If I seem harsh or unreasonable in my criticism of Foucault, Barthes, Freud, and Marx, I am for several reasons. For one, I spent most of my graduate work in the eighties inundated by the critical approaches engendered by those mentioned above. I found them absurd then and even more so today. For one, they simply do not conform to what we know of human communication and human nature. Moreover, they do not describe the way humans behave or what motivates and drives that behavior. As a result, fifteen years elapsed between my Master’s work and my Doctoral studies (one forgets a great deal in fifteen years). Secondly, these approaches are based on fraudulent claims that do not pass the test of falsification. To assert that human beings drift around in a constant state of indeterminacy simply does not reflect objective reality. I recognize that these individuals would argue the existence of objective reality, but I do not doubt that should they require an MRI, they would believe in its objective reality, especially if the MRI could determine the location of an operable tumor. Thus, my point is that any solid theory is a solid theory because those presenting it have tried to imagine as many possible instances for its falsification as possible. Finally, I also recognize (and applaud in principle) that much of what has passed for literary theory has been an attempt to deconstruct the power relations in the West, power relations based on what is assumed to be ideological and cultural constructs. These theories then attempt to level the field through the exposure of gender and racial inequalities and the exploitation and oppression that has resulted. These are noble undertakings indeed. The problem with trying to right the wrongs of society through literary analysis is twofold: one, it suggests that literary critics have the power and authority to shape culture (except for perhaps gender issues, this is far from evident); more importantly, though, such an ambition too often replaces one dogma with another.
2/5/08
The Tyranny of Theory
The following is not my reading response for Monday.
If I seem harsh or unreasonable in my criticism of Foucault, Barthes, Freud, and Marx, I am for several reasons. For one, I spent most of my graduate work in the eighties inundated by the critical approaches engendered by those mentioned above. I found them absurd then and even more so today. For one, they simply do not conform to what we know of human communication and human nature. Moreover, they do not describe the way humans behave or what motivates and drives that behavior. As a result, fifteen years elapsed between my Master’s work and my Doctoral studies (one forgets a great deal in fifteen years). Secondly, these approaches are based on fraudulent claims that do not pass the test of falsification. To assert that human beings drift around in a constant state of indeterminacy simply does not reflect objective reality. I recognize that these individuals would argue the existence of objective reality, but I do not doubt that should they require an MRI, they would believe in its objective reality, especially if the MRI could determine the location of an operable tumor. Thus, my point is that any solid theory is a solid theory because those presenting it have tried to imagine as many possible instances for its falsification as possible. Finally, I also recognize (and applaud in principle) that much of what has passed for literary theory has been an attempt to deconstruct the power relations in the West, power relations based on what is assumed to be ideological and cultural constructs. These theories then attempt to level the field through the exposure of gender and racial inequalities and the exploitation and oppression that has resulted. These are noble undertakings indeed. The problem with trying to right the wrongs of society through literary analysis is twofold: one, it suggests that literary critics have the power and authority to shape culture (except for perhaps gender issues, this is far from evident); more importantly, though, such an ambition too often replaces one dogma with another.
If I seem harsh or unreasonable in my criticism of Foucault, Barthes, Freud, and Marx, I am for several reasons. For one, I spent most of my graduate work in the eighties inundated by the critical approaches engendered by those mentioned above. I found them absurd then and even more so today. For one, they simply do not conform to what we know of human communication and human nature. Moreover, they do not describe the way humans behave or what motivates and drives that behavior. As a result, fifteen years elapsed between my Master’s work and my Doctoral studies (one forgets a great deal in fifteen years). Secondly, these approaches are based on fraudulent claims that do not pass the test of falsification. To assert that human beings drift around in a constant state of indeterminacy simply does not reflect objective reality. I recognize that these individuals would argue the existence of objective reality, but I do not doubt that should they require an MRI, they would believe in its objective reality, especially if the MRI could determine the location of an operable tumor. Thus, my point is that any solid theory is a solid theory because those presenting it have tried to imagine as many possible instances for its falsification as possible. Finally, I also recognize (and applaud in principle) that much of what has passed for literary theory has been an attempt to deconstruct the power relations in the West, power relations based on what is assumed to be ideological and cultural constructs. These theories then attempt to level the field through the exposure of gender and racial inequalities and the exploitation and oppression that has resulted. These are noble undertakings indeed. The problem with trying to right the wrongs of society through literary analysis is twofold: one, it suggests that literary critics have the power and authority to shape culture (except for perhaps gender issues, this is far from evident); more importantly, though, such an ambition too often replaces one dogma with another.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Remind me to give you a Richard Dawkins article that addresses this very subject (from A Devil's Chaplain. You may have read it already, but if not, you'll definitely appreciate it. I don't have the book with me or I'd say more about it....
By the way, though I tend to be more forgiving and tolerant of some of the more absurd literary theories out there (after all, I don't have to practice Marxism, Freudian analysis, or structuralism if I don't want to), for the most part I agree with you. That's why I think you'll find Dawkins' article so entertaining...
my first attempt had to be deleted because of an html error
so
"they simply do not conform to what we know of human communication" - hello to hypertext etc.? multiple authors? revisions and reworkings of a text (as in the 2001 film Hotel’s revision of The Duchess of Malfi, itself a reworking of real-life events?)
"To assert that human beings drift around in a constant state of indeterminacy simply does not reflect objective reality" - two problems with this - 1) this assertion (which appears to be yours, not Barthes’ or Foucault’s) misses the point of interaction and influence that they are highlighting - and 2) these by nature are philosophical theories (abstractions) about the way we interact with our culture – not objective, material scientific hypotheses.
what you want from our frogs is like asking a scientist to prove or disprove the existence of god – Aquinas could (and would) take a shot at that though
and i would love/hate to know what you think of the Critique of Pure Reason - or of any philosopher per se (not scientist)
in your last paragraph you say first that alas it is now impossible due to political correctness to point out the obvious biological differences between the sexes - and then second that it is "reductive and irrelevant" to point out obvious differences between the sexes in society and culture. that appears contradictory
also i don’t get how biological differences between the sexes apply to our topic at all
ehrengard: First, linguistics is considered a science. To claim that Foucault and Barthes are not drifting into the realm of linguistics ignores objective reality - sorry, bad joke. As for philosophers who ignore scientific truths, and claim that ideas are merely abstractions (again this does not conform to how we create meaning), are charlatans, not philosophers. Regardless of how we quibble, the real foci of these philosophers and theorists who build on their claims is to assert indeterminacy. Just listen to the language of others we read in this class. If claims can be validated or falsified, then indeterminacy has a vastly different meaning.
As for scientists proving or disproving God (Aquinas is certainly no scientist), a great many of late have done just that.
Finally, there is no contradiction in my final paragraph. We cannot discuss obvious differences between the sexes - at least not without being labeled a sexist. My point at the end of the paragraph related to critical theories that cherry pick from a text to prove a theory - that is reductive and irrelevant. The honest critic examines the text without attempting to prove a theory, but instead attempts to determine whether the text illustrates or reveals one. To the point of our class, many of these theorists are drawing on Barthes et. al. as if these critics were writing about the web; they were not, and this extrapolation seems outside the point; nevertheless, these "critics" are used to add credibility.
we'll never agree on this - but here's my point from the Critique of Pure Reason: Kant says an empirical concept (scientific, mathematical, etc.) cannot ever adequately represent pure reason (philosophy, theology, etc).
“But they [scientists trying to be philosophers] pass, unconsciously, from the world of sense to the insecure ground of pure transcendental conceptions (instabilis tellus, innabilis unda), where they can neither stand nor swim, and where the tracks of their footsteps are obliterated by time; while the march of mathematics is pursued on a broad and magnificent highway, which the latest posterity shall frequent without fear of danger or impediment.
“As we have taken upon us the task of determining, clearly and certainly, the limits of pure reason in the sphere of transcendentalism, and as the efforts of reason in this direction are persisted in, even after the plainest and most expressive warnings, hope still beckoning us past the limits of experience into the splendours of the intellectual world-—it becomes necessary to cut away the last anchor of this fallacious and fantastic hope. We shall, accordingly, show that the mathematical method is unattended in the sphere of philosophy by the least advantage—-except, perhaps, that it more plainly exhibits its own inadequacy—-that geometry and philosophy are two quite different things, although they go hand in hand in the field of natural science, and, consequently, that the procedure of the one can never be imitated by the other.”
and Kant, of course, began as a scientist
you can't tell me that a scientist working with the natural world has any business with souls or gods or philosophy
We will obviously never agree - perhaps the nature of argument itself confirms it. Nevertheless, I will attempt. Kant's science and his mathematics are not one and the same with his metaphysics. Anyone invoking the idea of transcendence - to me - has dated any serious response. If I respond pre-Darwin, I must ignore all that I know that would question transcendence (Richard Dawkins suggests that pre-Darwin atheism would be difficult in The Blind Watchmaker). Hence, I would be forced to examine a concept metaphysically, philosophically.
If, however, I examine a claim (made over two hundred years ago with an insufficient amount of information) with my post-Darwinian knowledge, then I can dispute a metaphysical argument that bears little if any resemblance to what I know (Victor Stenger does this in God: The Failed Hypothesis). If, on the other hand, you want me to examine Kant's philosophy as it applies to the history of ideas - and thus its relation to what came before and after - I am required to become a philosopher - which I would prefer not to do.
In short, to address philosophy today (broadly speaking, a body of knowledge) while ignoring the sciences (which one must admit were primitive at best in the Enlightenment) is meaningless for me because one cannot separate science from humanity any longer. Moreover, to continue to insist upon a theory of the mind and/or brain that starts with a tabula rasa just does not correspond with our current knowledge.
Post a Comment