Date: Thu, 16 Mar 95 0:47 GMT From: WIDDER-AT-VAX.LSE.AC.UK Subject: RE: postmodernism David, I'll ask once again, who on earth are these 'postmodernists' who dismiss the subject tout court? The title of a book suggests nothing at all. Does Derrida dismiss the subject entirely? Does Foucault? Even if he says 'the subject is dead', are you seriously going to put that statement forth as proof without any more analysis of what Foucault says? Here's a quote from Judith Butler, someone who is often subsumed under the term postmodernism: "To take the construction of the subject as a politica problematic is not the same as doing away with the subject...To deconstruct is not to negate or dismiss, but to call into question and, perhaps more importantly, to open up a term, like the subject, to usage and redeployment that previously had not been authorized" (from the opening essay of FEMINISTS THEORIZE THE POLITICAL). As for Nietzsche's conception of illusion, I think you'll have a tough time showing that for Nietzsche underneath this illusion is some solid essence or truth. Just about every one of Nietzsche's positive affirmations is delivered with a good solid dose of self-irony (i.e., suppose truth is a woman, suppose the world is will to power). As for whether the idea of a gap of knowledge implies a subject who cannot know himself, well, there's a point to this. But again, the point is not that the gap makes the subject simply disappear, but that the gap is both constitutive and subversive of subjectivity. Hence the subject ultimately rests upon a paradox. Generally, in all the 'postmodernist' writings I've ever come across, what is being presented is some version of this paradox, not some simple dismissal of the subject. Again, if anyone's going to suggest that posty's are this naive, it would be a good idea to start quoting them and analyzing what they say, and not what someone like Higgens, Habermas, Lois MacNay or any of these other types say they are saying. Nathan widder-AT-vax.lse.ac.uk --- from list nietzsche-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu --- ------------------
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