Gorski doing what?Pah!!!!
I adopt the "make a (hopefully educated) guess" approach to understanding your posts, rather than the "this is poorly expressed" approach. You will have to learn to live with one or the other.
Loads of profs and docs dissent from Darwinian "consensus"
- Thread starter d.a.s.h
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I adopt the "make a (hopefully educated) guess" approach to understanding your posts, rather than the "this is poorly expressed" approach. You will have to learn to live with one or the other.
Aw shucks
I'm borrowing a lot from Hilary Putnam (or at least his relatively recent philosophy - 1990's onward). I think it would interest you as well, if you are not already familiar with it. Read this interview for a quick taster.
He mentions problems of reference. I think this is central, and its a very post-"linguistic turn" type of problem, and its very related to the philosophy of the mind. Really the problems we have been talking about are routed in 20th century philosophy, not 19th century philosophy. Saussure, Kuhn, Quine, Wittgenstein and Putnam himself all ended up fueling relativism despite themselves. Gorski is not the only one to see Hegelian thinking as underlying relativism (or something approximate), whereas Kant underlies a fixed ahistorical moralism (or something approximate). But I think this is just a case of projecting our modern problems backwards in time.
Cheers for the reference - will take a look.
BTW, just got myself a new copy of Minima Moralia for six quid, as it's one of those things I seem to lend out to people and never get back. Lots of stuff right from the outset that is relevant to the present discussion. I had completely forgotten how great it is, and how incisive. Less of that Mitteleuropean turgidity that we all know and love...
Its online now, and I've had a quick glance through it myself. It does seem relevant to what we've been discussing (particularly aphorism 81). But I'm uneasy of the way he raises broad sociological theses in such an off-hand manner. There's always a bit of the "that's as maybe" about Adorno's writings in my opinion. For example, he talks about the "cult of the important". But its quite arguable that Nazi Germany's obsession with race and other nutty pseudo-scientific ideas, for example, distracted them from what was important even in their own terms.
I would contrast him with Lukacs (to whom he owes a lot). When Lukacs analyses philosophical thinking he portrays tensions in the way the bourgeoisie see themselves, he doesn't move directly from this to a sociological thesis as this would freeze the tension. So in saying less Lukacs says more. But that's my opinion and I don't really understand the Frankfurt school/ Western Marxism/ critical theory or really any of this sort of mixing of philosophy and sociology.
Well I guess that reflects its origins as a kind of interrupted conversation-between-friends with Horkheimer, and he's obviously got his own set of reservations and disclaimers about the aphoristic style.
The Critical Theory lot (if you include everyone that has at some point been subsumed under that label) are such a mixed bag! Not really a school at all....
The Critical Theory lot (if you include everyone that has at some point been subsumed under that label) are such a mixed bag! Not really a school at all....
gorski
customised free radical
Just a few notes, then back to my MA...
Yes it is a school of thought, interested in critical approach to any area of "knowledge", including their very own presumptions and how they affect the way they think, feel and act...
It's important to a "Marxist" to find a sociological, real substratum of their thinking/categories used, even if they write in loadsa jargon, "authentic" or not.... Emancipatory change is rooted in...?!? Which class or group exactly? For which reasons? That is something many here have no clue about... Fanciful "thinking" that it's enough to claim "revolutionary potential" or just hope that one day it'll happen and not even bother to show where from exactly, which segment of the population is in such a revolutionary position, objectively and subjectively, what is necessary for it to happen and all that follows from it...
Lukacs used to be, for a while, under Stalin's thumb directly, then quite close to being eliminated in Hungary also and so on, ergo quite "involved" in a manner that precluded him from having the necessary freedom to think and express exactly what he meant. Later he was very self-critical, for loadsa good reasons.
Plus the usual mistakes that both him and Heidegger made, albeit from different positions.
But the worst thing an intellectual can make is to go very quickly from theory into practice and policy. That's pure Stalinism and Nazism and the FS wants to give account of that and be very seriously grounded and not deluded, searching for a possible root/agent of change...
Btw, what was "really important" for the Nazis was self-destructive, so by definition that regime was self-imploding.
Yes it is a school of thought, interested in critical approach to any area of "knowledge", including their very own presumptions and how they affect the way they think, feel and act...
It's important to a "Marxist" to find a sociological, real substratum of their thinking/categories used, even if they write in loadsa jargon, "authentic" or not.... Emancipatory change is rooted in...?!? Which class or group exactly? For which reasons? That is something many here have no clue about... Fanciful "thinking" that it's enough to claim "revolutionary potential" or just hope that one day it'll happen and not even bother to show where from exactly, which segment of the population is in such a revolutionary position, objectively and subjectively, what is necessary for it to happen and all that follows from it...
Lukacs used to be, for a while, under Stalin's thumb directly, then quite close to being eliminated in Hungary also and so on, ergo quite "involved" in a manner that precluded him from having the necessary freedom to think and express exactly what he meant. Later he was very self-critical, for loadsa good reasons.
Plus the usual mistakes that both him and Heidegger made, albeit from different positions.
But the worst thing an intellectual can make is to go very quickly from theory into practice and policy. That's pure Stalinism and Nazism and the FS wants to give account of that and be very seriously grounded and not deluded, searching for a possible root/agent of change...
Btw, what was "really important" for the Nazis was self-destructive, so by definition that regime was self-imploding.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Bit of cross thread referencing there G?
Logically our presumptions underlie our knowledge. We believe X in part because of our belief in Y. But is this a causal relation of X & Y? Is Y causing X?
There is no reason to think that we can critique our knowledge by critiquing our presumptions.
Again you can look at this in terms of Hegel's Aufheben, or you can look at this in terms of Marx's contempt for philosophising, or you can look at this as a crucial point of Wittgenstein's philosophy. I prefer the latter, but it translates well into Hegel's cruder (IMO) mode of expression, if you prefer that.
The presumption that we need to look at presumptions is also a trap that Lukacs avoids (at least most of the time).
I actually admire Lukac's Stalinism. He grasped the nettle. I think he was wrong, but it wouldn't have been more correct to pontificate from the sidelines. In this respect Lukacs was unapologetic. It isn't so much that it is hard to come up with the proper theory before putting it into practice, it is rather that such an attempt is senseless.
Sure, you can qualify the meaning. And here the theory becomes powerful. It describes everything, but in doing so it explains nothing.
I have always quite liked Benjamin's idea of 'crude thinking', i.e. theory boiled down into a form amenable to action and struggle. It reminds me of the way that in learning a physical discipline like a martial art or a musical instrument one practices the most subtle refinements of technique, perfect balance, minimal effort, the highest degree of grace in the external form etc, but then all of this is forgotten (but hopefully not completely discarded) in the struggle of the material application, where the point is simply to succeed, to use whatever means necessary, ultimately to prevail.
One can go on turning clay pots on the wheel forever, but sooner or later if they are to be of any use, you have to put them in the kiln.
One can go on turning clay pots on the wheel forever, but sooner or later if they are to be of any use, you have to put them in the kiln.
K, you're such a poor troll... Back to the drawing board, must work harder...
Its a very simple point. The work required is moral work, not intellectual work. You need to want to understand it. You need to not be afraid of error. You need to not let the fear of error become the fear of truth.
K, you're such a poor troll... Back to the drawing board, must work harder...
F, I disagree, most profoundly! From Machiavelli onwards it's "built into" a theory to think through its means of delivery/putting into practice... or else...
What, any theory? How to explain the huge lacunae of pointless theorising then?
Plus there is no account of all those theories which were not intended to be practical but ended up being practical. Why are there so many obscure academic discplines/topics? Again its this sweeping sociological generalisation from the supposed analysis of a thought traced back to historical routes. It means nothing. Really.
Oh, crikey... Me afraid you not get it... Solly...
I suppose that will be another case of the sort of conceit which understands how to belittle every truth and turn away from it back into itself, and gloats over this its own private understanding.
I don't think Wittgenstein would necessarily object to somebody talking about the flow of time. That would be like objecting to all poetry. In Philosophical Investigations he often talks about being bewitched by a mental picture. But this is not to say he objected to mental pictures.
Does the phrase "cult of the important" have a use? Do we know how to use it? Do we know when we can't use it? Are there any criteria? It certainly paints a picture and we can fit the picture to various writings. But how do we agree on where we fit it? How do we analyse the thought behind the words?
I'm not saying this to criticise Adorno. I'm coming to a better appreciation of him if anything. Minima Moralia is a wonderful artist's impression of the world. To rubbish it would be like rubbishing the operas of Weil and Brecht.
Does the phrase "cult of the important" have a use? Do we know how to use it? Do we know when we can't use it? Are there any criteria? It certainly paints a picture and we can fit the picture to various writings. But how do we agree on where we fit it? How do we analyse the thought behind the words?
I'm not saying this to criticise Adorno. I'm coming to a better appreciation of him if anything. Minima Moralia is a wonderful artist's impression of the world. To rubbish it would be like rubbishing the operas of Weil and Brecht.
Susan Blackmore in the Guardian today:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/04/religion.evolution
My typing is a bit restricted 'cos I have broken two fingers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/04/religion.evolution
My typing is a bit restricted 'cos I have broken two fingers.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
That comes into it when causing mutations, and also in some selection. It's all probabilities. If you're 'fitter' you're more likely to survive, plus or minus some chance due to good/bad luck. Over time, good/bad luck is averaged out, however.And where's sheer luck/chance in all this?
[Ooops, that must have hurt...
It doesn't hurt at all btw, it's considered part of the model.
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