe that Lyotard is correct in his 
definition and understanding of the monad and its dangers? Is the 
anthropology you are proposing intended to resist the monad? How does 
Dawkins rather elegent thought experiment of the non-human fit within 
the anthropology?

regards
steve
 

Mary Murphy&Salstrand wrote:

>steve.devos wrote:
>
>> 
>>But I suspect that this isn't the anthropology Eric has in mind.... I
>>imagine that Eric is thinking in terms of the passage from the symbol to
>>the sign, whose history might be followable as an anthropology... but if
>>not what is?
>>
>
>Steve,
>
>You're right. The whole idea of Club Med merging with academia to
>promote cultural tourism/colonialism is perfectly disgusting and isn't
>what I had in mind.  Nor is the passage from the symbol to sign which I
>also fail to comphrehend. 
>
>I had in mind a different passage....
>
>It strikes me that with Kant the question of a philosophical
>anthropology looms with great significance. The project of the
>Enlightenment and later Modernism was based on this new definition of
>who we were. Kant's Copernician Revolution consisted, at least in part,
>of bringing the heavens home to roost.
>
>With Heidegger a different philosophical anthropology presents itself.
>
>With Lyotard, whom I read as opposing Heidegger in so many respects, a
>different anthropology returns, one that rewrites Kant with a vengence.
>
>At the center of this is our indetermination and there is a tension
>between the human and inhuman that works on several different registers.
>
>In the essay "Newman: The Instant" of all places Lyotard proposes what
>such an anthropology might mean.  He points out that the sublime is not
>merely an aesthetic category, but one that is ontological in its
>import.  It centers upon the agitated wonder that there is something
>rather than nothing and the anxiety that nothing may happen. Lyotard
>writes: 
>
>"One feels that it is possible that soon nothing more will take place. 
>What is sublime is the feeling that something will happen, despite
>everything, within this threatening void, that something will take
>'place' and will announce that everything is not over.  That place in
>mere 'here', the most minimal occurence."
>
>"Being announces itself in the imperative.  Art is not a genre defined
>in terms of an end (the pleasure of the addressee) and still less is it
>a game whose rules have to be discovered: it accomplishes an ontological
>task, that is, a 'chronological task'.  It accomplishes it without
>completely it. It must constantly begin to testify anew to the occurence
>by letting the occurence be."
>
>My contention is that under the rubric of Art, there is a kind of
>philosophical anthropology which Lyotard is suggesting here, contra
>Heidegger, which opposes the complexity and development model which
>constitutes "the end of humanity."
>
>I recognize this needs to be developed further, but this is what I am
>proposing.
>
>eric
>
>

HTML VERSION:

steve.devos wrote:

 
But I suspect that this isn't the anthropology Eric has in mind.... I
imagine that Eric is thinking in terms of the passage from the symbol to
the sign, whose history might be followable as an anthropology... but if
not what is?

Steve,

You're right. The whole idea of Club Med merging with academia to
promote cultural tourism/colonialism is perfectly disgusting and isn't
what I had in mind.  Nor is the passage from the symbol to sign which I
also fail to comphrehend. 

I had in mind a different passage....

It strikes me that with Kant the question of a philosophical
anthropology looms with great significance. The project of the
Enlightenment and later Modernism was based on this new definition of
who we were. Kant's Copernician Revolution consisted, at least in part,
of bringing the heavens home to roost.

With Heidegger a different philosophical anthropology presents itself.

With Lyotard, whom I read as opposing Heidegger in so many respects, a
different anthropology returns, one that rewrites Kant with a vengence.

At the center of this is our indetermination and there is a tension
between the human and in
human that works on several different registers.

In the essay "Newman: The Instant" of all places Lyotard proposes what
such an anthropology might mean.  He points out that the sublime is not
merely an aesthetic category, but one that is ontological in its
import.  It centers upon the agitated wonder that there is something
rather than nothing and the anxiety that nothing may happen. Lyotard
writes: 

"One feels that it is possible that soon nothing more will take place. 
What is sublime is the feeling that something will happen, despite
everything, within this threatening void, that something will take
'place' and will announce that everything is not over.  That place in
mere 'here', the most minimal occurence."

"Being announces itself in the imperative.  Art is not a genre defined
in terms of an end (the pleasure of the addressee) and still less is it
a game whose rules have to be discovered: it accomplishes an ontologica
l
task, that is, a 'chronological task'.  It accomplishes it without
completely it. It must constantly begin to testify anew to the occurence
by letting the occurence be."

My contention is that under the rubric of Art, there is a kind of
philosophical anthropology which Lyotard is suggesting here, contra
Heidegger, which opposes the complexity and development model which
constitutes "the end of humanity."

I recognize this needs to be developed further, but this is what I am
proposing.

eric