576 Language games

I am writing a book connecting different aspects of continental philosophy. How can this be done?

The philosophies of several contemporary or postmodern philosophers, such as Foucault, Derrida, Rorty, have been labelled the ‘new scepticism’. They militate against the ambitions and pretentions of older philosophies to find indubitable and stable standards of truth, method, science, beauty, good and bad, meaning and society. Rorty claimed that theory no longer exists, and that people only produce and play ‘language games’, in different communities. It is a bit odd to produce a theory that there can be no theory, but let us here adopt that view.

If that view is valid, how can I claim to develop a theory that connects different elements of continental philosophy? The answer is: develop a new language game. The game I propose is to take a dynamic view. I did that in economics by studying innovation and evolution, and that got me a prize from the Joseph Schumpeter Society. In political economy it got me prize for my work on trust as a process. In the book I am working on, dynamics of knowledge is wrought by the ‘Cycle of discovery’, which earlier I discussed in this blog, dynamics of language is wrought by the ‘hermeneutic circle’, in trust it is based on the process of ‘phronesis’, and in society on interaction and evolution.

This entails a relational ontology, where objects, including theories, are seen not as static, but as consisting of interacting elements, in interaction with the outside of the objects. Interaction of elements produces a systemic whole that has features the elements do not have. The elements interact and change within bounds, in homeostasis, to ensure the viability of the whole system. Thus, the autonomy of the elements is constrained to produce the system. This applies in organisms, as well as in society, in democracy. The brain is a system of neuronal networks that extend with age, in the accumulation of experience. In any specific action, part of the brain ‘lights up’, and that is consciousness of that action. Identity of a person is constituted by the potential of such networks, developing in time.

It feels odd, like trying to wear pants as a shirt, to go against the intuition of objects as static, and this has bedevilled former philosophy. I run the risk that my ideas will be seen as odd and to be ignored. I had that, at first, in economics.

People are similar on the basis of a shared evolution, but also individuals in their innate, inherited potential, in DNA, and development along individual paths of life. This yields the variety needed for the development of society, but can also wreck society if it yields too much resistance to surrendering autonomy for the sake of the system, as seems to be happening currently.

 

Guignon, C. and D. Hiley. 2003, Richard Rorty, Cambridge University Press.