Logocentrism

[jbor]

> Well, what about Plato's dialogues that embed the main discussion as an
> anecdote of another discussion?  Sometimes it was even twice removed.

Exactly. Is it fiction or is it philosophy? Just like *Also sprach
Zarathustra* or the *Confessions of Fausto Maijstral*. Both/and, not
either/or.

> someone is on the floor
> making a motion to banish distinctions

Nonono. The distinctions you (and Plato) were making (like success and
failure, fiction and non-fiction, philosophy and literature, writing and
speech) are presented as mutually exclusive phenomena in the traditional
epistemologies. Derrida (following Saussure, Jakobson et. al.) demonstrates
that they are in fact mutually dependent linguistic constructs only. They do
not exist independently, the traces idees are always present one in the
other. You can't posit the one without discriminating it from the other, and
this tactic is generally one of privileging, self-justification, domination
etc. The example that springs to mind in *GR* is the Elect/Preterite: you
would have to agree that Pynchon is undermining that binary opposition now,
surely.

> if enough conversations end with somebody citing
> a rule like "no binary oppositions", then it will become a rule of language
> eventually.

No rules. Both/and, not either/or. Derrida & co. still read Plato, St
Augustine et. al. but with a critical eye to the intrinsic preconceptions
and hidden agendas which are made transparent by the processes of textual
deconstruction.

best



----------
>From: Muchasmasgracias at cs.com
>To: jbor at bigpond.com, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Logocentrism
>Date: Mon, Jun 19, 2000, 8:14 AM
>