tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post4555796755303225353..comments2024-03-17T00:23:24.896-07:00Comments on Social Democracy for the 21st Century: A Realist Alternative to the Modern Left: A Documentary on Michel FoucaultLord Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-19620607355083282862015-05-09T12:39:47.931-07:002015-05-09T12:39:47.931-07:00I was using 'these linguistic expressions'...I was using 'these linguistic expressions' in a more general sense, sorry for being unclear. I.e., people's comprehension of Beethoven's symphony would still depend on it being communicated to them in some kind of language--if we were to destroy *all* linguistic means of communicating it, including those in the tonal language of musical instrumentation, it would be incomprehensible. <br /><br />(BTW, since you're busy with other lines of research, feel free to depart this debate at any time and I'll let you have the last word. I just thought I'd continue a defense of Wittgenstein to add food for thought--as far as I'm concerned debunking Foucalt and pointing out the shortcomings of Marx are more important. But I would urge you to read the Philosophical Investigations and what has been written about it--it's clear, concise and very interesting philosophy worth reading even if you disagree with it.)Rob Gnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-54936519822068986092015-05-09T11:36:30.634-07:002015-05-09T11:36:30.634-07:00"Because it is not comprehensible outside of ...<i>"Because it is not comprehensible outside of these linguistic expressions.</i><br /><br />Clearly it could. If we destroyed all musical scores for Beethoven's Symphony No.5, people might still be taught to know how to play it by heart and do so. And people could recognise it without knowing anything about musical notation or scores.<br />Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-3081159815896260512015-05-09T11:14:02.566-07:002015-05-09T11:14:02.566-07:00The Wittgensteinian says it does follow, because B...The Wittgensteinian says it does follow, because Beethoven's Symphony No.5 could not and thus does not exist outside of the ability express it in language--so yes the orchestral performance (in the tonal language of musical instrumentation) and Beethoven's Symphony No.5 are the same thing. Beethoven's Symphony No.5 is also the same thing as the series of marks communicating it in the written language of musical theory. Because it is not comprehensible outside of these linguistic expressions.Rob Gnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-34038987528949801252015-05-09T10:30:44.727-07:002015-05-09T10:30:44.727-07:00"The Wittgensteinian would say that the idea ...<i>"The Wittgensteinian would say that the idea could not exist without a language to express it. So the proposition (the idea) and its linguistic expression(s) are actually one and the same."</i><br /><br />This is a non sequitur. Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 could not exist as music without an orchestra with musical instruments playing it. <br /><br />Does it follow that Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and an orchestra with musical instruments paying it are one and the same thing? Clearly not.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-60556959165779349902015-05-09T10:21:10.310-07:002015-05-09T10:21:10.310-07:00I realize this is coming late, but I wanted to exp...I realize this is coming late, but I wanted to explain how it does in a sense problematize a statement like this:<br /><br />"A proposition -- what carries the property of being true or false -- is not the symbols or language used to express an idea: it is the idea expressed by the symbols or sentence."<br /><br />The Wittgensteinian would say that the idea could not exist without a language to express it. So the proposition (the idea) and its linguistic expression(s) are actually one and the same. And because there is no such a thing as a private language--a language that does not function to convey anything to anyone else--the proposition only exists as something expressed publicly to others. In this particular sense it has no 'objective' existence, and thus no objective truth, independent of language and by extension (because language is public) interpersonal communication. It is not a nihilist view of language and truth so much as it is a very non-essentialist view of them. But, again, I'm talking about Wittgenstein--and specifically the Wittgenstein of 'The Philosophical Investigations'--and not Foucalt. As I said above, the latter was a bit of a charlatan; the former was a truly formidable philosopher.Rob Gnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-14599585084129773892015-02-13T04:22:34.073-08:002015-02-13T04:22:34.073-08:00And I'll add: I is measure of how many fingers...And I'll add: I is measure of how many fingers you get when you hold up a finger, etc. and naturally the concept of counting numbers/cardinal numbers emerges out of that or them, and they had the same concepts as we do: counting numbers.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-70000142256109727162015-02-13T04:18:59.487-08:002015-02-13T04:18:59.487-08:00"I+I=II means something different to a Roman ...<i>"I+I=II means something different to a Roman doing the sum than it means to you today."</i><br /><br />False. The idea conveyed is the same. Why? <br />We know the Romans defined the concepts symbolised by I, II, III, IV, V as what we call 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.<br /><br />How do we know this? They tell us so. The Latin word <i>digitus</i> means finger and its secondary uses mean counting with numbers on your fingers, and indeed the English word "digit" (= number), taken over from Latin, just develops right out of this sense, as it did by medieval Latin.<br /><br />For the Romans, I is measure of how many fingers you get when you hold up a finger. II is the measure of holding up another finger with the first, III adding another. V is when you hold out all the fingers on one hand, etc., etc. Therefore the concepts conveyed by I, II, III = 1, 2, 3 etc.<br /><br />In fact, even today most children will learn basic maths by finger counting -- just as probably most human children have always done.<br /><br />Frankly, people like you have no idea what you are talking about.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-5001091669828972492015-02-13T04:00:58.107-08:002015-02-13T04:00:58.107-08:00I was being light-hearted about the lack of faith ...I was being light-hearted about the lack of faith thing. Perhaps it'd have worked better if I'd said 'As for Freud, I find your lack of faith disturbing.' Did you see Star Wars? Never mind.<br /><br />You've gone on a rant against Freud and missed the point I was making. I have read a few critiques of Freud, yes most recently Albert Tauber's. Is it correct to consider his work science? No, Does his work have value? YES !<br /><br />Btw, I forgot to say you get a mention in Nigel Dodd's book. Ask me nicely and I'll find it for you. <br /><br />x<br /><br />MBGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18404729484594219550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-14061773530680658802015-02-13T03:54:07.098-08:002015-02-13T03:54:07.098-08:00"I+I=II means something different to a Roman ..."I+I=II means something different to a Roman doing the sum than it means to you today. You are reading it through the 'lens' of a later system -- the decimal system."<br /><br />Just out of curiosity, how do YOU know what a Roman thought 2,000 years ago? <br /><br />I'm not trying to be impertinent, so bear with me.<br /><br />To be able to judge what a Roman thought, you must see things from a vantage point that allow you to "bridge the gap", so to speak. In such case, your vantage point gives YOU a truer knowledge than, say, LK's.<br /><br />Let's admit that for the sake of the argument. So, there's an ultimate truth, after all: yours.<br /><br />Ah, but you won't admit that, not even for the sake of the argument. Then, we go back to my opening question: how do you know? You have no vantage point on which base your opinion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-36971870621492046592015-02-13T03:47:46.952-08:002015-02-13T03:47:46.952-08:00"I find your lack of faith in Freud disturbin...<i>"I find your lack of faith in Freud disturbing. "</i><br /><br />Faith? Yes, belief in Freud mostly boils down to irrational faith.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-74630750856751328332015-02-13T03:44:37.785-08:002015-02-13T03:44:37.785-08:00"Put plainly, if science develops from monied...<i>"Put plainly, if science develops from monied relations"</i><br /><br />Science develops from "monied relations"? Are you serious? Not from investigation of the world? Not from study of how things work? Not from testable and falsifiable hypotheses?<br /><br />As for Freud, his theories are pseudo-science. Take the Oedipus complex. Do you seriously believe this nonsense?<br /><br />The Oedipus complex is supposed to be the core of Freud’s program of psychoanalysis.<br />Above all, it is utterly contradicted by an actual scientific theory that can be tested with empirical evidence: the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westermarck_effect" rel="nofollow">Westermarck effect</a>. Modern genetics and Darwinian evolution tell us that incestuous unions tend to produce unfit offspring, and there are very strong biological reason why members of any successful sexually reproducing species would generally tend to find it repellent, revolting and unnatural. And -- lo and behold! -- the overwhelming empirical evidence shows us that virtually everyone thinks it is repellent, revolting and unnatural.<br /><br />For debunking of Freud:<br /><br />http://skepdic.com/psychoan.html<br /><br />http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2468/was-sigmund-freud-a-quack<br /><br />http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/paper-CrewsFreud.html<br /><br />See also these works:<br /><br />MacMillan, Malcolm. 1991. Freud Evaluated: The Completed Arc. Elsevier North Holland. The Hague.<br /><br />Cioffi, Frank. 1998. Freud and the Question of Pseudoscience. Open Court, Chicago.<br /><br />Crews, Frederick et al. 1995. The Memory Wars: Freud's Legacy in Dispute. New York Review, New York.<br /><br />Crews, Frederick. 1996. "The Verdict on Freud," Psychological Science 7: 63-67. Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-4170563395330479812015-02-13T03:24:35.255-08:002015-02-13T03:24:35.255-08:00LK, I'm in agreement with some of the comments...LK, I'm in agreement with some of the comments on this and your other postmodern posts, I'm afraid. Over past few years I've found your site to be a fantastic resource - one which you seem to put huge effort into. I'm very grateful for that. But you're wide of the mark here.<br /><br />Nigel Dodd last year published a brilliant book on 'The Social Life of Money' which for the first time drew (in part) on many postmodern thinkers and considered explicitly how money is conceptualized in their work. Marc Shell (who I've not seen mentioned on your blog) has made some brilliant and fascinating contributions, and continues to do so. Its worth quoting the opening line of his Economy of Literature to you (it's become a something of a mantra for me)<br /><br />"Those discourses are ideological that argue or assume that matter is ontologically prior to thought"<br /><br />Put plainly, if science develops from monied relations (as, for example, suggested by Richard Seaford and Joel Kaye) then other means of conceiving of it are vital. Otherwise we are just staring at our own reflection. <br /><br />I find your lack of faith in Freud disturbing. <br /><br />PS: This might interest you. Did you know that Hayek completely misunderstood Freud? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2co-QuapTc<br />MBGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18404729484594219550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-82101354335939286572015-02-12T11:29:38.840-08:002015-02-12T11:29:38.840-08:00Communicable knowledge or knowledge that we can re...Communicable knowledge or knowledge that we can reflectively grasp.<br /><br />Other forms of knowledge are also constructed. But in ways that does not immediately require language.<br /><br />This is all the structuralist debate. Very little to do with post-structuralism. If the Anglo-Saxons are having this debate they're about 80 years out of date.Philnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-33436846356010799782015-02-12T11:10:18.214-08:002015-02-12T11:10:18.214-08:00"In terms of knowledge everything is in the s...<i>"In terms of knowledge everything is in the sentence/language as these CONSTITUTE the objects. There can be no knowledge of the sense data by definition."</i><br /><br />How can this be true? Children when they have no words can gain knowledge of objects by looking, feeling and touching and by experience of things. They recognise their parents from a young age and shun strangers. They recognise and know some things are food, etc., etc. Please do not say that children do not recognise or have no non-verbal knowledge of discrete objects.<br /><br />If you are only saying that knowledge in words requires words, that is trivially true, but hardly refutes the fact that words refer to objects.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-34854484463749051152015-02-12T11:00:27.373-08:002015-02-12T11:00:27.373-08:00Don't tear what I say out of context. The sens...Don't tear what I say out of context. The sense data is constructed into objects in and through language. In terms of knowledge everything is in the sentence/language as these CONSTITUTE the objects. There can be no knowledge of the sense data by definition.<br /><br />The sense data is like sand on a beach. The objects are castles we build with the sand. The castles are constructed in line with ideas which we impose on the world as a sort of 'language'.<br /><br />And just for the record this has very little to do with Foucault's work. By the 1970s he had left these (structuralist) debates way behind.<br /><br />Most of your criticisms seem to be misunderstandings of structuralism. Foucault went beyond this.Philnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-30413628051275521442015-02-12T10:52:57.655-08:002015-02-12T10:52:57.655-08:00It does not matter whether you believe in pure ide...It does not matter whether you believe in pure idealist sense impressions or an external material reality that is the causal origin of our sense impressions: in both cases there are objects in our sensory world/sense qualia to which words refer.<br /><br />First you said:<br /><br /><i>Everything is in the symbols or sentence themselves. There is no 'beyond'. </i><br /><br />There is untrue as a simple empirical fact: there exists sense data and discrete objects in our sensory world and their properties and relations.<br /><br />Words refer to and name these things.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-39288071426403318462015-02-12T10:46:13.740-08:002015-02-12T10:46:13.740-08:00Sense impressions and 'objects' are well k...Sense impressions and 'objects' are well known to be different in philosophical terms. Basic stuff, LK.<br /><br />And I don't expect an empirical psychologist let alone a Guardian columnist to understand that distinction.Philnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-3369728510409903602015-02-12T10:36:21.884-08:002015-02-12T10:36:21.884-08:00"The words do not refer to an object. The ide...<i>"The words do not refer to an object. The identity of the object is constituted in and through the words. This is what Foucault's early work is all about. The world is meaningless sense impressions until a language is imposed upon it to structure it. "</i><br /><br />Look at how incoherent this is: you say "words do not refer to an object", but then say language structures sense impressions: a sensory world of objects. <br /><br />Language names things we experience and does so by <i>referring</i> to sense impressions and objects of perception. This is straightforwardly true:<br /><br /><i>"Pointing and other hand signals seem to give babies a head start in learning language skills, possibly by helping them to make connections between words and the objects in the world around them, psychologists found.</i><br />http://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/feb/12/child-development-point-hand-signalLord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-42221839434025840122015-02-12T10:33:33.858-08:002015-02-12T10:33:33.858-08:00"If you say "no", then you're c..."If you say "no", then you're conceding the Wittgensteinian point that the meaning of the phrase "domestic cat" is entirely dependent on the context in which it is used."<br /><br />It's far beyond context. The point is that the term only has meaning in a system of other terms.<br /><br />The post-structuralists would say: "a signifier only has meaning in relation to other signifiers".<br /><br />Wittgenstein would say: "a term only has meaning in a given language game".<br /><br />Both are based on the same idea: language is constructive of reality. It delineates what we can and cannot discuss. Some might go so far as to say -- as Merleau-Ponty did in his discussions of visual art -- that it delineates what we actually SEE.<br /><br />This was all earlier pointed out by Berkeley and Hamann.Philnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-69352694731661149952015-02-12T10:23:36.465-08:002015-02-12T10:23:36.465-08:00"I think that's a better way of making th...<i>"I think that's a better way of making the point Phil seems to be talking about in saying "there is no beyond": that is, the meaning of all words are context-dependent. "</i><br /><br />That context is an element is the meaning of words is true, but hardly refutes anything I said.<br />Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-24993836503408242832015-02-12T10:17:56.837-08:002015-02-12T10:17:56.837-08:00I suppose you're probably also unfamiliar with...I suppose you're probably also unfamiliar with the actual philosophical work of Adorno. While the Marxism and the sociology and all that were primitive and awful, Adorno was an incredibly subtle philosopher who was moving in the same direction as many post-structuralists.<br /><br />http://www.iep.utm.edu/adorno/#H3<br /><br />They all recognised that knowledge is in some sense historically contingent. That is not relativism. You find the same conception as early as Vico. But it is one that the identity thinkers do not want to know anything about.Philnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-24009606607243455342015-02-12T10:17:54.010-08:002015-02-12T10:17:54.010-08:00But imagine you are on an island that felines have...But imagine you are on an island that felines have never inhabited, and the people there all speak some strange language, and in this language the way you say hello just happens to be "domestic cat"?<br /><br />When one of the islanders introduces themselves by saying "domestic cat" to you, are they conveying the idea of "a living individual of the species 'felis catus'"? It would be absurd to say "yes"--how could they be communicating an idea they have no conception of? If you say "no", then you're conceding the Wittgensteinian point that the meaning of the phrase "domestic cat" is entirely dependent on the context in which it is used.<br /><br />I think that's a better way of making the point Phil seems to be talking about in saying "there is no beyond": that is, the meaning of all words are context-dependent. Thus, words do not and cannot refer to things "beyond" their immediate context. Wittgenstein makes this point much better than Foucalt, who too often got lost in pretentious obscurantism; the former viewed words as tools used in interpersonal exchange and language as a process of interpersonal exchange. This differed from prevailing views that language consisted of a series of terms that referred to a series of ideas, and so could be said to exist independently of interpersonal exchange, and thus independent of context.<br /><br />Anyway, I actually agree with you about Foucalt--he occasionally made good observations, but he took social constructivism a bit too far, cloaked his short-comings in obscurantism, and lacked historical rigor. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, was as formidable a philosopher as Bertrand Russell or Plato, and the strength and depth of his ideas are reinforced by the fact that he articulates them in concise and simple terms. He reminds me of Keynes in some ways, too, because he believed philosophy should be used for practical humanist purposes rather than remaining a purely intellectual exercise. Keynes thought the same thing about economics, I think; he saw the prevailing 'laissez faire' paradigm in econ as making the discipline of little use outside of academic debates, and thought economics was something that should and could be applied pragmatically to the real world for the good of humanity. And both thought that such a goal *necessitated* rather than *obviated* the need for analytical and historical rigor and impartiality. Interestingly enough, they were also both criticized (and/or praised) for turning their back on the privileged class into which they were born. Rob Gnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-61400685197435677822015-02-12T10:13:29.856-08:002015-02-12T10:13:29.856-08:00(1) No. The words do not refer to an object. The i...(1) No. The words do not refer to an object. The identity of the object is constituted in and through the words. This is what Foucault's early work is all about. The world is meaningless sense impressions until a language is imposed upon it to structure it. You can find early discussions of this in Berkeley and even, to some extent, Kant.<br /><br />(2) No. We can easily translate Roman numerals into our system but it is just that: a translation. And no translation immediately reflects the original. There is always some things added and subtracted in translation.<br /><br />You are what Adorno called an 'identity thinker'. You want to reduce everything to the same while trying as best you can to eliminate differences. Thinkers like Foucault move in the other direction. And they produce much more fruitful results. Their's is the philosophy of creativity and novelty; analytic/identity thinking is the philosophy of conservatism and sterility. Philnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-84762955472568018832015-02-12T09:06:31.436-08:002015-02-12T09:06:31.436-08:00"Are they the same proposition? In your mind ...<i>"Are they the same proposition? In your mind they are, clearly. In my mind they are not. In a Roman's mind they are not either."</i><br /><br />Yes, they would be: they express the same idea. You are fixating on words, without understanding their meaning.<br /><br />If what you say were true, we would not even be able to translate Roman arithmetic into our system. But we can do it easily: because ours has the same concepts as theirs, just written with different symbols.<br /><br />Incidentally, the Romans may not have had a formal numeral 0, but they certainly had and fully understood the concept: they simply used the word <i>nullus</i> (nothing, none). If they needed to write the concept of zero in arithmetic, they just write out <i>nullus</i>. And there is incidentally evidence that some people by the early Middle ages just wrote <i>N</i> as a shorthand and symbol for 0.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-15739919873470104312015-02-12T08:53:10.143-08:002015-02-12T08:53:10.143-08:00"Everything is in the symbols or sentence the...<i>"Everything is in the symbols or sentence themselves. There is no 'beyond'. It doesn't exist."</i><br /><br />Yes, it does. The words "domestic cat" -- understand as a living individual of species Felis catus/Felis silvestris catus -- is a word that conveys an idea. <br /><br />It is bizarrely and patently untrue that "There is no 'beyond'.<br /><br />The words "domestic cat" refer to one specific type of thing that exists in in our sense qualia/objects of perception. The external referent is right there and can be verified by any human being who has seen a cat or even a photo of one.<br /><br />Even under your own idealist ontology, many words can and do refer to a thing beyond words: to real objects appearing in our minds. <br /><br />Not even an external material world needs to exist for this to be true: all that is needed is a mental world of sensations and sense data or what A.J. Ayer called sense qualia.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.com