articulation and dispersion

 Spinosa, articulation and dispersion

In this last and final chapter, "Derridian dispersion and Heideggerian articulation: general tendencies in the practices that govern intelligibility," Spinosa reads Heidegger against Derrida? Maybe? He reads Derrida with and against Heidegger? No, he reads Heidegger with and against Derrida. Spinosa qualifies Heidegger with Derrida, but mostly takes the side of Heidegger. 

Ok, so what does he take the side on? side of? Because right now you're stuck on Heidegger good, Derrida bad. 

This chapter has to do with the idea, which has been brought up several times in this collection, I think, of practices that govern other practices. So for example, Ann Swidler talks about how the practice of marching? was central to the formation of LGBTQ+ identity? in SF? But in any case, her chapter was called, what anchors cultural practices? And we're dealing with something similar here, an anchor. 

The argument between Derrida and Heidegger turns on such an anchor. For Heidegger, a thing's purpose is the anchor. Spinosa gives the example of the bottle of wine. The telos of the bottle is to bring friends together and therein it makes people better people? and you feel your friendliness coming out? The word vulnerability was used. But in any case, for Heidegger, practices tend toward their own elaboration (the word tend is in the title, so watch out), or rather, practices tend to elaborate something that was implied in the practice all along. I get a very Aristotle, acorn tree growing out of the acorn kind of image. Spinosa calls the articulation. Heidegger calls it gathering. The thing gathers and is gathered. But the important point for the contrast to Derrida is that a thing has a proper use and that it brings out our own proper nature; we feel most at home when we use it. 

I don't know, but I also got the sense maybe that maybe Heidegger was guilty of only imagining one kind of sphere of action. So for Thevenot for example, there's familiarity,  justification, exploration, planning, etc. So I wonder if a thing has a purpose and is what Heidegger says, but only within that regime of action. This is a sidebar, of course...

More importantly, Derrida says that practices are dispersive, so there is no authoritative context that grounds meaning. Practices elaborate, but elaborate here means dispersion. I don't know what to say about Derrida, really. At one point he was saying that we don't control our own intentions. Dispersion. Citationality. Spinosa was doing a Spinuzzi like example, where a door was being used as a desk. 

There was this Wittgenstein reference that I thought was interesting. 

But even if there are an indefinitely large number of citationally possible

contexts in which practices alone could not tell us how to deal with seemingly

common things like doors, one might still argue that Derridian decisionism or

imposition is parasitic on situations where habitual practices do succeed in

unproblematically determining how to handle something familiar. I take it that a

Wittgensteinian would say that if in the cases where imposition occurs, there is a

clear choice between two types, then these cases of imposition depend upon the

unproblematic cases that determine which types to consider. Consequently, the cases of imposition are logically dependent on the unproblematic, clear cases. That is, one could not recognize the problematic case requiring an imposition if one did not already have the unproblematic cases.

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The Derridian, however, believes that, even if there are moments where

habitual practices enable determinations without decisions, his arguments show

that we have no grounds for attributing logical priority to them. His account of

difficult instances where ways of dealing with things must be imposed is

supposed to demonstrate that the habitual ways of dealing with things not only

underdetermine possible future applications but also underdetermine all our

seemingly stable past ways of dealing with things. To see this, we must look to

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can be imagined. We only need imagine John Searle asking us about doors inside a whale’s stomach to see how far citationality can take us and how unlimited its range is.

cases of imposition are logically dependent on the unproblematic, clear cases. That is, one could not recognize the problematic case requiring an imposition if one did not already have the unproblematic cases. 

Again, you can see the grounding thing going on. Does obscurity ground clarity or vice versa?

Derrida's point that our general intelligibility is dispersive tracks, especially when as seen against the claim that intelligibility is hampered by hegemony. I was thinking about how academic conventions hamper clarity at the same time as they allow for clarity, which is also interesting because there's a contextual difference there. Speech. Event. Context. Force. But the interesting thing is, you could make a totally clear communication--well maybe not totally clear--you could increase intelligibility but at the same time that act or increasing the clarity for someone proximate to you would also decrease the communication's legibility or iterability? def it's durability and transposability, its mobility. Durable. Portable. Portable was the word I was looking for.  

Nearness came up. You'll have to look into that. Proximity. Nearness. Presence.

Intention. ... I just don't know the particulars of the argument. Derrida tries to undermine Heidegger's argument but Spinosa defends Heidegger against Derrida. 

Part of the defense, I think?, turns on hegemony. There's no hegemony in Heidegger. Derrida has a much more sinister view of meaning. Likewise, there's also no imposition in Heidgger. I think. I think we can ever read imposition here as a self-imposition. Every situation is different, and then through hegemony? or by means of an imposition? the person fits frame A to thing B in a kind of violent way?

Externalism. Derrida. Very uptake, uptake as a kind of externalism...

Joan Morgan. You were reminded of Joan Morgan when Spinosa was talking. Being able to listen to rap, its toxic masculinity and degradation of woman, and not be disempowered, that seemed like of like what Spinosa was talking about. Derrida might be more inclined to see that in terms of an imposition (the desire? for the music being imposed?), whereas Heidegger would see rap as having a purpose and being connected to a world, like the telos of rap is to empower? you? or create a community?

Muckelbauer, the indetermination of meaning. You can see that really clearly in this, that is, how Derrida can be read as a poststructuralist. It's all about meaning...

Don't forget about time too. Retroactive temporality was in this...