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Sapientia

13th September, 2004. 6:27 pm. Progress? Moi?

Well it certainly appears as if there could be a little of this somewhat scare aspect of my PhD work thus far.

Instigated a new regime whereby I actually do some work every day and don't faff around looking for things to distract my attention (well not much anyway). Regime seems to invovle (mainly) setting myself a series of (vastly unrealistic) targets at the beginning of the week, just to depress myself with the lack of progress by the end of it - hurrah!

Got a Supervisory Board coming up in November so I need to begin writing for that fairly soon, although at the moment I'm concentrating on making detailed notes on the main literature I'm using for my first chapter. I should be able to get a reasonable draft of this put together by the middle of October, which, after some feedback from the supervisor, should be fine to submit - there's nothing like swamping the board with far too many pages to encourage them to ask you as few questions as possible!

Currently Reading:
Focused attention on PI Sec. 185-242; focused attention on PoP Ch 1.3; Also reading a new volume by MP, a transcription of a series of radio broadcasts he did in the late 50's entitled "The World of Perception". Nice and concise view of the major aspects of MP's major theses. Also reading Marcus Aurelius' 'Meditations' - but that's just for fun (apparently!).

Currently thinking about:
Mainly attempting to work through the details of the first chapter, the exact points of comparison I want to make between the two thinkers and how these similarities feed into the wider discussion of the efficacy of philosophical theses when it comes to addressing such problems.

Currently Writing:
Detailed notes on reading with detailed accompanying comments relating to other aspects of the 1st Chap. Also starting to sketch the outline of my first chapter.

Current mood: hopeful.

9th August, 2004. 10:33 am. Long time no post

Well as it will be obvious to anyone looking at the date discrepency between this post and my last, I haven't been here in a while. No particular excuse, just not really been moved to utilise this 'blog for a while.

Hopefully this post will mark a new start and from here onwards there will be a lot more posting going on.

Having just been away on holiday I have an attitude equally divided between lethargy and a desire to get on with my first chapter so that by the end of September it is more or less complete. Will have my next supervisory board in December so that's going to be D-Day and I have to work progressively towards that time.

Currently reading:
Kenny's book on Wittgenstein; PI; BB; PoP.

Currently thinking about:
How to integrate the first chapter into the thesis as a whole - the production of an argument that fits into the overall argument of the thesis. At the moment the main questions revolve around the progression from the analysis of rule-following in both Witt and MP to a discussion of how this contributes towards both thinkers' positions on philosophy as a whole, and moreover, their positions on philosophical theses. The progression of the thesis (if chap 1 is to be split into two, which seems likely at the moment) will be from a narrow-ish set of discussions about rule-following and what they mean for philosophy, to a wider discussion of language and how to conception of language held by both Witt and MP leads towards an understanding of philosophy wherein it makes no real difference whether one produces philosophical theses or not.

Currently writing:
Drafts of sections of the first chapter on rule-following, language and philosophy.

Incidentally
PI = Philosophical Investigations
BB = Blue and Brown Books
PoP = Phenomenology of Perception

20th October, 2003. 6:14 pm. RPWG - 2nd Meeting

This week the theme was 'Ethics and Terrorism'

Read articles from Zizek, Habermas, Derrida, Ranciére as well as the RPWG's interview with Badiou.

All tended to emphasise the change in status of terrorism post-9/11. Included some discussion on the nature of the perceived immediacy of threat and the disturbing discourses this seemed to legitimate (in Zizek's case the worry was over the opening up of a discourse on torture under some kind of pragmatic-utilitarian justification).

Two things confused me:

1) What is the status of 9/11? Why has it gained this status? There is obviously something in it over and above the magnitude of casualties inflicted, there are other cases, in recent history, where just as many, if not more, people have died but without achieving the same level of world-wide attention, or ensuing action. There seems also to be something in the symbolism of the buildings targeted, the twin towers of the WTC and the Pentagon. Both have obvious symbolic status beyond the fact that they contained westerners or US citizens.

There seem to be something problematic here from the point of view of someone attempting to account for the events of 9/11 as a 'terrorist' act, this event seems not to fit into the structure of what might be called 'normal' terrorist activities. In the meeting this was often brought out by highlighting the absence of any liberational aspect to Al-Qaeda's actions, the absence of an underlying rationality based on emancipation or liberation. Here the most frequent comparison was with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but one might also bring the Irish situation to the table here, specifically as an example of something approaching resolution, where the terrorist figureheads so demonised by the British government (Jerry Adams et al) are now in the situation of being legitimised, elevated to the status of politicians with a right of representation.

Habermas makes the point that "today" he can think of no retrospective analysis of 9/11 that could narrate a transition of the prominent figures of Al-Qaeda into similar positions. For one, they do not seem (although mention was made of the fact that their official mandate is the removal of the current Saudi regime) to have the hallmarks of liberational terrorists, in the first place they have 'broken' the first rule of liberational terrorism, they have left their home soil. (A Badiouian analysis of the lack of locality in their actions might be pertinent here). Secondly they have not done anything post-9/11 that would lead anyone to believe that the attacks could EVER be construed as emancipatory in the sense of wanting to free themselves from a territorial tyranny. All the dialogue on their side has been anti-US, anti-western and so on. But one could perhaps argue that this is as much their choice as it is the choice of the US administration to turn the act into an anti-western one in the first place - the immediate reaction was to broaden the 'risk' of further attack as widely as possible so that none could deny that now, we are all under attack (at least potentially). This has had the effect of making it an anti-western attack whether it was or not (although it seems clear that this is exactly what it was intended to be perceived as).

This Habermasian point about not being able to conceive of a time when a justifiable narrative could tell the story of how 9/11 came about is somewhat moot however. Habermas himself points out that these events only become comprehensible when they are in the past, and it seems pretty clear that 9/11 is still very much in the present - we still see the images of the two planes smashing into the towers on a weekly basis. Secondly he seems to admit that there is always some kind of regime change accompanying liberational terrorist factions resolving themselves in achievement in their aims, and that this is a major part of such narrative structures. BUT if the point is that neither Al-Qaeda, nor the west want to be seen (or to paint them) as liberational terrorists then why should we ever expect the production of such a narrative? Wouldn't a justifying narrative of the kind Habermas talks about in connection with emancipatory terrorism be wholly inappropriate at any time precisely because it would give to Al-Qaeda a certain position of acceptability that (a) they seem not to want, and (b) would elevate their act on 9/11 to a level that would be morally repugnant?

The result of all this seems to be that calling 9/11 an act of terrorism needs to be either rejected as giving them too much legitimacy (treating them as if the act fits into the pre-existing schema for terrorism) or, extremely and explicitly nuanced so as to point out that, if this is to be called terrorism, it must be a new understanding of that word, in the same way that 'war' must be re-asserted, or reseated if it is to be used in its now common context 'war on terror'.

2) What could be an ETHICAL response to 9/11? We have already seen various POLITICAL responses, but how could we respond ethically to this event?

This again is something that was not cleared up on the day (shock horror, it is a defining issue after all!). And how can you frame an ethical response to the political response (i.e. what would a well thought out (i.e. non-reactionary) response to the war in Iraq look like? Again a far more nuanced approach needs to be undertaken. The problem with the anti-war protests leading up to the war was that, huge support aside, there was no real thought involved in the Left's assertion that the war was wrong. It looked to many non-sympathisers like typical posturing without any accompanying rationale that could comprehensively force the 'hawks' to RESPOND to the 'doves' except in the ways that became mantra-like ("Iraq HAS weapons of mass-destruction, it harbours terrorists, it is an horrific regime..."). Whilst the left was shouting "No blood for oil", the right could simply feign deafness because the cries were not based on anything they HAD to respond to, denial and repetition of their war-mantra was sufficient.

***

As an aside I have flu at the moment. What fun it is. Therefore forgive me if the above makes little or no sense (because me not having the flu would make SUCH a difference ;o)

Read 3 Notes -Make Notes

19th October, 2003. 3:08 pm. Radical Politics Working Group

Something else I'm involved with that will get mentioned from time to time.

A group of inter-disciplinary graduate students with a common aim: to think otherwise.

More on this later. Suffice to say, lots of reading to do for tomorrow's meeting, also will be writing a paper on ethics and politics to present in about 3 weeks (!).

ALL GOOD FUN!

Make Notes

19th October, 2003. 3:08 pm. Badiou: "Manifesto for philosophy"

Got through the first chapter of this now, looks to be extremely interesting and pertinent to my project in a good way.

Actually provides a positive 'role' for philosophy, not sure yet why it feels quite Wittgensteinian in nature, something to do with the interventional nature it adopts I guess. Something about revealing the truth procedures in an event strikes me as analogic to Witt's interlocutional style in the PI. At least there's a parallel in that Badiou, like Witt, sees philosophy's role as dealing with situations, dealing with the revelation of truth procedures rather than their creation.

Compare Wittgenstein's comments in PI about theories in philosophy being redundant because they would "just be true" (here I take Witt to mean by "true" what Badiou means by 'veridical') with Badiou's claim that Philosophy does not create truths, but rather assist in the creation of a 'mode of access' "to the unity of a moment of truths, a conceptual site in which the generic procedures are thought of as compossible" (MfP 37).

Obviously Badiou's mentions of other philosophers in this work (incl. Witt) are mainly negative in nature. But it is often the way with philosophy - progress through (wilful) misreading. We all have this urge to define ourselves against the accepted, against the 'proven' (if that's the right word).

I think there's room for a Badiou-ian Wittgenstein-ian project, one that reminds us, as philosophers, to assist in the creation of the space necessary to reveal the truth created in the event, rather than to try and 'create by subsumption', or advancement of theory, philosophical truths. Witt and Badiou would both agree that philosophy's task is not of this nature, and that it says nothing at all if it believes it is advancing theory or creating truth (if theory here is seen as the creation of some kind of new rationality). Philosophy lacks events in this way, but what it lacks here, it makes up for in being able to assist in the uncovering of the penetrating eventful truths that might otherwise not appear.

Make Notes

19th October, 2003. 2:47 pm. First post

None other than the creation of my first post in my first blog.


I intend this blog to be a collecting point for my somewhat divers and random thoughts revolving around my Doctoral Thesis - doubtless other detritus will end up in here as well but hopefully it'll stay focused.


As a result if you're reading this and you're not me, you may find this all rather dull and obscure, in fact even if you are me you may find it to be like this as well!


Ah well, hopefully at least I will find this useful...



Current mood: hopeful.

Make Notes