• Tarski and the quotation marks of His principle
• Beyond Phenomenology
• Being and Event
• The Ethical Dissolution of Reality

Further information will be available shortly on the university’s website.

UPDATE: The university now has information on its site.

The first progression is that from the object to signs. In other words, an object begins with some kind of arbitrary value which is the basis for exchange. Money and capital as we know it did not exist at this level. We can see this in action with historical transactions between two entities: I exchange ten pounds of fertilizer and receive 25 gallons of milk. However, the progression to signs involves a kind of “standardization” in which each objects value is given a relatively static exchange ratio: a gallon of milk will be 4 units of this new sign–be it a dollar or whatever. At this point, the object becomes a commodity that is freely exchangeable in the market; it has become a simulation of the object.

This ability to be exchanged brings about the second progression: fetishism. A fetish is a perversion of the object that further removes it from the “real” object. It becomes a “pure, unrepresentable, unexchangeable object–yet a nondescript one” (Baudrillard, Impossible Exchange, 129). Here, the object is taken to the point of being a desire for the sake of desire. Zizek sees this best in the example of Caffeine free Diet Coke: it lacks everything that makes “Coke” “Coke” but it is the pure semblance of Coke, “an artificial promise of a substance which never [materializes]” (Zizek, The Fragile Absolute, 22). The fetish is not just a simulation of a simulation (what Baudrillard calls a simulacra) but it is also devoid of the “original” object: it is the nothingness itself.

Here we can see the final progression: the spectre (or phantasm). The object now becomes an unrepresented non-being which haunts the “real.” Not only does the object become a simulation, but even its component parts become simulated: Toyota cars are manufactured 60% in the USA. Perhaps the best example of this progression is in the phenomena called “reality TV.” These shows are no more real than “normal TV”: absurd scenarios with unreal events, simulated events, false personas, etc. Here, the actors are not given a particular role but rather play their own made-up role, an idealized, distorted self-image.

A direct corollary can be seen in that of The Matrix where those in the “real world” are projected back into the “virtual” world of the Matrix as imagined bodies. One’s identity in the “real world” is fragmented and distorted as the Matrix is treated as being more real than real, a hyperreality. As the end of The Matrix trilogy shows: there is no real distinction between the “real” world and that of the Matrix because one’s identity is a composite of fragments from many different “worlds” which reach across all the boundaries.

Where does all of this leave identity? A poster put up in Berlin in 1994 poked fun at loyalties to identities: “Your Chris is a Jew. Your car is Japanese. Your pizza is Italian. Your democracy–Greek. Your coffee–Brazilian. Your holiday–Turkish. Your numbers–Arabic. Your letters–Latin. Only your neighbour is a foreigner” (quoted from Zygmunt Bauman, Identity, 27). As the above progression of simulation is explored, it will become more obvious that “‘belonging’ and ‘identity’ are not cut in rock, that they are not secured by a lifelong guarantee, that they are eminently negotiable and revocable; and that one’s own decisions, the steps one takes, the way one act–and the determination to stick by all that–are crucial factors of both” (Bauman, 11).

Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 65.
From today, the only real cultural practice, that of the masses, ours (there is no longer a difference), is a manipulative, aleatory practice, a labyrinthine practice of signs, and one that no longer has any meaning.

Truth as Metaphor

Possibly Nietzsche’s greatest contribution to the study of knowledge focused on the language of epistemology. In his essay titled “On truth and lie in an extra-moral sense,” Nietzsche describes his position nicely:

What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms — in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins. (from The Portable Nietzsche, 46-7).

Simulated Truth

The message is clear: truth as a concept derives from the usage of language and is based solely on language. In reality, there is no Absolute Knowledge; there is no access to an undifferentiated knowledge of truth. Because of language, there cannot be knowledge of any kind of “objective” truth. For Nietzsche, truth and knowledge are really just forays into what is now called deconstruction. It’s all about interpretations of interpretations. To borrow Baudrillard, the language of truth is a set of simulacra that create and re-create a false notion of truth that has been accepted as the real thing. In reality, however, this notion of truth is the lack of the real thing. Slavoj Zizek explains how Coke is a great example of this:

We drink Coke — or any drink — for two reasons: for its thirst-quenching or nutritional value, and for its taste. In the case of caffeine-free diet Coke, nutritional value is suspended and the caffeine, as the key ingredient of its taste, is also taken away — all that remains is a pure semblance, an artificial promise of a substance which never materialized. Is it not true that in this sense, in the case of caffeine-free diet Coke, we almost literally “drink nothing in the guise of something”? (from The Fragile Absolute, 23)

Conclusions

There is no “postmodern epistemology” because it requires us to move beyond the confines of language. 20th century philosophy was obsessed about language until it slowly began to realize it cannot be comprehended. Language, as the vehicle of “truth,” cannot be transcended or reduced in order to provide insight into knowledge and truth. Truth and knowledge are embedded in language, the thing to which we humans are bound and chained. The best description we can have of truth and knowledge can be seen in Deleuze’s work The Logic of Sense. In this work, Deleuze speaks of knowledge as a polymorphic surface on which we oscillate between sense and nonsense, between understanding and non-understanding. There is no “deeper” meaning to language because it is all “surface” level; it would be better to picture it as moving away towards the edges (nonsense) and less as some kind of hidden “deep” structure (yes, Deleuze’s work here is a critique of people such as Noam Chomsky).
This brings the end of this series to an anticlimatic moment. The most recent theories of knowledge only undo the ones before it, bringing us back oddly close to Plato‘s position in the Meno: we cannot know truth in its unadulterated form. Truth as a concept is buried in our usage of language and neither it nor we can overcome language. We cannot overcome ourselves.

Deleuze believes that the best example of the War-Machine is Genghis Khan and his Mongolian warriors.  Even though they conquered the Chinese empire and large portions of the Muslim one, they slept in tents.  They razed cities, drove around the Great Wall, and killed for kicks.  Yet they never built (or rebuilt) cities, did not institute a new government, nor even made it mandatory for the people they destroyed to adhere to their laws.  This is because they had none.  There was no hierarchy.  They were rhizomatic….like weeds.  Yet, because of their lack of respect for laws, rules, and structures, they were also suicidal.  At any moment, they could have brought about their own destruction.  Yet they would still act without remorse.

Another example is that of Geronimo.  Here was a man upset at the Spanish.  Along with just two troops, he snuck past the guards and into the center of the Spanish encampment…and opened fire.  They were able to shoot 20 people dead.  It was a massacre by three.  That is the intensity of the War-Machine.

Today, there are many groups surfacing in this mode.  I say “mode” because it is not something one can always avoid.  Currently, the Christian Right, as well as other groups of neofundamentalists (e.g. the al Qaeda brand), are becoming machinic.  They are moving towards that suicidal grasp.  The recent problem with Ted Haggard is one such example.  One cannot become the War-Machine without losing control, ethics, and morality.  The War-Machine is pre-philosophic, pre-ethical, pre-morality.  It is passion and intensity.  It deterritorializes its past (i.e. removes the context of its past in which it is situated) and creates a new context which disregards both its contemporary locality and its historical context.  As Nietzsche said (On the Genealogy of Morals, of which Deleuze quotes often), “They come like fate, without resaon, consideration, or pretext…”  The War-Machine becomes the face of the other: a blank wall with two dark eyes.  It is the completely unknown.

Sense

One of the major strands that arose in the post-structuralist movement was put forth by Deleuze. He had criticised the concept of “deep structures” where the meaning of a given utterance was below the surface of the actual utterance. His primary suggestion was that meaning was also found at the surface but at the edges of it. Think of it like a plate where the utterances are closer to the center of the plate, but the meaning understood by the recipient is found around the edges and corners. Beyond this, he suggested that there is some kind of “external” reality (although this doesn’t really require any particular kind of epistemological view for it to work) and an “internal” reality. The internal was marked by thought while the external was marked by objects of thought (or even representations of those objects). Communication occurs, for this view, when the two randomly intersect at points Deleuze calls “singularities.” Each singularity is the transmission of thought from one to another. Here, though the meaning of a given phrase is in some kind of contextual flux where the given utterance is understood within the given context and isn’t necessarily understood that way in a different context.

Understanding

Derrida picked up on some parts of Deleuze when he said that “there is nothing outside the text.” For Derrida, the meaning of an utterance is only as good as the known context…and everything is context. This is where i will pick up. Deleuze’s “external” reality is more like a formless liquid. The meaning of a given utterance is arbitrary in that something like the word “red” refers to what is considered “red” because it has been imposed upon the “external.” There is nothing inherent to a cherry or an apple that makes it necessarily “red.” That color can just as easily be “grurpue” and those objects would be that. Therefore, i suggest that language is much like a glass which is used to constrain the “external” reality. Language is limited by itself and is self-referential. The “external” reality that remains apart from the glass of language is beyond a given language community’s understanding. Things like death and infinity are beyond most, if not all languages, but that is because the cup of language hasn’t been able to contain those “external” concepts. Communication is only possible when the communicants have some understanding of each other’s cup of language. It is generally assumed that those who use similar utterances are using similar cups, but that is just an assumption. There is nothing inherent in any of my writing here that guarantees i am using English. That is something assumed by you (my reader). In a more functional view, this assumption is worthwhile because otherwise nobody would be certain of their communications.

Sensing Meaning

This leads us to a kind of disjunct where the theoretical differs from the functional. It would be better to continue using the functional for the reason that it is functional. The theoretical is good for conversation pieces, but not for any kind of functional working. Yet, this leads us to the matter of interpretation. Not only should one be concerned with how one interprets another’s communication directed at the one (e.g. how do you interpret these symbols and the meaning contained within their patterns) but also how does one interpret something written by another to another (e.g. how do you interpret something like the Bible which was written by somebody to somebody else…and neither of those people are you). In the next part, i will explain this further and how we should approach interpreting communications that are completely external to somebody. It may well be impossible to place oneself within a totally foreign context, meaning that we may never be certain of the communication. But, there may be some functional method with which we can have some kind of working understanding that will remain fluid so that if more context becomes available, the interpretation can change.

Lacan

Lacan first saw the problem of seeing language as purely sound waves. His most famous example is that of the restroom door. Suppose a boy and a girl were on a train approaching a train station. When they both see the restroom doors, the boy may say “we’re at the boy’s room.” The girl, finding this wrong, would suggest “no, we are at the girl’s.” The truth is, though, they were at both. The problem is that the two doors (each a signified) were identical except for the placard above them (signifier). Lacan then suggests that the signifier enters in the signified to form the sign. Without that signifier, it would be impossible to determine which door leads to which restroom.

Derrida

Later philosophers would suggest that language is primarily a written form, but they were quickly dismissed upon discovering that many undeveloped cultures do not have a written language. In Derrida, we find an idea that language is both written and spoken. His famous example is that of differance. In French, difference and differance are pronounced exactly the same. Difference is a “real” word that translates as “difference” (amazing!), yet differance is one Derrida coined. As Derrida said, differance “is not: it has neither existence nor essence” (Differance, 111). It comes from primarily two other words defer (meaning “to put off”) and differ (”to be unlike”) while using a gerundive ending to place the word between active and passive voice. The basic reasoning for this term was to suggest that language is in flux as a fluid object. The idea of a clear, stable meaning (which was found in the structuralists) was rejected. The meaning of a word could only be described by using other words. In other words, language is self-referential.

Blanchot

The self-referential idea of language enters into what becomes the postmodern discourse and becomes a key point. Yet, it is Maurice Blanchot who kills any possible obsession with language. In his The Writing of the Disaster, Blanchot points out that language is unable to do some very important things as it encounters its own walls. Blanchot speaks of the disaster (well, more of dis-aster, coming from the etymology of the word used to imply cataclysmic events such as a star falling) as being the limits of language. Language is unable to fully grasp the dis-aster. Blanchot ultimately concludes that language is highly over-rated.

Meaning

Here is the primary activity of language, yet it is not simply some kind of concrete definition. Some languages make a distinction between the meaning of a word (i.e. how does the dictionary define it?) and the sense of a word (i.e. how is it used in its current context?). By making this distinction, we can account for idiomatic expressions. “Kick the bucket” is no longer bound to one’s foot striking a bucket but can be extended to imply one’s death. This will be important when trying to interpret texts as it requires a context. This sentiment can be found in Derrida’s statement that “there is nothing outside the text.” There is so much relevant to a given text that the interpretation requires but yet this context is so often excluded on the basis of it being irrelevant. When we get to the problem of hermeneutics, we will see that the context of a given text includes all of history coming up to that point and the culture in which it was written. An informed interpretation of the book of Daniel may not be the “common sense” literal reading of it.

• “Biblical” vs “postmodern” thinking
• Paradigm Shift

i don’t really like criticising others because there is enough of that going around, so i will not criticise the people who wrote these, nor make any claims regarding their spirituality. But, i will point out a few features:

1. When speaking of the “good side” (i.e. the “Biblical” side), we should rip verses and passages from the Bible to prove our point.
2. When speaking of the “bad side” (i.e. the “postmodern” side), we should not quote anyone whatsoever and make strong assertions about how screwed up it is compared to what “we” believe.

i’m sorry, but the minute one decides that he is right and makes everyone else wrong, we have moved beyond any kind of meaningful discourse. It becomes “us” versus “them” where “us” is right and “them” is wrong. Self-righteousness like that shouldn’t be accepted as a “Christian” attitude. We are called to be humble in all things, including knowledge. By denying the possibility of being wrong, we become prideful and immediately exclude ourselves from the grace God gives.
So, what’s my point? Should we critique others? Sure, but we should stick to the principle of falsifiability: the possibility that we’re wrong. If one doesn’t want to be wrong on some things (such as the Resurrection of Christ or the existence of God), then assume it true but always with the disclaimer that it is assumed true and not proven true. Too many today think that assuming something as true is wrong. That is a wrong assumption to have. And yes, that pun is intended.

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