Download 2 / Communication before deconstruction

2 / Communication before deconstruction
Husserl’s impact
Husserl’s vission of a First Philosophy has been
prominent within the twentieth-century theoretical
thinking.
Phenomenological elements into the humanities and the
social sciences.
Phenomenologically
Describe, the everyday life-world, insider’s point of
inspired ideas and
view, reduction, presence, transcendence, the subject,
concepts
life-world, temporality, transcendental consciousness,
deconstruction.
Communication studies
Emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s? Influences
from phenomenology are visible.
Chapter outline
1. How this phenomenological consciousness
makes possible the clear articulation of a subjectbased problematic.
2. How and why these theories necessarily fail to
answer the question of mediation <-- idealist
vision of the subject
A NOTE ON THE PROBLEMATIC
Althusser: the problematic Looking beneath theories to uncover their foundation.
Performing a “symptomatic reading” the available
theories --> reconstruct the system behind the words.
Epistemological field
Constitutes “a problematic”. Functions as the latent
thought-structure enabling the production of theories.
The prolematic gives order to the pretheoretical chaos
and determines what counts as a legitimate scientific
object.
THE QUESTION THEN…: COMMUNICATION AND THE COMMUNICATIVE
SUBJECT
The central challenge
How is individuality transcended? How is sharing
meaning/understanding achieved? Concerns questioning
what is usually taken for granted.
Ricoeur: (…) Because [it]… appears as a way of
transcending or overcoming the fundamental solitude of
each human being.” (39).
Central mystery
Communication seems to be a necessary fact. Yet
communication appears to be enigmatic, a person’s
individuality as a difference that sets a person apart from
all others. Can both be possible? The possibility of
transcending individuality.
Presuppes a conception of In short noncommunication. Overcoming the dilemma of
subjectivity as essentially understanding the individual, the egocentric subject as
solitary
bot monadlike and coexisting.
Modernized
Inagurated by Husserl’s transcendental subject. This
transcendentalism
constitutes the background for thematizing the solitary
subject of communication. Both existing with and
necessarily distanced from other subject and the social
world.
COMMUNICATION AS MEDIATION: THE POSTAL PRINCIPLE
The solitary subject
The primitive of the problematic of communication.
Because:
1. It is a necessary constituent of the problematic.
2. The nature of the solitary subject is determined
before its participation in the problematic. Before
the theory.
Problem of mediation
The challenge of communication translated into a
challenge of privacy. The problem of communication
rewritten as a problem of mediaton. How can solitary
subjects share understandings. Closing the gap between
the islandlike monads.
Communication represents the embodiment of an
interplay between self and other.
From individual to
The telos of communication as a dialectical becoming.
commonality
The I becomes a member of the We.
Communication as
The delivery of messages. The specific adressing
transmission
according to receiver. Communicatio as delivery.
The postal principle
- the more general principle governing the dialectic of
mediation. The postal principle as the medium of
communication rather than the reverse. The presupposed
identity of both the addresser and the addressee, and the
identity of the message.
Why postal principle
Unifies the concepts of communication, exchange, and
mediation under one rule – its own rationality as
universal mediation. This postal ideology explains why
the concept of communication so easily translates into
the concept of mediation. Really?
Potential problems with
It seems to me that Chang works with at least two
Chang
somewhat dubious premisses: that communication
effortlessly translates into mediation; and that in creating
and sending messages, receiving is already inscribed in
the sending, that the addressee must be known prior to
the sending.
METAPHORS AT LARGE IN COMMUNICATION
Metaphors to explain
Metaphors easily step over their function and stand in
communication
place of the concept they are supposed to illustrate. A
trespassing of the abstrac by the concrete, a reversal of
the signifier and the signified.
The danger of
Raises questions regarding the validity of explanatory
overreliance of metaphors discourses in which the usurpation takes place. Are
communication theories nothing but postal constructs?
Derrida on metaphors in
The founding concepts of philosophy are metaphorical
philosophy
and philosophy is as such not rational altough appearing
to be. A heliotropic system of metaphors. Philosophy is
necessarily a culture-specific tropology. Has become
powerlessto control the tropology that has empowered it.
Towards “hermeneutics of Sceptisism toward the foundatio of communication
suspicion” towards the
theory inspired by Derrida’ scepticism.
origin of communication
Theories of communication, relying on metaphors, as not
theory
different from fictional artifacts?
REREADING THE PROBLEMATIC OF COMMUNICATION
Resisit parrotry when
Staying within the problematic of communication, yet
rereading
remaining indifferent to its suggestions.
How?
How is the problematic of communication as an active
structure of determination itself determined?
How does the postal government of communication
itself display the same kind of metaphorical
displacement that is displayed in the postal construction
of communication?
Dialogical nature
“I give myself verbal shape from another’s point of
view” (56). Verbal (only?) communication requires a
minimal level of reciprocity. Perspective taking.
Parallels to G. H. Mead (and hence symbolic
interactionism).
Language/code
Communication, communality, co-operation. Language
makes this possible in the first place. More precisly the
code. Establishes the possibility of commonality in a
world of differences and the basis for co-ordination.
Code/intersubjectivity
The code is essentially intersubjective. Intersubjectivity
as the key term in explaining how individuality is
transcended.
Codes translates what is subjective into something
objective or accessible.
Intersubjectivity thus the
Answers the question of communication: how
mediating term
individuality is transcended. The conflict between the
natural certainty (we communicate) and the reflective
puzzle (solipsism).
IGNOTUM PER IGNOTIUS; OR, THEORETICAL VENTRILOQUISM
First: definition
Explaining the unknown by means of the more
unknown.
The problematic of
Fundamentally at triadic structure of subject, mediation,
communication
intersubjectivity. Chained together by the postal
principle.
The problem of the
Generated from within the problematic in response to the
concept of
problematic’s initial move of postulating a solitary
intersubjectivity
subject. This way the concept and meaning of
intersubjectivity blocks any further exploration of the
relation between privacy and mediation without really
explaining anything.
“The logic of “deferral”
Parallel to the concepts of “social role” and “interaction”
(suspension)
in sociology. Tautologically defined: one is defined or
clarified in relation to the other. Radically compromises
the explanatory utility of the concepts.
The same can be said about the postal play taking place
between mediation and intersubjectivity in
communication theories.
Trades away the
1. Intersubjectivity functions as a transcendental
explanatory integrity
signifier. It accounts for mediation but is itself
unaccounted for.
2. As a signifier immune to reflexive critique,
Tautologically understood
intersubjectivity designates the problematic’s
own blind spot.
The theoretical challenge of solipsism is silenced.
Communication and intersubjectivity can only be
tautologically understood. The lack of a terminal referent
whose meaning does not presuppose prior understanding
of the terms within the problematic.
3 / The inaugural relation:
toward an ontology of communication
DeMan: no natural
unrhetorical language
Rhetorical turn
Communication theories
Reality constituted as such by linguistic signs according
to their own reason. Establishes the world as present.
Rhetoric as epistemic and ontological.
Captives of their metaphors, their rhetoric.
How then can theorizing about communication find a
way out of the metaphorical mess and still respond to the
initial existential eigma that brings that theorizing into
being (the fact of communication taking place +
solipsism).
READING THE CIRCLE AND THE HERMENEUTIC RETURN
Chang’s aim
Conduct a Heideggerian critique of the “textual
prehistory” of communication theories. An archeological
reading of the movement between the two signifiers
communication and intersubjectivity to uncover the
staging of elements that supports the double play of the
metaphorical couple of mediation and intersubjectivity.
--> a nontranscendental regrounding of communication
theories.
YOU MUST TAKE FOR GRANTED THE TAKEN-FOR-GRANTED
Husserl’s post-Cartesian
Not a simple or innocent point of departure although
self
Husserl seems to believe so. Identity “actualizes itself as
a grasping of itself by the unity that I am in myself”
(Nancy in Chang: 74). “Cogito” presupposes a selfconstituted ego.
The question of self“if the foundation of philosophy is to be found in the I
foundation
think, could the thinking of an I be a good judge of the
validity of its own thinking?” (75).
The problem of self-reflection because of the problem of
infinite regress.
Self-reflection
Cannot provide anything beyond the empty truism that
the reflecting self is capable of self-reflection. With a
starting point in the self, reflection can never close the
gap between that which reflects and that which is
reflected upon.
Husserl’s shift to
A response to the problem of infinite regress. A need to
transcendental
install a “firstness of the ego” to halt the reduction. A
phenomenology
moment of aboslute knowledge above and beyond the
sphere of infinite regress. The stopping point of the
transcendental consciousness. Necessary to avoid
scepticism and relativism.
Difficulties with Husserl’s Especially concerning the question of intersubjectivity.
transcendentalism
The chasm between the self and other seems decisive
and too wide to cross. There is no escape from solipsism
(although reduction promises exactly that).
Existential turn
By Husskerl’s followers. Reverting to the mundane
world of everyday life. Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger,
Sartre. Looking at the surrounding worl: individuals act
and react before they reflect. Intersubjectivitiy is
declassified and becomes an intramundane problem. The
everyday world is already a world with others.
Already
Changes its meaning from temporarily prior to logically
following. Takes on additional meaning of
“metaphysical priority.” States a relation between
concepts. Intersubjectivity gets metaphysical priority
over the subject. Hence, no problem of solipsism.
GROUNDING THE LIFE-WORLD: SOCIAL ONTOLOGY
The “alreadyness” of the
The ego lives and interacts with others before it becomes
life-world
aware of its solitude (clearly there are parallels here to
Lacan’s emancipating-from-mother theories?). The
social nature of the world is a definitive fact. The world
is intersubjective. Intersubjectivity precedes
individuality.
How is a common world
How does it come about? The formation of the
possible?
intersubjective lifeworld.
Cannot be answered at the level of descriptive
phenomenology (descr. ph. the same as exist. ph.?)
The metaphysical problem Pushes phenomenology into a social ontology.
of fundamental-grounding An impossible project? <-- every attempt leads to a
situation with three unacceptable alternatives.
Trilemma:
(1) infinite regress. (2) a logical circle: one is forced to
resort to statements that have already shown themselves
to be in need of grounding. (3) a stopping of the process
at one point > arbitrary suspension.
Intersubjective phenomenology faces this trilemma
because it cannot eschew the question of how it is
founded.
Crucial task
To identify at which moment cessation takes place and
determine the implications for the conceptual system.
Post-Husserlian
The rejection of the transcendental pov.; and the
phenomenologies
opposition to the reduction ti the sphere of ownness.
reactions
Focus is rather on the everyday world.
Radical redefinition of the phenomenological enterprise.
--> Schutz and Luckmann The everyday life-world is man’s fundamental and
paramount reality. That part of reality which we take for
granted as common sense.
- Entails as such an ontological commitment. Responds
to the problem of fundamental-grounding.
The everyday life
Where social life begins and where intersubjective
phenomenology marks its reflexive point of
investigation.
Taken for granted
> the irreducibility of a naïve trust in reality.
> the permanence of that faith: there is always some part
of reality that is accepted as valid or unproblematic.
The concept of the lifeIn the post-Husserlian phenomenology of
world signals the moment intersubjectivity. Now the search for intersubjectivity
of cessation
can be laid to rest. Descriptive phenomenology reaches
its borderline, social ontology takes over.
Intersubjectivity
From the transcendental subject to the taken-for-granted
reanchored
intersubjective life-world. The intersubjective life-world
begins as a descriptive concept, but ends as an
ontological postulate.
Ontologizing the lifeThe only way to terminate the infinite regress of
world
searching for ground.
But bypasses the question The strategy of ontologizing is a strategy of
of the relation between the prioritization.
subject and the world
The transcendence of subjectivity remains a problem.
What is still missing
A fundamental ontology as a crtique of subjectivity.
--> Heideggeria turn: give way to a fundamental
ontology that responds to the hermeneutic complexity of
existence.
Juxtaposing being and communication.
FUNDAMENTAL ONTOLOGY: QUO VADIS
Heidegger’s fundamental
Launched against representational metaphysics
ontology
(epistemology is really metaphysical).
The question of Being
Diachronic thinking of the nature of Being.
A return to metaphysics focusing on the sources of
intelligibility implicit in our everyday existence.
Rupture with
Critical of Husserl’s prejudgement, depends on a
Husserlianism
postulated distinciton between subject and object;
between consciousness and its object.
A hermeneutic inquiry of
Preliminary to a illuminating of Being as such.
Dasein – being there
Returning to where man already and always is: being-inthe-world. A world of cultural and historical meanings.
Heidegger’s reading of
Metaphysics becomes problematic again. The critique of
Kant
pure reason. Inherits from Descartes the idea that the
basic condition of knowledge is the ego as “I think.” The
ego exists as a permanent principle of thinking and
cannot be a representation or a represented object.
Functions as the fundamental ontological foundation of
being. All things that are not the I, are something that
But what is the difference stand as something else in relation to a subject. The
between Kant and
Being of all things are determined by their relation to the
Husserl?
subject.
The search for Being
Directed toward the subjective roots of the
transcendental consciousness.
The problem with Kant’s
Fails to grasp the transcendental I as factical and an
representionism
essentially temporal existence. Fails to recognize that “I
(am)” us always and already somewhere and at some
point in time.
Kant is trapped by the transcendental illusion.
THE THERE OF BEING
Kant’s transcendental
critique of knowledge
”an inquiry into the ultimate conditions a priori in terms
of which there is knowledge. This meant that it had to be
an inquiry into thinking per se as productive of
knowledge, into the structure of thinking, and thus into
the ultimate unconditioned grounds and sources of
knowledge.”
(http://www.crvp.org/book/ISM/MASTER-4.htm)
Heidegger critique of Kant Kant’s critical idealims subordinates object to subject
leading to a high degree of ontological indeterminacy.
Fundamental ontology
Heidegger’s proposal. Traditional ontology does not
problematize the nature of Being. This must be the
starting point for ontology.
” Heidegger hopes to recover a more original sense of
things by setting aside reality as seen from theorizing
and focusing on the way things show up in the flux of
every pre-reflective activities
Heidegger begins by asking the question of traditional
ontology, “What is the being of entities?” But Heidegger
quickly asks “What is the meaning of being?” or else
ontology will remain naïve and opaque
A two-ponged task:
fundamental ontology is a
hermeneutic topology of
Being
Starts from a
preontological
understanding of Being
Where to start
The questioning
Fundamental ontology
Dasein
Since what things are [their being] is accessible only if
intelligible to us, “fundamental ontology” will clarify the
meaning [that is, the conditions of intelligibility] of
things in general” (Anil Mitra: Heidegger on Being)
1. The question of the topos of being: where is this
internal possibility of understanding of Being to
be found?
2. The question of interpreting that understanding
once that topos is located.
The meaning of Being available as an always already
vague, avergae understanding of Being. Preunderstood
as ”that which determines beings as being. From this the
ontological clarification of Being must proceed.
No guarantee that one is able to enter the hermeneutical
circle of this preunderstaning of Being in a manner
adequate to the task,
The ontological must be sought in the ontic [refering to
existing reality; concerned with the facts of entities], but
how can the former be canvassed in adequate clarity on
the basis of the latter?
The question of Being is immediately reflexive. To the
questioning of Being one has to add a questioning of the
questioning and of the questioner.
A topology of Being and a reflexive hermeneutic
converge as one in fundamental ontology.
”this being, which we ourselves are and which has
questioning as one of its possibilities of Being.”
” By using the expression Dasein, Heidegger called
attention to the fact that a human being cannot be taken
into account except as being an existent in the middle of
a world amongst other things (Warnock 1970), that
Dasein is ‘to be there’ and ‘there’ is the world. To be
human is to be fixed, embedded and immersed in the
physical, literal, tangible day to day world”
(http://www.royby.com/philosophy/pages/dasein.html)
Essentially reflexive being both the subject and object of reflection,
”Dasein constitutes an existential opening in the form of
a temporal, historical and mortal organization where
being first becomes apparent and approachable”. (98).
Exposure as in making
Of Dasein’s need of being and the hidden meaning of
manifest or laying bare
this needfulness.
To expose metaphysics as representationism. Setting the
limits of metaphysics. Starting point: no longer in the I’s
a priori structures of objective knowledge but in our
being’s involvement with things and with others.
Being-in-the-world
The originary basis of metaphysics.
The mutation of
From Husserl to Heidegger: has to do with the role of
transcendentalism
man: the condition of our knowledge is sought in our
relation to the being of entities in their totality.
BEING AS RELATIONAL TOTALITY
Husserl’s eidetic-noetic
Eidetic: precise, detailed, photographic memory
phenomenology
Noetic: referring to the mind or intellect, or to
understanding gained through human rational processes.
- Subject/ego understands world through a precise
intellectual (transcendental) process?
Dasein
Critical extension of Husserl’s understanding of what
constitutes phenomenological evidence. I.e. evidence of
reality, of entities in the life-world?
Husserl’s phenomenology Omits questioning the phenomena themselves.
comes to short
Overconfidence in transcendental optics: --> blurs the
distinction between the given and its appearance.
Hermeneutic shortcoming.
Radicalizing the
Cannot be understood solely as immanent/located inside
conception of
the subject. ”I can see a natural thing in its bodily
transcendence
presence only on the basis of this being-in-the-world”
(Heidegger in Chang: 101). Dasein: the constitutive
antecedence of the subject’s relfective possibilities.
Dasein destroys the
And destroys the dualist economy that priviliges te
representational
subject over the object.
metaphysics
Man and world: distinct yet essentially related. Must be
considered to be mutually constitutive.
Dasein as a way of being
Whose essence is its relation with the world and its
possibilities thereof.
Let go of Husserl’s
Dasein is always outside, alongside entities. Hence the
constructionist theory of
knower cannot be substantialized as the origin of the
knowledge
known.
Antisubstantial, antidualist understanding of Dasein <-Openness/disclosure
Phainomena as something that of themselves show
themselves or appear. Appears as something meaningful
(with a function?). Most entities simply occupy space
and persist through time [but this seems to be related to
physical entities alone – what about transcendental
concepts?] Dasein however, stands ahead of itself, open
to its own possibilities as transcendence [aka beyond the
limits of experience?]
Dasein has no essence
As in fixed qualities. Dasein cannot be anything but its
openness.
Dasein is openness
Being-in as in being-alongside: being open for.
Situated disclosure
Points to the mutual presence of Dasein and the world.
The coming into presence of the average everyday world
Significance-world
as a structure of significance: specific situation, place in
the world and its moment in history.
Hermeneutic turn to
The truth is as much a matter of producing as it is of
phenomenology
proving.
TOWARDS AN ONTOLOGY OF COMMUNICATION