10 Years After

Nihilist Assault Group

I don't consider myself a brainiac. Sure, I like to read and discuss ideas. But that doesn't mean that I can pick up any ol' esoteric metaphysics text and race through it in one reading. Not, mind you, that I don't enjoy reading esoteric metaphysical texts.

However, my Literary Criticism class is kicking my ass. I am so far behind in what we are suppose to be reading. It started with the New Critics. Reading the primary sources from the Norton Anthology seemed like an excercise in futility. Actually, it is reminding me of trying to make sense of the tracts of Eric Voegelin that Rhydon loaned me. (That is to say, damn difficult.)

I skipped reading the Reader Response critics and, now, am behind in reading the deconstructionists. I pay attention in class and take careful notes. In fact, I think I come away as clear of an understanding as anyone else in class, including those that claim to have read the texts. I don't say this as a boast; I'm ashamed I haven't been doing the readings. What I should do is go back and read the pieces after we discuss them in class.

Today we discussed Jacques Derrida's Dissemination/Plato's Phrarmacy and a passage from Of Grammatology. I'm not a fan of the linguistic idea that words have infinite meanings. I appreciate that meanings change, but these are finite. Derrida seems to attack the Platonic idea of Ideal Forms. That is, that there is an abstract ideal horse that, when we see or talk abot horses, we all reference. That ideal horse is the essence of what we think of as horse-ness.

One student commented that he didn't understand what Derrida kept going on about because he never even thought of co-presence (that different people would reference the same ideal form). The instructor said that he must be living a life outside of traditional western Philosophy. At the end of class the instructor asked us what we thought of Derrida. That student commented that Derrida's argument seemed overdone since no one uses ideal forms.

I think he might have a point. Certainly when someone says "tree" to a group of people they don't all see the same type of tree. Though one might agrue that even this mental picturing isn't capable of displaying the ideal form, but draws on it to create the mental image.

Also, it seems that some perception of Ideal Forms is being employeed in the sciences. We use them to distinguish things into groups. What makes a terrier a dog? Is it its closeness to the ideal form of a dog? It seems that the Linnean classification system uses something akin to ideal forms. Maybe cladistics is even more akin to Ideal Forms since it has to do with classification based on evolutionary lines.

Anyways, I should go back and read several of these now that I have a better understanding of what they are getting at. Especially since it seems it won't be possible for me to take the Philosophy of Language class.