Hi, Khazeh, At 05:53 PM 9/27/03 +0100, you wrote: >>BUT PLEASE further read these excerpts and tell me what is the point of view of >>these author? Including the Century of Light authors? There seems to be a >>conflict...Can you understand any of it? If any one can it must be you Mark.<<
Thanks. Of course. >>Please take a few minutes and explain the background to me. I will not trouble you >>again. I promise<< lol. You can "trouble" me any time you like. >>Question: What do you get when you cross Derrida with a member of the Mafia? >>Answer: Someone making you an offer you can't understand, or refuse!<< Of course, the assumption is that if you turn down "the Mafia," such as a request for protection money, you do so in jeopardy to your own life. The writer was juxtaposing the so-called Mafia with a reference to Derrida, admittedly a difficult writer. It takes several readings of his works to get something of a handle on what he had in mind. >>Invoking the French linguist Saussure's metaphor of the chessboard, Cole suggests >>that Baha'u'llah's adducing of Christian scriptures reconfigured the revelatory >>position of the Qur'an as dispensational rather than final, causing it to look quite >>different from the traditional Muslim perspective of it.<< Saussure's semiotics was, to my understanding, concerned with relational meaning. For instance, in my Social Problems classes, I distinguish between relational models and comparative models. Comparison is at the root of the multicultural movement, which celebrates difference without engaging in a criticism of the power relations between the represented statuses. An examination of power differentials (social stratification) is a relational study. It could also be called "social semiotics" (my own term). Likewise, Saussure argued that the meaning a sentence (for instance) has to listeners or readers changes when the gestalt (configuration) of the words (or any signs) is manipulated. Signs only have meaning in relation to other signs. Therefore, by Baha'u'llah placing the Qur'an into a new "semiotic framework," He changed its meaning. >>I was urged by Franklin Lewis of the University of Chicago to make clearer in this >>revision (1 April 1994) the distinction between a perhaps more Apollonian semiotic >>approach that would stress polyvalence, and the more Dionysian approach of Derrida's >>deconstruction, which would talk of semantic ambiguity and instability. I do not >>myself believe deconstruction is altogether incompatible with elements of >>Babi-Baha'i epistemology, but in this paper I am simply opening the question.<< The distinction being drawn is between contradiction and ambiguity. Derrida's deconstructionism favored the later by allowing the interpreter to question meanings. Contradiction obviously does not. Cole is questioning whether Derrida's approach is compatible with "Babi-Baha'i epistemology." IMO, Babi epistemology is, at least on face value, more polyvalent, to use Cole's term, whereas Baha'i epistemology is somewhat more ambiguous and would more readily permit deconstruction. >>I do wish to suggest that in any case the alternative Western traditions of >>positivism and the Vienna circle approach to language analysis are unlikely to be as >>helpful in understanding Baha'u'llah's and the Bab's approaches to textual >>interpretation as are either semiotics or postmodernism (the latter itself diverse >>and not limited to deconstruction).<< Cole is saying that neither textual literalism (positivism) and propositionalism (the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle) nor semiotics and postmodernism are helpful in Baha'i hermeneutics. >>One must tread with care to keep historiographical deconstruction from degenerating >>into mere historical solipsism. Nonetheless, an awareness of the degree to which >>interpretation colours our understanding of history offers insights which can give >>sanction to a great deal of "remembered" and, to a small extent, even to "invented" >>history.<< Questioning the normative assumptions of a particular historiography (historical mirror) should not be allowed to degenerate into extreme subjectivity. Some of the less careful approaches to Husserlian phenomenology have gone in this direction. Winters is basically arguing for epoche or bracketing. >>Against the background of this desolate landscape the intellectual vogue of the age, >>seeking to make a virtue out of grim necessity, has adopted for itself the >>appellation and mission of "deconstructionism".<< Right. That is my problem with extreme postmodernism. There are about 50 technical points that are flashing in and out of my mind now, but I will limit my response to one. Sociological deconstructionists, in recognizing the "grim necessity" of questioning existing norms or constructs, sometimes exceed the possibilities of the scientific method, going from epistemological relativism to ontological relativism. Mark A. Foster * http://MarkFoster.net http://CompuServe.m.foster.name ---------- You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Baha'i Studies is available through the following: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://list.jccc.net/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=bahai-st news://list.jccc.net/bahai-st http://www.escribe.com/religion/bahaist (public) http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] (public)
