if everything changes continuously, then it is never possible to know
/
what we are talking about, because one second later it has changed its meaning. — Angelo Cannata
In itself, language says nothing but nonsense. Meaning is primarily conventional, except for what little is natural (like imitative sounds) or comes from transcendent sources (as recollection). But once there is established meaning it is as fixed as their related Forms are. — magritte
how can we realize that it is established, since our mind is part of all the things that are subject to change? — Angelo Cannata
Then you referred to an established meaning: how can we realize that it is established, since our mind is part of all the things that are subject to change? — Angelo Cannata
I think we need to be always careful in proclaming the end of things such as philosophy, literature, art, cinema, that I have seen proclaimed in several contexts: we should, more humbly, talk, if anything, of end of one kind of of philosophy, not of philosophy as such. It is the end of philosophy meant as domain over concepts, things, but actually, surreptiously, domain over people. In this context, the choice to teach literature, be interested in poetry, or in politics, can considered a symptom of need for a new way of meaning philosophy. The way Kierkegaard talks about time or eternal present is not a metaphysical way, is not a language organized in a dominating way; he talks in an existentialist way.It is here we have reached the end of philosophy — Constance
Rorty simply gave up and started teaching Literature. He knew Derrida and Heidegger very well, and, I suppose was inspired by Heidegger's privileging of poetry and its special power to ironize the world and thereby make new meanings, determined the answers to such questions were "made not discovered". — Constance
He also misread Heidegger’s notion. of transcendence as the use
of skyhooks.
— Joshs
Not familiar. Where does that observation come from? — Jackson
From “Heidegger, Contingency, and Pragmatism
“There is no validating reality behind our narrative; Being and interpretive narrative arise together. Therefore, Rorty appropriates for pragmatism only Heidegger’s sense of contingency and the transitory condition of human life, along with the ability to radically redescribe Western culture. He sets aside Heidegger’s nostalgia for an authentic world-view that says something neutral about the structure of all present and possible world-views. By doing so, Rorty aligns himself more with John Dewey’s brand of anti-essentialism and anti-foundationalism than with Heidegger’s project.”( Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) — Joshs
I think Heidegger's notion of the being of beings is meaningless. Some philosophers think Heidegger himself realized that the ambition of fundamental ontology cannot be realized. So he dropped the idea from Being and Time in his later writings. — Jackson
In my view, Derrida's eventual solution to the problem of how to avoid the Heideggerian "we," and, more generally, avoid the trap into which Heidegger fell by attempting to affiliate with or incarnate something larger than himself, consists in what Gasch6 refers to disdainfully as "wild and private lucubrations."lo The later Derrida privatizes his philosophical thinking, and thereby breaks down the tension between ironism and theorizing. He simply drops theory - the attempt to see his predecessors steadily and whole - in favor of fantasizing about those predecessors, playing with them, giving free rein to the trains of associations they produce. There is no moral to these fantasies, nor any public (pedagogic or politicat) use to be made of them;” Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity) — Joshs
My point is that Rorty is impugning to Derrida something that Rorty thinks we should do instead of philosophy, but this ‘private fantasizing and free-associating’ is not what Derrida is doing. — Joshs
Derrida is a sceptic. So a lot of his arguments are about the impossibility of knowledge. — Jackson
If meaning is conventional, it means that what you wrote has a conventional, which means an agreed meaning in your perception. If you perceive that your words have an agreed meaning, how can you say at the same time that language says nothing but nonsense? Does what you wrote have an agreed meaning or is it nonsense? — Angelo Cannata
Then you referred to an established meaning: how can we realize that it is established, since our mind is part of all the things that are subject to change? — Angelo Cannata
In this context philosophy ceases to be the place where people look for conclusions, answers, solutions, formulas, that is all stuff to exercise domain, and becomes instead perspective to work, do research, open dialogue, plan comparisons, explore horizons. When we realize this, we can see that philosophy is far from beind ended, there is lot to do and to work on, and it doesn’t need to retrieve any disguised metaphysics or masked realism to gain reputation or to keep afloat. — Angelo Cannata
as if literary movements didn’t already share in the metaphysics embraced by philosophical eras. — Joshs
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