Conversations about structuralism/post-structuralism
Discussion of critical theory (Rebecca)
Discussion of Habermas's conception of communicative rationality,
Discussion of Lyotard / Habermas debate
(Re)turn to Nietzsche: readings and introductory comments on Nietzsche for Friday, Jun 20, 1997.
Our of his year-long Honors project, Mike has a different understanding of these than provided by Belsey. In contrast with Belsey's account, which focuses on Saussure as the primary theoretician of poststructuralism - Saussure is also considered a founder of structuralism, not simply poststructuralism. Poststructuralism further accepts structuralist assumptions, but not all of its conclusions: poststructualism is both a defense and critique of structuralism.
(It might be better to use some of Mike's texts for introduction to structuralism and poststructuralism, e.g., Terry Eagelton)
Eagelton takes structuralism as a form of idealism - one which gets rid of the object and subject, leaving only a static structure of relationships.
Words don't refer to objects outside of themselves, but only to relations among one another.
And if meaning depends on a network of words, then there are no isolated individuals - subjects - who generate meaning by using words. As a result, subjects are "lost" [from the framework of what Belsey calls realism] in much the same way that objects - individual entities standing apart from one another as refered to by individual words - are also lost.
Certainly poststructuralists draw political conclusions: on their view, the "traditional" referential theory of meaning serves as an ideology which reinforces existing, hierarchical social and economic structures.
Eagelton sees postmodernism as a defense of democracy. On this view, structuralists, by contrast, are authoritarian by nature. At the same time, he criticizes postmodernism for leading to nihilism, thus undermining the values of democracy, equality, etc. American poststructuralists tend towards nihilism, while the Europeans do not, on his view.
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A common theme in postmodern critiques of structuralism and "modernism" at large is that it uses a dualistic logic, (what logicians call the exclusive or "either A or B but not both). By contrast, we are told, postmodernism prefers a "both/and" logic (what logicians call the inclusive or - either A or B, possibly both).
Two criticisms of this theme, however, need to be noted.
1) As poststructuralism seeks to emphasize the connections between what is separated in the dualistic structures of structuralism (modernism) - this often issues in the disappearance of the differences which define the identity of things as distinct from one another. (This is part of Eagelton's critique of postmodernism as leading to nihilism?)
If this is true, Bre pointed out - then structuralism parallels Parmenides' dualistic logic (and dilemmas) and poststructuralism parallels Heraclitus' effort to overcome Parmenides' dualism - but with a stress on identity that threatens to obliterate difference altogether.
2) This historical analogy suggests, then, that postmodernism, while intending a genuine "both/and" logic, actually falls into dualism.
A genuine "both/and" logic is characterized by "connection in the face of difference," "connection with preserves irreducible differences," etc.
A) This means that to recognize the difference between two things (such things, to use a slightly technical term, are refered to as "differentia," things which are different from one another) does not require that we understand difference to mean what it means in the dualistic, exclusive either/or:in the exclusive either/or, difference excludes connection of any sort - with the result that any two differentia can only stand in a relationship of opposition - a relationship that usually issues precisely in a dualistic hierarchy which sets one of the differentia (e.g., "A") over the other (e.g., "B).
By contrast, difference in the "both/and" logic allows for "connection in the face of difference," "connection which preserves irreducible difference" - a notion of difference and connection which can issue in complementary, egalitarian relations between differentia.
B) This also means that connection does not occur in the form of identity. A dualistic logic is dualistic at a meta-level: such a logic operates on the additional dualistic assumption that there can be only either difference (two things set apart from one another in a hierarchical relationship) or connection between two things in the form of identity - which means precisely that the differences which distinguish and separate any two things from one another disappears (thus issuing in the problem associated with poststructuralism noted above).
By contrast, the meta-level logic of the "both/and" is that there can be both connection (in some non-identity form) and difference (in some form which does not exclude connection).
In this light, if poststructuralism tends to stress as an alternative to dualism a connection-by-identity which eliminates difference -
the poststructuralism fails to escape the dualistic framework it critiques in structuralism (and modernism). Rather, the structuralism / poststructuralism debate actually turns within the same logic - i.e., a dualistic logic in which difference excludes identity/connection (--> hierarchy in structuralism, and in which identity/connection excludes difference --> the dissolution of difference into sheer identity in poststructuralism.
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The postmodern critics argue that traditional theory does not go far enough. If traditional theory wants to talk about rationalism, one must also talk about the social and economic conditions that make rationalism possible.
On the other side, (David Hoy), critical theory is not so different from traditional theory as it seems to be.
All the meta-level arguments are extremely difficult to get a handle on - especially with the conflicts, ambiguities, and fallacies at that level. For example, critical theorists are looking for a universal theory which is not oppressive - but postmodernists argue that such a universal theory is intrinsically oppressive. How do we form a judgment about this debate - without appealing either to (another) universal theory (thus begging the question on the one side) - but without assuming that universal theory must be rejected (thus begging the question on the other side)?
On both sides, the concern was with unveiling the hidden assumptions for critical assessment.
Some kinds of reason appear not to allow for the arational, the irrational - but both sides of this debate recognize both the embeddedness of logic and its limits.
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in contrast with a Cartesian conception of "calculative/instrumental rationality." On Ess's account, Habermas's conception of communicative rationality overcomes the postmodern critiques of "modern rationality" - because those critiques are most appropriately directed at the Cartesian conception.
|
The Cartesian conception |
Habermasian conceptions of communicative rationality |
| atomistic - i.e., it assumes self whose first characteristic is its difference from all other selves (the "John Wayne" self who sees relationship with Others as always a restriction on its autonomy and freedom, a threat to its individuality qua difference, etc.) | embedded in relationship: such a self emerges in the "web of relationships" constituting what Habermas calls "the lifeworld," -beginning with human language(s) and community/communities - as such, it starts with connection and difference with others, not simple difference |
| dualistic - as the "individual vs. Others" structure of the atomistic self suggests, Descartes' fundamental logic - inherited from Augustine - is dualistic, hierarchical, etc. | complementary in its logic, rather than dualistic, as the relational character of the self suggests |
| exclusively "rational" - because Descartes appropriates a dualistic logic, there can only be "reason OR feeling," "reason OR intuition," "reason OR sense experience," etc. Such a rationality, in short, always excludes any other possible form/way of knowing. | inclusively rational, rather than exclusively rational: in particular, as part of Habermas's conditions for constituting the ideal speech situation (the egalitarian dialogical space in which democratic/democratizing discourse can occur) is "solidarity" with the Other, where such solidarity involves an empathic "perspective-taking," i.e., an emotive/intuitive sense of how the Other might feel as the result of adopting a proposed norm among the dialogical community. |
(These Habermasian conceptions already incorporate responses to multiple critiques of Cartesian philosophy - developed in the three centuries following Descartes which largely constitute "modernity" in philosophy - in contrast with the use of "modern," "modernism," and "modernity" in the aesthetic domains).
For Habermas, this represents a "post-metaphysical" sense of self and ethics - one that moves beyond the foundationalism of early modern philosophy, a foundationalism that postmodernists like to attack as characteristic, on their view, of all modern philosophy.
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Focus on Lyotard's apparent reversal of a Cartesian rationalist reductionism (either something is rational or worthless, leading to the elimination of story, narrative) - becoming in Lyotard the reduction of all candidates of/for knowing (e.g., reason) to "narrative" and metanarrative.
The debate here is a debate between two essentially dualistic approaches:
|
Descartes |
Lyotard |
| reason trumps | narrative trumps |
|
feeling
sense story religion etc. |
reason |
Both are reductionistic - everything must be reducible to the primary term (reason in Descartes, narrative in Lyotard).
But again, if Lyotard criticizes modernity/Descartes for dualism - does he fully escape such dualism either in (a) reducing everything to narrative/meta-narrative and/or (b) in thereby positing a postmodernism dualistically opposed to modernism/Descartes?
A further critique: Lyotard's apparent relativism (if all things are story, then it's by no means clear how we can determine whether one story - e.g., the metanarrative of Enlightenment liberation, equality, democracy, etc. vs. a fascist metanarrative of control, hierarchy, authoritarianism, etc. - is to be prefered over another) - vs. Lyotard's endorsement of essentially Enlightenment values (democracy, equality, justice).
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