On Tue, 17 Oct 2000 12:49:13 -0400 Gordon Fitch <gcf at panix.com> wrote:
> ... So that is very strong evidence for the unity of the subject, for at
least some subjects, since what the subject is experiencing is itself,
directly, through which it's "connected" by identity. On the other hand, the
argument for the disunity of the subject is rhetorical, since it can't be
experienced directly (the "pieces" of the subject, so to speak, would have to
achieve at least a temporary, partial unity to experience the disunity of the
whole, after having constructed a notion of unity to compare it to).
I'm a student and a professor. These two things impose contradictory demands on me - especially when I'm involved with Union activities. They don't fit together nicely. I experience a radical disjunction between the obligations of both. Likewise, as an administrator, I'm split again, as a colleague, a friend, again... I don't experience these things in a unified way. Each role requires a different persona - What I argue in class, what I argue in my thesis and what I say in the bar are all three very different things... I'm pretty sure this isn't merely rhetoric. Even more to the point... the best illustration of this fragmentation can be found whenever I say something like: "Yes, but... No." I'm taking up two contrary positions simultaneously. In some instances this might just be fuzzy thinking, but in other instance it isn't. Also, whenever we have contrary demands place upon us... we experience a division in our obligations - say, between compassion and justice. Ultimately, we side with one or the other and retroactively justify our choice to ourself. But there is always a gap in our reasoning (the madness of the decision, the leap of faith... the positing of presuppositions). The retroactive choice necessarily excludes a piece of the logical choice through a tautological time loop... like when you eat an orange and it tastes funny... and then someone points out that it was a tangerine, not an orange. Then it's like, "Oh yeah, that's why it tastes funny." The "future" recognition of the fruit being a tangerine *subordinates* the reality of your experience of eating an orange. The awful tasting orange is transformed into a tangerine, retroactively. The consistent person would simply reply, after finding out that it was a tangerine by saying, "It really is an awful tasting orange."
> I'm trying to imagine how some sort of disjointed set of subject-components
could be deluded into a direct experience of unity, but it isn't easy, even
supposing brains in vats of interesting drugs.
Ever single demand for consistency across the board is a demand that the self be identical with what it says or does. I regard this as impossible, and even if possible - highly undesirable. Take Kant's categorical imperative: Duty for the sake of duty! This is a tautology. And each and every time we subject this imperative to a test, we break it - by inserting substance into the empty formula. This "violation" of the abstract imperative (which I argue is the murmuring of desire) always entails an inconsistency (placing a good prior to the law). The consistent individual will always be able to pass *any* norm through the moral law --> which leads to terror (as Horkheimer and Adorno diagnosed in DofE but as Hegel knew as well). Consistency - unity - is the terror of the system: as Adorno so nicely put its: the mind turned belly, consuming everything in its rage.
> Moreover, a disunited self would seem to be disadvantageous to survival even
if it could be achieved on the scale of a mammalian body, and hence likely to
be eliminated by the process of natural selection and evolution.
Liars have often done quite well, and the capacity to deceive is often a great help in a time of trouble. Likewise, being duped is sometimes helpful too - I'm glad I thought that sign was a roadblock, otherwise I would have gone off the cliff! What's that well known formula: Why are you telling me that you are travelling to Toronto so as to make me think you are travelling to Windsor when you are actually travelling to Toronto!
ken