Part of the problem is in focusing on definition, ostensive, verbal, what have you. The question of defining concepts or anything else is a relatively recent development (not more than 2400 years in the written record of the "west." -- i.e., the passage from Plato I quoted to set this off). So the first question should be, not "How can we define a concept?" but "Why, and under what historical conditions should we want to define a concept?" or perhaps, even, "Under what historical conditions should the concept of defining itself become possible?"
There is not so much as a remote echo in the *Odyssey* of such an odd idea. Two (or 3 or 4 -- chronology obscure) it suddenly becomes the life passion of a Plato.
(I would agree that ostensive definition is powerless to define concepts -- or even "car.")
Carrol ------------------
Carrol,
You might find Arnold Hauser worth reading, since he spent much of his life as a historian in and around this question of under what historical conditions does the process of cultural 'self' reflection and criticism arise. Of course that isn't really a single question but a world of them.
Anyway, here is a quote:
"The capacity for abstract thought which leads to the autonomy of spiritual forms is developed not merely by the experience of colonization, but also to a very great extent by the practice of trading for money. This abstract means of exchange and its reduction of the various goods to a common denominator, the division of the original barter of goods into two separate acts of sale and purchase, is a factor accustoming men to abstract thought and making them familiar with the ideas of a common form with various contents, of a common content in various forms. Once content and form are distinguished from one another, the notion that the form can subsist by itself as an independent entity is not far off."
This is taken from _A Social History of Art_, Hauser A, Alfred Knopf, NY, 1952, p94. The quote comes from the ending section in a discussion on the transition from Greek archaic style in the seventh century, contemporary with Homer, to the rise of fifth century Athens, contemporary with Plato. The point Hauser develops is that Greek society during this transition in the sixth century was in the process of consolidating the peninsula, fending off foreign conquest, and engaged in colonization. The period brings various Greek cities into constant and continual exposure to other peoples, languages and cultures.
The basic idea is that on exposure under duress to different cultural milieu, in addition to transforming socio-economic systems into monetary exchange (internal form of duress) brings about and is the manifestation of the abstracted awareness required to question the nature and conditions of society as a general form. Hauser doesn't put as crudely as that, but you get the idea.
Hauser continues later from the same section:
"...But art and science are also play forms, and the same is true in a sense even of morality in so far as man's morality becomes pure, self-sufficient achievement of his own, not influenced by any external considerations. With the separation of these spiritual functions from one another and from the totality of life, man's original unity of practical wisdom, his undiscriminating knowledge, his rounded world picture, are shattered and split into ethico-religious, scientific and artistic spheres. This autonomy of different spheres is most strikingly apparent in the Ionian natural philosophy of the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. Here for the first time, we meet with thought forms which are more or less detached from practical considerations and aims...
...An eye practiced in noticing the culture of different peoples gradually distinguishes the various elements out of which the world view of each people is made up."
In a thread that may seem unrelated Dennis Redmond (proclaimed adjunct in Comparative Literature), asked, "why do you assume we litcritters have sole responsibility to save the soul of the global Left?"
Well as a once upon a time art instructor, I feel free enough to answer that question. The whole purpose of teaching art and the humanities is precisely to bring into awareness the cultural differences between peoples, times, and works, in the hope that this exposure will perform its magical transformation of abstract thought--thought about and questions of the nature and conditions of society in general. Therefore, we do have a responsibility to save the soul of the global left. Of course nobody is saving anything of the sort, and a better way, as in less ironic, to say this is, we express the soul of the left in doing so.
If all that sounds a little too corny, it can be recast in a more combative tone as follows. Consider that the whole reason that the arts and humanities are and have been under extreme duress in academia is because their traditional role, as noted above, threatens the currently insane domination of academic institutions by a thoroughly piggish capitalist mentality of meaningless production for its own sake. The product is cadre after cadre of automatons to fill the ever bloated ranks of the professional, managerial, and administrative castes. All aspects of academic institutions are being constantly tailored by their own administrative castes to refine the modes of production to that end.
As a consequence of this ever increasingly obvious transformation of education into a mere production system, which isn't new or news, a kind of unspoken deal or social contract was broken at some point along the way. The unspoken contract of a political democracy was that an intellectual class could find work, could be merged into the institutions of society and therefore releave itself and the society of the constant, threatening, and combative critique such a class historically engaged. That abstract agreement was broken down by the institutions themselves, under condition of their own survival mandated by an overarching capitalist mentality that dictates, produce or die. As a consequence, we arrive at the point where a substantial part of the intelligentsia now lives in complete alienation and disaffection from its former home or cover in academia. The arts and humanities have suffered the brunt of these developments, exactly because their economically determined contribution to the production of the professional and managerial castes is the least obvious, while their political stance as critic at large is the most obvious. In short, they are a pain in the ass, gum up the works, so to hell with them.
Or as Charles Brown just posted in a foreword, "We have a form of capitalist theodicy that brooks no challenge.." The article begins by noting, "There's a widespread belief," said Bill Meehan, chief market analyst with the New York brokerage firm Cantor Fitzgerald, "that we're in the best of all possible worlds."
So in this context, it is the purpose of the Humanities, litcritters in particular, and equally the whole point to a canon, to counter this myopic optimism, by referring the bubble heads to Voltaire's Candide--which is exactly what Mark Kingwell does. In the concluding scene of the ridicule, Candide remembers that Dr. Pangloss used to say (in ironic reference to Leibniz and Aquinas)--
"All events are linked together in the best of possible worlds; for, after all, if you had not been driven from a fine castle by being kicked in the backside for love of Miss Cunegonde, if you hadn't been sent before the Inquisition, if you hadn't traveled across America on foot, if you hadn't given a good sword thrust to the baron, if you hadn't lost all your sheep from the good land of Eldorado, you wouldn't be sitting here eating candied citron and pistachios."
However, Kingwell, ultimately misses the thrust of Voltaire's whole effort when he concludes his article with, "Nobody I know, not even the sharpest critic of the current round of capitalist domination, is arguing that the market can or should be abolished. We're not trying to kill your God, and we're not pessimistic."
My dear Mr. Philosopher at Toronto, I suspect you know better. The counter to an idiotic optimism is not pessimism, but critical clarity.
Chuck Grimes