> Indeed. For postmodernists, however, all objects have basically the same
> status, be they gods, vampires, human bodies, or social relations.
Which postmodernists would those be?
> Therefore, I don't think their ways of conceiving objects help us much.
> Kant said he "had to deny _knowledge_, in order to make room for _faith_"
> (_Critique of Pure Reason_).
Which can be reformulated today like this: We can't know, because we must not know! This is important. Take for instance a stereotypical fascist soldier, of the imaginary variety. The fascist soldier has no epistemological block. They know what is GOOD - serving the fatherland is GOOD. And so they go about killing people who don't properly honour the fatherland, because that's the right thing to do - it passes the categorical imperative. The fascist soldier is a knower, they know the good. But this is precisely what Kant's moral philosophy, logically, forbids. Kant forbids absolute knowledge (given that the 'highest good' and 'diabolical evil' are identical). So Kant's philosophy is still the most responsible philosophy around. He forbids "going all the way" and launching yourself off into an abyss where one loses all sense of moral criteria. The fascist soldier has no moral consciousness, because they *have* the good, they know it. Kant's block here serves as an ethical prohibition against psychosis.
> The same must be said about Lacan, whose
> works may be renamed _Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason_.
That doesn't make any sense at all. Lacan is hardly providing a justification of the good principle over the evil principle.... nor is he trying to found a kingdom of God here on earth... however... Lacan *is* interested in part one of the text - the chapter on radical evil. See his essay, "Kant avec Sade." Radical evil is a *moral* position. And Kant could be re-written to read, qua Lacan, "knowledge has to be denied in order to make room for desire." If you side against Kant here, and opt for knowledge without faith, you are, theoretically, cruel and abstract (and retain an epistemological position identical to that of Sade)(who always seeks more knowledge and tears apart nature because, "she will always yield more"). If *that's* your objection to Kant - I tremour in disgust.
> ***** Besides, we are indebted to Pascal's defensive 'dialectic' for the
> wonderful formula which will enable us to invert the order of the notional
> schema of ideology. Pascal says more or less: 'Kneel down, move your lips
> in prayer, and you will believe.' (168) *****
> Althusser evidently thought that learning from Pascal would help him banish
> 'ideas' and make 'practice, etc.' appear, but the trajectory of the
> Pascalian turn has been the exact opposite of Althusser's intention. It
> simply helped many post-/anti-Marxist intellectuals to enshrine a
> neo-Kantian epistemology -- an idealism with vengeance.
It isn't idealism if you examine the 'highest good' as identical with 'diabolical evil.' The problem is, Kant upholds a contradiction in his work. At the point of fulfillment, he realized that 'the highest good' had no criteria. So, knowing this, he decided to say that 'diabolical evil' wasn't possible for human beings.
As for Pascal - how do you think the economy works? Very few people believe that the economy actually works for people. But nearly everyone works and supports its grinding power. Pascal illustrates why belief is unnecessary for a machine to work. In fact, the cynical distance makes the working of the machine possible. In public, support goes to the employer, in private, you complain and tell it like it is. It is possible to go through the motions without feeling responsibly because you don't believe. This is the postmodern condition (as folks like Zizek understand it). This is a very important idea. I'm suprised that you see it as a mystification.
> Now take a look at the curious ascetic routines of the
Lacanian scholasticism...
I'm not going to disagree with you if you're calling Lacan a jerk. Zizek called it "living in the Real" - I'm still convinced its the same old patriarchal discourse "philosopher genius is mad." Let's call in the discourse of assholes - from Adorno's "precious helper" Gretel to Lacan.
> It is the denial of mastery -- self-imposed 'poverty' and gestures of
> divestiture -- that helps invest Lacan with authority and makes him a
> Master. It's an old religious (or Socratic) trick, for which we (near the
> end of the twentieth-century) have no need to fall. But, then again, you
> may be or want to be religious, after all, without becoming a part of an
> old-fashioned religion; in that case, you've made a correct choice.
I don't see how Lacan can be accussed of a "denial of mastery." I mean, have you read his seminars? Demanding bastard that one. But this doesn't mean much, you're using his style and personality against him, without actually engaging any of the substance of his work. It's a cheap shot. If we disregarded all of the philosophers and social theorists who were assholes - who would be left?
As for religion, there we have a problem. Even Popper admitted that science was most likely a religious activity. If you expand the definition large enough, science includes anything and everything (which is particularly unhelpful since it renders religion trivial). So how do you want to play this game?
> I am, however, disappointed (though not surprised) that you take Kenneth
> Burke (or rhetoric) lightly. One at least hopes that those who say so much
> about 'discourse' would be interested in the study of rhetoric. Anyway,
> the point made by Burke is that an argument against 'authoritarianism'
> doesn't take an argument against 'authority' per se.
I don't take it lightly at all. I know my Gadamer quite well, and recognize the importance of rhetoric. The position of Burke sounds like Gadamer's. Gadamer argues that authority is authoritative because it is truth and, following the ancient greek authors, the truth must be freely chosen (see Gadamer, Truth and Method [esp. the part about prejudice], Philosophical Hermeneutics [esp. the debate with Habermas], and The Idea of the Good in Platonic and Aristotelian Philosophy). But Gadamer is, in part, wrong here. If look through Marx instead of Aristotle, as Albrecht Wellmer does, critical theory remembers what hermeneutics forgets, that the Enlightenment is born out of relations of domination. Hermeneutics, by preserving prejudice, lacks any sort of criteria to escape these prevailing conditions. However Gadamer's response, "we cannot think ourselves outside of history" is also correct. So we're stuck in an aporia - somewhere between the absolutes. Which goes back to my suggestions about re-reading Kant - we can't go all the way [and liberate ourselves Absolutely] because we must not go all the way.
> A Humean conception of
> nature and law makes a space for a Kantian faith; if the existence of every
> object can be doubted, there is no reason to think of the existence of God
> and vampires as more doubtful than that of one's fingernails and fellow
> workers when they are not objects of sense-experience.
A space which is not so much faith as moral consciousness.
> It is also on the impossibility of knowledge that Plato rests his
> mouthpiece Socrates' victory over Thrasymachus in
_Republic_... (snipped)
> After this rhetorical defeat of the sophist assertion that morality is in
> the interest of the stronger, hence after the defense of an argument that
> morality is in the interest of all who possess it, Plato, through Socrates,
> will argue for the very conception of morality designed to guard the rule
> of the few over the many.
Are you re-writing the text? I swear that Grube's translation is about justice, not morality - there is a distinction I believe (maybe not). In any event, Thrasymachus's argument is a silly one - that injustice is always lawbreaking. Socrates response equates the difference between the just and the unjust as one of expertise (the unjust person is simply an unsuccessful just person). The funny thing is, Socrates wins the argument first, because Thrasymachus isn't permitted to respond in the text (and point out that the analogy is false) and, second, by using a rhetorical move - begging the question. Socrates is allowed to win only through a kind of logical bait and switch, crumby rhetoric. So I suspect we aren't in a serious disagreement here.
> Postmodern scepticism works in a way similar to the Socratic attack on
> knowledge and democracy (or the masses' ability to acquire knowledge and
> govern themselves) in _Republic_.
But pointing out that Socrates wins the debate, or that postmodernism "wins" the debate through rhetoric still doesn't address the question of knowledge. It seems to me like you're pulling a fast one too. Instead of begging the question about the "masses' ability" you beg the question about knowledge. Here we can follow Aristotle's critique of Plato, that whatever might be good unconditionally (or True Absolutely) is irrelevant as a guide to our action. What we ought to focus on is what is good for us. Which brings this entire conversation back to my reading of Kant.
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