>
>-It was attended by a body of thinkers within that tradition,and was
>concerned with apophactic theology.
>I submitted this reference to point to the range of Derrida's actual
>activity,to show that the word
>"Derrida" points to a complex body of on-going work,and that to subsume
>this work to a global attitude of
>prejudice was sufficient grounds to draw commentary.You may feel
>"seriously excluded" re specialist vocabularies-this does not entail that
>those discussions are worthless,nor need it be the case that any attitude
>is required.
> Once again- the leap toward proclaiming opinion based upon attitude rather
>than inquiry.
Wil, your comments, also, unavoidably perhaps, display an attitude. I grant
that my remarks about Derrida et al were melodramatic rhetorical baits,
which happily were taken. Your attitude is that once a certain ongoing
body-of-work reaches a certain stage of academic authority, opinions like
mine are out of order and obviously uninformed. I disagree. My comments
are based on serious reading of my own; my point about the mystification
of "language" in the writers I mentioned is a reasoned, if broad, position
to take. I suppose if listmembers overlook that, because of my use of
terms like "gobbledy-gook", the consequence is my own fault, & I'm paying for
the rhetorical exaggeration in that case. But on the other hand, just because
Derrida is the focus of serious on-going complex attention does not mean
a basic thrust of his position is beyond critique.
Tim, my comment about "American know-nothings" was a response to the
tone in which your original post was couched, where your statements about
the American reception of Derrida was used to measure the unseemliness of
my remarks. As for the use of my term "authority", I think the umbrage
with which my comments on Heidegger, Derrida et al were met speaks well
for the accuracy of that term.
Henry
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