The Totalization of Shadows, Part XIX
A brief note of clarification-- there are several ideas here, and they are beginning to get confused.
One purpose: I want to know how it is a concept can take effect.
For example, with Descartes.
His writing is very personal, very idiosyncratic.(I wouldn't judge it to have or to have had great popular appeal, per se.) His procedure (and/or method) has its advantages, but it is also very quirky. The method hasn’t stood the test of time (which I take to mean that the effectiveness of his concepts must be independent of what we call validity.) The conclusions deriving from the quirky methods verge on madness (as Descartes himself was forced to consider and then deny)-- thus, the method is not justified by what it produces (I don't think.)
I am not denying he succeeds in creating concepts, (though this maybe can be denied—maybe we should attempt to deny it.)
I note contradictions and inconsistencies in his thought—it must be these do not hinder concept creation or their power to take effect (if this they do.)
I am not very concerned with refuting his arguments or attacking his notions of causality. (As I could do by looking at the contradictions and inconsistencies of his thought. If refuting his arguments or attacking his notions of causality could impinge upon the power of his concepts, Descartes' concepts would have been rendered impotent long ago, perhaps even within a few decades of his death.)
I want to know why and how his concepts succeed in taking root in me—cause and form “me.” And a lot of other people, for example, Thoreau. Even in spite of ourselves. Or cause an entire culture (or perhaps an anti-culture.)
Descartes did not have the political power to force his ideas on anyone, nor did the church fathers who patronized him--and besides, whatever Descartes or these church fathers intended by his work, what the work caused escaped them and in many ways appears to me have worked against their intention.
For a concept to be effective—there has to be a notion of causality of the concept. The causality of the concept must be independent of the concepts of causality within the concept, (for example in Descartes, they are defective, even though his concept creation and the power (the causality?) of his concepts, are anything but.) And yet I resist this idea of a concept being a cause.
One purpose: I want to know how it is a concept can take effect.
For example, with Descartes.
His writing is very personal, very idiosyncratic.(I wouldn't judge it to have or to have had great popular appeal, per se.) His procedure (and/or method) has its advantages, but it is also very quirky. The method hasn’t stood the test of time (which I take to mean that the effectiveness of his concepts must be independent of what we call validity.) The conclusions deriving from the quirky methods verge on madness (as Descartes himself was forced to consider and then deny)-- thus, the method is not justified by what it produces (I don't think.)
I am not denying he succeeds in creating concepts, (though this maybe can be denied—maybe we should attempt to deny it.)
I note contradictions and inconsistencies in his thought—it must be these do not hinder concept creation or their power to take effect (if this they do.)
I am not very concerned with refuting his arguments or attacking his notions of causality. (As I could do by looking at the contradictions and inconsistencies of his thought. If refuting his arguments or attacking his notions of causality could impinge upon the power of his concepts, Descartes' concepts would have been rendered impotent long ago, perhaps even within a few decades of his death.)
I want to know why and how his concepts succeed in taking root in me—cause and form “me.” And a lot of other people, for example, Thoreau. Even in spite of ourselves. Or cause an entire culture (or perhaps an anti-culture.)
Descartes did not have the political power to force his ideas on anyone, nor did the church fathers who patronized him--and besides, whatever Descartes or these church fathers intended by his work, what the work caused escaped them and in many ways appears to me have worked against their intention.
For a concept to be effective—there has to be a notion of causality of the concept. The causality of the concept must be independent of the concepts of causality within the concept, (for example in Descartes, they are defective, even though his concept creation and the power (the causality?) of his concepts, are anything but.) And yet I resist this idea of a concept being a cause.
posted by Yusef Asabiyah at 4:05 PM
6 Comments:
What is a concept and how does it relate to reality? One answer: it is a way of fixating a certain meaning that is present in the life-world. It strikes me that if a concept is causal, it must also have an effect. Something you do not mention. I strongly hesitate to call Descartes internal procedure of the cogito for defective. In the sense that the cogito is not empirical, it cannot be put to a test, and it is not science (it is philosophy). The real question, as far as I see it, is it convincing? At the time, and today?
I'm trying to ask: how can a concept be effective? (have an effect.) I don't want to jump to the conclusion that a concept is effective because a concept is causal. I also tried to look at a few unconvincing ways to explain Descartes' influence (effect) (he wrote well and was sexy;he could legislate that his ideas become engrained; his method is so superior in every way it effortlessly persuades all of WC to adopt it;etc.)
I don't think Descartes' cogito is defective,I think it's effective, but part of my point is it doesn't matter whether Descartes' cogito is convincing or not--it does not entirely require to be convincing in order to "take root." (for lack of better phrase.) The question is: why is that? How is it effective?
-Y
It sounds to me like you are "caught up" in the problem that has been most relevant in post-structuralism, namely that of genesis and structure. Wiki has this good explanation:
For Derrida, Genesis and Structure are both inescapable modes of description, there are some things that "must be described in terms of structure, and others which must be described in terms of genesis"[40], but these two modes of description are difficult to reconcile and this is the tension of the structural problematic. In Derrida's own words the structural problematic is that "beneath the serene use of these concepts [genesis and structure] is to be found a debate that...makes new reductions and explications indefinitely necessary"[41]. The structural problematic is therefore what propels philosophy and hence deconstruction forward. Another significance of the structural problematic for Derrida is that while a critique of structuralism is a recurring theme of his philosophy this does not mean that philosophy can claim to be able to discard all structural aspects. It is for this reason that Derrida distances his use of the term deconstruction from poststructuralism, a term that would suggest philosophy could simply go beyond structuralism.
--- As far as I see it, you want to know how Descartes cogito becomes "ahistorical" pure Structure, for future thinking. And how it's relation was to that which made it possible in the first place.
"As far as I see it, you want to know how Descartes cogito becomes "ahistorical" pure Structure, for future thinking. And how it's relation was to that which made it possible in the first place."
That's a great way to put it.
But the way this has manifested itself is this:
1)I cough up a furball from Descartes. At first, I think it is something I "created": I think I am the author, even though I know Descartes is being drawn upon.
2)I wonder whether and to what extent the furball represents "me" (as my creation) and to what extent it represents Descartes.
3)I discover the furball doesn't represent Descartes (it is strangely distorted from Descartes,) but it doesn't represent me, exactly, either, because it is a "standard take" on Descartes.
4)So I wonder:what's happening here? I have what might be called in psychological terms an introject, but if so, it has no philosophical interest--I still think it does.
5)I discover a dull,dead repetition, a structure, an ahistorical element of my thinking which I have taken to be alive, part of what makes me alive.
By reproducing this dull, dead structure, I can do various things, say various things, explain things in certain ways, etc. To what extent would I be deluding myself to call these various things "creative"? My hope is that to investigate this will have a bearing on how to reactivate a philosophical ethos.
-Y
"Another significance of the structural problematic for Derrida is that while a critique of structuralism is a recurring theme of his philosophy this does not mean that philosophy can claim to be able to discard all structural aspects. It is for this reason that Derrida distances his use of the term deconstruction from poststructuralism, a term that would suggest philosophy could simply go beyond structuralism."
I also don't think we can discard all structural elements, even though I am willing to align, learn from, and draw on those philosophers who would be called post-structuralist. I don't think these philosophers think we can discard all structural elements, though I do agree the term post-structuralist implies this. I think the term post-structuralist is flawed, a misnomer.
-Y
erge on madness (as Descartes himself was forced to consider and then deny)
The point I tried to make, was that according to Foucault, Descartes does NOT consider madness. Since that would be mad in itself. He denies it straight away. Derrida think something else about this, which gave rise to a major quarrel, that did not end until 10 years later when Derrida was busted for carrying drugs on in in Algeria or somewhere, Foucault who had legal contacts there did not hesitate in helping his old friend and student.
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