From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Mon Jan 13 2003 - 22:51:43 GMT
DMB,
DMB said:
You say Pirsig does it
(recontextualization). How about an explanation and an example. I mean, it
easy to see what its all about just because I know what the word "context"
means. Clearly this involves taking something out of its original context
and putting it in another, but beyond that I really don't know what the
process looks like or what this is supposed to accomplish.
Matt:
I said this a long time ago:
"David L. Hall's summation of Rorty's three types of critics:
The 'third rate' critic attacks the original thinker on the basis of the
rhetorical consequences of his thought and defends the status quo against the
corrupting effects of the philosopher's rhetoric. 'Second rate' critics
defend
the same received wisdom by semantic analyses of the thinker which highlight
ambiguities and vagueness in his terms and arguments. But 'first rate'
critics
"delight in the originality of those they criticise...; they attack an optimal
version of the philosopher's position--one in which the holes in the argument
have been plugged or politely ignored."
Hall says further, "This 'robustly external' criticism 'consists in showing
the inability of the philosopher under study, even at his best, to do what
the critic thinks needs to be done.' First rate critics construct a
dramatic narrative which contextualizes the thinker under critique in such
a manner to show that 'the philosopher has not understood the pattern of
the past and the needs of the present as well as, thanks to the critic, we
now do.'"[from Richard Rorty: Prophet and Poet of the New Pragmatism by
David L. Hall, imbedded quote from an essay by Rorty called "Posties".]"
That is what Rorty calls "recontextualization."
I said this more recently:
"Recontextualization is the way in which we can lay bare differences and
than choose which context is of higher value. Recontextualization is a
fancy name for something as simple as 'an accountant recontextualizing the
figures on a corporate income tax return, provoked to do so by the thought
that a certain depreciable item might plausibly be listed on Schedule H
rather than on Schedule M.'" ("Inquiry as Recontextualization: An
Anti-Dualist Account of Interpretation")
Recontextualization is not about taking something out of its original
context, its about attempting to show that we had a limited understanding
of the original context. The original context of "equality" in Greece
during Plato's time only applied to citizens (who were only rich males).
Since that time, equality fighters have attempted to recontextualize
"equality" to show that the Greek's understanding of it was limited in some
sense.
One of my favorite instances of Pirsig recontextualizing is when he talks
about the Sophists in ZMM. We first get Plato's story on what the Sophists
are up to (no good), and then Pirsig recontextualizes the situation by
pointing out that the Sophists were sometimes named as ambassadors and that
Socrates and Plato were called Sophists at times. (Ch. 29) In this way,
Pirsig recontextualizes the narrative from the way Plato had it (the
Sophists were spinners of lies and Socrates came and showed everyone the
Truth) into something else: "Plato's hatred of the rhetoricians was part of
a much larger struggle in which the reality of the Good, represented by the
Sophists, and the reality of the True, represented by the dialecticians,
were engaged in a huge struggle for the future of man."
That's an example of Pirsig recontextualizing, but I chose this example for
another reason: it shows Pirsig favoring recontextualization over the
dialectic (think back to the "Confessions" comparison of engagment of the
Rortyan position with the Platonic position). Pirsig recontexualizes the
Sophists to show the flaw in Plato and the dialecticians project, but
notice that he is not involved in dialectic. Recontextualization would be
better called "rhetoric." Pirsig doesn't engage Plato and dialectically
and argumentatively show that Plato's cooptation of the Sophists and use of
"dialectic--the usurper" was in the end flawed. Pirsig recontextualizes
the situation to show this, thereby failing to engage Plato in a way he
would have found acceptable (by Plato's own dialectical lights). That's
why Pirsig decribes his battle with the Chairman as a battle between
rhetoric and dialectic (even though Pirise, at the time, was involved in a
dialectical argument). The only way to show that Pirsig's suggested
narrative is lacking is to beat Pirsig at his own game: go into
intellectual history, where we get the raw materials for our narratives,
and show that Pirsig has "not understood the pattern of the past and the
needs of the present as well as, thanks to the critic, we now do."
Rorty wrote to me:
Thanks very much for your message. I'll try to get around to re-reading
Pirsig.
DMB said:
Dude, this is called a polite brush-off.
Matt:
Well, of course its a polite brush off. I would've expected nothing less
from a world-renowned philosopher. That's why I said, "That's all I ask
for." Politeness. Maybe he will go back and read Pirsig, maybe he won't.
Probably not, but by Rorty's own lights, what being an intellectual is all
about is reading books and trying to get other people excited about those
books, so I figured, why not give it a shot. I shouldn't even have
included Rorty's reply, because, as I've been saying, what Rorty thinks
about Pirsig is secondary to a Rortyan project. Rorty's comments to 3WD
were off the top of his head, from memory. And even if he did go back and
read Pirsig and write, "We have nothing, nothing at all, in common," I
would recontexualize the situation and show, quite easily, that they do. I
have yet to see any evidence that Rorty and Pirsig have nothing in common.
I find it pretty factitious to say it, in fact, considering Pirsig tries to
hook himself up to American pragmatism and Rorty is an American pragmatist.
That's one of the easiest points of entry to colligate them.
Matt
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