[lbo-talk] Time to Get Religion

[ravi]

At around 5/12/06 4:52 pm, Jerry Monaco wrote:
> 
> "Plato's problem, then is to explain how we know so much, given that 
> evidence to us is so sparse. Orwell's problem is to explain why we
> know and understand so little, even though evidence available to us
> is so rich. Like many other twentieth-century intellectuals, Orwell
> was impress with the ability of totalitarian systems to instill
> beliefs that are firmly held and widely accepted although they are
> completely without foundation and often plainly at variance with
> obvious facts about the world around us. The problem is far broader,
> as the history of religious dogma suffices to show.  To solve
> Orwell's problem we must discover the institutional and other factors
> that block insight and understanding in crucial areas of our lives
> and ask why they are effective." Noam Chomsky _Knowledge of Language_
> p. xxvii
> 

Excellent quote. I would add that there is not just institutional
factors, but the "other" factors include behaviours codified into us
through evolution (in a broad sense) that leave us vulnerable to this
sort of ignorance and abuse. By mentioning evolution I am *not* making
claims about immutable human nature etc.


> This is much better said than anything that Zizek tries to say and I
> think also closer to the problem of reality.

The mathematician Doron Zellberger [sp?] writes that the Sokal prank is
a cheap laugh at someone's language. There is (to my naive eyes) a sort
of wilful reverse language incommensurability going on here with these
"theory" or "ideology" analysis thinkers. It seems to me that Chomsky
says, as seen even in the limited quotes offered by Jerry, what needs to
be said at the theoretical level. It's just that he says it in a
particular language (what Jerry calls common sense, and I would agree)
that is unpalatable[?] or at least un-parse-able for members of other
communities. I think there is a legitimate point to requiring the use of
particular language both to avoid pitfalls in inference/analysis and to
avoid hidden assumptions and plain old vagueness. However, typically, as
long as the alternate language is used honestly and is rich enough (both
of which are true of common sense and of Chomsky's usage) then it should
be possible to demonstrate the errors of its users in that language
itself (I am speaking generally; common sense is heavily tied to very
human notions of sense and explanation, whereas some languages such as
math can produce internally meaningful sentences that cannot be
translated into common sense terms at all. Similar things may be true of
poetry though it shares the tokens of common sense language).

For example, Aristotle's long wordy text syllogisms are no different
from their formal logical symbolic counterparts. Now, using the symbolic
versions gives us two things: one, the possible manipulations of the
tokens are better spelled out and catch ignored conditions, and second,
because of the syntactic nature of the deductions they can unearth wrong
conclusions in the syllogisms. Both results can however be explained in
Aristotle's language.

I must confess that I have not read Zizek, other than what has been
quoted on this list from his writing.

	--ravi