From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Sun Oct 30 2005 - 23:49:25 EST
Jerry, I think you are correct that Derrida's understanding of temporality will not prove compatible with TSS's. An more interesting comparison for Derrida seems to be with Ernst Bloch (who is not discussed I think in Balibar's book on the Philosophy of Marx which is what I believe Derrida drew from ). But at least TSS has a conception of temporality where the past, present and future are part of single analysis without being collapsed into the eternal present implicit in comparative static thinking. Marx was a thinker of change from positive feedback and dialectical transformations (for example if there is a shock and a sudden population shortage the wage is not expected to return to a fixed real subsistence level ex ante; through repeated exchanges with labor the small master becomes a capitalist though the form of exchange seems to persist--quantitative changes become qualitative, form can mask content so Marx was not simply a theorist of social forms, etc.). I agree that such a dialectical Marx is not what Derrida has in mind. You are correct about this. In fact I think dialectics as beautifully described by Levins and Lewontin has to be antithetical to Derrida's understanding of contradiction and iteration and qualitative change. I don't remember Michael Ryan's book on Marxism and Deconstruction exploring the contrast with dialectics. But that book is still packed up. Those skeptical of Derrida from the perspective of critical realism will probably be interested in the work of Christopher Norris. Yours, Rakesh On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 10:01:00 -0400 Jerry Levy <Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM> wrote: > I was making an observation, which was neither critical of TSS, > SSS or Derrida for that matter. I.e. I was simply noting that the > conception of temporality in Derrida is inconsistent with that of > the SSS and TSS interpretations of Marx. Whether they are using > period analysis or (as in the case of some TSS writings) non- > linear dynamics, both of these perspectives have what Derrida > might have referred to as "traditional conceptions of temporality" > (recall that temporalism _is_ a traditional conception of > temporality). Of course, TSS and SSS focus on the _quantitative_ > aspect of Marx's theory which was clearly not Derrida's focus. > Nor, as I recall from an EEA conference, is it Antonio's focus: > indeed he was highly critical of the conceptions of _all_ Marxian > "value theorists." > > If someone believes that TSS _is_ consistent with Derrida's > concept of temporality then I'd like to hear how. While (former > member) Eduardo Maldonado-Filho called attention to Vol. 3, > Chapter 6, Section 2 of _Capital_, I don't think that he analogized > the release and tying-up of capital to the release and tying-up of > ghosts. > > In solidarity, Jerry > >> The ghost as a cipher of iteration is particularly suggestive. At the >> beginning of Specters of Marx, Derrida talks about the way in >> which the anticipated return of the ghost may be mobilized on >> behalf of a deconstruction of all historicisms that are grounded in a >> rigid sense of chronology. >> 'Haunting is historical, to be sure', he writes, 'but it is not dated, it >> is never docilely given a date in the chain of presents, day after day, >> according to the instituted order of the calendar >> ' The question of the revenant neatly encapsulates deconstructive >> concerns about the impossibility of conceptually solidifying the past. >> Ghosts arrive from the past and appear in the present. However, the >> ghost cannot be properly said to belong to the past, even if the >> apparition represents someone who has been dead for many >> centuries, for the simple reason that a ghost is clearly not the same >> thing as the person who shares its proper name. Does then the >> 'historical' person who is identified with the ghost properly belong >> to the present? Surely not, as the idea of a return from death >> fractures all traditional conceptions of temporality. >> The temporality to which the ghost is subject is therefore paradoxical, >> as at once they 'return' and make their apparitional debut. Derrida has >> been pleased to term this dual movement of return and inauguration >> a 'hauntology', a coinage that suggests a spectrally deferred non- origin >> within grounding metaphysical terms such as history and identity." >> (Buse & Scott, 1999, p.10-11)
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