Reflexivity and the Crisis of Western Reason: Logological Investigations (Logological Investigations, Vol 1)

550 Pages·1996·1.56 MB·English

by  Barry Sandywell

REFLEXIVITY AND THE CRISIS OF
WESTERN REASON
With superb philosophical, literary and sociological scholarship, he reveals
the historical shift from an ecological-ontological grammar of reflection to
a socio-dialogical grammar of reflexive practice.
John O’Neill, Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology, York
University, Canada

To describe the scholarship as outstanding is almost faint praise. I was
continually struck by the sophistication with which the author weaves
together ideas, references, quotes to present a fantastically assured and
polished grasp of his material.
David Chaney, Professor of Sociology, University of Durham

In its combination of extraordinary scholarship and patient analysis this
book offers a redirection of cultural and social theory which merits
comparison with the work of Derrida, Foucault, Habermas and other
European theorists of the first rank.
Stephen Crook, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Tasmania

This ground-breaking work, the first in a series of volumes, explores the genealogical
analysis of the discourses of reflection. Barry Sandywell traces the differences between
the traditional discourses of reflection and the experiences of reflexivity in everyday,
social and philosophical thought.
The central contention of Sandywell’s argument is that in order to begin to address
these types of questions we must first explore the force field between the discourses
of reflection and reflexivity. To do so requires radical self-investigations of the role of
reflexivity in human experience, and more especially of the role of the languages,
practices, and institutions of self-reflection within the fabric of Western culture.
Consequently, these ‘logological investigations’ introduce a method of analysis
which traces the epochal movement of thought from a videological to a dialogical
conception of the world. In doing so they introduce some of the preliminary work
necessary for more detailed studies of premodern, modern, and postmodern forms of
reflexivity in the subsequent volumes.
Brilliantly organized and abounding with astonishing insights, Volume 1 offers a
fundamental challenge to our normal ways of viewing social thought.
Barry Sandywell is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of
York.

REFLEXIVITY AND
THE CRISIS OF
WESTERN REASON

Logological Investigations
Volume 1

Barry Sandywell

London and New York
First published 1996
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

© 1996 Barry Sandywell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0-203-42017-9 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-72841-6 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-08756-2 (Print Edition)
The path to hell is paved with good intentions.
(Proverb)
The light dove, cleaving the air in her free flight, might imagine that
flight would be easier in empty space.
(Kant, 1929: A5, B8)
Im Anfang war die Tat (In the beginning was the act).
(Goethe, 1949:71)
For
Isabel Lavin-Garzón
and in memory of Susannah Sandywell (1908–85)
and James Sandywell (1907–92)
CONTENTS

Preface: by way of a general introduction x
Acknowledgements xxiii
INTRODUCTION: TOWARDS A
METACRITIQUE OF PURE REFLECTION 1
1 Preliminary reflections on the limits of the modern culture
of reflection 5
2 The technopoiesis hypothesis 32
3 Two paradigms of reflection 42
4 Conclusion: from the transparent mirror to the
heterological text 49
Part I Mimesis
1 RHETORICS OF REPRESENTATION 55
1 Mimetic faculties 55
2 Four metarhetorical views of language 72
3 Language-games 92
2 THE EPOCH OF REPRESENTATION 96
1 Mimetology: the European construction of the world 97
2 The crisis of representation 109
3 Pensiero debole 118
4 Conclusion: the dialectic of reflection and reflexivity 125
Part II Reflection
3 GENERIC REFLECTION 131
1 Generic self-reference 131
2 The biogenesis of self-reference 138
3 Autopoiesis 156
4 Toward an ecological paradigm 162
vii
CONTENTS
4 CONSCIOUSNESS AND LIFE-WORLD 166
1 Introduction: the structure of subjective experience 166
2 Consciousness and subjectivity 168
3 The stratification of consciousness 183
5 REFLECTION AS SPECULATIVE THOUGHT 212
1 Speculative consciousness: the Hegelian lesson 212
2 The stream of consciousness: the Husserlian lesson 222
3 Transcendental reflection: the Heideggerian lesson 227
4 Dasein 237
5 Intentionality 243
Part III Reflexivity
6 THE REFLEXIVE SELF 251
1 The reflexive constitution of the self 251
2 Verbal self-consciousness 262
3 Speaking bodies 267
4 Thinking bodies 269
7 BEING-IN-THE-WORLD AS INCARNATE
REFLEXIVITY 275
1 Embodied knowledge: the habitus of desire 277
2 Positionality: the habitus of eccentric reflexivity 282
3 Embodiment: the habitus of carnal reflexivity 285
4 Knowing-how and praxical reflexivity 287
8 PRAXICAL REFLEXIVITY 291
1 Practical consciousness 291
2 Logics of practical action 299
3 Ethnoreflexivity and mundane reason 302
4 Neopraxiology: operative knowledge, techniques, skills 309
5 Institutionalized reflexivities 313
6 Conclusion: mundane thinking as reasoning practices 315
9 PHRONETIC REFLEXIVITY: BETWEEN
MORALITY AND PRAXIS 318
1 Introduction 318
2 Phronetic reflection 319
3 The concept of judgement 324
4 Moral self-reflection 326
5 Moral relativity 332
6 Dramatic reflection 341
viii
CONTENTS
Part IV Dialogue
10 GENEALOGICAL SELF-REFLEXIVITY 347
1 Introduction 347
2 Psychoanalytic genealogy 350
3 Genealogical therapies 356
4 Phenomenological reactivation 359
5 Semiotic analysis 364
6 Hermeneutic repetition 367
7 Critique and metacritique 369
8 Deconstruction 373
11 TRANSACTIONAL REFLEXIVITY 376
1 Introduction: sociological reflexivity 376
2 The sociology of reflexivity 384
3 The new sociology of scientific knowledge 389
4 Reflexive sociology 393
5 Beyond reflexive sociology 396
12 DIALOGICAL REFLEXIVITY 399
1 Introduction: presuppositional analysis or the logic of
question and answer 400
2 Culture as a constellation of semiopraxis 403
3 Experience as living-in-the-world 408
4 Forms of life as contextual phenomena 410
5 Logological space as a grid of power 413
6 Logological constellations 415
7 Logological deconstruction 422
8 Conclusion: cultural deconstruction 424
Notes 427
Bibliography 461
Name index 491
Subject index 498

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