Malcolm wrote: ↑Sun Dec 12, 2021 8:24 pm
treehuggingoctopus wrote: ↑Sun Dec 12, 2021 8:13 pm
they are both theorists, the theory in question being the capital-letter Theory aka literary theory aka cultural theory -- which is not literary criticism but "theory" as in the Frankfurters' Critical Theory (which indeed is in many ways Derrida's, but not Foucault's, starting point.
Having theories does not make one a philosopher. Having a theory of literature is little different than literary criticism, pumped up on self-importance.
Careful argumentation, grounded in logic and rationality, makes one a philosopher: example, John Rawls.
Derrida's opinions about language don't stand analysis, "parole" and "texte" cannot be opposed.
Posing the (written texte) his is typical of the French "intellecual", posing a "thesis" in the context of "concours"
He seems to be probably first to be following Husserl (his first degree was on Husserl), that had for a time a strong following here in the Continent, including among Marxists (or pseudo-Marxists like Sartre), and Freudians, like Lacan.
Foucault pretends to be an historian, but he has not the training, and this is much too obvious. His "Histoire de la Folie ..." has no serious research behind. Lots of theorie sure - these people uses semantic proximities (association) as proof, and are ready to any textual manipulation for that.
"L'Archéologie du savoir" uses "discours" instead of the Derridean "texte" but, regarding "discours", Malcom is right in saying "literary criticism", we are in the realm of literary theory posing as social science.
He ended up in complete subjectivism - if this is not obscurantism? at least confusion eand the pleasure to confuse.
For a Marxist (if that still exist) this would be the epitomè of "pensée petite-bourgeoise".
This from
L’Ordre du discours, pp. 29-30
« […] dans l’ordre du discours scientifique, l’attribution à un auteur était, au Moyen-Âge, indispensable, car c’était un index de vérité. Une proposition était considérée comme détenant de son auteur même sa valeur scientifique. Depuis le XVIIe siècle, cette fonction n’a cessé de s’effacer, dans le discours scientifique : il ne fonctionne plus guère que pour donner un nom à un théorème, à un effet, à un exemple, à un syndrome. En revanche, dans l’ordre du discours littéraire, et à partir de la même époque, la fonction de l’auteur n’a pas cessé de se renforcer : tous ces récits, tous ces poèmes, tous ces drames ou comédies qu’on laissait circuler au Moyen-Âge dans un anonymat au moins relatif, voilà que, maintenant, on leur demande (et on exige d’eux qu’ils disent) d’où ils viennent, qui les a écrits ; on demande que l’auteur rende compte de l’unité du texte qu’on met sous son nom ; on lui demande de révéler, ou du moins de porter par devers lui, le sens caché qui les traverse ; on lui demande de les articuler, sur sa vie personnelle et sur ses expériences vécues, sur l’histoire réelle qui les a vues naître. »
He's wrong on everything, specially on "Middle Age" this is purely "littéraire" (there is no "discours scientifique" in the Middle-Ages, this is a complete anachronism) and on this Mandosio could give a long list of counter examples.
What changes precisely is a retablishment of what I would call Greek rationality - that was, through the predominance of Aristotle in scholastic studies, never completely lost.
The systematic use of "on" - a neutral/collective is strange - you can't assign a specific subjet ... on is "nobody"
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We'll not add ad hominem - but why would they be justified for any Tibetan Lama but not for Western scholars?