Logocentrism

[Muchasmasgracias at cs.com]

jbor at bigpond.com writes:


 > Pynchon 
 > writes fiction and it makes sense to say so, whereas Derrida writes
 > nonfiction and it makes sense to say that too.
 snip
 
 But what is the point of creating such an opposition unless to implicitly
 privilege one text over the other in a particular context?
--new snip--

My question is whether it is possible to use language at all without slipping 
up in the way you are referring to.  There is a sense out there that Derrida 
pushes his point too far.  Unless is boils down to something like "literalism 
sucks the soul out of communication"?  Words are abstract and are always 
going to bastardize reality in some way or else get crippled by constant 
disclaimers of "hey don't get mislead by any distinctions I seem to make".  
Past a certain point (which I posit exists on a number line derived from a 
pre-existing constellation of sense ratios) you can't talk yourself out of 
logocentrism, you have to sing or draw or go backpacking or expand your 
sensibilities in some way besides spinning further webs of words.

What if the
 reader gains historical/philosophical insight from the former, or finds
 pleasant diversion in the latter? By demanding the imposition and utility of
 these categories, and thereby endorsing and perpetuating the implicit
 conventions (rules) which supposedly govern such categories, aren't you
 effectively limiting the possibilities of the texts?
--snipperoonie--

By arguing as I did I may well have been limiting in the way you describe.  
Can we set up an experiment which demonstrates how many possibilities a text 
has if we assume the usefulness of categories in speech, versus cases in 
which we do not assume their usefulness?  This reminds me of something I read 
in Jung (can't recall which book, think it was Synchronicity) about the "I 
Ching".  He was going on about the way science asks such precise questions of 
nature that it ends up bastardizing.  The I Ching on the other hand allows 
nature to answer out of the entirety of her(his/its) being; however, this is 
so broad that we can no longer tell what the question is.

And someplace in the middle we have...  categories, with loose boundaries.  
We are, are we not, talking family resemblances here?  I think it's a shame 
that people don't go to Wittgenstein for the things they get out of Derrida.  
Did anyone read the recent Philosophical Forum article called "Quine, 
Derrida, and the Question of Philosophy"?  I thought it was hilarious because 
it makes most theorists look like such asses, and makes Wittgenstein look 
smart for thinking they're all asses.


All those either/or choices
which lead to devoices!
I mean as either/or
chooses one to ignore,
won't and/both
tend to make the most?