EPISTEME A Journal of Undergraduate

Philosophymiddot

Editorial Board

Chief Nicholas K Gracilla

David Abookire Charles Blevins Kimberly W Alexander Chris R Boal Veronica Barnes Marylin Denison Craig Bowers Fred Bonham Greear Bram B Briggance Kristina Jeanne Kruse Laura Marie Bruce Alex Lippincott Christopher P Collier Max Shure Nissa Copeman Brian C Stone Hina J amelle Andrew Zobay Paul P Rinkes

Faculty Advisor Steven Vogel

Episleme is published annually by a staff of undergraduate philosophy majors al Denison University Please direcl all inquiries lO The EdilorsiEpisteme Depl of Philosophy Denison UniversilY Granville Ohio 43023

Vol ill May 1992

CONTENTS

On Megill and The Birth of Tragedy Aaron Bunch 1

Photography as Art in Heldeggers Philosophy Chris Greenwald 13

The Necessity of Moral Marxism Mark Van Hook 23

Aristotles Accounts of Motion in Physics IJ and VJIJ David Laraway 33

Are All our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation) Joseph Partain 43

Wittgenstcins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the PhilosophicalJnvestigations William Voelker 51

The editors would Hke to express thanks to the Denison University Research Foundation to the Denison Office of Admissions to the Philosophy Department and to Steven Vogel for their assistance inmaking the publication of this journal possible

On Megill and The Birth of Tragedy

Aaron Bunch Willamette University

Introduction

Nietzsche is often viewed-and correctly I think-as a social critic exposing the ressentiment and life-negating rejection of this world that lies at the heart of our Socratic and Christian heritage The noble healthy instinct to life shifts in favor of a plebeian decadent denial ofthe instinctsshya morality that despises the body as the seat of all misery and error Dialectics the Socratic equation of reason-vIrtue-happiness is a last resort in the battle against the instincts against the noble a case of plebeian ressentiment This mistrust of the passions a spurning of this life of this world begat a turn toward the ideal a tum toward nothingness a turn toward Being Philosophers desired knowledge of the unchanging in that which changes the necessary in what appears contingent the eternal The definishytion of Being is thus the definition of nothingness in order for something to Be to have Being it must literally be no-thing It is no great surprise then that the philosophers never found Being that Being never manifested itself There must be mere appearance there must be some deception which prevents us from perceiving that which has being where is the deceiver We have found him they cry ecstatically it is the senses These senses which are so immoral in other ways too deceive us concerning the true world (TI p 480) Essentially that which had no-being was no-thing was elevated to that of the highest Being (ultimately God) and provided the grounds for repudiating the senses the most real thing about us the basis of any healthy morality 1

On Megill and The Birth ofTragedy

Just as Nietzsche inscribes the metaphysical tradition within his own life-affirming perspective dismantling the Platonic traditions quest for Truth and its promise of a privileged perspective contemporary thinkers have attempted to disempower Nietzsches critique by subsuming it within their own metaphysical framework Allan Megills treatment of Nietzsche

1See Reason in Philosophy TI 479-484

2 AARON BUNCH

inhis bookProphets 0Extremity is such an instance Megill sees Nietzsche as an aestheticist and under that rubric appropriates Nietzsche within a

metaphysical perspective that pours the foundation for his interpretation of and objection to Nietzsches project This move fails however not because Nietzsches cannot be out-flanked or redescribed but because Megills attempt to turn the tables on Nietzsche lacks persuasive textual support

Megill often gets Nietzsche importantly right-there is a sense in which aestheticist is an appropriate label for thinkers like Nietzsche-but once

Megill defines the aestheticists position he situates it within a world of appearance and reality a world that gives Nietzsches thought implications

that lead Megill to reject that position The dispute then hinges on how Megill situates the aestheticist space Megill starts offon the wrong foot by wedging the aestheticist realm between the really real and mere appearance caught between these two realms Nietzsche cannot ignore

but cannot access reality This notion of Nietzsches commitment to an inaccessible reality however is the result of Megills interpretation of

Nietzsches Apollo-Dionysus duality in The Birth oTragedy I will argue that Megills interpretation of Apollo and Dionysus is an unfounded overshy

simplification that fails to account for what is most significant about The Birth oTragedy namely its explanation of the development of lragedy through the union of Apollo and Dionysus

Prior to Megills interpretation ofThe Birth 0Tragedy his concepshytion ofthe aestheticist already bears the seeds of his metaphysical determishynation of Nietzsches text

As it is usually employed the word aestheticism denotes an enclosure within a self-contained realm of aesthetic objects and sensations and hence also denotes a separation from the real world of nonaesthetic objects Here however I am using the word in a sense that is almost diametrically opposed to its usual sense I am using it to refer not to the condition of being enclosed within the limited territory of the aesthetic but rather to an atlempt to expand the aesthetic to embrace the whole of reality To put it another way I am using it to refer to a tendency to see art or language or discourse or text as constituting the primary realm of human experience (Megill p 2)

In spite of the fact that Megill is using aestheticism to denote the broadening ofthe aesthetic to the exclusion ofthe nonaesthetic rejecting the traditional sense of the term which entailed an enclosure separated from

3 ON MEGITL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

reality he nonetheless employs the aesthetic-nonaesthetic distinction to make his point Megill places his definition of aestheticism within a perspective where the aesthetic-nonaesthetic distinction is very important Implicit in his conception of the aestheticist poSition is a distinction between the primary realm of human experience and the real world In expanding the realm of aesthetic objects to encompass all experience Megill nevertheshyless retains the notion ofnonaesthetic objects beyond our experience These inaccessible nonaesthetic objects remain the measuring stick of truth and lead Megill to see us as cutofffrom things andconfined to a confrontation with words alone (Megill p 2)

Megill situates himself outside ofthe aestheticist position a move which places truth beyond the reach of the aestheticist Megill and truth are outside casting a critical eyeinward on the foolhardy aestheticist who seems unconcerned with the way things really are TIlls perspective is key to the distinction between his project in Prophets ofExtremity and the interpretations others have advanced

Foucault Derrida and their followers have already done much to suggest the importance of this [aestheticist] aspect ofNielzsche bull s project But they do so from inside the aestheticist perspective and hence from a standpoint that is certainly not concerned WiUl

correctness in interpretation I propose here to cast a scholarly eye on the Nietzscbean beginnings of aestheticism (Mcgill p34)

Foucault Derrida and others have occupied the aestheticist perspective precisely because they deny any place to stand outside of that perspective Megills position from which he criticizes the aestheticist is constructed from a belief in a true world a world beyond all redescription a belief aestheticists whole-heartedly deny Megills preoccupation with the true world is supposedly what distinguishes his scholarly view from the view of alleged acstheticists like Foucault and Derrida

Megills interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus duality in The Birth of Tragedy ultimately relegates Nietzsche to Megills line-up of aestheticists According to Megill Dionysus is the symbol of immediate vision genuine knowledge the really Real Apollo however is the primary realm of human experience the veil which protects us from the harsh reality of the Dionysian The Apollonian constructions that mediate

4 AARON BUNCH

our understanding never allow us a direct and unrnediated glimpse ofreality but are nonetheless necessary for our survival As Megill explains

Nietzsche sees immediacy as unattainable but still desired it he views concepts as undesirable but also as necessary Tbis puts him in an odd position opposing the reduction of concepts to immediate vision and intuition but at the same time refusing to forget vision and intuition wben dealing with the world of concepts (Megill p 37)

So long as weshare Megills conception ofthe Dionysian as an inaccessible reality Nietzsche remains in a difficult position indeed with truth out of reach with no hope of obtaining genuine knowledge he is confined to a frivolous inconsequential realm ofplay frolicking in Apollonian illusion

Essential to Megills construction ofthis dilemma is his association ofApollo and Dionysus-which he takes as tokens for a mediate-immedishyate distinction-with a parallel distinction between skepticism and cershytainty To say that one is in a particular relation to the immediate according to Megill is to make an epistemological claim statements are more or less true to the extent that they tap directly into un-mediated reality The aestheticists predicament then is cashed out in terms of a simultaneous commitment to and refusal of Dionysian immediacy-asshycertainty This epistemological twist on the mediate-immediate distinction however is not supported by The Birth of Tragedy Although there are

several instances where Nietzsche describes Apollo and Dionysus in terms of mediation and immediacy his use of those terms does not signify a

concurrent distinction between the uncertainty of mediation and the cershytainty of the immediate For example

Among the peculiar art effects of musical tragedy we had to emphasize an Apollonian illusion by means of which we were supposed to be saved from the immediate unity with Dionysian music while our musical excitement could discharge itself in an Apollonian field and in relation to a visible intennediary world that had been interposed (BT p 139)

While it is evident that some kind of mediate-immediate distinction is at

work in this passage Megills conclusion that this situation has somehow cut us off from reality is unfounded In fact Megills version of the mediate-immediate distinction is not born out by Nietzsches use ofApollo and Dionysus in the remainder of this passage As Nietzsche continues fTom above

5 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

At the time we thougbt that we had observed bow precisely through this discharge the intennediary world of the action on the stage and the drama in general bad been made visible and intelligible from the inside to a degree that in all the other Apollonian art remains unattained Wbere the Apollonian reshyceives wings from the spirit ofmusic and soars weUmsfound the highest intensification ofits powers and in this fraternal union of Apollo and Dionysus we had to recognize the apex of the Apollonian as well as the Dionysian aims of art (BT p 139)

Megills interpretation ofNietzsche s mediate-immediate distinction as an appearance-reality distinction makes itdifficultto understand how Nietzsche could use that distinction-some kind of interaction between appearance and reality-to explain the mutual intensification of ApollOnian and Dionysian powers peculiar to Attic tragedy The inability to account for Nietzsches use ofthe duo to explain the development of tragedy is a serious failing ofMegiU s interpretation for it is the development of art and tragedy in particular through the union of Apollo and Dionysus that is the principal theme ofThe Birth ofTragedy2Here we would do well to abandon Megills interpretation and try to understand how together Apollo and Dionysus represent not only the dynamics of the dramatic dithyramb but the tragic world-view that gave it birth

According to Nietzsche the ancient Greeks acute sensitivity to what they knew and felt [to be] the terror and horror of existence (BT p42) was the origin of Attic tragedy and could be explained most profoundly by using the symbolism of Apollo and Dionysus The relationshyship however between the horrors of existence and the Apollo-Dionysus duality is not as Megill would have us believe as Simple as to say that Dionysus represents this horrible reality while Apollo succeeds in covering it up For the ancient Greeks existence was horrible because it was at bottom an unbearable contradiction-a contradiction fully represented only by Apollo and Dionysus in union In part as intoxication Dionysus represents the unity of all existence prior to inclividuation-tbe breakdown ofinhibltions the loss of all existence prior to individuation (ST p 36) At the same time however this Dionysian unity is necessarily clivlded into individuals Apollo represents the delimitation of Dionysus this apolheoshy

2 We now approach the real gonl of our investigation which is dirccted toward knowledge of the Dionysian-Apollonian genius and its art product or allensl toward some feeling for and understanding of this mystery of union (BT p 48)

6 AARON BUNCH

sis of individuation knows but one law-the individual ie bull the delimiting of the boundaries of the individual measure in the Hellenic sense (BT p 46) Apollo and Dionysus then are inextricably bound together as they symbolize the primordial contradiction of existence

the fundamental knowledge of the oneness of everything exisshytent the conception of individuation as the primal cause of evil and of art as the joyous hope that the spell of individuation may be broken in augury of a restored oneness (BT p 74)

Dionysus is whole yet necessarily manifest through Apollonian individuashytion and Apollos illusion the way he demarcates the individual is always merely another form ofthe same Dionysian unity Arising from this contradiction tragedy provided the illusion that inspired the hope that the pain of individuation would somehow be resolved

The tragic art inspired by the horror of existence in fact has its origin in that contradiction and retains Apollo and Dionysus as the representatives ofits fundamental elements the tragiC myth and the satyr chorus 3 Tragedy s peculiar art-effect is the result ofbeholding the Apollonian myth that grows out of the primordial unity represented by the satyr chorus The chorus shuts out the everyday world of individuation and lulls the tragic spectator into an identification with primordial unity-the wholeness prior to individuashytion But this is dangerous since a return to everyday existence after a glimpse into the unity of everything would result in a listless will-negating apathy towards life nausea at individuation4 But it is at this point that the tragic myth intervenes to halt our slide into oblivion The Apollonian drama the tragiC myth is intermediary only in the sense thatitintervenes to prevent the audience of Attic tragedy from completely identifying with the primal unity that the music of the satyr chorus symbolized When the Apollonian myth is viewed by the tragic spectator in his susceptibility to the music of

3 Let us recall our surprise at the chorus and the tragic hero of that tragedy neither of which we could reconcile wilhout customs any more than with tradition-till we rediscovshyered this duality itself as the origin and essence of Greek tragedy as the expression of two interwoven artistic impUlses the Apollonian and the Dionysian (BT p 81)

4 For the rapture ofthe Dionysian stare with its annihilation of the ordinary bounds and limits of existence contains while it lasts a lethargic element in which all personal experiences of the past become immersed This chasm of oblivion separates the worlds of everyday reality and of Dionysian reality But as soon as this everyday reality re-enrers consciousness it is experienced as such with nausea an ascetic will-negating mood is the fruit of these states (BT pp 59-60)

7 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

the chorus and the unity it symbolIzed it is seen in a clarity and intensity that is absent in all other strictly Apollonian art-forms In the tragic myth the destruction of the tragic hero both places our sympathy in the individUal making individuation something with which we can liveS and reminds the

tragic spectator of the unity that lies beneath individuation which the tragic hero prepares to join through his destruction6 This latter effect the tragic

myths suggestions of a unity that lies beneath it gives the tragic spectator

the urge to tear the myth aside and behold the primordial unity This tragic

effect is what Nietzsche calls the experience of having to see at the same time that [one] also longed to transcend all seeing (BT p 140) This

peculiar tension has its roots in the character of existence as contradiction intensified by the satyr chorus the tragic myth suggests a unity beneath individuation such that the spectator wishes to get beyond the pain of individuation and behold the blissful primordial unity the unity however

is only manifest through individuals and to do without the myth would be

to simultaneously do without the unity-one must endure indi viduation to experience its fundamental unity

To be sure passages that discuss aspects of this phenomenon of

having to see but longing to get beyond all seeing passages that ally Dionysus with a primordial unity hidden behind Apollos veil seem to support Megills interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus opposition as an opposition between appearance and reality

Now [under the charm of the Dionysian7] with the gospel of universal harmony each one feels himself not only united reconciled and fused with his neighbor but as one with bim as if the veil of maya had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the mysterious primordial unity (BT p37)

Megill wants this passage to identify the Dionysian with an independent unity underlying manifold Apollonian veils a substratum revealed after

those veils have been torn aside Central to my dispute Witll Megill is fue

5Thus the Apollonian tears us out of the Dionysian universality and lets us find delight in individuals it attaches our pity to them and by means of them it satisfies our sense of beauty which longs for great and sublime forms (BT p 128)

On the other hand by means of the same tragic myth in the person of the tragic hero it knows how to redeem us from the greedy thirst for this existence and with an admonishing gesture it reminds us ofanother existence and a higher pleasure for which the struggling hero prepares himself by means of his destruction (BT p 125)

1 (BT p 37) Nietzsches words top of the same paragraph

8 AARON BUNCH

disagreement over how to interpret Nietzsches notion of the primordial unity Megill takes it to be Nietzsches way oftalldng about the really real

the thing-in-itself But first of all as it has already been stressed an interpretation that delimits and relegates Apollo and Dionysus to two separate spheres cannot account for the interaction that explains the tragic world-view andits art-form Byinterpreting the primordial unity indepenshy

dently of Apollonian individuation Megill is guilty of an unwarranted abstraction Apollo and Dionysus are meaningless without each other And

secondly we can refer to persuasive textual support that indicates that the

primordial unity was for Nietzsche only one more illusion

It is an eternal phenomenon the insatiable will always fmds a way to detain its creatures in life and compel them to live on by means of an illusion spread over things One is chained by the Socratic love of knowledge and the delusion of being able thereby to heal the eternal wound of existence another is enshysnared by arts seductive veil ofbeauty fluttering before his eyes still another by the metaphysical comfort that beneath the whirl of phenomena eternal life flows on indestructibly-(BT pp 109-110 myempbasis)

So not only does Megills interpretation of Apollo and Dionysus as

appearance and reality fail to account for Nietzsches union of that opposishy

tion to explain Attic tragedy but it also seems that Nietzsche explicitly

speaks against an interpretation ofthe primordial unity as a thing-in-itself

The underpinning to Megills assignment of Apollo as mediator is

the notion that somewhere beneath this world of appearance lurks the

thing-in-itself Megills commitment to the appearance-reality distincshytion a distinction that posits the thing-in-itself as the standard of truth

lying beneath mere appearance casts Apollo as a mediator that obscures Megills perspective sees Apollo as necessary since we cannot bear

Dionysian reality but unfortunate because we would really like to get at the thing-in-itself Nietzsche however in rejecting the notion of the thingshy

in-itself has no grounds to consider Apollo necessary but unfortunate

He makes this clear in On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense written in

the same period as The Birth of Tragedy It is Nietzsches treatment of concepts in OTL that Megill takes as evIdence ofNietzsches dissatisfaction

with Apollonian illusIon and his subsequent entrapment in the aestheticist s dilemma According to Megill Nietzsche denies both ourcapacity to behold

9 ON MEGIlL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Dionysian immediacy and the adequacy of concepts for representing the thing-in-itself-in neither realm Apollonian or Dionysian can we hope

to obtain genuine knowledge What Nietzsche objects to in On Truth and Lie however is not the inadequacy of concepts to represent the thing in itself but the metaphysician who forgets that concepts are based on arbitrary differentiations and that the thing-in-itself is only the abstraction of these conventional designations from their consequences8 Nietzsches point is not that we are cut off from the thing-in-itself but that the thingshyin-itself is a nonsensical and useless notion

Megill finds Nietzsches rejection ofthe thing-in-itself Nietzsches failure to distinguish between appearance and reality a reckless and untenable position As Megill so clearly states

one can call everything illusion ifone wishes just as one can call everything disclosure or text But this does not abolish the distinction between say an interpretation of the experience ofbeing run over by a truck and the experience itself-a distincshytion which every language if it is to function on something more than a purely fantastic level mustsomehow accommexlate (Megill p42)

In calling for a distinction between the interpretation ofan experience and the expcrlcnce itself Megill once again draws the lines that oppose his

position to fue aestheticists Of course aestheticists will deny that such a distinction needs to be made Nietzsches point is simply that no experience occurs independently of a perspective and hence independently of an

bullThat is to say a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things and this legislation of language likewise establisbes the fllSt laws of truth (OlL p 81) Truth according to Nietzsche only exists as aconvention oflanguage with purely practicaloriginsj it is to ones advantage to use the true designations in appropriate ways because they facilitate co-existence with others What arbitrary differentiations What one-sided prefershyences first for this then for that property of a thing The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth never a question of adequate expression otherwise there would not be so many languages The thing in itself (which is precisely what the pure truth apart from any of its consequences would be) is likewise ~omething quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for (OlL p 82) The thing in itself the pure truth apart from its consequences (which is a convention of language apart from its consequences) is not worth striving for because we only use true designations in order to take advantage of tbeir consequences In Megills intelpretation it seems he is taking Nietzsches use of pure truth in this passage to refer to a true world really out there not worth striving for only because we cannot attain it In light of Nietzsches genealogy of truth on preceding pages however Megills intelpretation is less than convincing

10 AARON BUNCH

interpretation9One can talk about an experience in itself ifone wants to butit will at best only be an abstraction from some particular experience The aestheticist does not see a need to distinguish between trucks and interpreshytations oftrucks there is fundamentally just one kind oftruck the kind you dont want to get hit by In each case of being run over by a truck there is someone being run over And that person is probably just as dead as the personwho gets hitby the truck itself Megill however can thelp but take the notion of interpretation lightly as if an interpretation were merely a mirage that fades as it approaches From Megills perspective Nietzsche is cut off from reality dancing foolishly in a realm of play at his own peril ignoring the real world in a fanciful idealism Some day Megill seems to hope that truck will come around the corner-notsome wispy interpretation of a truck but the Truck-itself in all its weighty reality-and flatten a deserving Nietzsche who was playing in the middle of the street

9 Here I am employing the distinction between perspective and interpretation pointed out in Alan Schrifts book Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Nietzsches ~rspectialism is his re~ognition that all experiences are inextricable from a particular ~lllt of vlew r perspective No one has an objective view a privileged perspective Interetahon refers t~ What each of us does with our particul ar perspective how we assign

mearung to those expenences

11 ON MEGIlJ AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Works Cited

Megill Allan Prophets ofExtremity Niet2poundche Heidegger Foucault Derrida Berkeley University of California Press 1985

[BT] Nietzsche Friedrich The Birth oTragedy Tr by Walter Kaufmann in liThe Birth ofTragedy and The Case of Wagner Walter Kaufmann ed New York Random House 1967

[011] Nietzsche Friedrich On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense Tr by Daniel Breazeale in Philosophy and Truth Selections from Nietzsches Notebooks ofthe Early 1870s Daniel Breazeale ed New Jersey Humanities Press International Inc 1979

[TI] Nietzsche Friedrich Twilight ofthe Idols Tr by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Niet2poundche Walter Kaufmann ed New York Viking Press 1954

Schrift Alan D Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction New York Routledge 1990

Photography As Art in Heideggers Philosophy

Chris Greenwald Carleton College

Heidegger claims that truth is a revealing that is concomitant with concealing and thus the nature oftruth is untruth In art and specifically in painting truth in its fun essence is won through the simultaneous presentation to the observer ofa revealing and a concealing For Heidegger this simultaneous revealing and concealing occurs when the world of a painting is revealed through a self-concealing medium Photography is another form of revealing through a self-concealing medium and thus it meets Heideggers standards as a work of art1 In addition photography seems to meet more effectively than painting Heideggers characterization of a work of art and one can argue on this basis that photography has rendered painting archaic and outdated as means for attaining truth in the Heideggerlan sense Contrary to this argument Michael Zimmerman claims that Heidegger condemns photography as a false and anthropocentric means of representation Heldeggers condemnation however fails to conceive the nature of photography in light of Heideggers own philosophy of technology and when photography is examined in such a light this condemnation of photography appears misleading

Truth and Art

Truth in Heideggers philosophy is unconcealedness and Heidegshyger likens truth to a kind oflighting by which beings are revealed With each being that is revealed however another being is concealed As Heidegger states Concealment occurs within what it lighted One being places itself in front of another being the one helps to hide another the former obscures the latter (OW A p 175) Because truth is revealing and because all revealing involves a conceaJing Hcidegger claims that [trufu] in its essence is un-truth (OWA p 176) Heldegger further illustrates the essence of truth as a primal strife in which beings reveal and conceal

I It sbould be noted that here and throughout the paper I will be using the term photograpby to mean representational photography realize that with advancements in the technology of film development one can create very abstract photos that bear very little semblance to reality

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

Vol ill May 1992

CONTENTS

On Megill and The Birth of Tragedy Aaron Bunch 1

Photography as Art in Heldeggers Philosophy Chris Greenwald 13

The Necessity of Moral Marxism Mark Van Hook 23

Aristotles Accounts of Motion in Physics IJ and VJIJ David Laraway 33

Are All our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation) Joseph Partain 43

Wittgenstcins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the PhilosophicalJnvestigations William Voelker 51

The editors would Hke to express thanks to the Denison University Research Foundation to the Denison Office of Admissions to the Philosophy Department and to Steven Vogel for their assistance inmaking the publication of this journal possible

On Megill and The Birth of Tragedy

Aaron Bunch Willamette University

Introduction

Nietzsche is often viewed-and correctly I think-as a social critic exposing the ressentiment and life-negating rejection of this world that lies at the heart of our Socratic and Christian heritage The noble healthy instinct to life shifts in favor of a plebeian decadent denial ofthe instinctsshya morality that despises the body as the seat of all misery and error Dialectics the Socratic equation of reason-vIrtue-happiness is a last resort in the battle against the instincts against the noble a case of plebeian ressentiment This mistrust of the passions a spurning of this life of this world begat a turn toward the ideal a tum toward nothingness a turn toward Being Philosophers desired knowledge of the unchanging in that which changes the necessary in what appears contingent the eternal The definishytion of Being is thus the definition of nothingness in order for something to Be to have Being it must literally be no-thing It is no great surprise then that the philosophers never found Being that Being never manifested itself There must be mere appearance there must be some deception which prevents us from perceiving that which has being where is the deceiver We have found him they cry ecstatically it is the senses These senses which are so immoral in other ways too deceive us concerning the true world (TI p 480) Essentially that which had no-being was no-thing was elevated to that of the highest Being (ultimately God) and provided the grounds for repudiating the senses the most real thing about us the basis of any healthy morality 1

On Megill and The Birth ofTragedy

Just as Nietzsche inscribes the metaphysical tradition within his own life-affirming perspective dismantling the Platonic traditions quest for Truth and its promise of a privileged perspective contemporary thinkers have attempted to disempower Nietzsches critique by subsuming it within their own metaphysical framework Allan Megills treatment of Nietzsche

1See Reason in Philosophy TI 479-484

2 AARON BUNCH

inhis bookProphets 0Extremity is such an instance Megill sees Nietzsche as an aestheticist and under that rubric appropriates Nietzsche within a

metaphysical perspective that pours the foundation for his interpretation of and objection to Nietzsches project This move fails however not because Nietzsches cannot be out-flanked or redescribed but because Megills attempt to turn the tables on Nietzsche lacks persuasive textual support

Megill often gets Nietzsche importantly right-there is a sense in which aestheticist is an appropriate label for thinkers like Nietzsche-but once

Megill defines the aestheticists position he situates it within a world of appearance and reality a world that gives Nietzsches thought implications

that lead Megill to reject that position The dispute then hinges on how Megill situates the aestheticist space Megill starts offon the wrong foot by wedging the aestheticist realm between the really real and mere appearance caught between these two realms Nietzsche cannot ignore

but cannot access reality This notion of Nietzsches commitment to an inaccessible reality however is the result of Megills interpretation of

Nietzsches Apollo-Dionysus duality in The Birth oTragedy I will argue that Megills interpretation of Apollo and Dionysus is an unfounded overshy

simplification that fails to account for what is most significant about The Birth oTragedy namely its explanation of the development of lragedy through the union of Apollo and Dionysus

Prior to Megills interpretation ofThe Birth 0Tragedy his concepshytion ofthe aestheticist already bears the seeds of his metaphysical determishynation of Nietzsches text

As it is usually employed the word aestheticism denotes an enclosure within a self-contained realm of aesthetic objects and sensations and hence also denotes a separation from the real world of nonaesthetic objects Here however I am using the word in a sense that is almost diametrically opposed to its usual sense I am using it to refer not to the condition of being enclosed within the limited territory of the aesthetic but rather to an atlempt to expand the aesthetic to embrace the whole of reality To put it another way I am using it to refer to a tendency to see art or language or discourse or text as constituting the primary realm of human experience (Megill p 2)

In spite of the fact that Megill is using aestheticism to denote the broadening ofthe aesthetic to the exclusion ofthe nonaesthetic rejecting the traditional sense of the term which entailed an enclosure separated from

3 ON MEGITL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

reality he nonetheless employs the aesthetic-nonaesthetic distinction to make his point Megill places his definition of aestheticism within a perspective where the aesthetic-nonaesthetic distinction is very important Implicit in his conception of the aestheticist poSition is a distinction between the primary realm of human experience and the real world In expanding the realm of aesthetic objects to encompass all experience Megill nevertheshyless retains the notion ofnonaesthetic objects beyond our experience These inaccessible nonaesthetic objects remain the measuring stick of truth and lead Megill to see us as cutofffrom things andconfined to a confrontation with words alone (Megill p 2)

Megill situates himself outside ofthe aestheticist position a move which places truth beyond the reach of the aestheticist Megill and truth are outside casting a critical eyeinward on the foolhardy aestheticist who seems unconcerned with the way things really are TIlls perspective is key to the distinction between his project in Prophets ofExtremity and the interpretations others have advanced

Foucault Derrida and their followers have already done much to suggest the importance of this [aestheticist] aspect ofNielzsche bull s project But they do so from inside the aestheticist perspective and hence from a standpoint that is certainly not concerned WiUl

correctness in interpretation I propose here to cast a scholarly eye on the Nietzscbean beginnings of aestheticism (Mcgill p34)

Foucault Derrida and others have occupied the aestheticist perspective precisely because they deny any place to stand outside of that perspective Megills position from which he criticizes the aestheticist is constructed from a belief in a true world a world beyond all redescription a belief aestheticists whole-heartedly deny Megills preoccupation with the true world is supposedly what distinguishes his scholarly view from the view of alleged acstheticists like Foucault and Derrida

Megills interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus duality in The Birth of Tragedy ultimately relegates Nietzsche to Megills line-up of aestheticists According to Megill Dionysus is the symbol of immediate vision genuine knowledge the really Real Apollo however is the primary realm of human experience the veil which protects us from the harsh reality of the Dionysian The Apollonian constructions that mediate

4 AARON BUNCH

our understanding never allow us a direct and unrnediated glimpse ofreality but are nonetheless necessary for our survival As Megill explains

Nietzsche sees immediacy as unattainable but still desired it he views concepts as undesirable but also as necessary Tbis puts him in an odd position opposing the reduction of concepts to immediate vision and intuition but at the same time refusing to forget vision and intuition wben dealing with the world of concepts (Megill p 37)

So long as weshare Megills conception ofthe Dionysian as an inaccessible reality Nietzsche remains in a difficult position indeed with truth out of reach with no hope of obtaining genuine knowledge he is confined to a frivolous inconsequential realm ofplay frolicking in Apollonian illusion

Essential to Megills construction ofthis dilemma is his association ofApollo and Dionysus-which he takes as tokens for a mediate-immedishyate distinction-with a parallel distinction between skepticism and cershytainty To say that one is in a particular relation to the immediate according to Megill is to make an epistemological claim statements are more or less true to the extent that they tap directly into un-mediated reality The aestheticists predicament then is cashed out in terms of a simultaneous commitment to and refusal of Dionysian immediacy-asshycertainty This epistemological twist on the mediate-immediate distinction however is not supported by The Birth of Tragedy Although there are

several instances where Nietzsche describes Apollo and Dionysus in terms of mediation and immediacy his use of those terms does not signify a

concurrent distinction between the uncertainty of mediation and the cershytainty of the immediate For example

Among the peculiar art effects of musical tragedy we had to emphasize an Apollonian illusion by means of which we were supposed to be saved from the immediate unity with Dionysian music while our musical excitement could discharge itself in an Apollonian field and in relation to a visible intennediary world that had been interposed (BT p 139)

While it is evident that some kind of mediate-immediate distinction is at

work in this passage Megills conclusion that this situation has somehow cut us off from reality is unfounded In fact Megills version of the mediate-immediate distinction is not born out by Nietzsches use ofApollo and Dionysus in the remainder of this passage As Nietzsche continues fTom above

5 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

At the time we thougbt that we had observed bow precisely through this discharge the intennediary world of the action on the stage and the drama in general bad been made visible and intelligible from the inside to a degree that in all the other Apollonian art remains unattained Wbere the Apollonian reshyceives wings from the spirit ofmusic and soars weUmsfound the highest intensification ofits powers and in this fraternal union of Apollo and Dionysus we had to recognize the apex of the Apollonian as well as the Dionysian aims of art (BT p 139)

Megills interpretation ofNietzsche s mediate-immediate distinction as an appearance-reality distinction makes itdifficultto understand how Nietzsche could use that distinction-some kind of interaction between appearance and reality-to explain the mutual intensification of ApollOnian and Dionysian powers peculiar to Attic tragedy The inability to account for Nietzsches use ofthe duo to explain the development of tragedy is a serious failing ofMegiU s interpretation for it is the development of art and tragedy in particular through the union of Apollo and Dionysus that is the principal theme ofThe Birth ofTragedy2Here we would do well to abandon Megills interpretation and try to understand how together Apollo and Dionysus represent not only the dynamics of the dramatic dithyramb but the tragic world-view that gave it birth

According to Nietzsche the ancient Greeks acute sensitivity to what they knew and felt [to be] the terror and horror of existence (BT p42) was the origin of Attic tragedy and could be explained most profoundly by using the symbolism of Apollo and Dionysus The relationshyship however between the horrors of existence and the Apollo-Dionysus duality is not as Megill would have us believe as Simple as to say that Dionysus represents this horrible reality while Apollo succeeds in covering it up For the ancient Greeks existence was horrible because it was at bottom an unbearable contradiction-a contradiction fully represented only by Apollo and Dionysus in union In part as intoxication Dionysus represents the unity of all existence prior to inclividuation-tbe breakdown ofinhibltions the loss of all existence prior to individuation (ST p 36) At the same time however this Dionysian unity is necessarily clivlded into individuals Apollo represents the delimitation of Dionysus this apolheoshy

2 We now approach the real gonl of our investigation which is dirccted toward knowledge of the Dionysian-Apollonian genius and its art product or allensl toward some feeling for and understanding of this mystery of union (BT p 48)

6 AARON BUNCH

sis of individuation knows but one law-the individual ie bull the delimiting of the boundaries of the individual measure in the Hellenic sense (BT p 46) Apollo and Dionysus then are inextricably bound together as they symbolize the primordial contradiction of existence

the fundamental knowledge of the oneness of everything exisshytent the conception of individuation as the primal cause of evil and of art as the joyous hope that the spell of individuation may be broken in augury of a restored oneness (BT p 74)

Dionysus is whole yet necessarily manifest through Apollonian individuashytion and Apollos illusion the way he demarcates the individual is always merely another form ofthe same Dionysian unity Arising from this contradiction tragedy provided the illusion that inspired the hope that the pain of individuation would somehow be resolved

The tragic art inspired by the horror of existence in fact has its origin in that contradiction and retains Apollo and Dionysus as the representatives ofits fundamental elements the tragiC myth and the satyr chorus 3 Tragedy s peculiar art-effect is the result ofbeholding the Apollonian myth that grows out of the primordial unity represented by the satyr chorus The chorus shuts out the everyday world of individuation and lulls the tragic spectator into an identification with primordial unity-the wholeness prior to individuashytion But this is dangerous since a return to everyday existence after a glimpse into the unity of everything would result in a listless will-negating apathy towards life nausea at individuation4 But it is at this point that the tragic myth intervenes to halt our slide into oblivion The Apollonian drama the tragiC myth is intermediary only in the sense thatitintervenes to prevent the audience of Attic tragedy from completely identifying with the primal unity that the music of the satyr chorus symbolized When the Apollonian myth is viewed by the tragic spectator in his susceptibility to the music of

3 Let us recall our surprise at the chorus and the tragic hero of that tragedy neither of which we could reconcile wilhout customs any more than with tradition-till we rediscovshyered this duality itself as the origin and essence of Greek tragedy as the expression of two interwoven artistic impUlses the Apollonian and the Dionysian (BT p 81)

4 For the rapture ofthe Dionysian stare with its annihilation of the ordinary bounds and limits of existence contains while it lasts a lethargic element in which all personal experiences of the past become immersed This chasm of oblivion separates the worlds of everyday reality and of Dionysian reality But as soon as this everyday reality re-enrers consciousness it is experienced as such with nausea an ascetic will-negating mood is the fruit of these states (BT pp 59-60)

7 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

the chorus and the unity it symbolIzed it is seen in a clarity and intensity that is absent in all other strictly Apollonian art-forms In the tragic myth the destruction of the tragic hero both places our sympathy in the individUal making individuation something with which we can liveS and reminds the

tragic spectator of the unity that lies beneath individuation which the tragic hero prepares to join through his destruction6 This latter effect the tragic

myths suggestions of a unity that lies beneath it gives the tragic spectator

the urge to tear the myth aside and behold the primordial unity This tragic

effect is what Nietzsche calls the experience of having to see at the same time that [one] also longed to transcend all seeing (BT p 140) This

peculiar tension has its roots in the character of existence as contradiction intensified by the satyr chorus the tragic myth suggests a unity beneath individuation such that the spectator wishes to get beyond the pain of individuation and behold the blissful primordial unity the unity however

is only manifest through individuals and to do without the myth would be

to simultaneously do without the unity-one must endure indi viduation to experience its fundamental unity

To be sure passages that discuss aspects of this phenomenon of

having to see but longing to get beyond all seeing passages that ally Dionysus with a primordial unity hidden behind Apollos veil seem to support Megills interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus opposition as an opposition between appearance and reality

Now [under the charm of the Dionysian7] with the gospel of universal harmony each one feels himself not only united reconciled and fused with his neighbor but as one with bim as if the veil of maya had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the mysterious primordial unity (BT p37)

Megill wants this passage to identify the Dionysian with an independent unity underlying manifold Apollonian veils a substratum revealed after

those veils have been torn aside Central to my dispute Witll Megill is fue

5Thus the Apollonian tears us out of the Dionysian universality and lets us find delight in individuals it attaches our pity to them and by means of them it satisfies our sense of beauty which longs for great and sublime forms (BT p 128)

On the other hand by means of the same tragic myth in the person of the tragic hero it knows how to redeem us from the greedy thirst for this existence and with an admonishing gesture it reminds us ofanother existence and a higher pleasure for which the struggling hero prepares himself by means of his destruction (BT p 125)

1 (BT p 37) Nietzsches words top of the same paragraph

8 AARON BUNCH

disagreement over how to interpret Nietzsches notion of the primordial unity Megill takes it to be Nietzsches way oftalldng about the really real

the thing-in-itself But first of all as it has already been stressed an interpretation that delimits and relegates Apollo and Dionysus to two separate spheres cannot account for the interaction that explains the tragic world-view andits art-form Byinterpreting the primordial unity indepenshy

dently of Apollonian individuation Megill is guilty of an unwarranted abstraction Apollo and Dionysus are meaningless without each other And

secondly we can refer to persuasive textual support that indicates that the

primordial unity was for Nietzsche only one more illusion

It is an eternal phenomenon the insatiable will always fmds a way to detain its creatures in life and compel them to live on by means of an illusion spread over things One is chained by the Socratic love of knowledge and the delusion of being able thereby to heal the eternal wound of existence another is enshysnared by arts seductive veil ofbeauty fluttering before his eyes still another by the metaphysical comfort that beneath the whirl of phenomena eternal life flows on indestructibly-(BT pp 109-110 myempbasis)

So not only does Megills interpretation of Apollo and Dionysus as

appearance and reality fail to account for Nietzsches union of that opposishy

tion to explain Attic tragedy but it also seems that Nietzsche explicitly

speaks against an interpretation ofthe primordial unity as a thing-in-itself

The underpinning to Megills assignment of Apollo as mediator is

the notion that somewhere beneath this world of appearance lurks the

thing-in-itself Megills commitment to the appearance-reality distincshytion a distinction that posits the thing-in-itself as the standard of truth

lying beneath mere appearance casts Apollo as a mediator that obscures Megills perspective sees Apollo as necessary since we cannot bear

Dionysian reality but unfortunate because we would really like to get at the thing-in-itself Nietzsche however in rejecting the notion of the thingshy

in-itself has no grounds to consider Apollo necessary but unfortunate

He makes this clear in On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense written in

the same period as The Birth of Tragedy It is Nietzsches treatment of concepts in OTL that Megill takes as evIdence ofNietzsches dissatisfaction

with Apollonian illusIon and his subsequent entrapment in the aestheticist s dilemma According to Megill Nietzsche denies both ourcapacity to behold

9 ON MEGIlL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Dionysian immediacy and the adequacy of concepts for representing the thing-in-itself-in neither realm Apollonian or Dionysian can we hope

to obtain genuine knowledge What Nietzsche objects to in On Truth and Lie however is not the inadequacy of concepts to represent the thing in itself but the metaphysician who forgets that concepts are based on arbitrary differentiations and that the thing-in-itself is only the abstraction of these conventional designations from their consequences8 Nietzsches point is not that we are cut off from the thing-in-itself but that the thingshyin-itself is a nonsensical and useless notion

Megill finds Nietzsches rejection ofthe thing-in-itself Nietzsches failure to distinguish between appearance and reality a reckless and untenable position As Megill so clearly states

one can call everything illusion ifone wishes just as one can call everything disclosure or text But this does not abolish the distinction between say an interpretation of the experience ofbeing run over by a truck and the experience itself-a distincshytion which every language if it is to function on something more than a purely fantastic level mustsomehow accommexlate (Megill p42)

In calling for a distinction between the interpretation ofan experience and the expcrlcnce itself Megill once again draws the lines that oppose his

position to fue aestheticists Of course aestheticists will deny that such a distinction needs to be made Nietzsches point is simply that no experience occurs independently of a perspective and hence independently of an

bullThat is to say a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things and this legislation of language likewise establisbes the fllSt laws of truth (OlL p 81) Truth according to Nietzsche only exists as aconvention oflanguage with purely practicaloriginsj it is to ones advantage to use the true designations in appropriate ways because they facilitate co-existence with others What arbitrary differentiations What one-sided prefershyences first for this then for that property of a thing The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth never a question of adequate expression otherwise there would not be so many languages The thing in itself (which is precisely what the pure truth apart from any of its consequences would be) is likewise ~omething quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for (OlL p 82) The thing in itself the pure truth apart from its consequences (which is a convention of language apart from its consequences) is not worth striving for because we only use true designations in order to take advantage of tbeir consequences In Megills intelpretation it seems he is taking Nietzsches use of pure truth in this passage to refer to a true world really out there not worth striving for only because we cannot attain it In light of Nietzsches genealogy of truth on preceding pages however Megills intelpretation is less than convincing

10 AARON BUNCH

interpretation9One can talk about an experience in itself ifone wants to butit will at best only be an abstraction from some particular experience The aestheticist does not see a need to distinguish between trucks and interpreshytations oftrucks there is fundamentally just one kind oftruck the kind you dont want to get hit by In each case of being run over by a truck there is someone being run over And that person is probably just as dead as the personwho gets hitby the truck itself Megill however can thelp but take the notion of interpretation lightly as if an interpretation were merely a mirage that fades as it approaches From Megills perspective Nietzsche is cut off from reality dancing foolishly in a realm of play at his own peril ignoring the real world in a fanciful idealism Some day Megill seems to hope that truck will come around the corner-notsome wispy interpretation of a truck but the Truck-itself in all its weighty reality-and flatten a deserving Nietzsche who was playing in the middle of the street

9 Here I am employing the distinction between perspective and interpretation pointed out in Alan Schrifts book Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Nietzsches ~rspectialism is his re~ognition that all experiences are inextricable from a particular ~lllt of vlew r perspective No one has an objective view a privileged perspective Interetahon refers t~ What each of us does with our particul ar perspective how we assign

mearung to those expenences

11 ON MEGIlJ AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Works Cited

Megill Allan Prophets ofExtremity Niet2poundche Heidegger Foucault Derrida Berkeley University of California Press 1985

[BT] Nietzsche Friedrich The Birth oTragedy Tr by Walter Kaufmann in liThe Birth ofTragedy and The Case of Wagner Walter Kaufmann ed New York Random House 1967

[011] Nietzsche Friedrich On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense Tr by Daniel Breazeale in Philosophy and Truth Selections from Nietzsches Notebooks ofthe Early 1870s Daniel Breazeale ed New Jersey Humanities Press International Inc 1979

[TI] Nietzsche Friedrich Twilight ofthe Idols Tr by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Niet2poundche Walter Kaufmann ed New York Viking Press 1954

Schrift Alan D Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction New York Routledge 1990

Photography As Art in Heideggers Philosophy

Chris Greenwald Carleton College

Heidegger claims that truth is a revealing that is concomitant with concealing and thus the nature oftruth is untruth In art and specifically in painting truth in its fun essence is won through the simultaneous presentation to the observer ofa revealing and a concealing For Heidegger this simultaneous revealing and concealing occurs when the world of a painting is revealed through a self-concealing medium Photography is another form of revealing through a self-concealing medium and thus it meets Heideggers standards as a work of art1 In addition photography seems to meet more effectively than painting Heideggers characterization of a work of art and one can argue on this basis that photography has rendered painting archaic and outdated as means for attaining truth in the Heideggerlan sense Contrary to this argument Michael Zimmerman claims that Heidegger condemns photography as a false and anthropocentric means of representation Heldeggers condemnation however fails to conceive the nature of photography in light of Heideggers own philosophy of technology and when photography is examined in such a light this condemnation of photography appears misleading

Truth and Art

Truth in Heideggers philosophy is unconcealedness and Heidegshyger likens truth to a kind oflighting by which beings are revealed With each being that is revealed however another being is concealed As Heidegger states Concealment occurs within what it lighted One being places itself in front of another being the one helps to hide another the former obscures the latter (OW A p 175) Because truth is revealing and because all revealing involves a conceaJing Hcidegger claims that [trufu] in its essence is un-truth (OWA p 176) Heldegger further illustrates the essence of truth as a primal strife in which beings reveal and conceal

I It sbould be noted that here and throughout the paper I will be using the term photograpby to mean representational photography realize that with advancements in the technology of film development one can create very abstract photos that bear very little semblance to reality

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

On Megill and The Birth of Tragedy

Aaron Bunch Willamette University

Introduction

Nietzsche is often viewed-and correctly I think-as a social critic exposing the ressentiment and life-negating rejection of this world that lies at the heart of our Socratic and Christian heritage The noble healthy instinct to life shifts in favor of a plebeian decadent denial ofthe instinctsshya morality that despises the body as the seat of all misery and error Dialectics the Socratic equation of reason-vIrtue-happiness is a last resort in the battle against the instincts against the noble a case of plebeian ressentiment This mistrust of the passions a spurning of this life of this world begat a turn toward the ideal a tum toward nothingness a turn toward Being Philosophers desired knowledge of the unchanging in that which changes the necessary in what appears contingent the eternal The definishytion of Being is thus the definition of nothingness in order for something to Be to have Being it must literally be no-thing It is no great surprise then that the philosophers never found Being that Being never manifested itself There must be mere appearance there must be some deception which prevents us from perceiving that which has being where is the deceiver We have found him they cry ecstatically it is the senses These senses which are so immoral in other ways too deceive us concerning the true world (TI p 480) Essentially that which had no-being was no-thing was elevated to that of the highest Being (ultimately God) and provided the grounds for repudiating the senses the most real thing about us the basis of any healthy morality 1

On Megill and The Birth ofTragedy

Just as Nietzsche inscribes the metaphysical tradition within his own life-affirming perspective dismantling the Platonic traditions quest for Truth and its promise of a privileged perspective contemporary thinkers have attempted to disempower Nietzsches critique by subsuming it within their own metaphysical framework Allan Megills treatment of Nietzsche

1See Reason in Philosophy TI 479-484

2 AARON BUNCH

inhis bookProphets 0Extremity is such an instance Megill sees Nietzsche as an aestheticist and under that rubric appropriates Nietzsche within a

metaphysical perspective that pours the foundation for his interpretation of and objection to Nietzsches project This move fails however not because Nietzsches cannot be out-flanked or redescribed but because Megills attempt to turn the tables on Nietzsche lacks persuasive textual support

Megill often gets Nietzsche importantly right-there is a sense in which aestheticist is an appropriate label for thinkers like Nietzsche-but once

Megill defines the aestheticists position he situates it within a world of appearance and reality a world that gives Nietzsches thought implications

that lead Megill to reject that position The dispute then hinges on how Megill situates the aestheticist space Megill starts offon the wrong foot by wedging the aestheticist realm between the really real and mere appearance caught between these two realms Nietzsche cannot ignore

but cannot access reality This notion of Nietzsches commitment to an inaccessible reality however is the result of Megills interpretation of

Nietzsches Apollo-Dionysus duality in The Birth oTragedy I will argue that Megills interpretation of Apollo and Dionysus is an unfounded overshy

simplification that fails to account for what is most significant about The Birth oTragedy namely its explanation of the development of lragedy through the union of Apollo and Dionysus

Prior to Megills interpretation ofThe Birth 0Tragedy his concepshytion ofthe aestheticist already bears the seeds of his metaphysical determishynation of Nietzsches text

As it is usually employed the word aestheticism denotes an enclosure within a self-contained realm of aesthetic objects and sensations and hence also denotes a separation from the real world of nonaesthetic objects Here however I am using the word in a sense that is almost diametrically opposed to its usual sense I am using it to refer not to the condition of being enclosed within the limited territory of the aesthetic but rather to an atlempt to expand the aesthetic to embrace the whole of reality To put it another way I am using it to refer to a tendency to see art or language or discourse or text as constituting the primary realm of human experience (Megill p 2)

In spite of the fact that Megill is using aestheticism to denote the broadening ofthe aesthetic to the exclusion ofthe nonaesthetic rejecting the traditional sense of the term which entailed an enclosure separated from

3 ON MEGITL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

reality he nonetheless employs the aesthetic-nonaesthetic distinction to make his point Megill places his definition of aestheticism within a perspective where the aesthetic-nonaesthetic distinction is very important Implicit in his conception of the aestheticist poSition is a distinction between the primary realm of human experience and the real world In expanding the realm of aesthetic objects to encompass all experience Megill nevertheshyless retains the notion ofnonaesthetic objects beyond our experience These inaccessible nonaesthetic objects remain the measuring stick of truth and lead Megill to see us as cutofffrom things andconfined to a confrontation with words alone (Megill p 2)

Megill situates himself outside ofthe aestheticist position a move which places truth beyond the reach of the aestheticist Megill and truth are outside casting a critical eyeinward on the foolhardy aestheticist who seems unconcerned with the way things really are TIlls perspective is key to the distinction between his project in Prophets ofExtremity and the interpretations others have advanced

Foucault Derrida and their followers have already done much to suggest the importance of this [aestheticist] aspect ofNielzsche bull s project But they do so from inside the aestheticist perspective and hence from a standpoint that is certainly not concerned WiUl

correctness in interpretation I propose here to cast a scholarly eye on the Nietzscbean beginnings of aestheticism (Mcgill p34)

Foucault Derrida and others have occupied the aestheticist perspective precisely because they deny any place to stand outside of that perspective Megills position from which he criticizes the aestheticist is constructed from a belief in a true world a world beyond all redescription a belief aestheticists whole-heartedly deny Megills preoccupation with the true world is supposedly what distinguishes his scholarly view from the view of alleged acstheticists like Foucault and Derrida

Megills interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus duality in The Birth of Tragedy ultimately relegates Nietzsche to Megills line-up of aestheticists According to Megill Dionysus is the symbol of immediate vision genuine knowledge the really Real Apollo however is the primary realm of human experience the veil which protects us from the harsh reality of the Dionysian The Apollonian constructions that mediate

4 AARON BUNCH

our understanding never allow us a direct and unrnediated glimpse ofreality but are nonetheless necessary for our survival As Megill explains

Nietzsche sees immediacy as unattainable but still desired it he views concepts as undesirable but also as necessary Tbis puts him in an odd position opposing the reduction of concepts to immediate vision and intuition but at the same time refusing to forget vision and intuition wben dealing with the world of concepts (Megill p 37)

So long as weshare Megills conception ofthe Dionysian as an inaccessible reality Nietzsche remains in a difficult position indeed with truth out of reach with no hope of obtaining genuine knowledge he is confined to a frivolous inconsequential realm ofplay frolicking in Apollonian illusion

Essential to Megills construction ofthis dilemma is his association ofApollo and Dionysus-which he takes as tokens for a mediate-immedishyate distinction-with a parallel distinction between skepticism and cershytainty To say that one is in a particular relation to the immediate according to Megill is to make an epistemological claim statements are more or less true to the extent that they tap directly into un-mediated reality The aestheticists predicament then is cashed out in terms of a simultaneous commitment to and refusal of Dionysian immediacy-asshycertainty This epistemological twist on the mediate-immediate distinction however is not supported by The Birth of Tragedy Although there are

several instances where Nietzsche describes Apollo and Dionysus in terms of mediation and immediacy his use of those terms does not signify a

concurrent distinction between the uncertainty of mediation and the cershytainty of the immediate For example

Among the peculiar art effects of musical tragedy we had to emphasize an Apollonian illusion by means of which we were supposed to be saved from the immediate unity with Dionysian music while our musical excitement could discharge itself in an Apollonian field and in relation to a visible intennediary world that had been interposed (BT p 139)

While it is evident that some kind of mediate-immediate distinction is at

work in this passage Megills conclusion that this situation has somehow cut us off from reality is unfounded In fact Megills version of the mediate-immediate distinction is not born out by Nietzsches use ofApollo and Dionysus in the remainder of this passage As Nietzsche continues fTom above

5 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

At the time we thougbt that we had observed bow precisely through this discharge the intennediary world of the action on the stage and the drama in general bad been made visible and intelligible from the inside to a degree that in all the other Apollonian art remains unattained Wbere the Apollonian reshyceives wings from the spirit ofmusic and soars weUmsfound the highest intensification ofits powers and in this fraternal union of Apollo and Dionysus we had to recognize the apex of the Apollonian as well as the Dionysian aims of art (BT p 139)

Megills interpretation ofNietzsche s mediate-immediate distinction as an appearance-reality distinction makes itdifficultto understand how Nietzsche could use that distinction-some kind of interaction between appearance and reality-to explain the mutual intensification of ApollOnian and Dionysian powers peculiar to Attic tragedy The inability to account for Nietzsches use ofthe duo to explain the development of tragedy is a serious failing ofMegiU s interpretation for it is the development of art and tragedy in particular through the union of Apollo and Dionysus that is the principal theme ofThe Birth ofTragedy2Here we would do well to abandon Megills interpretation and try to understand how together Apollo and Dionysus represent not only the dynamics of the dramatic dithyramb but the tragic world-view that gave it birth

According to Nietzsche the ancient Greeks acute sensitivity to what they knew and felt [to be] the terror and horror of existence (BT p42) was the origin of Attic tragedy and could be explained most profoundly by using the symbolism of Apollo and Dionysus The relationshyship however between the horrors of existence and the Apollo-Dionysus duality is not as Megill would have us believe as Simple as to say that Dionysus represents this horrible reality while Apollo succeeds in covering it up For the ancient Greeks existence was horrible because it was at bottom an unbearable contradiction-a contradiction fully represented only by Apollo and Dionysus in union In part as intoxication Dionysus represents the unity of all existence prior to inclividuation-tbe breakdown ofinhibltions the loss of all existence prior to individuation (ST p 36) At the same time however this Dionysian unity is necessarily clivlded into individuals Apollo represents the delimitation of Dionysus this apolheoshy

2 We now approach the real gonl of our investigation which is dirccted toward knowledge of the Dionysian-Apollonian genius and its art product or allensl toward some feeling for and understanding of this mystery of union (BT p 48)

6 AARON BUNCH

sis of individuation knows but one law-the individual ie bull the delimiting of the boundaries of the individual measure in the Hellenic sense (BT p 46) Apollo and Dionysus then are inextricably bound together as they symbolize the primordial contradiction of existence

the fundamental knowledge of the oneness of everything exisshytent the conception of individuation as the primal cause of evil and of art as the joyous hope that the spell of individuation may be broken in augury of a restored oneness (BT p 74)

Dionysus is whole yet necessarily manifest through Apollonian individuashytion and Apollos illusion the way he demarcates the individual is always merely another form ofthe same Dionysian unity Arising from this contradiction tragedy provided the illusion that inspired the hope that the pain of individuation would somehow be resolved

The tragic art inspired by the horror of existence in fact has its origin in that contradiction and retains Apollo and Dionysus as the representatives ofits fundamental elements the tragiC myth and the satyr chorus 3 Tragedy s peculiar art-effect is the result ofbeholding the Apollonian myth that grows out of the primordial unity represented by the satyr chorus The chorus shuts out the everyday world of individuation and lulls the tragic spectator into an identification with primordial unity-the wholeness prior to individuashytion But this is dangerous since a return to everyday existence after a glimpse into the unity of everything would result in a listless will-negating apathy towards life nausea at individuation4 But it is at this point that the tragic myth intervenes to halt our slide into oblivion The Apollonian drama the tragiC myth is intermediary only in the sense thatitintervenes to prevent the audience of Attic tragedy from completely identifying with the primal unity that the music of the satyr chorus symbolized When the Apollonian myth is viewed by the tragic spectator in his susceptibility to the music of

3 Let us recall our surprise at the chorus and the tragic hero of that tragedy neither of which we could reconcile wilhout customs any more than with tradition-till we rediscovshyered this duality itself as the origin and essence of Greek tragedy as the expression of two interwoven artistic impUlses the Apollonian and the Dionysian (BT p 81)

4 For the rapture ofthe Dionysian stare with its annihilation of the ordinary bounds and limits of existence contains while it lasts a lethargic element in which all personal experiences of the past become immersed This chasm of oblivion separates the worlds of everyday reality and of Dionysian reality But as soon as this everyday reality re-enrers consciousness it is experienced as such with nausea an ascetic will-negating mood is the fruit of these states (BT pp 59-60)

7 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

the chorus and the unity it symbolIzed it is seen in a clarity and intensity that is absent in all other strictly Apollonian art-forms In the tragic myth the destruction of the tragic hero both places our sympathy in the individUal making individuation something with which we can liveS and reminds the

tragic spectator of the unity that lies beneath individuation which the tragic hero prepares to join through his destruction6 This latter effect the tragic

myths suggestions of a unity that lies beneath it gives the tragic spectator

the urge to tear the myth aside and behold the primordial unity This tragic

effect is what Nietzsche calls the experience of having to see at the same time that [one] also longed to transcend all seeing (BT p 140) This

peculiar tension has its roots in the character of existence as contradiction intensified by the satyr chorus the tragic myth suggests a unity beneath individuation such that the spectator wishes to get beyond the pain of individuation and behold the blissful primordial unity the unity however

is only manifest through individuals and to do without the myth would be

to simultaneously do without the unity-one must endure indi viduation to experience its fundamental unity

To be sure passages that discuss aspects of this phenomenon of

having to see but longing to get beyond all seeing passages that ally Dionysus with a primordial unity hidden behind Apollos veil seem to support Megills interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus opposition as an opposition between appearance and reality

Now [under the charm of the Dionysian7] with the gospel of universal harmony each one feels himself not only united reconciled and fused with his neighbor but as one with bim as if the veil of maya had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the mysterious primordial unity (BT p37)

Megill wants this passage to identify the Dionysian with an independent unity underlying manifold Apollonian veils a substratum revealed after

those veils have been torn aside Central to my dispute Witll Megill is fue

5Thus the Apollonian tears us out of the Dionysian universality and lets us find delight in individuals it attaches our pity to them and by means of them it satisfies our sense of beauty which longs for great and sublime forms (BT p 128)

On the other hand by means of the same tragic myth in the person of the tragic hero it knows how to redeem us from the greedy thirst for this existence and with an admonishing gesture it reminds us ofanother existence and a higher pleasure for which the struggling hero prepares himself by means of his destruction (BT p 125)

1 (BT p 37) Nietzsches words top of the same paragraph

8 AARON BUNCH

disagreement over how to interpret Nietzsches notion of the primordial unity Megill takes it to be Nietzsches way oftalldng about the really real

the thing-in-itself But first of all as it has already been stressed an interpretation that delimits and relegates Apollo and Dionysus to two separate spheres cannot account for the interaction that explains the tragic world-view andits art-form Byinterpreting the primordial unity indepenshy

dently of Apollonian individuation Megill is guilty of an unwarranted abstraction Apollo and Dionysus are meaningless without each other And

secondly we can refer to persuasive textual support that indicates that the

primordial unity was for Nietzsche only one more illusion

It is an eternal phenomenon the insatiable will always fmds a way to detain its creatures in life and compel them to live on by means of an illusion spread over things One is chained by the Socratic love of knowledge and the delusion of being able thereby to heal the eternal wound of existence another is enshysnared by arts seductive veil ofbeauty fluttering before his eyes still another by the metaphysical comfort that beneath the whirl of phenomena eternal life flows on indestructibly-(BT pp 109-110 myempbasis)

So not only does Megills interpretation of Apollo and Dionysus as

appearance and reality fail to account for Nietzsches union of that opposishy

tion to explain Attic tragedy but it also seems that Nietzsche explicitly

speaks against an interpretation ofthe primordial unity as a thing-in-itself

The underpinning to Megills assignment of Apollo as mediator is

the notion that somewhere beneath this world of appearance lurks the

thing-in-itself Megills commitment to the appearance-reality distincshytion a distinction that posits the thing-in-itself as the standard of truth

lying beneath mere appearance casts Apollo as a mediator that obscures Megills perspective sees Apollo as necessary since we cannot bear

Dionysian reality but unfortunate because we would really like to get at the thing-in-itself Nietzsche however in rejecting the notion of the thingshy

in-itself has no grounds to consider Apollo necessary but unfortunate

He makes this clear in On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense written in

the same period as The Birth of Tragedy It is Nietzsches treatment of concepts in OTL that Megill takes as evIdence ofNietzsches dissatisfaction

with Apollonian illusIon and his subsequent entrapment in the aestheticist s dilemma According to Megill Nietzsche denies both ourcapacity to behold

9 ON MEGIlL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Dionysian immediacy and the adequacy of concepts for representing the thing-in-itself-in neither realm Apollonian or Dionysian can we hope

to obtain genuine knowledge What Nietzsche objects to in On Truth and Lie however is not the inadequacy of concepts to represent the thing in itself but the metaphysician who forgets that concepts are based on arbitrary differentiations and that the thing-in-itself is only the abstraction of these conventional designations from their consequences8 Nietzsches point is not that we are cut off from the thing-in-itself but that the thingshyin-itself is a nonsensical and useless notion

Megill finds Nietzsches rejection ofthe thing-in-itself Nietzsches failure to distinguish between appearance and reality a reckless and untenable position As Megill so clearly states

one can call everything illusion ifone wishes just as one can call everything disclosure or text But this does not abolish the distinction between say an interpretation of the experience ofbeing run over by a truck and the experience itself-a distincshytion which every language if it is to function on something more than a purely fantastic level mustsomehow accommexlate (Megill p42)

In calling for a distinction between the interpretation ofan experience and the expcrlcnce itself Megill once again draws the lines that oppose his

position to fue aestheticists Of course aestheticists will deny that such a distinction needs to be made Nietzsches point is simply that no experience occurs independently of a perspective and hence independently of an

bullThat is to say a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things and this legislation of language likewise establisbes the fllSt laws of truth (OlL p 81) Truth according to Nietzsche only exists as aconvention oflanguage with purely practicaloriginsj it is to ones advantage to use the true designations in appropriate ways because they facilitate co-existence with others What arbitrary differentiations What one-sided prefershyences first for this then for that property of a thing The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth never a question of adequate expression otherwise there would not be so many languages The thing in itself (which is precisely what the pure truth apart from any of its consequences would be) is likewise ~omething quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for (OlL p 82) The thing in itself the pure truth apart from its consequences (which is a convention of language apart from its consequences) is not worth striving for because we only use true designations in order to take advantage of tbeir consequences In Megills intelpretation it seems he is taking Nietzsches use of pure truth in this passage to refer to a true world really out there not worth striving for only because we cannot attain it In light of Nietzsches genealogy of truth on preceding pages however Megills intelpretation is less than convincing

10 AARON BUNCH

interpretation9One can talk about an experience in itself ifone wants to butit will at best only be an abstraction from some particular experience The aestheticist does not see a need to distinguish between trucks and interpreshytations oftrucks there is fundamentally just one kind oftruck the kind you dont want to get hit by In each case of being run over by a truck there is someone being run over And that person is probably just as dead as the personwho gets hitby the truck itself Megill however can thelp but take the notion of interpretation lightly as if an interpretation were merely a mirage that fades as it approaches From Megills perspective Nietzsche is cut off from reality dancing foolishly in a realm of play at his own peril ignoring the real world in a fanciful idealism Some day Megill seems to hope that truck will come around the corner-notsome wispy interpretation of a truck but the Truck-itself in all its weighty reality-and flatten a deserving Nietzsche who was playing in the middle of the street

9 Here I am employing the distinction between perspective and interpretation pointed out in Alan Schrifts book Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Nietzsches ~rspectialism is his re~ognition that all experiences are inextricable from a particular ~lllt of vlew r perspective No one has an objective view a privileged perspective Interetahon refers t~ What each of us does with our particul ar perspective how we assign

mearung to those expenences

11 ON MEGIlJ AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Works Cited

Megill Allan Prophets ofExtremity Niet2poundche Heidegger Foucault Derrida Berkeley University of California Press 1985

[BT] Nietzsche Friedrich The Birth oTragedy Tr by Walter Kaufmann in liThe Birth ofTragedy and The Case of Wagner Walter Kaufmann ed New York Random House 1967

[011] Nietzsche Friedrich On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense Tr by Daniel Breazeale in Philosophy and Truth Selections from Nietzsches Notebooks ofthe Early 1870s Daniel Breazeale ed New Jersey Humanities Press International Inc 1979

[TI] Nietzsche Friedrich Twilight ofthe Idols Tr by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Niet2poundche Walter Kaufmann ed New York Viking Press 1954

Schrift Alan D Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction New York Routledge 1990

Photography As Art in Heideggers Philosophy

Chris Greenwald Carleton College

Heidegger claims that truth is a revealing that is concomitant with concealing and thus the nature oftruth is untruth In art and specifically in painting truth in its fun essence is won through the simultaneous presentation to the observer ofa revealing and a concealing For Heidegger this simultaneous revealing and concealing occurs when the world of a painting is revealed through a self-concealing medium Photography is another form of revealing through a self-concealing medium and thus it meets Heideggers standards as a work of art1 In addition photography seems to meet more effectively than painting Heideggers characterization of a work of art and one can argue on this basis that photography has rendered painting archaic and outdated as means for attaining truth in the Heideggerlan sense Contrary to this argument Michael Zimmerman claims that Heidegger condemns photography as a false and anthropocentric means of representation Heldeggers condemnation however fails to conceive the nature of photography in light of Heideggers own philosophy of technology and when photography is examined in such a light this condemnation of photography appears misleading

Truth and Art

Truth in Heideggers philosophy is unconcealedness and Heidegshyger likens truth to a kind oflighting by which beings are revealed With each being that is revealed however another being is concealed As Heidegger states Concealment occurs within what it lighted One being places itself in front of another being the one helps to hide another the former obscures the latter (OW A p 175) Because truth is revealing and because all revealing involves a conceaJing Hcidegger claims that [trufu] in its essence is un-truth (OWA p 176) Heldegger further illustrates the essence of truth as a primal strife in which beings reveal and conceal

I It sbould be noted that here and throughout the paper I will be using the term photograpby to mean representational photography realize that with advancements in the technology of film development one can create very abstract photos that bear very little semblance to reality

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

2 AARON BUNCH

inhis bookProphets 0Extremity is such an instance Megill sees Nietzsche as an aestheticist and under that rubric appropriates Nietzsche within a

metaphysical perspective that pours the foundation for his interpretation of and objection to Nietzsches project This move fails however not because Nietzsches cannot be out-flanked or redescribed but because Megills attempt to turn the tables on Nietzsche lacks persuasive textual support

Megill often gets Nietzsche importantly right-there is a sense in which aestheticist is an appropriate label for thinkers like Nietzsche-but once

Megill defines the aestheticists position he situates it within a world of appearance and reality a world that gives Nietzsches thought implications

that lead Megill to reject that position The dispute then hinges on how Megill situates the aestheticist space Megill starts offon the wrong foot by wedging the aestheticist realm between the really real and mere appearance caught between these two realms Nietzsche cannot ignore

but cannot access reality This notion of Nietzsches commitment to an inaccessible reality however is the result of Megills interpretation of

Nietzsches Apollo-Dionysus duality in The Birth oTragedy I will argue that Megills interpretation of Apollo and Dionysus is an unfounded overshy

simplification that fails to account for what is most significant about The Birth oTragedy namely its explanation of the development of lragedy through the union of Apollo and Dionysus

Prior to Megills interpretation ofThe Birth 0Tragedy his concepshytion ofthe aestheticist already bears the seeds of his metaphysical determishynation of Nietzsches text

As it is usually employed the word aestheticism denotes an enclosure within a self-contained realm of aesthetic objects and sensations and hence also denotes a separation from the real world of nonaesthetic objects Here however I am using the word in a sense that is almost diametrically opposed to its usual sense I am using it to refer not to the condition of being enclosed within the limited territory of the aesthetic but rather to an atlempt to expand the aesthetic to embrace the whole of reality To put it another way I am using it to refer to a tendency to see art or language or discourse or text as constituting the primary realm of human experience (Megill p 2)

In spite of the fact that Megill is using aestheticism to denote the broadening ofthe aesthetic to the exclusion ofthe nonaesthetic rejecting the traditional sense of the term which entailed an enclosure separated from

3 ON MEGITL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

reality he nonetheless employs the aesthetic-nonaesthetic distinction to make his point Megill places his definition of aestheticism within a perspective where the aesthetic-nonaesthetic distinction is very important Implicit in his conception of the aestheticist poSition is a distinction between the primary realm of human experience and the real world In expanding the realm of aesthetic objects to encompass all experience Megill nevertheshyless retains the notion ofnonaesthetic objects beyond our experience These inaccessible nonaesthetic objects remain the measuring stick of truth and lead Megill to see us as cutofffrom things andconfined to a confrontation with words alone (Megill p 2)

Megill situates himself outside ofthe aestheticist position a move which places truth beyond the reach of the aestheticist Megill and truth are outside casting a critical eyeinward on the foolhardy aestheticist who seems unconcerned with the way things really are TIlls perspective is key to the distinction between his project in Prophets ofExtremity and the interpretations others have advanced

Foucault Derrida and their followers have already done much to suggest the importance of this [aestheticist] aspect ofNielzsche bull s project But they do so from inside the aestheticist perspective and hence from a standpoint that is certainly not concerned WiUl

correctness in interpretation I propose here to cast a scholarly eye on the Nietzscbean beginnings of aestheticism (Mcgill p34)

Foucault Derrida and others have occupied the aestheticist perspective precisely because they deny any place to stand outside of that perspective Megills position from which he criticizes the aestheticist is constructed from a belief in a true world a world beyond all redescription a belief aestheticists whole-heartedly deny Megills preoccupation with the true world is supposedly what distinguishes his scholarly view from the view of alleged acstheticists like Foucault and Derrida

Megills interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus duality in The Birth of Tragedy ultimately relegates Nietzsche to Megills line-up of aestheticists According to Megill Dionysus is the symbol of immediate vision genuine knowledge the really Real Apollo however is the primary realm of human experience the veil which protects us from the harsh reality of the Dionysian The Apollonian constructions that mediate

4 AARON BUNCH

our understanding never allow us a direct and unrnediated glimpse ofreality but are nonetheless necessary for our survival As Megill explains

Nietzsche sees immediacy as unattainable but still desired it he views concepts as undesirable but also as necessary Tbis puts him in an odd position opposing the reduction of concepts to immediate vision and intuition but at the same time refusing to forget vision and intuition wben dealing with the world of concepts (Megill p 37)

So long as weshare Megills conception ofthe Dionysian as an inaccessible reality Nietzsche remains in a difficult position indeed with truth out of reach with no hope of obtaining genuine knowledge he is confined to a frivolous inconsequential realm ofplay frolicking in Apollonian illusion

Essential to Megills construction ofthis dilemma is his association ofApollo and Dionysus-which he takes as tokens for a mediate-immedishyate distinction-with a parallel distinction between skepticism and cershytainty To say that one is in a particular relation to the immediate according to Megill is to make an epistemological claim statements are more or less true to the extent that they tap directly into un-mediated reality The aestheticists predicament then is cashed out in terms of a simultaneous commitment to and refusal of Dionysian immediacy-asshycertainty This epistemological twist on the mediate-immediate distinction however is not supported by The Birth of Tragedy Although there are

several instances where Nietzsche describes Apollo and Dionysus in terms of mediation and immediacy his use of those terms does not signify a

concurrent distinction between the uncertainty of mediation and the cershytainty of the immediate For example

Among the peculiar art effects of musical tragedy we had to emphasize an Apollonian illusion by means of which we were supposed to be saved from the immediate unity with Dionysian music while our musical excitement could discharge itself in an Apollonian field and in relation to a visible intennediary world that had been interposed (BT p 139)

While it is evident that some kind of mediate-immediate distinction is at

work in this passage Megills conclusion that this situation has somehow cut us off from reality is unfounded In fact Megills version of the mediate-immediate distinction is not born out by Nietzsches use ofApollo and Dionysus in the remainder of this passage As Nietzsche continues fTom above

5 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

At the time we thougbt that we had observed bow precisely through this discharge the intennediary world of the action on the stage and the drama in general bad been made visible and intelligible from the inside to a degree that in all the other Apollonian art remains unattained Wbere the Apollonian reshyceives wings from the spirit ofmusic and soars weUmsfound the highest intensification ofits powers and in this fraternal union of Apollo and Dionysus we had to recognize the apex of the Apollonian as well as the Dionysian aims of art (BT p 139)

Megills interpretation ofNietzsche s mediate-immediate distinction as an appearance-reality distinction makes itdifficultto understand how Nietzsche could use that distinction-some kind of interaction between appearance and reality-to explain the mutual intensification of ApollOnian and Dionysian powers peculiar to Attic tragedy The inability to account for Nietzsches use ofthe duo to explain the development of tragedy is a serious failing ofMegiU s interpretation for it is the development of art and tragedy in particular through the union of Apollo and Dionysus that is the principal theme ofThe Birth ofTragedy2Here we would do well to abandon Megills interpretation and try to understand how together Apollo and Dionysus represent not only the dynamics of the dramatic dithyramb but the tragic world-view that gave it birth

According to Nietzsche the ancient Greeks acute sensitivity to what they knew and felt [to be] the terror and horror of existence (BT p42) was the origin of Attic tragedy and could be explained most profoundly by using the symbolism of Apollo and Dionysus The relationshyship however between the horrors of existence and the Apollo-Dionysus duality is not as Megill would have us believe as Simple as to say that Dionysus represents this horrible reality while Apollo succeeds in covering it up For the ancient Greeks existence was horrible because it was at bottom an unbearable contradiction-a contradiction fully represented only by Apollo and Dionysus in union In part as intoxication Dionysus represents the unity of all existence prior to inclividuation-tbe breakdown ofinhibltions the loss of all existence prior to individuation (ST p 36) At the same time however this Dionysian unity is necessarily clivlded into individuals Apollo represents the delimitation of Dionysus this apolheoshy

2 We now approach the real gonl of our investigation which is dirccted toward knowledge of the Dionysian-Apollonian genius and its art product or allensl toward some feeling for and understanding of this mystery of union (BT p 48)

6 AARON BUNCH

sis of individuation knows but one law-the individual ie bull the delimiting of the boundaries of the individual measure in the Hellenic sense (BT p 46) Apollo and Dionysus then are inextricably bound together as they symbolize the primordial contradiction of existence

the fundamental knowledge of the oneness of everything exisshytent the conception of individuation as the primal cause of evil and of art as the joyous hope that the spell of individuation may be broken in augury of a restored oneness (BT p 74)

Dionysus is whole yet necessarily manifest through Apollonian individuashytion and Apollos illusion the way he demarcates the individual is always merely another form ofthe same Dionysian unity Arising from this contradiction tragedy provided the illusion that inspired the hope that the pain of individuation would somehow be resolved

The tragic art inspired by the horror of existence in fact has its origin in that contradiction and retains Apollo and Dionysus as the representatives ofits fundamental elements the tragiC myth and the satyr chorus 3 Tragedy s peculiar art-effect is the result ofbeholding the Apollonian myth that grows out of the primordial unity represented by the satyr chorus The chorus shuts out the everyday world of individuation and lulls the tragic spectator into an identification with primordial unity-the wholeness prior to individuashytion But this is dangerous since a return to everyday existence after a glimpse into the unity of everything would result in a listless will-negating apathy towards life nausea at individuation4 But it is at this point that the tragic myth intervenes to halt our slide into oblivion The Apollonian drama the tragiC myth is intermediary only in the sense thatitintervenes to prevent the audience of Attic tragedy from completely identifying with the primal unity that the music of the satyr chorus symbolized When the Apollonian myth is viewed by the tragic spectator in his susceptibility to the music of

3 Let us recall our surprise at the chorus and the tragic hero of that tragedy neither of which we could reconcile wilhout customs any more than with tradition-till we rediscovshyered this duality itself as the origin and essence of Greek tragedy as the expression of two interwoven artistic impUlses the Apollonian and the Dionysian (BT p 81)

4 For the rapture ofthe Dionysian stare with its annihilation of the ordinary bounds and limits of existence contains while it lasts a lethargic element in which all personal experiences of the past become immersed This chasm of oblivion separates the worlds of everyday reality and of Dionysian reality But as soon as this everyday reality re-enrers consciousness it is experienced as such with nausea an ascetic will-negating mood is the fruit of these states (BT pp 59-60)

7 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

the chorus and the unity it symbolIzed it is seen in a clarity and intensity that is absent in all other strictly Apollonian art-forms In the tragic myth the destruction of the tragic hero both places our sympathy in the individUal making individuation something with which we can liveS and reminds the

tragic spectator of the unity that lies beneath individuation which the tragic hero prepares to join through his destruction6 This latter effect the tragic

myths suggestions of a unity that lies beneath it gives the tragic spectator

the urge to tear the myth aside and behold the primordial unity This tragic

effect is what Nietzsche calls the experience of having to see at the same time that [one] also longed to transcend all seeing (BT p 140) This

peculiar tension has its roots in the character of existence as contradiction intensified by the satyr chorus the tragic myth suggests a unity beneath individuation such that the spectator wishes to get beyond the pain of individuation and behold the blissful primordial unity the unity however

is only manifest through individuals and to do without the myth would be

to simultaneously do without the unity-one must endure indi viduation to experience its fundamental unity

To be sure passages that discuss aspects of this phenomenon of

having to see but longing to get beyond all seeing passages that ally Dionysus with a primordial unity hidden behind Apollos veil seem to support Megills interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus opposition as an opposition between appearance and reality

Now [under the charm of the Dionysian7] with the gospel of universal harmony each one feels himself not only united reconciled and fused with his neighbor but as one with bim as if the veil of maya had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the mysterious primordial unity (BT p37)

Megill wants this passage to identify the Dionysian with an independent unity underlying manifold Apollonian veils a substratum revealed after

those veils have been torn aside Central to my dispute Witll Megill is fue

5Thus the Apollonian tears us out of the Dionysian universality and lets us find delight in individuals it attaches our pity to them and by means of them it satisfies our sense of beauty which longs for great and sublime forms (BT p 128)

On the other hand by means of the same tragic myth in the person of the tragic hero it knows how to redeem us from the greedy thirst for this existence and with an admonishing gesture it reminds us ofanother existence and a higher pleasure for which the struggling hero prepares himself by means of his destruction (BT p 125)

1 (BT p 37) Nietzsches words top of the same paragraph

8 AARON BUNCH

disagreement over how to interpret Nietzsches notion of the primordial unity Megill takes it to be Nietzsches way oftalldng about the really real

the thing-in-itself But first of all as it has already been stressed an interpretation that delimits and relegates Apollo and Dionysus to two separate spheres cannot account for the interaction that explains the tragic world-view andits art-form Byinterpreting the primordial unity indepenshy

dently of Apollonian individuation Megill is guilty of an unwarranted abstraction Apollo and Dionysus are meaningless without each other And

secondly we can refer to persuasive textual support that indicates that the

primordial unity was for Nietzsche only one more illusion

It is an eternal phenomenon the insatiable will always fmds a way to detain its creatures in life and compel them to live on by means of an illusion spread over things One is chained by the Socratic love of knowledge and the delusion of being able thereby to heal the eternal wound of existence another is enshysnared by arts seductive veil ofbeauty fluttering before his eyes still another by the metaphysical comfort that beneath the whirl of phenomena eternal life flows on indestructibly-(BT pp 109-110 myempbasis)

So not only does Megills interpretation of Apollo and Dionysus as

appearance and reality fail to account for Nietzsches union of that opposishy

tion to explain Attic tragedy but it also seems that Nietzsche explicitly

speaks against an interpretation ofthe primordial unity as a thing-in-itself

The underpinning to Megills assignment of Apollo as mediator is

the notion that somewhere beneath this world of appearance lurks the

thing-in-itself Megills commitment to the appearance-reality distincshytion a distinction that posits the thing-in-itself as the standard of truth

lying beneath mere appearance casts Apollo as a mediator that obscures Megills perspective sees Apollo as necessary since we cannot bear

Dionysian reality but unfortunate because we would really like to get at the thing-in-itself Nietzsche however in rejecting the notion of the thingshy

in-itself has no grounds to consider Apollo necessary but unfortunate

He makes this clear in On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense written in

the same period as The Birth of Tragedy It is Nietzsches treatment of concepts in OTL that Megill takes as evIdence ofNietzsches dissatisfaction

with Apollonian illusIon and his subsequent entrapment in the aestheticist s dilemma According to Megill Nietzsche denies both ourcapacity to behold

9 ON MEGIlL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Dionysian immediacy and the adequacy of concepts for representing the thing-in-itself-in neither realm Apollonian or Dionysian can we hope

to obtain genuine knowledge What Nietzsche objects to in On Truth and Lie however is not the inadequacy of concepts to represent the thing in itself but the metaphysician who forgets that concepts are based on arbitrary differentiations and that the thing-in-itself is only the abstraction of these conventional designations from their consequences8 Nietzsches point is not that we are cut off from the thing-in-itself but that the thingshyin-itself is a nonsensical and useless notion

Megill finds Nietzsches rejection ofthe thing-in-itself Nietzsches failure to distinguish between appearance and reality a reckless and untenable position As Megill so clearly states

one can call everything illusion ifone wishes just as one can call everything disclosure or text But this does not abolish the distinction between say an interpretation of the experience ofbeing run over by a truck and the experience itself-a distincshytion which every language if it is to function on something more than a purely fantastic level mustsomehow accommexlate (Megill p42)

In calling for a distinction between the interpretation ofan experience and the expcrlcnce itself Megill once again draws the lines that oppose his

position to fue aestheticists Of course aestheticists will deny that such a distinction needs to be made Nietzsches point is simply that no experience occurs independently of a perspective and hence independently of an

bullThat is to say a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things and this legislation of language likewise establisbes the fllSt laws of truth (OlL p 81) Truth according to Nietzsche only exists as aconvention oflanguage with purely practicaloriginsj it is to ones advantage to use the true designations in appropriate ways because they facilitate co-existence with others What arbitrary differentiations What one-sided prefershyences first for this then for that property of a thing The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth never a question of adequate expression otherwise there would not be so many languages The thing in itself (which is precisely what the pure truth apart from any of its consequences would be) is likewise ~omething quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for (OlL p 82) The thing in itself the pure truth apart from its consequences (which is a convention of language apart from its consequences) is not worth striving for because we only use true designations in order to take advantage of tbeir consequences In Megills intelpretation it seems he is taking Nietzsches use of pure truth in this passage to refer to a true world really out there not worth striving for only because we cannot attain it In light of Nietzsches genealogy of truth on preceding pages however Megills intelpretation is less than convincing

10 AARON BUNCH

interpretation9One can talk about an experience in itself ifone wants to butit will at best only be an abstraction from some particular experience The aestheticist does not see a need to distinguish between trucks and interpreshytations oftrucks there is fundamentally just one kind oftruck the kind you dont want to get hit by In each case of being run over by a truck there is someone being run over And that person is probably just as dead as the personwho gets hitby the truck itself Megill however can thelp but take the notion of interpretation lightly as if an interpretation were merely a mirage that fades as it approaches From Megills perspective Nietzsche is cut off from reality dancing foolishly in a realm of play at his own peril ignoring the real world in a fanciful idealism Some day Megill seems to hope that truck will come around the corner-notsome wispy interpretation of a truck but the Truck-itself in all its weighty reality-and flatten a deserving Nietzsche who was playing in the middle of the street

9 Here I am employing the distinction between perspective and interpretation pointed out in Alan Schrifts book Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Nietzsches ~rspectialism is his re~ognition that all experiences are inextricable from a particular ~lllt of vlew r perspective No one has an objective view a privileged perspective Interetahon refers t~ What each of us does with our particul ar perspective how we assign

mearung to those expenences

11 ON MEGIlJ AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Works Cited

Megill Allan Prophets ofExtremity Niet2poundche Heidegger Foucault Derrida Berkeley University of California Press 1985

[BT] Nietzsche Friedrich The Birth oTragedy Tr by Walter Kaufmann in liThe Birth ofTragedy and The Case of Wagner Walter Kaufmann ed New York Random House 1967

[011] Nietzsche Friedrich On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense Tr by Daniel Breazeale in Philosophy and Truth Selections from Nietzsches Notebooks ofthe Early 1870s Daniel Breazeale ed New Jersey Humanities Press International Inc 1979

[TI] Nietzsche Friedrich Twilight ofthe Idols Tr by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Niet2poundche Walter Kaufmann ed New York Viking Press 1954

Schrift Alan D Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction New York Routledge 1990

Photography As Art in Heideggers Philosophy

Chris Greenwald Carleton College

Heidegger claims that truth is a revealing that is concomitant with concealing and thus the nature oftruth is untruth In art and specifically in painting truth in its fun essence is won through the simultaneous presentation to the observer ofa revealing and a concealing For Heidegger this simultaneous revealing and concealing occurs when the world of a painting is revealed through a self-concealing medium Photography is another form of revealing through a self-concealing medium and thus it meets Heideggers standards as a work of art1 In addition photography seems to meet more effectively than painting Heideggers characterization of a work of art and one can argue on this basis that photography has rendered painting archaic and outdated as means for attaining truth in the Heideggerlan sense Contrary to this argument Michael Zimmerman claims that Heidegger condemns photography as a false and anthropocentric means of representation Heldeggers condemnation however fails to conceive the nature of photography in light of Heideggers own philosophy of technology and when photography is examined in such a light this condemnation of photography appears misleading

Truth and Art

Truth in Heideggers philosophy is unconcealedness and Heidegshyger likens truth to a kind oflighting by which beings are revealed With each being that is revealed however another being is concealed As Heidegger states Concealment occurs within what it lighted One being places itself in front of another being the one helps to hide another the former obscures the latter (OW A p 175) Because truth is revealing and because all revealing involves a conceaJing Hcidegger claims that [trufu] in its essence is un-truth (OWA p 176) Heldegger further illustrates the essence of truth as a primal strife in which beings reveal and conceal

I It sbould be noted that here and throughout the paper I will be using the term photograpby to mean representational photography realize that with advancements in the technology of film development one can create very abstract photos that bear very little semblance to reality

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

3 ON MEGITL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

reality he nonetheless employs the aesthetic-nonaesthetic distinction to make his point Megill places his definition of aestheticism within a perspective where the aesthetic-nonaesthetic distinction is very important Implicit in his conception of the aestheticist poSition is a distinction between the primary realm of human experience and the real world In expanding the realm of aesthetic objects to encompass all experience Megill nevertheshyless retains the notion ofnonaesthetic objects beyond our experience These inaccessible nonaesthetic objects remain the measuring stick of truth and lead Megill to see us as cutofffrom things andconfined to a confrontation with words alone (Megill p 2)

Megill situates himself outside ofthe aestheticist position a move which places truth beyond the reach of the aestheticist Megill and truth are outside casting a critical eyeinward on the foolhardy aestheticist who seems unconcerned with the way things really are TIlls perspective is key to the distinction between his project in Prophets ofExtremity and the interpretations others have advanced

Foucault Derrida and their followers have already done much to suggest the importance of this [aestheticist] aspect ofNielzsche bull s project But they do so from inside the aestheticist perspective and hence from a standpoint that is certainly not concerned WiUl

correctness in interpretation I propose here to cast a scholarly eye on the Nietzscbean beginnings of aestheticism (Mcgill p34)

Foucault Derrida and others have occupied the aestheticist perspective precisely because they deny any place to stand outside of that perspective Megills position from which he criticizes the aestheticist is constructed from a belief in a true world a world beyond all redescription a belief aestheticists whole-heartedly deny Megills preoccupation with the true world is supposedly what distinguishes his scholarly view from the view of alleged acstheticists like Foucault and Derrida

Megills interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus duality in The Birth of Tragedy ultimately relegates Nietzsche to Megills line-up of aestheticists According to Megill Dionysus is the symbol of immediate vision genuine knowledge the really Real Apollo however is the primary realm of human experience the veil which protects us from the harsh reality of the Dionysian The Apollonian constructions that mediate

4 AARON BUNCH

our understanding never allow us a direct and unrnediated glimpse ofreality but are nonetheless necessary for our survival As Megill explains

Nietzsche sees immediacy as unattainable but still desired it he views concepts as undesirable but also as necessary Tbis puts him in an odd position opposing the reduction of concepts to immediate vision and intuition but at the same time refusing to forget vision and intuition wben dealing with the world of concepts (Megill p 37)

So long as weshare Megills conception ofthe Dionysian as an inaccessible reality Nietzsche remains in a difficult position indeed with truth out of reach with no hope of obtaining genuine knowledge he is confined to a frivolous inconsequential realm ofplay frolicking in Apollonian illusion

Essential to Megills construction ofthis dilemma is his association ofApollo and Dionysus-which he takes as tokens for a mediate-immedishyate distinction-with a parallel distinction between skepticism and cershytainty To say that one is in a particular relation to the immediate according to Megill is to make an epistemological claim statements are more or less true to the extent that they tap directly into un-mediated reality The aestheticists predicament then is cashed out in terms of a simultaneous commitment to and refusal of Dionysian immediacy-asshycertainty This epistemological twist on the mediate-immediate distinction however is not supported by The Birth of Tragedy Although there are

several instances where Nietzsche describes Apollo and Dionysus in terms of mediation and immediacy his use of those terms does not signify a

concurrent distinction between the uncertainty of mediation and the cershytainty of the immediate For example

Among the peculiar art effects of musical tragedy we had to emphasize an Apollonian illusion by means of which we were supposed to be saved from the immediate unity with Dionysian music while our musical excitement could discharge itself in an Apollonian field and in relation to a visible intennediary world that had been interposed (BT p 139)

While it is evident that some kind of mediate-immediate distinction is at

work in this passage Megills conclusion that this situation has somehow cut us off from reality is unfounded In fact Megills version of the mediate-immediate distinction is not born out by Nietzsches use ofApollo and Dionysus in the remainder of this passage As Nietzsche continues fTom above

5 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

At the time we thougbt that we had observed bow precisely through this discharge the intennediary world of the action on the stage and the drama in general bad been made visible and intelligible from the inside to a degree that in all the other Apollonian art remains unattained Wbere the Apollonian reshyceives wings from the spirit ofmusic and soars weUmsfound the highest intensification ofits powers and in this fraternal union of Apollo and Dionysus we had to recognize the apex of the Apollonian as well as the Dionysian aims of art (BT p 139)

Megills interpretation ofNietzsche s mediate-immediate distinction as an appearance-reality distinction makes itdifficultto understand how Nietzsche could use that distinction-some kind of interaction between appearance and reality-to explain the mutual intensification of ApollOnian and Dionysian powers peculiar to Attic tragedy The inability to account for Nietzsches use ofthe duo to explain the development of tragedy is a serious failing ofMegiU s interpretation for it is the development of art and tragedy in particular through the union of Apollo and Dionysus that is the principal theme ofThe Birth ofTragedy2Here we would do well to abandon Megills interpretation and try to understand how together Apollo and Dionysus represent not only the dynamics of the dramatic dithyramb but the tragic world-view that gave it birth

According to Nietzsche the ancient Greeks acute sensitivity to what they knew and felt [to be] the terror and horror of existence (BT p42) was the origin of Attic tragedy and could be explained most profoundly by using the symbolism of Apollo and Dionysus The relationshyship however between the horrors of existence and the Apollo-Dionysus duality is not as Megill would have us believe as Simple as to say that Dionysus represents this horrible reality while Apollo succeeds in covering it up For the ancient Greeks existence was horrible because it was at bottom an unbearable contradiction-a contradiction fully represented only by Apollo and Dionysus in union In part as intoxication Dionysus represents the unity of all existence prior to inclividuation-tbe breakdown ofinhibltions the loss of all existence prior to individuation (ST p 36) At the same time however this Dionysian unity is necessarily clivlded into individuals Apollo represents the delimitation of Dionysus this apolheoshy

2 We now approach the real gonl of our investigation which is dirccted toward knowledge of the Dionysian-Apollonian genius and its art product or allensl toward some feeling for and understanding of this mystery of union (BT p 48)

6 AARON BUNCH

sis of individuation knows but one law-the individual ie bull the delimiting of the boundaries of the individual measure in the Hellenic sense (BT p 46) Apollo and Dionysus then are inextricably bound together as they symbolize the primordial contradiction of existence

the fundamental knowledge of the oneness of everything exisshytent the conception of individuation as the primal cause of evil and of art as the joyous hope that the spell of individuation may be broken in augury of a restored oneness (BT p 74)

Dionysus is whole yet necessarily manifest through Apollonian individuashytion and Apollos illusion the way he demarcates the individual is always merely another form ofthe same Dionysian unity Arising from this contradiction tragedy provided the illusion that inspired the hope that the pain of individuation would somehow be resolved

The tragic art inspired by the horror of existence in fact has its origin in that contradiction and retains Apollo and Dionysus as the representatives ofits fundamental elements the tragiC myth and the satyr chorus 3 Tragedy s peculiar art-effect is the result ofbeholding the Apollonian myth that grows out of the primordial unity represented by the satyr chorus The chorus shuts out the everyday world of individuation and lulls the tragic spectator into an identification with primordial unity-the wholeness prior to individuashytion But this is dangerous since a return to everyday existence after a glimpse into the unity of everything would result in a listless will-negating apathy towards life nausea at individuation4 But it is at this point that the tragic myth intervenes to halt our slide into oblivion The Apollonian drama the tragiC myth is intermediary only in the sense thatitintervenes to prevent the audience of Attic tragedy from completely identifying with the primal unity that the music of the satyr chorus symbolized When the Apollonian myth is viewed by the tragic spectator in his susceptibility to the music of

3 Let us recall our surprise at the chorus and the tragic hero of that tragedy neither of which we could reconcile wilhout customs any more than with tradition-till we rediscovshyered this duality itself as the origin and essence of Greek tragedy as the expression of two interwoven artistic impUlses the Apollonian and the Dionysian (BT p 81)

4 For the rapture ofthe Dionysian stare with its annihilation of the ordinary bounds and limits of existence contains while it lasts a lethargic element in which all personal experiences of the past become immersed This chasm of oblivion separates the worlds of everyday reality and of Dionysian reality But as soon as this everyday reality re-enrers consciousness it is experienced as such with nausea an ascetic will-negating mood is the fruit of these states (BT pp 59-60)

7 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

the chorus and the unity it symbolIzed it is seen in a clarity and intensity that is absent in all other strictly Apollonian art-forms In the tragic myth the destruction of the tragic hero both places our sympathy in the individUal making individuation something with which we can liveS and reminds the

tragic spectator of the unity that lies beneath individuation which the tragic hero prepares to join through his destruction6 This latter effect the tragic

myths suggestions of a unity that lies beneath it gives the tragic spectator

the urge to tear the myth aside and behold the primordial unity This tragic

effect is what Nietzsche calls the experience of having to see at the same time that [one] also longed to transcend all seeing (BT p 140) This

peculiar tension has its roots in the character of existence as contradiction intensified by the satyr chorus the tragic myth suggests a unity beneath individuation such that the spectator wishes to get beyond the pain of individuation and behold the blissful primordial unity the unity however

is only manifest through individuals and to do without the myth would be

to simultaneously do without the unity-one must endure indi viduation to experience its fundamental unity

To be sure passages that discuss aspects of this phenomenon of

having to see but longing to get beyond all seeing passages that ally Dionysus with a primordial unity hidden behind Apollos veil seem to support Megills interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus opposition as an opposition between appearance and reality

Now [under the charm of the Dionysian7] with the gospel of universal harmony each one feels himself not only united reconciled and fused with his neighbor but as one with bim as if the veil of maya had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the mysterious primordial unity (BT p37)

Megill wants this passage to identify the Dionysian with an independent unity underlying manifold Apollonian veils a substratum revealed after

those veils have been torn aside Central to my dispute Witll Megill is fue

5Thus the Apollonian tears us out of the Dionysian universality and lets us find delight in individuals it attaches our pity to them and by means of them it satisfies our sense of beauty which longs for great and sublime forms (BT p 128)

On the other hand by means of the same tragic myth in the person of the tragic hero it knows how to redeem us from the greedy thirst for this existence and with an admonishing gesture it reminds us ofanother existence and a higher pleasure for which the struggling hero prepares himself by means of his destruction (BT p 125)

1 (BT p 37) Nietzsches words top of the same paragraph

8 AARON BUNCH

disagreement over how to interpret Nietzsches notion of the primordial unity Megill takes it to be Nietzsches way oftalldng about the really real

the thing-in-itself But first of all as it has already been stressed an interpretation that delimits and relegates Apollo and Dionysus to two separate spheres cannot account for the interaction that explains the tragic world-view andits art-form Byinterpreting the primordial unity indepenshy

dently of Apollonian individuation Megill is guilty of an unwarranted abstraction Apollo and Dionysus are meaningless without each other And

secondly we can refer to persuasive textual support that indicates that the

primordial unity was for Nietzsche only one more illusion

It is an eternal phenomenon the insatiable will always fmds a way to detain its creatures in life and compel them to live on by means of an illusion spread over things One is chained by the Socratic love of knowledge and the delusion of being able thereby to heal the eternal wound of existence another is enshysnared by arts seductive veil ofbeauty fluttering before his eyes still another by the metaphysical comfort that beneath the whirl of phenomena eternal life flows on indestructibly-(BT pp 109-110 myempbasis)

So not only does Megills interpretation of Apollo and Dionysus as

appearance and reality fail to account for Nietzsches union of that opposishy

tion to explain Attic tragedy but it also seems that Nietzsche explicitly

speaks against an interpretation ofthe primordial unity as a thing-in-itself

The underpinning to Megills assignment of Apollo as mediator is

the notion that somewhere beneath this world of appearance lurks the

thing-in-itself Megills commitment to the appearance-reality distincshytion a distinction that posits the thing-in-itself as the standard of truth

lying beneath mere appearance casts Apollo as a mediator that obscures Megills perspective sees Apollo as necessary since we cannot bear

Dionysian reality but unfortunate because we would really like to get at the thing-in-itself Nietzsche however in rejecting the notion of the thingshy

in-itself has no grounds to consider Apollo necessary but unfortunate

He makes this clear in On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense written in

the same period as The Birth of Tragedy It is Nietzsches treatment of concepts in OTL that Megill takes as evIdence ofNietzsches dissatisfaction

with Apollonian illusIon and his subsequent entrapment in the aestheticist s dilemma According to Megill Nietzsche denies both ourcapacity to behold

9 ON MEGIlL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Dionysian immediacy and the adequacy of concepts for representing the thing-in-itself-in neither realm Apollonian or Dionysian can we hope

to obtain genuine knowledge What Nietzsche objects to in On Truth and Lie however is not the inadequacy of concepts to represent the thing in itself but the metaphysician who forgets that concepts are based on arbitrary differentiations and that the thing-in-itself is only the abstraction of these conventional designations from their consequences8 Nietzsches point is not that we are cut off from the thing-in-itself but that the thingshyin-itself is a nonsensical and useless notion

Megill finds Nietzsches rejection ofthe thing-in-itself Nietzsches failure to distinguish between appearance and reality a reckless and untenable position As Megill so clearly states

one can call everything illusion ifone wishes just as one can call everything disclosure or text But this does not abolish the distinction between say an interpretation of the experience ofbeing run over by a truck and the experience itself-a distincshytion which every language if it is to function on something more than a purely fantastic level mustsomehow accommexlate (Megill p42)

In calling for a distinction between the interpretation ofan experience and the expcrlcnce itself Megill once again draws the lines that oppose his

position to fue aestheticists Of course aestheticists will deny that such a distinction needs to be made Nietzsches point is simply that no experience occurs independently of a perspective and hence independently of an

bullThat is to say a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things and this legislation of language likewise establisbes the fllSt laws of truth (OlL p 81) Truth according to Nietzsche only exists as aconvention oflanguage with purely practicaloriginsj it is to ones advantage to use the true designations in appropriate ways because they facilitate co-existence with others What arbitrary differentiations What one-sided prefershyences first for this then for that property of a thing The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth never a question of adequate expression otherwise there would not be so many languages The thing in itself (which is precisely what the pure truth apart from any of its consequences would be) is likewise ~omething quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for (OlL p 82) The thing in itself the pure truth apart from its consequences (which is a convention of language apart from its consequences) is not worth striving for because we only use true designations in order to take advantage of tbeir consequences In Megills intelpretation it seems he is taking Nietzsches use of pure truth in this passage to refer to a true world really out there not worth striving for only because we cannot attain it In light of Nietzsches genealogy of truth on preceding pages however Megills intelpretation is less than convincing

10 AARON BUNCH

interpretation9One can talk about an experience in itself ifone wants to butit will at best only be an abstraction from some particular experience The aestheticist does not see a need to distinguish between trucks and interpreshytations oftrucks there is fundamentally just one kind oftruck the kind you dont want to get hit by In each case of being run over by a truck there is someone being run over And that person is probably just as dead as the personwho gets hitby the truck itself Megill however can thelp but take the notion of interpretation lightly as if an interpretation were merely a mirage that fades as it approaches From Megills perspective Nietzsche is cut off from reality dancing foolishly in a realm of play at his own peril ignoring the real world in a fanciful idealism Some day Megill seems to hope that truck will come around the corner-notsome wispy interpretation of a truck but the Truck-itself in all its weighty reality-and flatten a deserving Nietzsche who was playing in the middle of the street

9 Here I am employing the distinction between perspective and interpretation pointed out in Alan Schrifts book Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Nietzsches ~rspectialism is his re~ognition that all experiences are inextricable from a particular ~lllt of vlew r perspective No one has an objective view a privileged perspective Interetahon refers t~ What each of us does with our particul ar perspective how we assign

mearung to those expenences

11 ON MEGIlJ AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Works Cited

Megill Allan Prophets ofExtremity Niet2poundche Heidegger Foucault Derrida Berkeley University of California Press 1985

[BT] Nietzsche Friedrich The Birth oTragedy Tr by Walter Kaufmann in liThe Birth ofTragedy and The Case of Wagner Walter Kaufmann ed New York Random House 1967

[011] Nietzsche Friedrich On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense Tr by Daniel Breazeale in Philosophy and Truth Selections from Nietzsches Notebooks ofthe Early 1870s Daniel Breazeale ed New Jersey Humanities Press International Inc 1979

[TI] Nietzsche Friedrich Twilight ofthe Idols Tr by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Niet2poundche Walter Kaufmann ed New York Viking Press 1954

Schrift Alan D Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction New York Routledge 1990

Photography As Art in Heideggers Philosophy

Chris Greenwald Carleton College

Heidegger claims that truth is a revealing that is concomitant with concealing and thus the nature oftruth is untruth In art and specifically in painting truth in its fun essence is won through the simultaneous presentation to the observer ofa revealing and a concealing For Heidegger this simultaneous revealing and concealing occurs when the world of a painting is revealed through a self-concealing medium Photography is another form of revealing through a self-concealing medium and thus it meets Heideggers standards as a work of art1 In addition photography seems to meet more effectively than painting Heideggers characterization of a work of art and one can argue on this basis that photography has rendered painting archaic and outdated as means for attaining truth in the Heideggerlan sense Contrary to this argument Michael Zimmerman claims that Heidegger condemns photography as a false and anthropocentric means of representation Heldeggers condemnation however fails to conceive the nature of photography in light of Heideggers own philosophy of technology and when photography is examined in such a light this condemnation of photography appears misleading

Truth and Art

Truth in Heideggers philosophy is unconcealedness and Heidegshyger likens truth to a kind oflighting by which beings are revealed With each being that is revealed however another being is concealed As Heidegger states Concealment occurs within what it lighted One being places itself in front of another being the one helps to hide another the former obscures the latter (OW A p 175) Because truth is revealing and because all revealing involves a conceaJing Hcidegger claims that [trufu] in its essence is un-truth (OWA p 176) Heldegger further illustrates the essence of truth as a primal strife in which beings reveal and conceal

I It sbould be noted that here and throughout the paper I will be using the term photograpby to mean representational photography realize that with advancements in the technology of film development one can create very abstract photos that bear very little semblance to reality

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

4 AARON BUNCH

our understanding never allow us a direct and unrnediated glimpse ofreality but are nonetheless necessary for our survival As Megill explains

Nietzsche sees immediacy as unattainable but still desired it he views concepts as undesirable but also as necessary Tbis puts him in an odd position opposing the reduction of concepts to immediate vision and intuition but at the same time refusing to forget vision and intuition wben dealing with the world of concepts (Megill p 37)

So long as weshare Megills conception ofthe Dionysian as an inaccessible reality Nietzsche remains in a difficult position indeed with truth out of reach with no hope of obtaining genuine knowledge he is confined to a frivolous inconsequential realm ofplay frolicking in Apollonian illusion

Essential to Megills construction ofthis dilemma is his association ofApollo and Dionysus-which he takes as tokens for a mediate-immedishyate distinction-with a parallel distinction between skepticism and cershytainty To say that one is in a particular relation to the immediate according to Megill is to make an epistemological claim statements are more or less true to the extent that they tap directly into un-mediated reality The aestheticists predicament then is cashed out in terms of a simultaneous commitment to and refusal of Dionysian immediacy-asshycertainty This epistemological twist on the mediate-immediate distinction however is not supported by The Birth of Tragedy Although there are

several instances where Nietzsche describes Apollo and Dionysus in terms of mediation and immediacy his use of those terms does not signify a

concurrent distinction between the uncertainty of mediation and the cershytainty of the immediate For example

Among the peculiar art effects of musical tragedy we had to emphasize an Apollonian illusion by means of which we were supposed to be saved from the immediate unity with Dionysian music while our musical excitement could discharge itself in an Apollonian field and in relation to a visible intennediary world that had been interposed (BT p 139)

While it is evident that some kind of mediate-immediate distinction is at

work in this passage Megills conclusion that this situation has somehow cut us off from reality is unfounded In fact Megills version of the mediate-immediate distinction is not born out by Nietzsches use ofApollo and Dionysus in the remainder of this passage As Nietzsche continues fTom above

5 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

At the time we thougbt that we had observed bow precisely through this discharge the intennediary world of the action on the stage and the drama in general bad been made visible and intelligible from the inside to a degree that in all the other Apollonian art remains unattained Wbere the Apollonian reshyceives wings from the spirit ofmusic and soars weUmsfound the highest intensification ofits powers and in this fraternal union of Apollo and Dionysus we had to recognize the apex of the Apollonian as well as the Dionysian aims of art (BT p 139)

Megills interpretation ofNietzsche s mediate-immediate distinction as an appearance-reality distinction makes itdifficultto understand how Nietzsche could use that distinction-some kind of interaction between appearance and reality-to explain the mutual intensification of ApollOnian and Dionysian powers peculiar to Attic tragedy The inability to account for Nietzsches use ofthe duo to explain the development of tragedy is a serious failing ofMegiU s interpretation for it is the development of art and tragedy in particular through the union of Apollo and Dionysus that is the principal theme ofThe Birth ofTragedy2Here we would do well to abandon Megills interpretation and try to understand how together Apollo and Dionysus represent not only the dynamics of the dramatic dithyramb but the tragic world-view that gave it birth

According to Nietzsche the ancient Greeks acute sensitivity to what they knew and felt [to be] the terror and horror of existence (BT p42) was the origin of Attic tragedy and could be explained most profoundly by using the symbolism of Apollo and Dionysus The relationshyship however between the horrors of existence and the Apollo-Dionysus duality is not as Megill would have us believe as Simple as to say that Dionysus represents this horrible reality while Apollo succeeds in covering it up For the ancient Greeks existence was horrible because it was at bottom an unbearable contradiction-a contradiction fully represented only by Apollo and Dionysus in union In part as intoxication Dionysus represents the unity of all existence prior to inclividuation-tbe breakdown ofinhibltions the loss of all existence prior to individuation (ST p 36) At the same time however this Dionysian unity is necessarily clivlded into individuals Apollo represents the delimitation of Dionysus this apolheoshy

2 We now approach the real gonl of our investigation which is dirccted toward knowledge of the Dionysian-Apollonian genius and its art product or allensl toward some feeling for and understanding of this mystery of union (BT p 48)

6 AARON BUNCH

sis of individuation knows but one law-the individual ie bull the delimiting of the boundaries of the individual measure in the Hellenic sense (BT p 46) Apollo and Dionysus then are inextricably bound together as they symbolize the primordial contradiction of existence

the fundamental knowledge of the oneness of everything exisshytent the conception of individuation as the primal cause of evil and of art as the joyous hope that the spell of individuation may be broken in augury of a restored oneness (BT p 74)

Dionysus is whole yet necessarily manifest through Apollonian individuashytion and Apollos illusion the way he demarcates the individual is always merely another form ofthe same Dionysian unity Arising from this contradiction tragedy provided the illusion that inspired the hope that the pain of individuation would somehow be resolved

The tragic art inspired by the horror of existence in fact has its origin in that contradiction and retains Apollo and Dionysus as the representatives ofits fundamental elements the tragiC myth and the satyr chorus 3 Tragedy s peculiar art-effect is the result ofbeholding the Apollonian myth that grows out of the primordial unity represented by the satyr chorus The chorus shuts out the everyday world of individuation and lulls the tragic spectator into an identification with primordial unity-the wholeness prior to individuashytion But this is dangerous since a return to everyday existence after a glimpse into the unity of everything would result in a listless will-negating apathy towards life nausea at individuation4 But it is at this point that the tragic myth intervenes to halt our slide into oblivion The Apollonian drama the tragiC myth is intermediary only in the sense thatitintervenes to prevent the audience of Attic tragedy from completely identifying with the primal unity that the music of the satyr chorus symbolized When the Apollonian myth is viewed by the tragic spectator in his susceptibility to the music of

3 Let us recall our surprise at the chorus and the tragic hero of that tragedy neither of which we could reconcile wilhout customs any more than with tradition-till we rediscovshyered this duality itself as the origin and essence of Greek tragedy as the expression of two interwoven artistic impUlses the Apollonian and the Dionysian (BT p 81)

4 For the rapture ofthe Dionysian stare with its annihilation of the ordinary bounds and limits of existence contains while it lasts a lethargic element in which all personal experiences of the past become immersed This chasm of oblivion separates the worlds of everyday reality and of Dionysian reality But as soon as this everyday reality re-enrers consciousness it is experienced as such with nausea an ascetic will-negating mood is the fruit of these states (BT pp 59-60)

7 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

the chorus and the unity it symbolIzed it is seen in a clarity and intensity that is absent in all other strictly Apollonian art-forms In the tragic myth the destruction of the tragic hero both places our sympathy in the individUal making individuation something with which we can liveS and reminds the

tragic spectator of the unity that lies beneath individuation which the tragic hero prepares to join through his destruction6 This latter effect the tragic

myths suggestions of a unity that lies beneath it gives the tragic spectator

the urge to tear the myth aside and behold the primordial unity This tragic

effect is what Nietzsche calls the experience of having to see at the same time that [one] also longed to transcend all seeing (BT p 140) This

peculiar tension has its roots in the character of existence as contradiction intensified by the satyr chorus the tragic myth suggests a unity beneath individuation such that the spectator wishes to get beyond the pain of individuation and behold the blissful primordial unity the unity however

is only manifest through individuals and to do without the myth would be

to simultaneously do without the unity-one must endure indi viduation to experience its fundamental unity

To be sure passages that discuss aspects of this phenomenon of

having to see but longing to get beyond all seeing passages that ally Dionysus with a primordial unity hidden behind Apollos veil seem to support Megills interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus opposition as an opposition between appearance and reality

Now [under the charm of the Dionysian7] with the gospel of universal harmony each one feels himself not only united reconciled and fused with his neighbor but as one with bim as if the veil of maya had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the mysterious primordial unity (BT p37)

Megill wants this passage to identify the Dionysian with an independent unity underlying manifold Apollonian veils a substratum revealed after

those veils have been torn aside Central to my dispute Witll Megill is fue

5Thus the Apollonian tears us out of the Dionysian universality and lets us find delight in individuals it attaches our pity to them and by means of them it satisfies our sense of beauty which longs for great and sublime forms (BT p 128)

On the other hand by means of the same tragic myth in the person of the tragic hero it knows how to redeem us from the greedy thirst for this existence and with an admonishing gesture it reminds us ofanother existence and a higher pleasure for which the struggling hero prepares himself by means of his destruction (BT p 125)

1 (BT p 37) Nietzsches words top of the same paragraph

8 AARON BUNCH

disagreement over how to interpret Nietzsches notion of the primordial unity Megill takes it to be Nietzsches way oftalldng about the really real

the thing-in-itself But first of all as it has already been stressed an interpretation that delimits and relegates Apollo and Dionysus to two separate spheres cannot account for the interaction that explains the tragic world-view andits art-form Byinterpreting the primordial unity indepenshy

dently of Apollonian individuation Megill is guilty of an unwarranted abstraction Apollo and Dionysus are meaningless without each other And

secondly we can refer to persuasive textual support that indicates that the

primordial unity was for Nietzsche only one more illusion

It is an eternal phenomenon the insatiable will always fmds a way to detain its creatures in life and compel them to live on by means of an illusion spread over things One is chained by the Socratic love of knowledge and the delusion of being able thereby to heal the eternal wound of existence another is enshysnared by arts seductive veil ofbeauty fluttering before his eyes still another by the metaphysical comfort that beneath the whirl of phenomena eternal life flows on indestructibly-(BT pp 109-110 myempbasis)

So not only does Megills interpretation of Apollo and Dionysus as

appearance and reality fail to account for Nietzsches union of that opposishy

tion to explain Attic tragedy but it also seems that Nietzsche explicitly

speaks against an interpretation ofthe primordial unity as a thing-in-itself

The underpinning to Megills assignment of Apollo as mediator is

the notion that somewhere beneath this world of appearance lurks the

thing-in-itself Megills commitment to the appearance-reality distincshytion a distinction that posits the thing-in-itself as the standard of truth

lying beneath mere appearance casts Apollo as a mediator that obscures Megills perspective sees Apollo as necessary since we cannot bear

Dionysian reality but unfortunate because we would really like to get at the thing-in-itself Nietzsche however in rejecting the notion of the thingshy

in-itself has no grounds to consider Apollo necessary but unfortunate

He makes this clear in On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense written in

the same period as The Birth of Tragedy It is Nietzsches treatment of concepts in OTL that Megill takes as evIdence ofNietzsches dissatisfaction

with Apollonian illusIon and his subsequent entrapment in the aestheticist s dilemma According to Megill Nietzsche denies both ourcapacity to behold

9 ON MEGIlL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Dionysian immediacy and the adequacy of concepts for representing the thing-in-itself-in neither realm Apollonian or Dionysian can we hope

to obtain genuine knowledge What Nietzsche objects to in On Truth and Lie however is not the inadequacy of concepts to represent the thing in itself but the metaphysician who forgets that concepts are based on arbitrary differentiations and that the thing-in-itself is only the abstraction of these conventional designations from their consequences8 Nietzsches point is not that we are cut off from the thing-in-itself but that the thingshyin-itself is a nonsensical and useless notion

Megill finds Nietzsches rejection ofthe thing-in-itself Nietzsches failure to distinguish between appearance and reality a reckless and untenable position As Megill so clearly states

one can call everything illusion ifone wishes just as one can call everything disclosure or text But this does not abolish the distinction between say an interpretation of the experience ofbeing run over by a truck and the experience itself-a distincshytion which every language if it is to function on something more than a purely fantastic level mustsomehow accommexlate (Megill p42)

In calling for a distinction between the interpretation ofan experience and the expcrlcnce itself Megill once again draws the lines that oppose his

position to fue aestheticists Of course aestheticists will deny that such a distinction needs to be made Nietzsches point is simply that no experience occurs independently of a perspective and hence independently of an

bullThat is to say a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things and this legislation of language likewise establisbes the fllSt laws of truth (OlL p 81) Truth according to Nietzsche only exists as aconvention oflanguage with purely practicaloriginsj it is to ones advantage to use the true designations in appropriate ways because they facilitate co-existence with others What arbitrary differentiations What one-sided prefershyences first for this then for that property of a thing The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth never a question of adequate expression otherwise there would not be so many languages The thing in itself (which is precisely what the pure truth apart from any of its consequences would be) is likewise ~omething quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for (OlL p 82) The thing in itself the pure truth apart from its consequences (which is a convention of language apart from its consequences) is not worth striving for because we only use true designations in order to take advantage of tbeir consequences In Megills intelpretation it seems he is taking Nietzsches use of pure truth in this passage to refer to a true world really out there not worth striving for only because we cannot attain it In light of Nietzsches genealogy of truth on preceding pages however Megills intelpretation is less than convincing

10 AARON BUNCH

interpretation9One can talk about an experience in itself ifone wants to butit will at best only be an abstraction from some particular experience The aestheticist does not see a need to distinguish between trucks and interpreshytations oftrucks there is fundamentally just one kind oftruck the kind you dont want to get hit by In each case of being run over by a truck there is someone being run over And that person is probably just as dead as the personwho gets hitby the truck itself Megill however can thelp but take the notion of interpretation lightly as if an interpretation were merely a mirage that fades as it approaches From Megills perspective Nietzsche is cut off from reality dancing foolishly in a realm of play at his own peril ignoring the real world in a fanciful idealism Some day Megill seems to hope that truck will come around the corner-notsome wispy interpretation of a truck but the Truck-itself in all its weighty reality-and flatten a deserving Nietzsche who was playing in the middle of the street

9 Here I am employing the distinction between perspective and interpretation pointed out in Alan Schrifts book Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Nietzsches ~rspectialism is his re~ognition that all experiences are inextricable from a particular ~lllt of vlew r perspective No one has an objective view a privileged perspective Interetahon refers t~ What each of us does with our particul ar perspective how we assign

mearung to those expenences

11 ON MEGIlJ AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Works Cited

Megill Allan Prophets ofExtremity Niet2poundche Heidegger Foucault Derrida Berkeley University of California Press 1985

[BT] Nietzsche Friedrich The Birth oTragedy Tr by Walter Kaufmann in liThe Birth ofTragedy and The Case of Wagner Walter Kaufmann ed New York Random House 1967

[011] Nietzsche Friedrich On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense Tr by Daniel Breazeale in Philosophy and Truth Selections from Nietzsches Notebooks ofthe Early 1870s Daniel Breazeale ed New Jersey Humanities Press International Inc 1979

[TI] Nietzsche Friedrich Twilight ofthe Idols Tr by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Niet2poundche Walter Kaufmann ed New York Viking Press 1954

Schrift Alan D Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction New York Routledge 1990

Photography As Art in Heideggers Philosophy

Chris Greenwald Carleton College

Heidegger claims that truth is a revealing that is concomitant with concealing and thus the nature oftruth is untruth In art and specifically in painting truth in its fun essence is won through the simultaneous presentation to the observer ofa revealing and a concealing For Heidegger this simultaneous revealing and concealing occurs when the world of a painting is revealed through a self-concealing medium Photography is another form of revealing through a self-concealing medium and thus it meets Heideggers standards as a work of art1 In addition photography seems to meet more effectively than painting Heideggers characterization of a work of art and one can argue on this basis that photography has rendered painting archaic and outdated as means for attaining truth in the Heideggerlan sense Contrary to this argument Michael Zimmerman claims that Heidegger condemns photography as a false and anthropocentric means of representation Heldeggers condemnation however fails to conceive the nature of photography in light of Heideggers own philosophy of technology and when photography is examined in such a light this condemnation of photography appears misleading

Truth and Art

Truth in Heideggers philosophy is unconcealedness and Heidegshyger likens truth to a kind oflighting by which beings are revealed With each being that is revealed however another being is concealed As Heidegger states Concealment occurs within what it lighted One being places itself in front of another being the one helps to hide another the former obscures the latter (OW A p 175) Because truth is revealing and because all revealing involves a conceaJing Hcidegger claims that [trufu] in its essence is un-truth (OWA p 176) Heldegger further illustrates the essence of truth as a primal strife in which beings reveal and conceal

I It sbould be noted that here and throughout the paper I will be using the term photograpby to mean representational photography realize that with advancements in the technology of film development one can create very abstract photos that bear very little semblance to reality

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

5 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

At the time we thougbt that we had observed bow precisely through this discharge the intennediary world of the action on the stage and the drama in general bad been made visible and intelligible from the inside to a degree that in all the other Apollonian art remains unattained Wbere the Apollonian reshyceives wings from the spirit ofmusic and soars weUmsfound the highest intensification ofits powers and in this fraternal union of Apollo and Dionysus we had to recognize the apex of the Apollonian as well as the Dionysian aims of art (BT p 139)

Megills interpretation ofNietzsche s mediate-immediate distinction as an appearance-reality distinction makes itdifficultto understand how Nietzsche could use that distinction-some kind of interaction between appearance and reality-to explain the mutual intensification of ApollOnian and Dionysian powers peculiar to Attic tragedy The inability to account for Nietzsches use ofthe duo to explain the development of tragedy is a serious failing ofMegiU s interpretation for it is the development of art and tragedy in particular through the union of Apollo and Dionysus that is the principal theme ofThe Birth ofTragedy2Here we would do well to abandon Megills interpretation and try to understand how together Apollo and Dionysus represent not only the dynamics of the dramatic dithyramb but the tragic world-view that gave it birth

According to Nietzsche the ancient Greeks acute sensitivity to what they knew and felt [to be] the terror and horror of existence (BT p42) was the origin of Attic tragedy and could be explained most profoundly by using the symbolism of Apollo and Dionysus The relationshyship however between the horrors of existence and the Apollo-Dionysus duality is not as Megill would have us believe as Simple as to say that Dionysus represents this horrible reality while Apollo succeeds in covering it up For the ancient Greeks existence was horrible because it was at bottom an unbearable contradiction-a contradiction fully represented only by Apollo and Dionysus in union In part as intoxication Dionysus represents the unity of all existence prior to inclividuation-tbe breakdown ofinhibltions the loss of all existence prior to individuation (ST p 36) At the same time however this Dionysian unity is necessarily clivlded into individuals Apollo represents the delimitation of Dionysus this apolheoshy

2 We now approach the real gonl of our investigation which is dirccted toward knowledge of the Dionysian-Apollonian genius and its art product or allensl toward some feeling for and understanding of this mystery of union (BT p 48)

6 AARON BUNCH

sis of individuation knows but one law-the individual ie bull the delimiting of the boundaries of the individual measure in the Hellenic sense (BT p 46) Apollo and Dionysus then are inextricably bound together as they symbolize the primordial contradiction of existence

the fundamental knowledge of the oneness of everything exisshytent the conception of individuation as the primal cause of evil and of art as the joyous hope that the spell of individuation may be broken in augury of a restored oneness (BT p 74)

Dionysus is whole yet necessarily manifest through Apollonian individuashytion and Apollos illusion the way he demarcates the individual is always merely another form ofthe same Dionysian unity Arising from this contradiction tragedy provided the illusion that inspired the hope that the pain of individuation would somehow be resolved

The tragic art inspired by the horror of existence in fact has its origin in that contradiction and retains Apollo and Dionysus as the representatives ofits fundamental elements the tragiC myth and the satyr chorus 3 Tragedy s peculiar art-effect is the result ofbeholding the Apollonian myth that grows out of the primordial unity represented by the satyr chorus The chorus shuts out the everyday world of individuation and lulls the tragic spectator into an identification with primordial unity-the wholeness prior to individuashytion But this is dangerous since a return to everyday existence after a glimpse into the unity of everything would result in a listless will-negating apathy towards life nausea at individuation4 But it is at this point that the tragic myth intervenes to halt our slide into oblivion The Apollonian drama the tragiC myth is intermediary only in the sense thatitintervenes to prevent the audience of Attic tragedy from completely identifying with the primal unity that the music of the satyr chorus symbolized When the Apollonian myth is viewed by the tragic spectator in his susceptibility to the music of

3 Let us recall our surprise at the chorus and the tragic hero of that tragedy neither of which we could reconcile wilhout customs any more than with tradition-till we rediscovshyered this duality itself as the origin and essence of Greek tragedy as the expression of two interwoven artistic impUlses the Apollonian and the Dionysian (BT p 81)

4 For the rapture ofthe Dionysian stare with its annihilation of the ordinary bounds and limits of existence contains while it lasts a lethargic element in which all personal experiences of the past become immersed This chasm of oblivion separates the worlds of everyday reality and of Dionysian reality But as soon as this everyday reality re-enrers consciousness it is experienced as such with nausea an ascetic will-negating mood is the fruit of these states (BT pp 59-60)

7 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

the chorus and the unity it symbolIzed it is seen in a clarity and intensity that is absent in all other strictly Apollonian art-forms In the tragic myth the destruction of the tragic hero both places our sympathy in the individUal making individuation something with which we can liveS and reminds the

tragic spectator of the unity that lies beneath individuation which the tragic hero prepares to join through his destruction6 This latter effect the tragic

myths suggestions of a unity that lies beneath it gives the tragic spectator

the urge to tear the myth aside and behold the primordial unity This tragic

effect is what Nietzsche calls the experience of having to see at the same time that [one] also longed to transcend all seeing (BT p 140) This

peculiar tension has its roots in the character of existence as contradiction intensified by the satyr chorus the tragic myth suggests a unity beneath individuation such that the spectator wishes to get beyond the pain of individuation and behold the blissful primordial unity the unity however

is only manifest through individuals and to do without the myth would be

to simultaneously do without the unity-one must endure indi viduation to experience its fundamental unity

To be sure passages that discuss aspects of this phenomenon of

having to see but longing to get beyond all seeing passages that ally Dionysus with a primordial unity hidden behind Apollos veil seem to support Megills interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus opposition as an opposition between appearance and reality

Now [under the charm of the Dionysian7] with the gospel of universal harmony each one feels himself not only united reconciled and fused with his neighbor but as one with bim as if the veil of maya had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the mysterious primordial unity (BT p37)

Megill wants this passage to identify the Dionysian with an independent unity underlying manifold Apollonian veils a substratum revealed after

those veils have been torn aside Central to my dispute Witll Megill is fue

5Thus the Apollonian tears us out of the Dionysian universality and lets us find delight in individuals it attaches our pity to them and by means of them it satisfies our sense of beauty which longs for great and sublime forms (BT p 128)

On the other hand by means of the same tragic myth in the person of the tragic hero it knows how to redeem us from the greedy thirst for this existence and with an admonishing gesture it reminds us ofanother existence and a higher pleasure for which the struggling hero prepares himself by means of his destruction (BT p 125)

1 (BT p 37) Nietzsches words top of the same paragraph

8 AARON BUNCH

disagreement over how to interpret Nietzsches notion of the primordial unity Megill takes it to be Nietzsches way oftalldng about the really real

the thing-in-itself But first of all as it has already been stressed an interpretation that delimits and relegates Apollo and Dionysus to two separate spheres cannot account for the interaction that explains the tragic world-view andits art-form Byinterpreting the primordial unity indepenshy

dently of Apollonian individuation Megill is guilty of an unwarranted abstraction Apollo and Dionysus are meaningless without each other And

secondly we can refer to persuasive textual support that indicates that the

primordial unity was for Nietzsche only one more illusion

It is an eternal phenomenon the insatiable will always fmds a way to detain its creatures in life and compel them to live on by means of an illusion spread over things One is chained by the Socratic love of knowledge and the delusion of being able thereby to heal the eternal wound of existence another is enshysnared by arts seductive veil ofbeauty fluttering before his eyes still another by the metaphysical comfort that beneath the whirl of phenomena eternal life flows on indestructibly-(BT pp 109-110 myempbasis)

So not only does Megills interpretation of Apollo and Dionysus as

appearance and reality fail to account for Nietzsches union of that opposishy

tion to explain Attic tragedy but it also seems that Nietzsche explicitly

speaks against an interpretation ofthe primordial unity as a thing-in-itself

The underpinning to Megills assignment of Apollo as mediator is

the notion that somewhere beneath this world of appearance lurks the

thing-in-itself Megills commitment to the appearance-reality distincshytion a distinction that posits the thing-in-itself as the standard of truth

lying beneath mere appearance casts Apollo as a mediator that obscures Megills perspective sees Apollo as necessary since we cannot bear

Dionysian reality but unfortunate because we would really like to get at the thing-in-itself Nietzsche however in rejecting the notion of the thingshy

in-itself has no grounds to consider Apollo necessary but unfortunate

He makes this clear in On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense written in

the same period as The Birth of Tragedy It is Nietzsches treatment of concepts in OTL that Megill takes as evIdence ofNietzsches dissatisfaction

with Apollonian illusIon and his subsequent entrapment in the aestheticist s dilemma According to Megill Nietzsche denies both ourcapacity to behold

9 ON MEGIlL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Dionysian immediacy and the adequacy of concepts for representing the thing-in-itself-in neither realm Apollonian or Dionysian can we hope

to obtain genuine knowledge What Nietzsche objects to in On Truth and Lie however is not the inadequacy of concepts to represent the thing in itself but the metaphysician who forgets that concepts are based on arbitrary differentiations and that the thing-in-itself is only the abstraction of these conventional designations from their consequences8 Nietzsches point is not that we are cut off from the thing-in-itself but that the thingshyin-itself is a nonsensical and useless notion

Megill finds Nietzsches rejection ofthe thing-in-itself Nietzsches failure to distinguish between appearance and reality a reckless and untenable position As Megill so clearly states

one can call everything illusion ifone wishes just as one can call everything disclosure or text But this does not abolish the distinction between say an interpretation of the experience ofbeing run over by a truck and the experience itself-a distincshytion which every language if it is to function on something more than a purely fantastic level mustsomehow accommexlate (Megill p42)

In calling for a distinction between the interpretation ofan experience and the expcrlcnce itself Megill once again draws the lines that oppose his

position to fue aestheticists Of course aestheticists will deny that such a distinction needs to be made Nietzsches point is simply that no experience occurs independently of a perspective and hence independently of an

bullThat is to say a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things and this legislation of language likewise establisbes the fllSt laws of truth (OlL p 81) Truth according to Nietzsche only exists as aconvention oflanguage with purely practicaloriginsj it is to ones advantage to use the true designations in appropriate ways because they facilitate co-existence with others What arbitrary differentiations What one-sided prefershyences first for this then for that property of a thing The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth never a question of adequate expression otherwise there would not be so many languages The thing in itself (which is precisely what the pure truth apart from any of its consequences would be) is likewise ~omething quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for (OlL p 82) The thing in itself the pure truth apart from its consequences (which is a convention of language apart from its consequences) is not worth striving for because we only use true designations in order to take advantage of tbeir consequences In Megills intelpretation it seems he is taking Nietzsches use of pure truth in this passage to refer to a true world really out there not worth striving for only because we cannot attain it In light of Nietzsches genealogy of truth on preceding pages however Megills intelpretation is less than convincing

10 AARON BUNCH

interpretation9One can talk about an experience in itself ifone wants to butit will at best only be an abstraction from some particular experience The aestheticist does not see a need to distinguish between trucks and interpreshytations oftrucks there is fundamentally just one kind oftruck the kind you dont want to get hit by In each case of being run over by a truck there is someone being run over And that person is probably just as dead as the personwho gets hitby the truck itself Megill however can thelp but take the notion of interpretation lightly as if an interpretation were merely a mirage that fades as it approaches From Megills perspective Nietzsche is cut off from reality dancing foolishly in a realm of play at his own peril ignoring the real world in a fanciful idealism Some day Megill seems to hope that truck will come around the corner-notsome wispy interpretation of a truck but the Truck-itself in all its weighty reality-and flatten a deserving Nietzsche who was playing in the middle of the street

9 Here I am employing the distinction between perspective and interpretation pointed out in Alan Schrifts book Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Nietzsches ~rspectialism is his re~ognition that all experiences are inextricable from a particular ~lllt of vlew r perspective No one has an objective view a privileged perspective Interetahon refers t~ What each of us does with our particul ar perspective how we assign

mearung to those expenences

11 ON MEGIlJ AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Works Cited

Megill Allan Prophets ofExtremity Niet2poundche Heidegger Foucault Derrida Berkeley University of California Press 1985

[BT] Nietzsche Friedrich The Birth oTragedy Tr by Walter Kaufmann in liThe Birth ofTragedy and The Case of Wagner Walter Kaufmann ed New York Random House 1967

[011] Nietzsche Friedrich On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense Tr by Daniel Breazeale in Philosophy and Truth Selections from Nietzsches Notebooks ofthe Early 1870s Daniel Breazeale ed New Jersey Humanities Press International Inc 1979

[TI] Nietzsche Friedrich Twilight ofthe Idols Tr by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Niet2poundche Walter Kaufmann ed New York Viking Press 1954

Schrift Alan D Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction New York Routledge 1990

Photography As Art in Heideggers Philosophy

Chris Greenwald Carleton College

Heidegger claims that truth is a revealing that is concomitant with concealing and thus the nature oftruth is untruth In art and specifically in painting truth in its fun essence is won through the simultaneous presentation to the observer ofa revealing and a concealing For Heidegger this simultaneous revealing and concealing occurs when the world of a painting is revealed through a self-concealing medium Photography is another form of revealing through a self-concealing medium and thus it meets Heideggers standards as a work of art1 In addition photography seems to meet more effectively than painting Heideggers characterization of a work of art and one can argue on this basis that photography has rendered painting archaic and outdated as means for attaining truth in the Heideggerlan sense Contrary to this argument Michael Zimmerman claims that Heidegger condemns photography as a false and anthropocentric means of representation Heldeggers condemnation however fails to conceive the nature of photography in light of Heideggers own philosophy of technology and when photography is examined in such a light this condemnation of photography appears misleading

Truth and Art

Truth in Heideggers philosophy is unconcealedness and Heidegshyger likens truth to a kind oflighting by which beings are revealed With each being that is revealed however another being is concealed As Heidegger states Concealment occurs within what it lighted One being places itself in front of another being the one helps to hide another the former obscures the latter (OW A p 175) Because truth is revealing and because all revealing involves a conceaJing Hcidegger claims that [trufu] in its essence is un-truth (OWA p 176) Heldegger further illustrates the essence of truth as a primal strife in which beings reveal and conceal

I It sbould be noted that here and throughout the paper I will be using the term photograpby to mean representational photography realize that with advancements in the technology of film development one can create very abstract photos that bear very little semblance to reality

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

6 AARON BUNCH

sis of individuation knows but one law-the individual ie bull the delimiting of the boundaries of the individual measure in the Hellenic sense (BT p 46) Apollo and Dionysus then are inextricably bound together as they symbolize the primordial contradiction of existence

the fundamental knowledge of the oneness of everything exisshytent the conception of individuation as the primal cause of evil and of art as the joyous hope that the spell of individuation may be broken in augury of a restored oneness (BT p 74)

Dionysus is whole yet necessarily manifest through Apollonian individuashytion and Apollos illusion the way he demarcates the individual is always merely another form ofthe same Dionysian unity Arising from this contradiction tragedy provided the illusion that inspired the hope that the pain of individuation would somehow be resolved

The tragic art inspired by the horror of existence in fact has its origin in that contradiction and retains Apollo and Dionysus as the representatives ofits fundamental elements the tragiC myth and the satyr chorus 3 Tragedy s peculiar art-effect is the result ofbeholding the Apollonian myth that grows out of the primordial unity represented by the satyr chorus The chorus shuts out the everyday world of individuation and lulls the tragic spectator into an identification with primordial unity-the wholeness prior to individuashytion But this is dangerous since a return to everyday existence after a glimpse into the unity of everything would result in a listless will-negating apathy towards life nausea at individuation4 But it is at this point that the tragic myth intervenes to halt our slide into oblivion The Apollonian drama the tragiC myth is intermediary only in the sense thatitintervenes to prevent the audience of Attic tragedy from completely identifying with the primal unity that the music of the satyr chorus symbolized When the Apollonian myth is viewed by the tragic spectator in his susceptibility to the music of

3 Let us recall our surprise at the chorus and the tragic hero of that tragedy neither of which we could reconcile wilhout customs any more than with tradition-till we rediscovshyered this duality itself as the origin and essence of Greek tragedy as the expression of two interwoven artistic impUlses the Apollonian and the Dionysian (BT p 81)

4 For the rapture ofthe Dionysian stare with its annihilation of the ordinary bounds and limits of existence contains while it lasts a lethargic element in which all personal experiences of the past become immersed This chasm of oblivion separates the worlds of everyday reality and of Dionysian reality But as soon as this everyday reality re-enrers consciousness it is experienced as such with nausea an ascetic will-negating mood is the fruit of these states (BT pp 59-60)

7 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

the chorus and the unity it symbolIzed it is seen in a clarity and intensity that is absent in all other strictly Apollonian art-forms In the tragic myth the destruction of the tragic hero both places our sympathy in the individUal making individuation something with which we can liveS and reminds the

tragic spectator of the unity that lies beneath individuation which the tragic hero prepares to join through his destruction6 This latter effect the tragic

myths suggestions of a unity that lies beneath it gives the tragic spectator

the urge to tear the myth aside and behold the primordial unity This tragic

effect is what Nietzsche calls the experience of having to see at the same time that [one] also longed to transcend all seeing (BT p 140) This

peculiar tension has its roots in the character of existence as contradiction intensified by the satyr chorus the tragic myth suggests a unity beneath individuation such that the spectator wishes to get beyond the pain of individuation and behold the blissful primordial unity the unity however

is only manifest through individuals and to do without the myth would be

to simultaneously do without the unity-one must endure indi viduation to experience its fundamental unity

To be sure passages that discuss aspects of this phenomenon of

having to see but longing to get beyond all seeing passages that ally Dionysus with a primordial unity hidden behind Apollos veil seem to support Megills interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus opposition as an opposition between appearance and reality

Now [under the charm of the Dionysian7] with the gospel of universal harmony each one feels himself not only united reconciled and fused with his neighbor but as one with bim as if the veil of maya had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the mysterious primordial unity (BT p37)

Megill wants this passage to identify the Dionysian with an independent unity underlying manifold Apollonian veils a substratum revealed after

those veils have been torn aside Central to my dispute Witll Megill is fue

5Thus the Apollonian tears us out of the Dionysian universality and lets us find delight in individuals it attaches our pity to them and by means of them it satisfies our sense of beauty which longs for great and sublime forms (BT p 128)

On the other hand by means of the same tragic myth in the person of the tragic hero it knows how to redeem us from the greedy thirst for this existence and with an admonishing gesture it reminds us ofanother existence and a higher pleasure for which the struggling hero prepares himself by means of his destruction (BT p 125)

1 (BT p 37) Nietzsches words top of the same paragraph

8 AARON BUNCH

disagreement over how to interpret Nietzsches notion of the primordial unity Megill takes it to be Nietzsches way oftalldng about the really real

the thing-in-itself But first of all as it has already been stressed an interpretation that delimits and relegates Apollo and Dionysus to two separate spheres cannot account for the interaction that explains the tragic world-view andits art-form Byinterpreting the primordial unity indepenshy

dently of Apollonian individuation Megill is guilty of an unwarranted abstraction Apollo and Dionysus are meaningless without each other And

secondly we can refer to persuasive textual support that indicates that the

primordial unity was for Nietzsche only one more illusion

It is an eternal phenomenon the insatiable will always fmds a way to detain its creatures in life and compel them to live on by means of an illusion spread over things One is chained by the Socratic love of knowledge and the delusion of being able thereby to heal the eternal wound of existence another is enshysnared by arts seductive veil ofbeauty fluttering before his eyes still another by the metaphysical comfort that beneath the whirl of phenomena eternal life flows on indestructibly-(BT pp 109-110 myempbasis)

So not only does Megills interpretation of Apollo and Dionysus as

appearance and reality fail to account for Nietzsches union of that opposishy

tion to explain Attic tragedy but it also seems that Nietzsche explicitly

speaks against an interpretation ofthe primordial unity as a thing-in-itself

The underpinning to Megills assignment of Apollo as mediator is

the notion that somewhere beneath this world of appearance lurks the

thing-in-itself Megills commitment to the appearance-reality distincshytion a distinction that posits the thing-in-itself as the standard of truth

lying beneath mere appearance casts Apollo as a mediator that obscures Megills perspective sees Apollo as necessary since we cannot bear

Dionysian reality but unfortunate because we would really like to get at the thing-in-itself Nietzsche however in rejecting the notion of the thingshy

in-itself has no grounds to consider Apollo necessary but unfortunate

He makes this clear in On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense written in

the same period as The Birth of Tragedy It is Nietzsches treatment of concepts in OTL that Megill takes as evIdence ofNietzsches dissatisfaction

with Apollonian illusIon and his subsequent entrapment in the aestheticist s dilemma According to Megill Nietzsche denies both ourcapacity to behold

9 ON MEGIlL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Dionysian immediacy and the adequacy of concepts for representing the thing-in-itself-in neither realm Apollonian or Dionysian can we hope

to obtain genuine knowledge What Nietzsche objects to in On Truth and Lie however is not the inadequacy of concepts to represent the thing in itself but the metaphysician who forgets that concepts are based on arbitrary differentiations and that the thing-in-itself is only the abstraction of these conventional designations from their consequences8 Nietzsches point is not that we are cut off from the thing-in-itself but that the thingshyin-itself is a nonsensical and useless notion

Megill finds Nietzsches rejection ofthe thing-in-itself Nietzsches failure to distinguish between appearance and reality a reckless and untenable position As Megill so clearly states

one can call everything illusion ifone wishes just as one can call everything disclosure or text But this does not abolish the distinction between say an interpretation of the experience ofbeing run over by a truck and the experience itself-a distincshytion which every language if it is to function on something more than a purely fantastic level mustsomehow accommexlate (Megill p42)

In calling for a distinction between the interpretation ofan experience and the expcrlcnce itself Megill once again draws the lines that oppose his

position to fue aestheticists Of course aestheticists will deny that such a distinction needs to be made Nietzsches point is simply that no experience occurs independently of a perspective and hence independently of an

bullThat is to say a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things and this legislation of language likewise establisbes the fllSt laws of truth (OlL p 81) Truth according to Nietzsche only exists as aconvention oflanguage with purely practicaloriginsj it is to ones advantage to use the true designations in appropriate ways because they facilitate co-existence with others What arbitrary differentiations What one-sided prefershyences first for this then for that property of a thing The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth never a question of adequate expression otherwise there would not be so many languages The thing in itself (which is precisely what the pure truth apart from any of its consequences would be) is likewise ~omething quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for (OlL p 82) The thing in itself the pure truth apart from its consequences (which is a convention of language apart from its consequences) is not worth striving for because we only use true designations in order to take advantage of tbeir consequences In Megills intelpretation it seems he is taking Nietzsches use of pure truth in this passage to refer to a true world really out there not worth striving for only because we cannot attain it In light of Nietzsches genealogy of truth on preceding pages however Megills intelpretation is less than convincing

10 AARON BUNCH

interpretation9One can talk about an experience in itself ifone wants to butit will at best only be an abstraction from some particular experience The aestheticist does not see a need to distinguish between trucks and interpreshytations oftrucks there is fundamentally just one kind oftruck the kind you dont want to get hit by In each case of being run over by a truck there is someone being run over And that person is probably just as dead as the personwho gets hitby the truck itself Megill however can thelp but take the notion of interpretation lightly as if an interpretation were merely a mirage that fades as it approaches From Megills perspective Nietzsche is cut off from reality dancing foolishly in a realm of play at his own peril ignoring the real world in a fanciful idealism Some day Megill seems to hope that truck will come around the corner-notsome wispy interpretation of a truck but the Truck-itself in all its weighty reality-and flatten a deserving Nietzsche who was playing in the middle of the street

9 Here I am employing the distinction between perspective and interpretation pointed out in Alan Schrifts book Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Nietzsches ~rspectialism is his re~ognition that all experiences are inextricable from a particular ~lllt of vlew r perspective No one has an objective view a privileged perspective Interetahon refers t~ What each of us does with our particul ar perspective how we assign

mearung to those expenences

11 ON MEGIlJ AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Works Cited

Megill Allan Prophets ofExtremity Niet2poundche Heidegger Foucault Derrida Berkeley University of California Press 1985

[BT] Nietzsche Friedrich The Birth oTragedy Tr by Walter Kaufmann in liThe Birth ofTragedy and The Case of Wagner Walter Kaufmann ed New York Random House 1967

[011] Nietzsche Friedrich On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense Tr by Daniel Breazeale in Philosophy and Truth Selections from Nietzsches Notebooks ofthe Early 1870s Daniel Breazeale ed New Jersey Humanities Press International Inc 1979

[TI] Nietzsche Friedrich Twilight ofthe Idols Tr by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Niet2poundche Walter Kaufmann ed New York Viking Press 1954

Schrift Alan D Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction New York Routledge 1990

Photography As Art in Heideggers Philosophy

Chris Greenwald Carleton College

Heidegger claims that truth is a revealing that is concomitant with concealing and thus the nature oftruth is untruth In art and specifically in painting truth in its fun essence is won through the simultaneous presentation to the observer ofa revealing and a concealing For Heidegger this simultaneous revealing and concealing occurs when the world of a painting is revealed through a self-concealing medium Photography is another form of revealing through a self-concealing medium and thus it meets Heideggers standards as a work of art1 In addition photography seems to meet more effectively than painting Heideggers characterization of a work of art and one can argue on this basis that photography has rendered painting archaic and outdated as means for attaining truth in the Heideggerlan sense Contrary to this argument Michael Zimmerman claims that Heidegger condemns photography as a false and anthropocentric means of representation Heldeggers condemnation however fails to conceive the nature of photography in light of Heideggers own philosophy of technology and when photography is examined in such a light this condemnation of photography appears misleading

Truth and Art

Truth in Heideggers philosophy is unconcealedness and Heidegshyger likens truth to a kind oflighting by which beings are revealed With each being that is revealed however another being is concealed As Heidegger states Concealment occurs within what it lighted One being places itself in front of another being the one helps to hide another the former obscures the latter (OW A p 175) Because truth is revealing and because all revealing involves a conceaJing Hcidegger claims that [trufu] in its essence is un-truth (OWA p 176) Heldegger further illustrates the essence of truth as a primal strife in which beings reveal and conceal

I It sbould be noted that here and throughout the paper I will be using the term photograpby to mean representational photography realize that with advancements in the technology of film development one can create very abstract photos that bear very little semblance to reality

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

7 ON MEGllL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

the chorus and the unity it symbolIzed it is seen in a clarity and intensity that is absent in all other strictly Apollonian art-forms In the tragic myth the destruction of the tragic hero both places our sympathy in the individUal making individuation something with which we can liveS and reminds the

tragic spectator of the unity that lies beneath individuation which the tragic hero prepares to join through his destruction6 This latter effect the tragic

myths suggestions of a unity that lies beneath it gives the tragic spectator

the urge to tear the myth aside and behold the primordial unity This tragic

effect is what Nietzsche calls the experience of having to see at the same time that [one] also longed to transcend all seeing (BT p 140) This

peculiar tension has its roots in the character of existence as contradiction intensified by the satyr chorus the tragic myth suggests a unity beneath individuation such that the spectator wishes to get beyond the pain of individuation and behold the blissful primordial unity the unity however

is only manifest through individuals and to do without the myth would be

to simultaneously do without the unity-one must endure indi viduation to experience its fundamental unity

To be sure passages that discuss aspects of this phenomenon of

having to see but longing to get beyond all seeing passages that ally Dionysus with a primordial unity hidden behind Apollos veil seem to support Megills interpretation of the Apollo-Dionysus opposition as an opposition between appearance and reality

Now [under the charm of the Dionysian7] with the gospel of universal harmony each one feels himself not only united reconciled and fused with his neighbor but as one with bim as if the veil of maya had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the mysterious primordial unity (BT p37)

Megill wants this passage to identify the Dionysian with an independent unity underlying manifold Apollonian veils a substratum revealed after

those veils have been torn aside Central to my dispute Witll Megill is fue

5Thus the Apollonian tears us out of the Dionysian universality and lets us find delight in individuals it attaches our pity to them and by means of them it satisfies our sense of beauty which longs for great and sublime forms (BT p 128)

On the other hand by means of the same tragic myth in the person of the tragic hero it knows how to redeem us from the greedy thirst for this existence and with an admonishing gesture it reminds us ofanother existence and a higher pleasure for which the struggling hero prepares himself by means of his destruction (BT p 125)

1 (BT p 37) Nietzsches words top of the same paragraph

8 AARON BUNCH

disagreement over how to interpret Nietzsches notion of the primordial unity Megill takes it to be Nietzsches way oftalldng about the really real

the thing-in-itself But first of all as it has already been stressed an interpretation that delimits and relegates Apollo and Dionysus to two separate spheres cannot account for the interaction that explains the tragic world-view andits art-form Byinterpreting the primordial unity indepenshy

dently of Apollonian individuation Megill is guilty of an unwarranted abstraction Apollo and Dionysus are meaningless without each other And

secondly we can refer to persuasive textual support that indicates that the

primordial unity was for Nietzsche only one more illusion

It is an eternal phenomenon the insatiable will always fmds a way to detain its creatures in life and compel them to live on by means of an illusion spread over things One is chained by the Socratic love of knowledge and the delusion of being able thereby to heal the eternal wound of existence another is enshysnared by arts seductive veil ofbeauty fluttering before his eyes still another by the metaphysical comfort that beneath the whirl of phenomena eternal life flows on indestructibly-(BT pp 109-110 myempbasis)

So not only does Megills interpretation of Apollo and Dionysus as

appearance and reality fail to account for Nietzsches union of that opposishy

tion to explain Attic tragedy but it also seems that Nietzsche explicitly

speaks against an interpretation ofthe primordial unity as a thing-in-itself

The underpinning to Megills assignment of Apollo as mediator is

the notion that somewhere beneath this world of appearance lurks the

thing-in-itself Megills commitment to the appearance-reality distincshytion a distinction that posits the thing-in-itself as the standard of truth

lying beneath mere appearance casts Apollo as a mediator that obscures Megills perspective sees Apollo as necessary since we cannot bear

Dionysian reality but unfortunate because we would really like to get at the thing-in-itself Nietzsche however in rejecting the notion of the thingshy

in-itself has no grounds to consider Apollo necessary but unfortunate

He makes this clear in On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense written in

the same period as The Birth of Tragedy It is Nietzsches treatment of concepts in OTL that Megill takes as evIdence ofNietzsches dissatisfaction

with Apollonian illusIon and his subsequent entrapment in the aestheticist s dilemma According to Megill Nietzsche denies both ourcapacity to behold

9 ON MEGIlL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Dionysian immediacy and the adequacy of concepts for representing the thing-in-itself-in neither realm Apollonian or Dionysian can we hope

to obtain genuine knowledge What Nietzsche objects to in On Truth and Lie however is not the inadequacy of concepts to represent the thing in itself but the metaphysician who forgets that concepts are based on arbitrary differentiations and that the thing-in-itself is only the abstraction of these conventional designations from their consequences8 Nietzsches point is not that we are cut off from the thing-in-itself but that the thingshyin-itself is a nonsensical and useless notion

Megill finds Nietzsches rejection ofthe thing-in-itself Nietzsches failure to distinguish between appearance and reality a reckless and untenable position As Megill so clearly states

one can call everything illusion ifone wishes just as one can call everything disclosure or text But this does not abolish the distinction between say an interpretation of the experience ofbeing run over by a truck and the experience itself-a distincshytion which every language if it is to function on something more than a purely fantastic level mustsomehow accommexlate (Megill p42)

In calling for a distinction between the interpretation ofan experience and the expcrlcnce itself Megill once again draws the lines that oppose his

position to fue aestheticists Of course aestheticists will deny that such a distinction needs to be made Nietzsches point is simply that no experience occurs independently of a perspective and hence independently of an

bullThat is to say a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things and this legislation of language likewise establisbes the fllSt laws of truth (OlL p 81) Truth according to Nietzsche only exists as aconvention oflanguage with purely practicaloriginsj it is to ones advantage to use the true designations in appropriate ways because they facilitate co-existence with others What arbitrary differentiations What one-sided prefershyences first for this then for that property of a thing The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth never a question of adequate expression otherwise there would not be so many languages The thing in itself (which is precisely what the pure truth apart from any of its consequences would be) is likewise ~omething quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for (OlL p 82) The thing in itself the pure truth apart from its consequences (which is a convention of language apart from its consequences) is not worth striving for because we only use true designations in order to take advantage of tbeir consequences In Megills intelpretation it seems he is taking Nietzsches use of pure truth in this passage to refer to a true world really out there not worth striving for only because we cannot attain it In light of Nietzsches genealogy of truth on preceding pages however Megills intelpretation is less than convincing

10 AARON BUNCH

interpretation9One can talk about an experience in itself ifone wants to butit will at best only be an abstraction from some particular experience The aestheticist does not see a need to distinguish between trucks and interpreshytations oftrucks there is fundamentally just one kind oftruck the kind you dont want to get hit by In each case of being run over by a truck there is someone being run over And that person is probably just as dead as the personwho gets hitby the truck itself Megill however can thelp but take the notion of interpretation lightly as if an interpretation were merely a mirage that fades as it approaches From Megills perspective Nietzsche is cut off from reality dancing foolishly in a realm of play at his own peril ignoring the real world in a fanciful idealism Some day Megill seems to hope that truck will come around the corner-notsome wispy interpretation of a truck but the Truck-itself in all its weighty reality-and flatten a deserving Nietzsche who was playing in the middle of the street

9 Here I am employing the distinction between perspective and interpretation pointed out in Alan Schrifts book Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Nietzsches ~rspectialism is his re~ognition that all experiences are inextricable from a particular ~lllt of vlew r perspective No one has an objective view a privileged perspective Interetahon refers t~ What each of us does with our particul ar perspective how we assign

mearung to those expenences

11 ON MEGIlJ AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Works Cited

Megill Allan Prophets ofExtremity Niet2poundche Heidegger Foucault Derrida Berkeley University of California Press 1985

[BT] Nietzsche Friedrich The Birth oTragedy Tr by Walter Kaufmann in liThe Birth ofTragedy and The Case of Wagner Walter Kaufmann ed New York Random House 1967

[011] Nietzsche Friedrich On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense Tr by Daniel Breazeale in Philosophy and Truth Selections from Nietzsches Notebooks ofthe Early 1870s Daniel Breazeale ed New Jersey Humanities Press International Inc 1979

[TI] Nietzsche Friedrich Twilight ofthe Idols Tr by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Niet2poundche Walter Kaufmann ed New York Viking Press 1954

Schrift Alan D Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction New York Routledge 1990

Photography As Art in Heideggers Philosophy

Chris Greenwald Carleton College

Heidegger claims that truth is a revealing that is concomitant with concealing and thus the nature oftruth is untruth In art and specifically in painting truth in its fun essence is won through the simultaneous presentation to the observer ofa revealing and a concealing For Heidegger this simultaneous revealing and concealing occurs when the world of a painting is revealed through a self-concealing medium Photography is another form of revealing through a self-concealing medium and thus it meets Heideggers standards as a work of art1 In addition photography seems to meet more effectively than painting Heideggers characterization of a work of art and one can argue on this basis that photography has rendered painting archaic and outdated as means for attaining truth in the Heideggerlan sense Contrary to this argument Michael Zimmerman claims that Heidegger condemns photography as a false and anthropocentric means of representation Heldeggers condemnation however fails to conceive the nature of photography in light of Heideggers own philosophy of technology and when photography is examined in such a light this condemnation of photography appears misleading

Truth and Art

Truth in Heideggers philosophy is unconcealedness and Heidegshyger likens truth to a kind oflighting by which beings are revealed With each being that is revealed however another being is concealed As Heidegger states Concealment occurs within what it lighted One being places itself in front of another being the one helps to hide another the former obscures the latter (OW A p 175) Because truth is revealing and because all revealing involves a conceaJing Hcidegger claims that [trufu] in its essence is un-truth (OWA p 176) Heldegger further illustrates the essence of truth as a primal strife in which beings reveal and conceal

I It sbould be noted that here and throughout the paper I will be using the term photograpby to mean representational photography realize that with advancements in the technology of film development one can create very abstract photos that bear very little semblance to reality

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

8 AARON BUNCH

disagreement over how to interpret Nietzsches notion of the primordial unity Megill takes it to be Nietzsches way oftalldng about the really real

the thing-in-itself But first of all as it has already been stressed an interpretation that delimits and relegates Apollo and Dionysus to two separate spheres cannot account for the interaction that explains the tragic world-view andits art-form Byinterpreting the primordial unity indepenshy

dently of Apollonian individuation Megill is guilty of an unwarranted abstraction Apollo and Dionysus are meaningless without each other And

secondly we can refer to persuasive textual support that indicates that the

primordial unity was for Nietzsche only one more illusion

It is an eternal phenomenon the insatiable will always fmds a way to detain its creatures in life and compel them to live on by means of an illusion spread over things One is chained by the Socratic love of knowledge and the delusion of being able thereby to heal the eternal wound of existence another is enshysnared by arts seductive veil ofbeauty fluttering before his eyes still another by the metaphysical comfort that beneath the whirl of phenomena eternal life flows on indestructibly-(BT pp 109-110 myempbasis)

So not only does Megills interpretation of Apollo and Dionysus as

appearance and reality fail to account for Nietzsches union of that opposishy

tion to explain Attic tragedy but it also seems that Nietzsche explicitly

speaks against an interpretation ofthe primordial unity as a thing-in-itself

The underpinning to Megills assignment of Apollo as mediator is

the notion that somewhere beneath this world of appearance lurks the

thing-in-itself Megills commitment to the appearance-reality distincshytion a distinction that posits the thing-in-itself as the standard of truth

lying beneath mere appearance casts Apollo as a mediator that obscures Megills perspective sees Apollo as necessary since we cannot bear

Dionysian reality but unfortunate because we would really like to get at the thing-in-itself Nietzsche however in rejecting the notion of the thingshy

in-itself has no grounds to consider Apollo necessary but unfortunate

He makes this clear in On Truth and Lie in an Extramoral Sense written in

the same period as The Birth of Tragedy It is Nietzsches treatment of concepts in OTL that Megill takes as evIdence ofNietzsches dissatisfaction

with Apollonian illusIon and his subsequent entrapment in the aestheticist s dilemma According to Megill Nietzsche denies both ourcapacity to behold

9 ON MEGIlL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Dionysian immediacy and the adequacy of concepts for representing the thing-in-itself-in neither realm Apollonian or Dionysian can we hope

to obtain genuine knowledge What Nietzsche objects to in On Truth and Lie however is not the inadequacy of concepts to represent the thing in itself but the metaphysician who forgets that concepts are based on arbitrary differentiations and that the thing-in-itself is only the abstraction of these conventional designations from their consequences8 Nietzsches point is not that we are cut off from the thing-in-itself but that the thingshyin-itself is a nonsensical and useless notion

Megill finds Nietzsches rejection ofthe thing-in-itself Nietzsches failure to distinguish between appearance and reality a reckless and untenable position As Megill so clearly states

one can call everything illusion ifone wishes just as one can call everything disclosure or text But this does not abolish the distinction between say an interpretation of the experience ofbeing run over by a truck and the experience itself-a distincshytion which every language if it is to function on something more than a purely fantastic level mustsomehow accommexlate (Megill p42)

In calling for a distinction between the interpretation ofan experience and the expcrlcnce itself Megill once again draws the lines that oppose his

position to fue aestheticists Of course aestheticists will deny that such a distinction needs to be made Nietzsches point is simply that no experience occurs independently of a perspective and hence independently of an

bullThat is to say a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things and this legislation of language likewise establisbes the fllSt laws of truth (OlL p 81) Truth according to Nietzsche only exists as aconvention oflanguage with purely practicaloriginsj it is to ones advantage to use the true designations in appropriate ways because they facilitate co-existence with others What arbitrary differentiations What one-sided prefershyences first for this then for that property of a thing The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth never a question of adequate expression otherwise there would not be so many languages The thing in itself (which is precisely what the pure truth apart from any of its consequences would be) is likewise ~omething quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for (OlL p 82) The thing in itself the pure truth apart from its consequences (which is a convention of language apart from its consequences) is not worth striving for because we only use true designations in order to take advantage of tbeir consequences In Megills intelpretation it seems he is taking Nietzsches use of pure truth in this passage to refer to a true world really out there not worth striving for only because we cannot attain it In light of Nietzsches genealogy of truth on preceding pages however Megills intelpretation is less than convincing

10 AARON BUNCH

interpretation9One can talk about an experience in itself ifone wants to butit will at best only be an abstraction from some particular experience The aestheticist does not see a need to distinguish between trucks and interpreshytations oftrucks there is fundamentally just one kind oftruck the kind you dont want to get hit by In each case of being run over by a truck there is someone being run over And that person is probably just as dead as the personwho gets hitby the truck itself Megill however can thelp but take the notion of interpretation lightly as if an interpretation were merely a mirage that fades as it approaches From Megills perspective Nietzsche is cut off from reality dancing foolishly in a realm of play at his own peril ignoring the real world in a fanciful idealism Some day Megill seems to hope that truck will come around the corner-notsome wispy interpretation of a truck but the Truck-itself in all its weighty reality-and flatten a deserving Nietzsche who was playing in the middle of the street

9 Here I am employing the distinction between perspective and interpretation pointed out in Alan Schrifts book Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Nietzsches ~rspectialism is his re~ognition that all experiences are inextricable from a particular ~lllt of vlew r perspective No one has an objective view a privileged perspective Interetahon refers t~ What each of us does with our particul ar perspective how we assign

mearung to those expenences

11 ON MEGIlJ AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Works Cited

Megill Allan Prophets ofExtremity Niet2poundche Heidegger Foucault Derrida Berkeley University of California Press 1985

[BT] Nietzsche Friedrich The Birth oTragedy Tr by Walter Kaufmann in liThe Birth ofTragedy and The Case of Wagner Walter Kaufmann ed New York Random House 1967

[011] Nietzsche Friedrich On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense Tr by Daniel Breazeale in Philosophy and Truth Selections from Nietzsches Notebooks ofthe Early 1870s Daniel Breazeale ed New Jersey Humanities Press International Inc 1979

[TI] Nietzsche Friedrich Twilight ofthe Idols Tr by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Niet2poundche Walter Kaufmann ed New York Viking Press 1954

Schrift Alan D Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction New York Routledge 1990

Photography As Art in Heideggers Philosophy

Chris Greenwald Carleton College

Heidegger claims that truth is a revealing that is concomitant with concealing and thus the nature oftruth is untruth In art and specifically in painting truth in its fun essence is won through the simultaneous presentation to the observer ofa revealing and a concealing For Heidegger this simultaneous revealing and concealing occurs when the world of a painting is revealed through a self-concealing medium Photography is another form of revealing through a self-concealing medium and thus it meets Heideggers standards as a work of art1 In addition photography seems to meet more effectively than painting Heideggers characterization of a work of art and one can argue on this basis that photography has rendered painting archaic and outdated as means for attaining truth in the Heideggerlan sense Contrary to this argument Michael Zimmerman claims that Heidegger condemns photography as a false and anthropocentric means of representation Heldeggers condemnation however fails to conceive the nature of photography in light of Heideggers own philosophy of technology and when photography is examined in such a light this condemnation of photography appears misleading

Truth and Art

Truth in Heideggers philosophy is unconcealedness and Heidegshyger likens truth to a kind oflighting by which beings are revealed With each being that is revealed however another being is concealed As Heidegger states Concealment occurs within what it lighted One being places itself in front of another being the one helps to hide another the former obscures the latter (OW A p 175) Because truth is revealing and because all revealing involves a conceaJing Hcidegger claims that [trufu] in its essence is un-truth (OWA p 176) Heldegger further illustrates the essence of truth as a primal strife in which beings reveal and conceal

I It sbould be noted that here and throughout the paper I will be using the term photograpby to mean representational photography realize that with advancements in the technology of film development one can create very abstract photos that bear very little semblance to reality

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

9 ON MEGIlL AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Dionysian immediacy and the adequacy of concepts for representing the thing-in-itself-in neither realm Apollonian or Dionysian can we hope

to obtain genuine knowledge What Nietzsche objects to in On Truth and Lie however is not the inadequacy of concepts to represent the thing in itself but the metaphysician who forgets that concepts are based on arbitrary differentiations and that the thing-in-itself is only the abstraction of these conventional designations from their consequences8 Nietzsches point is not that we are cut off from the thing-in-itself but that the thingshyin-itself is a nonsensical and useless notion

Megill finds Nietzsches rejection ofthe thing-in-itself Nietzsches failure to distinguish between appearance and reality a reckless and untenable position As Megill so clearly states

one can call everything illusion ifone wishes just as one can call everything disclosure or text But this does not abolish the distinction between say an interpretation of the experience ofbeing run over by a truck and the experience itself-a distincshytion which every language if it is to function on something more than a purely fantastic level mustsomehow accommexlate (Megill p42)

In calling for a distinction between the interpretation ofan experience and the expcrlcnce itself Megill once again draws the lines that oppose his

position to fue aestheticists Of course aestheticists will deny that such a distinction needs to be made Nietzsches point is simply that no experience occurs independently of a perspective and hence independently of an

bullThat is to say a uniformly valid and binding designation is invented for things and this legislation of language likewise establisbes the fllSt laws of truth (OlL p 81) Truth according to Nietzsche only exists as aconvention oflanguage with purely practicaloriginsj it is to ones advantage to use the true designations in appropriate ways because they facilitate co-existence with others What arbitrary differentiations What one-sided prefershyences first for this then for that property of a thing The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth never a question of adequate expression otherwise there would not be so many languages The thing in itself (which is precisely what the pure truth apart from any of its consequences would be) is likewise ~omething quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for (OlL p 82) The thing in itself the pure truth apart from its consequences (which is a convention of language apart from its consequences) is not worth striving for because we only use true designations in order to take advantage of tbeir consequences In Megills intelpretation it seems he is taking Nietzsches use of pure truth in this passage to refer to a true world really out there not worth striving for only because we cannot attain it In light of Nietzsches genealogy of truth on preceding pages however Megills intelpretation is less than convincing

10 AARON BUNCH

interpretation9One can talk about an experience in itself ifone wants to butit will at best only be an abstraction from some particular experience The aestheticist does not see a need to distinguish between trucks and interpreshytations oftrucks there is fundamentally just one kind oftruck the kind you dont want to get hit by In each case of being run over by a truck there is someone being run over And that person is probably just as dead as the personwho gets hitby the truck itself Megill however can thelp but take the notion of interpretation lightly as if an interpretation were merely a mirage that fades as it approaches From Megills perspective Nietzsche is cut off from reality dancing foolishly in a realm of play at his own peril ignoring the real world in a fanciful idealism Some day Megill seems to hope that truck will come around the corner-notsome wispy interpretation of a truck but the Truck-itself in all its weighty reality-and flatten a deserving Nietzsche who was playing in the middle of the street

9 Here I am employing the distinction between perspective and interpretation pointed out in Alan Schrifts book Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Nietzsches ~rspectialism is his re~ognition that all experiences are inextricable from a particular ~lllt of vlew r perspective No one has an objective view a privileged perspective Interetahon refers t~ What each of us does with our particul ar perspective how we assign

mearung to those expenences

11 ON MEGIlJ AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Works Cited

Megill Allan Prophets ofExtremity Niet2poundche Heidegger Foucault Derrida Berkeley University of California Press 1985

[BT] Nietzsche Friedrich The Birth oTragedy Tr by Walter Kaufmann in liThe Birth ofTragedy and The Case of Wagner Walter Kaufmann ed New York Random House 1967

[011] Nietzsche Friedrich On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense Tr by Daniel Breazeale in Philosophy and Truth Selections from Nietzsches Notebooks ofthe Early 1870s Daniel Breazeale ed New Jersey Humanities Press International Inc 1979

[TI] Nietzsche Friedrich Twilight ofthe Idols Tr by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Niet2poundche Walter Kaufmann ed New York Viking Press 1954

Schrift Alan D Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction New York Routledge 1990

Photography As Art in Heideggers Philosophy

Chris Greenwald Carleton College

Heidegger claims that truth is a revealing that is concomitant with concealing and thus the nature oftruth is untruth In art and specifically in painting truth in its fun essence is won through the simultaneous presentation to the observer ofa revealing and a concealing For Heidegger this simultaneous revealing and concealing occurs when the world of a painting is revealed through a self-concealing medium Photography is another form of revealing through a self-concealing medium and thus it meets Heideggers standards as a work of art1 In addition photography seems to meet more effectively than painting Heideggers characterization of a work of art and one can argue on this basis that photography has rendered painting archaic and outdated as means for attaining truth in the Heideggerlan sense Contrary to this argument Michael Zimmerman claims that Heidegger condemns photography as a false and anthropocentric means of representation Heldeggers condemnation however fails to conceive the nature of photography in light of Heideggers own philosophy of technology and when photography is examined in such a light this condemnation of photography appears misleading

Truth and Art

Truth in Heideggers philosophy is unconcealedness and Heidegshyger likens truth to a kind oflighting by which beings are revealed With each being that is revealed however another being is concealed As Heidegger states Concealment occurs within what it lighted One being places itself in front of another being the one helps to hide another the former obscures the latter (OW A p 175) Because truth is revealing and because all revealing involves a conceaJing Hcidegger claims that [trufu] in its essence is un-truth (OWA p 176) Heldegger further illustrates the essence of truth as a primal strife in which beings reveal and conceal

I It sbould be noted that here and throughout the paper I will be using the term photograpby to mean representational photography realize that with advancements in the technology of film development one can create very abstract photos that bear very little semblance to reality

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

10 AARON BUNCH

interpretation9One can talk about an experience in itself ifone wants to butit will at best only be an abstraction from some particular experience The aestheticist does not see a need to distinguish between trucks and interpreshytations oftrucks there is fundamentally just one kind oftruck the kind you dont want to get hit by In each case of being run over by a truck there is someone being run over And that person is probably just as dead as the personwho gets hitby the truck itself Megill however can thelp but take the notion of interpretation lightly as if an interpretation were merely a mirage that fades as it approaches From Megills perspective Nietzsche is cut off from reality dancing foolishly in a realm of play at his own peril ignoring the real world in a fanciful idealism Some day Megill seems to hope that truck will come around the corner-notsome wispy interpretation of a truck but the Truck-itself in all its weighty reality-and flatten a deserving Nietzsche who was playing in the middle of the street

9 Here I am employing the distinction between perspective and interpretation pointed out in Alan Schrifts book Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Nietzsches ~rspectialism is his re~ognition that all experiences are inextricable from a particular ~lllt of vlew r perspective No one has an objective view a privileged perspective Interetahon refers t~ What each of us does with our particul ar perspective how we assign

mearung to those expenences

11 ON MEGIlJ AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Works Cited

Megill Allan Prophets ofExtremity Niet2poundche Heidegger Foucault Derrida Berkeley University of California Press 1985

[BT] Nietzsche Friedrich The Birth oTragedy Tr by Walter Kaufmann in liThe Birth ofTragedy and The Case of Wagner Walter Kaufmann ed New York Random House 1967

[011] Nietzsche Friedrich On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense Tr by Daniel Breazeale in Philosophy and Truth Selections from Nietzsches Notebooks ofthe Early 1870s Daniel Breazeale ed New Jersey Humanities Press International Inc 1979

[TI] Nietzsche Friedrich Twilight ofthe Idols Tr by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Niet2poundche Walter Kaufmann ed New York Viking Press 1954

Schrift Alan D Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction New York Routledge 1990

Photography As Art in Heideggers Philosophy

Chris Greenwald Carleton College

Heidegger claims that truth is a revealing that is concomitant with concealing and thus the nature oftruth is untruth In art and specifically in painting truth in its fun essence is won through the simultaneous presentation to the observer ofa revealing and a concealing For Heidegger this simultaneous revealing and concealing occurs when the world of a painting is revealed through a self-concealing medium Photography is another form of revealing through a self-concealing medium and thus it meets Heideggers standards as a work of art1 In addition photography seems to meet more effectively than painting Heideggers characterization of a work of art and one can argue on this basis that photography has rendered painting archaic and outdated as means for attaining truth in the Heideggerlan sense Contrary to this argument Michael Zimmerman claims that Heidegger condemns photography as a false and anthropocentric means of representation Heldeggers condemnation however fails to conceive the nature of photography in light of Heideggers own philosophy of technology and when photography is examined in such a light this condemnation of photography appears misleading

Truth and Art

Truth in Heideggers philosophy is unconcealedness and Heidegshyger likens truth to a kind oflighting by which beings are revealed With each being that is revealed however another being is concealed As Heidegger states Concealment occurs within what it lighted One being places itself in front of another being the one helps to hide another the former obscures the latter (OW A p 175) Because truth is revealing and because all revealing involves a conceaJing Hcidegger claims that [trufu] in its essence is un-truth (OWA p 176) Heldegger further illustrates the essence of truth as a primal strife in which beings reveal and conceal

I It sbould be noted that here and throughout the paper I will be using the term photograpby to mean representational photography realize that with advancements in the technology of film development one can create very abstract photos that bear very little semblance to reality

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

11 ON MEGIlJ AND THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY

Works Cited

Megill Allan Prophets ofExtremity Niet2poundche Heidegger Foucault Derrida Berkeley University of California Press 1985

[BT] Nietzsche Friedrich The Birth oTragedy Tr by Walter Kaufmann in liThe Birth ofTragedy and The Case of Wagner Walter Kaufmann ed New York Random House 1967

[011] Nietzsche Friedrich On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense Tr by Daniel Breazeale in Philosophy and Truth Selections from Nietzsches Notebooks ofthe Early 1870s Daniel Breazeale ed New Jersey Humanities Press International Inc 1979

[TI] Nietzsche Friedrich Twilight ofthe Idols Tr by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Niet2poundche Walter Kaufmann ed New York Viking Press 1954

Schrift Alan D Nietzsche and the Question ofInterpretation Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction New York Routledge 1990

Photography As Art in Heideggers Philosophy

Chris Greenwald Carleton College

Heidegger claims that truth is a revealing that is concomitant with concealing and thus the nature oftruth is untruth In art and specifically in painting truth in its fun essence is won through the simultaneous presentation to the observer ofa revealing and a concealing For Heidegger this simultaneous revealing and concealing occurs when the world of a painting is revealed through a self-concealing medium Photography is another form of revealing through a self-concealing medium and thus it meets Heideggers standards as a work of art1 In addition photography seems to meet more effectively than painting Heideggers characterization of a work of art and one can argue on this basis that photography has rendered painting archaic and outdated as means for attaining truth in the Heideggerlan sense Contrary to this argument Michael Zimmerman claims that Heidegger condemns photography as a false and anthropocentric means of representation Heldeggers condemnation however fails to conceive the nature of photography in light of Heideggers own philosophy of technology and when photography is examined in such a light this condemnation of photography appears misleading

Truth and Art

Truth in Heideggers philosophy is unconcealedness and Heidegshyger likens truth to a kind oflighting by which beings are revealed With each being that is revealed however another being is concealed As Heidegger states Concealment occurs within what it lighted One being places itself in front of another being the one helps to hide another the former obscures the latter (OW A p 175) Because truth is revealing and because all revealing involves a conceaJing Hcidegger claims that [trufu] in its essence is un-truth (OWA p 176) Heldegger further illustrates the essence of truth as a primal strife in which beings reveal and conceal

I It sbould be noted that here and throughout the paper I will be using the term photograpby to mean representational photography realize that with advancements in the technology of film development one can create very abstract photos that bear very little semblance to reality

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

Photography As Art in Heideggers Philosophy

Chris Greenwald Carleton College

Heidegger claims that truth is a revealing that is concomitant with concealing and thus the nature oftruth is untruth In art and specifically in painting truth in its fun essence is won through the simultaneous presentation to the observer ofa revealing and a concealing For Heidegger this simultaneous revealing and concealing occurs when the world of a painting is revealed through a self-concealing medium Photography is another form of revealing through a self-concealing medium and thus it meets Heideggers standards as a work of art1 In addition photography seems to meet more effectively than painting Heideggers characterization of a work of art and one can argue on this basis that photography has rendered painting archaic and outdated as means for attaining truth in the Heideggerlan sense Contrary to this argument Michael Zimmerman claims that Heidegger condemns photography as a false and anthropocentric means of representation Heldeggers condemnation however fails to conceive the nature of photography in light of Heideggers own philosophy of technology and when photography is examined in such a light this condemnation of photography appears misleading

Truth and Art

Truth in Heideggers philosophy is unconcealedness and Heidegshyger likens truth to a kind oflighting by which beings are revealed With each being that is revealed however another being is concealed As Heidegger states Concealment occurs within what it lighted One being places itself in front of another being the one helps to hide another the former obscures the latter (OW A p 175) Because truth is revealing and because all revealing involves a conceaJing Hcidegger claims that [trufu] in its essence is un-truth (OWA p 176) Heldegger further illustrates the essence of truth as a primal strife in which beings reveal and conceal

I It sbould be noted that here and throughout the paper I will be using the term photograpby to mean representational photography realize that with advancements in the technology of film development one can create very abstract photos that bear very little semblance to reality

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

14 CHRIS GREENWALD

themselves It is through the representation ofthis primal strife that truth can happen or be won and inhis essay entitled The Origin ofthe Work ofArt Heidegger demonstrates how such a representation is possible in art

In setting out his argument in the essay Heidegger first considers arts thingly nature He asserts that because there is no one human interpretation of the nature of things that is applicable to art the thingl y character of an artwork should be viewed as indeterminate In order to understand the thingly nature of a work of art Heidegger believes that aU traditional interpretations ofthe nature ofthings should be held in abeyance in favor of an investigation that examines the Being of beings Such an investigation should examine art merely as it presents itself and focus on what Heidegger calls [art] works worldy nature (OWA p 166) Only through such an investigation can one discover the essence of art and when this essence is understood one may then return to the question of the undetermined thingly nature of art 1be investigation ofthe essence of art must therefore presuppose that the nature of things is indeterminate

After making this presupposition Heidegger begins expl aining the way that art works by introducing the concepts ofworld and earth World corresponds to revealing and a world is the social and historical realm of reality that is revealed by a work of art The world of an art work creates in the mind of the observer a broad range of possible decisions and scenarios in what Heidegger calls uthe destiny of a historical people (OWA p 172) Though world is non-objective it defines the very being in which we conceive the objects of a work of art to exist

Earth on the other hand corresponds to concealing and is what Heidegger calls that which rises up as self-closing (OW A p 177) Though HeideggerdoesnotexplicltlylinktheindeterminateconceptofthingUncss with the idea of a self-concealing earth Sandra Lee Bartky argues that Heldeggers confusing language hides a subtle yet crucialllnk betwccn the two concepts Bartky claims that just as the nature ofa thing is indeterminate the earth is self-concealing and ambiguous The nature ofearthlike that of all things can not be fully defined either as a Scientifically allalyzablc substance or as a useful piece ofequipment (Bartky p 260) As Heidegger states earth is neither a mass of matter deposited somewhere [nor] the merely astronomical idea of planet (OWA p 167) Bartky believes that Heldegger is indirectly yet primarily concerned with the thingly aspect of a

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

15 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

work of art when he refers to earth in The Origin of the Work of Art In addition as Bartky notes the concept of earth both encompasses and supersedes the concept ofthingliness Thingliness whose nature is indetershyminate or concealed is merely a part of earth which is ultimately the larger concept of a sheltering agent or the self-concealing of Being in general (OW A p 169) It does seem that Bartky is correct in thinking that Heidegger conceives of a subtle yet crucial link between the concepts of thingliness and earth simply because when one keeps this link in mind Heideggers argument about the nature of art is much easier to understand

For Heidegger art is the simultaneous representation of the two diametrically opposed forces of world and earth World is presented in any true work of art and he states that [to] be a work of art is to set up a world (OWA p 178) The world however can only be set up for the observer through some klnd of medium or thing such as the pigments and colors of a painting or the stone of a statue When a thing is examined or analyzed on its own it is like all other things undetermined and self-concealing Heidegger believes that a thing reveals its true nature only when all preconceptions ofthingUness are dropped and one experiences the thing by lettingitBe Such a letting Be is accomplished in art simp1y because the medium or thingliness of the art work is not analyzed by the observer To use Heideggers example of the Greek temple the rock which serves as the material or thingUness of the temple when analyzed on its own is seen as equipment which can be used Viewedinthis manner therock as Heidegger states disappears into usefulness (OWA p 171) But it is precisely in a work of art such as the Greek temple that the rock is not viewed as a piece of equipment Rather in the Greek temple the rock is left to Be and its true nature the massi veness and heaviness of stone is revealed to the observer Similarly in a painting the true nature of color comes to shine forth The colors of a painting are not analyzed but rather simply present themselves frcc from human interpretation by creating the image of the painting in the mind ofthe observer Heideggers argument is somewhat weaker in the case of painting in that the medium of color unlike the stone of a statue is not a piece of equipment and arguably not even a thing at all The important point however is that though an image is created by the various colors in a painting the colors themselves do not occupy the observers consciousshyness They are simply experienced and laidbare to the observer in their true unadulterated nature

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

16 CHRIS GREENWALD

Keeping Bartky s linking of earth and medium in mind one can see the larger process of self-concealment or earth as being set forth and revealed to the observer in a work of art As Heidegger claims In setting up a world the work [of art] sets forth the earth (OWAp 171) World and earth though diametrically opposed in their essences are thus inextricably linkedina work ofart and as Heidegger states World and earth are never separated The world grounds itself in the earth and earth juts through world (OW A p 172) Heidegger refers to the opposition of the natures of world and earth as strife and believes that by simultaneously setting up a world and setting forth the earth a work of art instigates this strife (OW A p173)

For Heidegger truth is won by a work of art through the instigation ofthis strife in that truth in its full sense as both a revealing and a concealing is simultaneously presented to the observer In a work of art not only is a world revealed to the observer but the self-concealing earth is revealed as well Thus as Heidegger states in a work ofart because beings as a whole are brought into unconcealedness and held therein the unconcealedness ofbeings as a whole or truth is won (OWA p 177) As Bartky very eloquently explains The struggle of world and earth of expression and materials in the artwork is one way in which the revealing but simul taneously concealing World-event may occur (Bartky p 267) To use an example an image is revealed to the observer of a painting This

revealing occurs however onI y through the observation ofthe colors ofthe painting But in experiencing the painting and realizing its image the observer is unaware ofthe colors themselves The colors though presented to and experienced by the observer are concealed to the observers conshysciousness Thus in seeing the image of a painting the observer simultashyneouslyexperiences a revealing and a concealing Through this experiencshying of a revealing and a concealing truth is not necessarily intellectually comprehended but rather as Heidegger states truth simply happens

Art And Photography

In photography a simultaneous revealing of a world and setting forth ofa self-concealing earth also occurs A photograph reveals a historical and social world and in so doing presents the observer with the realm of possible beings and decisions of a particular historical epoch In Dorothea

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

17 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

Langes famous photograph entitled California a world is revealed to the observer (pollack p 352) The photograph reveals the world ofthe migrant

fanners in California during the Great Depression in all of its despair and hopelessness The power ofthe photograph lies in its ability to transport the

observer into the world of the migrant workers and reveal the realm of that particular historical epoch in all of its possible beings and decisions This

revealing of a world like painting is also grounded in the medium ofcolor2 Like the experiencing of the image in a painting the observer of a photoshy

graph is unconscious of the colors that comprise the image The colors of a photograph though experienced are self-concealing Thus photography

like painting reveals a world by setting forth the self-concealing earth and truth happens in the Heideggerian sense of the term

Not only does truth happen in photography but it happens in a much more effective way than it does in painting Upon close examination

the medium rather than the image of a painting can dominate ones concentration When one stands very close to a painting one notices the cracks due to age or the brush strokes that the painter used and suddenly the colors that comprise the image can occupy ones mind In examining a

painting in such a way the image created by tlle painting slips into oblivion and tlle world created by the painting is transformed in the mind of the observer into merely an array of various pigments meshed together on a cloth canvas The painting simply becomes a self-concealing thing no different in nature from the self-concealing frame which surrounds it or the self-concealing wall upon which it hangs The world of the painting disappears and thus the fragile strife between world and earth is broken

When viewing a photograph however while the possibility of breaking the strife between world and earth cannot be denied the strife is

much more difficult to break Upon close examination the photograph remains an image and the world revealed by the photograph is not lost The

fact that the image is merely an array ofdots on photographic paper is almost impossible to observe from simply looking at the photograph and the

photograph stubbornly refuses to be seen as anything but the image itself This stubbornness ofthe photograph is what one refers to when claiming that a photograph is realistic The strife between world and earth is so acutely

21 am not using the word color here to mean the opposite of black and white but rather simply to mean a visual sensation of some shade of any color including black and white

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

18 CHRIS GREENWALD

captured by the photograph that the untangling ofthis strife through careful observation becomes almost impossible It is true that one could break the strife by closely observing a photograph through a magnifying glass and thus uncovering the medium underlying the image However much more effort is needed to break the strife ofa photograph than that ofa painting An almost conscious determination to unravel the strife of the photograph is required Because of this fact photography is much more effective than painting in its ability to maintain the strife that for Heidegger is so necessary in order for truth to happen In this sense photography is a higher or more advanced form of art than painting

One might object to this claim by arguing that a photograph unlike a painting lacks the ability to reveal an objects equipmental nature and thus remains inferior to painting This objection might stem from Heidegger s claim that the act of imagining or seeing an actual object can in no way capture what he calls the equipmental being of the equipment Heidegger believes however that by observing a painting such as Van Goghs depiction of a pair ofpeasants shoes one can come to experience the full equipmental being of an object in its myriad of uses Heidegger describes Van Goghs peasants shoes as follows

From the dark opening ofthe worn insides ofthe shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by raw wind On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls (OWA p 163)

Thus in his depiction of the shoes Van Goghs creative freedom allows him to emphasize or add certain qualities of the shoes and thus reveal their full equipmental being in a way that would be impossible by simply presenting the observer with an actual pair of peasants shoes By claiming that photographs are mirror images or copies of actual objects one could thus conclude that photographs like the objects themselves cannot reveal an objects true equipmental nature

This objection however is based upon the false assumption that equates the photographic image with the object itself an assumption that simply disregards the creative freedom of the photographer By placing

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

19 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

photographed objects in certain contexts and under certain lighting condishytions the photographer also exercises the artistic freedom which allows him or her to capture the full equipmental nature ofequipment A good example ofthis freedom is exhibited in Andr6 Kert6sz s depiction ofa pipe (Kert6sz Plate 71) In the photograph Kert6sz captures the simplicity and grace of the pipes equipmental nature by placing it in a context which evokes in the mind ofthe observer the pipes various uses The glasses just below the pipe reveal the smoking of the pipe in a time of study or contemplation while the overtumedglassestotheleftrevealthecomfortaffordedbythepipeinatime of worry or distress The careful positioning ofthe pipe in the bowl suggests the pipe as a status symbol a sign of education and wealth and the source of pride in the mind of its owner Thus the photograph does not simply reveal an actuall y present pipe to the observer Rather the photograph like Van Goghs painting captures the observers imagination of the pipe in a myriad of uses and significations and consequently reveals the equipmental being of the pipe

Photography And Technology

While Heidegger does not himself directly address the issue of photography Michael Zimmerman argues that Heidegger believes photogshyraphy to be an expression of the false notion ofthe modern era that humans are the ultimate ground ofreality Zimmerman claims that Heidegger chose the title The Age of the World-Picture with both film and photography in mind In the modern age Heidegger believes that humans or what he calls Dasein view objects as being dependent upon themselves in order to exist As Heidegger states What is in its entirety is now taken in such a way that it first is in being and only is in being to the extent that it is set up by Dasein who represents and sets forth (HeideggerinZimmerman p 87) Accordingto Heidegger instead of letting objects Be and experiencing them in their true sense the modern outlook places humans within any worldshypicture and consequently fails to recognize lhe fundamental ground of beings in Being

Zimmerman argues that Heidegger thinks that photography is an aspect of what Zimmerman calls the technological drive to make everyshything wholly present unconcealed available for use (Zimmerman p 86) According to Zimmerman the camera has a point of view which is as

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

20 CHRlS GREENWALD

Zimmerman states the position taken on things for the purpose of making them reveal themselves in ways satisfactory to the one doing the reshy

presenting (Zimmerman p 87) Thus Zimmerman claims that Heidegger believes photography to be the epitome of the modem mind-set The photographerpicks and chooses his orher reality as heor she sees fit Reality is viewed as a ready-made object and in deciding what to photograph the photographer chooses which reality he or she should recreate The reality presented in the photograph is thus dependent upon the photographers discretion and this subject-dependent view ofreality reflects the very mindshyset of modernity that wrongly assumes that human consciousness is the fundamental ground for the existence of other beings Thus according to Zimmerman Heidegger argues that the subject-dependent perspective of photography ignores the truth that all beings including Dasein are ultishymately grounded in Being (Zimmerman p 87)

Heideggers argument however irOnically stems from the failure to view photography in light of Heideggers own vision of technology Heidegger believes that in the modern technological age Dasein has become estranged from its essence as the thatness ofBeing Dasein views reality as a commodity at its disposal and Heidegger refers to reality regarded as a commodity by the term standing reserve When reality is treated by Dasein as standing reserve Dasein sees the existence of reality as being dependent upon its own existence Thus as Heidegger states in the current technological age humans have lost touch with the truth that their essence is grounded in Being because it seems as though [humans] everywhere and always encounter only [themselves] (QCT p 308)

The solution for Heidegger is not to forsake technology but rather to adopt a new mind-set towards technology Dasein must realize that it is Being and not Daseins own creative resourcefulness that is the ultimate driving force behind the emergence of technology Rather than regarding technology as an instrument by which Dasein has ingeniously gained control over its environment Heidegger believes that Dasein must view technology as the destining of a revealing (QCT p 314) Technology is destined by Being as a way in which Being reveals itself to Dasein Only by conceiving technology in this way can Dasein transcend the anthropocentric

3 By calling the argument against photography Heideggers argument I am assuming that Zimmermans presentation of Heideggers views on photography is accurate

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

21 PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART IN HEIDEGGERS PHILOSOPHY

view that it is the ultimate source of technology and that world is merely a ready-made standing reserve awaiting human conunand With a different outlook toward technology Dasein will retain its essence as grounded in Being without having to completely forsake the revealing of Being as well as the many practical benefits that technology provides

Paradoxically if one applies this conception of technology to photography Heideggers argument that photography epitomizes the anshythropocentric mind-set of the modem age appears misleading By adopting Heideggers notion that technology is the destined revealing of Being the camera is no longer viewed as an aspect of human genius by which human beings have mastered the ability to re-create reality Rather the cameras ground in Being is recognized The camera is viewed as being destined by Being to reveal Being Seen in such a manner the photograph is not the recreation of reality by human beings On the contrary the photograph in its essence is produced by Being in that it is destined by Being It can not be denied that humans play a role in producing the camera as well as the photograph and Heidegger does not ignore the fact that humans or Dasein as the thatness of Being are essential for the revealing ofbeing to occur However Heidegger believes that Dasein and consequently the products of Dasein are ultimately grounded in Being While it is true that a photographer selects the aspect of reality of which he or she takes a photograph this

selecting should not be equated with the creation of a reality On the contrary the selecting ofan object to photograph should be viewed as being similar to what occurs when a painter decides upon the subject ofhis or her painting The photographer selects but does not create and the distinction between the two concepts is critical in avoiding Heideggers misconception about photography

Conclusion

Many would agree that photography has had a profound impact on the history of painting but probably few would recognize the fact that photography has in fact rendered painting obsolete as aform of art Now that reality can be so effectively represented by the photograph modern painting has begun exploring different and more abstract ways of representing reality Viewing art in the Heideggerian sense one could argue that these new directions which painting has taken represent the confusion of painters

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

22 CHRIS GREENWALD

trying to salvage what remains of their archaic mode of representation now

that its viability has been so completely shattered by the development of

photography Indeed as Zimmerman indicates Heidegger argues that

modem painting in all of its concern with subjective interpretation is the

unfortunate expression of the anthropocentric mind-set of the modern

technological era (Zimmerman p 237) What Heidegger does not seem to

realize is that painting has not merely gone astray but rather that it has been superseded by an art form which is far superior in its ability to capture the

essence oftruth Not only would a new conception of technology make this fact more obvious but conversel y through an understanding of the essence

of photography as art one may be making the first steps toward the new conception of technology that Heidegger believes to be so essential in

Daseins overcoming its estrangement from Being

Works Cited

Bartky Sandra Lee Heideggers Philosophy of Art in Heidegger The Man and the Thinker Thomas Sheehan ed Chicago Precedent Publishing 1981 257-274

[OWA] Heidegger Martin The Origin of the Work of Art in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977 149-187

[QCT] Heidegger Martin The Question Concerning Technology in Martin Heidegger Basic Writings David Farrell Krell ed New York Harper Collins 1977283-318

Kertesz Andr~ Andre Kertesz Diary ofLight 1912-1985 New York Aperture 1987

Pollack Peter The Picture History ofPhotography From the Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day London Thames and Hudson 1963

Zimmerman Michael E Heideggers Confrontation With Modernity Bloomington Indiana University Press 1990

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

The Necessity of Moral Marxism

Mark Van Hook Calvin College

Note to Readers This paper is an abridgment athe secondhalf0alarger paper titled The Possibility andNecessity ofMoralMarxism In theftrst halfofthat paper I attempt to show that the central concepts ofMarxism do not rule out reference to moral principles

The problem of morality and evaluations is a difficult but central one in Marxist thought On one hand Marx did and Marxists do make scathing criticisms of capitalism and other socia-economic arrangements and propose that we replace them with the better arrangement of commushynism This assessment of social reality and the preference for one arrangeshyment over another seems to require an appeal to some moral standard On the other hand important elements of Marxist theorizing seem to exclude such an appeal to moral principles The concepts of ideology and historical materialism appear to imply that a Marxist must regard all talk of universal objective moral standards as ideological illusion Marxism seems to both require and prohibit the use of morality in making evaluations

Some Marxists have sought to resolve this tension by developing an anti-moral Marxism Allen Wood and others who take this approach seek to show that evaluations inherent in Marxist thought are not morally based but rather are based on a collection of non-moral goods Therefore anti-moral Marxists tell us no reference to moral standards is necessary

In this paper I hope to show that the anti-moral model of Marxism is inadequate in accounting for the evaluations that Marxism makes and then briefly outline some morally based models that I think are more effective I will begin by stating the common ground between both moral and anti-moral Marxists specifically that Marxism requires an evaluative perspective with certain characteristics Then I will deal with some antishymoralist attempts to prove that this perspective need not refer to moral principles and show why those attempts fall I will conclude by sketching out some moralist evaluative perspectives that I think are original and promising

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

24 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxisms Evaluative Perspective

It is impossible to deny thatMarx made sweeping value judgements and that those valuejudgements are central to the Marxist system of thought Marx clearly regarded some social arrangements to be superior to others and advocated activity which would make the world better What is not clear is on what basis or compared to what standard Marx and Marxists can make such evaluations

A consistent Marxist evaluative perspective must contain several elements First it must provide some standard or criteria for comparing types of social relations and making judgements about which of these systems is best or at least better than another These evaluations are an integral part of Marxist thought For instance Marxism clearly states that relations ofproduction in which the laborer is not alienated from the object of his labor are preferable to those relations in which there is alienated labor Any Marxist evaluative perspective must account for this preference

A Marxist evaluative perspective must also include some kind of normative ethical principles It is not enough to claim that one set of social relations is better than another the Marxist must also be committed to taking an active and effective role in changing society to the preferred relations of production To paraphrase Marx the important thing is not merely undershystanding the world but changing it (Marx p 158) Thus any conSistently Marxist evaluative perspective will show us not only why we oughtto prefer OJle set of social relations over another but also why we should bother ourselves to bring the better society about

The Inadequacy of Anti-Moralist Evaluative Perspectives

Anti-moral Marxists have sought to meet these requirements for an evaluative perspective in ways that do not require reference to or use of transcendent moral principles In the light of their arguments that it is impossible to consistently hold both Marxist antl moral points ofview their reasons for wanting not to refer to morality are obvious l

Allen Wood gives one such argument for a non-moral Marxist evaluative perspective Wood claims that Marxs and the Marxist perspecshytive can be classified as moral inthe very broad sense ofbeing far reaching

1 These are dealt with in the first halfof the larger paper and cannot be summarized here

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

25 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

views about human well-being butnotin the more proper sense of the word which designates what we ought to do or value as opposed to what we do or value simply because it is inherently satisfying2 He thinks that this is the same sort of distinction that Kant and Mill make between moral and nonshymoral goods3

Wood next claims that Marx and Marxists base their evaluative perspective on non-moral goods such as self-actualization health security comfort community and fteedom4 1he implication of Woods argument here is that these things are good and social relations that prevent or restrain them bad simply because these things satisfy us Therefore no reference to transcendent moral goodness is needed All social arrangements can be assessed as relatively good or bad to the degree that they allow for and facilitate these non-moral goods

There are several problems wIth the Simplistic definition of moral and non-moral that Wood gives here Many human actions seem to satisfy his criteria for both moral and non-moral motivations For example I may choose to eat more nutritious food both because it will make me feel better and because I think it is a moral imperative for me to take care of my body Woods distinction gives us no rellable way of determining whether eating nutritiously is a moral or non-moral good

In many cases Woods criteria for determining moralness are dependent on each other A moralist will find many actions and evaluations to be inherently satisfying because they are moral and a hedonist might very well think that inherently satisfying activities and evaluations are morally correct by virtue of the satisfaction they provide If Wood is to be successful in claiming that the evaluative perspective of Marxism can rest on reference to principles of non-moral good he must first provide an effective criterion for distinguishing moral and non-moral goods

Wood might answer by saying that we can use the distinctions made by other philosophers such as Kant Mm and Hegel to determine what sorts of goods are moral or non-moral In several places he does rely on those distinctions to show how the Marxist perspective differs from a moral oneS

2 Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989 3 Wood Karl Marx p 129 ~ Wood Karl Marx p 127 5 Wood Allen Marx on Right and Justice a Reply to Husami Philosophy andPubli~

Affairs VoI 8 1978-79 p 284-87

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

26 MARK VAN HOOK

1bis seems like a promising avenue because both Kants and Mills ideas of the non-moral are much more refined and definitive than the one Wood gives But that very refinement presents another problem

Both Kant and Mill thought that non-moral goods were limited to immediate self-interest or satisfaction6 But a Marxist evaluative perspecshytive must give us some reason for taking actions that deny or at least postpone individual satisfaction Woods own Class Interest ThesIs states that a consistent Marxist must adopt the interests of the proletarian class not pursue ones own individual interests7 It may be that the two interests ultimately converge but the non-moral goods that Kant and Mill specify give us no reason to postpone our satisfaction until the class interests of the proletariat are victorious Ifnon-moral goods are to serve as the basis of the Marxist evaluative perspective then Wood must show that some principle of self-denial or communal interest is a non-moral good

It seems to me that the only way of showing the diverting of ones own interests to be good is by saying that one ought to do so That would by Woods definition makeit a moral good Thus any consistently Marxist evaluative perspective mustcontain reference to atleastonemoral principle Similar problems come up in trying to explain concepts such as selfshyactualization freedom and community as non-moral goods The category of non-moral goods that Kant and Mill had in mind is too narrow to accommodate these ideas and no alternative definition of moralness had been presented that is precise enough to be useful

There is still another problem with Woods attempt to base the Marxist evaluative on non-moral goods If to be non-moralistic means not to make use of the word ought then there can be no ethically normative principles for an anti-moralist Yet the Marxist evaluative perspective requires some such normative principles to tell us why we ought to change society Therefore it seems that Woods or any other anti-moral evaluative perspective will fall short of what is required by the MarxIst evaluative perspective

Wood may be able to say that the mostinherently satisfying activity for a human being is to take historically effective action directed at changing the economic basis of society but that is quite a different thing Ihan saying

Wood Karl Marx p 129 7 Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Philosophica Summer 1989 p 19

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

27 TIIE NECESSrrY OF MORAL MARXISM

that all people ought to take that action This becomes clear when we imagine that someone disagrees with Woods assessment of what is most satisfying Such a person might claim that the most inherently satisfying activity for a human being is to siton a couch and watch television Marxists must ifthey are to remain faithful to their revolutionary project say that this person was not acting rightly because on the Marxist account humans ought

to be taking effective action to change society But Wood has no basis for making that judgement Ifhe claims that the television watcher is incorrect and ought to be pursuing the non-moral goods of community comfort and self-actualization the pursuit of non-moral goods has become a moral imperative just as it does in Mills philosophy 8 IfWood claims that the pursuit of non-moral goods is part of human nature then he must either show that all people agree on what are the most inherently satisfying activities or that those who do not agree with his own definition are wrong or irrational The first option flies in the face of the central Marxist concepts of class conflict and historical change The second option reduces Marxism to little more than an extremely rationalistic conception of human nature and contradicts the Marxist thinking about ideology and materialism9

Woods attempt to construct an evaluative perspective based on non-moral goods does not yield a result which meets all ofthe demands set out earlier for what a consistently Marxist perspective must do This implies that a morally based evaluative perspective is neededl 0 and that anti-moral Marxism is inconsistent with the demands of Marxism itself However which moral prinCiples Marxists should incorporate into their evaluative perspectives is not readily apparent There are a number of moralist evaluative perspectives which meet the requirements for a Marxist evaluashytive perspective

bull Wood Karl Marx p 130 9 Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofLiberalism Totowa

NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1982 p 34middot5 10 Or that Marxism is a self contradictory system of thought that prohibits the use of

moral principles and therefore can never hope to have the consistent evaluative perspective that it claims to have I have addressed this possibility in the part of the paper not included bere where I argue that while the Marxist concept of ideology will make us suspicious of moral arguments and claims nothing in the central concepts of Marxism prohibits the possibility of appealing to transcendent moral principles

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

28 MARK VAN HOOK

Some Moral Marxist Evaluative Perspectives

One such morally based Marxist evaluative perspective is sugshygested by G A Cohen Cohen claims that Marxists ought to evaluate social arrangements in relation to how well they protect and encourage certain natural rights ofhuman beings In his view Marxists have done themselves a disservice by completely discounting the idea that humans have certain natural rights that cannot morally be denied them In reacting against Robert Nozickand other writers who use the natural right to hold priv ate property as a defense of capitalist SOciety Marxists have traditionally denied that there are any such things as natural rights and claimed that all talk of such rights is merely an ideological justification of the dominant class interests in any given society Cohen suggests that to be consistently Marxist we oughtnot deny the existence of natural rights but rather show that the natural rights ofhumans are something quite different from what Nozick and other apologists for capitalism have claimed Instead of stating that all indi viduals have the right to hold private property Marxists should assert that all of humanity has the inalienable right to hold property in common to be free from exploitation and to live in a society free from class conflict I I

Cohen says that we come to know what the natural rights of human beings consist of through a process of intuitional rationalizing Through moral reflection we can all come to see what rights we are entiilcd to because the raw material for the moral principle of natural rights can be found in every rational human being12

Cohen has been criticized for putting too much faith in the intuitive rationality ofhumans Nielsen claims that ifwe take the Marxist conception of ideology seriously we will see that each individual who intuitively rationalizes about what the natural rights ofhuman beings are will inevitably come up with a system that favours his or her own class interests 13 I agree with Nielsen on this point but I also think that this process that Cohen calls intuitive rationalizing caneffectivelybereplaced by amaterially undistorted

II Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Reyjgw April 1981 p 91-8 Nielsen Kai Marxist Inunoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Publk Affiim Summer 1989 p 224-1

12 Cohen Freedom Justice and Capitalism p 98-103 Nielsen MarxistImmoralism and Marxist Moralism p 228

13 N Is M Imm I Ie en arxtst ora Ism and Marxlst Moralism p 228-30

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

29 TIlE NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

deliberation in the Rawlsian tradition that wouldeliminate the bias towards favouring ones own class interests when thinking about what natural rights come to be

Kai Nielsen Derek Allen and many others have done a good deal of writing to construct a Utilitarian evaluative perspective for Marxists14

They claim that the best way for a Marxist to evaluate social relationships is the degree to which they promote the greatest common good The goods themselves need not be moral ones just as Mill and Wood claimed they were not But the pursuit of the greatest amount and degree of these non-moral goods for the largest number of people is a moral imperative according to Utilitarian Marxism On this basis Utilitarian Marxists tell us that we ought to bring about a society in which the greatest common good is realized namely communist society

I agree with Miller that certain elements of Utilitarian morality seem difficult to mesh with central Marxist ideas about human nature Given the Marxist understanding of the economic basis of society and of class conflict it seems that it would be very difflcultto identify a set of goods that would be applicable across all class distinctions or that a reliable and non-biased standard of measurement for what does or does not promote the common good of all people could be developed IS However it is possible that the Utilitarian principle could be modified to eliminate these inconsistencies (al

Nielsen attempts to do in Marxism and the Moral Point of View) and also the problems I alluded to about defining self-actualization and community as non-moral goods

Harry Vander Linden and Allen Buchanan have both advocated a Marxist evaluative perspective based on Kants ethical theory1 6 Such a perspective would take the familiar categorical imperative to act in such a way that you might reasonably wish that all others would act in the same way as its highest moral principle Social arrangements could be assessed as good or bad to the degree that the economic structure allowed and encouraged people to act in conformity with this principle In this case the

14 Miller Richard Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1988 p35-41 Nielsen KaL Marx and the Moral Point of View American Philosophical Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

IS Miller Analyzing Marx p 38-40 16 Buchanan Marx and Justice p33-35 Vander Linden Hmy Marx and Morality

An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p133-5

30 MARK VAN HOOK

Marxist would need to show that all people if they were properly informed and reasoned correctly would wish that others would act to bring about a communist society If this could be shown successfully then it would become morally imperative for all people to work for the transformation of

society into communism This brief list is not intended to be exhaustive of all workable

morally based evaluative perspectives for Marxists My purpose in this paper is not to advocate one particular form ofmoral Marxism but rather to show that a proper understanding of Marxism will show that it requires the grounding of moral principles and that several plausible systems of moral Marxismdo exist I do not think that every Marxistmust hold the same moral principle in order to be consistent with the basic insights of Marxism only that every Marxist needs to have some moral basis from which to make judgements

Nor do I think that the Marxist system implies one particular set of moral prinCiples This is not to say that any moral principle will function in the Marxist system without contradiction some types of moral principles such as Nozicks natural rights theory are clearly excluded What I am claiming is that there are a variety of plausible moralistic evaluative perspectives for Marxists including the three options I have summarized above and the question ofwhich one of them is best cannot be answered simply by an examination of the central concepts of Marxism

While all Marxists would agree with me that there is a very defini tc evaluative perspective inherent to Marxism many such as Allen Wood want to claim that this perspective need not and should not be a moral one Their attempts to construct such a non-moral evaluative perspective for Marxists fall short of what a consistently Marxist perspective must do Marxists are thus confronted with the necessity ofmoral Marxism and with the challenge of constructing this morally based perspective in such a way that it does not conflict with the critique of moral beliefs that is central to Marxist social theory

31 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

Works Cited

Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofUberalshyism Totowa NJ Rowman and Littlefield 1982

Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Review April 1981 p 89-108

Marx Karl Selected Writings David McLellan ed New York Oxford University Press 1988

Miller Richard W Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1984

Nielsen Kai Marxism and the Moral Point of View American Philomiddot sophicaJ Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

Nielsen Kai Arguing about Justice Marxist Immoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Public Affairs Summer 1989 p212-235

Vander Linden Harry Marx and Morality An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p 119-135

Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989

Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Pltilosopltica Summer 1984 p9-32

Wood Allen IIMarx on Right and Justice A Reply to Husami Philosomiddot pity and Public Affairs Vol 8 1978-1979 p 267-295

Aristotles Accounts of Motion in Physics II and VIII

David Laraway Brigham Young University

In the second book of the Physics Aristotle distinguishes between natural objects and others Speaking of natural things he says

Each of them bas within itself a prinCiple of motion and of stationariness On the otherhand abedand acoatand anything else ofthat sort qua receiving these designations-ie insofar as they are products of art-have no innate impulse to change (Phys n1192b14-19)

ThediscussiontakesquiteadifferenttuminBookEightSpeakingofanimal motion Aristotle tells us

they are unmoved at one time and then again they are in motion as it seems We must grasp the fact therefore that animals move themselves onlywith one kind ofmotion (locomoshytion) and that this is notstncUy originated by them The cause of it is not derivedfrom the animal itself (Phys VITI6259b6-8 emphasis added)

What are we to make of these accounts In the first Aristotle seems simply to equate nature with self-change and he explicitl y lists animals and their parts and plants and the simple bodies (earth fire air water) as examples (see Phys II1192b8-1O) But the second passage apparently confuses the picture In Charltons words It is a central thesis ofPhys VIII tllat nothing changes itself that whatever is subject to change is changed by something else (Charlton p 91)

Does the apparent inconsistency of these two passages make a strong case for taking them to reveal two incommensurable hypotheses Or can they on the other hand be read together as merely different (possibly progressive) accounts of motion that are fundamentally consistent In this paper I wish to suggest that Aristotles different theories of natural motion are grounded in attempts to answer separate questions and that they can only be made fully inteUigible by reco gnizing their place in distinct developmenshytal systems

The De Caelo regarded by most scholars as one of Aristotles earliest physical treatises furtller draws out the definition ofnatural motion as self-change that we sawin Physics II The second chapter of the De Caelo contains this discussion of the principle of movement of natural bodies

34 DAVID LARAWAY

Let us take this as our starting point All natural bodies and magnitudes we hold to be as such capable of locomotion for nature we say is their principle of movement Bodies are either simple or compounded of such and by simple bodies I mean those which possess a principle of movement in their own nature (De Caelo 12268b15-28)

Natural bodies on this view are those which are able to move themselves under their own power Motion is not further analyzed down into more basic terms Such a view squares nicely with much of the doctrine that charactershyizes the Organon and (what are generally assumed to be) Aristotles earlier works in general Compare this account with the following discussion of substance in the Categories Substance in the truest and most definite sense of the word is that which is neither predicable ofa subject nor present in a subject for instance the individual man or horse (Cat 52all-13) 1his view of substance as an organic unity (eg a particular manor horse) lends itselfnicely to such a straightforward account of motion No reference to the exterior movers or the hylomorphism that characterize his more mature physical works is required

Further passages in the De Caelo bear out this view Later in that same chapter Aristotle shows that

there must naturally be some simple body which revolves naturally and in virtue of its own nature with a circular moveshyment By constraint of course it may be brought to move with the motion of something else different from itself but it cannot so move naturally since there is one sort ofmovement natural to each of the simple bodies (De Caelo 12269a6-9 emphasis added)

Although Aristotle is concerned with showing in the first book of the De Caelo that the fifth element has a principle ofmotion within itself he also implicitly shows motion to be the natural power ofa thing to change itself No hint of his formmatter distinction nor any sort of reference to any unmoved mover as he envisions it in Book Eight ofthe Physics is needed to round out his account WKC Guthrie sums up von Arnims appraisal ofthe situation in this way

The idea is that as described in De Caelo the revolving sphere of aether has the principle of its motion entirely within itself that it is impossible that A could have described it as he docs there if be bad already worked out in his mind the doctrine of an unmoved mover as the ultimate source of motion (Guthrie p 164)

35 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Now Guthrie disagrees with von Arnim about the commensurability of the unmoved mover hypothesis with a model of motion Uke the one Aristotle describes in the first book of the De Caelo On Guthries view Aristotles accounts of motion can in fact be read on a developmental continuum and he denies that they are self-contradictory in any meaningful way This is an important question but one which I shall have to return to At any rate it is importantto note that for both theunmoved moverofBookEighthad no sort of essential role to play in the physics of motion of De Caelo

The De Caelo passages I have mentioned serve to illustrate apoint upon which there is widespread convergence among commentators Harold Cherniss reports that Moreau and wn Ross (as well as Guthrie and von Arnim) fail to see the necessity of a transcendent mover in Aristotles De

Caelo account WD Ross also holds that at the time of writing the De Caelo account Aristotle still believed in self-motion but a self-motion of immanent star-souls not of the fIfth essence itself Moreau who takes the De Caelo to be animistic in conception asserts that the unmoved mover does not appear in this work and apparently ascribes self-motion to the principle which be says is here immanent in the universe (Cbemiss p 584)

What is more certain passages in the De Caelo seem to exclude the possibility of an unmoved mover altogether The following discussion of

divinity for example depends upon the idea that natural motion is essentially simple and self-imposed

whatever is divine whatever is primary and supreme is necessarily unchangeable For there is nothing stronger than it to move it-since that would mean more divine--and it has no defect and lacks none of the proper excellences Its unceasing 11Wvement then is also reasonable since everything ceases to 11Wve when it comes to itsproperplace (De Caelo 19279832shyb2 emphasis added)

The following passage from De Coolo III seems to indicate that there was still something left of natural motion even after the introduction ofa prime mover For the prime mover must cause motion in virtue ofits own natural movement and the other bodies moving without constraint as they came to rest in their proper places would fall into the order in which they now stand (De Caelo III2300b21-22)

36 DAVID LARAWAY

Aristotles developing theology in the De Caelo seems to consisshytently come back to the idea that motion is fundamentally self-determined This is not to say that there are not passages in the De Caelo that explicitly mention an unmoved mover of the same stock as the one developed in Physics VTII and Metaphysics XII Fairly explicit references are made to such a mover at (for example) 288a27-b7 311a9-12 and 277b9-1O But such references seem to be anomalies when compared with the general direction that the arguments in the De Caelo are headed Certainly they bear more of a resemblance to the more full y-developed views ofAristotles later physical works Cherniss points out that von Arnim Ross Moreau and Guthrie an take these references to be later additions (Cherniss p 584) At any rate it cannot be denied that the systematic backdrop that these passages depend on is not fully present in De Caelo That alone gives us a prima facie reason to regard the passages as suspiciously late

I have relied heavily upon De Caelo up to thispointto give a picture of Aristotles earliest explanations of motion The reason is simply that references in other early works to the problem are practically non-existent There is however a brief passage in the Analytica Posteriora that is worth considering In the context of showing that nature often acts for both material and final causes Aristotle says

Necessity too is of two kinds It may work in accordance with a things natural tendency or by constrain l and in opposition to it as for instance by necessity a slone is borne both upwards and downwards but not by the same necessity (AnPo II1195al-3)

What makes this passage particularly relevant is not the fact that Aristotle refers to the natural tendency of a thing without mentioning any sort of external source we have already seen many such examples in De Caelo What is striking is simply its occurrence in the Organon The fact that he is not concerned with motion per se in the passage gives us a glimpse of the direction in which Aristotles earlier thought was naturally inclined such an intuitive view would surely have informed the more full-blooded theory he offers in De Caelo

Charlton notes that the Greek word Aristotle uses here horme means something like active striving After citing other passages in which the same word appears Charlton observes

37 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

In every case the nature involved seems to be the material elementofa thing This strongly suggests that be thinks that the material of a thing can be a source of change because it has an active tendency to change independent of any external cause (Charlton p 92)

The simplicity of the account given the De Caelo and the Analytica posteriora must have been appealing to Aristotle from a common-sense perspective We do tend to contrast natural things with others by talking about their origins It makes perfect sense to say that natural things are characterized by an innate capacity for change whereas artificial products (qua artificial) are only changed by external forces (see Physics IIl192b 12shy26) To paraphrase Aristotles example a tree is a natural object because it has the power of growth within itself whereas a bed or chair does not

But how does this explanation square with the development of Aristotles later views in the Physics Recall for example the analysis of animal motion that I quoted at the outset In Book VIII Aristotle claims that animal motion is not strictly self-motion and that the cause of it is not derived from the animal itself (Phys VllI4256a2-3) Indeed itis a general

thesis of Physics VllI that all things in motion must be moved by something (Phys VIIIA256a2-3) Richard Sorabji sees that dilemma like this

In Physics 21 his task is to distinguish natural objects from artificial ones and he does so by saying that natural objects have an internal source of change their nature Aristotle concludes that nature is an internal (en) source and cause (arkhe and aitia) of motion (kineisthai) or rest (eremein) But in Physics 84 Aristotle is constrained by an opposite consideration In order to make room for God as that by which the heavens are moved he has to support Platos principle that whatever is in motion is moved by something (Sorabji p 219)

Sorabji points out (rightly I think) that Aristotle seems to have different purposes in giving his distinct accounts Sarah Waterlow expands on this

idea the concept of living things as self-changers figures in Physics VIII not as an item of interest in itself but purely as a step in an argument concerned with other issues [The discussion of] selfshychange [in the Physics] tells us nothing about organic subshystance It is intended to uphold a certain conclusion concerning

38 DAVID LARAWAY

the ultimate source of change in the universe as a whole and Aristotle has accordingly invested self-change with no more meaning than is necessary for the discharge of this ulterior function (Waterlow p 216)

The point that Sorabji and Waterlow are making is Significant Aristotles discussion of self-change in the Physics is always informed by a greater

enterprise he wants to give an account of an eternal unmoved source of motion It looks as if in the Physics he already knew the conclusion he

thought right that God and not any celestial soul is the prime mover but

that the tools for securing this conclusion were not available to him until he

had written the de Anima and Metaphysics Book 12 (Sorabji p 225) With this in mind we can piece together Aristotles strategy by

looking at the interpretation that he tried to place on his own earlier works In Physics VIII4 Aristotle makes the claim that whatever is changed must be changed by something he draws this point out by making a distinction between the agent and patient of motion

The fact that a thing that is in motion derives its motion from something is most evident in things that are in motion unnatushyrally because in such cases it is clear that the motion is derived from something other than the thing itself Next to things that are in motion unnaturally those whose motion while natural is derived from themselves-eg animals-make this fact clear for here the uncertainty is not as to whether the motion is derived from something hut as to how weought to distinguish in the thing between the movent and the thing moved It would seem that in animals just as in ships and things not naturally organize~ that which causes motion is separate from that which suffers motion and that it is only in this sense that the animal as a whole causes its own motion (Physics VIIIA254b24-33)

WD Ross claims that Aristotles VIII4 account of motion is simply a fiIling-outoftheearlier De Cae10 view On Rosss interpretation Aristotles

initial simple equation ofmotion with an inherent capacity to change is not sufficient to demonstrate how the capacity for motion becomes fully

realized He says The answer which Aristotle finally reached is that

capacity is realized always by the action on the potential of that which is

already actual And this he came to see to be incompatibJe with selfshymovement (Ross pp 98-9)

39 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNfS OF MOTION

Aristotles strategy becomes more meaningful if we recall that he has by this time introduced his formmatter distinction By replacing the simple unity of substance of the Organon with the complex version of his mature physical works he has allowed himself to creatively redescribe motion and self-change on a new paradigm Rather than interpret selfshychange as a simple function of organic unities (eg man horse tree) he Is able to further analyze the motion of even these unities into more fundamental parts Thus he is able to analyze the motion of say an animal into a movent and a thing moved Clearly he is playing on the ambiguity of the phrase changed by something other to try to find a something other within what he formerly took to be a simple substance This is related to the point Waterlow makes when she says Aristotles deliberately indiscriminate use of changed by something other puts him at a strategic advantage vis-a-vis the question of what exactly we are to suppose should be meant by somethings being changed by itself (Waterlow p 207)

What then are we to make of this ambiguity Should we take Aristotle to be-as Waterlow puts it-at a strategic advantage one that allows himto further develop an old doctrine in response to new challenges Or ought we to read him as making a radical break from his earlier views and attempting to combine elements of two incommensurable systems

Waterlow argues that Aristotle is successful in his attempt But she recognizes that she faces an immediate difficulty in trying to bring the two views together into one coherent theory She asks

how can the self-change whole be itself a substance if it consists in a substance plus something else But perhaps this ought to be dismissed as a spurious paradox generated by gratuitously introducing terms like in addition to and plus Aristotle does not state nor does he necessarily imply that the difference must be such that the two are addible Presumably he means that in self-change the changer and changed are not numerically different individuals Resorting to handy words let us say that he has in mind different aspects of the same individual (Waterlow p 212)

I think that Waterlows reading of Aristotle is charitable-perhaps too much so The very difficulty of reconciling the doctrines of the Organon and earlier physical works with the later physical works lies in Aristotles waffling about what even the most basic terms (such as substance) are to

40 DAVID LARAWAY

mean This indecision becomes particularly acute in the second book ofthe Physics where Aristotle tries to on the one hand (continue to) retain the common-sense idea that natural objects are those that move themselves and on the other hand set up an argument designed to show (in the Metaphysics and in the Iaterbooks of the Physics) that there must be a source of eternal motion and change which is independent of particular natural things

Aristotles reliance on his mature actuali typotentiality doctrine lllustrates this very discrepancy As I have already indicated Ross notes that the capacity for change is realized always by the action of the potential of that which is already actual And in order to realize movement the mover must already be in the state which is the tenninus ofthe movement in order to be moved the moved must not yet be in that state (Ross pp 98-9 see Physics VIII5257a33-257b14) But significantly this view of actualityl potentiality differs markedly from earlier discussions in the Organon Daniel Graham points out that energia (or actuality) in the Organon is not explicitly connected with hylomorphism in fact Aristotle makes it a point to show that energia is an activity rather that a capacity (Graham p 99 see Top IV5125b15-9)

The spurious paradox Waterlow refcrs to runs more deeply than she realizes Itgoes to the very heart of Aristotles philosophy The problem as Graham has pointed out is that Aristotle himself sometimes treats form and matter as separate entities it is precisely his avowal ofhylomorphism in the later works that informs his conccption of energia as capacity and facilitates a complex account ofnatural motion in Book Eight ofthePhysics This is the very point Graham takes up in the following discussion of Aristotles mature philosophical system-what Graham refers to as 82

According to hylomorphism the concrete substance is divisible into form and matter This is a fundamental fact of analysis of S 2 the sensible substance is a composite not a simple individual The analysis seems to invite a question about the composite itsclf which componenlmakes the substantial compound substantial It is form or matter Since the sensible substance is analyzed into two components one of them must be responsible for the subshystantiality of the whole Because Aristotle analyses the senshysible substance into form and matter he assumes that it must be reduced to form and matter (Graham p 278)

41 ARIST01LES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Aristotles argument for complex natural motion hinging as it does on his latter conception of energia or actuality is thus bound up intimately with the logical status of form and matter in his ontology In these terms then Graham goes on to recommend the same linethatWaterlow insists on How then should we view form and matter It seems to me that we should take them not as components in the normal sense We should rather conceive of them as aspects of the sensible substance (Graham p 279) However Graham recognizes (as Waterlow does not) that such a recommendation can only stand as an after-the-fact suggestion to Aristotle The fact remains that Aristotle does equivocate terms between the earlier works on the one hand and his more mature thought on the other To deny this would be to affirm that the whole of the Aristotelian corpus is thoroughly consistent-surely an impossible hypothesis to defend

So where does that leave us with respect to our original question I want to recommend that we go back to an observation that I made earlier Both the earlier and later accounts of self-change that Aristotle offers are targeted at answering different questions (or at least questions that arise in distinct contexts) The De Caelo (and otller early works as well) tried to define natural moti0 n in relati vely simple terms the paradigm that Aristotle worked from was the one exemplified in the Organon and referred to by Graham as S1-what Graham takes to be Aristotles earlier philosophical system (see Graham 1987) The Physics account (after Book Two) tried to define motion against an entirely different backdrop and with an entirely different purpose in mind Aristotles discussions ofself-change and natural change were subsequently brought out to demonstrate the logical necessity of an unmoved mover and to uphold a certain conclusion concerning the ultimate eternal source of change in the universe as a whole (Waterlow p 216) The Physics II account then appears to mark an awkward shift between Aristotles early conception of natural change and the adoption of hylomorphic principles (introduced in Phys I) that would later provide the framework for his emerging complex agenda

It seems then that attempts to reconcile Aristotles theories of motion (either in terms ofone coherent system or along loose developmental lines) are wrong-headed We are better off sorting out his accounts ofmotion according to the paradigms he is working against and in terms ofthe specific questions he is trying to answer

42 DAVID LARAWAY

Works Cited

Aristotle The Basic ofAristotle Richard McKeon ed New York Random House 1941

Charlton W Aristotles Physics Books I and II Oxford Clarendon Press 1970

Cherniss Harold Aristotles Criticisms ofPlato and the Academy New York Russell amp Russell 1962

Graham Daniel W Aristotles Two Systems Oxford Clarendon Press 1987

Guthrie WKC The Development of Aristotles Theology I Classical Quarterly 27 (1933) 162-171

Ross WD Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1979

Sorabji Richard Matter Space and Motion Ithica Cornell University Press 1988

Waterlow Sarah Nature Change and Agency in Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1982

Are All Our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation)

Joseph Partain Belmont College

All our readings are misreadings (spoken at Vanderbilt Univershysity 1989)

I try to write the question (what is) meaning to say Therefore it is necessary in such a space and guided by such a question that writing literally mean nothing Not that it is absurd in the way that absurdity has always been in solidarity with metaphysical meanshying It simply tempts itself tenders itself attempts to keep itself at the point of the exhaustion of meaning To risk meaning nothing is to start to play and fltst enter into the play of differance which prevents any word any concept any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences this meaning-to-say-nothing is not you will agree the most assured of exercises

Thought means nothing it is the substantified void of a highly deri vative ideality the effect of a differance of forces the illusory autonomy of a discourse or consciousness whose hypostasis is to be deconstrocted whose causality is Lo be analyzed etc Whatever will continue to be called thought and Which for example will designate the deconstruction of logocentrism means nothing for in the last analysis it no longer derives from meaning Wherever it operates thought means nothing (P pp 1449)

In broaching your question you also noted that I meant someshything and that even ifyou did not understand it completely you were convinced of my wanting-to-say-something I am less sure of this than you (Wood p 89)

We should note that Derridas saying is not some of our readings are misreadings nor our readings tend to be misreadings but the

universal all-inclusive assertion all our readings are misreadings What we have here is not a difficulty in communication but absence of commushynication and not a difficulty to be dealt with and minimized but an absence never to be encroached upon a gap never to be narrowed

44 JOSEPH PARTAIN

To use the metaphor of a gun itisnt all OUI firings are misses but all our firings are misfirings ie the gun does not go off When we read the hammer hits the head of the bullet but there is only a click Derrida is dealing with more than the inevitability of misinterpretations or an anarchy ofperspectivism in the handling oftexts (though he is saying those things) In this paper I would like to attempt

(1) An identification of who Derrida is and what he is doing In this section I will seek to show that Derrida and his work constitute a sign of the meaninglessness or nothingness that lies just beneath the surface of existence that his role is philosophical

(2) An illustration ofDerrida sdeliberate misreadings of texts how Derrida responds when he is misread and briefly how deconstrnction is playing a role in the literary community (a look at Stanley Fish) in dealing with texts

(3) A call for an appreciation and qualified inclusion ofDerrida in textual interpretation

I Who Is Jacques Derrida

By this I do not mean things like his being an Algerian Jew who came to France when he was nineteen but who is he in terms of his philosophical literary impact on the world For that I know ofno better starting place than the address Derrida gave in 1968 in Paris called simply Difjerance I purposely come to the text for his own voice the record of his own words so as much as possible to let his speech identify him He begins by saying

I will speak thereforeofaletter OfthefrrstIetter if thealphabet and most of the speculations which have ventured into it are to bebelieved I will speak therefore ofthe letter a this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate here and there into the writing of the word difference

Nowithappens I would say in effect that this graphic difference (a instead of e) this marked difference between two apparently vocal notations between two vowels remains purely graphic it is read or it is written but it cannot be heard (MP pp 3-4)

Derrida continues by saying that thepresence ofthe letter a inits capital form (A) is compared in shape to an Egyptian pyramid in Hegels Encyclopedia

so that it remains silent secret and discreet as a tomb and not far from announcing the death of the tyrant (MP p 4) The fact that a and e cannot

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

31 TIm NECESSITY OF MORAL MARXISM

Works Cited

Buchanan Allen E Marx and Justice The Radical Critique ofUberalshyism Totowa NJ Rowman and Littlefield 1982

Cohen GA Freedom Justice and Capitalism New Left Review April 1981 p 89-108

Marx Karl Selected Writings David McLellan ed New York Oxford University Press 1988

Miller Richard W Analyzing Marx Morality Power and History Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1984

Nielsen Kai Marxism and the Moral Point of View American Philomiddot sophicaJ Quarterly October 1987 p 294-307

Nielsen Kai Arguing about Justice Marxist Immoralism and Marxist Moralism Philosophy and Public Affairs Summer 1989 p212-235

Vander Linden Harry Marx and Morality An Impossible Synthesis Theory and Society January 1984 p 119-135

Wood Allen Karl Marx New York Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1989

Wood Allen Justice and Class Interests Pltilosopltica Summer 1984 p9-32

Wood Allen IIMarx on Right and Justice A Reply to Husami Philosomiddot pity and Public Affairs Vol 8 1978-1979 p 267-295

Aristotles Accounts of Motion in Physics II and VIII

David Laraway Brigham Young University

In the second book of the Physics Aristotle distinguishes between natural objects and others Speaking of natural things he says

Each of them bas within itself a prinCiple of motion and of stationariness On the otherhand abedand acoatand anything else ofthat sort qua receiving these designations-ie insofar as they are products of art-have no innate impulse to change (Phys n1192b14-19)

ThediscussiontakesquiteadifferenttuminBookEightSpeakingofanimal motion Aristotle tells us

they are unmoved at one time and then again they are in motion as it seems We must grasp the fact therefore that animals move themselves onlywith one kind ofmotion (locomoshytion) and that this is notstncUy originated by them The cause of it is not derivedfrom the animal itself (Phys VITI6259b6-8 emphasis added)

What are we to make of these accounts In the first Aristotle seems simply to equate nature with self-change and he explicitl y lists animals and their parts and plants and the simple bodies (earth fire air water) as examples (see Phys II1192b8-1O) But the second passage apparently confuses the picture In Charltons words It is a central thesis ofPhys VIII tllat nothing changes itself that whatever is subject to change is changed by something else (Charlton p 91)

Does the apparent inconsistency of these two passages make a strong case for taking them to reveal two incommensurable hypotheses Or can they on the other hand be read together as merely different (possibly progressive) accounts of motion that are fundamentally consistent In this paper I wish to suggest that Aristotles different theories of natural motion are grounded in attempts to answer separate questions and that they can only be made fully inteUigible by reco gnizing their place in distinct developmenshytal systems

The De Caelo regarded by most scholars as one of Aristotles earliest physical treatises furtller draws out the definition ofnatural motion as self-change that we sawin Physics II The second chapter of the De Caelo contains this discussion of the principle of movement of natural bodies

34 DAVID LARAWAY

Let us take this as our starting point All natural bodies and magnitudes we hold to be as such capable of locomotion for nature we say is their principle of movement Bodies are either simple or compounded of such and by simple bodies I mean those which possess a principle of movement in their own nature (De Caelo 12268b15-28)

Natural bodies on this view are those which are able to move themselves under their own power Motion is not further analyzed down into more basic terms Such a view squares nicely with much of the doctrine that charactershyizes the Organon and (what are generally assumed to be) Aristotles earlier works in general Compare this account with the following discussion of substance in the Categories Substance in the truest and most definite sense of the word is that which is neither predicable ofa subject nor present in a subject for instance the individual man or horse (Cat 52all-13) 1his view of substance as an organic unity (eg a particular manor horse) lends itselfnicely to such a straightforward account of motion No reference to the exterior movers or the hylomorphism that characterize his more mature physical works is required

Further passages in the De Caelo bear out this view Later in that same chapter Aristotle shows that

there must naturally be some simple body which revolves naturally and in virtue of its own nature with a circular moveshyment By constraint of course it may be brought to move with the motion of something else different from itself but it cannot so move naturally since there is one sort ofmovement natural to each of the simple bodies (De Caelo 12269a6-9 emphasis added)

Although Aristotle is concerned with showing in the first book of the De Caelo that the fifth element has a principle ofmotion within itself he also implicitly shows motion to be the natural power ofa thing to change itself No hint of his formmatter distinction nor any sort of reference to any unmoved mover as he envisions it in Book Eight ofthe Physics is needed to round out his account WKC Guthrie sums up von Arnims appraisal ofthe situation in this way

The idea is that as described in De Caelo the revolving sphere of aether has the principle of its motion entirely within itself that it is impossible that A could have described it as he docs there if be bad already worked out in his mind the doctrine of an unmoved mover as the ultimate source of motion (Guthrie p 164)

35 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Now Guthrie disagrees with von Arnim about the commensurability of the unmoved mover hypothesis with a model of motion Uke the one Aristotle describes in the first book of the De Caelo On Guthries view Aristotles accounts of motion can in fact be read on a developmental continuum and he denies that they are self-contradictory in any meaningful way This is an important question but one which I shall have to return to At any rate it is importantto note that for both theunmoved moverofBookEighthad no sort of essential role to play in the physics of motion of De Caelo

The De Caelo passages I have mentioned serve to illustrate apoint upon which there is widespread convergence among commentators Harold Cherniss reports that Moreau and wn Ross (as well as Guthrie and von Arnim) fail to see the necessity of a transcendent mover in Aristotles De

Caelo account WD Ross also holds that at the time of writing the De Caelo account Aristotle still believed in self-motion but a self-motion of immanent star-souls not of the fIfth essence itself Moreau who takes the De Caelo to be animistic in conception asserts that the unmoved mover does not appear in this work and apparently ascribes self-motion to the principle which be says is here immanent in the universe (Cbemiss p 584)

What is more certain passages in the De Caelo seem to exclude the possibility of an unmoved mover altogether The following discussion of

divinity for example depends upon the idea that natural motion is essentially simple and self-imposed

whatever is divine whatever is primary and supreme is necessarily unchangeable For there is nothing stronger than it to move it-since that would mean more divine--and it has no defect and lacks none of the proper excellences Its unceasing 11Wvement then is also reasonable since everything ceases to 11Wve when it comes to itsproperplace (De Caelo 19279832shyb2 emphasis added)

The following passage from De Coolo III seems to indicate that there was still something left of natural motion even after the introduction ofa prime mover For the prime mover must cause motion in virtue ofits own natural movement and the other bodies moving without constraint as they came to rest in their proper places would fall into the order in which they now stand (De Caelo III2300b21-22)

36 DAVID LARAWAY

Aristotles developing theology in the De Caelo seems to consisshytently come back to the idea that motion is fundamentally self-determined This is not to say that there are not passages in the De Caelo that explicitly mention an unmoved mover of the same stock as the one developed in Physics VTII and Metaphysics XII Fairly explicit references are made to such a mover at (for example) 288a27-b7 311a9-12 and 277b9-1O But such references seem to be anomalies when compared with the general direction that the arguments in the De Caelo are headed Certainly they bear more of a resemblance to the more full y-developed views ofAristotles later physical works Cherniss points out that von Arnim Ross Moreau and Guthrie an take these references to be later additions (Cherniss p 584) At any rate it cannot be denied that the systematic backdrop that these passages depend on is not fully present in De Caelo That alone gives us a prima facie reason to regard the passages as suspiciously late

I have relied heavily upon De Caelo up to thispointto give a picture of Aristotles earliest explanations of motion The reason is simply that references in other early works to the problem are practically non-existent There is however a brief passage in the Analytica Posteriora that is worth considering In the context of showing that nature often acts for both material and final causes Aristotle says

Necessity too is of two kinds It may work in accordance with a things natural tendency or by constrain l and in opposition to it as for instance by necessity a slone is borne both upwards and downwards but not by the same necessity (AnPo II1195al-3)

What makes this passage particularly relevant is not the fact that Aristotle refers to the natural tendency of a thing without mentioning any sort of external source we have already seen many such examples in De Caelo What is striking is simply its occurrence in the Organon The fact that he is not concerned with motion per se in the passage gives us a glimpse of the direction in which Aristotles earlier thought was naturally inclined such an intuitive view would surely have informed the more full-blooded theory he offers in De Caelo

Charlton notes that the Greek word Aristotle uses here horme means something like active striving After citing other passages in which the same word appears Charlton observes

37 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

In every case the nature involved seems to be the material elementofa thing This strongly suggests that be thinks that the material of a thing can be a source of change because it has an active tendency to change independent of any external cause (Charlton p 92)

The simplicity of the account given the De Caelo and the Analytica posteriora must have been appealing to Aristotle from a common-sense perspective We do tend to contrast natural things with others by talking about their origins It makes perfect sense to say that natural things are characterized by an innate capacity for change whereas artificial products (qua artificial) are only changed by external forces (see Physics IIl192b 12shy26) To paraphrase Aristotles example a tree is a natural object because it has the power of growth within itself whereas a bed or chair does not

But how does this explanation square with the development of Aristotles later views in the Physics Recall for example the analysis of animal motion that I quoted at the outset In Book VIII Aristotle claims that animal motion is not strictly self-motion and that the cause of it is not derived from the animal itself (Phys VllI4256a2-3) Indeed itis a general

thesis of Physics VllI that all things in motion must be moved by something (Phys VIIIA256a2-3) Richard Sorabji sees that dilemma like this

In Physics 21 his task is to distinguish natural objects from artificial ones and he does so by saying that natural objects have an internal source of change their nature Aristotle concludes that nature is an internal (en) source and cause (arkhe and aitia) of motion (kineisthai) or rest (eremein) But in Physics 84 Aristotle is constrained by an opposite consideration In order to make room for God as that by which the heavens are moved he has to support Platos principle that whatever is in motion is moved by something (Sorabji p 219)

Sorabji points out (rightly I think) that Aristotle seems to have different purposes in giving his distinct accounts Sarah Waterlow expands on this

idea the concept of living things as self-changers figures in Physics VIII not as an item of interest in itself but purely as a step in an argument concerned with other issues [The discussion of] selfshychange [in the Physics] tells us nothing about organic subshystance It is intended to uphold a certain conclusion concerning

38 DAVID LARAWAY

the ultimate source of change in the universe as a whole and Aristotle has accordingly invested self-change with no more meaning than is necessary for the discharge of this ulterior function (Waterlow p 216)

The point that Sorabji and Waterlow are making is Significant Aristotles discussion of self-change in the Physics is always informed by a greater

enterprise he wants to give an account of an eternal unmoved source of motion It looks as if in the Physics he already knew the conclusion he

thought right that God and not any celestial soul is the prime mover but

that the tools for securing this conclusion were not available to him until he

had written the de Anima and Metaphysics Book 12 (Sorabji p 225) With this in mind we can piece together Aristotles strategy by

looking at the interpretation that he tried to place on his own earlier works In Physics VIII4 Aristotle makes the claim that whatever is changed must be changed by something he draws this point out by making a distinction between the agent and patient of motion

The fact that a thing that is in motion derives its motion from something is most evident in things that are in motion unnatushyrally because in such cases it is clear that the motion is derived from something other than the thing itself Next to things that are in motion unnaturally those whose motion while natural is derived from themselves-eg animals-make this fact clear for here the uncertainty is not as to whether the motion is derived from something hut as to how weought to distinguish in the thing between the movent and the thing moved It would seem that in animals just as in ships and things not naturally organize~ that which causes motion is separate from that which suffers motion and that it is only in this sense that the animal as a whole causes its own motion (Physics VIIIA254b24-33)

WD Ross claims that Aristotles VIII4 account of motion is simply a fiIling-outoftheearlier De Cae10 view On Rosss interpretation Aristotles

initial simple equation ofmotion with an inherent capacity to change is not sufficient to demonstrate how the capacity for motion becomes fully

realized He says The answer which Aristotle finally reached is that

capacity is realized always by the action on the potential of that which is

already actual And this he came to see to be incompatibJe with selfshymovement (Ross pp 98-9)

39 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNfS OF MOTION

Aristotles strategy becomes more meaningful if we recall that he has by this time introduced his formmatter distinction By replacing the simple unity of substance of the Organon with the complex version of his mature physical works he has allowed himself to creatively redescribe motion and self-change on a new paradigm Rather than interpret selfshychange as a simple function of organic unities (eg man horse tree) he Is able to further analyze the motion of even these unities into more fundamental parts Thus he is able to analyze the motion of say an animal into a movent and a thing moved Clearly he is playing on the ambiguity of the phrase changed by something other to try to find a something other within what he formerly took to be a simple substance This is related to the point Waterlow makes when she says Aristotles deliberately indiscriminate use of changed by something other puts him at a strategic advantage vis-a-vis the question of what exactly we are to suppose should be meant by somethings being changed by itself (Waterlow p 207)

What then are we to make of this ambiguity Should we take Aristotle to be-as Waterlow puts it-at a strategic advantage one that allows himto further develop an old doctrine in response to new challenges Or ought we to read him as making a radical break from his earlier views and attempting to combine elements of two incommensurable systems

Waterlow argues that Aristotle is successful in his attempt But she recognizes that she faces an immediate difficulty in trying to bring the two views together into one coherent theory She asks

how can the self-change whole be itself a substance if it consists in a substance plus something else But perhaps this ought to be dismissed as a spurious paradox generated by gratuitously introducing terms like in addition to and plus Aristotle does not state nor does he necessarily imply that the difference must be such that the two are addible Presumably he means that in self-change the changer and changed are not numerically different individuals Resorting to handy words let us say that he has in mind different aspects of the same individual (Waterlow p 212)

I think that Waterlows reading of Aristotle is charitable-perhaps too much so The very difficulty of reconciling the doctrines of the Organon and earlier physical works with the later physical works lies in Aristotles waffling about what even the most basic terms (such as substance) are to

40 DAVID LARAWAY

mean This indecision becomes particularly acute in the second book ofthe Physics where Aristotle tries to on the one hand (continue to) retain the common-sense idea that natural objects are those that move themselves and on the other hand set up an argument designed to show (in the Metaphysics and in the Iaterbooks of the Physics) that there must be a source of eternal motion and change which is independent of particular natural things

Aristotles reliance on his mature actuali typotentiality doctrine lllustrates this very discrepancy As I have already indicated Ross notes that the capacity for change is realized always by the action of the potential of that which is already actual And in order to realize movement the mover must already be in the state which is the tenninus ofthe movement in order to be moved the moved must not yet be in that state (Ross pp 98-9 see Physics VIII5257a33-257b14) But significantly this view of actualityl potentiality differs markedly from earlier discussions in the Organon Daniel Graham points out that energia (or actuality) in the Organon is not explicitly connected with hylomorphism in fact Aristotle makes it a point to show that energia is an activity rather that a capacity (Graham p 99 see Top IV5125b15-9)

The spurious paradox Waterlow refcrs to runs more deeply than she realizes Itgoes to the very heart of Aristotles philosophy The problem as Graham has pointed out is that Aristotle himself sometimes treats form and matter as separate entities it is precisely his avowal ofhylomorphism in the later works that informs his conccption of energia as capacity and facilitates a complex account ofnatural motion in Book Eight ofthePhysics This is the very point Graham takes up in the following discussion of Aristotles mature philosophical system-what Graham refers to as 82

According to hylomorphism the concrete substance is divisible into form and matter This is a fundamental fact of analysis of S 2 the sensible substance is a composite not a simple individual The analysis seems to invite a question about the composite itsclf which componenlmakes the substantial compound substantial It is form or matter Since the sensible substance is analyzed into two components one of them must be responsible for the subshystantiality of the whole Because Aristotle analyses the senshysible substance into form and matter he assumes that it must be reduced to form and matter (Graham p 278)

41 ARIST01LES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Aristotles argument for complex natural motion hinging as it does on his latter conception of energia or actuality is thus bound up intimately with the logical status of form and matter in his ontology In these terms then Graham goes on to recommend the same linethatWaterlow insists on How then should we view form and matter It seems to me that we should take them not as components in the normal sense We should rather conceive of them as aspects of the sensible substance (Graham p 279) However Graham recognizes (as Waterlow does not) that such a recommendation can only stand as an after-the-fact suggestion to Aristotle The fact remains that Aristotle does equivocate terms between the earlier works on the one hand and his more mature thought on the other To deny this would be to affirm that the whole of the Aristotelian corpus is thoroughly consistent-surely an impossible hypothesis to defend

So where does that leave us with respect to our original question I want to recommend that we go back to an observation that I made earlier Both the earlier and later accounts of self-change that Aristotle offers are targeted at answering different questions (or at least questions that arise in distinct contexts) The De Caelo (and otller early works as well) tried to define natural moti0 n in relati vely simple terms the paradigm that Aristotle worked from was the one exemplified in the Organon and referred to by Graham as S1-what Graham takes to be Aristotles earlier philosophical system (see Graham 1987) The Physics account (after Book Two) tried to define motion against an entirely different backdrop and with an entirely different purpose in mind Aristotles discussions ofself-change and natural change were subsequently brought out to demonstrate the logical necessity of an unmoved mover and to uphold a certain conclusion concerning the ultimate eternal source of change in the universe as a whole (Waterlow p 216) The Physics II account then appears to mark an awkward shift between Aristotles early conception of natural change and the adoption of hylomorphic principles (introduced in Phys I) that would later provide the framework for his emerging complex agenda

It seems then that attempts to reconcile Aristotles theories of motion (either in terms ofone coherent system or along loose developmental lines) are wrong-headed We are better off sorting out his accounts ofmotion according to the paradigms he is working against and in terms ofthe specific questions he is trying to answer

42 DAVID LARAWAY

Works Cited

Aristotle The Basic ofAristotle Richard McKeon ed New York Random House 1941

Charlton W Aristotles Physics Books I and II Oxford Clarendon Press 1970

Cherniss Harold Aristotles Criticisms ofPlato and the Academy New York Russell amp Russell 1962

Graham Daniel W Aristotles Two Systems Oxford Clarendon Press 1987

Guthrie WKC The Development of Aristotles Theology I Classical Quarterly 27 (1933) 162-171

Ross WD Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1979

Sorabji Richard Matter Space and Motion Ithica Cornell University Press 1988

Waterlow Sarah Nature Change and Agency in Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1982

Are All Our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation)

Joseph Partain Belmont College

All our readings are misreadings (spoken at Vanderbilt Univershysity 1989)

I try to write the question (what is) meaning to say Therefore it is necessary in such a space and guided by such a question that writing literally mean nothing Not that it is absurd in the way that absurdity has always been in solidarity with metaphysical meanshying It simply tempts itself tenders itself attempts to keep itself at the point of the exhaustion of meaning To risk meaning nothing is to start to play and fltst enter into the play of differance which prevents any word any concept any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences this meaning-to-say-nothing is not you will agree the most assured of exercises

Thought means nothing it is the substantified void of a highly deri vative ideality the effect of a differance of forces the illusory autonomy of a discourse or consciousness whose hypostasis is to be deconstrocted whose causality is Lo be analyzed etc Whatever will continue to be called thought and Which for example will designate the deconstruction of logocentrism means nothing for in the last analysis it no longer derives from meaning Wherever it operates thought means nothing (P pp 1449)

In broaching your question you also noted that I meant someshything and that even ifyou did not understand it completely you were convinced of my wanting-to-say-something I am less sure of this than you (Wood p 89)

We should note that Derridas saying is not some of our readings are misreadings nor our readings tend to be misreadings but the

universal all-inclusive assertion all our readings are misreadings What we have here is not a difficulty in communication but absence of commushynication and not a difficulty to be dealt with and minimized but an absence never to be encroached upon a gap never to be narrowed

44 JOSEPH PARTAIN

To use the metaphor of a gun itisnt all OUI firings are misses but all our firings are misfirings ie the gun does not go off When we read the hammer hits the head of the bullet but there is only a click Derrida is dealing with more than the inevitability of misinterpretations or an anarchy ofperspectivism in the handling oftexts (though he is saying those things) In this paper I would like to attempt

(1) An identification of who Derrida is and what he is doing In this section I will seek to show that Derrida and his work constitute a sign of the meaninglessness or nothingness that lies just beneath the surface of existence that his role is philosophical

(2) An illustration ofDerrida sdeliberate misreadings of texts how Derrida responds when he is misread and briefly how deconstrnction is playing a role in the literary community (a look at Stanley Fish) in dealing with texts

(3) A call for an appreciation and qualified inclusion ofDerrida in textual interpretation

I Who Is Jacques Derrida

By this I do not mean things like his being an Algerian Jew who came to France when he was nineteen but who is he in terms of his philosophical literary impact on the world For that I know ofno better starting place than the address Derrida gave in 1968 in Paris called simply Difjerance I purposely come to the text for his own voice the record of his own words so as much as possible to let his speech identify him He begins by saying

I will speak thereforeofaletter OfthefrrstIetter if thealphabet and most of the speculations which have ventured into it are to bebelieved I will speak therefore ofthe letter a this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate here and there into the writing of the word difference

Nowithappens I would say in effect that this graphic difference (a instead of e) this marked difference between two apparently vocal notations between two vowels remains purely graphic it is read or it is written but it cannot be heard (MP pp 3-4)

Derrida continues by saying that thepresence ofthe letter a inits capital form (A) is compared in shape to an Egyptian pyramid in Hegels Encyclopedia

so that it remains silent secret and discreet as a tomb and not far from announcing the death of the tyrant (MP p 4) The fact that a and e cannot

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

Aristotles Accounts of Motion in Physics II and VIII

David Laraway Brigham Young University

In the second book of the Physics Aristotle distinguishes between natural objects and others Speaking of natural things he says

Each of them bas within itself a prinCiple of motion and of stationariness On the otherhand abedand acoatand anything else ofthat sort qua receiving these designations-ie insofar as they are products of art-have no innate impulse to change (Phys n1192b14-19)

ThediscussiontakesquiteadifferenttuminBookEightSpeakingofanimal motion Aristotle tells us

they are unmoved at one time and then again they are in motion as it seems We must grasp the fact therefore that animals move themselves onlywith one kind ofmotion (locomoshytion) and that this is notstncUy originated by them The cause of it is not derivedfrom the animal itself (Phys VITI6259b6-8 emphasis added)

What are we to make of these accounts In the first Aristotle seems simply to equate nature with self-change and he explicitl y lists animals and their parts and plants and the simple bodies (earth fire air water) as examples (see Phys II1192b8-1O) But the second passage apparently confuses the picture In Charltons words It is a central thesis ofPhys VIII tllat nothing changes itself that whatever is subject to change is changed by something else (Charlton p 91)

Does the apparent inconsistency of these two passages make a strong case for taking them to reveal two incommensurable hypotheses Or can they on the other hand be read together as merely different (possibly progressive) accounts of motion that are fundamentally consistent In this paper I wish to suggest that Aristotles different theories of natural motion are grounded in attempts to answer separate questions and that they can only be made fully inteUigible by reco gnizing their place in distinct developmenshytal systems

The De Caelo regarded by most scholars as one of Aristotles earliest physical treatises furtller draws out the definition ofnatural motion as self-change that we sawin Physics II The second chapter of the De Caelo contains this discussion of the principle of movement of natural bodies

34 DAVID LARAWAY

Let us take this as our starting point All natural bodies and magnitudes we hold to be as such capable of locomotion for nature we say is their principle of movement Bodies are either simple or compounded of such and by simple bodies I mean those which possess a principle of movement in their own nature (De Caelo 12268b15-28)

Natural bodies on this view are those which are able to move themselves under their own power Motion is not further analyzed down into more basic terms Such a view squares nicely with much of the doctrine that charactershyizes the Organon and (what are generally assumed to be) Aristotles earlier works in general Compare this account with the following discussion of substance in the Categories Substance in the truest and most definite sense of the word is that which is neither predicable ofa subject nor present in a subject for instance the individual man or horse (Cat 52all-13) 1his view of substance as an organic unity (eg a particular manor horse) lends itselfnicely to such a straightforward account of motion No reference to the exterior movers or the hylomorphism that characterize his more mature physical works is required

Further passages in the De Caelo bear out this view Later in that same chapter Aristotle shows that

there must naturally be some simple body which revolves naturally and in virtue of its own nature with a circular moveshyment By constraint of course it may be brought to move with the motion of something else different from itself but it cannot so move naturally since there is one sort ofmovement natural to each of the simple bodies (De Caelo 12269a6-9 emphasis added)

Although Aristotle is concerned with showing in the first book of the De Caelo that the fifth element has a principle ofmotion within itself he also implicitly shows motion to be the natural power ofa thing to change itself No hint of his formmatter distinction nor any sort of reference to any unmoved mover as he envisions it in Book Eight ofthe Physics is needed to round out his account WKC Guthrie sums up von Arnims appraisal ofthe situation in this way

The idea is that as described in De Caelo the revolving sphere of aether has the principle of its motion entirely within itself that it is impossible that A could have described it as he docs there if be bad already worked out in his mind the doctrine of an unmoved mover as the ultimate source of motion (Guthrie p 164)

35 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Now Guthrie disagrees with von Arnim about the commensurability of the unmoved mover hypothesis with a model of motion Uke the one Aristotle describes in the first book of the De Caelo On Guthries view Aristotles accounts of motion can in fact be read on a developmental continuum and he denies that they are self-contradictory in any meaningful way This is an important question but one which I shall have to return to At any rate it is importantto note that for both theunmoved moverofBookEighthad no sort of essential role to play in the physics of motion of De Caelo

The De Caelo passages I have mentioned serve to illustrate apoint upon which there is widespread convergence among commentators Harold Cherniss reports that Moreau and wn Ross (as well as Guthrie and von Arnim) fail to see the necessity of a transcendent mover in Aristotles De

Caelo account WD Ross also holds that at the time of writing the De Caelo account Aristotle still believed in self-motion but a self-motion of immanent star-souls not of the fIfth essence itself Moreau who takes the De Caelo to be animistic in conception asserts that the unmoved mover does not appear in this work and apparently ascribes self-motion to the principle which be says is here immanent in the universe (Cbemiss p 584)

What is more certain passages in the De Caelo seem to exclude the possibility of an unmoved mover altogether The following discussion of

divinity for example depends upon the idea that natural motion is essentially simple and self-imposed

whatever is divine whatever is primary and supreme is necessarily unchangeable For there is nothing stronger than it to move it-since that would mean more divine--and it has no defect and lacks none of the proper excellences Its unceasing 11Wvement then is also reasonable since everything ceases to 11Wve when it comes to itsproperplace (De Caelo 19279832shyb2 emphasis added)

The following passage from De Coolo III seems to indicate that there was still something left of natural motion even after the introduction ofa prime mover For the prime mover must cause motion in virtue ofits own natural movement and the other bodies moving without constraint as they came to rest in their proper places would fall into the order in which they now stand (De Caelo III2300b21-22)

36 DAVID LARAWAY

Aristotles developing theology in the De Caelo seems to consisshytently come back to the idea that motion is fundamentally self-determined This is not to say that there are not passages in the De Caelo that explicitly mention an unmoved mover of the same stock as the one developed in Physics VTII and Metaphysics XII Fairly explicit references are made to such a mover at (for example) 288a27-b7 311a9-12 and 277b9-1O But such references seem to be anomalies when compared with the general direction that the arguments in the De Caelo are headed Certainly they bear more of a resemblance to the more full y-developed views ofAristotles later physical works Cherniss points out that von Arnim Ross Moreau and Guthrie an take these references to be later additions (Cherniss p 584) At any rate it cannot be denied that the systematic backdrop that these passages depend on is not fully present in De Caelo That alone gives us a prima facie reason to regard the passages as suspiciously late

I have relied heavily upon De Caelo up to thispointto give a picture of Aristotles earliest explanations of motion The reason is simply that references in other early works to the problem are practically non-existent There is however a brief passage in the Analytica Posteriora that is worth considering In the context of showing that nature often acts for both material and final causes Aristotle says

Necessity too is of two kinds It may work in accordance with a things natural tendency or by constrain l and in opposition to it as for instance by necessity a slone is borne both upwards and downwards but not by the same necessity (AnPo II1195al-3)

What makes this passage particularly relevant is not the fact that Aristotle refers to the natural tendency of a thing without mentioning any sort of external source we have already seen many such examples in De Caelo What is striking is simply its occurrence in the Organon The fact that he is not concerned with motion per se in the passage gives us a glimpse of the direction in which Aristotles earlier thought was naturally inclined such an intuitive view would surely have informed the more full-blooded theory he offers in De Caelo

Charlton notes that the Greek word Aristotle uses here horme means something like active striving After citing other passages in which the same word appears Charlton observes

37 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

In every case the nature involved seems to be the material elementofa thing This strongly suggests that be thinks that the material of a thing can be a source of change because it has an active tendency to change independent of any external cause (Charlton p 92)

The simplicity of the account given the De Caelo and the Analytica posteriora must have been appealing to Aristotle from a common-sense perspective We do tend to contrast natural things with others by talking about their origins It makes perfect sense to say that natural things are characterized by an innate capacity for change whereas artificial products (qua artificial) are only changed by external forces (see Physics IIl192b 12shy26) To paraphrase Aristotles example a tree is a natural object because it has the power of growth within itself whereas a bed or chair does not

But how does this explanation square with the development of Aristotles later views in the Physics Recall for example the analysis of animal motion that I quoted at the outset In Book VIII Aristotle claims that animal motion is not strictly self-motion and that the cause of it is not derived from the animal itself (Phys VllI4256a2-3) Indeed itis a general

thesis of Physics VllI that all things in motion must be moved by something (Phys VIIIA256a2-3) Richard Sorabji sees that dilemma like this

In Physics 21 his task is to distinguish natural objects from artificial ones and he does so by saying that natural objects have an internal source of change their nature Aristotle concludes that nature is an internal (en) source and cause (arkhe and aitia) of motion (kineisthai) or rest (eremein) But in Physics 84 Aristotle is constrained by an opposite consideration In order to make room for God as that by which the heavens are moved he has to support Platos principle that whatever is in motion is moved by something (Sorabji p 219)

Sorabji points out (rightly I think) that Aristotle seems to have different purposes in giving his distinct accounts Sarah Waterlow expands on this

idea the concept of living things as self-changers figures in Physics VIII not as an item of interest in itself but purely as a step in an argument concerned with other issues [The discussion of] selfshychange [in the Physics] tells us nothing about organic subshystance It is intended to uphold a certain conclusion concerning

38 DAVID LARAWAY

the ultimate source of change in the universe as a whole and Aristotle has accordingly invested self-change with no more meaning than is necessary for the discharge of this ulterior function (Waterlow p 216)

The point that Sorabji and Waterlow are making is Significant Aristotles discussion of self-change in the Physics is always informed by a greater

enterprise he wants to give an account of an eternal unmoved source of motion It looks as if in the Physics he already knew the conclusion he

thought right that God and not any celestial soul is the prime mover but

that the tools for securing this conclusion were not available to him until he

had written the de Anima and Metaphysics Book 12 (Sorabji p 225) With this in mind we can piece together Aristotles strategy by

looking at the interpretation that he tried to place on his own earlier works In Physics VIII4 Aristotle makes the claim that whatever is changed must be changed by something he draws this point out by making a distinction between the agent and patient of motion

The fact that a thing that is in motion derives its motion from something is most evident in things that are in motion unnatushyrally because in such cases it is clear that the motion is derived from something other than the thing itself Next to things that are in motion unnaturally those whose motion while natural is derived from themselves-eg animals-make this fact clear for here the uncertainty is not as to whether the motion is derived from something hut as to how weought to distinguish in the thing between the movent and the thing moved It would seem that in animals just as in ships and things not naturally organize~ that which causes motion is separate from that which suffers motion and that it is only in this sense that the animal as a whole causes its own motion (Physics VIIIA254b24-33)

WD Ross claims that Aristotles VIII4 account of motion is simply a fiIling-outoftheearlier De Cae10 view On Rosss interpretation Aristotles

initial simple equation ofmotion with an inherent capacity to change is not sufficient to demonstrate how the capacity for motion becomes fully

realized He says The answer which Aristotle finally reached is that

capacity is realized always by the action on the potential of that which is

already actual And this he came to see to be incompatibJe with selfshymovement (Ross pp 98-9)

39 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNfS OF MOTION

Aristotles strategy becomes more meaningful if we recall that he has by this time introduced his formmatter distinction By replacing the simple unity of substance of the Organon with the complex version of his mature physical works he has allowed himself to creatively redescribe motion and self-change on a new paradigm Rather than interpret selfshychange as a simple function of organic unities (eg man horse tree) he Is able to further analyze the motion of even these unities into more fundamental parts Thus he is able to analyze the motion of say an animal into a movent and a thing moved Clearly he is playing on the ambiguity of the phrase changed by something other to try to find a something other within what he formerly took to be a simple substance This is related to the point Waterlow makes when she says Aristotles deliberately indiscriminate use of changed by something other puts him at a strategic advantage vis-a-vis the question of what exactly we are to suppose should be meant by somethings being changed by itself (Waterlow p 207)

What then are we to make of this ambiguity Should we take Aristotle to be-as Waterlow puts it-at a strategic advantage one that allows himto further develop an old doctrine in response to new challenges Or ought we to read him as making a radical break from his earlier views and attempting to combine elements of two incommensurable systems

Waterlow argues that Aristotle is successful in his attempt But she recognizes that she faces an immediate difficulty in trying to bring the two views together into one coherent theory She asks

how can the self-change whole be itself a substance if it consists in a substance plus something else But perhaps this ought to be dismissed as a spurious paradox generated by gratuitously introducing terms like in addition to and plus Aristotle does not state nor does he necessarily imply that the difference must be such that the two are addible Presumably he means that in self-change the changer and changed are not numerically different individuals Resorting to handy words let us say that he has in mind different aspects of the same individual (Waterlow p 212)

I think that Waterlows reading of Aristotle is charitable-perhaps too much so The very difficulty of reconciling the doctrines of the Organon and earlier physical works with the later physical works lies in Aristotles waffling about what even the most basic terms (such as substance) are to

40 DAVID LARAWAY

mean This indecision becomes particularly acute in the second book ofthe Physics where Aristotle tries to on the one hand (continue to) retain the common-sense idea that natural objects are those that move themselves and on the other hand set up an argument designed to show (in the Metaphysics and in the Iaterbooks of the Physics) that there must be a source of eternal motion and change which is independent of particular natural things

Aristotles reliance on his mature actuali typotentiality doctrine lllustrates this very discrepancy As I have already indicated Ross notes that the capacity for change is realized always by the action of the potential of that which is already actual And in order to realize movement the mover must already be in the state which is the tenninus ofthe movement in order to be moved the moved must not yet be in that state (Ross pp 98-9 see Physics VIII5257a33-257b14) But significantly this view of actualityl potentiality differs markedly from earlier discussions in the Organon Daniel Graham points out that energia (or actuality) in the Organon is not explicitly connected with hylomorphism in fact Aristotle makes it a point to show that energia is an activity rather that a capacity (Graham p 99 see Top IV5125b15-9)

The spurious paradox Waterlow refcrs to runs more deeply than she realizes Itgoes to the very heart of Aristotles philosophy The problem as Graham has pointed out is that Aristotle himself sometimes treats form and matter as separate entities it is precisely his avowal ofhylomorphism in the later works that informs his conccption of energia as capacity and facilitates a complex account ofnatural motion in Book Eight ofthePhysics This is the very point Graham takes up in the following discussion of Aristotles mature philosophical system-what Graham refers to as 82

According to hylomorphism the concrete substance is divisible into form and matter This is a fundamental fact of analysis of S 2 the sensible substance is a composite not a simple individual The analysis seems to invite a question about the composite itsclf which componenlmakes the substantial compound substantial It is form or matter Since the sensible substance is analyzed into two components one of them must be responsible for the subshystantiality of the whole Because Aristotle analyses the senshysible substance into form and matter he assumes that it must be reduced to form and matter (Graham p 278)

41 ARIST01LES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Aristotles argument for complex natural motion hinging as it does on his latter conception of energia or actuality is thus bound up intimately with the logical status of form and matter in his ontology In these terms then Graham goes on to recommend the same linethatWaterlow insists on How then should we view form and matter It seems to me that we should take them not as components in the normal sense We should rather conceive of them as aspects of the sensible substance (Graham p 279) However Graham recognizes (as Waterlow does not) that such a recommendation can only stand as an after-the-fact suggestion to Aristotle The fact remains that Aristotle does equivocate terms between the earlier works on the one hand and his more mature thought on the other To deny this would be to affirm that the whole of the Aristotelian corpus is thoroughly consistent-surely an impossible hypothesis to defend

So where does that leave us with respect to our original question I want to recommend that we go back to an observation that I made earlier Both the earlier and later accounts of self-change that Aristotle offers are targeted at answering different questions (or at least questions that arise in distinct contexts) The De Caelo (and otller early works as well) tried to define natural moti0 n in relati vely simple terms the paradigm that Aristotle worked from was the one exemplified in the Organon and referred to by Graham as S1-what Graham takes to be Aristotles earlier philosophical system (see Graham 1987) The Physics account (after Book Two) tried to define motion against an entirely different backdrop and with an entirely different purpose in mind Aristotles discussions ofself-change and natural change were subsequently brought out to demonstrate the logical necessity of an unmoved mover and to uphold a certain conclusion concerning the ultimate eternal source of change in the universe as a whole (Waterlow p 216) The Physics II account then appears to mark an awkward shift between Aristotles early conception of natural change and the adoption of hylomorphic principles (introduced in Phys I) that would later provide the framework for his emerging complex agenda

It seems then that attempts to reconcile Aristotles theories of motion (either in terms ofone coherent system or along loose developmental lines) are wrong-headed We are better off sorting out his accounts ofmotion according to the paradigms he is working against and in terms ofthe specific questions he is trying to answer

42 DAVID LARAWAY

Works Cited

Aristotle The Basic ofAristotle Richard McKeon ed New York Random House 1941

Charlton W Aristotles Physics Books I and II Oxford Clarendon Press 1970

Cherniss Harold Aristotles Criticisms ofPlato and the Academy New York Russell amp Russell 1962

Graham Daniel W Aristotles Two Systems Oxford Clarendon Press 1987

Guthrie WKC The Development of Aristotles Theology I Classical Quarterly 27 (1933) 162-171

Ross WD Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1979

Sorabji Richard Matter Space and Motion Ithica Cornell University Press 1988

Waterlow Sarah Nature Change and Agency in Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1982

Are All Our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation)

Joseph Partain Belmont College

All our readings are misreadings (spoken at Vanderbilt Univershysity 1989)

I try to write the question (what is) meaning to say Therefore it is necessary in such a space and guided by such a question that writing literally mean nothing Not that it is absurd in the way that absurdity has always been in solidarity with metaphysical meanshying It simply tempts itself tenders itself attempts to keep itself at the point of the exhaustion of meaning To risk meaning nothing is to start to play and fltst enter into the play of differance which prevents any word any concept any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences this meaning-to-say-nothing is not you will agree the most assured of exercises

Thought means nothing it is the substantified void of a highly deri vative ideality the effect of a differance of forces the illusory autonomy of a discourse or consciousness whose hypostasis is to be deconstrocted whose causality is Lo be analyzed etc Whatever will continue to be called thought and Which for example will designate the deconstruction of logocentrism means nothing for in the last analysis it no longer derives from meaning Wherever it operates thought means nothing (P pp 1449)

In broaching your question you also noted that I meant someshything and that even ifyou did not understand it completely you were convinced of my wanting-to-say-something I am less sure of this than you (Wood p 89)

We should note that Derridas saying is not some of our readings are misreadings nor our readings tend to be misreadings but the

universal all-inclusive assertion all our readings are misreadings What we have here is not a difficulty in communication but absence of commushynication and not a difficulty to be dealt with and minimized but an absence never to be encroached upon a gap never to be narrowed

44 JOSEPH PARTAIN

To use the metaphor of a gun itisnt all OUI firings are misses but all our firings are misfirings ie the gun does not go off When we read the hammer hits the head of the bullet but there is only a click Derrida is dealing with more than the inevitability of misinterpretations or an anarchy ofperspectivism in the handling oftexts (though he is saying those things) In this paper I would like to attempt

(1) An identification of who Derrida is and what he is doing In this section I will seek to show that Derrida and his work constitute a sign of the meaninglessness or nothingness that lies just beneath the surface of existence that his role is philosophical

(2) An illustration ofDerrida sdeliberate misreadings of texts how Derrida responds when he is misread and briefly how deconstrnction is playing a role in the literary community (a look at Stanley Fish) in dealing with texts

(3) A call for an appreciation and qualified inclusion ofDerrida in textual interpretation

I Who Is Jacques Derrida

By this I do not mean things like his being an Algerian Jew who came to France when he was nineteen but who is he in terms of his philosophical literary impact on the world For that I know ofno better starting place than the address Derrida gave in 1968 in Paris called simply Difjerance I purposely come to the text for his own voice the record of his own words so as much as possible to let his speech identify him He begins by saying

I will speak thereforeofaletter OfthefrrstIetter if thealphabet and most of the speculations which have ventured into it are to bebelieved I will speak therefore ofthe letter a this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate here and there into the writing of the word difference

Nowithappens I would say in effect that this graphic difference (a instead of e) this marked difference between two apparently vocal notations between two vowels remains purely graphic it is read or it is written but it cannot be heard (MP pp 3-4)

Derrida continues by saying that thepresence ofthe letter a inits capital form (A) is compared in shape to an Egyptian pyramid in Hegels Encyclopedia

so that it remains silent secret and discreet as a tomb and not far from announcing the death of the tyrant (MP p 4) The fact that a and e cannot

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

34 DAVID LARAWAY

Let us take this as our starting point All natural bodies and magnitudes we hold to be as such capable of locomotion for nature we say is their principle of movement Bodies are either simple or compounded of such and by simple bodies I mean those which possess a principle of movement in their own nature (De Caelo 12268b15-28)

Natural bodies on this view are those which are able to move themselves under their own power Motion is not further analyzed down into more basic terms Such a view squares nicely with much of the doctrine that charactershyizes the Organon and (what are generally assumed to be) Aristotles earlier works in general Compare this account with the following discussion of substance in the Categories Substance in the truest and most definite sense of the word is that which is neither predicable ofa subject nor present in a subject for instance the individual man or horse (Cat 52all-13) 1his view of substance as an organic unity (eg a particular manor horse) lends itselfnicely to such a straightforward account of motion No reference to the exterior movers or the hylomorphism that characterize his more mature physical works is required

Further passages in the De Caelo bear out this view Later in that same chapter Aristotle shows that

there must naturally be some simple body which revolves naturally and in virtue of its own nature with a circular moveshyment By constraint of course it may be brought to move with the motion of something else different from itself but it cannot so move naturally since there is one sort ofmovement natural to each of the simple bodies (De Caelo 12269a6-9 emphasis added)

Although Aristotle is concerned with showing in the first book of the De Caelo that the fifth element has a principle ofmotion within itself he also implicitly shows motion to be the natural power ofa thing to change itself No hint of his formmatter distinction nor any sort of reference to any unmoved mover as he envisions it in Book Eight ofthe Physics is needed to round out his account WKC Guthrie sums up von Arnims appraisal ofthe situation in this way

The idea is that as described in De Caelo the revolving sphere of aether has the principle of its motion entirely within itself that it is impossible that A could have described it as he docs there if be bad already worked out in his mind the doctrine of an unmoved mover as the ultimate source of motion (Guthrie p 164)

35 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Now Guthrie disagrees with von Arnim about the commensurability of the unmoved mover hypothesis with a model of motion Uke the one Aristotle describes in the first book of the De Caelo On Guthries view Aristotles accounts of motion can in fact be read on a developmental continuum and he denies that they are self-contradictory in any meaningful way This is an important question but one which I shall have to return to At any rate it is importantto note that for both theunmoved moverofBookEighthad no sort of essential role to play in the physics of motion of De Caelo

The De Caelo passages I have mentioned serve to illustrate apoint upon which there is widespread convergence among commentators Harold Cherniss reports that Moreau and wn Ross (as well as Guthrie and von Arnim) fail to see the necessity of a transcendent mover in Aristotles De

Caelo account WD Ross also holds that at the time of writing the De Caelo account Aristotle still believed in self-motion but a self-motion of immanent star-souls not of the fIfth essence itself Moreau who takes the De Caelo to be animistic in conception asserts that the unmoved mover does not appear in this work and apparently ascribes self-motion to the principle which be says is here immanent in the universe (Cbemiss p 584)

What is more certain passages in the De Caelo seem to exclude the possibility of an unmoved mover altogether The following discussion of

divinity for example depends upon the idea that natural motion is essentially simple and self-imposed

whatever is divine whatever is primary and supreme is necessarily unchangeable For there is nothing stronger than it to move it-since that would mean more divine--and it has no defect and lacks none of the proper excellences Its unceasing 11Wvement then is also reasonable since everything ceases to 11Wve when it comes to itsproperplace (De Caelo 19279832shyb2 emphasis added)

The following passage from De Coolo III seems to indicate that there was still something left of natural motion even after the introduction ofa prime mover For the prime mover must cause motion in virtue ofits own natural movement and the other bodies moving without constraint as they came to rest in their proper places would fall into the order in which they now stand (De Caelo III2300b21-22)

36 DAVID LARAWAY

Aristotles developing theology in the De Caelo seems to consisshytently come back to the idea that motion is fundamentally self-determined This is not to say that there are not passages in the De Caelo that explicitly mention an unmoved mover of the same stock as the one developed in Physics VTII and Metaphysics XII Fairly explicit references are made to such a mover at (for example) 288a27-b7 311a9-12 and 277b9-1O But such references seem to be anomalies when compared with the general direction that the arguments in the De Caelo are headed Certainly they bear more of a resemblance to the more full y-developed views ofAristotles later physical works Cherniss points out that von Arnim Ross Moreau and Guthrie an take these references to be later additions (Cherniss p 584) At any rate it cannot be denied that the systematic backdrop that these passages depend on is not fully present in De Caelo That alone gives us a prima facie reason to regard the passages as suspiciously late

I have relied heavily upon De Caelo up to thispointto give a picture of Aristotles earliest explanations of motion The reason is simply that references in other early works to the problem are practically non-existent There is however a brief passage in the Analytica Posteriora that is worth considering In the context of showing that nature often acts for both material and final causes Aristotle says

Necessity too is of two kinds It may work in accordance with a things natural tendency or by constrain l and in opposition to it as for instance by necessity a slone is borne both upwards and downwards but not by the same necessity (AnPo II1195al-3)

What makes this passage particularly relevant is not the fact that Aristotle refers to the natural tendency of a thing without mentioning any sort of external source we have already seen many such examples in De Caelo What is striking is simply its occurrence in the Organon The fact that he is not concerned with motion per se in the passage gives us a glimpse of the direction in which Aristotles earlier thought was naturally inclined such an intuitive view would surely have informed the more full-blooded theory he offers in De Caelo

Charlton notes that the Greek word Aristotle uses here horme means something like active striving After citing other passages in which the same word appears Charlton observes

37 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

In every case the nature involved seems to be the material elementofa thing This strongly suggests that be thinks that the material of a thing can be a source of change because it has an active tendency to change independent of any external cause (Charlton p 92)

The simplicity of the account given the De Caelo and the Analytica posteriora must have been appealing to Aristotle from a common-sense perspective We do tend to contrast natural things with others by talking about their origins It makes perfect sense to say that natural things are characterized by an innate capacity for change whereas artificial products (qua artificial) are only changed by external forces (see Physics IIl192b 12shy26) To paraphrase Aristotles example a tree is a natural object because it has the power of growth within itself whereas a bed or chair does not

But how does this explanation square with the development of Aristotles later views in the Physics Recall for example the analysis of animal motion that I quoted at the outset In Book VIII Aristotle claims that animal motion is not strictly self-motion and that the cause of it is not derived from the animal itself (Phys VllI4256a2-3) Indeed itis a general

thesis of Physics VllI that all things in motion must be moved by something (Phys VIIIA256a2-3) Richard Sorabji sees that dilemma like this

In Physics 21 his task is to distinguish natural objects from artificial ones and he does so by saying that natural objects have an internal source of change their nature Aristotle concludes that nature is an internal (en) source and cause (arkhe and aitia) of motion (kineisthai) or rest (eremein) But in Physics 84 Aristotle is constrained by an opposite consideration In order to make room for God as that by which the heavens are moved he has to support Platos principle that whatever is in motion is moved by something (Sorabji p 219)

Sorabji points out (rightly I think) that Aristotle seems to have different purposes in giving his distinct accounts Sarah Waterlow expands on this

idea the concept of living things as self-changers figures in Physics VIII not as an item of interest in itself but purely as a step in an argument concerned with other issues [The discussion of] selfshychange [in the Physics] tells us nothing about organic subshystance It is intended to uphold a certain conclusion concerning

38 DAVID LARAWAY

the ultimate source of change in the universe as a whole and Aristotle has accordingly invested self-change with no more meaning than is necessary for the discharge of this ulterior function (Waterlow p 216)

The point that Sorabji and Waterlow are making is Significant Aristotles discussion of self-change in the Physics is always informed by a greater

enterprise he wants to give an account of an eternal unmoved source of motion It looks as if in the Physics he already knew the conclusion he

thought right that God and not any celestial soul is the prime mover but

that the tools for securing this conclusion were not available to him until he

had written the de Anima and Metaphysics Book 12 (Sorabji p 225) With this in mind we can piece together Aristotles strategy by

looking at the interpretation that he tried to place on his own earlier works In Physics VIII4 Aristotle makes the claim that whatever is changed must be changed by something he draws this point out by making a distinction between the agent and patient of motion

The fact that a thing that is in motion derives its motion from something is most evident in things that are in motion unnatushyrally because in such cases it is clear that the motion is derived from something other than the thing itself Next to things that are in motion unnaturally those whose motion while natural is derived from themselves-eg animals-make this fact clear for here the uncertainty is not as to whether the motion is derived from something hut as to how weought to distinguish in the thing between the movent and the thing moved It would seem that in animals just as in ships and things not naturally organize~ that which causes motion is separate from that which suffers motion and that it is only in this sense that the animal as a whole causes its own motion (Physics VIIIA254b24-33)

WD Ross claims that Aristotles VIII4 account of motion is simply a fiIling-outoftheearlier De Cae10 view On Rosss interpretation Aristotles

initial simple equation ofmotion with an inherent capacity to change is not sufficient to demonstrate how the capacity for motion becomes fully

realized He says The answer which Aristotle finally reached is that

capacity is realized always by the action on the potential of that which is

already actual And this he came to see to be incompatibJe with selfshymovement (Ross pp 98-9)

39 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNfS OF MOTION

Aristotles strategy becomes more meaningful if we recall that he has by this time introduced his formmatter distinction By replacing the simple unity of substance of the Organon with the complex version of his mature physical works he has allowed himself to creatively redescribe motion and self-change on a new paradigm Rather than interpret selfshychange as a simple function of organic unities (eg man horse tree) he Is able to further analyze the motion of even these unities into more fundamental parts Thus he is able to analyze the motion of say an animal into a movent and a thing moved Clearly he is playing on the ambiguity of the phrase changed by something other to try to find a something other within what he formerly took to be a simple substance This is related to the point Waterlow makes when she says Aristotles deliberately indiscriminate use of changed by something other puts him at a strategic advantage vis-a-vis the question of what exactly we are to suppose should be meant by somethings being changed by itself (Waterlow p 207)

What then are we to make of this ambiguity Should we take Aristotle to be-as Waterlow puts it-at a strategic advantage one that allows himto further develop an old doctrine in response to new challenges Or ought we to read him as making a radical break from his earlier views and attempting to combine elements of two incommensurable systems

Waterlow argues that Aristotle is successful in his attempt But she recognizes that she faces an immediate difficulty in trying to bring the two views together into one coherent theory She asks

how can the self-change whole be itself a substance if it consists in a substance plus something else But perhaps this ought to be dismissed as a spurious paradox generated by gratuitously introducing terms like in addition to and plus Aristotle does not state nor does he necessarily imply that the difference must be such that the two are addible Presumably he means that in self-change the changer and changed are not numerically different individuals Resorting to handy words let us say that he has in mind different aspects of the same individual (Waterlow p 212)

I think that Waterlows reading of Aristotle is charitable-perhaps too much so The very difficulty of reconciling the doctrines of the Organon and earlier physical works with the later physical works lies in Aristotles waffling about what even the most basic terms (such as substance) are to

40 DAVID LARAWAY

mean This indecision becomes particularly acute in the second book ofthe Physics where Aristotle tries to on the one hand (continue to) retain the common-sense idea that natural objects are those that move themselves and on the other hand set up an argument designed to show (in the Metaphysics and in the Iaterbooks of the Physics) that there must be a source of eternal motion and change which is independent of particular natural things

Aristotles reliance on his mature actuali typotentiality doctrine lllustrates this very discrepancy As I have already indicated Ross notes that the capacity for change is realized always by the action of the potential of that which is already actual And in order to realize movement the mover must already be in the state which is the tenninus ofthe movement in order to be moved the moved must not yet be in that state (Ross pp 98-9 see Physics VIII5257a33-257b14) But significantly this view of actualityl potentiality differs markedly from earlier discussions in the Organon Daniel Graham points out that energia (or actuality) in the Organon is not explicitly connected with hylomorphism in fact Aristotle makes it a point to show that energia is an activity rather that a capacity (Graham p 99 see Top IV5125b15-9)

The spurious paradox Waterlow refcrs to runs more deeply than she realizes Itgoes to the very heart of Aristotles philosophy The problem as Graham has pointed out is that Aristotle himself sometimes treats form and matter as separate entities it is precisely his avowal ofhylomorphism in the later works that informs his conccption of energia as capacity and facilitates a complex account ofnatural motion in Book Eight ofthePhysics This is the very point Graham takes up in the following discussion of Aristotles mature philosophical system-what Graham refers to as 82

According to hylomorphism the concrete substance is divisible into form and matter This is a fundamental fact of analysis of S 2 the sensible substance is a composite not a simple individual The analysis seems to invite a question about the composite itsclf which componenlmakes the substantial compound substantial It is form or matter Since the sensible substance is analyzed into two components one of them must be responsible for the subshystantiality of the whole Because Aristotle analyses the senshysible substance into form and matter he assumes that it must be reduced to form and matter (Graham p 278)

41 ARIST01LES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Aristotles argument for complex natural motion hinging as it does on his latter conception of energia or actuality is thus bound up intimately with the logical status of form and matter in his ontology In these terms then Graham goes on to recommend the same linethatWaterlow insists on How then should we view form and matter It seems to me that we should take them not as components in the normal sense We should rather conceive of them as aspects of the sensible substance (Graham p 279) However Graham recognizes (as Waterlow does not) that such a recommendation can only stand as an after-the-fact suggestion to Aristotle The fact remains that Aristotle does equivocate terms between the earlier works on the one hand and his more mature thought on the other To deny this would be to affirm that the whole of the Aristotelian corpus is thoroughly consistent-surely an impossible hypothesis to defend

So where does that leave us with respect to our original question I want to recommend that we go back to an observation that I made earlier Both the earlier and later accounts of self-change that Aristotle offers are targeted at answering different questions (or at least questions that arise in distinct contexts) The De Caelo (and otller early works as well) tried to define natural moti0 n in relati vely simple terms the paradigm that Aristotle worked from was the one exemplified in the Organon and referred to by Graham as S1-what Graham takes to be Aristotles earlier philosophical system (see Graham 1987) The Physics account (after Book Two) tried to define motion against an entirely different backdrop and with an entirely different purpose in mind Aristotles discussions ofself-change and natural change were subsequently brought out to demonstrate the logical necessity of an unmoved mover and to uphold a certain conclusion concerning the ultimate eternal source of change in the universe as a whole (Waterlow p 216) The Physics II account then appears to mark an awkward shift between Aristotles early conception of natural change and the adoption of hylomorphic principles (introduced in Phys I) that would later provide the framework for his emerging complex agenda

It seems then that attempts to reconcile Aristotles theories of motion (either in terms ofone coherent system or along loose developmental lines) are wrong-headed We are better off sorting out his accounts ofmotion according to the paradigms he is working against and in terms ofthe specific questions he is trying to answer

42 DAVID LARAWAY

Works Cited

Aristotle The Basic ofAristotle Richard McKeon ed New York Random House 1941

Charlton W Aristotles Physics Books I and II Oxford Clarendon Press 1970

Cherniss Harold Aristotles Criticisms ofPlato and the Academy New York Russell amp Russell 1962

Graham Daniel W Aristotles Two Systems Oxford Clarendon Press 1987

Guthrie WKC The Development of Aristotles Theology I Classical Quarterly 27 (1933) 162-171

Ross WD Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1979

Sorabji Richard Matter Space and Motion Ithica Cornell University Press 1988

Waterlow Sarah Nature Change and Agency in Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1982

Are All Our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation)

Joseph Partain Belmont College

All our readings are misreadings (spoken at Vanderbilt Univershysity 1989)

I try to write the question (what is) meaning to say Therefore it is necessary in such a space and guided by such a question that writing literally mean nothing Not that it is absurd in the way that absurdity has always been in solidarity with metaphysical meanshying It simply tempts itself tenders itself attempts to keep itself at the point of the exhaustion of meaning To risk meaning nothing is to start to play and fltst enter into the play of differance which prevents any word any concept any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences this meaning-to-say-nothing is not you will agree the most assured of exercises

Thought means nothing it is the substantified void of a highly deri vative ideality the effect of a differance of forces the illusory autonomy of a discourse or consciousness whose hypostasis is to be deconstrocted whose causality is Lo be analyzed etc Whatever will continue to be called thought and Which for example will designate the deconstruction of logocentrism means nothing for in the last analysis it no longer derives from meaning Wherever it operates thought means nothing (P pp 1449)

In broaching your question you also noted that I meant someshything and that even ifyou did not understand it completely you were convinced of my wanting-to-say-something I am less sure of this than you (Wood p 89)

We should note that Derridas saying is not some of our readings are misreadings nor our readings tend to be misreadings but the

universal all-inclusive assertion all our readings are misreadings What we have here is not a difficulty in communication but absence of commushynication and not a difficulty to be dealt with and minimized but an absence never to be encroached upon a gap never to be narrowed

44 JOSEPH PARTAIN

To use the metaphor of a gun itisnt all OUI firings are misses but all our firings are misfirings ie the gun does not go off When we read the hammer hits the head of the bullet but there is only a click Derrida is dealing with more than the inevitability of misinterpretations or an anarchy ofperspectivism in the handling oftexts (though he is saying those things) In this paper I would like to attempt

(1) An identification of who Derrida is and what he is doing In this section I will seek to show that Derrida and his work constitute a sign of the meaninglessness or nothingness that lies just beneath the surface of existence that his role is philosophical

(2) An illustration ofDerrida sdeliberate misreadings of texts how Derrida responds when he is misread and briefly how deconstrnction is playing a role in the literary community (a look at Stanley Fish) in dealing with texts

(3) A call for an appreciation and qualified inclusion ofDerrida in textual interpretation

I Who Is Jacques Derrida

By this I do not mean things like his being an Algerian Jew who came to France when he was nineteen but who is he in terms of his philosophical literary impact on the world For that I know ofno better starting place than the address Derrida gave in 1968 in Paris called simply Difjerance I purposely come to the text for his own voice the record of his own words so as much as possible to let his speech identify him He begins by saying

I will speak thereforeofaletter OfthefrrstIetter if thealphabet and most of the speculations which have ventured into it are to bebelieved I will speak therefore ofthe letter a this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate here and there into the writing of the word difference

Nowithappens I would say in effect that this graphic difference (a instead of e) this marked difference between two apparently vocal notations between two vowels remains purely graphic it is read or it is written but it cannot be heard (MP pp 3-4)

Derrida continues by saying that thepresence ofthe letter a inits capital form (A) is compared in shape to an Egyptian pyramid in Hegels Encyclopedia

so that it remains silent secret and discreet as a tomb and not far from announcing the death of the tyrant (MP p 4) The fact that a and e cannot

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

35 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Now Guthrie disagrees with von Arnim about the commensurability of the unmoved mover hypothesis with a model of motion Uke the one Aristotle describes in the first book of the De Caelo On Guthries view Aristotles accounts of motion can in fact be read on a developmental continuum and he denies that they are self-contradictory in any meaningful way This is an important question but one which I shall have to return to At any rate it is importantto note that for both theunmoved moverofBookEighthad no sort of essential role to play in the physics of motion of De Caelo

The De Caelo passages I have mentioned serve to illustrate apoint upon which there is widespread convergence among commentators Harold Cherniss reports that Moreau and wn Ross (as well as Guthrie and von Arnim) fail to see the necessity of a transcendent mover in Aristotles De

Caelo account WD Ross also holds that at the time of writing the De Caelo account Aristotle still believed in self-motion but a self-motion of immanent star-souls not of the fIfth essence itself Moreau who takes the De Caelo to be animistic in conception asserts that the unmoved mover does not appear in this work and apparently ascribes self-motion to the principle which be says is here immanent in the universe (Cbemiss p 584)

What is more certain passages in the De Caelo seem to exclude the possibility of an unmoved mover altogether The following discussion of

divinity for example depends upon the idea that natural motion is essentially simple and self-imposed

whatever is divine whatever is primary and supreme is necessarily unchangeable For there is nothing stronger than it to move it-since that would mean more divine--and it has no defect and lacks none of the proper excellences Its unceasing 11Wvement then is also reasonable since everything ceases to 11Wve when it comes to itsproperplace (De Caelo 19279832shyb2 emphasis added)

The following passage from De Coolo III seems to indicate that there was still something left of natural motion even after the introduction ofa prime mover For the prime mover must cause motion in virtue ofits own natural movement and the other bodies moving without constraint as they came to rest in their proper places would fall into the order in which they now stand (De Caelo III2300b21-22)

36 DAVID LARAWAY

Aristotles developing theology in the De Caelo seems to consisshytently come back to the idea that motion is fundamentally self-determined This is not to say that there are not passages in the De Caelo that explicitly mention an unmoved mover of the same stock as the one developed in Physics VTII and Metaphysics XII Fairly explicit references are made to such a mover at (for example) 288a27-b7 311a9-12 and 277b9-1O But such references seem to be anomalies when compared with the general direction that the arguments in the De Caelo are headed Certainly they bear more of a resemblance to the more full y-developed views ofAristotles later physical works Cherniss points out that von Arnim Ross Moreau and Guthrie an take these references to be later additions (Cherniss p 584) At any rate it cannot be denied that the systematic backdrop that these passages depend on is not fully present in De Caelo That alone gives us a prima facie reason to regard the passages as suspiciously late

I have relied heavily upon De Caelo up to thispointto give a picture of Aristotles earliest explanations of motion The reason is simply that references in other early works to the problem are practically non-existent There is however a brief passage in the Analytica Posteriora that is worth considering In the context of showing that nature often acts for both material and final causes Aristotle says

Necessity too is of two kinds It may work in accordance with a things natural tendency or by constrain l and in opposition to it as for instance by necessity a slone is borne both upwards and downwards but not by the same necessity (AnPo II1195al-3)

What makes this passage particularly relevant is not the fact that Aristotle refers to the natural tendency of a thing without mentioning any sort of external source we have already seen many such examples in De Caelo What is striking is simply its occurrence in the Organon The fact that he is not concerned with motion per se in the passage gives us a glimpse of the direction in which Aristotles earlier thought was naturally inclined such an intuitive view would surely have informed the more full-blooded theory he offers in De Caelo

Charlton notes that the Greek word Aristotle uses here horme means something like active striving After citing other passages in which the same word appears Charlton observes

37 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

In every case the nature involved seems to be the material elementofa thing This strongly suggests that be thinks that the material of a thing can be a source of change because it has an active tendency to change independent of any external cause (Charlton p 92)

The simplicity of the account given the De Caelo and the Analytica posteriora must have been appealing to Aristotle from a common-sense perspective We do tend to contrast natural things with others by talking about their origins It makes perfect sense to say that natural things are characterized by an innate capacity for change whereas artificial products (qua artificial) are only changed by external forces (see Physics IIl192b 12shy26) To paraphrase Aristotles example a tree is a natural object because it has the power of growth within itself whereas a bed or chair does not

But how does this explanation square with the development of Aristotles later views in the Physics Recall for example the analysis of animal motion that I quoted at the outset In Book VIII Aristotle claims that animal motion is not strictly self-motion and that the cause of it is not derived from the animal itself (Phys VllI4256a2-3) Indeed itis a general

thesis of Physics VllI that all things in motion must be moved by something (Phys VIIIA256a2-3) Richard Sorabji sees that dilemma like this

In Physics 21 his task is to distinguish natural objects from artificial ones and he does so by saying that natural objects have an internal source of change their nature Aristotle concludes that nature is an internal (en) source and cause (arkhe and aitia) of motion (kineisthai) or rest (eremein) But in Physics 84 Aristotle is constrained by an opposite consideration In order to make room for God as that by which the heavens are moved he has to support Platos principle that whatever is in motion is moved by something (Sorabji p 219)

Sorabji points out (rightly I think) that Aristotle seems to have different purposes in giving his distinct accounts Sarah Waterlow expands on this

idea the concept of living things as self-changers figures in Physics VIII not as an item of interest in itself but purely as a step in an argument concerned with other issues [The discussion of] selfshychange [in the Physics] tells us nothing about organic subshystance It is intended to uphold a certain conclusion concerning

38 DAVID LARAWAY

the ultimate source of change in the universe as a whole and Aristotle has accordingly invested self-change with no more meaning than is necessary for the discharge of this ulterior function (Waterlow p 216)

The point that Sorabji and Waterlow are making is Significant Aristotles discussion of self-change in the Physics is always informed by a greater

enterprise he wants to give an account of an eternal unmoved source of motion It looks as if in the Physics he already knew the conclusion he

thought right that God and not any celestial soul is the prime mover but

that the tools for securing this conclusion were not available to him until he

had written the de Anima and Metaphysics Book 12 (Sorabji p 225) With this in mind we can piece together Aristotles strategy by

looking at the interpretation that he tried to place on his own earlier works In Physics VIII4 Aristotle makes the claim that whatever is changed must be changed by something he draws this point out by making a distinction between the agent and patient of motion

The fact that a thing that is in motion derives its motion from something is most evident in things that are in motion unnatushyrally because in such cases it is clear that the motion is derived from something other than the thing itself Next to things that are in motion unnaturally those whose motion while natural is derived from themselves-eg animals-make this fact clear for here the uncertainty is not as to whether the motion is derived from something hut as to how weought to distinguish in the thing between the movent and the thing moved It would seem that in animals just as in ships and things not naturally organize~ that which causes motion is separate from that which suffers motion and that it is only in this sense that the animal as a whole causes its own motion (Physics VIIIA254b24-33)

WD Ross claims that Aristotles VIII4 account of motion is simply a fiIling-outoftheearlier De Cae10 view On Rosss interpretation Aristotles

initial simple equation ofmotion with an inherent capacity to change is not sufficient to demonstrate how the capacity for motion becomes fully

realized He says The answer which Aristotle finally reached is that

capacity is realized always by the action on the potential of that which is

already actual And this he came to see to be incompatibJe with selfshymovement (Ross pp 98-9)

39 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNfS OF MOTION

Aristotles strategy becomes more meaningful if we recall that he has by this time introduced his formmatter distinction By replacing the simple unity of substance of the Organon with the complex version of his mature physical works he has allowed himself to creatively redescribe motion and self-change on a new paradigm Rather than interpret selfshychange as a simple function of organic unities (eg man horse tree) he Is able to further analyze the motion of even these unities into more fundamental parts Thus he is able to analyze the motion of say an animal into a movent and a thing moved Clearly he is playing on the ambiguity of the phrase changed by something other to try to find a something other within what he formerly took to be a simple substance This is related to the point Waterlow makes when she says Aristotles deliberately indiscriminate use of changed by something other puts him at a strategic advantage vis-a-vis the question of what exactly we are to suppose should be meant by somethings being changed by itself (Waterlow p 207)

What then are we to make of this ambiguity Should we take Aristotle to be-as Waterlow puts it-at a strategic advantage one that allows himto further develop an old doctrine in response to new challenges Or ought we to read him as making a radical break from his earlier views and attempting to combine elements of two incommensurable systems

Waterlow argues that Aristotle is successful in his attempt But she recognizes that she faces an immediate difficulty in trying to bring the two views together into one coherent theory She asks

how can the self-change whole be itself a substance if it consists in a substance plus something else But perhaps this ought to be dismissed as a spurious paradox generated by gratuitously introducing terms like in addition to and plus Aristotle does not state nor does he necessarily imply that the difference must be such that the two are addible Presumably he means that in self-change the changer and changed are not numerically different individuals Resorting to handy words let us say that he has in mind different aspects of the same individual (Waterlow p 212)

I think that Waterlows reading of Aristotle is charitable-perhaps too much so The very difficulty of reconciling the doctrines of the Organon and earlier physical works with the later physical works lies in Aristotles waffling about what even the most basic terms (such as substance) are to

40 DAVID LARAWAY

mean This indecision becomes particularly acute in the second book ofthe Physics where Aristotle tries to on the one hand (continue to) retain the common-sense idea that natural objects are those that move themselves and on the other hand set up an argument designed to show (in the Metaphysics and in the Iaterbooks of the Physics) that there must be a source of eternal motion and change which is independent of particular natural things

Aristotles reliance on his mature actuali typotentiality doctrine lllustrates this very discrepancy As I have already indicated Ross notes that the capacity for change is realized always by the action of the potential of that which is already actual And in order to realize movement the mover must already be in the state which is the tenninus ofthe movement in order to be moved the moved must not yet be in that state (Ross pp 98-9 see Physics VIII5257a33-257b14) But significantly this view of actualityl potentiality differs markedly from earlier discussions in the Organon Daniel Graham points out that energia (or actuality) in the Organon is not explicitly connected with hylomorphism in fact Aristotle makes it a point to show that energia is an activity rather that a capacity (Graham p 99 see Top IV5125b15-9)

The spurious paradox Waterlow refcrs to runs more deeply than she realizes Itgoes to the very heart of Aristotles philosophy The problem as Graham has pointed out is that Aristotle himself sometimes treats form and matter as separate entities it is precisely his avowal ofhylomorphism in the later works that informs his conccption of energia as capacity and facilitates a complex account ofnatural motion in Book Eight ofthePhysics This is the very point Graham takes up in the following discussion of Aristotles mature philosophical system-what Graham refers to as 82

According to hylomorphism the concrete substance is divisible into form and matter This is a fundamental fact of analysis of S 2 the sensible substance is a composite not a simple individual The analysis seems to invite a question about the composite itsclf which componenlmakes the substantial compound substantial It is form or matter Since the sensible substance is analyzed into two components one of them must be responsible for the subshystantiality of the whole Because Aristotle analyses the senshysible substance into form and matter he assumes that it must be reduced to form and matter (Graham p 278)

41 ARIST01LES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Aristotles argument for complex natural motion hinging as it does on his latter conception of energia or actuality is thus bound up intimately with the logical status of form and matter in his ontology In these terms then Graham goes on to recommend the same linethatWaterlow insists on How then should we view form and matter It seems to me that we should take them not as components in the normal sense We should rather conceive of them as aspects of the sensible substance (Graham p 279) However Graham recognizes (as Waterlow does not) that such a recommendation can only stand as an after-the-fact suggestion to Aristotle The fact remains that Aristotle does equivocate terms between the earlier works on the one hand and his more mature thought on the other To deny this would be to affirm that the whole of the Aristotelian corpus is thoroughly consistent-surely an impossible hypothesis to defend

So where does that leave us with respect to our original question I want to recommend that we go back to an observation that I made earlier Both the earlier and later accounts of self-change that Aristotle offers are targeted at answering different questions (or at least questions that arise in distinct contexts) The De Caelo (and otller early works as well) tried to define natural moti0 n in relati vely simple terms the paradigm that Aristotle worked from was the one exemplified in the Organon and referred to by Graham as S1-what Graham takes to be Aristotles earlier philosophical system (see Graham 1987) The Physics account (after Book Two) tried to define motion against an entirely different backdrop and with an entirely different purpose in mind Aristotles discussions ofself-change and natural change were subsequently brought out to demonstrate the logical necessity of an unmoved mover and to uphold a certain conclusion concerning the ultimate eternal source of change in the universe as a whole (Waterlow p 216) The Physics II account then appears to mark an awkward shift between Aristotles early conception of natural change and the adoption of hylomorphic principles (introduced in Phys I) that would later provide the framework for his emerging complex agenda

It seems then that attempts to reconcile Aristotles theories of motion (either in terms ofone coherent system or along loose developmental lines) are wrong-headed We are better off sorting out his accounts ofmotion according to the paradigms he is working against and in terms ofthe specific questions he is trying to answer

42 DAVID LARAWAY

Works Cited

Aristotle The Basic ofAristotle Richard McKeon ed New York Random House 1941

Charlton W Aristotles Physics Books I and II Oxford Clarendon Press 1970

Cherniss Harold Aristotles Criticisms ofPlato and the Academy New York Russell amp Russell 1962

Graham Daniel W Aristotles Two Systems Oxford Clarendon Press 1987

Guthrie WKC The Development of Aristotles Theology I Classical Quarterly 27 (1933) 162-171

Ross WD Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1979

Sorabji Richard Matter Space and Motion Ithica Cornell University Press 1988

Waterlow Sarah Nature Change and Agency in Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1982

Are All Our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation)

Joseph Partain Belmont College

All our readings are misreadings (spoken at Vanderbilt Univershysity 1989)

I try to write the question (what is) meaning to say Therefore it is necessary in such a space and guided by such a question that writing literally mean nothing Not that it is absurd in the way that absurdity has always been in solidarity with metaphysical meanshying It simply tempts itself tenders itself attempts to keep itself at the point of the exhaustion of meaning To risk meaning nothing is to start to play and fltst enter into the play of differance which prevents any word any concept any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences this meaning-to-say-nothing is not you will agree the most assured of exercises

Thought means nothing it is the substantified void of a highly deri vative ideality the effect of a differance of forces the illusory autonomy of a discourse or consciousness whose hypostasis is to be deconstrocted whose causality is Lo be analyzed etc Whatever will continue to be called thought and Which for example will designate the deconstruction of logocentrism means nothing for in the last analysis it no longer derives from meaning Wherever it operates thought means nothing (P pp 1449)

In broaching your question you also noted that I meant someshything and that even ifyou did not understand it completely you were convinced of my wanting-to-say-something I am less sure of this than you (Wood p 89)

We should note that Derridas saying is not some of our readings are misreadings nor our readings tend to be misreadings but the

universal all-inclusive assertion all our readings are misreadings What we have here is not a difficulty in communication but absence of commushynication and not a difficulty to be dealt with and minimized but an absence never to be encroached upon a gap never to be narrowed

44 JOSEPH PARTAIN

To use the metaphor of a gun itisnt all OUI firings are misses but all our firings are misfirings ie the gun does not go off When we read the hammer hits the head of the bullet but there is only a click Derrida is dealing with more than the inevitability of misinterpretations or an anarchy ofperspectivism in the handling oftexts (though he is saying those things) In this paper I would like to attempt

(1) An identification of who Derrida is and what he is doing In this section I will seek to show that Derrida and his work constitute a sign of the meaninglessness or nothingness that lies just beneath the surface of existence that his role is philosophical

(2) An illustration ofDerrida sdeliberate misreadings of texts how Derrida responds when he is misread and briefly how deconstrnction is playing a role in the literary community (a look at Stanley Fish) in dealing with texts

(3) A call for an appreciation and qualified inclusion ofDerrida in textual interpretation

I Who Is Jacques Derrida

By this I do not mean things like his being an Algerian Jew who came to France when he was nineteen but who is he in terms of his philosophical literary impact on the world For that I know ofno better starting place than the address Derrida gave in 1968 in Paris called simply Difjerance I purposely come to the text for his own voice the record of his own words so as much as possible to let his speech identify him He begins by saying

I will speak thereforeofaletter OfthefrrstIetter if thealphabet and most of the speculations which have ventured into it are to bebelieved I will speak therefore ofthe letter a this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate here and there into the writing of the word difference

Nowithappens I would say in effect that this graphic difference (a instead of e) this marked difference between two apparently vocal notations between two vowels remains purely graphic it is read or it is written but it cannot be heard (MP pp 3-4)

Derrida continues by saying that thepresence ofthe letter a inits capital form (A) is compared in shape to an Egyptian pyramid in Hegels Encyclopedia

so that it remains silent secret and discreet as a tomb and not far from announcing the death of the tyrant (MP p 4) The fact that a and e cannot

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

36 DAVID LARAWAY

Aristotles developing theology in the De Caelo seems to consisshytently come back to the idea that motion is fundamentally self-determined This is not to say that there are not passages in the De Caelo that explicitly mention an unmoved mover of the same stock as the one developed in Physics VTII and Metaphysics XII Fairly explicit references are made to such a mover at (for example) 288a27-b7 311a9-12 and 277b9-1O But such references seem to be anomalies when compared with the general direction that the arguments in the De Caelo are headed Certainly they bear more of a resemblance to the more full y-developed views ofAristotles later physical works Cherniss points out that von Arnim Ross Moreau and Guthrie an take these references to be later additions (Cherniss p 584) At any rate it cannot be denied that the systematic backdrop that these passages depend on is not fully present in De Caelo That alone gives us a prima facie reason to regard the passages as suspiciously late

I have relied heavily upon De Caelo up to thispointto give a picture of Aristotles earliest explanations of motion The reason is simply that references in other early works to the problem are practically non-existent There is however a brief passage in the Analytica Posteriora that is worth considering In the context of showing that nature often acts for both material and final causes Aristotle says

Necessity too is of two kinds It may work in accordance with a things natural tendency or by constrain l and in opposition to it as for instance by necessity a slone is borne both upwards and downwards but not by the same necessity (AnPo II1195al-3)

What makes this passage particularly relevant is not the fact that Aristotle refers to the natural tendency of a thing without mentioning any sort of external source we have already seen many such examples in De Caelo What is striking is simply its occurrence in the Organon The fact that he is not concerned with motion per se in the passage gives us a glimpse of the direction in which Aristotles earlier thought was naturally inclined such an intuitive view would surely have informed the more full-blooded theory he offers in De Caelo

Charlton notes that the Greek word Aristotle uses here horme means something like active striving After citing other passages in which the same word appears Charlton observes

37 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

In every case the nature involved seems to be the material elementofa thing This strongly suggests that be thinks that the material of a thing can be a source of change because it has an active tendency to change independent of any external cause (Charlton p 92)

The simplicity of the account given the De Caelo and the Analytica posteriora must have been appealing to Aristotle from a common-sense perspective We do tend to contrast natural things with others by talking about their origins It makes perfect sense to say that natural things are characterized by an innate capacity for change whereas artificial products (qua artificial) are only changed by external forces (see Physics IIl192b 12shy26) To paraphrase Aristotles example a tree is a natural object because it has the power of growth within itself whereas a bed or chair does not

But how does this explanation square with the development of Aristotles later views in the Physics Recall for example the analysis of animal motion that I quoted at the outset In Book VIII Aristotle claims that animal motion is not strictly self-motion and that the cause of it is not derived from the animal itself (Phys VllI4256a2-3) Indeed itis a general

thesis of Physics VllI that all things in motion must be moved by something (Phys VIIIA256a2-3) Richard Sorabji sees that dilemma like this

In Physics 21 his task is to distinguish natural objects from artificial ones and he does so by saying that natural objects have an internal source of change their nature Aristotle concludes that nature is an internal (en) source and cause (arkhe and aitia) of motion (kineisthai) or rest (eremein) But in Physics 84 Aristotle is constrained by an opposite consideration In order to make room for God as that by which the heavens are moved he has to support Platos principle that whatever is in motion is moved by something (Sorabji p 219)

Sorabji points out (rightly I think) that Aristotle seems to have different purposes in giving his distinct accounts Sarah Waterlow expands on this

idea the concept of living things as self-changers figures in Physics VIII not as an item of interest in itself but purely as a step in an argument concerned with other issues [The discussion of] selfshychange [in the Physics] tells us nothing about organic subshystance It is intended to uphold a certain conclusion concerning

38 DAVID LARAWAY

the ultimate source of change in the universe as a whole and Aristotle has accordingly invested self-change with no more meaning than is necessary for the discharge of this ulterior function (Waterlow p 216)

The point that Sorabji and Waterlow are making is Significant Aristotles discussion of self-change in the Physics is always informed by a greater

enterprise he wants to give an account of an eternal unmoved source of motion It looks as if in the Physics he already knew the conclusion he

thought right that God and not any celestial soul is the prime mover but

that the tools for securing this conclusion were not available to him until he

had written the de Anima and Metaphysics Book 12 (Sorabji p 225) With this in mind we can piece together Aristotles strategy by

looking at the interpretation that he tried to place on his own earlier works In Physics VIII4 Aristotle makes the claim that whatever is changed must be changed by something he draws this point out by making a distinction between the agent and patient of motion

The fact that a thing that is in motion derives its motion from something is most evident in things that are in motion unnatushyrally because in such cases it is clear that the motion is derived from something other than the thing itself Next to things that are in motion unnaturally those whose motion while natural is derived from themselves-eg animals-make this fact clear for here the uncertainty is not as to whether the motion is derived from something hut as to how weought to distinguish in the thing between the movent and the thing moved It would seem that in animals just as in ships and things not naturally organize~ that which causes motion is separate from that which suffers motion and that it is only in this sense that the animal as a whole causes its own motion (Physics VIIIA254b24-33)

WD Ross claims that Aristotles VIII4 account of motion is simply a fiIling-outoftheearlier De Cae10 view On Rosss interpretation Aristotles

initial simple equation ofmotion with an inherent capacity to change is not sufficient to demonstrate how the capacity for motion becomes fully

realized He says The answer which Aristotle finally reached is that

capacity is realized always by the action on the potential of that which is

already actual And this he came to see to be incompatibJe with selfshymovement (Ross pp 98-9)

39 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNfS OF MOTION

Aristotles strategy becomes more meaningful if we recall that he has by this time introduced his formmatter distinction By replacing the simple unity of substance of the Organon with the complex version of his mature physical works he has allowed himself to creatively redescribe motion and self-change on a new paradigm Rather than interpret selfshychange as a simple function of organic unities (eg man horse tree) he Is able to further analyze the motion of even these unities into more fundamental parts Thus he is able to analyze the motion of say an animal into a movent and a thing moved Clearly he is playing on the ambiguity of the phrase changed by something other to try to find a something other within what he formerly took to be a simple substance This is related to the point Waterlow makes when she says Aristotles deliberately indiscriminate use of changed by something other puts him at a strategic advantage vis-a-vis the question of what exactly we are to suppose should be meant by somethings being changed by itself (Waterlow p 207)

What then are we to make of this ambiguity Should we take Aristotle to be-as Waterlow puts it-at a strategic advantage one that allows himto further develop an old doctrine in response to new challenges Or ought we to read him as making a radical break from his earlier views and attempting to combine elements of two incommensurable systems

Waterlow argues that Aristotle is successful in his attempt But she recognizes that she faces an immediate difficulty in trying to bring the two views together into one coherent theory She asks

how can the self-change whole be itself a substance if it consists in a substance plus something else But perhaps this ought to be dismissed as a spurious paradox generated by gratuitously introducing terms like in addition to and plus Aristotle does not state nor does he necessarily imply that the difference must be such that the two are addible Presumably he means that in self-change the changer and changed are not numerically different individuals Resorting to handy words let us say that he has in mind different aspects of the same individual (Waterlow p 212)

I think that Waterlows reading of Aristotle is charitable-perhaps too much so The very difficulty of reconciling the doctrines of the Organon and earlier physical works with the later physical works lies in Aristotles waffling about what even the most basic terms (such as substance) are to

40 DAVID LARAWAY

mean This indecision becomes particularly acute in the second book ofthe Physics where Aristotle tries to on the one hand (continue to) retain the common-sense idea that natural objects are those that move themselves and on the other hand set up an argument designed to show (in the Metaphysics and in the Iaterbooks of the Physics) that there must be a source of eternal motion and change which is independent of particular natural things

Aristotles reliance on his mature actuali typotentiality doctrine lllustrates this very discrepancy As I have already indicated Ross notes that the capacity for change is realized always by the action of the potential of that which is already actual And in order to realize movement the mover must already be in the state which is the tenninus ofthe movement in order to be moved the moved must not yet be in that state (Ross pp 98-9 see Physics VIII5257a33-257b14) But significantly this view of actualityl potentiality differs markedly from earlier discussions in the Organon Daniel Graham points out that energia (or actuality) in the Organon is not explicitly connected with hylomorphism in fact Aristotle makes it a point to show that energia is an activity rather that a capacity (Graham p 99 see Top IV5125b15-9)

The spurious paradox Waterlow refcrs to runs more deeply than she realizes Itgoes to the very heart of Aristotles philosophy The problem as Graham has pointed out is that Aristotle himself sometimes treats form and matter as separate entities it is precisely his avowal ofhylomorphism in the later works that informs his conccption of energia as capacity and facilitates a complex account ofnatural motion in Book Eight ofthePhysics This is the very point Graham takes up in the following discussion of Aristotles mature philosophical system-what Graham refers to as 82

According to hylomorphism the concrete substance is divisible into form and matter This is a fundamental fact of analysis of S 2 the sensible substance is a composite not a simple individual The analysis seems to invite a question about the composite itsclf which componenlmakes the substantial compound substantial It is form or matter Since the sensible substance is analyzed into two components one of them must be responsible for the subshystantiality of the whole Because Aristotle analyses the senshysible substance into form and matter he assumes that it must be reduced to form and matter (Graham p 278)

41 ARIST01LES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Aristotles argument for complex natural motion hinging as it does on his latter conception of energia or actuality is thus bound up intimately with the logical status of form and matter in his ontology In these terms then Graham goes on to recommend the same linethatWaterlow insists on How then should we view form and matter It seems to me that we should take them not as components in the normal sense We should rather conceive of them as aspects of the sensible substance (Graham p 279) However Graham recognizes (as Waterlow does not) that such a recommendation can only stand as an after-the-fact suggestion to Aristotle The fact remains that Aristotle does equivocate terms between the earlier works on the one hand and his more mature thought on the other To deny this would be to affirm that the whole of the Aristotelian corpus is thoroughly consistent-surely an impossible hypothesis to defend

So where does that leave us with respect to our original question I want to recommend that we go back to an observation that I made earlier Both the earlier and later accounts of self-change that Aristotle offers are targeted at answering different questions (or at least questions that arise in distinct contexts) The De Caelo (and otller early works as well) tried to define natural moti0 n in relati vely simple terms the paradigm that Aristotle worked from was the one exemplified in the Organon and referred to by Graham as S1-what Graham takes to be Aristotles earlier philosophical system (see Graham 1987) The Physics account (after Book Two) tried to define motion against an entirely different backdrop and with an entirely different purpose in mind Aristotles discussions ofself-change and natural change were subsequently brought out to demonstrate the logical necessity of an unmoved mover and to uphold a certain conclusion concerning the ultimate eternal source of change in the universe as a whole (Waterlow p 216) The Physics II account then appears to mark an awkward shift between Aristotles early conception of natural change and the adoption of hylomorphic principles (introduced in Phys I) that would later provide the framework for his emerging complex agenda

It seems then that attempts to reconcile Aristotles theories of motion (either in terms ofone coherent system or along loose developmental lines) are wrong-headed We are better off sorting out his accounts ofmotion according to the paradigms he is working against and in terms ofthe specific questions he is trying to answer

42 DAVID LARAWAY

Works Cited

Aristotle The Basic ofAristotle Richard McKeon ed New York Random House 1941

Charlton W Aristotles Physics Books I and II Oxford Clarendon Press 1970

Cherniss Harold Aristotles Criticisms ofPlato and the Academy New York Russell amp Russell 1962

Graham Daniel W Aristotles Two Systems Oxford Clarendon Press 1987

Guthrie WKC The Development of Aristotles Theology I Classical Quarterly 27 (1933) 162-171

Ross WD Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1979

Sorabji Richard Matter Space and Motion Ithica Cornell University Press 1988

Waterlow Sarah Nature Change and Agency in Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1982

Are All Our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation)

Joseph Partain Belmont College

All our readings are misreadings (spoken at Vanderbilt Univershysity 1989)

I try to write the question (what is) meaning to say Therefore it is necessary in such a space and guided by such a question that writing literally mean nothing Not that it is absurd in the way that absurdity has always been in solidarity with metaphysical meanshying It simply tempts itself tenders itself attempts to keep itself at the point of the exhaustion of meaning To risk meaning nothing is to start to play and fltst enter into the play of differance which prevents any word any concept any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences this meaning-to-say-nothing is not you will agree the most assured of exercises

Thought means nothing it is the substantified void of a highly deri vative ideality the effect of a differance of forces the illusory autonomy of a discourse or consciousness whose hypostasis is to be deconstrocted whose causality is Lo be analyzed etc Whatever will continue to be called thought and Which for example will designate the deconstruction of logocentrism means nothing for in the last analysis it no longer derives from meaning Wherever it operates thought means nothing (P pp 1449)

In broaching your question you also noted that I meant someshything and that even ifyou did not understand it completely you were convinced of my wanting-to-say-something I am less sure of this than you (Wood p 89)

We should note that Derridas saying is not some of our readings are misreadings nor our readings tend to be misreadings but the

universal all-inclusive assertion all our readings are misreadings What we have here is not a difficulty in communication but absence of commushynication and not a difficulty to be dealt with and minimized but an absence never to be encroached upon a gap never to be narrowed

44 JOSEPH PARTAIN

To use the metaphor of a gun itisnt all OUI firings are misses but all our firings are misfirings ie the gun does not go off When we read the hammer hits the head of the bullet but there is only a click Derrida is dealing with more than the inevitability of misinterpretations or an anarchy ofperspectivism in the handling oftexts (though he is saying those things) In this paper I would like to attempt

(1) An identification of who Derrida is and what he is doing In this section I will seek to show that Derrida and his work constitute a sign of the meaninglessness or nothingness that lies just beneath the surface of existence that his role is philosophical

(2) An illustration ofDerrida sdeliberate misreadings of texts how Derrida responds when he is misread and briefly how deconstrnction is playing a role in the literary community (a look at Stanley Fish) in dealing with texts

(3) A call for an appreciation and qualified inclusion ofDerrida in textual interpretation

I Who Is Jacques Derrida

By this I do not mean things like his being an Algerian Jew who came to France when he was nineteen but who is he in terms of his philosophical literary impact on the world For that I know ofno better starting place than the address Derrida gave in 1968 in Paris called simply Difjerance I purposely come to the text for his own voice the record of his own words so as much as possible to let his speech identify him He begins by saying

I will speak thereforeofaletter OfthefrrstIetter if thealphabet and most of the speculations which have ventured into it are to bebelieved I will speak therefore ofthe letter a this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate here and there into the writing of the word difference

Nowithappens I would say in effect that this graphic difference (a instead of e) this marked difference between two apparently vocal notations between two vowels remains purely graphic it is read or it is written but it cannot be heard (MP pp 3-4)

Derrida continues by saying that thepresence ofthe letter a inits capital form (A) is compared in shape to an Egyptian pyramid in Hegels Encyclopedia

so that it remains silent secret and discreet as a tomb and not far from announcing the death of the tyrant (MP p 4) The fact that a and e cannot

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

37 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

In every case the nature involved seems to be the material elementofa thing This strongly suggests that be thinks that the material of a thing can be a source of change because it has an active tendency to change independent of any external cause (Charlton p 92)

The simplicity of the account given the De Caelo and the Analytica posteriora must have been appealing to Aristotle from a common-sense perspective We do tend to contrast natural things with others by talking about their origins It makes perfect sense to say that natural things are characterized by an innate capacity for change whereas artificial products (qua artificial) are only changed by external forces (see Physics IIl192b 12shy26) To paraphrase Aristotles example a tree is a natural object because it has the power of growth within itself whereas a bed or chair does not

But how does this explanation square with the development of Aristotles later views in the Physics Recall for example the analysis of animal motion that I quoted at the outset In Book VIII Aristotle claims that animal motion is not strictly self-motion and that the cause of it is not derived from the animal itself (Phys VllI4256a2-3) Indeed itis a general

thesis of Physics VllI that all things in motion must be moved by something (Phys VIIIA256a2-3) Richard Sorabji sees that dilemma like this

In Physics 21 his task is to distinguish natural objects from artificial ones and he does so by saying that natural objects have an internal source of change their nature Aristotle concludes that nature is an internal (en) source and cause (arkhe and aitia) of motion (kineisthai) or rest (eremein) But in Physics 84 Aristotle is constrained by an opposite consideration In order to make room for God as that by which the heavens are moved he has to support Platos principle that whatever is in motion is moved by something (Sorabji p 219)

Sorabji points out (rightly I think) that Aristotle seems to have different purposes in giving his distinct accounts Sarah Waterlow expands on this

idea the concept of living things as self-changers figures in Physics VIII not as an item of interest in itself but purely as a step in an argument concerned with other issues [The discussion of] selfshychange [in the Physics] tells us nothing about organic subshystance It is intended to uphold a certain conclusion concerning

38 DAVID LARAWAY

the ultimate source of change in the universe as a whole and Aristotle has accordingly invested self-change with no more meaning than is necessary for the discharge of this ulterior function (Waterlow p 216)

The point that Sorabji and Waterlow are making is Significant Aristotles discussion of self-change in the Physics is always informed by a greater

enterprise he wants to give an account of an eternal unmoved source of motion It looks as if in the Physics he already knew the conclusion he

thought right that God and not any celestial soul is the prime mover but

that the tools for securing this conclusion were not available to him until he

had written the de Anima and Metaphysics Book 12 (Sorabji p 225) With this in mind we can piece together Aristotles strategy by

looking at the interpretation that he tried to place on his own earlier works In Physics VIII4 Aristotle makes the claim that whatever is changed must be changed by something he draws this point out by making a distinction between the agent and patient of motion

The fact that a thing that is in motion derives its motion from something is most evident in things that are in motion unnatushyrally because in such cases it is clear that the motion is derived from something other than the thing itself Next to things that are in motion unnaturally those whose motion while natural is derived from themselves-eg animals-make this fact clear for here the uncertainty is not as to whether the motion is derived from something hut as to how weought to distinguish in the thing between the movent and the thing moved It would seem that in animals just as in ships and things not naturally organize~ that which causes motion is separate from that which suffers motion and that it is only in this sense that the animal as a whole causes its own motion (Physics VIIIA254b24-33)

WD Ross claims that Aristotles VIII4 account of motion is simply a fiIling-outoftheearlier De Cae10 view On Rosss interpretation Aristotles

initial simple equation ofmotion with an inherent capacity to change is not sufficient to demonstrate how the capacity for motion becomes fully

realized He says The answer which Aristotle finally reached is that

capacity is realized always by the action on the potential of that which is

already actual And this he came to see to be incompatibJe with selfshymovement (Ross pp 98-9)

39 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNfS OF MOTION

Aristotles strategy becomes more meaningful if we recall that he has by this time introduced his formmatter distinction By replacing the simple unity of substance of the Organon with the complex version of his mature physical works he has allowed himself to creatively redescribe motion and self-change on a new paradigm Rather than interpret selfshychange as a simple function of organic unities (eg man horse tree) he Is able to further analyze the motion of even these unities into more fundamental parts Thus he is able to analyze the motion of say an animal into a movent and a thing moved Clearly he is playing on the ambiguity of the phrase changed by something other to try to find a something other within what he formerly took to be a simple substance This is related to the point Waterlow makes when she says Aristotles deliberately indiscriminate use of changed by something other puts him at a strategic advantage vis-a-vis the question of what exactly we are to suppose should be meant by somethings being changed by itself (Waterlow p 207)

What then are we to make of this ambiguity Should we take Aristotle to be-as Waterlow puts it-at a strategic advantage one that allows himto further develop an old doctrine in response to new challenges Or ought we to read him as making a radical break from his earlier views and attempting to combine elements of two incommensurable systems

Waterlow argues that Aristotle is successful in his attempt But she recognizes that she faces an immediate difficulty in trying to bring the two views together into one coherent theory She asks

how can the self-change whole be itself a substance if it consists in a substance plus something else But perhaps this ought to be dismissed as a spurious paradox generated by gratuitously introducing terms like in addition to and plus Aristotle does not state nor does he necessarily imply that the difference must be such that the two are addible Presumably he means that in self-change the changer and changed are not numerically different individuals Resorting to handy words let us say that he has in mind different aspects of the same individual (Waterlow p 212)

I think that Waterlows reading of Aristotle is charitable-perhaps too much so The very difficulty of reconciling the doctrines of the Organon and earlier physical works with the later physical works lies in Aristotles waffling about what even the most basic terms (such as substance) are to

40 DAVID LARAWAY

mean This indecision becomes particularly acute in the second book ofthe Physics where Aristotle tries to on the one hand (continue to) retain the common-sense idea that natural objects are those that move themselves and on the other hand set up an argument designed to show (in the Metaphysics and in the Iaterbooks of the Physics) that there must be a source of eternal motion and change which is independent of particular natural things

Aristotles reliance on his mature actuali typotentiality doctrine lllustrates this very discrepancy As I have already indicated Ross notes that the capacity for change is realized always by the action of the potential of that which is already actual And in order to realize movement the mover must already be in the state which is the tenninus ofthe movement in order to be moved the moved must not yet be in that state (Ross pp 98-9 see Physics VIII5257a33-257b14) But significantly this view of actualityl potentiality differs markedly from earlier discussions in the Organon Daniel Graham points out that energia (or actuality) in the Organon is not explicitly connected with hylomorphism in fact Aristotle makes it a point to show that energia is an activity rather that a capacity (Graham p 99 see Top IV5125b15-9)

The spurious paradox Waterlow refcrs to runs more deeply than she realizes Itgoes to the very heart of Aristotles philosophy The problem as Graham has pointed out is that Aristotle himself sometimes treats form and matter as separate entities it is precisely his avowal ofhylomorphism in the later works that informs his conccption of energia as capacity and facilitates a complex account ofnatural motion in Book Eight ofthePhysics This is the very point Graham takes up in the following discussion of Aristotles mature philosophical system-what Graham refers to as 82

According to hylomorphism the concrete substance is divisible into form and matter This is a fundamental fact of analysis of S 2 the sensible substance is a composite not a simple individual The analysis seems to invite a question about the composite itsclf which componenlmakes the substantial compound substantial It is form or matter Since the sensible substance is analyzed into two components one of them must be responsible for the subshystantiality of the whole Because Aristotle analyses the senshysible substance into form and matter he assumes that it must be reduced to form and matter (Graham p 278)

41 ARIST01LES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Aristotles argument for complex natural motion hinging as it does on his latter conception of energia or actuality is thus bound up intimately with the logical status of form and matter in his ontology In these terms then Graham goes on to recommend the same linethatWaterlow insists on How then should we view form and matter It seems to me that we should take them not as components in the normal sense We should rather conceive of them as aspects of the sensible substance (Graham p 279) However Graham recognizes (as Waterlow does not) that such a recommendation can only stand as an after-the-fact suggestion to Aristotle The fact remains that Aristotle does equivocate terms between the earlier works on the one hand and his more mature thought on the other To deny this would be to affirm that the whole of the Aristotelian corpus is thoroughly consistent-surely an impossible hypothesis to defend

So where does that leave us with respect to our original question I want to recommend that we go back to an observation that I made earlier Both the earlier and later accounts of self-change that Aristotle offers are targeted at answering different questions (or at least questions that arise in distinct contexts) The De Caelo (and otller early works as well) tried to define natural moti0 n in relati vely simple terms the paradigm that Aristotle worked from was the one exemplified in the Organon and referred to by Graham as S1-what Graham takes to be Aristotles earlier philosophical system (see Graham 1987) The Physics account (after Book Two) tried to define motion against an entirely different backdrop and with an entirely different purpose in mind Aristotles discussions ofself-change and natural change were subsequently brought out to demonstrate the logical necessity of an unmoved mover and to uphold a certain conclusion concerning the ultimate eternal source of change in the universe as a whole (Waterlow p 216) The Physics II account then appears to mark an awkward shift between Aristotles early conception of natural change and the adoption of hylomorphic principles (introduced in Phys I) that would later provide the framework for his emerging complex agenda

It seems then that attempts to reconcile Aristotles theories of motion (either in terms ofone coherent system or along loose developmental lines) are wrong-headed We are better off sorting out his accounts ofmotion according to the paradigms he is working against and in terms ofthe specific questions he is trying to answer

42 DAVID LARAWAY

Works Cited

Aristotle The Basic ofAristotle Richard McKeon ed New York Random House 1941

Charlton W Aristotles Physics Books I and II Oxford Clarendon Press 1970

Cherniss Harold Aristotles Criticisms ofPlato and the Academy New York Russell amp Russell 1962

Graham Daniel W Aristotles Two Systems Oxford Clarendon Press 1987

Guthrie WKC The Development of Aristotles Theology I Classical Quarterly 27 (1933) 162-171

Ross WD Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1979

Sorabji Richard Matter Space and Motion Ithica Cornell University Press 1988

Waterlow Sarah Nature Change and Agency in Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1982

Are All Our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation)

Joseph Partain Belmont College

All our readings are misreadings (spoken at Vanderbilt Univershysity 1989)

I try to write the question (what is) meaning to say Therefore it is necessary in such a space and guided by such a question that writing literally mean nothing Not that it is absurd in the way that absurdity has always been in solidarity with metaphysical meanshying It simply tempts itself tenders itself attempts to keep itself at the point of the exhaustion of meaning To risk meaning nothing is to start to play and fltst enter into the play of differance which prevents any word any concept any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences this meaning-to-say-nothing is not you will agree the most assured of exercises

Thought means nothing it is the substantified void of a highly deri vative ideality the effect of a differance of forces the illusory autonomy of a discourse or consciousness whose hypostasis is to be deconstrocted whose causality is Lo be analyzed etc Whatever will continue to be called thought and Which for example will designate the deconstruction of logocentrism means nothing for in the last analysis it no longer derives from meaning Wherever it operates thought means nothing (P pp 1449)

In broaching your question you also noted that I meant someshything and that even ifyou did not understand it completely you were convinced of my wanting-to-say-something I am less sure of this than you (Wood p 89)

We should note that Derridas saying is not some of our readings are misreadings nor our readings tend to be misreadings but the

universal all-inclusive assertion all our readings are misreadings What we have here is not a difficulty in communication but absence of commushynication and not a difficulty to be dealt with and minimized but an absence never to be encroached upon a gap never to be narrowed

44 JOSEPH PARTAIN

To use the metaphor of a gun itisnt all OUI firings are misses but all our firings are misfirings ie the gun does not go off When we read the hammer hits the head of the bullet but there is only a click Derrida is dealing with more than the inevitability of misinterpretations or an anarchy ofperspectivism in the handling oftexts (though he is saying those things) In this paper I would like to attempt

(1) An identification of who Derrida is and what he is doing In this section I will seek to show that Derrida and his work constitute a sign of the meaninglessness or nothingness that lies just beneath the surface of existence that his role is philosophical

(2) An illustration ofDerrida sdeliberate misreadings of texts how Derrida responds when he is misread and briefly how deconstrnction is playing a role in the literary community (a look at Stanley Fish) in dealing with texts

(3) A call for an appreciation and qualified inclusion ofDerrida in textual interpretation

I Who Is Jacques Derrida

By this I do not mean things like his being an Algerian Jew who came to France when he was nineteen but who is he in terms of his philosophical literary impact on the world For that I know ofno better starting place than the address Derrida gave in 1968 in Paris called simply Difjerance I purposely come to the text for his own voice the record of his own words so as much as possible to let his speech identify him He begins by saying

I will speak thereforeofaletter OfthefrrstIetter if thealphabet and most of the speculations which have ventured into it are to bebelieved I will speak therefore ofthe letter a this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate here and there into the writing of the word difference

Nowithappens I would say in effect that this graphic difference (a instead of e) this marked difference between two apparently vocal notations between two vowels remains purely graphic it is read or it is written but it cannot be heard (MP pp 3-4)

Derrida continues by saying that thepresence ofthe letter a inits capital form (A) is compared in shape to an Egyptian pyramid in Hegels Encyclopedia

so that it remains silent secret and discreet as a tomb and not far from announcing the death of the tyrant (MP p 4) The fact that a and e cannot

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

38 DAVID LARAWAY

the ultimate source of change in the universe as a whole and Aristotle has accordingly invested self-change with no more meaning than is necessary for the discharge of this ulterior function (Waterlow p 216)

The point that Sorabji and Waterlow are making is Significant Aristotles discussion of self-change in the Physics is always informed by a greater

enterprise he wants to give an account of an eternal unmoved source of motion It looks as if in the Physics he already knew the conclusion he

thought right that God and not any celestial soul is the prime mover but

that the tools for securing this conclusion were not available to him until he

had written the de Anima and Metaphysics Book 12 (Sorabji p 225) With this in mind we can piece together Aristotles strategy by

looking at the interpretation that he tried to place on his own earlier works In Physics VIII4 Aristotle makes the claim that whatever is changed must be changed by something he draws this point out by making a distinction between the agent and patient of motion

The fact that a thing that is in motion derives its motion from something is most evident in things that are in motion unnatushyrally because in such cases it is clear that the motion is derived from something other than the thing itself Next to things that are in motion unnaturally those whose motion while natural is derived from themselves-eg animals-make this fact clear for here the uncertainty is not as to whether the motion is derived from something hut as to how weought to distinguish in the thing between the movent and the thing moved It would seem that in animals just as in ships and things not naturally organize~ that which causes motion is separate from that which suffers motion and that it is only in this sense that the animal as a whole causes its own motion (Physics VIIIA254b24-33)

WD Ross claims that Aristotles VIII4 account of motion is simply a fiIling-outoftheearlier De Cae10 view On Rosss interpretation Aristotles

initial simple equation ofmotion with an inherent capacity to change is not sufficient to demonstrate how the capacity for motion becomes fully

realized He says The answer which Aristotle finally reached is that

capacity is realized always by the action on the potential of that which is

already actual And this he came to see to be incompatibJe with selfshymovement (Ross pp 98-9)

39 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNfS OF MOTION

Aristotles strategy becomes more meaningful if we recall that he has by this time introduced his formmatter distinction By replacing the simple unity of substance of the Organon with the complex version of his mature physical works he has allowed himself to creatively redescribe motion and self-change on a new paradigm Rather than interpret selfshychange as a simple function of organic unities (eg man horse tree) he Is able to further analyze the motion of even these unities into more fundamental parts Thus he is able to analyze the motion of say an animal into a movent and a thing moved Clearly he is playing on the ambiguity of the phrase changed by something other to try to find a something other within what he formerly took to be a simple substance This is related to the point Waterlow makes when she says Aristotles deliberately indiscriminate use of changed by something other puts him at a strategic advantage vis-a-vis the question of what exactly we are to suppose should be meant by somethings being changed by itself (Waterlow p 207)

What then are we to make of this ambiguity Should we take Aristotle to be-as Waterlow puts it-at a strategic advantage one that allows himto further develop an old doctrine in response to new challenges Or ought we to read him as making a radical break from his earlier views and attempting to combine elements of two incommensurable systems

Waterlow argues that Aristotle is successful in his attempt But she recognizes that she faces an immediate difficulty in trying to bring the two views together into one coherent theory She asks

how can the self-change whole be itself a substance if it consists in a substance plus something else But perhaps this ought to be dismissed as a spurious paradox generated by gratuitously introducing terms like in addition to and plus Aristotle does not state nor does he necessarily imply that the difference must be such that the two are addible Presumably he means that in self-change the changer and changed are not numerically different individuals Resorting to handy words let us say that he has in mind different aspects of the same individual (Waterlow p 212)

I think that Waterlows reading of Aristotle is charitable-perhaps too much so The very difficulty of reconciling the doctrines of the Organon and earlier physical works with the later physical works lies in Aristotles waffling about what even the most basic terms (such as substance) are to

40 DAVID LARAWAY

mean This indecision becomes particularly acute in the second book ofthe Physics where Aristotle tries to on the one hand (continue to) retain the common-sense idea that natural objects are those that move themselves and on the other hand set up an argument designed to show (in the Metaphysics and in the Iaterbooks of the Physics) that there must be a source of eternal motion and change which is independent of particular natural things

Aristotles reliance on his mature actuali typotentiality doctrine lllustrates this very discrepancy As I have already indicated Ross notes that the capacity for change is realized always by the action of the potential of that which is already actual And in order to realize movement the mover must already be in the state which is the tenninus ofthe movement in order to be moved the moved must not yet be in that state (Ross pp 98-9 see Physics VIII5257a33-257b14) But significantly this view of actualityl potentiality differs markedly from earlier discussions in the Organon Daniel Graham points out that energia (or actuality) in the Organon is not explicitly connected with hylomorphism in fact Aristotle makes it a point to show that energia is an activity rather that a capacity (Graham p 99 see Top IV5125b15-9)

The spurious paradox Waterlow refcrs to runs more deeply than she realizes Itgoes to the very heart of Aristotles philosophy The problem as Graham has pointed out is that Aristotle himself sometimes treats form and matter as separate entities it is precisely his avowal ofhylomorphism in the later works that informs his conccption of energia as capacity and facilitates a complex account ofnatural motion in Book Eight ofthePhysics This is the very point Graham takes up in the following discussion of Aristotles mature philosophical system-what Graham refers to as 82

According to hylomorphism the concrete substance is divisible into form and matter This is a fundamental fact of analysis of S 2 the sensible substance is a composite not a simple individual The analysis seems to invite a question about the composite itsclf which componenlmakes the substantial compound substantial It is form or matter Since the sensible substance is analyzed into two components one of them must be responsible for the subshystantiality of the whole Because Aristotle analyses the senshysible substance into form and matter he assumes that it must be reduced to form and matter (Graham p 278)

41 ARIST01LES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Aristotles argument for complex natural motion hinging as it does on his latter conception of energia or actuality is thus bound up intimately with the logical status of form and matter in his ontology In these terms then Graham goes on to recommend the same linethatWaterlow insists on How then should we view form and matter It seems to me that we should take them not as components in the normal sense We should rather conceive of them as aspects of the sensible substance (Graham p 279) However Graham recognizes (as Waterlow does not) that such a recommendation can only stand as an after-the-fact suggestion to Aristotle The fact remains that Aristotle does equivocate terms between the earlier works on the one hand and his more mature thought on the other To deny this would be to affirm that the whole of the Aristotelian corpus is thoroughly consistent-surely an impossible hypothesis to defend

So where does that leave us with respect to our original question I want to recommend that we go back to an observation that I made earlier Both the earlier and later accounts of self-change that Aristotle offers are targeted at answering different questions (or at least questions that arise in distinct contexts) The De Caelo (and otller early works as well) tried to define natural moti0 n in relati vely simple terms the paradigm that Aristotle worked from was the one exemplified in the Organon and referred to by Graham as S1-what Graham takes to be Aristotles earlier philosophical system (see Graham 1987) The Physics account (after Book Two) tried to define motion against an entirely different backdrop and with an entirely different purpose in mind Aristotles discussions ofself-change and natural change were subsequently brought out to demonstrate the logical necessity of an unmoved mover and to uphold a certain conclusion concerning the ultimate eternal source of change in the universe as a whole (Waterlow p 216) The Physics II account then appears to mark an awkward shift between Aristotles early conception of natural change and the adoption of hylomorphic principles (introduced in Phys I) that would later provide the framework for his emerging complex agenda

It seems then that attempts to reconcile Aristotles theories of motion (either in terms ofone coherent system or along loose developmental lines) are wrong-headed We are better off sorting out his accounts ofmotion according to the paradigms he is working against and in terms ofthe specific questions he is trying to answer

42 DAVID LARAWAY

Works Cited

Aristotle The Basic ofAristotle Richard McKeon ed New York Random House 1941

Charlton W Aristotles Physics Books I and II Oxford Clarendon Press 1970

Cherniss Harold Aristotles Criticisms ofPlato and the Academy New York Russell amp Russell 1962

Graham Daniel W Aristotles Two Systems Oxford Clarendon Press 1987

Guthrie WKC The Development of Aristotles Theology I Classical Quarterly 27 (1933) 162-171

Ross WD Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1979

Sorabji Richard Matter Space and Motion Ithica Cornell University Press 1988

Waterlow Sarah Nature Change and Agency in Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1982

Are All Our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation)

Joseph Partain Belmont College

All our readings are misreadings (spoken at Vanderbilt Univershysity 1989)

I try to write the question (what is) meaning to say Therefore it is necessary in such a space and guided by such a question that writing literally mean nothing Not that it is absurd in the way that absurdity has always been in solidarity with metaphysical meanshying It simply tempts itself tenders itself attempts to keep itself at the point of the exhaustion of meaning To risk meaning nothing is to start to play and fltst enter into the play of differance which prevents any word any concept any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences this meaning-to-say-nothing is not you will agree the most assured of exercises

Thought means nothing it is the substantified void of a highly deri vative ideality the effect of a differance of forces the illusory autonomy of a discourse or consciousness whose hypostasis is to be deconstrocted whose causality is Lo be analyzed etc Whatever will continue to be called thought and Which for example will designate the deconstruction of logocentrism means nothing for in the last analysis it no longer derives from meaning Wherever it operates thought means nothing (P pp 1449)

In broaching your question you also noted that I meant someshything and that even ifyou did not understand it completely you were convinced of my wanting-to-say-something I am less sure of this than you (Wood p 89)

We should note that Derridas saying is not some of our readings are misreadings nor our readings tend to be misreadings but the

universal all-inclusive assertion all our readings are misreadings What we have here is not a difficulty in communication but absence of commushynication and not a difficulty to be dealt with and minimized but an absence never to be encroached upon a gap never to be narrowed

44 JOSEPH PARTAIN

To use the metaphor of a gun itisnt all OUI firings are misses but all our firings are misfirings ie the gun does not go off When we read the hammer hits the head of the bullet but there is only a click Derrida is dealing with more than the inevitability of misinterpretations or an anarchy ofperspectivism in the handling oftexts (though he is saying those things) In this paper I would like to attempt

(1) An identification of who Derrida is and what he is doing In this section I will seek to show that Derrida and his work constitute a sign of the meaninglessness or nothingness that lies just beneath the surface of existence that his role is philosophical

(2) An illustration ofDerrida sdeliberate misreadings of texts how Derrida responds when he is misread and briefly how deconstrnction is playing a role in the literary community (a look at Stanley Fish) in dealing with texts

(3) A call for an appreciation and qualified inclusion ofDerrida in textual interpretation

I Who Is Jacques Derrida

By this I do not mean things like his being an Algerian Jew who came to France when he was nineteen but who is he in terms of his philosophical literary impact on the world For that I know ofno better starting place than the address Derrida gave in 1968 in Paris called simply Difjerance I purposely come to the text for his own voice the record of his own words so as much as possible to let his speech identify him He begins by saying

I will speak thereforeofaletter OfthefrrstIetter if thealphabet and most of the speculations which have ventured into it are to bebelieved I will speak therefore ofthe letter a this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate here and there into the writing of the word difference

Nowithappens I would say in effect that this graphic difference (a instead of e) this marked difference between two apparently vocal notations between two vowels remains purely graphic it is read or it is written but it cannot be heard (MP pp 3-4)

Derrida continues by saying that thepresence ofthe letter a inits capital form (A) is compared in shape to an Egyptian pyramid in Hegels Encyclopedia

so that it remains silent secret and discreet as a tomb and not far from announcing the death of the tyrant (MP p 4) The fact that a and e cannot

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

39 ARISTOTIES ACCOUNfS OF MOTION

Aristotles strategy becomes more meaningful if we recall that he has by this time introduced his formmatter distinction By replacing the simple unity of substance of the Organon with the complex version of his mature physical works he has allowed himself to creatively redescribe motion and self-change on a new paradigm Rather than interpret selfshychange as a simple function of organic unities (eg man horse tree) he Is able to further analyze the motion of even these unities into more fundamental parts Thus he is able to analyze the motion of say an animal into a movent and a thing moved Clearly he is playing on the ambiguity of the phrase changed by something other to try to find a something other within what he formerly took to be a simple substance This is related to the point Waterlow makes when she says Aristotles deliberately indiscriminate use of changed by something other puts him at a strategic advantage vis-a-vis the question of what exactly we are to suppose should be meant by somethings being changed by itself (Waterlow p 207)

What then are we to make of this ambiguity Should we take Aristotle to be-as Waterlow puts it-at a strategic advantage one that allows himto further develop an old doctrine in response to new challenges Or ought we to read him as making a radical break from his earlier views and attempting to combine elements of two incommensurable systems

Waterlow argues that Aristotle is successful in his attempt But she recognizes that she faces an immediate difficulty in trying to bring the two views together into one coherent theory She asks

how can the self-change whole be itself a substance if it consists in a substance plus something else But perhaps this ought to be dismissed as a spurious paradox generated by gratuitously introducing terms like in addition to and plus Aristotle does not state nor does he necessarily imply that the difference must be such that the two are addible Presumably he means that in self-change the changer and changed are not numerically different individuals Resorting to handy words let us say that he has in mind different aspects of the same individual (Waterlow p 212)

I think that Waterlows reading of Aristotle is charitable-perhaps too much so The very difficulty of reconciling the doctrines of the Organon and earlier physical works with the later physical works lies in Aristotles waffling about what even the most basic terms (such as substance) are to

40 DAVID LARAWAY

mean This indecision becomes particularly acute in the second book ofthe Physics where Aristotle tries to on the one hand (continue to) retain the common-sense idea that natural objects are those that move themselves and on the other hand set up an argument designed to show (in the Metaphysics and in the Iaterbooks of the Physics) that there must be a source of eternal motion and change which is independent of particular natural things

Aristotles reliance on his mature actuali typotentiality doctrine lllustrates this very discrepancy As I have already indicated Ross notes that the capacity for change is realized always by the action of the potential of that which is already actual And in order to realize movement the mover must already be in the state which is the tenninus ofthe movement in order to be moved the moved must not yet be in that state (Ross pp 98-9 see Physics VIII5257a33-257b14) But significantly this view of actualityl potentiality differs markedly from earlier discussions in the Organon Daniel Graham points out that energia (or actuality) in the Organon is not explicitly connected with hylomorphism in fact Aristotle makes it a point to show that energia is an activity rather that a capacity (Graham p 99 see Top IV5125b15-9)

The spurious paradox Waterlow refcrs to runs more deeply than she realizes Itgoes to the very heart of Aristotles philosophy The problem as Graham has pointed out is that Aristotle himself sometimes treats form and matter as separate entities it is precisely his avowal ofhylomorphism in the later works that informs his conccption of energia as capacity and facilitates a complex account ofnatural motion in Book Eight ofthePhysics This is the very point Graham takes up in the following discussion of Aristotles mature philosophical system-what Graham refers to as 82

According to hylomorphism the concrete substance is divisible into form and matter This is a fundamental fact of analysis of S 2 the sensible substance is a composite not a simple individual The analysis seems to invite a question about the composite itsclf which componenlmakes the substantial compound substantial It is form or matter Since the sensible substance is analyzed into two components one of them must be responsible for the subshystantiality of the whole Because Aristotle analyses the senshysible substance into form and matter he assumes that it must be reduced to form and matter (Graham p 278)

41 ARIST01LES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Aristotles argument for complex natural motion hinging as it does on his latter conception of energia or actuality is thus bound up intimately with the logical status of form and matter in his ontology In these terms then Graham goes on to recommend the same linethatWaterlow insists on How then should we view form and matter It seems to me that we should take them not as components in the normal sense We should rather conceive of them as aspects of the sensible substance (Graham p 279) However Graham recognizes (as Waterlow does not) that such a recommendation can only stand as an after-the-fact suggestion to Aristotle The fact remains that Aristotle does equivocate terms between the earlier works on the one hand and his more mature thought on the other To deny this would be to affirm that the whole of the Aristotelian corpus is thoroughly consistent-surely an impossible hypothesis to defend

So where does that leave us with respect to our original question I want to recommend that we go back to an observation that I made earlier Both the earlier and later accounts of self-change that Aristotle offers are targeted at answering different questions (or at least questions that arise in distinct contexts) The De Caelo (and otller early works as well) tried to define natural moti0 n in relati vely simple terms the paradigm that Aristotle worked from was the one exemplified in the Organon and referred to by Graham as S1-what Graham takes to be Aristotles earlier philosophical system (see Graham 1987) The Physics account (after Book Two) tried to define motion against an entirely different backdrop and with an entirely different purpose in mind Aristotles discussions ofself-change and natural change were subsequently brought out to demonstrate the logical necessity of an unmoved mover and to uphold a certain conclusion concerning the ultimate eternal source of change in the universe as a whole (Waterlow p 216) The Physics II account then appears to mark an awkward shift between Aristotles early conception of natural change and the adoption of hylomorphic principles (introduced in Phys I) that would later provide the framework for his emerging complex agenda

It seems then that attempts to reconcile Aristotles theories of motion (either in terms ofone coherent system or along loose developmental lines) are wrong-headed We are better off sorting out his accounts ofmotion according to the paradigms he is working against and in terms ofthe specific questions he is trying to answer

42 DAVID LARAWAY

Works Cited

Aristotle The Basic ofAristotle Richard McKeon ed New York Random House 1941

Charlton W Aristotles Physics Books I and II Oxford Clarendon Press 1970

Cherniss Harold Aristotles Criticisms ofPlato and the Academy New York Russell amp Russell 1962

Graham Daniel W Aristotles Two Systems Oxford Clarendon Press 1987

Guthrie WKC The Development of Aristotles Theology I Classical Quarterly 27 (1933) 162-171

Ross WD Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1979

Sorabji Richard Matter Space and Motion Ithica Cornell University Press 1988

Waterlow Sarah Nature Change and Agency in Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1982

Are All Our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation)

Joseph Partain Belmont College

All our readings are misreadings (spoken at Vanderbilt Univershysity 1989)

I try to write the question (what is) meaning to say Therefore it is necessary in such a space and guided by such a question that writing literally mean nothing Not that it is absurd in the way that absurdity has always been in solidarity with metaphysical meanshying It simply tempts itself tenders itself attempts to keep itself at the point of the exhaustion of meaning To risk meaning nothing is to start to play and fltst enter into the play of differance which prevents any word any concept any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences this meaning-to-say-nothing is not you will agree the most assured of exercises

Thought means nothing it is the substantified void of a highly deri vative ideality the effect of a differance of forces the illusory autonomy of a discourse or consciousness whose hypostasis is to be deconstrocted whose causality is Lo be analyzed etc Whatever will continue to be called thought and Which for example will designate the deconstruction of logocentrism means nothing for in the last analysis it no longer derives from meaning Wherever it operates thought means nothing (P pp 1449)

In broaching your question you also noted that I meant someshything and that even ifyou did not understand it completely you were convinced of my wanting-to-say-something I am less sure of this than you (Wood p 89)

We should note that Derridas saying is not some of our readings are misreadings nor our readings tend to be misreadings but the

universal all-inclusive assertion all our readings are misreadings What we have here is not a difficulty in communication but absence of commushynication and not a difficulty to be dealt with and minimized but an absence never to be encroached upon a gap never to be narrowed

44 JOSEPH PARTAIN

To use the metaphor of a gun itisnt all OUI firings are misses but all our firings are misfirings ie the gun does not go off When we read the hammer hits the head of the bullet but there is only a click Derrida is dealing with more than the inevitability of misinterpretations or an anarchy ofperspectivism in the handling oftexts (though he is saying those things) In this paper I would like to attempt

(1) An identification of who Derrida is and what he is doing In this section I will seek to show that Derrida and his work constitute a sign of the meaninglessness or nothingness that lies just beneath the surface of existence that his role is philosophical

(2) An illustration ofDerrida sdeliberate misreadings of texts how Derrida responds when he is misread and briefly how deconstrnction is playing a role in the literary community (a look at Stanley Fish) in dealing with texts

(3) A call for an appreciation and qualified inclusion ofDerrida in textual interpretation

I Who Is Jacques Derrida

By this I do not mean things like his being an Algerian Jew who came to France when he was nineteen but who is he in terms of his philosophical literary impact on the world For that I know ofno better starting place than the address Derrida gave in 1968 in Paris called simply Difjerance I purposely come to the text for his own voice the record of his own words so as much as possible to let his speech identify him He begins by saying

I will speak thereforeofaletter OfthefrrstIetter if thealphabet and most of the speculations which have ventured into it are to bebelieved I will speak therefore ofthe letter a this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate here and there into the writing of the word difference

Nowithappens I would say in effect that this graphic difference (a instead of e) this marked difference between two apparently vocal notations between two vowels remains purely graphic it is read or it is written but it cannot be heard (MP pp 3-4)

Derrida continues by saying that thepresence ofthe letter a inits capital form (A) is compared in shape to an Egyptian pyramid in Hegels Encyclopedia

so that it remains silent secret and discreet as a tomb and not far from announcing the death of the tyrant (MP p 4) The fact that a and e cannot

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

40 DAVID LARAWAY

mean This indecision becomes particularly acute in the second book ofthe Physics where Aristotle tries to on the one hand (continue to) retain the common-sense idea that natural objects are those that move themselves and on the other hand set up an argument designed to show (in the Metaphysics and in the Iaterbooks of the Physics) that there must be a source of eternal motion and change which is independent of particular natural things

Aristotles reliance on his mature actuali typotentiality doctrine lllustrates this very discrepancy As I have already indicated Ross notes that the capacity for change is realized always by the action of the potential of that which is already actual And in order to realize movement the mover must already be in the state which is the tenninus ofthe movement in order to be moved the moved must not yet be in that state (Ross pp 98-9 see Physics VIII5257a33-257b14) But significantly this view of actualityl potentiality differs markedly from earlier discussions in the Organon Daniel Graham points out that energia (or actuality) in the Organon is not explicitly connected with hylomorphism in fact Aristotle makes it a point to show that energia is an activity rather that a capacity (Graham p 99 see Top IV5125b15-9)

The spurious paradox Waterlow refcrs to runs more deeply than she realizes Itgoes to the very heart of Aristotles philosophy The problem as Graham has pointed out is that Aristotle himself sometimes treats form and matter as separate entities it is precisely his avowal ofhylomorphism in the later works that informs his conccption of energia as capacity and facilitates a complex account ofnatural motion in Book Eight ofthePhysics This is the very point Graham takes up in the following discussion of Aristotles mature philosophical system-what Graham refers to as 82

According to hylomorphism the concrete substance is divisible into form and matter This is a fundamental fact of analysis of S 2 the sensible substance is a composite not a simple individual The analysis seems to invite a question about the composite itsclf which componenlmakes the substantial compound substantial It is form or matter Since the sensible substance is analyzed into two components one of them must be responsible for the subshystantiality of the whole Because Aristotle analyses the senshysible substance into form and matter he assumes that it must be reduced to form and matter (Graham p 278)

41 ARIST01LES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Aristotles argument for complex natural motion hinging as it does on his latter conception of energia or actuality is thus bound up intimately with the logical status of form and matter in his ontology In these terms then Graham goes on to recommend the same linethatWaterlow insists on How then should we view form and matter It seems to me that we should take them not as components in the normal sense We should rather conceive of them as aspects of the sensible substance (Graham p 279) However Graham recognizes (as Waterlow does not) that such a recommendation can only stand as an after-the-fact suggestion to Aristotle The fact remains that Aristotle does equivocate terms between the earlier works on the one hand and his more mature thought on the other To deny this would be to affirm that the whole of the Aristotelian corpus is thoroughly consistent-surely an impossible hypothesis to defend

So where does that leave us with respect to our original question I want to recommend that we go back to an observation that I made earlier Both the earlier and later accounts of self-change that Aristotle offers are targeted at answering different questions (or at least questions that arise in distinct contexts) The De Caelo (and otller early works as well) tried to define natural moti0 n in relati vely simple terms the paradigm that Aristotle worked from was the one exemplified in the Organon and referred to by Graham as S1-what Graham takes to be Aristotles earlier philosophical system (see Graham 1987) The Physics account (after Book Two) tried to define motion against an entirely different backdrop and with an entirely different purpose in mind Aristotles discussions ofself-change and natural change were subsequently brought out to demonstrate the logical necessity of an unmoved mover and to uphold a certain conclusion concerning the ultimate eternal source of change in the universe as a whole (Waterlow p 216) The Physics II account then appears to mark an awkward shift between Aristotles early conception of natural change and the adoption of hylomorphic principles (introduced in Phys I) that would later provide the framework for his emerging complex agenda

It seems then that attempts to reconcile Aristotles theories of motion (either in terms ofone coherent system or along loose developmental lines) are wrong-headed We are better off sorting out his accounts ofmotion according to the paradigms he is working against and in terms ofthe specific questions he is trying to answer

42 DAVID LARAWAY

Works Cited

Aristotle The Basic ofAristotle Richard McKeon ed New York Random House 1941

Charlton W Aristotles Physics Books I and II Oxford Clarendon Press 1970

Cherniss Harold Aristotles Criticisms ofPlato and the Academy New York Russell amp Russell 1962

Graham Daniel W Aristotles Two Systems Oxford Clarendon Press 1987

Guthrie WKC The Development of Aristotles Theology I Classical Quarterly 27 (1933) 162-171

Ross WD Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1979

Sorabji Richard Matter Space and Motion Ithica Cornell University Press 1988

Waterlow Sarah Nature Change and Agency in Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1982

Are All Our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation)

Joseph Partain Belmont College

All our readings are misreadings (spoken at Vanderbilt Univershysity 1989)

I try to write the question (what is) meaning to say Therefore it is necessary in such a space and guided by such a question that writing literally mean nothing Not that it is absurd in the way that absurdity has always been in solidarity with metaphysical meanshying It simply tempts itself tenders itself attempts to keep itself at the point of the exhaustion of meaning To risk meaning nothing is to start to play and fltst enter into the play of differance which prevents any word any concept any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences this meaning-to-say-nothing is not you will agree the most assured of exercises

Thought means nothing it is the substantified void of a highly deri vative ideality the effect of a differance of forces the illusory autonomy of a discourse or consciousness whose hypostasis is to be deconstrocted whose causality is Lo be analyzed etc Whatever will continue to be called thought and Which for example will designate the deconstruction of logocentrism means nothing for in the last analysis it no longer derives from meaning Wherever it operates thought means nothing (P pp 1449)

In broaching your question you also noted that I meant someshything and that even ifyou did not understand it completely you were convinced of my wanting-to-say-something I am less sure of this than you (Wood p 89)

We should note that Derridas saying is not some of our readings are misreadings nor our readings tend to be misreadings but the

universal all-inclusive assertion all our readings are misreadings What we have here is not a difficulty in communication but absence of commushynication and not a difficulty to be dealt with and minimized but an absence never to be encroached upon a gap never to be narrowed

44 JOSEPH PARTAIN

To use the metaphor of a gun itisnt all OUI firings are misses but all our firings are misfirings ie the gun does not go off When we read the hammer hits the head of the bullet but there is only a click Derrida is dealing with more than the inevitability of misinterpretations or an anarchy ofperspectivism in the handling oftexts (though he is saying those things) In this paper I would like to attempt

(1) An identification of who Derrida is and what he is doing In this section I will seek to show that Derrida and his work constitute a sign of the meaninglessness or nothingness that lies just beneath the surface of existence that his role is philosophical

(2) An illustration ofDerrida sdeliberate misreadings of texts how Derrida responds when he is misread and briefly how deconstrnction is playing a role in the literary community (a look at Stanley Fish) in dealing with texts

(3) A call for an appreciation and qualified inclusion ofDerrida in textual interpretation

I Who Is Jacques Derrida

By this I do not mean things like his being an Algerian Jew who came to France when he was nineteen but who is he in terms of his philosophical literary impact on the world For that I know ofno better starting place than the address Derrida gave in 1968 in Paris called simply Difjerance I purposely come to the text for his own voice the record of his own words so as much as possible to let his speech identify him He begins by saying

I will speak thereforeofaletter OfthefrrstIetter if thealphabet and most of the speculations which have ventured into it are to bebelieved I will speak therefore ofthe letter a this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate here and there into the writing of the word difference

Nowithappens I would say in effect that this graphic difference (a instead of e) this marked difference between two apparently vocal notations between two vowels remains purely graphic it is read or it is written but it cannot be heard (MP pp 3-4)

Derrida continues by saying that thepresence ofthe letter a inits capital form (A) is compared in shape to an Egyptian pyramid in Hegels Encyclopedia

so that it remains silent secret and discreet as a tomb and not far from announcing the death of the tyrant (MP p 4) The fact that a and e cannot

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

41 ARIST01LES ACCOUNTS OF MOTION

Aristotles argument for complex natural motion hinging as it does on his latter conception of energia or actuality is thus bound up intimately with the logical status of form and matter in his ontology In these terms then Graham goes on to recommend the same linethatWaterlow insists on How then should we view form and matter It seems to me that we should take them not as components in the normal sense We should rather conceive of them as aspects of the sensible substance (Graham p 279) However Graham recognizes (as Waterlow does not) that such a recommendation can only stand as an after-the-fact suggestion to Aristotle The fact remains that Aristotle does equivocate terms between the earlier works on the one hand and his more mature thought on the other To deny this would be to affirm that the whole of the Aristotelian corpus is thoroughly consistent-surely an impossible hypothesis to defend

So where does that leave us with respect to our original question I want to recommend that we go back to an observation that I made earlier Both the earlier and later accounts of self-change that Aristotle offers are targeted at answering different questions (or at least questions that arise in distinct contexts) The De Caelo (and otller early works as well) tried to define natural moti0 n in relati vely simple terms the paradigm that Aristotle worked from was the one exemplified in the Organon and referred to by Graham as S1-what Graham takes to be Aristotles earlier philosophical system (see Graham 1987) The Physics account (after Book Two) tried to define motion against an entirely different backdrop and with an entirely different purpose in mind Aristotles discussions ofself-change and natural change were subsequently brought out to demonstrate the logical necessity of an unmoved mover and to uphold a certain conclusion concerning the ultimate eternal source of change in the universe as a whole (Waterlow p 216) The Physics II account then appears to mark an awkward shift between Aristotles early conception of natural change and the adoption of hylomorphic principles (introduced in Phys I) that would later provide the framework for his emerging complex agenda

It seems then that attempts to reconcile Aristotles theories of motion (either in terms ofone coherent system or along loose developmental lines) are wrong-headed We are better off sorting out his accounts ofmotion according to the paradigms he is working against and in terms ofthe specific questions he is trying to answer

42 DAVID LARAWAY

Works Cited

Aristotle The Basic ofAristotle Richard McKeon ed New York Random House 1941

Charlton W Aristotles Physics Books I and II Oxford Clarendon Press 1970

Cherniss Harold Aristotles Criticisms ofPlato and the Academy New York Russell amp Russell 1962

Graham Daniel W Aristotles Two Systems Oxford Clarendon Press 1987

Guthrie WKC The Development of Aristotles Theology I Classical Quarterly 27 (1933) 162-171

Ross WD Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1979

Sorabji Richard Matter Space and Motion Ithica Cornell University Press 1988

Waterlow Sarah Nature Change and Agency in Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1982

Are All Our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation)

Joseph Partain Belmont College

All our readings are misreadings (spoken at Vanderbilt Univershysity 1989)

I try to write the question (what is) meaning to say Therefore it is necessary in such a space and guided by such a question that writing literally mean nothing Not that it is absurd in the way that absurdity has always been in solidarity with metaphysical meanshying It simply tempts itself tenders itself attempts to keep itself at the point of the exhaustion of meaning To risk meaning nothing is to start to play and fltst enter into the play of differance which prevents any word any concept any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences this meaning-to-say-nothing is not you will agree the most assured of exercises

Thought means nothing it is the substantified void of a highly deri vative ideality the effect of a differance of forces the illusory autonomy of a discourse or consciousness whose hypostasis is to be deconstrocted whose causality is Lo be analyzed etc Whatever will continue to be called thought and Which for example will designate the deconstruction of logocentrism means nothing for in the last analysis it no longer derives from meaning Wherever it operates thought means nothing (P pp 1449)

In broaching your question you also noted that I meant someshything and that even ifyou did not understand it completely you were convinced of my wanting-to-say-something I am less sure of this than you (Wood p 89)

We should note that Derridas saying is not some of our readings are misreadings nor our readings tend to be misreadings but the

universal all-inclusive assertion all our readings are misreadings What we have here is not a difficulty in communication but absence of commushynication and not a difficulty to be dealt with and minimized but an absence never to be encroached upon a gap never to be narrowed

44 JOSEPH PARTAIN

To use the metaphor of a gun itisnt all OUI firings are misses but all our firings are misfirings ie the gun does not go off When we read the hammer hits the head of the bullet but there is only a click Derrida is dealing with more than the inevitability of misinterpretations or an anarchy ofperspectivism in the handling oftexts (though he is saying those things) In this paper I would like to attempt

(1) An identification of who Derrida is and what he is doing In this section I will seek to show that Derrida and his work constitute a sign of the meaninglessness or nothingness that lies just beneath the surface of existence that his role is philosophical

(2) An illustration ofDerrida sdeliberate misreadings of texts how Derrida responds when he is misread and briefly how deconstrnction is playing a role in the literary community (a look at Stanley Fish) in dealing with texts

(3) A call for an appreciation and qualified inclusion ofDerrida in textual interpretation

I Who Is Jacques Derrida

By this I do not mean things like his being an Algerian Jew who came to France when he was nineteen but who is he in terms of his philosophical literary impact on the world For that I know ofno better starting place than the address Derrida gave in 1968 in Paris called simply Difjerance I purposely come to the text for his own voice the record of his own words so as much as possible to let his speech identify him He begins by saying

I will speak thereforeofaletter OfthefrrstIetter if thealphabet and most of the speculations which have ventured into it are to bebelieved I will speak therefore ofthe letter a this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate here and there into the writing of the word difference

Nowithappens I would say in effect that this graphic difference (a instead of e) this marked difference between two apparently vocal notations between two vowels remains purely graphic it is read or it is written but it cannot be heard (MP pp 3-4)

Derrida continues by saying that thepresence ofthe letter a inits capital form (A) is compared in shape to an Egyptian pyramid in Hegels Encyclopedia

so that it remains silent secret and discreet as a tomb and not far from announcing the death of the tyrant (MP p 4) The fact that a and e cannot

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

42 DAVID LARAWAY

Works Cited

Aristotle The Basic ofAristotle Richard McKeon ed New York Random House 1941

Charlton W Aristotles Physics Books I and II Oxford Clarendon Press 1970

Cherniss Harold Aristotles Criticisms ofPlato and the Academy New York Russell amp Russell 1962

Graham Daniel W Aristotles Two Systems Oxford Clarendon Press 1987

Guthrie WKC The Development of Aristotles Theology I Classical Quarterly 27 (1933) 162-171

Ross WD Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1979

Sorabji Richard Matter Space and Motion Ithica Cornell University Press 1988

Waterlow Sarah Nature Change and Agency in Aristotles Physics Oxford Clarendon Press 1982

Are All Our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation)

Joseph Partain Belmont College

All our readings are misreadings (spoken at Vanderbilt Univershysity 1989)

I try to write the question (what is) meaning to say Therefore it is necessary in such a space and guided by such a question that writing literally mean nothing Not that it is absurd in the way that absurdity has always been in solidarity with metaphysical meanshying It simply tempts itself tenders itself attempts to keep itself at the point of the exhaustion of meaning To risk meaning nothing is to start to play and fltst enter into the play of differance which prevents any word any concept any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences this meaning-to-say-nothing is not you will agree the most assured of exercises

Thought means nothing it is the substantified void of a highly deri vative ideality the effect of a differance of forces the illusory autonomy of a discourse or consciousness whose hypostasis is to be deconstrocted whose causality is Lo be analyzed etc Whatever will continue to be called thought and Which for example will designate the deconstruction of logocentrism means nothing for in the last analysis it no longer derives from meaning Wherever it operates thought means nothing (P pp 1449)

In broaching your question you also noted that I meant someshything and that even ifyou did not understand it completely you were convinced of my wanting-to-say-something I am less sure of this than you (Wood p 89)

We should note that Derridas saying is not some of our readings are misreadings nor our readings tend to be misreadings but the

universal all-inclusive assertion all our readings are misreadings What we have here is not a difficulty in communication but absence of commushynication and not a difficulty to be dealt with and minimized but an absence never to be encroached upon a gap never to be narrowed

44 JOSEPH PARTAIN

To use the metaphor of a gun itisnt all OUI firings are misses but all our firings are misfirings ie the gun does not go off When we read the hammer hits the head of the bullet but there is only a click Derrida is dealing with more than the inevitability of misinterpretations or an anarchy ofperspectivism in the handling oftexts (though he is saying those things) In this paper I would like to attempt

(1) An identification of who Derrida is and what he is doing In this section I will seek to show that Derrida and his work constitute a sign of the meaninglessness or nothingness that lies just beneath the surface of existence that his role is philosophical

(2) An illustration ofDerrida sdeliberate misreadings of texts how Derrida responds when he is misread and briefly how deconstrnction is playing a role in the literary community (a look at Stanley Fish) in dealing with texts

(3) A call for an appreciation and qualified inclusion ofDerrida in textual interpretation

I Who Is Jacques Derrida

By this I do not mean things like his being an Algerian Jew who came to France when he was nineteen but who is he in terms of his philosophical literary impact on the world For that I know ofno better starting place than the address Derrida gave in 1968 in Paris called simply Difjerance I purposely come to the text for his own voice the record of his own words so as much as possible to let his speech identify him He begins by saying

I will speak thereforeofaletter OfthefrrstIetter if thealphabet and most of the speculations which have ventured into it are to bebelieved I will speak therefore ofthe letter a this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate here and there into the writing of the word difference

Nowithappens I would say in effect that this graphic difference (a instead of e) this marked difference between two apparently vocal notations between two vowels remains purely graphic it is read or it is written but it cannot be heard (MP pp 3-4)

Derrida continues by saying that thepresence ofthe letter a inits capital form (A) is compared in shape to an Egyptian pyramid in Hegels Encyclopedia

so that it remains silent secret and discreet as a tomb and not far from announcing the death of the tyrant (MP p 4) The fact that a and e cannot

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

Are All Our Readings Misreadings Derrida The Flickering A (A Look At Derrida On Interpretation)

Joseph Partain Belmont College

All our readings are misreadings (spoken at Vanderbilt Univershysity 1989)

I try to write the question (what is) meaning to say Therefore it is necessary in such a space and guided by such a question that writing literally mean nothing Not that it is absurd in the way that absurdity has always been in solidarity with metaphysical meanshying It simply tempts itself tenders itself attempts to keep itself at the point of the exhaustion of meaning To risk meaning nothing is to start to play and fltst enter into the play of differance which prevents any word any concept any major enunciation from coming to summarize and to govern from the theological presence of a center the movement and textual spacing of differences this meaning-to-say-nothing is not you will agree the most assured of exercises

Thought means nothing it is the substantified void of a highly deri vative ideality the effect of a differance of forces the illusory autonomy of a discourse or consciousness whose hypostasis is to be deconstrocted whose causality is Lo be analyzed etc Whatever will continue to be called thought and Which for example will designate the deconstruction of logocentrism means nothing for in the last analysis it no longer derives from meaning Wherever it operates thought means nothing (P pp 1449)

In broaching your question you also noted that I meant someshything and that even ifyou did not understand it completely you were convinced of my wanting-to-say-something I am less sure of this than you (Wood p 89)

We should note that Derridas saying is not some of our readings are misreadings nor our readings tend to be misreadings but the

universal all-inclusive assertion all our readings are misreadings What we have here is not a difficulty in communication but absence of commushynication and not a difficulty to be dealt with and minimized but an absence never to be encroached upon a gap never to be narrowed

44 JOSEPH PARTAIN

To use the metaphor of a gun itisnt all OUI firings are misses but all our firings are misfirings ie the gun does not go off When we read the hammer hits the head of the bullet but there is only a click Derrida is dealing with more than the inevitability of misinterpretations or an anarchy ofperspectivism in the handling oftexts (though he is saying those things) In this paper I would like to attempt

(1) An identification of who Derrida is and what he is doing In this section I will seek to show that Derrida and his work constitute a sign of the meaninglessness or nothingness that lies just beneath the surface of existence that his role is philosophical

(2) An illustration ofDerrida sdeliberate misreadings of texts how Derrida responds when he is misread and briefly how deconstrnction is playing a role in the literary community (a look at Stanley Fish) in dealing with texts

(3) A call for an appreciation and qualified inclusion ofDerrida in textual interpretation

I Who Is Jacques Derrida

By this I do not mean things like his being an Algerian Jew who came to France when he was nineteen but who is he in terms of his philosophical literary impact on the world For that I know ofno better starting place than the address Derrida gave in 1968 in Paris called simply Difjerance I purposely come to the text for his own voice the record of his own words so as much as possible to let his speech identify him He begins by saying

I will speak thereforeofaletter OfthefrrstIetter if thealphabet and most of the speculations which have ventured into it are to bebelieved I will speak therefore ofthe letter a this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate here and there into the writing of the word difference

Nowithappens I would say in effect that this graphic difference (a instead of e) this marked difference between two apparently vocal notations between two vowels remains purely graphic it is read or it is written but it cannot be heard (MP pp 3-4)

Derrida continues by saying that thepresence ofthe letter a inits capital form (A) is compared in shape to an Egyptian pyramid in Hegels Encyclopedia

so that it remains silent secret and discreet as a tomb and not far from announcing the death of the tyrant (MP p 4) The fact that a and e cannot

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

44 JOSEPH PARTAIN

To use the metaphor of a gun itisnt all OUI firings are misses but all our firings are misfirings ie the gun does not go off When we read the hammer hits the head of the bullet but there is only a click Derrida is dealing with more than the inevitability of misinterpretations or an anarchy ofperspectivism in the handling oftexts (though he is saying those things) In this paper I would like to attempt

(1) An identification of who Derrida is and what he is doing In this section I will seek to show that Derrida and his work constitute a sign of the meaninglessness or nothingness that lies just beneath the surface of existence that his role is philosophical

(2) An illustration ofDerrida sdeliberate misreadings of texts how Derrida responds when he is misread and briefly how deconstrnction is playing a role in the literary community (a look at Stanley Fish) in dealing with texts

(3) A call for an appreciation and qualified inclusion ofDerrida in textual interpretation

I Who Is Jacques Derrida

By this I do not mean things like his being an Algerian Jew who came to France when he was nineteen but who is he in terms of his philosophical literary impact on the world For that I know ofno better starting place than the address Derrida gave in 1968 in Paris called simply Difjerance I purposely come to the text for his own voice the record of his own words so as much as possible to let his speech identify him He begins by saying

I will speak thereforeofaletter OfthefrrstIetter if thealphabet and most of the speculations which have ventured into it are to bebelieved I will speak therefore ofthe letter a this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate here and there into the writing of the word difference

Nowithappens I would say in effect that this graphic difference (a instead of e) this marked difference between two apparently vocal notations between two vowels remains purely graphic it is read or it is written but it cannot be heard (MP pp 3-4)

Derrida continues by saying that thepresence ofthe letter a inits capital form (A) is compared in shape to an Egyptian pyramid in Hegels Encyclopedia

so that it remains silent secret and discreet as a tomb and not far from announcing the death of the tyrant (MP p 4) The fact that a and e cannot

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

45 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

be differentiated in the last syllable of differ(ela)nce when spoken but only when written or read show us there is a silence in so-called phonetic writing a failure to convey difference and consequently (according to Derrida) there is no phonetic writing

In logic Derridas argument is a blatant fallacy-the error of generalizing from an exception (a and e being indistinguishable in sound in a particular word is used to conclude that all letters fail to denote distinct sounds) Most of the time letters do a very good job of distinguishing and differentiating sounds and that is why phonics are used in spe1ling in spite ofall the exceptions BuUfwereacted this way and rejected Derrlda swords as nonsense we would be extremely unimagInative and philosophically dull

What if one were to begin with Nietzschean meaninglessness and decide to use that which is most pretentious in the conveyance of meanshyings-Le words-as an effigy of the non-existent Word (considered philosophically or theologically) an effigy not to be burned but dismantled (deconstructed) in order to signify the end ofmeaning What lfthe death of God and Truth in Heavenis followed by the death of Man and truth on Earth What if philosophys debunking of Platos Big Meanings undercuts the integrity ofall little and ordinary meanings If one were to take a word then like difference and observe what happens when the e becomes an a listen to the failure of a textto carry Ufe significant sound distinguishing one letter from another one feels the instability of words and wonders about other losses inherent with language Derrida is understandable in these terms as a philosopher making an effigy oflanguage-disrupting and deconstructing it-to protest the Silence in the universe a Silence ready to quake under every word like a city built on a fauIt line

Who is Jacques Derrida He is that indeterminate sound that flickering between the e and the a that silent and open space between the r and the n of differ_nce which disrupts the e x s itout makes it a space then an a then a space then ane and from then on the e and all texluality is never the same When Derrida speaks in conventional linguistic terms (though always tentatively) the e is at work When Derrida exists in movement as space to introduce the a he is disruption ever-changing Heraclitean energy intervention and play When Derrida operates as the a he uses words to undercut words (writing means nothing) and metaphysics to

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

46 JOSEPH PARTAIN

undercut metaphysics (thought means nothing) Consequently with the energy and change characteristic ofDerrida it is difficult when questioning him or reading his texts to know ifhe Is the e (saying the tentative sayable) the space (disrupting the sayable) or the a (using the sayable to point to the Unsayable)

Derrida exists then as a philosophical sign He is the flickering a behind the e reminding us of the tentativeness the thinness of all human meanings andof the deep silence just below HeistheA as Egyptian pyramid announcing the death of the tyrant which is all the language ever spokenshylanguage which promised us The Truth The Word The Meaning of the Universe commandeered directly or indirectly by God or Man at the center There is no ground and no center and Derrida exists to undermine and unsettle to clean house with respect to Western metaphysics

He resists identifying himself because he is against the very preshysumption of classification and naming He resists the tombstone existence of concepts buried within words So we can save ourselves time by not asking him who heis Ifwe want to know who he is we must (ironically) try

not to misread him Ifhe intends or means anything in all this movement it is Play for Nothingness is with us and at the door

Derrida as the Flickering A is playful and so playful that even sympathizers are sometimes embarrassed with his antics John Llewelyn in his Derrida on the Threshold ofSense says that what Rorty and others find so shocking about Derrida is his multilingual puns joke etymologies allusions from anywhere and phOnic and typographical gimmicks (p 114) (Frankly I am surprised at Llewelyn because in that same book he refers to something Derrida considers a fallacy in Freuds thinking but uses the spelling p-h-a-l-l-u-s-y without any quotation marks to clarify ifLlewelyn or Derrida is fooling around here)

Why does Derrida refuse the label of negative theology and all other labels Because he refuses the Western metaphysical constructs in which a11language is enmeshed because he refuses the pegging ofmeaning the confidence of thought or meaning existing Of having a happy transmisshysion in words Derrida says

To be very schematic I would say that the difficulty of defining and therefore also oftmnslating the word deconstruction stems from the fact that all the predicates all the defining concepts all

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

47 ARE ALL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

the lexical significations and even the syntactic articulations whicb seem at one moment to lend themselves to this definition or to that translation are also deconstructed or deconstructible directly or otherwise etc And that goes for the word the very unity of the word deconstruction as for every word

Consequently Derrida also says All sentences ofthe type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X a priori miss the point which is to say that they are at least false (Wood p 4)

Again I think there is a blatant problem with what Derrida is saying on a literalleve1 Obviously both deconstruction and Derrida come to us through words concepts assertions etc Here is someone who works to keep himself (as he says) on the outer edge of the exhaustion of meaning but nonetheless without thought and its conveyance through words there would be no deconstruction and no Derrida so it begs the question to act as ifDerrida can never be conceptualized Ifhe spoke only gibberish he would have been escorted to an asylum and we would be reading someone else

The play does have a feel of negative theology though much like the Israelites who in the absence of a Moses on the mount receiving the Word of God make a golden calf (a fiction) engorge themselves with food then rise up to play There is a real sense ofrecess from absolutes and eternal values feltin Derrida s textual play There is an anti-metaphysical largeness and expansiveness to his fooling with texts an equivocation and playful disguise that would have echoed well in Zarathustras cave

It is interesting to note as well that when Demda writes to aJapanese friend who is looking for a suitable translation for deconstruction he speaks of dictionary definitions such as disarranging the construction of and to disassemble the parts of a whole He also traces the history of deconstruction as a reaction to structuralism an antistructurallst gesture even a demolition of any confidence in language as it stands tied to Western metaphysiCS So Derrida does not entirel y dispense with words to define deconstruction (He knows how to don the disguise ofthe tentative e)

II Derrida And Misreadings

Among the proponents of deconstruction there is an effort to minimize any adverse impact Derrida might have with hands on textual interpretation because there are those who feel that Derrida could wreak

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

48 JOSEPH PARTAIN

havoc with his all our readings are misreadings and his textual nihilism

First of all it seems to me that people like Stanley Fish with his Is there a

Text in this Class really do raise the spectre ofliterary communities acting out a Derridean anti-metaphysical nihilistic approach to texts When we

read Fish and he says that the notions of same or different texts are fictions (p 169) that perspectival perception is all there is (p 365) and

that no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an

impossible one (p 347) we see the Flickering A and hear Derridas

laughter (p 169) Fish does not believe there are accurate or proper readings

oftexts but that the reader (and ultimately the literary institution) arbitrarily

gives or assigns the text its meaning (The only check on arbitrary is the

voice of the literary community) Here the text is not the final reference to

evaluate readings Interpretations will change and evolve as the community

changes with the passage of time Meaning is not transcendental or fixed

Heaven and Earth will pass away and so will todays interpretation Derrida himselfhas no hesitation in misreading a text and assigning

it the meaning he wants it to have For example I laughed when I first read

Derridas statement that for Nietzsche the great principal activity is

unconscious(ness) and that all of Nietzsches thought is a critique of

philosophy as an active indifference to difference (MP p 17) The great

principal activity for Nietzsche is the Will to Power and the only one for

whom the critique of philosophy must be for its indifference to difference

is Derrida-not Nietzsche But then again did not Heidegger in his book

on Nietzsche give us more of Heidegger than Nietzsche and before that did

not Nietzsche usurp David Humes work by saying in Twilight othe Idols I was the first to formulate that there are no moral facts Derrida seems

to be operating faithfully within a tradition After all if perspectivism is aU

there is (and Nietzsche did say that) why not impose our perspecti ve (textual violence) very forthrightly and unapologetically upon everything we read

and represent Where all is seeming and nothing is real why should we care

about maintaining the integrity ofwhat someone else has written-espeeiall y

if we do not think that what someone else has written is objectively decipherable to begin with

But we do mind when we are misread by others even Derrida

minds Michael Fischer in Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference mentions the irony ofDerrida s feeling misread by John Searle in a literary

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

49 ARE AIL OUR READINGS MISREADINGS

critiqueofDerrida Derrida says things like by ignoring this orthat moment of the text and refers to Searles autistic representation and obliterating contexts (p 40) In the real world where texts do have an objectivity that minds can subjectively apprehend people feel hurt when justice is not done to their text (In Irene Harveys book on Derrida she apologizes to Derrida-though she is herself a deconstructionist-for any failure to do justice to his texts) This is worlds away from both Derridas and Fishs tentativeness about language and textuality-theinevitability ofmisreadings If misreadings are the rule and not the exception why should Derrida be upset and Harvey apologize Is not their behavior here a tacit adherence to both the possibility and desirability of accurate textual readings Meaningshylessness at the center of the universe is fine to talk about when we are dealing with someone else s texts but whenit comes to our own suddenly itbecomes important to believe that there is a ground and center for discussion we become logocentric when it is our logos at the center

III A Can For Inclusion

Finally I would like to suggest in what might seem to be a contractiction of all that I have said heretofore how I think Derrida should be included in our approach to the interpretation of texts Needless to say Derrida is wilh us to stay His presence as what I have called the Flickering A is as symbolic and important for philosophylIiterature as Socrates the gadfly who ill a sense went about deconstructing everyones claims to wisdom and Heraclitus for whom all reality is disruption and change

That Derrida exists as a sign means that he is not to be taken as a standard or literary method for interpretation As Joseph Margolis says deconstruction is not a canon of procedures or criteria for testing the adequacy ofprocedures for interpreting texts or for assessing the cognitive fit between interpretation and text (Margolis p 148) When Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years as a sign of Israels coming captivity his action was not intended as a dress code for his time Derrida is asign for the implications of there being no God in the universe no Word behind all human words no Text written in Nature or Scripture which in some way supports all human textuality

Positively speaking in literary interpretation where Derrida opershyates as a sign we are less likely to feel we have nailed down any and all

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

50 JOSEPH PARTAIN

possibiUties arising from a texts meaning We will watch for the Flickering

A the unsaid and unsayable behind a text the meanings that fall through the

cracks or get lost through the structure The Flickering A makes us respect

the element of surprise and helps us resist the tendency to capitulate to the

letter that kills Life has movement surprise and disguise to it and

nothing is more deadly than the tendency in classrooms to simply crank

out textbook interpretations that leave both teacher and student cold

With these qualifications of Derridas role I think his inclusion to

the literary community is significant and worthwhile

Works Cited

[P] Den-ida Jacques Positions Tr by Alan Bass Chicago University of Chicago Press 1982

[MP] Derrida Jacques Margins ofPhilsophy Tr by Alan Bass Chishycago University of Chicago Press 1984

Fish Stanley Is There A Text in Tlzis Class The Authority ofInterpreshytive Communities Cambridge Mass Harvard UniversIty Press 1980

Fischer Michael Does Deconstruction Make Any Difference Poststructuralism and the Defense ofPoetry in Modern Critishycism Bloomington Indiana University Press 1985

Llewelyn John Derrida on the Threshold ofSense New York St Martin 1986

Margolis Joseph Deconstruction Or The Mystery Of The Mystery Of The Text in Hermeneutics And Deconstruction Silverman and Hugh 1 eds New York SUNY Albany 1985

Wood David and Robert Bernasconi ed Derrida and Differance Chicago Northwestern University Press 1988

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

Wittgensteins Employment of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

William Voelker Gustavus Adolphus College

I saw this guy on the train I And he seemed to gave gotten stucki In one of those abstract trances And he was going Ugh Ugh Ugh And Fred said I think hes in some kind ofpain I I think its a pain cry I And I said Pain

cry I Then language is a virus Language Its a virus I Language Its a virus

- Laurie Anderson Language is a Virus

this paper is written with the anticipation Ofthe reader having a basic knowledge ofwittgenstein s philosophy thisjrees mejrom haVing to define terms and waste space (and thereby limiting the reader with my definitions their understanding ofthe topics will be read into the paper regardless ofthe safeguards i place on it with definitions and handholding but i find this to be a good thing as the number of interpretations of my point may grow then and the differences will be over the argument itselfand not the terms which surround it dont discuss the depth grammar within the game) much of what i am going to say will seem obvious but sometimes the obvious is what is overlooked by tlte way im not using private language here (though i am writing it to myself- in English)

I Private Language

1 Isolating the Private Language Argument is like removing a stone from a wall then pointing to the stone and saying This is a walL Exposing the Private Language Argument is like pointing at a stone in a wall and saying This is part of a wall The difference is that one remains grounded in its place and the place defines it-it is recognized in its relation to the place The other is seen without a context Without the place it is senseless1

I I urn in agreement with Kripke when he says we will only increase our difficult argument ifwe call sect243 onward the private language argument and study ilin isolation from the preceding material (Kripke p 81) However this is not to say it should not be done to understand its place in the work as a whole If it is done to separate it from the rest of the work that is where the problem lies However Kripke makes this mistake himself he discusses the private Janguage argument in Willgenstein on Rules and Private Languages while ignoring the preceding statements and paragraphs in the Philosophicallnvestigati011S He does not take his own advice and warnings

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

52 WILLIAM VOELKER

The Private Language Argument is Wittgenstelns attack on tradishytional philosophical methods and philosophicallanguage-games2 and his attemptto show their lack ofmeaning and sense He was striking at the roots of the philosophical project as ithad grown over the past 2500 years or so attempting to prune itback so it could grow strong this time and not twisted and weak as he saw it to be He exposed the propensity of philosophers to argue over points which are not applicable to much of anything3 and how they do not seem to be In contact with the real world and would prefer to believe their theories rather than what they had seen4Wittgenstein was able to use it as both an argument to support his stand on the other topics he discusses in the Philosophical Investigations and as an example of the problems he was attacking

2 Private Language what is it and how does it relate to the rest of Wittgenstein This is the question that must first be investigated when we discuss private language as discussed in the Philosophical Investigations Without an understanding of how it relates to the rest of the text the argumentis left suspended from nothing The supports from a structure must notbe removed they then become useless (they arent supporting anything) and the structure will collapse Using the supports in another structure can be done only if a) the structure is designed to incorporate the support or b) the support is modified to work within the structure The Private Language Argument I hold only fits within Wittgenstein s overall structure when left unmodified Even lfthe supports are removed to study it unless one knows how it works with the rest of the structure it will beunclear as to what itdoes exactly It is only effective as it is within the environment that was created for it Therefore the Private Language Argument cannot be removed from the Philosophical Investigations and stand on its own just as the surface grammar of a language game cannot be seen out of cOntext and still be intelligible Ex You are Sitting in a room and you hear snippets of

2Including his Theory of Language in the Tractatus and the rest of the Tractatus also He is not simply going after other philosophers he is going after himself in the past and that past self was a traditional philosopher to the COte-an obvious target for him to go aflcr

JWilness the Angels on the Head of a Pin debate which was once so popular in philosophical circles but has now been superseded by relativism and SuperSkepticism how many ways can we look at something without seeing it

4 See Skepticism

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

53 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

conversation coming out of the next room To speculate on the meaning of these snippets is nearly impossIble as you are hearing them out of context and are not actively in the gamesThe following illustration pictures how Language Games can be compared to the use of the Private Language Argument in the Philosophical Investigations

Wittgensteins use of the PrivateLanguage Argumentis subtle His use is careful and planned and 1) it holds a central place in the construction ofhis book taking up a great deal ofspace (both physically and idea-wise) and 2) it is one of his central arguments in his assault on the Tractatus It Is both interesting and important to note that he did not mark itoffas aseparate chapter or section He left it in as part of the rest of the text flowing right along with it (no breaks allowed) further backing up my claim (textually) that the argument cannot stand on its own as it is senseless on its own Both the form ofthe text and its content lead me to believe this Ex considerhow the Tractatus would read if one of the sections were removed

3 The Language itself what language games could exist in a private language How would the grammar hold together It seems to me from reading On Certainty that as our experiences are what we can base our thinking upon our experiences show us that language is a group activity Therc is no need whatsoever for a private language as one would not have to tell oneself something oncmiddot is aware

Olher people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour-for Icannotbe said to learn of them Ihave them (PI sect246)

The question is complete nonsense ifone thinks ofthe idea oflanguagebeing learned and then later the question pops up it is never there to begin with but comes back later it is a philosophical question It is not a thinking question It leads to statements (said in all sincerity and honesty) such as I know that is a tree These statements are said as if they prove something or verify something as if they proved what was said or that they mean more than they say They are not treated as they actually function in reality as statements attempting to reference the depth grammar There is no need to

5To be actively in a language game does not require one to be actively involved but to simply know what the game is That is why it is so hard to break into the middle of a conversation and still be able to make intelligible comments or to enter the flow of the dialogue

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

54 WILLIAM VOELKER

reference the depth grammar (itis there itis a given in the game) but as that is being done the statement can only function as a statement and not as a proposition Are either necessary when one deals with oneself when one talks to oneself Would the language one uses in discussing matters with oneself be the same as the language used when discussing matters with others who speak the same language One does not need to tell oneself the statements (just as they are unnecessary in a language game) and one does not need to deliberate with oneself in a language and ifone does it is my experience that intuition plays a key role in the process and if the deliberashytion is done with language we take two sides we deliberate with ourselves with us taking both the selfand other places in the argument1i

4 sect256-But suppose I didnt have any natural expression for the sensashytion but only had the sensation (PI) Ifthere in no natural expression ie language in common with other people does that mean that a private language in not a natural expression forWittgenstein I think so A private language is terribly unnatural7

5 Why is it that Wittgenstein seems to feel a need for some sort oflogical argument vs private language when he seems to have a common sense argument in his other arguments8 Perhaps he is anticipating those who want the philosophical answer sect275 seems to me to be a cutting comment

275 Look at the blueofthe sky and say to yourself How blue the sky is1-When you do it spontaneously-without philosophical intentions-the idea never crosses yourmind that this impression of colour belongs only to you And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else And ifyou point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky I am saying you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself which often accompanies naming the sensation when one is thinking about private language Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the color with your hand but with your attention (Consider what it means to point to something with the attention) (PI)

6Can it be otherwise and if so does it remain deliberation 7To not have a natural expression for a sensation is to be Ayers Crusoe-but not on

Ayers tenns This is Ayers Crusoe on Wittgensteins lenns Aquestion is leftlo be answered is a man without language truly a human for Wittgenstein

bullAlbeit his is an extremely logical common sense argwnent but is it then still common sense

55 WITTGENS1EINS EMPLOYMENT

II The Private Language Argument

6 56 The Umitsomy language mean the limits of my world (1L~p)9In the early Wittgenstein a private language limits the world to what is sensed10 This removes the outer language as the private language would constrain the outer language and one could not express anything in theouter language that could not be expressed in the private language The private language would have to be extraordinarily complex for a person to commu~ nicate with others if this would be the case11 The communication between the public and private would there not be something lost between the two (Isnt there anyway)

562 The world is my world this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world (1L-P) These are the beginnings of the probleml2

7sect243- You can talk to yourself but in what language is that discussion My experience shows me I talk to myself in English my native tongue If I used a private language would I not have to translate everything between the two if I wanted to communicate with somcone else Also why would one want to have a language to use with oneseifabout something one already knows (though as Wlttgcnstein states you do not know you are in pain you simply are) that is the sensations

8sect246-The truth is it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain but not to say it about myselr (PI) Language is communication not only of thoughts and arguments but ofinformation there is no need to communicate information with oneself-discuss delib~ erate debate those can (and should) be done but to communicate informashytion one has with oneself is nonsensical One cannot doubt the information one has (the veracity of it perhaps) but not what it is as in the case of sensations You do not know you have I3

9 Does this imply that I cannot expand my world without expanding my language Can we not sense or respond to something if we do not have it in our language

lOIs reading sensing II A person would have to have a rich private language lind an amazing amount of

sensations allowed by their private language if they were to communicate those experiences with others or they would be in danger of continually being passed over in silencepassing over in silence

11Ifit wasnt for 562 in the TLP Wittgenstcin might not have had this to deal with Id imagine

13 sect249-Lying Ue to yourself in your own private language (Lying is a languagemiddot game that needs to be learned like any other one) (Pl) If this is true where did one learn to lie to oneself

56 WILLIAM VOELKER

9 I believe thatI have covered enough ofthe argumentto illustrate my point Wittgenstein is illustrating his argument with illustrated arguments He has shown how traditional philosophy asks needless questions that cause far more problems than they start The debate over can there be a Private Language is silly (Wittgenstein knows this) as the questions are philosphical and are not asked except by immature minds (Oe sectsect310-317) Questions about things one cannot doubt (Am I feeling this feeling I feel right now) are meaningless

10 To RecapitulateIRestateJ Add Ifthe Private Language argument is taken out of context taken out of the Philosphical Investigations the Depth Grammar of the argument (the rest of the book) is ignored and therefore the argument itself is without any relevance whatsoever The argument must be taken in context and if it is not the argument is either Unintelligible because of the missing depth grammar (a fish out of water) or it means something completely different than it originally did due to new depth grammar surrounding it

III Private Relations

flanguage were liquid It would be rushing in Instead here we are In silence more eloquent Than any word could ever be

Words are too solid They dont move jast enoughTo catch the blur in the brain 111at flies by and is gone Gone Gone Gone

Id like to meet you In a timeless Placeless place S01newhere out ojcontext And beyond all consequences

I wont USe words againThey dont mean what I meantThey dont say what I said Theyre just the crust ojthe meaning With realms underneath

Never touched Never stirred Never even moved through --SuzanneVegaLanguage

11 Suppose I tell someone who has never read any Wittgenstein about thc Private Language Argument Their first reaction will be Thatis silly There is no reason for an argument against private language as thcre cannot be one I do not have one and have never met anyone claiming to have one Wittgenstein makes a good argument against private language (as shown earlier) but his prime argument is not against private language but against philosophy He also says (essentially) This (the Private Language idea) is

57 WTITGENSTEINS EMPLOYMENT

silly but This is both Private Language andPhilosophy for Wittgenstein Wittgenstein wants thinking not incoherent questionsdiscussions14

12 Meaningless A Private Language would be meaningless even ifthere was one-consider how as Wittgenstein points out I do not say I know I have a pain in order to let myself know-I Simply have the pain See sect246

as this is so-why would we have a personal language to discuss our sensations with ourselves Oh I think that hurts-let me check-oh yes I feel S It does not work that way We feel it-and do we discuss the pain with ourselves No We discuss eliminating it-in fact I would not call it discussing - we run over a list ofpossible responses to the pain we have built up over time to deal with pain gained from our experiences Discussion comes when we deal with someone else We only deliberate in conscious language over something when we are planning to express it to someone else We have no need to explain itto ourselves The raw data our minds deal with is not kept from our minds by a private language-our minds deal directly with it This is what makes expressing our feelings sohard-wefeel and as we do not have aninner language we musttake the raw data and move it into the language wc wish to express ourselves in Ifwe did not we could translatc between our inner language and the outer one we speak But there is no need to What we lose in meaning we gain in speed To act quickly means that our processing time must be kept to a minimum A language between us and our sense would mean we could not react quicklyI5

13 AJ Ayer for example Iifis the Pri v ate Language Argument directly out of the Philosophical Investigations in his essay Can There Be a Private Language and seems to understand it in terms of a language used for communication between entities for he says it is obvious that there can be private languages There can be because there are (Pitcher p 250) He immediately assumes the existence ofsuch a language which makes him at once unable to see Wittgensteins point clearly He says

I~ Here we have found the reason for the Private Language argument (and his later works) this work is against philosophy Remember the philosopher pointing at the tree and saying I know thats a tree ff

ISHowever could the basisoflanguage be hard-wired into us and thelanguagewespeak simply be the program we run on top of it

57 WTITGENSTEINS EMPLOYMENT

silly but This is both Private Language andPhilosophy for Wittgenstein Wittgenstein wants thinking not incoherent questionsdiscussions14

12 Meaningless A Private Language would be meaningless even ifthere was one-consider how as Wittgenstein points out I do not say I know I have a pain in order to let myself know-I Simply have the pain See sect246

as this is so-why would we have a personal language to discuss our sensations with ourselves Oh I think that hurts-let me check-oh yes I feel S It does not work that way We feel it-and do we discuss the pain with ourselves No We discuss eliminating it-in fact I would not call it discussing - we run over a list ofpossible responses to the pain we have built up over time to deal with pain gained from our experiences Discussion comes when we deal with someone else We only deliberate in conscious language over something when we are planning to express it to someone else We have no need to explain itto ourselves The raw data our minds deal with is not kept from our minds by a private language-our minds deal directly with it This is what makes expressing our feelings sohard-wefeel and as we do not have aninner language we musttake the raw data and move it into the language wc wish to express ourselves in Ifwe did not we could translatc between our inner language and the outer one we speak But there is no need to What we lose in meaning we gain in speed To act quickly means that our processing time must be kept to a minimum A language between us and our sense would mean we could not react quicklyI5

13 AJ Ayer for example Iifis the Pri v ate Language Argument directly out of the Philosophical Investigations in his essay Can There Be a Private Language and seems to understand it in terms of a language used for communication between entities for he says it is obvious that there can be private languages There can be because there are (Pitcher p 250) He immediately assumes the existence ofsuch a language which makes him at once unable to see Wittgensteins point clearly He says

I~ Here we have found the reason for the Private Language argument (and his later works) this work is against philosophy Remember the philosopher pointing at the tree and saying I know thats a tree ff

ISHowever could the basisoflanguage be hard-wired into us and thelanguagewespeak simply be the program we run on top of it

WILLIAM VOELKER S8

It is however possible that a very secretive diarist may not be satisfied with putting familiar words into an unfamiliar notation but may prefer to invent new words the two processes are in any case not sharply distinct Ifbe carries his invention far enough be can properly be said to beemploying a pri vate language (Pitcher p250)

Ayer is standing in the camp of the Ostensive Definitioners when he makes this statement He sees naming and words as the starting point oflanguage What he fails to see however is that the private language the diarist develops is developed from and takes the place of the original language he speaks this is not a private language but a new language that has another language for a background It could easily (as much as learning a language is easy) be learned by someone else A couple of questions arise Wittgensteins S diary Why This is a simple question Why would one use a private language rather than the language used already by the person to mark when a feeling is felt or some other private action occurs This serves no PU1JXlse other than to make a list (as if one would do this for a doctor or a class reports etc) and is in essence a meaningless activity To see the end of it all for Ayer he comes down to descriptions and descriptive language-in effect you need descriptions of things even for yourself and the language is the key to the description Each name is related to a description The names must be removed says Wittgenstein Ostensive Definitions cause far more problems than they are worth Ayer does not see that in order to attach a description to aname one cannot just name first one must be able to articulate the description ie one must have a language that name and description fit into The structures must be there in the first place or there is nowhere for a word or definition to reside Naming is a part of the bigger language language does not come from naming

To Conclude

Ayer missed the point by a long shot Hel6 has removed (Isolated) the argument and is treating it as if it can be separated from the rest of the Philosophical Investigations He does not see the rest of the forest and is liable to brain himself if he is not careful Wittgenstein was illustrating and using the argument to strengthen the rest of his thesis-he never intended for

16 Ayer is not the philosopher looking at the tree and saying I know that is a tree Instead he says That is a tree that is grass That is sky

59 WITTGENSIEINS EMPLOYMENT

it to gain a life ofits own171bis again shows how philosophers have a habit of philosophical thinking not of real thinking18 Ayer is exactly what Wittgenstein is fighting the philosopher who putters about in meaningless philosphicallanguage games19

Alice thought to herself Then theres no use in speaking The voices didnt join in this time as she hadnt spoken but to her great surprise they all thought in chorus (I hope you understand what thinking in chorus means-for 1must confess that I dont) Better say nothing at all Language is worth a thousand pounds a word

-Lewis Carroll Through the Looking Glass

I1Wittgenstein touched Philosophys collective nerve when he brought up this subject Why is Private Language something that is fought over What does it matter I believe that Wittgenstein knew how otherphilosophers would react to bis ideas To him the argument was support for his thesis and not much else For other philosophers it became their route to employment Whar does it matter is an enquiry that must eventually be made so we can better know the psychology of philosophers (note psychology makes the same mistakes as philosophy)

II Remember the language game context (depth grammar) controls the mellning By removing the argument the depth grammar is ignored and the argument hilS no sense in its original sense I do not know if Wittgenstein would say it has any sense at all

19 What of Words we cannot say When we know something and understand it-we sometimes cannot express it in the language we speak This implies II problem with our spoken language

59 WITTGENSIEINS EMPLOYMENT

it to gain a life ofits own171bis again shows how philosophers have a habit of philosophical thinking not of real thinking18 Ayer is exactly what Wittgenstein is fighting the philosopher who putters about in meaningless philosphicallanguage games19

Alice thought to herself Then theres no use in speaking The voices didnt join in this time as she hadnt spoken but to her great surprise they all thought in chorus (I hope you understand what thinking in chorus means-for 1must confess that I dont) Better say nothing at all Language is worth a thousand pounds a word

-Lewis Carroll Through the Looking Glass

I1Wittgenstein touched Philosophys collective nerve when he brought up this subject Why is Private Language something that is fought over What does it matter I believe that Wittgenstein knew how otherphilosophers would react to bis ideas To him the argument was support for his thesis and not much else For other philosophers it became their route to employment Whar does it matter is an enquiry that must eventually be made so we can better know the psychology of philosophers (note psychology makes the same mistakes as philosophy)

II Remember the language game context (depth grammar) controls the mellning By removing the argument the depth grammar is ignored and the argument hilS no sense in its original sense I do not know if Wittgenstein would say it has any sense at all

19 What of Words we cannot say When we know something and understand it-we sometimes cannot express it in the language we speak This implies II problem with our spoken language

60 WILLIAM VOELKER

WorksCJted

Kripke Saul A Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language Camshybridge Mass Harvard Unlversity Press 1982

Pitcher George ed Wittgenstein The Philosophical Investigations Garden City New York Anchor Books 1966

[OC] Wittgenstein Ludwig On Certainty GEM Anscombe and Wright GH eds New York Harper amp Row1972

[PI] Wittgenstein Ludwig Philosophical Investigations Tr by OEM Anscombe New York Macmillan1968

[1L-P] Wittgenstein LudwIg Tractatus wgico-Philosophicus Tr by DF Pears and McGuinness BF Cornwall Great Britian Routledge Humanities Press International Inc 1988

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