Snappycrossdresser

[p-list at sardonic201.net]

>Oh Paul, I\'ve tried that so often in the last five years. And Rob is much
>better in this than I am as his essay in the last Pynchon Notes and his
>numerous posts on this list prove.
>
>Mr. Derrida said: \"It is impossible to respond. I can only do something
>which will leave me unsatisfied.\"

This is a bit like punting on 2nd and 6, and claiming that, had you continued to play, you would have scored a touchdown.

I do not mean to be mean--because I think in at least some measure you and the poststructuralists are correct--but poststructuralists have a nasty tendency to put forward a severely underdemonstrated theory and shake their heads sadly at those who continue to ask questions.  Poor fools, those doubters, they just don\'t get it.  There is in fact an epistemological problem here.  Derrida and Spivak, Foucault, Fish, Barthes, etc. all say so confidently that there can be no reliable epistemology.  HOW DO THEY KNOW?  Although their political goals are laudable, the way they reach them is circular.  They set up a reductio ad absurdum and then celebrate their refusal to provide arguments or evidence as revolutionary or radical.  In fact, it is a failure of imagination.

O.