Date: 28-Mar-2006
From: Giampaolo Poletto <janospallibero.it>
Subject: Controversies and Subjectivity
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EDITORS: Barrotta, Pierluigi; Dascal, Marcelo TITLE: Controversies and Subjectivity SERIES: Controversies 1 PUBLISHER: John Benjamins YEAR: 2005
Giampaolo Poletto, doctoral student, Doctoral School in Linguistics, University of Pécs, Hungary
DESCRIPTION
The volume proposes a multidisciplinary and multiperspective approach to examine the nature, role and relation of controversy and of the subjectivity which is inherent to it, diachronically and synchronically. The essays are mostly papers delivered at the conference on subjectivity held in Pisa and Lucca, or have been specifically designed for the present collection.
Dascal presents its scope, background and content, offering a thematically interwoven critical overview of each contribution (pp.1- 29). Historically considered extraneous to scientific research and the domain of objectivity, because arising out of subjectivity, through mistakes, misjudgements and misbehaviors, controversies are here assumed and proved to be intrinsic to and constitutive of rationality, starting from their pervasiveness and their ties to a plurality of subjects. The idea of an abstract being of reason is inadequate to account for their complexity and diversity. The subject is now viewed as concrete, multifaceted, made of different interacting components, immersed in a sociocultural environment, characterized by psychological aspects. These elements are supposed to somehow interact with epistemic factors. New questions are thus posed, which a variety of disciplines other than philosophy should investigate, in a framework where the concept of rational controversies faces the growing role of subjects. That posits the two main issues of this tripartite book - controversies on the subject, subjects in controversies - as tightly intermingled and somehow hardly distinguishable.
The six chapters of the first part specifically focus on controversies internal to the subject.
Dascal (p.33-73) explores the processes of the debate with the self and with others, in eight sections: taking examples from different sources which show its nature and variety; discussing the metonymic and metaphoric kinds of relation connecting intra- and inter-personal debates; reconstructing typologies of those external and internal, from Aristotle (1990, 1996) to a distinction between 'soft' and 'hard' rationality, through the issue of self-deception, towards a view of a sufficiently real self-debating multiple self.
Schulz (pp.75-90) comparatively and diachronically traces back to the works of Plato (1969) and Aristotle, to accurately point out how the metaphors of the agreement and disagreement with the self - by them discussed in connection with a moral theory and described as a conflict between reasons and desires, and as a form of reflexive inconsistency - at large attain to the modern topic and phenomenon of self-controversy.
Leone (pp.91-114) analyses the relations between conversion and controversy from an external and an internal viewpoint, as an object of controversy and as a form of intra-subjective controversy. There are differences, as to semiotic and temporal structures; similarities, as to the representations of time and identity; intersections, in relation to the concepts of the self as theatre and Bakhtin's interpretation of interior language (1930); models, with reference to Horowitz's psychodynamics (1988) and a metaphorical understanding of psychological phenomena through sociological patterns; stories of religious conversions.
In an epistemological perspective, Ferreira (pp.115-125) proposes a model for understanding the production of scientific theories alternative to the normativist position, which, along with the logical positivists, views the process of discovery of scientific theories as a mere psychological phenomenon other than justification (see Popper, 1979). He rather supports the descriptivist one, which associates revolutionary discoveries to contexts of crisis of rationality rather than to normal science, and the interdisciplinary study of controversies and subjectivity, for their contribution to the building of scientific knowledge.
Cossutta (pp.127-156) displays the results of his discursive analysis of works by Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius (1998), St. Augustine (2004), Malebranche, Descartes. His goal is to shed light on the controversial dimension of the diverse forms of inner speech, to see whether they are to be considered the counterpart of or irreducibly other than the external dimension of controversy, which consists in a marked dialogical interaction, partly traceable in monological discourse but without objective consistence, the way subjectivity manifests in external forms of polemic not necessarily to its detriment.
Drawing on the standpoints of Plato, Descartes, Hume, Kant (1987), Frogel (pp.157-169) talks about the subjectivity of judgement of the philosopher as a critical thinker, in the light of its necessary relations with truth: of self-agreement, descending from the subjective judgement that something is true; of self-deception, possible in all philosophical thinking due to the asymmetry of self-conviction; of disagreement, consequently unavoidable in philosophical discourse.
The seven chapters of the second part shift to an insight on subjectivity, through the implications and significance of the use of the first person.
In Han-liang Chang's study (pp.173-184), intersubjectivity and controversy are mutually implicative terms, the subjectivity of dialogue is multi-faceted and multi-voiced, and the concept of ideologeme (Kristeva, 1980) is crucial in the enquire on the relation between ideology and discourse. The result of his analysis of a debate in the third century BC China (Guo, 1975) points out: the potential intersubjectivity of interlocutors, as textual and discursive functions; the need for historicizing instances of verbal communication to perceive the force of ideology.
Starting from Protagora's expression of the essence of controversy- oriented thought (Diogenes Laertius, 1972) and through a historical outline of the two-logoi subjectivist and objectivist tradition (see Sloane, 1997; Tannen, 1990, among others), Cattani (pp.185-200) suggests that: controversy both manifests and is a way to manage uncertainty; objectivity may be deceptive and not always possible, whereas subjectivity, ineluctable, to be accounted for and to be not damaging, is to make a step towards the first plural person.
Szívós (pp.201-234) examines the period of Hellenism (322-330 BC), in order to underline the first description of subjectivity as a state of consciousness and reconstruct in detail, as a historian of philosophy, the evolution of the academic-stoic debate. He applies: some concepts of the general theory of controversy, namely emergent process and result, extensive and intensive phases of the debate, semantic debate; the categories of temporality and reification in relation to the concept of subjectivity. Seven phases are enucleated and the modifications of the two schools' standpoints are emphasized, following the definition of the Greek concept of phantasia.
Among the aims of an interdisciplinary research project in which Fritz has participated, there is the analysis of the pragmatic organization of controversies in the 17th and 18th centuries. Through examples in English, German, French, his paper (pp.235-250) focuses on the function of first-person utterances as moves in the above period controversies. Although they are guided by traditional rules and principles, for instance to deal with realia rather than with personalia, they display forms of expression of subjectivity and hint at a rhetoric of individuality which is representative of the innovative spirit of that age.
Berkeley's position on subjective justification - generally perceived as weak both in rhetoric and in philosophy - as a way to discover truth (1929-30), introduces the study of Mishori (pp.251-262), who: discusses the subjectivity manifested in the introspections of empiricists; analyses moves of that sort; frames a typology of introspective arguments - in particular reports, appeals, imagination- employing experiments; emphasizes the multifaceted relevance of examining the choice of arguments.
Along with Wittgenstein's notion of controversies (1927) as a supra- personal family of language games, or forms of communication, Gloning's essay (pp.263-281) describes linguistic aspects connected to subjectivity in Early Modern polemics and discusses meta-polemic attempts at eliminating or controlling personal involvement. The final assumption, to be more thoroughly investigated, is that they hint at a tendency towards politeness and respect developing in the late 17th and 18th century.
Senderowicz (pp.283-300) applies a model of the epistemic function of controversies to the actual debate between externalists and individualists on the compatibility of externalism with self-knowledge, critically referring to Dascal's notion, description and typology of controversies (1998), and maintaining that they are confrontation of positions, neither of which, along with Boghossian's view (1989), provide an adequate account of the problem at stake. A conceptual breakthrough exceeding what both envision is needed, which remarkably emphasizes the function of controversies in the growth of knowledge.
The five chapters of the third part address the role of subjectivity in public controversies.
Barrotta (pp.303-324) analyses the debate between liberals and communitarians and exposes three arguments in favour of the fruitfulness of philosophical controversies: each party plays a double role; they often concern complex and fuzzy standpoints; they evolve, if interesting. The arguments support a further possible development of the above controversy. The role played by the notion of the self is crucial and provides the former with more pertinent replies to the objections of the latter.
De-dichotomization is accounted for in the case study of Barghouti (pp.325-336). In an inter-identity conflict related to asymmetry, injustice and oppression, an alternative conceptualization brings about ethical implications. One dichotomy - revenge vs. justice - functionally arises to eventually solve another one - national vs. human identity. The process of de-dichotomization: is moral as a dialogical and transformative conceptual tool; is effective in a struggle to end oppression (see Freire, 1972).
Gross (pp.337-352) provides a case study on the major and causal role of emotions in public controversies, conceived and described as a social drama (see Turner, 1978). They arise from a collective body of participants in an event and are primarily expressions of group solidarity rather than of an individual subjectivity.
Olivé (pp.353-370) addresses a multifaceted debate as a controversy about science, and details on the influence of subjective factors: on the issues discussed; on the argumentative strategies enacted; on the rationality of the controversy; on its course. He identifies and emphasizes genuine and non-genuine disagreements, rationally solvable and productive for the course of the controversy the former, unsolvable because groundless and just ideologically aimed at trying to persuade the latter.
Negative aspects of controversies are counterbalanced by their intellectual and somehow physical productivity, in Sharon-Zisser's contribution (pp.371-393). Their discernible structure (see Heidegger, 1975) is assumed to dwell in a more fundamental one, whose components implicate subjectivity and entail affinities with the archaic, in a psychoanalytic perspective. A constitutively archaic form of transmission in itself, as poetry, could thus represent a way to access the deep structures of controversy.
EVALUATION
The volume is valuable for the studies collected, the multiperspective overview displayed, its interdisciplinary approach, which opens to contributions at least in two directions other than more investigations on controversies and subjectivity: further applications of linguistic disciplines to the analysis of philosophical texts; further research conducted on a variety of phenomena, events, texts, etc., from a philosophical viewpoint.
REFERENCES
Aristotle, 1990. Retórica, transl., intro., and notes by Q.Racionero. Madrid: Gredos.
Aristotle, 1996. Nicomachean Ethics, transl. H.Rackman, intro. S.Watt. Ware, Hertford-shire: Wordsworth.
Augustine, 2004. Two Books of Soliloquies. In C. C.Star (Ed.), Early Church Fathers, Nicene et post-Nicene Series. www.cczl.org/fathers2.
Bakhtin, M., 1930. ''Konstrukcija vyskazyvanija''. Literaturnaja učeba, 3. 65-87.
Berkeley, G., 1929-30. Philosophical Correspondence with Samuel Johnson. In D.Armstrong (Ed.).
Boghossian, P., 1989. ''Content and self-knowledge''. Philosophical Topics. 17 (1), 5-26.
Dascal, M., 1998. ''The study of controversies and the theory and history of science''. Science in Context. 11 (2), 147-154.
Diogenes Laertius, 1972. Lives of Eminent Philosophers, transl. R.D.Hicks. Loeb Classical Library, London: Heinemann.
Freire, P., 1972. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder & Herder.
Guo, Q., 1975. Zhuangzi jishi (Collected Annotations of Zhuangzi). Taipei: Weiyi.
Heidegger, M., 1975. ''Building dwelling thinking''. In Poetry, Language, Thought, transl. A.Hofstadter. New York: Harper and Row. 143-173.
Horowitz, M. J., 1988. Introduction to Psychodynamics - A New Synthesis. New York: Basic Books.
Kant, I., (1987 [1790]). Critique of Judgement, transl. W.S.Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Kristeva, J., 1980. Desire in Language. A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. transl. A.Rothwell. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Marcus Aurelius, 1998. Ecrits pour lui-même, Vol.1, transl. P.Hadot. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
Plato, 1969. Plato in Twelve Volumes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd.
Popper, K. R. 1979. Objective Knowledge. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Sloane, T., 1997. On the contrary: The Protocol of Traditional Rhetoric. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press.
Tannen, D., 1999. The Argument Culture. New York: Ballantine Books.
Turner, V. (1978 [1974]). Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Actions in Human Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Wittgenstein, L., 1967. Philosophische Untersuchungen. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Giampaolo Poletto is a doctoral student at the Doctoral School in Linguistics of the University of Pécs, in Hungary. His linguistic fields of interest are discourse analysis, pragmatics, applied linguistics. His research focuses on humor as a discursive strategy for young learners of Italian, in a cross-sectional and cross-cultural context.
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