Date sent: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 02:45:47 -0700 (PDT) Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Ajit Sinha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [PEN-L:12722] Re:deconstruction Ajit writes: How can reason be dogmatic, if it is reasonable? ;) I'm not against "critical reason", if by which you mean a critical attitude. I don't think you need any claim to "truth" to critique others claims to truth though. All we need is some strategy of conviencing others, which would be different in different socio-cultural circumstances. It does not have to be a claim to "truth". Since all the claims to "truth" are arbitrary, it may be a particularly poor strategy to follow in order to convience the others of the fallsity of someone's claim to "truth". ricardo: All claims to truth are "arbitrary"? In saying this you can easily fall prey to the kind of criticism Devine has correctly made against you. Perhaps you meant that since the first principles of a philosophy cannot be proven true, they are arbitrary. But Hegel abandoned this attempt to BEGIN philosophy with a set of "first" principles. First principles will always lie exterior to reason. Reason can only justify itself through its own experience; it has no need of another principle except its own act of reasoning. To seek a firm foundation apart from the act of reasoning is like trying to swim without getting into the water. Ajit continues: Hegel is a totalizing thinker. Once you get inside of it, there is no way out--there is nothing outside of it. ricardo: I think this is a valid criticism; and I think you are correct that pursuing this issue in any complex way will demand a detailed reading of Hegel, something which may be inappropriate in this forum (pen-l). Ajit: I also think that there will be no scope for 'multiculturalism' in Hegel's world-- the state of freedom is an unicultural state, the universal destiny of 'mankind', to which somehow orientals don't belong. ricado: To me multiculturalism is not a solution but a problem: does the full recognition of cultural practices associated with minorities conflict with the recognition of individual rights and political liberties? _________
