& reason

[kenneth.mackendrick]

Jukka writes:
> But now is the time to make an end for such speculation. I'm just
> wondering what people actually mean by 'reason'...

Perhaps I'm just really thick headed but this seems to be one of the 
most important, controversial, and unanswered questions around.  
I've been poking around Frankfurt for 2 or 3 years now - and 
philosophy in general even less... and the best I have been able to 
come up with is that reason is the capacity to apply, appropriate, use, 
manipulate an idea of logic (noncontradiction) in different spheres (ie. 
outside of math).  In this way their is no "grounding of reason" since 
it is simply a tool, a pattern of thought, that snoops around different 
issues.  It is worthwhile because it helps detect bullshit - but at the 
same time is equally unhelpful in the examination of the human 
condition which is enlightened and made worthwhile by 
contradictions (art, desire, etc.).  Instrumental reason is the logic of 
planning.  Communicative reason is the logic of language.  Method is 
the logic of science.  An emphatic idea of reason seems to me to 
point in the direction of the logic of the human condition (ripe with 
contradictions, experiences, suffering, and happiness).  Furthermore 
- it seems to me that critical theory uses logic for the express 
purpose of human emancipation - freedom.

I wonder if these insights (or lack thereof) help.  People like Derrida, I 
think, simply want to examine the logic of logic a bit further and try to 
break all of the sacred cows philosophically - which includes things 
like subjectivity, freedom, happiness, and truth.  The effect of such an 
endeavour, dubious at times, is congruent with an agenda of 
instrumental reason - but not commensurate with it - since it is trying 
to break it from within rather than grab a hold of the "whole" (which 
Ralph and others have noted).  Unfortunately this kind of play, which 
is advocated by deconstruction, is painfully lacking when things just 
need to be done.  Which is why Derrida is more of a 
reified philosopher than a human being in this regard.

At the end of the day the question(s) of what freedom has been 
gained, what has been lost, who has been killed, and how many 
wounded still find their way into our (my) thoughts.  The role of 
reason must remain, it seems to me, central in our actions and 
thoughts if we are going to make sense of the contradictions and not 
simply let them be the rule - precisely because the rules set the 
questions to be asked and dictate the answers accordingly.

hoping i'm not off-track,
ken