I agree that Hegel is a concrete thinker, tho -- just fyi

Ahhhhh... OK.

I'll admit that this critique is a bit beyond me. I just think your critique is of a higher level than the original article -- the original article felt like the normal sorts of things I hear when people say Derrida is bad. And maybe that works for some, but for me it didn't.

That being said -- if you feel you can say more on the topic, I'm all ears. Or if not, no worries. I'm only stating what I'm interested in, not assigning homework assignments :)

Saussure is the guy I read, at least his course in general linguistics. Just for background.

Would you disagree with Derrida's desire to try to move outside of a Hegelian dialectic? Now that I'm thinking about that expression, maybe it'd be better to say outside of a Kantian antinomy... I do get the sense that Derrida feels trapped, and is trying to escape that trap. Do you think that's unfair?

OK, this gets close to our disagreement on Derrida. But it's a good expression, I think, because what I've said would put him squarely against Kant -- he has a method which goes outside of these considerations, (and if I'm right about play) if one chooses.

I think he's trying to actually move outside of Kant's categories, but knows that in so speaking he would already set up an opposition which would create a Hegelian sort of dialectic...

Skeptics posit a totality which cannot be had — Jackson

Now I have been loosy goosy in my thinking, so please forgive me for this specificity. I only focus on it because this is what I'd agree to, and agree that Derrida is a skeptic in this vein. I'm not sure, though, about "the real object cannot be conceived" only because "the real object" does not seem to be a totality to me, unless "the real object" is understood in a general sense of descriptions for all objects.

I know that's a little dumb sounding, so I'll stop there to see if we're even close to communicating yet :)

Or, tradition? Naw, that's not right. There are more than one traditions which he is targeting... but a mode of philosophy, maybe.

Heh, I haven't read that one. Maybe I will some day later. I'm always looking for references.

I think skeptic is a good epithet; with respect to scientific knowledge and such I think he really is a skeptic. But, one, I don't see that as a bad thing. And two, I think his skepticism is confined to a tradition. I don't think he's a universal skeptic.

I could never get the hang of deconstruction, I just felt like I could not infer some place to go from what I read: oftentimes I couldn't follow a particular passage of Derrida, or a particular line of thought. It's super dense stuff. But I can give an interpretation of it, just to get at the central question in the title "What Was Deconstruction?"

What I could gather from it though: Heidegger's distinction between the present-at-hand/ready-to-hand is the main distinction that makes sense of Derrida for me. Whereas Heidegger does this phenomenological analysis of language and draws out that the history of metaphysics has, up to him, focused on the present-at-hand at the neglect of the phenomenologically accessible ready-to-hand. -- Derrida instead seems to believe that all philosophy, up to Husserl at least, has been structured by a super-transcendental binary: one that cannot even be named, but which receives many names depending on the philosophy. So you get, in philosophy, these oppositions between presence/absence, material/ideal, good/bad, man/woman, and so forth. (To be fair to Derrida, such oppositions really are quite common)

Deconstruction is supposed to be the method by which we discover this super-transcendental, and perhaps, get to something real and lived, what is between the binary -- the binary is needed, of course, because it makes sense, but upon deconstructing the binary one comes to see what might be "left over". (granted, this is a metaphorical expression of deconstruction -- whether the method works in a particular text is up to the reader/writer, if I'm following correctly)

But also -- the habit, tendency, or solution of the philosophers to make a binary -- that is also in question I believe. However, being the "serious minded" type myself, I think I missed how he did it. Which is why I've talked about play thus far -- it was something that really just occurred to me as I was thinking about these posts.

Yeah, that's my impression, for the most part. Analytic philosophy is more popular in US phil.

I wouldn't be the one to ask, cuz I'm not really in institutional philosophy. I just like to read books.

Oh, yeah, definitely not scientific in the modern sense -- so I take your point about the distinction being unclear or poorly named. I mean much more broadly speaking. And I'm open to other words for the distinction, for sure, rather than scientific/literary -- mostly just trying to draw a distinction here to get the ball rolling here so it's not just us going back and forth with a yes/no type thing :D

And pedantry is fine by me, too. It is philosophy after all!

And naturally the distinction isn't so neat. They rarely are if you try to pin them down -- let's try to treat this as a rough-shod, for-this-conversation type distinction. It's enough for me to admit that there are different styles of reading and writing, because that'd be enough for me to suggest that Derrida could be read differently.

Architectonic is a good contrast word, too. Especially with respect to Derrida! Architecture being one of the common operating metaphors in philosophy.

But again, I'm putting forward categories here to be able to say how the original article's author could get more out of Derrida if they read it differently. Perhaps these examples aren't good - I'm open to others if the distinction is understood. The examples are just there to make sense of the distinction, between kinds of philosophy, and kinds of reading. And perhaps even the kinds of reading I'm putting forward aren't the best kinds for Derrida - I'm really just suggesting that Timothy could read it differently and get more out of it; and if he did so maybe he'd help us out in obtaining a deeper understanding. But as it is, he's dismissive because he felt dismissed, or so it reads to me.

"scientific" broadly construed, yes -- in the same way I'd classify Aristotle as a scientific philosopher. It deals with arguments dealing with the nature of things, right? He's making an accounting of knowledge, knowledge is the central organizing concept, his analytic/synthetic distinction rests on interpreting mathematics and physical science; that sort of thing.

One way of reading a text is with an eye towards self-consistency or refutation. I'd like to call this the "hard-nosed" approach -- reading it as one who disagreed with the text would read it. And I think that a hard-nosed reading of Derrida makes it easy to pass over him, just on the basis of my own experience with Derrida as that's how it felt when I first encountered him. It seemed kind of flat, as if the stories that the deconstruction was deconstructing would bring more to the text than was there, so it didn't read as very convincing.

Another way, which I'll term "soft", attempts to tease out what an author was getting at. It reads it more like someone who wants to believe, but also cares about what the believes say in a wider context -- so a reader looks for reasons to believe as the author writes.

It was in this way that I think I started to get more out of Derrida, and it was the thought I was having after our last exchange on how play is working in Derrida's thought -- like, he is literally playing with the text, it seems, in order to bring out its instability -- or simply to demonstrate the instability as a possibility.

I'll say the part that I've always had a hard time with is going from manuscript to secondary literature -- I could make sense of the secondary literature, and I can make sense of parts of the Derridean arguments, but oftentimes I'd feel a little lost in the gap between. (actually, one of the reasons for my interest still -- I'm not actively studying him right now, but I'm always collecting references and thoughts, just because I like to think about this stuff)

Even more reason to think he misread :P :D

Or, more circumspectly, he could get more out of it if he wanted to.

That's cool. It's been awhile since I've studied many of these guys. I'm just talking shop for fun.

Two "ways" which philosophers do philosophy can be broadly construed as scientific or literary. I think if you read a literary philosophy scientifically -- say Keirkegaard's Fear and Trembling -- you'll miss the point, and if you read Critique of Pure Reason literarily you'll also miss the point.

It's in this manner that I mean the article author missed the point -- he wants to criticize Deconstruction not on its terms but in his own way of doing philosophy: where one sets out a thesis and defends it and interlocutors refute it or stay silent as they think on their refutations. Instead he mostly sticks to stories of the people involved, and a hasty generalization of deconstruction that he quickly refutes -- but it's the sort of paragraph one writes for people who are already convinced, no?

At least, I have a hard time connecting what he says to what I've read.

Let's take this interpretation you got here. Fine by me, I'm not here to argue interpretation of Aristotle as much as make a contrast case between what the original article seems to believe about the nature of philosophy. My understanding of Aristotle is false, yours is true.

Can you see, from your interpretation of Aristotle, how he might serve as a contrast case to Derrida's philosophy, which is not "based on observing others and people who seem to be happy", nor did he write a physics with a reflection on said physics in some ultimate sense?

It's an interpretation, not a quote -- it makes sense of his politics, which he bases on human capacities which are biological. He was the great categorizer and sort of one of the originals to treat philosophy in a scientific mode, and was deeply interested in the workings of nature, then based his ethics on human biology (which, for him, was teleological), and his politics on his ethics (as this understanding of human nature is why people are in their respective positions within the city)

He is very much concerned with the essence of things, the truth of propositions, argument, and nature. So it makes sense to place him within the tradition of philosophy which is more in the scientific mode -- interested in true propositions, their justification, nature, the nature of nature, and so forth. I refer to him more because analytic philosophy tends to follow this pattern of doing philosophy -- and the article posted is coming from that position.

To use another method that is better. — Jackson

But only deconstruction is good at deconstruction! :D

That is, this is preference dependent.

It's a gossip piece masquerading as a think piece. — Streetlight

Yeah. But alas, it's the state of things. I still like to think about Derrida so I stuck my head in the conversation :D

See. That's spooky. :D

I was thinking about Deconstruction recently, given the other thread; specifically, I was thinking of our Voice and Phenomenon reading group from a minute ago (and both participants have moved on from these here internet parts it seems, alas). I remember agreeing, however, with a sense of dissatisfaction with it because it was really only through charity that I felt I could grant Derrida's moves. But upon thinking on it it seemed to get along well with what I knew of Derrida? Meaning, Derrida's philosophy isn't the philosophy of Aristotle, where philosophy is a body of true propositions validated by the best scientific methods of the day and then speculated upon. It's playful. Intentionally so! So when I read this part in the article:

As a body of propositions, it was never hard to probe deconstruction’s weaknesses. Texts undid themselves, it claimed, whereas it was really the deconstructive text that did — and intentionally so. Denouncing something so amorphous and pretentious as “Western metaphysics” partook of the same reductions the school wanted to expose in other paradigms. What could be more damning than pointing out that deconstruction, against its own tenets, opposed opposition? This ultimate performative contradiction lay in claiming that semantic plenitude resists interpretation in the very act of writing that stood as proof of an effort to persuade. What its critics overlooked is that deconstruction triumphed in part by giving its readers less to think about. Its weaknesses gave it strength because running and dodging was its professed mode, so that pointing out its contradictions was a little like getting in its groove.

I felt like the guy kinda missed the point.

Now, I didn't have to live with anyone who looked down on me for my lack of knowledge -- I just like to read books. And when I read Derrida, this isn't what I see -- a body of propositions? Deconstruction claims? I gather there's a cadre of obnoxious individuals, from the writer's perspective, surrounding Deconstruction. But I'm not sure I gather why I should "reject" deconstruction... it just seems a bit silly.


What would it mean to reject a method of reading?

The way in which I include Kant with the post-moderns is that he believes there's something sacred which knowledge will destroy. But, simultaneously, he really does believe we know things about the world. And that's his particular riddle to puzzle out -- but the motivation is ultimately ethical. He believes that scientific knowledge, taken as ultimate truth, would destroy sacred things. (EDIT: also, his particular solution -- the denial of knowledge of sacred things as scientific -- fits in with the pomos)

"Post-" as in after invention, not after death.

More thoughts, in the vein of simply asserting a post-modern philosophy...


Regardless of what we might call these periods later, I'd say that fascism will always leave a significant mark on history. Fascism strikes me as utterly alien -- and yet it was humans who were and are fascists. The very species I belong to has this capacity for fascism, to want to absolve oneself in an ethnic state cleansed of the degenerates through the purity of war.

What brought that about? What does it say about the human species, about myself, if we are capable of fascism? Don't the fascists say they are good?

In a post-fascist world, moral authority simply cannot be trusted.

That being said, I think we could forgo the usual suspects, too -- and merely assert what we think a post-modern philosophy is. And then that'd be something! Rather than just vague impressions of several thinkers from histories.

In that vein: While I don't think there's a positive ethical theory, in the sense of a utilitarianism or what-have-you, there are reflections on the possibility of ethics, and one primary anxiety that I see in Derrida is totality or totalization -- with fascism, and French colonialism, being real world examples of totalization. Totality is the pattern of thought at least aligned with fascism -- to see and understand and control. But that pattern is buried deep. So deeply, at least as I understand Derrida, that there is this sort of super-transcendental plenum upon which thought rests -- one pointed out by Heidegger (ironic, isn't it?).

To assert some ethic would be totalizing -- it would tell you who is good and who is bad. And that's the exact thing which fascism does. But in the world we live in, there are no such things. There is no total perspective which finally proclaims This is The Good, and Now we may Bow to The State as The State is us and we are The State.

Though I will say, from my own perspective, I rather liked the old addage that "everything is text" -- for myself, it opens the door to philosophy that isn't written (EDIT: Or, much the same, that writing isn't always in a book). And, as Marx said, philosophers have only managed to interpret the world, when the point is to change it.

Back from work now, but getting hung up on the idea that Benjamin was an influence more than a named suspect so far...

So I'm afraid I keep coming back to the question of postmodernism, as I've been doing throughout, and finding myself back where I started. We can pick someone, but then I'd call them by their name -- and there are various parts that I'd highlight if I'd want to include them, and parts I'd highlight if I didn't want to include them (for instance, Benjamin was a Marxist, and that could very easily be interpreted within the Modernist framework, given that Marx is not post-modern, at least as I see him. Too pro-structures to be counted, really)

Which I suppose, for me, is just to say that the question is ill-formed, because philosophers speak for themselves -- its the historians and scholars after the fact that make these generalizations and categories. And while they can be academically interesting -- I definitely have an interest in the history of philosophy! -- I don't think there is a moral to be derived from the category of post-modernists. Each one of them deals with anti-foundationalism in their own way, it seems to me. There are themes and concerns that tie these people together, but that's from the perspective of the reader and interpreter -- as I've been saying.

But for Derrida -- while his concerns are ethical, I don't think his concerns are specific to any individual choice. I don't think he's laying out a theory of goodness that we should conform to. If anything, I'd say he's trying to get people to question their received morality, that it is likely the result of the same patterns of thought that he sees in the history of philosophy -- that it likely sets up a binary so that one is good and the other is evil, (again, insofar as my understanding goes). But that's not what he says, so that's just an inference of sorts, an impression from what he does say -- he's certainly anti-foundationalist, though, so anyone who believes that foundations are necessary for goodness will of course think he's wrong.

I think it depends on which intellectual community you are involved with — Joshs

I agree. In this case, I'd say the community is TPF -- so not specialized, by necessity, but open to those so specialized and -- at least as far as I'm concerned -- even encouraging people to use their specialization to add to the conversation or engage in the works to help us all learn a little more.

So I think there is certainly a chance that we could reach a semblance of an understanding given our little internet community here.

How would one go about approaching a particular ethical problem through the various potential lenses of postmodern — Tom Storm

Cool. Now, I think, I'm ready to introduce Benjamin, with the understanding of how broadly we're construing post-modernism... will get to it tonight.

I’m aware of Derrida’s quote concerning relativism, but
give me an example of what you see in his work that defies relativism as you understand the term. — Joshs

Relativism, as I understand the term, is a boogeyman of either a cultural or philosophical variety. Almost anything counts as relativism, broadly construed, because knowledge deals in relations. What people mean by "relativism" isn't very specific -- it's usually coupled with some anxiety with respect to objective truth, or scientific truth, or some such.

Such notions, to my mind, are simply not what Derrida is talking about -- hence why I was trying to draw a distinction of postmodernism as a historical category -- where the topic of interest is in drawing inferences about the structure of various philosophers and trying to categorize them, draw out their similarities, and so forth -- from the cultural category.

So, in terms of history, Derrida is a post-modernist -- but this is not a philosophy, but a category of description of the rough place to put him in relation to other thinkers. He is opposed to certain modes of philospohy, by all means -- but all the baggage that comes along with "postmodernism", I think, just serves to confuse. I'd say he really is his own beast, and that's usually how I prefer to look at any philosopher -- to take them on their own terms, and leave that to be different from the act of historicizing philosophy.

But in terms a philosophy, my assertion is there is no such thing. It's more of a boogeyman, politically, or a philosophical antagonist, philosophically -- but a cultural phenomena, rather than a particular philosophy. So I'd say that one could take any of his works and you wouldn't find the cultural or philosophical antagonist that people seem to have in mind.

Or would you disagree there?

OK, this is cool, actually. I thought there needed to be at least a *little* more conceptual work done, and if we include Nietzsche, then in the broadest sense I'd say Kant is the first post-modern philosopher. Or, since this is the historical rather than the cultural category, I think he's a good candidate for understanding the transition from philosophical modernism beginning with Descartes to, if indeed we even are post-modern, whatever philosophy is now.

But it's important to note that this is just history of philosophy, I think. Right? So these aren't movements of thought, unless we are Hegelians, they are stories about thinkers which we tell to. . . well, many reasons. :D But they aren't a philosophy, is all I mean. So, in that sense, I'd say that post-modern philosophy couldn't tell us anything about ethics in a specific sense that you seem to want. There is no morality in the history.

So, if postmodernism is to have some kind of "say" on our moral choices, it must be something besides this historical category -- at least if you agree with the above statements.

I’ve been reading a lot of Deleuze lately. Why do you say he was not a very good man? — Joshs

Hah! Thank you for asking this. I tracked it down, and found out that I thought this because I mixed him up with Guattari, and Guattari's family life always struck me as sort of the worst ever, enough so that appeals from his character, at least, weren't enough for me to sign on with his philosophy. It had to stand on its own.

EDIT: http://www.critical-theory.com/13-deleuze-guattari-part-ii/ was where the belief came from originally though.

The irony in some of this discussion is that one of the upshots of Derrida's critique is that things cannot be reduced to context, and no fine-graining of 'context' would ever serve to explain or justify any phenomenon. This sets him irreducibly apart from any empirical discourse like anthropology, history, law, and so on. And this, insofar as he is committed to resisting the reduction to a skeptical empiricism that would not be able to hold fast to truth in the philosophical sense - or any notion of responsibility, for that matter. Différance disrupts all closure, including "context". — Streetlight

I agree! I think one of the things that drives me bananas is just how Derrida honestly reads like he's not just ethical, but rather it's one of his main impulses in writing -- but he writes about truth and meaning instead. Just reading on the relationship between Derrida and Levinas should convince anyone of that.

Sort of like the Tractatus, actually...

Indeed and I have read The Postmodern Condition which is probably responsible for most of my initial preconceptions, for good or ill. — Tom Storm

What? I mean, that's the one I'm thinking of. And if you've read it then those aren't pre-conceptions. Those are full on thoughts about a book! And that's what is important to me. The text is smarter than us, so it's worthwhile to keep some kind of text on hand or in mind when talking.

But I'd much rather talk about Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition over the vaguely understood "postmodern"

That’s a political analysis of the postmodern. There is a general consensus within continental philosophy concerning what postmodern philosophy stands for. That is , what thinkers like Heidegger, Lyotard, Nietzsche , Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida have in common that distinguishes them from modernist philosophers like Marx. — Joshs

"General consensus"? In philosophy? C'mon...

I think there are histories of philosophy which employ "modernism", and try to make a mark between it and where they are at. Like any philosophical movement there's a sense of unity between diverse thinkers -- and I'd say there was something of a particular zeitgeist in France and they were drawing from similar sources and attempting to do what philosophers do. So my motivation here is one of clarity and specificity more than one of denial -- but I'd say there are a few beliefs that will not remain after gaining clarity, such as Derrida is a relativist, or Lyotard created a post-modern philosophy. Neither of those two things are true, at least as I understand these words.

It's funny you say that - his Wikipedia page says he was a convinced atheist. Maybe the fact that it reads as 'religious' is because the kind of mathematical Platonism he seems to be suggesting goes against the grain of philosophical naturalism. There's a remark in another essay about philosophy of maths that I've read, saying 'Scientists tend to be empiricists; they imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. The idea of something existing “outside of space and time” (i.e. like numbers) makes empiricists nervous: It sounds embarrassingly like the way religious believers talk about God, and God was banished from respectable scientific discourse a long time ago.' — Wayfarer

I'd say that the reason it reads religiously is that it reminds me of the God of the philosophers -- so he may think he was an atheist, but in the essay he admits that these are articles of faith. "Religious", after all, is much wider than a/theism.

Wigner wrote - "The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve" — RussellA

it would be more true to say that the language he uses is deeply metaphorical rather than religious. — RussellA

If you prefer metaphorical, then that's fine. My point remains -- the metaphor works for believers in ultimate truth.

I think, maybe, people mistake description for prescription -- postmodernism is a condition, not a philosophy. Most literally it is after modernism, and so requires one to have an understanding of modernism as something more concrete than just the usual understanding of "modern" as in, the now, popular, hip, and so forth.

I don't mean this to be obtuse -- I know generally who is meant, and generally what people say about the post-moderns. But if postmodernism is to inform our ethical thought, it really is very important to have an understanding of postmodernism, I think.

(part of me was tempted to pull up Walter Benjamin, but I nixed it for now... there's still conceptual work to be done)

Hrrmm... well, one thing, I don't think it's necessarily the job of philosophers to address particular concerns. So if one philosopher wishes to think about the history of thought and what it tells us about the nature of thinking, truth and meaning, and another wishes to apply ethical theories to real problems (like Peter Singer), then we'll get the most out of these philosophers by meeting them on their own terms. Insofar as abortion is concerned, and Derrida, I don't have the confidence or even would know where to begin.

So from that stance I'd say the usual suspects would disappoint -- they won't give you advice on the United States' abortion laws. And if we are to judge from their characters, Deleuze really was not a very good man.

They're kind of esoteric, honestly... I don't understand the cultural phenomena very well , the more I studied them -- "Post modern" seems so very disconnected from these thinkers.

But a stepping stone on postmodernism, at least -- if you are just wanting references -- would be Lyotard. He at least used the word "postmodern" :D

How might postmodernism be helpful in determining how we should/could live? — Tom Storm

Derrida is the man, as you've already picked up on, for this question. However, the reason for this is that "postmodern" is either a historical or a cultural category more than an actual philosophy -- and Derrida's work is unfairly judged by these cultural epithets. (Foucault and Delueze, I'd say, are similarly situated, tho Deleuze is flamboyant in his expression)

At least insofar as I understand his philosophy, he's basically the opposite of the post modern cartoon. -- to quote:

Cixous intends with the word “incorruptibles” that the generation of French philosophers who came of age in the Sixties, what they wrote and did, will never decay, will remain endlessly new and interesting. This generation will remain pure. But, the term is particularly appropriate for Derrida, since his thought concerns precisely the idea of purity and therefore contamination. Contamination, in Derrida, implies that an opposition consisting in two pure poles separated by an indivisible line never exists. In other words, traditionally (going back to Plato’s myths but also Christian theology), we think that there was an original pure state of being (direct contact with the forms or the Garden of Eden) which accidentally became corrupt. In contrast, Derrida tries to show that no term or idea or reality is ever pure in this way; one term always and necessarily “infects” the other.

Does an epistemology concerned with purity and corruption sound like an ethos-less epistemology? Does it sound like "Anything goes"?

I'm always impressed with the contrast between the pop culture phenomena railed against, and the reality of the books they attribute said epithets to -- Derrida's day job was the history of philosophy, and his work draws from that knowledge. So it requires technical knowledge as a background for understanding (at least in explication -- you can certainly understand Derrida without having his day job! :D )

Further, his work is concerned with meaning and truth, and his style of writing reflects that concern.

It's for these two reasons that Derrida takes some effort to understand, and I'd say that initial impressions of his work in the anglophonic philosophy world were unfair and simply wrong-headed.


But then I think this gets at the problem pretty well -- just *who are these postmodernists*? Wouldn't it be more useful to simply name them and discuss them, if indeed there was an idea to discuss?

I think it's a phantom-idea of some kind that people believe others are, but no one believes of themself really. It's a philosophical antagonist, like the radical skeptic that no one is but we can think about.

And that particular phantom can't help anyone with respect to ethical thought. However, particular thinkers, depending on what they say of course, may.

EDIT: Just me back on my historicist bullshit . . . ;)

I think all participants here know about the statement of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. Shouldn't we, rather, speak of it's reasonable effectiveness? I can't see nothing unreasonable about it and can't even imagine how else it could be. — Landoma1

First time reading the essay, myself. A handful of quotes from it:

...Every empirical law has the disquieting quality that one does not know its limitations... We may lose interest in the "ultimate truth,"... Such a situation would put a heavy strain on our faith in our theories and on our belief in the reality of the concepts which we form. It would give us a deep sense of frustration in our search for what I called "the ultimate truth."

The language he uses is deeply religious throughout. These were moments where I thought the religious nature of his appeals were apparent -- it may not be a Christian religion, but the religion of the philosophers -- in the God that thinks itself and brings order to nature, or whatever formulation he may prefer.

Which isn't to say he is wrong, I think. What I would say is that religious appeals are only effective among believers. His is the wonder of a scientist with a passion for something I don't think even exists -- "ultimate truth" or "foundations" as he is also often reasoning within. He's sort of pulling a couple of transcendental moves along the way, really -- without the empirical law of epistemology, no physics is possible. Physics exists, therefore....

But for myself I prefer to focus on the multiplicity of science. And there I think I'd actually wend a path between yourself and Wigner. For where you say:

Let's not forget though where we apply it. To dead Nature. In the human realm it seems unreasonable if effective indeed

I wouldn't put any caveats on the usage of mathematics to understand human beings just because it is "alive" whereas matter is "dead" -- we have a theory of evolution, after all, and we use mathematics in biology, so there's no need to think math can't help in understanding life (not that you said this, but you are asserting that nature is dead, so "life" naturally springs to my mind as the antipode). Humans are just the animal that talks too much and thinks such talking is really special, so we could -- with effort -- come to understand the human animal in more precise terms than that.

And further, I think there is something curious about math. I just don't think it's religious, or tied to ultimate truth, or the scientists' quest for the One Pure Description.

I think "Why does mathematics help human beings?" a reasonable and interesting question that seems to me to be a pretty close approximation to what Wigner is mentally ogling in his essay -- I often wonder about the nature of math in relation to nature, I just don't think placing that question in the realm of the mystical or religious to really get me going. I'm not religious.

I think I want a simpler example, and I believe I'm tracking now.

The classic argument --

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore, Socrates is mortal

really does seem to make sense, but technically it's not deductively valid. "Socrates" is not well defined in Aristotle's system of logic, because it is a unique thing rather than the member of a set -- and Aristotle's logic deals with the relationships between sets (at least, this is a certain way of parsing it. It deals with the deductive relationship between statements of the "all" or "some" kind)

So, I'd say, here we have an example of an argument that makes sense, but which you could argue into different formalization of logic -- so it's not like we know the "correct" relationships to choose, up front.