Date: 	Wed, 4 Mar 1998 13:03:38 -0500
Subject: Re: Objectivity and Ideology


On Tue, 3 Mar 1998 10:05:18 -0500  Ostrow/Kaneda wrote:

> Yes the question then raised by the whole tradition of 
ontological/epistomological and heurmeneutic thought is can 
this be achieved without recourse to metaphysics or the 
"self"-- that is the very subjectivity that gives rise to the 
question -- it seems Gadamer(sp?) which I haven't read
has something to say about this as does our old friend Martin 
H. who posits a being-- becoming  in the acceptance of the 
cunnudrum as the state of being itself -- seeking after any 
greater explanation -- knowledge is just a manifestation of the 
will to power-- which is itself a fear reflex. Can the dialectic of 
subjectivity - objectivity be grounded in such a reflex--
a fear of flux -- in which we seek a steady state or constant so 
theat we do not have to pay attention to who or where we are 
and can run on auto-polite (pilot) ?

Forget M. Heidegger - he isn't talking about subjectivity - he is 
talking about Being - a certain kind of privileging of 
nonidentity - an attempt to think without concepts and then 
privilege the results.  Bad stuff that.  Both metaphysical, as 
Adorno successfully demonstrates, and authoritarian (as 
Derrida demonstrates)....  Has anyone seen any good feminist 
critique's of Heidegger?  I don't know if Irigaray talks about 
him at all....

Back to the main part - I think you are asking the following 
question:

1.  is it possible to move beyond metaphysics - particularly in 
relation to the self.

Habermas argues that it is possible to do so on the procedural 
level (see his book Postmetaphysical Thinking).  The critique 
of this is that Habermas buries rather than moving beyond 
metaphysics (see the critique of Habermas by Benhabib).

I'm not really sure if it is possible - since I regard thought 
itself as conceptual - and insofar as thought is conceptual it 
retains a metaphsyical kernel.  The trend seems to be a kind 
of negative metaphysics - one than cannot be named with any 
kind of determinacy.  We talk about the "self" - and we talk 
about it as though the self is some sort of universal....  it 
might be better to try and shift the debate to issues of 
generalities rather than universals.  Yes - this might be a bit 
relativistic - but we don't need to discard universals either - 
just be VERY careful about naming them.

I also wouldn't want to reduce the subject-object dialectic to 
the will to power.  That seems a bit too arbitrary (why not 
desire?  why not reason?  why not imagination?  why not 
liberation?  why not the struggle for recognition?  why not 
survival of the species?).  Darwin and Freud and Nietzsche 
went a long way but they didn't go far enough.

ken