Following seems an ideal dialectic response to a recent post here. A transcript of Zizek a few years ago, it highlights his quick, biting wit — you can almost hear him saying all this:
“…I will now speak a little more briefly. I want to conclude with a remark about the possible role of philosophy in our society. There is a whole series of false philosophical positions: neo-Kantian state philosophy, postmodern neo-Sophism and so forth. The worst is the external moralization of philosophy, the logic of which is roughly the following: ‘I am a philosopher, and as such I devise great metaphysical systems; I am also however a good human and am concerned about all the disaster in the world. We must struggle against this disaster…’ Derrida is weakest at that point when, in the middle of his book Spectres of Marx, he becomes entirely unphilosophical and lists the disasters in this world in ten points. Unbelievable! I didn’t believe my eyes as I read that; but there they were, ten points; and they attested to an extreme lack of thought: unemployment and dropouts without money in our cities; drug cartels; the domination of the media monopolies and so forth. As if he wanted to give the impression of being not merely a great philosopher but also a warm-hearted person. Excuse me, but here I can think of only a relatively fatal comparison: at the end of works of popular literature there is usually a short description of the author — and in order to valorize their curriculum a little, one adds something like: ‘she currently lives in the South of France, surrounded by many cats and dedicated to painting…’ That is more or less the level we’re dealing with. It almost prompts me therefore to add something mischievous to my next books: ‘In his private life he tortures dogs and kills spiders’, simply in order to push this custom ad absurdum. But I want to go on: if we philosophers are asked for our opinion, often all one wants in truth is that we introduce ourselves. Our knowledge is then a type of vague reference that gives an authority to our opinions. It is just as if one asked a great author what he likes to eat, and he answers that Italian cooking is better than Chinese cooking. We should therefore only concern ourselves with what is inherent to philosophy.”
Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek, Philosophy in the Present, trans. Peter Thomas and Alberto Toscano (Cambridge: Polity, 2009), pp. 65-7.
March 9, 2010 at 5:46 pm |
I am not a philosopher or academic but I am starting to write up some years of lazy research which looks at how custom, belief and manners were studied. The start of modern ethnology.
I find myself falling badly on my ass on this point, as these areas are still heated political and moral and philosophical footballs. Many of the figures I look at in the late 17th and 18th century are strongly motivated by morals, and the question raised in the last post. As people still are.
If you study belief, I don’t think you can impose your own value or moral system on what you are doing, you deal with the subject in the context of it’s time. These are symbolic systems. They are not simply a belief or collection of beliefs, which in a modernist context are stupid or childish.
I’ve had to utterly re-think and redraw. I’ve become far too sensitive to contemporary arguments and do look like I am trying to present one at the moment.
March 9, 2010 at 10:34 pm |
Jeb: This is what’s so interesting about the history of the social sciences. Most of them can be traced to the above mentioned period of Enlightenment rationalism that sought a kind of objectivity that was, of course, impossible, particularly when dealing with ideas of culture and/or morality. And, moving forward, with the Frankfurt school and critical theory you have this challenging reading of rationality and Enlightenment thought and its failings, leading to a kind of post-modern relativism. Not sure there is a way to untie that Gordian knot, sadly.
But good historians (historicists?) still valiantly try…
March 10, 2010 at 10:13 am |
Ethnologist is the term I use for the moment. I recently came across an older related one: chorography.
Monstrum Demonstrare a word play from an early Cosmographia. Seems to sum up the difficulties of the subject.
March 11, 2010 at 2:27 pm |
I like the notion of chorography — archaic, but revealingly close to philosophical anthropology, which itself is not so far from ideas of vitalism. Suggests a kind of irreducibility of context which Enlightenment thinkers were, I believe, too quick to abolish in search of social universals.
March 22, 2010 at 2:25 pm |
Chorography is part of the history of such subjects I think.
I’ve not looked at Enlightenment anthropology enough to comment, although Hume seems to echo some of what you are saying. The Enlightenment appears to have a number of approaches to the subject and different voices depending on the context of the text.
Like S. Johnson’s search for origin and golden ages. The penguin “it’s character, and the probable mode of its continuance in depth.”
pe’nguin. (1) A bird. This bird was found with this name, as is supposed, by the first discoverers of America; and penguin signifying in Welsh a white head, and the head of this fowl being white, it has been imagined, that America was peopled from Wales …
Samuel Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language, 1755.
March 22, 2010 at 4:43 pm |
Jeb: Yeah, there is a clear cohesiveness between a particular kind of English Enlightenment empiricism (Hume, Johnson, etc…) and what I meant by “philosophical anthropology”, though the latter transcends that era. Love the reference here that blends ethology, etymology, history, etc…A kind of doxagraphical form of thinking with classical roots (Pliny the Elder and all manner of ancient “natural history”). It’s a mode difficult for moderns to fully empathize with because of our tendency to reductionism and specialization.
Your interest in chorography is seminal in this respect, I think.
March 23, 2010 at 6:58 pm |
I think I am just interested in how the concept of humanity — its customs, habits and dispositions — are understood between the 6th and 18th c. in Europe and why things were consumed in the way they were, or perhaps still are to some degree.
I was thinking more of Hume’s comments on morality and the impossibility of objectivity in such subjects, he viewed the study of customs and manners as a way of overcoming such difficulties if I remember correctly.
I just prefer to develop my own methodology and philosophy working with source rather than getting distracted by modern secondary readings at the moment.
The cite was ripped off Ferdinand von Richthofen’s (the Red Baron’s uncle) book The Comstock Lode: Its Character, and the Probable Mode of Its Continuance in Depth.
Rather nice title, thought you would like it. He had an interest in chorography and chorology. John Dee had a taste for Welsh sounding penguins and a number of other related subjects.
March 23, 2010 at 8:30 pm |
Why you say here about Hume is essentially what I was getting at. And I definitely agree that with a project of this nature, it’s best not to get bogged down in the morass of modern theory.
Loved that quote, and the title of the book you found it in.
Good luck once again with the project. Re: Dee…Now you’ve got me thinking about Welsh penguins and oracular angels in equal measure…
March 24, 2010 at 8:16 am |
Penguins and angels are very much a part of the chain. Throw in some radical Protestant republicans and you have a secret commonwealth of such beings and a myth that can found an empire with the potential for a new vision of philosophy that will allow for communication over vast distances, with the optical skills of such angelic beings.
Such were the hopes of some late 17th c. thinkers.
March 24, 2010 at 1:35 pm |
Jeb: Guess there’s little to add to this Novus Ordo Seclorum of flightless birds. ;)
March 24, 2010 at 3:20 pm |
A nice image to end on. Reminds me of the old decayed days when heraldry was a branch of philosophy. Time to move to the south of France and paint cats heads white and sell the impressions as miniature histories of the world divorced from all contemporary concerns.