19931 COPYRIGHT © BY WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS Detroit, Michigan48202. Allrightsarereserved. Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedwithoutformalpermission. ManufacturedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica. 99 98 97 96 95 94 93 5 4 3 2 1 I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Morton, Michael. Thecriticalturn:studiesinKant, Herder,Wittgenstein, and contemporarytheory/MichaelMorton. p. cm.-(Kritik) Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN0-8143-2376-6(alk. paper) 1. Literature-Philosophy. 2. Skepticisminliterature. 3. Dogmatisminliterature. 4. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. 5. Herder,JohannGottfried,1744-1803. 6. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889-1951. I. Title. II. Series. PN49.M67 1993 801-dc20 92-13153 DESIGNER1S. R. TENENBAUM There is a massive central coreofhuman thinkingwhichhas nohistory ... :there are categories and concepts which, in their most funda mental character, change not at all. Obviously these are not the specialties of the most refined thinking. They are the commonplaces of the least refined thinking; and are yet the indispensable core of the conceptual equipmentofthe mostsophisticatedhuman beings. Itis withthese, theirinterconnexions, and thestructure that theyform, thatadescriptive metaphysicswillbe primar ily concerned. P F. Strawson, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics ABBREVIATIONS AR The AutonomyofReason CIS Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity CP Consequences ofPragmatism CTH The Critical Theory of]iirgen Habermas CV Contingencies ofValue DWN DoingWhat Comes Naturally HL "Historyand Literature" ITC Is There a Text in This Class? KMA Kanfs Theory ofMental Activity KTI Kant's TranscendentalIdealism OC On Certainty PI Philosophical Investigations PMC The Postmodern Condition PMN Philosophy and the Mirror ofNature RC "A Reply to my Critics" SSR The Structure ofScientific Revolutions SWS Herder's Siimtliche Werke TLP Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus UP "What Is Universal Pragmatics?" Z Zettel INTRODUCTION AMONG THE MOST SALIENT DEVELOPMENTS IN RECENT YEARS IN thefield ofliterarystudiesisthe muchdiscussed, analyzed, commented upon, and argued over ascendancy of"theory.nThe kinds ofthingsthat those active in the field today are inclined to say about the objects of theirprofessional concern havecome to be informed by"philosophical':> considerations ofone sort oranother, both to an extent and in afashion seldom ifever discernible in the work of their counterparts ofas re centlyas agenerationago. Efforts todetermine thedistinctivenatureof literary texts and the procedures one ought to follow in interpreting them-efforts that have figured prominently in discussions among crit ics for almost as long as there has been something recognizable as lit erature in existence at all-have been largely either supplanted by or assimilatedtoinquiries regardingthe status ofknowledgeclaims in gen eral and the possibility, or lack thereof, ofsuch claims ever being se cured. The lattersort ofreflection looms large in contemporary critical deliberationsinawaythat, sofaras I cantell, was notthecase (orrarely so) prior to about the early-to-mid-1960s. Questions of what we can plausibly claim to be able to say about the meanings ofliterary works n have been "reinscribed within a co~text ofradical interrogation ofthe possibility ofsaying, or meaning, anything about, or by, anything; and n this "recontextualization has in turnfurthered, at the same time that it 13 14 INTRODUCTION has been furthered by, the tendency to question the legitimacy ofdis tinguishing in any fundamental way between specifically literary texts andanyotherkindatall. What, ifanything, canweknow?Andhow? By whatcriteria?Howdoweeven understandthesequestions?Andassum ing that we do understand them in some way, what answers, ifany, can we reasonablyhope tofind for them? Ithas, I think, become all butim possible-and perhaps not even "all but" anymore-for anyone in lit erary studies who does not at least take cognizance ofsuch questions as these and ofthe various issues that they raise, whetheror not one seeks to engage such questions and issues directly onesel( to claim for one's work the serious attention ofothers in the field. And to the limited ex tent that I am in a position to assess recent developments in otherareas ofthehumanitiesand so~ialsciences, muchthesameseemsincreasingly to hold true there as well. The starting point for the reflections on these and related matters that Iofferhere isatwofoldconviction: first, the dominant tenorofcrit ical studies today is, as it has been for at least a decade and a halfnow, one ofprevailingskepticismregarding the possibilityofsecuringknowl edge claims; second, this skeptical outlook nonetheless represents, as skepticism always has done, a wholly untenable position. A claim this sweeping, of course, already demands at least some elaboration and qualification. Two particularly important points requiring attention are the following. First, the term skepticism covers a considerable amount ofnot entirely uniform philosophical ground. In its long history, it has been employed by friend and foe alike to refer to a number ofbroadly similar, but also distinguishable, attitudes toward the nature of reality and the relationships to it capable ofbeing entered into by the human mind.1 Whatever the differences in detail, however, skepticism always comes down eventually to either an outright denial or something that entails a denial that anyone ever has definitive knowledge ofobjective reality. And it is in this sense that I use the term throughout the dis cussion here. It is particularly important, I think, to insist on the term ever in this connection. The notion ofa partial or qualified skepticism, understood as a skepticism applying only to certain phenomenal do mains but not to others, or within a given domain only to a certain ex tent but no further, strikes me as simply an oxymoron; for itwould also concede, atleast tacitly, that there isafterall somethingout there, orin us, ofwhich we can in the end be truly certain. To take an often-used example, this is rather like being only a little pregnant. There is, of course, a perfectly standard nontechnical use ofskeptical in which the term expresses nothing more than doubt or suspicion regarding some knowledge claim or claims in particular. To characterize oneself as INTRODUCTION 15 "skeptical" in this sense is merely to indicate a desire not to be overly credulous. This is, however, no more to adoptskepticismas aphilosoph icalposition in the senseofthatnotion relevantto the discussion here the sense to which in particular, as I shall argue, the skeptical strain of contemporary criticism is committed-than it would be to adopt paci fism ifone were to inlpose on oneselfthe restriction offighting only in just wars. Second, although at least some critics today actually do seem to pro fess a more orless undilutedform ofskepticism in the sense ofthe term just given, one ofthe more strikingfeatures ofthe contemporary scene is the way in which many othercritics seek in effect to combine a basic penchant for skepticism with one ferm or another of metaphysical dogmatism, drawing on now the One, now the other, standpoint as the occasion demands, but with little apparent sense for the fundamental self-contradiction to which in so doing they commit themselves.2 One principal reason, indeed, that it has often proved so difficult to develop acoherent synoptic viewofthe contemporary critical scene is precisely the extraordinary number ofdifferent ways in which individual critics somehow manage to preserve in their own thinking this coexistence of the mutually exclusive. At the same time, however, there is also a cer tain fairly definite chronology to be noted here. The mixture ofdogma tism and skepticism did not happenall atonce. Rather, itwas onlyafter primarilyskeptical modes ofthoughthad gaineda more orless substan tialdegree ofacceptancein theirown rightthatvarious dogmaticstrains then began to begraftedon to them. And, partlyfor this reason,I want provisionally to hold the two positions apart and continue for the mo ment to treat skepticism by itself. To put, then, what I take to be the key point with regard to skepti cism in slightly different terms: the skeptical outlook denies that such things as facts about the world are knowable with certainty by human beings. The principal reason for expressing this view as a matter of denial is to blockinadvancea move bywhich manycontemporaryskep tics believe they can rescue their position. This is the contention that they are not actually "asserting" anything; rather they are, for example, merely "trying to change the subject" or "proposing a new way of looking at things not bound to notions of'truth' or 'falsehood' at all" or somethingofthe sort. As Donald Davidsonobserves, however, tobeac counted "skeptical," a theory need not "make reality unknowable"; it is sufficient that it "reduce reality to so much less than we believe there is."3This finely nuanced distinction is, I think, ideally suited to captur ing much ofwhat is most characteristically skeptical in contemporary theory. It applies perfectly, for example, to the conflation of text and 16 INTRODUCTION opinion-about-textthatisamongthe mostprominentfeatures ofliterary criticism today and of which we will consider some specific instances later. The expression "what we believe there is," by the way, does not refer in Davidson's idiom to mere opinion or supposition. As we shall see, one ofDavidson's most important insights, central tohis version of what I will be callingthe critical standpoint, is the recognition that be liefis inherently, in his word, "veridical." In place offacts and our knowledge of them, the skeptical outlook posits such things as contexts ofbelief, differential perspectives, ideo logicalcolorings, culturally determined matrices ofperception, and the both various and variable interpretations thatfrom time to time a given individual or group may happen to adopt (contingently, as it is some timesput)onthe basisofthesecontexts, perspectives, andtherest. The vocabularyofbeliefcontexts, interpretations, contingency, and thelike, in addition to beingfamiliar tovirtuallyeveryone in criticism todayas a resultoftheworkofsomeofthecurrentlymostinfluentialfigures inthe field, is at the same time, however, also one towhich no avowed skeptic ofthe past, from Pyrrho to Mauthner, would have felt the slightest dif ficulty assenting. It is worth noting this, I think, to remind ourselves onceagainofboththe ancientlineageandthe essentialcontinuityofthe skeptical tradition from antiquity to the present. Though it is surelytoo much to characterize the history of philosophy, with Whitehead, as merely "a series offootnotes to Plato," it would by the same token also be difficult to deny that philosophers have frequently overestimated by a wide margin the degree oforiginality actually represented by their works. For examples ofsuch overestimation one certainly need look no further than to many skeptically inclined thinkers ofthe late twentieth century. Repeatedly in their writings one finds, whether expressly or only tacitly, the same fundamental conviction that what theyare saying really is being said for the very first time in the whole long history of thought. And given this belief, it is then not surprising, ofcourse, that we also regularly find the same writers confidently predicting the im minent dawn ofa new era in human history, now that the old dogma tisms, positivisms, and other superstitions ofthat ilk that had held the human race in thrall for so long have at last been overthrown and put behind us once and for all. Assuggested, skepticaldoctrineinoneform oranotherhasbynowto aconsiderable extentacquired the status ofavirtualorthodoxyin much ofcontemporarycriticism. That reality is merelya kind offiction, truth a species ofmetaphor, and understanding a form oferror or incompre hension are today, for many, things that literally go without saying. In characterizingthisviewasnonetheless untenable, itswidespreadaccep- INTRODUCTION 17 tance notwithstanding, I do not mean simply that I think skepticism is mistaken;againstthatcharge theskepticwillalwayshavereadythestan dard response: "Howdo you know?:>:> I mean that skepticism is incoher ent, that there is no way ofeven enunciating it as a position one might consider adopting that does not at once collapse ofits own unintelligi bility. The skeptic:>s "How do you know?:>:> is in this way preempted and underminedinadvancebytheotherofthe twobasicquestionstowhich, it has been alleged, all philosophical inquiry sooner or later comes down, namely: "Whatdo you mean by that?:>:> Not merely the burden of proof, butthe logicallypriortaskofshowingthathe has even succeeded in makingsense, thus remains squarelyon the shoulders ofthe skeptic. Butitliesin theverynatureofwhathe is tryingtoassertthat this isalso an obligation he is never able to discharge. In the-Preface to the second edition ofthe Critique ofPure Reason Kant characterizes his philosophical enterprise as, in the first instance, a "negative:>:> one.4 In the second edition of his Fragments on Recent German Literature (written, incidentally, more than a decade before eventhefirst editionofthefirst Criti.que), Herderoutlineshisvisionfor a similarly conceived, but in this case linguistically-based, "negative philosophy.:>:>sAnd both in the Tractatus and in the Philosophical Inves tigations, as well as elsewhere in the post-1929 writings, Wittgenstein, too, indicates that he sees the primary task ofphilosophy as, in a sense fundamentally similartothoseofKantand Herder, a"negative:>:>one: the purpose of doing philosophy is not to propound positive doctrine;6 ratheritis toclearawayconfusion,7andinthatwaytohelppeoplereach a point at which they can carryon with their lives in a manner at least unencumbered by the kinds ofpseudo-problems that arise from a mis apprehension ofthe grammar ofordinary language.8 Kant, Herder, and Wittgenstein together provide the principal sources of inspiration for this book. And in the same spirit as I take theirs to have been, I see its purpose as also primarily a negative one. Criticism today, it seems to me, finds itselfto a large extent in a po sition analogous to the one ofwhich Wittgenstein speaks in the Inves tigationswhenhesays:"Apicturehelduscaptive. Andwecouldnotget outside ofit, for itlayin ourlanguage and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably:>:> (PI, § 115). The '~:piQture:>:>in question-not the one to which Wittgenstein is referring, but the one that seems to have capti vated much ofcontemporary critical theory-is a "negative:>:> one in its own right, though in a sense ofthe term quite different from Kanfs, Herder:>s, Wittgenstein:>s, and a fortiori my own. Its characteristic vo cabulary is that.of indeterminacy, de-centering, anti-foundationalism, displacement, and so on through a by now generally familiar list. In a 18 INTRODUCTION word it is, again, the standpoint ofradical denial that I suggested a mo ment ago has been the defining mark ofskepticism in all ages.9 Once trapped within this "prison-house oftheory," as it were, one may easily end up going through much the same sort ofquasi-ritualistic motions thatWittgensteinintheInvestigationsdescribesashavingcharacterized an earlier stage ofhis own career. Referring to TLp, 4.5 ("The general form ofa proposition is: This is how things are"), he says: "This is the kind of proposition that one repeats to oneself countless times. One thinks that one is tracing the outline ofthe thing's nature overand over again, andoneis merelytracingroundtheframe throughwhichwelook at it" (PI, § 114).10 Similarly, but in the opposite direction, ifone has once been persuaded ofthe inevitability ofthe assumptions underlying the skepticalposition, itwill notbe surprisingifonethenfinds the con clusions regarding the supposed indeterminacy ofmeaning and nonex istence of objective factuality in which these assumptions issue (the manifestlycounterintuitivecharacterofthese conclusions notwithstand ing) wholly compelling as well. One continues "tracing ... over and over again" what might be called "the general form ofhow things are not" and fails to recognize that in sodoingone is infact "merely tracing round the frame" that "holds one captive." The impressive degree ofacceptance enjoyed by skeptical outlooks today is to a large extent a reflection ofthe enormously powerful influ ence of Nietzsche. One supposes that in adopting a broadly skeptical standpoint with regard to matters of fact or meaning one is in effect merely being a good Nietzschean-that one is, for example, simply re alizing the full implications ofa notion such as the "death ofGod." Yet I think contemporary skeptics have on the whole been a bit hasty (at best) in concludingthat theyhave actuallyassimilatedall that Nietzsche hadin mindwith that message.11Justas Friedrich Schlegelforesaw that an inability to take seriously any longer the aesthetics ofthe beautiful would not in itselfentail the end ofaesthetics perse, butwould instead merely give rise in time to what he called an "aesthetics ofthe ugly" (a prediction that, it seems scarcely.necessary to add, has been more than amplyborneoutin the presentday12), so Nietzsche recognized that the news ofthe "death ofGod" would not in itselfautomatically produce a general liberation from dependence on god-surrogates ofall sorts. Nor would it be necessary that to perform their function such surrogates have an overtly positive or substantive nature. At the conclusion ofOn the Genealogy ofMorals he states, in a formulation that goes to the heartofhis analysis ofthe phenomenon ofnihilism, "Man would rather will nothing, than notwill"-or, as the passagehas also been translated, somewhat less literally, but in a manner that may nonetheless bringout INTRODUCTION 19 its relevance in the present connection even more clearly, "Man would sooner have the void for his purpose than be void ofpurpose."13 What follows the era oftheology, ofdomination by images ofGod, is by no means necessarily a time freed of dependence on such images alto gether. It can equally well be one dominated by images ofGod-in-His absence, the deus absconditus, and so, concomitantly, by the sort of negative theology that devotion to such images requires. Arthur Danto notes that what "the final aphorism of the Geneal ogy ... does is [to] restate the instinct of ressentiment: nlan would rather his suffering be meaningful, hence would rather will meaning into it, than acquiesce in the meaninglessness ofit."14 And he observes further, with respect specifically to the "announce[ment of] the death of God," that "[i]t is plain that [for Nietzsche] God did not die that something else should take His place"; the idea was "rather [that] the place [should] die with the occupant." Things, however, have not quite worked out that way: The genius ofthe third essayofthe Genealogy lies in its inventory ofthe disguises the ascetic ideal takes, so that positions which de~ fine themselves as contrary to asceticism only exemplify it. As a class, these occupants ofthe position vacated by God impose on their subscribers a network of interpretation of suffering and project a kind of utopian redemption: science, politics, art, and certainly much that passes for psychological therapy, only change the name ofthe game.15 Dantolistshereinstancesofpositive, orsubstantive, surrogatesadopted to fill the place ofthe now vanished, though not yet vanquished, God. But, as suggested a moment ago, there are also negative, or privative, versions ofthe same thing, and since about the mid-1960s, this is in creasingly the form that the quest for god-surrogates has assumed in critical theory. Onecouldlooklongandhard, I think, withoutfinding a bettercapsulecharacterizationofthe psychologyofcontemporaryskep ticism than as an unwillingness to"acquiescein the meaninglessness"of precisely that which one believes one has exposed as meaningless. A truly consistent deconstructionist, for example, would withdraw into a silence ofCratylan impenetrability.16 But in fact, ofcourse, that never' happens. Instead, this sort ofskeptic insists that,even the (presumed) condition of"meaninglessness" somehow"be [made] meaningful" in its own right. And thus he "will[s] meaning into it," ifonly in negative arid purportedly self-cancellingfashion-as he puts it, "under erasure." Robert Scholes characterizes Derrida's "presentation of the history of writing," in the "Science and the Name of Man" section of Of