Pynchon and postmodernism

[p-list at sardonic201.net]

I think there is a bit of confusion here.  I am not Jolly.  I do think that Derrida & co.  provide grounding for some very provocative readings of Pynchon.  Please do not hold me accountable to what Jolly claims, for I find them quite juvenile.  I am, from what I can glean from his posts, far more interested in and accepting of poststructuralism.  (Though I do think it has some some profound shortcomings.)

I think the problem is the way poststructuralism and analytic philosophy have been set up in the dreaded binary.  As you say, much of what the more contemporary pragmatists argue for has much in common with deconstruction (although, it may be more accurate to say that Derrida\'s notion of deconstruction looks a lot like the original pragmatists).  For too long the analytic-continental divide has served to do nothing but stop discourse.  I am suggesting, probably in very awkward ways, that the project that now faces us is to face up to the epistemological advances of analytic philosophy and the political arguments of poststructuralism and realize that, far from being opposed, they actually compliment each other.

What we need, I think, is a Kant to come along and pull together and synthesize the two apparently separate lines of philosophy.  At the very least, we need to recognize the artificial division between the two.

And you are right, jbor: Jolly, I think, misrepresents Wittgenstein is problematic ways.  Wittgenstein himself rejected the Tractatus at the end of his life--and, although there are some similiarities between the Tractatus and the Investigations, the difference is far more important.  The Tractatus was the culmination of logical positivism; the Investigations was the seminal work in inferential pragmatic philosophy of language.  The latter work announces the failure of the former and begins an entirely new philosophy.  Frankly, the Investigations are far more interesting.  (By the way, Wittgenstein is every bit as applicable to Pynchon as Derrida.  P actually quotes Wittgenstein in V.  I also think much of what Derrida gets credit for in America first saw light of day in Wittgenstein\'s writings.)


best,
O.


----- Original Message -----
Granted that there has been shoddy stuff written in its name, but I think
that your characterisations of poststructuralism are a bowdlerisation of the
work done by its main proponents. Further, ample evidence has been provided
to refute the gormless (i.e. \"lacking sense\", OED) assertion that the work
of Derrida, Foucault, Barthes etc does not \"provide an adequate grounding
for an intelligent interpretation of TP\". It does. Whether positivism,
Logical Positivism or any of the various strands of post-positivism can
provide a similar grounding for the discussion and interpretation of
Pynchon\'s work still remains to be seen.

I\'m not sure what a \"weak\" conception of \"objective knowledge\" would look
like in practical terms. I\'m guessing it would look something like the
deconstruction of that binary hierarchy which privileges \"objectivity\" over
\"subjectivity\". (See, perhaps, Heisenberg, Bohrs, Schrödinger et al.) There
seem to be two separate things being put together in the phrase \"objective
knowledge\": that there is an \"objective\" reality, i.e. things \"out there\"
exist; and that we can know objectively what that \"reality\" is. Peirce\'s
fallibilism seems to beg the latter question.

With Wittgenstein you have continually tried to gloss over the fact that the
Tractatus did, and was always meant to, pave the way for the Investigations.

I agree that the challenge is to think about how language mediates between
subject and object.

best