Tamayo wrote:
[insert dictionary definitions here]
You're using a very specific interpretation of a very particular sub-meaning of the word "dualism" to make your case. Not a good idea. I'm only iterating what the generally-accepted philosophical conceptions of these terms are. In general, Descartes is considered a daulist whereas Plato is considered a monist.
Quote:
Zarathustra wrote:
However, I will say that, in general, Existentialism rocks the casbah.
I repeat: it is a fallacy (yes, in the logical sense -- I really
do mean "a paralogism") to presume that every event has a motive. Remind me never to move to the Casbah; the earthquakes there tend to kill tens of thousands of people.
If by "every event has a motive" you mean "humans are ultimately responsible for all of their actions", then can you please define responsibility, and define action? Understanding what actions we're responsible for really cuts to the very heart of understanding what makes us "us" (rather than "them" or "it" - i.e. the outside).
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Zarathustra wrote:
Derrida is NOT A FUCKING NIHILIST, and I'm tired of people saying that he is.
Does that mean he's a nihilist who doesn't fuck, then?
Jacques Derrida, in an interview wrote:
Q: What's the most widely held misconception about you and your work?
A: That I'm a skeptical nihilist who doesn't believe in anything, who thinks nothing has meaning, and text has no meaning. That's stupid and utterly wrong, and only people who haven't read me say this. It's a misreading of my work that began 35 years ago, and it's difficult to destroy. I never said everything is linguistic and we're enclosed in language. In fact, I say the opposite, and the deconstruction of logocentrism was conceived to dismantle precisely this philosophy for which everything is language. Anyone who reads my work with attention understands that I insist on affirmation and faith, and that I'm full of respect for the texts I read.
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Zarathustra wrote:
Derrida has spent his entire life defending himself against people with no knowledge of literature or philosophy who just think of himself as "that crazy deconstructionist" and know only the most rough cartoonish caricature of his philosophy.
And people who
do know something about literature and philosophy, too.
Okay, perhaps what I had originally said came out wrong. I didn't necessarily mean people who know nothing about literature and philosophy in general. I meant people who know little about literature and philosophy related to the very specific social and philosophical context in which Derrida is writing, the particular discourses Derrida is participating in, etc.
There are people who have an extensive knowledge of Derrida's philosophy who disagree with him, but those people tend to have objections somewhat more complex than that "he's a disrespectful nihilist who doesn't believe in anything, thinks that we can interpret a text any which way we please (however ludicrous), and seeks to destroy our most cherished literary and cultural institutions". This is because he is
not a disrespectful nihilist who doesn't believe in anything, etc. His philosophy is very subtle, and unless one has read extensive expositions of it, or better yet, gone to the primary source and read Derrida himself, it's like objecting to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem "because it says that we can't know anything".
Zarathustra wrote:
Get down off your high horse, pal.
Look, you are a mathematician, it seems; I respect this. I am not going to challenge you in matters of mathematics. I haven't taken any math beyond Calculus I, and so I don't presume to know what I'm talking about if the subject of, say, hyperdimensional geometry comes up. I can explain the rudiments of it, but I'm certainly not going to form a judgment on whether one particular theorem is right or wrong with the limited knowledge I have.
I'm not denying that you may be well-read in philosophy - you know the names of Descartes, Sartre, Foucault, etc. so you obviously have a much better understanding of the history of philosophy than the average joe. However, philosophy is basically my specialty. Admittedly, I don't have a degree or anything to show for this (yet). All I can say is I have a burning interest in it, have taken many college courses on it already, and have read extensively on the subject. And the account you gave of the development of and ideas associated with Continental philosophy is inaccurate in many respects. Please give me the courtesy that I would give you in a mathematical discussion.
I may be wrong, of course; you may be as well-versed in this as I. However, considering that you display an understanding of Continental philosophy that is at the level one would expect from someone who is intelligent, well-read, but not a specialist in Continental theory nor studying to be a specialist (as I am), I assume this is the case.
Again, I really don't want to sound to patronizing, arrogant, or offensive. The last thing we need is a flame war over something as stupid as this. I respect anyone who displays the level of knowledge you do on these subjects. I'm just saying that your understanding of this subject is incomplete and flawed, while my understanding of it is... slightly less so.