re: AUT: Progress

[chris wright <cwright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrew,

I stopped responding because you and I had run into the same hole as I
have with many people.  We get stuck on a point, lose ourselves in
terminological differences which clearly have implications and then
stick our tongues out at each other.  My response to Lowe was not at all
meant to be quippy, nor was my response to Chris intended to get him to
read all of Hegel and Marx, though IMNSHO, that is a better way to spend
one's time intellectually than most.

I have run into the end of my ability to comment on Deleuze because I
need to do what Harald is planning on: spend the time on 3-4 major works
(I am thinking Difference & Repetition, What is Philosophy?, the book on
Nietzsche and the book on Spinoza, the longer one.) That is requiring
that I do two things: return to some fundamental works in philosophy I
have not read in quite some time and to spend a little time with
linguistics.  Both of these are labor intensive enterprises, especially
for someone who works a full time job and has a family (and as much fun
as this is sometimes, my seven year old is way more fun than you folks
are.)

Btw, my refusal to give Chris Hurl a full explanation had to do with my
not having the time or energy at the moment, and I felt that to be
half-assed about it was a disservice to his serious inquiries.In
general, I am posting much less to avoid posting something not worth
reading.

So I saw your reply, decided I had neither the time nor the energy, and
said "That can wait."

But there are some things here I want to touch...

>  Because he confuses language with existence, and
> denies that existence exceeds language (except perhaps
> in the Lacanian sense that language itself contains a
> lack which must then materialise in existence also),
> Hegel projects the contradictions of language into the
> entirety of existence - for instance, interpreting the
> excess in existence over language (e.g. the
> characteristics or functions of an object designated
> as a chair over the concept "chair"), which is in fact
> a matter of the inadequacy of representational
> language, as problems in existence as such, i.e., as
> contradictions internal to the chair itself.
>
> Tahir: Oh the old chair examples, they always seem to do the trick don't they? Forget 'chair' (I don't mean to imply that you are altogether correct regarding the chair matter), rather tell me how 'capitalism' exists independently of language.

I'll go further than Tahir.  The chair is not a chair simply because of
our language, but because of how we define the chair in total: how we
use it, how we talk about how we use it, how we talk about it, etc.  The
key thing about commodity fetishism ni all this is that under commodity
fetishism, the chair is supposedly a chair regardless of how we use it,
how we talk about it, etc.  The chair is defined as a chair in so far as
it is taken as an object wholly independent of us, with a life ot its
own, where it relates to a table, to a floor, to a stool, to a living
room or an office, etc.  The problem is not the inadequacy of
representational language, but of the fetish existence of the chair qua
commodity. Now does that squar with what you said above?  I don't know.
That to me is a perfectly dialectical understanding of the objectivity
of the chair.

>   And he
> interprets features of linguistic representation (such
> as the importance of differentiation in constructing
> linguistic categories) as being present in all of
> existence (in material things, in subjectivities, in
> living entities, etc.), so that the excess of
> existence over language comes to appear as a
> contradiction within existence.
>
> Tahir: It IS a contradiction within existence - that's exactly what it is. Do you honestly want to tell me that existence does not include a subject/object relation? It is nonsense to imply that differentiation does not exist - look what you wrote above, since that is exactly what you are saying. Differentiation is involved in all processes - things fall apart, they really do! - think about embryology for example, or, equally, social movements. Your rejection of differentiation (by consigning it to some autonomous sphere of 'language') would imply a snapshot world, a static world of objects that are (a) unchanging and (b) without subjects, in short an utterly impossible world. I suggest you think a little more about the interesting topic of emergence. How something emerges from another and then enters into a contradiction with that from which it emerged, consciousness for example.

Yep, kinda my point too.  But my agreement with Tahir on this is hardly
surprising and obviates any desire on my part to repeat his comments.

Cheers,
Chris



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