>Well, if you're gonna paraphrase Nietzsche like a true believer you may as
>well cite chapter and verse. Then I can go read the master himself and you
>won't have to bother explaining yourself to me (not like you're trying...
>or are you?).
Frankly, I can't tell if you get it or not. Moving past the
hermeneutic violence of your thoughtless reductions (and your deep and
profound critique of my typos!), let me try briefly to explain (I did look
for the lines; I had thought it was in "Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral
Sense," but couldn't find em. Anyone?) Nietzsche says "metaphor" instead
of "relative" but the point is this:
The commonly accepted and comforting idea that the claim that
'everything is relative' is self-contradictory is itself simplistic and
misleading; the philosopher will not so easily be rescued from the "abyss"
of relativism. For two reasons. First, Nietzsche's: Nietzsche says
"Everything is relative/metaphor," and you say, "But then that is
relative/metaphor too." And he says, "Precisely. I am glad to see that
you understand." In other words, the assertion that "everything is
relative/metaphor" recognizes that of course it is 'relative/metaphor' as
well, it has to be. The question is whether that undermines the less
superficial point the relativist may be trying to make. (To take it one
step further: I agree with the person who noted that if everything is X,
then X has no force; if everything is relative, then what is the bite of
the charge of relativism? But this is Nietzsche's starting point, not
where he ends. To say that everything is relative here isn't to throw
one's hands up like an undergraduate unable to come to a conclusion, but is
rather an argument against a specific target: the historically
long-accepted idea of absolute truth--be it geometry's axioms or God's
maxims--as the standard of "Truth." Nietzsche's point is that the ubiquity
of the human (all too human) perspective makes attaining such Truth not
just impossible, but doubly self-defeating: we set the success-stakes of
our own endeavor too high and are therefore forever frustrated at our
inability to achieve them and are resentful toward the very real kinds of
(non-absolute) truth that we really do have. Nietzsche too is looking for
a middle road between the untenable alteratives of absolute/relative).
Second, and this is a point Derrida makes. Again: 'Everything is
relative.' The interlocutor responds, "then that is relative/metaphor
too," but the moment one says "then" (or implies it), one is--albeit only
for the sake of an attempted reductio--accepting the first premise. But
once you accept the premise that 'everything is relative,' things are no
longer so simple! For one thing, you have just conceded that logic too is
relative, and can no longer maintain with smug certainty that the assertion
is self-contradictory in an objectionable sense. This is not unlike trying
to argue away the sceptical possibility raised by Descartes' evil deity (or
combat dream/brain-in-the-vat scepticism); an argument that no one has ever
been able to win against the sceptic (see e.g. Stroud's _The Significance
of Philosophical Scepticism_); for, once the first premise is conceded, the
debate has effectively already been lost.
Perhaps all these arguments skirt the real point, the point of the
middle way, the mean: 'everything is relative' is, in an obvious sense,
true. All things are relative (conditioned by, in relation to) other
things (e.g. the consciousness that allows them to become
intelligible)--and yes, this statement too. Having recognized the truth
of relativism, these thinkers are not trying to deny relativism by
asserting its truth, but rather, by recognizing relativism in its fullest
scope, to reconceptualize what we mean by 'truth' to get it in-line with
what we really do have--hence not to deny truth by asserting its relativism
either.
The truth of relativism--and the relativism of truth--may lead us
to recognize that we actually exist somewhere in the middle of a no longer
useful absolute/relative dichotomy.
I don't know how many of you have been following the controversy (most
recently in the letters to editor of the "New York Review of Books") about
the status of science spawned by Alan Sokal's "hoax" on Andrew Ross's
_Social Text_. It is interesting that many of the issues we've been
discussing are being argued there as well--the Q of the status of science
is very topical right now. Why? How did this Derrida (read: Heidegger)
led charge become so threatening to Nobel prize winning scientists?
Perhaps it would be appropriate to end this much too long re-rumination
with an echo of Tom's well-wrought thought:
>Truth is thinking's world. Reality is unthinking's world.
That might just answer the previous question.
Iain
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>well cite chapter and verse. Then I can go read the master himself and you
>won't have to bother explaining yourself to me (not like you're trying...
>or are you?).
Frankly, I can't tell if you get it or not. Moving past the
hermeneutic violence of your thoughtless reductions (and your deep and
profound critique of my typos!), let me try briefly to explain (I did look
for the lines; I had thought it was in "Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral
Sense," but couldn't find em. Anyone?) Nietzsche says "metaphor" instead
of "relative" but the point is this:
The commonly accepted and comforting idea that the claim that
'everything is relative' is self-contradictory is itself simplistic and
misleading; the philosopher will not so easily be rescued from the "abyss"
of relativism. For two reasons. First, Nietzsche's: Nietzsche says
"Everything is relative/metaphor," and you say, "But then that is
relative/metaphor too." And he says, "Precisely. I am glad to see that
you understand." In other words, the assertion that "everything is
relative/metaphor" recognizes that of course it is 'relative/metaphor' as
well, it has to be. The question is whether that undermines the less
superficial point the relativist may be trying to make. (To take it one
step further: I agree with the person who noted that if everything is X,
then X has no force; if everything is relative, then what is the bite of
the charge of relativism? But this is Nietzsche's starting point, not
where he ends. To say that everything is relative here isn't to throw
one's hands up like an undergraduate unable to come to a conclusion, but is
rather an argument against a specific target: the historically
long-accepted idea of absolute truth--be it geometry's axioms or God's
maxims--as the standard of "Truth." Nietzsche's point is that the ubiquity
of the human (all too human) perspective makes attaining such Truth not
just impossible, but doubly self-defeating: we set the success-stakes of
our own endeavor too high and are therefore forever frustrated at our
inability to achieve them and are resentful toward the very real kinds of
(non-absolute) truth that we really do have. Nietzsche too is looking for
a middle road between the untenable alteratives of absolute/relative).
Second, and this is a point Derrida makes. Again: 'Everything is
relative.' The interlocutor responds, "then that is relative/metaphor
too," but the moment one says "then" (or implies it), one is--albeit only
for the sake of an attempted reductio--accepting the first premise. But
once you accept the premise that 'everything is relative,' things are no
longer so simple! For one thing, you have just conceded that logic too is
relative, and can no longer maintain with smug certainty that the assertion
is self-contradictory in an objectionable sense. This is not unlike trying
to argue away the sceptical possibility raised by Descartes' evil deity (or
combat dream/brain-in-the-vat scepticism); an argument that no one has ever
been able to win against the sceptic (see e.g. Stroud's _The Significance
of Philosophical Scepticism_); for, once the first premise is conceded, the
debate has effectively already been lost.
Perhaps all these arguments skirt the real point, the point of the
middle way, the mean: 'everything is relative' is, in an obvious sense,
true. All things are relative (conditioned by, in relation to) other
things (e.g. the consciousness that allows them to become
intelligible)--and yes, this statement too. Having recognized the truth
of relativism, these thinkers are not trying to deny relativism by
asserting its truth, but rather, by recognizing relativism in its fullest
scope, to reconceptualize what we mean by 'truth' to get it in-line with
what we really do have--hence not to deny truth by asserting its relativism
either.
The truth of relativism--and the relativism of truth--may lead us
to recognize that we actually exist somewhere in the middle of a no longer
useful absolute/relative dichotomy.
I don't know how many of you have been following the controversy (most
recently in the letters to editor of the "New York Review of Books") about
the status of science spawned by Alan Sokal's "hoax" on Andrew Ross's
_Social Text_. It is interesting that many of the issues we've been
discussing are being argued there as well--the Q of the status of science
is very topical right now. Why? How did this Derrida (read: Heidegger)
led charge become so threatening to Nobel prize winning scientists?
Perhaps it would be appropriate to end this much too long re-rumination
with an echo of Tom's well-wrought thought:
>Truth is thinking's world. Reality is unthinking's world.
That might just answer the previous question.
Iain
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---