GRGR (5) PK

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Keith Woodward wrote:

>
> Brian McHale, in _Constructing Postmodernism_ & _Postmodernist Fiction_,
> gives quite a bit of attention to the distinction (although, I think he
> wants to do something slightly different: rejecting any notion of ontology
> in the pomo novel other than an allowance for a plurality of ontologies;
> given that, epistemology becomes a very hairy business (just as it appear to
> be in GR)).

So he rejects ontology and allows for a plurality of ontologies. Can't be
right?   Does the preface contain a quote on Aristotle, Plato, and Cognitive
Science, or am confusing it with another McHale book or article I've read. I
remember discussing it here after I read it?

Ontic, Epistemic, and Semantic. Being, Knowing and Meaning. The history of
philosophy tells us that we are still moving through a semantic phase. In such
moments the world is viewed as "text" to be read, interpreted, "played" with.
The primacy of the text is now characteristic not only in Philosophy, but in
literature and all other disciplines. This will pass. However, as we "play" in
the semantic sandbox, at some point Ontic and or Epistemic will be challenged by
the enthusiasm of agreed upon semantic views. The world is a text? Come now,  I
ask you, is the world a text? Is the world an aggregate of texts?

Both Plato and Aristotle were pretty rough on Sophists. Sophists got a bad rap.
They are very important to the history of philosophy. However, for a Sophist,
how one views the world is how it is, a personal view. For Sophists, all things
are in conflict. For a Sophist Principles are personal (freely willed). For
Sophists reality is whatever is real to the Sophist. Now if the world is a text
and all men are Sophists, Hmmmmm. Nope, to confusing for this simple
gypsy-roofer.

Terrance



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