any result, lacanians - marxistphilosophy

[j laari]

Ken,

tell me why false.

> Whitebook equates the Lacanians with Habermas, as linguistic reductionists.
> I think the assessment of both as such is false.

Here we disagree.

I haven't opened the Whitebook-book for years, I guess. However,
that's not a problem right now (I believe I can find it this weekend,
if necessary).

For me it's O.K. to think both Habermas' and Lacan's theories of
thinking linguistically reductionist ones. Why? Because they don't
give a clear account of what thinking is and what is its relation to
language. When lacanians are referring to thinking, they usually begin
to talk about The Symbolic. (And what are Habermas' non-linguistic
mechanisms?) As far as I can tell, that's linguistic reductionism in
relation to thinking. There is no concept of thinking as such, just
descriptions of linguistic forms or structures and activities. Now, I
don't mind when it comes to lacanian psychoanalysis, because it's not
philosophy (it would be silly to "criticize" psychoanalysis to be
psychoanalysis instead of philosophy). It's different with Habermas
and the Frankfurt tradition.

I don't appreciate much Adorno as a philosopher or a sociologist, but
wasn't he saying something like that there must be some reality in
order there to be language? Sort of, there's no point in developing
expressive and communicative functions unless there's something to
express and something to talk about? Expressive: just like there is
the really real world (the transcendence, Dinge an sich), there is
subjectivity, the subjective world of each and every individual. From
the viewpoint of language and linguistic operations neither of them is
reducible to linguistic - or more general, symbolic - operations.
Communicative: without the transcendence and subjectivity the idea of
communication is quite insane.

What bothers me a bit is lacanian reaction when someone utters some
kind critical remarks. 'You don't understand this.' Well, I understand
it in my way. And from my viewpoint. Worser lacanian reaction is
psychologizing: 'You are psychopathological case', as someone already
noted. Well, perhaps so. However, in rational discussion we don't go
into personal issues. No 'ad hominem' arguments, bitteschön. It's all
about concepts, theories, and logic. Or it's not reasonable
discussion, I think.

Interesting point is that Lacan himself seemed to be psychologizing
some philosophical concepts (yes, this is very very "hermeneutical"
issue, I admit). At least from philosophical standpoint. See: Michael
Düe, Ontologie und Psychoanalyse (Frankfurt am Main 1986 - general
comparisons between Freud and Heidegger on 'Angst'); Hans Köchler, Der
innere Bezug von Anthropologie und Ontologie (Meisenheim am Glan 1974
- to understand the 'ontological' requires the undeerstanding of both
empirical and transcendental 'anthropological' and vice versa);
Gerhardt Schmidt, Subjektivität und Sein. Zur Ontologizität des Ichs
(Bonn 1979 - my impudent emphasis: 'ich' is such an 'ontological
factor' that one has to begin with it, not to "explain" it). And then
read something from Lacan, where he collapses Hegel, Heildegger, Freud
and Levi-Strauss into one happy discourse.

And finally...

Ralph, tell me what was the note at the end of your post where you
wrote about the ontological difference of natural and social sciences?
See, sciences can also be demarcated according to the characteristics
of their methods. In other words, and according to Heinrich Rickert:
there are two irreducible viewpoints on differences between sciences,
'materially' we make a distinction between the objects of sciences,
'formally' the distinction is between the methods. One can utilize
'natural scientific' method also in cultural sciences (as Rickert them
calls), but 'historical method' is of lesser use in natural sciences,
though Rickert himself believed it has some relevance also for nat'l
sci's. I don't go into details. See the nearest English translation of
his "Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft" (1921).

Sincerely, Jukka L