Awww. Stop this nonsense already. I took Derrida for one semester. I used Miller because he provided an authoritative explanation for what I needed. Streetlight is not happy with that. I asked him to explain what deconstruction is. What he wrote was blarbled confused paragraph which did not clarify what deconstruction is.

My wanting him banned as a moderator is because he couldn't provide clear explanation of what he claims to know -- twice! He is a moderator after all.
Jackson's request is reasonable. Streetlight asked for a quote, I provided one that's written by Miller.

When Jackson asked for support of Streetlight's knowledge of deconstruction, this is what Streetlight said. Seriously? A simple request and his answer is this.

What proof can you provide that you are worth one moment of my effort? — Streetlight

BTW, you yourself cannot even provide an explanation

Again, let Streetlight provide an answer to a reasonable request.

I say that's skepticism based on my thoughts of what skepticism is. I don't care whether he claims he's a skeptic. His criticism is a form of skepticism. — L'éléphant

I have been describing skepticism in terms of the impossibility of transcending the rift between our representations of truth and meaning , and the world itself. Is that your notion of skepticism?

I have been describing skepticism in terms of the impossibility of transcending the rift between our representations of truth and meaning , and the world itself. — Joshs

The very idea of the rift is skepticism.

The very idea of the rift is skepticism. — Jackson

I agree

I took Derrida for one semester. — L'éléphant

Like I said: go read some more Derrida.

I used Miller because he provided an authoritative explanation for what I needed. — L'éléphant

I disagree with Miller’s account of deconstruction. His definition is one that has been used within literary theory, but their understanding of deconstruction differs from Derrida’s. For one thing, there is never just one “alogical” element in a structure, as if the structure is unified outside or apart from this one element. A structure is a system of differences in which no part has a ‘logical’ relation to any other part. This does not mean that these relations are alogical either. They are neither one nor the other, but both at the same time. We don’t first have structures and then their unraveling. The unraveling is one with their formation , always one element at a time.

My wanting him banned as a moderator — L'éléphant

According to his profile and my experience Streetlight hasn't been a moderator for some time now.

My wanting him banned as a moderator — L'éléphant

The staff page corroborates my comment above:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/profile/members/staff

BTW, you yourself cannot even provide an explanation — L'éléphant

Not sure of what but you're likely right if it has to do with Derrida. I've only read three or four of his books.

I disagree with Miller’s account of deconstruction. — Joshs

No contest with your disagreement with Miller's explanation.

I have been describing skepticism in terms of the impossibility of transcending the rift between our representations of truth and meaning , and the world itself. Is that your notion of skepticism? — Joshs

Yes, and this requires more explanation, of course. When deconstruction claims that we really do not have grounds upon which the truth of our literary writings rest, this is the stuff that skepticism is made of. There's more, but I've been overposting here already. :joke: :

Note: grounds here means external foundation upon which truth is based on.

Here’s my collection of Derrida quotes about Sartre. They’re all nasty. — Joshs

That's the attitude I remember. Personally I think Derrida is a more consistently powerful thinker, but Sartre has powerful moments, and not only in Nausea. Being and Nothingness is amazing at times.

It's hard not to see some relationship between the impossible project of being God and the pursuit of some pure and original plenitude. Being here, presence there. If philosophy ever gets its own Harold Bloom, the Derrida-Sartre anxiety might feature with the Heidegger-Nietzsche version. Bloom makes the point that the strong point isn't like most people. He's far more terrified of death. Hence the need to build A pyramid.

According to his profile and my experience Streetlight hasn't been a moderator for some time now. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Good. I didn't notice.

Yes, and this requires more explanation, of course. When deconstruction claims that we really do not have grounds upon which the truth of our literary writings rest, this is the stuff that skepticism is made of. There's more, but I've been overposting here already. :joke: :

Note: grounds here means external foundation upon which truth is based on — L'éléphant

But deconstruction doesn’t need external grounds. When one assumes such ‘externality’, one is already courting skepticism. Deconstruction doesn’t do away with grounds , it takes what has preciously been assumed as ‘external’ and makes it internal to a structure. Put differently , what grounds any element of meaning is memory , history , a formal basis from which I intend to mean something. But the catch here is that in intending to mean what I mean , I alter that history , memory , form. So each element of meaning rests on a ground that it alters , and both of these features take place at the same time( form and content , memory and change. It is not the case that this constitutes lack of a ground, and therefore a skepticism. Deconstruction reveals an extraordinarily intricate order to the flow of meaningful expereince. It reveals ongoing patterns and thematics, and how they are created and persist by continuing to be the same differently. The kinds of things one expects from skepticism: chance, randomness, arbitrariness , meaninglessness, are utterly missing from deconstruction.

But deconstruction doesn’t need external grounds. — Joshs

Wrong way to put it. Deconstruction demonstrates there is no external source of the truth of our claims, rather

what grounds any element of meaning is memory , history , a formal basis from which I intend to mean something. But the catch here is that in intending to mean what I mean , I alter that history , memory , form. So each element of meaning rests on a ground that it alters , and both of these features take place at the same time( form and content , memory and change. — Joshs

Do you see why I charge skepticism? Our traditional belief is that what we write as history, for example, is based on some objective measure of truth. But deconstruction critic says that there is no objective, external support.

the bells ring for no reason and we too
we will rejoice in the clank of chains
that we will sound within us with the bells — ZzzoneiroCosm

Excellent quote. I've only seen and loved the manifestoes. I've had good luck with artists. Like Ad Reinhart say (kwotes below.)
//////
Only a bad artist thinks he has a good idea. A good artist does not need anything.

The one object of fifty years of abstract art is to present art-as-art and as nothing else, to make it into the one thing it is only, separating and defining it more and more, making it purer and emptier, more absolute and more exclusive - non-objective, non-representational, non-figurative, non-imagist, non-expressionist, non-subjective. the only and one way to say what abstract art or art-as-art is, is to say what it is not.

My painting represents the victory of the forces of darkness and peace over the powers of light and evil.

Art is too serious to be taken seriously.

Question: Do we have to read Derrida as a Paltonist to make sense of his decidedly anti-Platonist agenda?

Excellent quote. — igjugarjuk

If you like that one, Approximate Man would be your cup of tea. A hundred-plus pages of more or less sustained lucid illumination.

The one object of fifty years of abstract art is to present art-as-art and as nothing else, to make it into the one thing it is only, separating and defining it more and more, making it purer....more absolute and more exclusive - non-objective, non-representational... — igjugarjuk

Lyricless music was always that. I prefer the weirdly-representational to the non-.

I wonder if there's a secret koanic intent in perfectly non-representational art.

Deconstruction demonstrates there is no external source of the truth of our claims, rather — L'éléphant

Citation please.

deconstruction critic says that there is no objective, external support. — L'éléphant

Citation please.

non-imagist, non-expressionist, non-subjective. — igjugarjuk

I don't quite get non-expressionist or non-subjective. Can a movement be alembicated to sterility?

See Miller quote.

Also, I'd like to ask for you also to provide citation for your explanation of deconstruction. I'm not picky, just provide some published source. Thanks.

Question: Do we have to read Derrida as a Paltonist to make sense of his decidedly anti-Platonist agenda? — Agent Smith

Hah! Good point.

See Miller quote. — L'éléphant

Deconstruction as a mode of interpretation works by a careful and circumspect entering of each textual labyrinth. The [deconstruction] critic feels his way from figure to figure, from concept to concept, from mythical motif to mythical motif, in a repetition which is in no sense a parody. It employs nevertheless, the subversive power present in even the most exact and ironical doubling. The deconstructive critic seeks to find, by this process of retracing, the element in the system studied which is alogical, the thread in the text in question which will unravel it all, or the loose stone which will pull down the whole building.

The deconstruction, rather, annihilates the ground on which the building stands by showing that the text has already annihilated that ground, knowingly and unknowingly. Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of the text but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently solid ground is no rock but thin air.

The uncanny moment in Derrida’s criticism, the vacant place around which all his work is organized, is the formulation of this non-existence of the ground out of which the whole textual structure seems to rise… — Miller

Where does this quote speak of external sources of truth, or their lackthereof?

Why do you continue to make things up?

Are you a skeptic?

Hah! Good point. — L'éléphant

Danke!

You're an idiot. And I'm done talking to you.

I'm sorry that you continue being unable to substantiate your claims which are otherwise baseless.

Claims which I will continue to ask you to substantiate if you continue to make them, regardless of weather you feel like talking to me or not.

You're an idiot. — L'éléphant

:snicker:

[Derrida] sketches/develops the concept of this ur-language (or deep structure) and gives it, for complicated rhetorical reasons, the confusing name 'writing' (and lots of other names.) — igjugarjuk

That sounds too rhetorical or poetic for my practical taste. I attach much importance to conceptual clarity. A good workman keeps a neat set of tools, and a philosopher's tool are his concepts.

— Cratylus

There are better philosophical tools to critique ideas/written texts -- we don't need to use deconstruction. — L'éléphant

:up: