March
7, 2007
I have been reflecting on the differences
among the rationalist tradition, Heidegger's re-reading of that tradition, and
Wittgenstein's analysis of the workings of everyday languages.
1.
The rationalist tradition wrestled with the interiorization of literacy
as an interrogatory stance and versions of the metaphorical One designed to
transform endless questioning into focused inquiries. In the process, its adherents wove the
detaching power of literacy and the totalizing thrust of continuous prose into
metaphors depicting totalitarian forms of government and metaphors of
individuality designed to subvert totalitarianism in any shape or form.
a.
At a time when orality and literacy still vied for authority over the
prevailing culture, Socrates utilized a moral discourse which was taking on a
life of its own as the framework for a distinctive metaphor of
individuality. To wed the interrogatory
stance with the totalizing thrust of language, he coupled a dialectically
structured conception of reason with the assumption that no one could knowingly
choose what was evil as the framework for a method of analyzing moral notions
which promised self-knowledge and self-mastery.
But Plato could not be satisfied with the open-endedness of
dialectically structured analyses of language and experience. To justify a moral closure on the potentially
endless questions licensed by an interrogatory stance, he posited a timeless
realm of interpenetrating Ideal Forms.
And since the workings of reason could presumably generate judgments
grounded in such Forms, Plato became the progenitor of the use of literary
conventions derived from this posit to accredit a conception of the ideal human
being, society or form of governance.
b.
Aristotle, the empiricist, simply transformed the idealist conventions
which supported Plato's vision into naturalist conventions designed to support
his metaphysical theory. Logically, this
theory replaced the dualism inherent in Plato's distinction between a realm of
changeless Ideal Forms and the flux of experience with a hierarchically and
teleologically structured universe. But
this structure was in turn replaced by Descartes' geometrization of the
universe.
c.
In this on-going dialogue of text with text, Descartes encoded the
interrogatory stance at the core of the conception of reason in his methodical
doubt. On its part, the rigorous
application of this methodology transformed a distinction between subjectivity
and objectivity into an unbridgeable chasm, thereby condemning individuals to a
solipsistic existence. Later, Kant
forged an abstract conception of the autonomous individual which supplemented
the Cartesian metaphor of individuality with Socrates' promise that an
ever-expanding self-knowledge would confer self-mastery. Without abandoning the solipsistic import of
the Cartesian metaphor, he filled the hollow center of his conception of the
autonomous individual with a voice of reason which enabled reasonable beings to
dictate categorical imperatives to themselves.
d.
Today, postmodernist critics insist that Descartes' methodical doubt
situated both descriptive and moral inquiries in a nihilistic framework and
that metaphors of individuality designed to provide an exit from a solipsistic,
purely subjective existence fail miserably.
But their fear of re-inscribing authority in critiques designed to
subvert authority forces them to avoid any reference to an extra-mental reality
and any notion of personal responsibility.
e.
If they were so minded, postmodernist critics could point out that Kant
treated reason as a fictive voice. In
his Critique of Pure Reason, he
readily acknowledged that Hume's empirical critique of rationalism had awakened
him from a "dogmatic slumber."
In short, Hume's critique insisted that any experience revealed only how
entities interacted in a particular set of conditions, not how they would react
to even the slightest change in conditions.
To recover rationalism from this critique, however, Kant argued that the
literary conventions enshrined in Aristotelian logic and Newtonian mechanics
were the only possible way to make sense of the flux of experience. But the rationalism he sought to save used
logical categories inherited from Aristotle and spatial conventions indebted to
Newton's Laws of Motion to ground a radical distinction between nature and
reason. Then, in his Metaphysical Foundations of Morality, he
argued that this framework, and this framework only, enabled moral agents to
use reason in a way that liberated them from the natural necessity of desire
and passion and thereby endowed them with a self-mastery which is true freedom.
Presumably, the detaching, yet
compelling power of reason provided (1) a dispassionate and disinterested
perspective on the inner turmoil evoked by passion and desire and magnified by
the norms designed to perpetuate the prevailing culture and (2) analyses of
language and experience which liberated autonomous individuals from the
necessity of nature and endowed them with the power to create their own unique
identities. I suggest, however, that
Kant wanted to have his pie and eat it.
On the one hand, he used an abstract conception of reason as a tool
which enabled autonomous individuals to create their own unique
identities. On the other, he accepted
reason as a master which endowed categorical imperatives with a compelling
moral authority.
f.
In the twentieth century, Heidegger replaced the sterility of the
dispassionate existence fostered by classical rationalism with a participatory
existence of a sort. In this context, he
insisted that an authentic reading of the western literary tradition had to be
framed by the pre-Socratic notion of Being.
Historically, this notion was designed to facilitate the transition from
orality to literacy as the foundation of culture without loss of the
participative component of human existence.
As such, it was projected prior to significant distinctions among
language, experience and reality. And
this fact played a crucial role in Heidegger's replacement of Aristotle's
correspondence theory of truth with an analysis of the workings of language
which described prose as "a used up poem from which a call hardly resounds."
g.
Ong and Wittgenstein offer radically different analyses of the workings
of language. First and foremost, since
they regard the triumph of literacy over orality as irreversible, they have no
difficulty in believing that languages generated by literary traditions take on
lives of their own and that words laden with many meanings provide a fruitful
medium for metaphors which initially exceed their grasp. As a result, their analyses of the workings
of everyday languages respects distinctions among language, experience and
reality.
The analyses of language and experience
generated by a metaphor of intimacy are a case in point. First and foremost, the testable implications
of this metaphor offer a very different description of the process of
individuation than the implications of metaphors of individuality forged by
Descartes, Kant and Heidegger. Most
significantly, they show that judgments and strategies accredited by the forms
of life enshrined in metaphors of individuality abort or distort the quest for
deepening person-to-person involvements.
In a marked contrast with the
postmodernist fear of offering a description of human reality or a delineation
of human existence, the metaphor of intimacy describes human beings as
passionate, imaginative, linguistic and purposive beings. In place of the misplaced debate among Descartes.
Kant, Hegel and Heidegger, it shows that interactions which foster deepening
person-to-person involvements are inherently individuating.
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