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Re: "The best we can do..."
(#52752)
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra on February 7, 2005 at 5:52 PM
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra on February 7, 2005 at 5:52 PM
Grant writes:
As you might have guessed, I agree that there are real problems here (which is why I've written these few posts). But I don't think defining our terms is the death knell of political philosophy. The death knell is thinking that our definitions are somehow acontextual and static.
Everything we utter in any context becomes part of a dialogical process of "negotiated meaning." The whole point of the dialogue is to reach across contexts and perspectives and to engage in a useful translation exercise that compels each of the participants to take into account the context of his or her dialogical partners. That means, therefore, that no one rhetorical strategy will be effective, because there are a diversity of audiences and a diversity of partners to address.
For example, I've written three books defending "dialectical method"---which, given its attachment to so many different thinkers in intellectual history, especially Hegel and Marx, has caused a lot of obfuscating dialogue. I'm talking about one thing, my opponents are talking about another, and sometimes, I think: "Never the twain shall meet."
But as I say in my reply to Jason P. above here, that just means that we have to be sensitive to the context of our audience and the context of our interlocutor and work toward that "fusion of horizons," where intention and comprehension intersect.
So, I agree in general with your view that there is something to be said for not using common terminology that is easily misunderstood. But this also depends upon the audience we're addressing. Since we started up this discussion with the Left in mind, in that context, your advice is excellent. But keeping context, at the moment of exposition, is everything.
[quoting me] "The best we can do is to define our terms as clearly as possible" -- this is really the death-knell of any political philosophy. Once merely having the dialogue forces you to negotiate some shared linguistic context with your opponents, you've nearly guaranteed that real dialogue is impossible.
As you might have guessed, I agree that there are real problems here (which is why I've written these few posts). But I don't think defining our terms is the death knell of political philosophy. The death knell is thinking that our definitions are somehow acontextual and static.
Everything we utter in any context becomes part of a dialogical process of "negotiated meaning." The whole point of the dialogue is to reach across contexts and perspectives and to engage in a useful translation exercise that compels each of the participants to take into account the context of his or her dialogical partners. That means, therefore, that no one rhetorical strategy will be effective, because there are a diversity of audiences and a diversity of partners to address.
For example, I've written three books defending "dialectical method"---which, given its attachment to so many different thinkers in intellectual history, especially Hegel and Marx, has caused a lot of obfuscating dialogue. I'm talking about one thing, my opponents are talking about another, and sometimes, I think: "Never the twain shall meet."
But as I say in my reply to Jason P. above here, that just means that we have to be sensitive to the context of our audience and the context of our interlocutor and work toward that "fusion of horizons," where intention and comprehension intersect.
So, I agree in general with your view that there is something to be said for not using common terminology that is easily misunderstood. But this also depends upon the audience we're addressing. Since we started up this discussion with the Left in mind, in that context, your advice is excellent. But keeping context, at the moment of exposition, is everything.
Return to "Capitalism" and Other Isms
by Grant Gould on February 7, 2005 at 1:53 PM