I didn't see the posts where you and Carrol called me on "it", so I
didn't avoid them. Please send me off list or them or a link to them
and I will try to respond.
>
> Now, since the issue is the kind of theory propounded by the "pomos" let's
> get off the bullshit and simply deal with the way people, here, are using
> the term.
>
> That, or shut up shuttin' up already since you're being a ridiculous
> fuckheaded bore who, as usual, has too much time on his hand such that I'm
> surprised the freakin' axe blade on your favorite axe hasn't been worn to
> a freakin' nub.
Why the abuse?
As far as the way pomos use the word theory, or the way it is being used generally in this thread. I am not sure it matters to my response to CB. My response to CB was very limited. I was only speaking specifically of 1) the way Engels used the term theory; 2) whether Engels ever thought that materialism was "a theory" or simply underpinned other theories; 3) a general concern about how to conceive both materialism and scientific models and theories in general.
I have often written about what I think about the post-modern notions and about how limited theories are when they work. I am not aware of any successful theories of literature or post modern "theories". None are worthy of the name theory. There are very very few successful theories and that is not surprising.
Modern intellectuals need to produce "theories" because scientific theories have great legitimacy and propagating a "theory" increases the value of the "human capital" (disgusting notion) that the intellectual represents. The necessity of producing "a theory" or working in a theory for the post-War intellectual is a little like the need for producing a "system" for a late 18th century and 19th century German professor. It produced a power base in the German academy and thus increased the professor's "social capital." Only "theory" has itself become a kind of commodity. A successful production of a "theory" allows the producer to find a marketing niche.
But, I don't get it. Why use the word theory? Why not something looser and yet more descriptive of what the writer is doing like "thesis" or "model" or "methodology"? Zizek doesn't have a theory but he certainly uses interesting methods, derived for example from that great hoaxer Lacan, to get where he is going. Derrida used is a method, and I am very skeptical of those methods, but why call Deconstruction a "theory"? Why not a methodology? Isn't that more accurate? Or take Badiou's "Being and Event." He occasionally says interesting things but I talked to him three years ago and asked him about this very question. He said that he has developed "a system of philosophy" and not "a theory of the world." Why not make the distinction? I would like to say the same thing about Bourdieu's sometimes wonderful and sometimes infuriating book "Language and Symbolic Power." Bourdeiu has developed a system or method that may sometimes be useful for understanding society. This method is well called a philosophy. Why tried to fit it on the small and limited rack of theory?
In short "theory skepticism" in the human (so-called) "sciences" seems to me an important revolutionary socialist orientation. It's why so-many Marxists of the classical era wrote "critiques of (name that tune)" and not "theories of such-and-such."
Jerry
>
>
>
>
>>> Frederick Engels
>>> Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy
>>
>> There is nothing in what Engels says here that is theoretical. Engels
>> does not make theoretical claims for materialism itself but does claim
>> that actual working theories or hypotheses don't make sense unless one
>> assumes materialism.
>>
>
> --
> http://cleandraws.com
> Wear Clean Draws
> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/