A dumb idea, that’s what. Okay, that’s a little unfair. Being tired makes me cranky.
Anyway, I found a reference (in a generally rather critical response to the book, one I can’t really respond to as I’ve not read the book nor have I read much Derrida) from Wheeler’s Deconstruction As Analytic Philosophy that reminded me why I was so excited when I started reading it. For the life of me I can’t remember why I never finished it. It was probably due back at the library or something. In any case, must add that one pretty near the top of the infinite book list.
A magic language is
“a language that is, in Wittgenstein’s terms, self-interpreting.” (3) A magic language would be one in which the meaning of a particular word is essentially associated with that word. Since most of us would accept that words have to be interpreted by someone in order to have the meaning they do, we don’t tend to think of language as “magical” in this sense. The thesis Wheeler upholds throughout the book is that: “The basic thought common to Davidson, Derrida and Quine is that any language consisting of any kind of marks, whether marks on paper or marks in the soul, is no better than words.” (61f., 218) In other words, not even the “language” of thought, not even our ideas, have a meaning which is intrinsic to them. They too have to be interpreted, and so the process of interpretation never comes to end: “the meaning of a word can only be given in other words.”
The following strike me:
- One is always-already in the middle somewhere, not at a beginning or an ending, and certainly not at any Archimedian (sp?) point.
- There are no best vocabularies, except in regard to aims/ends.
- The view of only having access to interpretations can only be consistent by being self-reflexive, which is to say that the idea that we only have access to interpretations can not be treated as having an uninterpreted meaning.
My hunch here is that it’s hard to use this perspective to make positive claims, but rather that it’s better suited to negative or deflationary moves. This may be my reading in, as I simply like these kinds of moves. Also, clearly the emphasis on negative or deflationary moves can not be taken as the meaning of this viewpoint outside of interpretation. Rather, it’s a hypothesis or speculation on the efficacy of making consistent positive claims using this viewpoint.
a joke for you:
what do you get when you mix the godfather with a continental philosopher:
he makes you an offer you can’t understand
Comment by Tzuchien — February 19, 2006 @ 11:40 am
ok, it jokes aside. It strikes me that Badiou offers an alternative account of this problem of interpretaton with his invoking of the matheme.
The matheme, in Badiou’s notion “thinks.” Here’s where he argues with wittgenstein, its in one of the first essays in “Theoretical writings” i don’t remember which.
Basically, the arguement is, the matheme is not a representation of thought but a presentation of it. Interpretation is secondary, the matheme is self-sufficient. As such, the problem of interpretation is only a decayed version of the truth of the matheme.
we must seperate, in Badiou’s conception, the problem of truth and the subject’s approach to it. What follows is that the event, which gives rise to truth, makes the subject possible rather than being made possible by the subject.
There you go, a magical language.
Comment by Tzuchien — February 19, 2006 @ 11:46 am
Tzuchien,
Thanks for all of this. That’s a great joke. I’m going to tell it to everyone I know. Well, some people I know anyway.
Before I say anything else, I don’t follow the distinction between representation and presentation. Can you explain that to me, please?
On the rest, I’ll have to look at the Badiou piece. On your summary, I think I’m not sold. Initial quibbles, which I’ll keep in mind when I finally get round to doing the requisite reading:
“we must seperate, in Badiou’s conception, the problem of truth and the subject’s approach to it.”
As subjects, we don’t get to truth as such. We only get to truth via our approach(es) to it. More modestly, I’d say at a minimum this is where my own interests lie. Also, in case there’s some terminological innovation made such that we’re not subject but proto-subjects or something, that doesn’t get around the issue - the problem of truth vs conceptions of truth.
“What follows is that the event, which gives rise to truth, makes the subject possible rather than being made possible by the subject.”
I don’t know what to make of this. It strikes me that there’s a distinction made here, subject and non-/pre-/potentional subject, that I’m not sure impacts what I like about the magic language stuff. That is, there might be different versions of the term ‘truth’ here that are more like homonyms than contending arguments. If we take the example of Saul/Paul, my sense is that Saul is not a subject and Paul is: Paul is Sauld plus/having passd through the event and truth/the truth derived from event. I’m certainly willing to consider all of that, but I’m not clear about how it connects with the magic langauge argument. Whether Saul or Paul (and whether the two are posited in a relationship of continuity or of break), the magic langauge argument seems to hold and to be untroubled either way. This actually adds more to my hunch reading Badiou that there was something like a magic language involved (I didn’t have the term before, though, of course). As in, my sense was that we have a series event-truth-subject, and the “-” between each term do not involve interpretation. (Thus, a magic language, and yet, in a way I don’t understand, it’s still all subjective…?) Perhaps I’ve misunderstood, if so please correct me. But if I haven’t then this strikes me as misguided, in the sense of being subject to the various complaints and attacks we can make on magic languages.
It also strikes me as not needed - I can’t back this up but my intuition is that the attack on magic languages only has effect when people use a magic language to undergird another position. That is, if something is built on a magic language and the magic language washes away, the edifice may collapse. But the magic language doesn’t place tautologies or assertions out of bound. Put differently, given that there’s no magic language or magic meta-language such that interpretation doesn’t go away, it’s no criticism to say that a position is not complete in and of itself - in the sense of being fully articulable without presupposition or assertion. Assertions and tautologies are fine, as long as they recognize themselves as such.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — February 19, 2006 @ 8:06 pm
He makes you an offer you can’t understand…
…or refuse.
Comment by TCO — February 24, 2006 @ 1:13 am
What is an offering? What does it mean to offer? Who offers? And to whom? And what is offered? Can an offer be refused? Who has the right to offer, if it can be said that there is right, and can we neglect that who(m) is the sound of an owl, the avian symbol of wisdom and of the goddess Minerva? Doesn’t the offer require first a general account of the possibility that there is no who who offers oft to her, Minerva, that is to say, that philosophy is not possible but rather the necessarily possible impossibility of the failure to philosophize? Must we not first stop asking not who offers but who refuses and what refusing makes of what it makes into refuse by the act of resusing, if it can be said that there is one who does not offer but refuses? To refuse, to once again suture the (dis)joining of that which is taken off in error, if it can be said that ‘off’ and ‘to remove’ can be said at all, as if to remove is not once again to mobilize the metaphysics of repetition. This is clearly our task and our challenge. Who accepts? When?
Comment by Nate — February 24, 2006 @ 2:49 am