Polo shirts(language, democracy and the death of the signified)

DANIEL.DAVIES at flemings.com DANIEL.DAVIES at flemings.com
Fri Jan 28 06:42:44 PST 2000



>I suspect Derrida's stuff on communication effectively denies a lot of
>this, and, in so doing, denies us the potential to engage with him in such
>democratic validation (communicative action).

My (ill-informed) understanding is that Derrida's stuff is more akin to Hume's inductive skepticism, in that he's not trying to deny that we can *do* this, he's just trying to point out that we shouldn't be so b****y sure of ourselves, because we can't actually prove that we mean what we say up to the standard which we claim we can. Just like Hume picks up his backgammon board, but with the intellectual humility to recognise that there is a sense in which he can't be certain that the dice won't spontaneously turn into canaries, and that sense is an important one,


>Much more simple a point is the fact that I do come over a bit
>self-doubting when demonstrably clever people (a) say things I don't
>understand about stuff I've actually thought about and (b) don't seem to
>think stuff that seems important to me is actually important at all.
Mebbe
>that's just me.


>Cheers,
>Rob.

Given the choice appears to be between saying "I don't understand this - I must be stupid" and "I don't understand this -- you must be stupid", I prefer Rob's method.

dd

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