Schrag quotes from
Ryle,
Schrag writes that
"Ryle extols Heidegger as a philosopher who "shows himself to be a thinker of real importance by the immense subtlety and searchiness in his examination of consciousness"". ("Philosophical Conversations", p. x -- googlebooks). Schrag goes on to provide the 'stock categories of orthodox philosophy' quote as the earliest manifesto, almost, of deconstructionism!
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On the other hand, Grice revived constructionism!
For Carnap it's all a matter of RATIONAL reconstruction. Grice would drop the 're-'. Construction will do. Grice is VERY serious about 'constructionism'. What do WE construct? Do we construct the stock categories of orthodox philosophy, or are we constructed by them?
What is to construct?
For Grice, the philosopher is mainly a builder. Some conform with just describing the architecture -- (the descriptivists) -- but if bold enough, one goes on to revise (the revisionaries), and rebuild!
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I like that you find Grice more interested in construction than re-construction, though I would have thought that more appropriate to Carnap than Grice.
ReplyDeleteThe re- seems appropriate firstly when the construction is exegetical, and possibly also for not quite exegetical but similar in some respects things "descriptive" in the sense of Strawson's descriptive metaphysics. Both of these have the character of attempts to construct an account (possibly an explication) of something which is already more or less definitely out there.
Constructive without the re- suggests something more novel, a construction which stands on its own merits rather than serving only to make clearer some prior construction, either in an author or something less personal like a language.
In this analysis Carnap's general thrust is constructive not re-constructive. One of the defects in Quine's Two Dogmas is that Quine insists that a definition of analyticity must be consistent with prior usage in some way, which Carnap could in my opinion say, but did not need to say.
From this point of view, ordinary language philosophy could be seen as a descriptive analysis in which one re-constructs aspects of ordinary language, analogous to (or encompassing) descriptive metaphysics in which
one extracts the metaphysics implicit in or presupposed by ordinary language.
On the other hand, when we devise formal languages for scientific purposes other than the analysis of actual languages (which is what Carnap is mostly talking about), then you perhaps close to pure "construction" in which there is nothing prior against which the fidelity of your construction should be judged. (there may be something prior which helps with motivation, but the intention is to come up with something better, not just to analyse the predecessor).
I would be interested in one or two examples of what you consider in Grice to be construction rather than re-construction, and possible the opposite in Carnap.
RBJ
Thanks. Re-reading my post, I see that my focus was on Schrag, though. Those "Conversations" (googlebooks) were the result of his interaction with Oxonians, and Schrag was so obsessive with 'deconstructionism' (I was quoting just from his preface) that it made me think. For he is saying that Ryle was the first deconstructionist. Having been to Yale and seeing how awfully influential that 'silly' (i.e. blessed) French department had been I could not but wonder. Deconstructionism, it seems, was in 'any progressive lip' at the time, as Grice would say. Blame on Derrida. I actually met Derrida, and I actually THINK I understand what he means by de-constructionism! --.
ReplyDeleteI would think the most seriously constructive routines by Grice (I note there is a similar post on this blog which I first thought Jones was commenting on, where I refer to Kramer's use of "constructive" to mean something like 'deeming' -- cfr. also 'logical construction'. This I had entitle, Grice's constructivism, rather than 'constructionism'.
I agree with Jones about the re- thing. Again, if I were to quote Grice as his constructionist best, I would refer to the latter bit in "Reply to Richards" where he goes on to list a few of his 'metaphysical' construction routines, such as Humean projection, and metaphysical transubstantiation. I think Judith Baker does a good work on this in her intro to Grice 1991 --. Value, for example, is constructed, according to Grice. But then, also possibly every concept (or conception) we are endowed with, like negation, or -- you name it.
---- I would need to revise the Carnapiana, but I think you are right that 'constructionism' seems to apply to Carnap more than it applies to Grice. Grice, bold as he likes to sound, is tied in some serious way with what is OUT there, so his attempt seems re- at most. In particular, Grice, unlike Carnap, seems to be tied to the idea of 'intuition' as THE philosophical method par excellence (but he won't say it). So, the philosopher has ONE criterion for the validity of what he does: he intuits alright! I.e., he is equipped with some construct. He wants to 'reconstruct it rationally'.
In Grice, perhaps the emphasis is on the building blocks as it were. His approach is guided by this 'latitudinal unity': semantics reduces to philosophical psychology, philosophical psychology rests on theory theory, value theory rests on metaphysics, etc. It seems to be all about seeing something AS something else. Or something.
But I will elaborate on this. But again, note that the post was motivated to bring 'deconstructionism' to the forum, as it were!
The wiki essay on deconstruction notes that Derrida, being or trying to be witty, was thinking of mistranslating Heidegger's Abbau. This seems indeed very much 'deconstruction', seeing that Carnap was proposing his Aufbau instead. Note that 'bau' is all about 'build' --. I should revise English roots here. I do think the root features in things like 'neigh-bour', i.e. the one who lives next door, or who lives in a building next door. Etc.
ReplyDeleteThe wiki 'deconstruction' quotes from the locus classicus in Derrida. Derrida writes:
ReplyDelete"it inaugurates the destruction, not the demolition but the de-sedimentation, the de-construction."
So the architectural metaphor is there. Demolition I like. De-sedimentation I'm not sure I understand what it means, strictly. I mean, if someone were to tell me, "De-sedimentate", I wouldn't know what to do.
My motivation in the original post in this thread was political. Anarchic French thinkers (like Derrida?) are or seem deconstructionists. Deconstruction pictures a French frame of mind. I was thinking of a more conservative, reactionary approach by Grice. When he gets slightly obsessed with 'constructionism', he may have had in mind the fashion for deconstruction in various fields. (Rorty, for example, would use analytic constructivist approaches till he turned Derridean).
ReplyDeleteThis from D. Allison, who translated Derrida. It points to the not necessarily so radical-sounding approach where Carnap and Grice may even agree with Derrida:
"'Deconstruction' is somewhat less negative than the Heideggerian or Nietzschean terms 'destruction' or 'reversal'; it suggests that certain foundational concepts of metaphysics will never be entirely eliminated...There is no simple 'overcoming' of metaphysics or the language of metaphysics."
Cited in the wiki, 'deconstruction':
ReplyDelete"Deconstruction for Beginners[23] and Deconstructions: A User's Guide[24])"
Imagine:
Gricean Routine Constructions for Beginners.
Grice's Construction Routines: A DYU User's Guide.
Or not -- i.e. or not imagine.
The problem with Derrida was his accent. It is ok in French, but when translated!
ReplyDeleteBut read this from the wiki on deconstruction and think how it relates to Carnap and Grice:
"Derrida states that deconstruction is not a critique in the Kantian sense.[27] This is because Kant defines the term critique as the opposite of dogmatism. For Derrida it is not possible to escape the dogmatic baggage of the language we use in order to perform a pure critique in the Kantian sense. For Derrida language is dogmatic because it is inescapably metaphysical. Derrida argues that language is inescapably metaphysical because it is made up of signifiers that only refer to that which transcends them - the signified."
Derrida's ANSWER to 'deconstruction' we can, of course, ignores. I met the man and he LOOKED pretty confused! But the stating of the problem may shed light on things one feels when one reads Grice (and I hope, perhaps, Carnap).
A footnote to wiki's 'deconstruction' below. Having met the man and seeing all the polemic the poor man engaged with Foucault, Quine, Searle, Habermas (who CAN be pretentious with his appeal to rationality!) etc. one has to be charitable with Derrida. This from a supporter or at least not loud critic of his work:
ReplyDelete"deconstruction which for many has come to designate the content and style of Derrida's crunk, reveals to even a superficial examination, a well-ordered procedure, a step-by-step type of argumentation based on an acute awareness of level-distinctions, a marked thoroughness and regularity. [...] Deconstruction must be understood, we contend, as the attempt to "account," in a certain manner, for a heterogeneous variety or manifold of nonlogical contradictions and discursive equalities of all sorts that continues to haunt and fissure even the successful development of philosophical arguments and their systematic exposition."
(cited by wiki).