John Searle - Foucault and Bourdieu on continental obscurantism
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- Опубликовано: 17 дек 2012
- John Searle (analytic philosopher at UC Berkeley) relates a couple conversations he had with Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu about the difficult and unclear language typically found in French academic writing.
Searle actually is remarkably clear for a philosopher to the point where listening to him is enjoyable. For example, there's an interview somewhere on RUclips where he talks about the philosophy of language with Bryan Magee. He takes some of the most complex and difficult concepts--like Chomsky's linguistics and Davidson's truth-conditional semantics--and explains them so well that an undergrad would completely understand him. His article Mind, Brains, and Computers is quite pleasurable to read.
What about being repetitive, Mr. Searle?
Good point!
Oh, shut up. Repeating oneself is the first stage in discovering that you are speaking to a fool. Don't make me repeat this.
I studied philosophy in the french speaking part of Switzerland and I loved it. We read lots of texts in english. Then I spent 2 years studying in France. I discovered that philosophy can be disgusting. The way the French teach philosophy is absolutely horrendous.
Mind explicating it a bit ??
Source: This is apparently taken from his Philosophy of Language lectures at Barkley. As far as I can tell, the Internet Archive has two recordings, Fall 2010 and Fall 2011. (I won't link them here because RUclips tends to punish comments with links.)
It was from 2010, Lecture 21, around 40 minutes in. Enjoy, I sat through 20 Lectures for that.
@@benw2307 Thank you! What's your opinion on his philosophy of language class?
@@cube2fox Seemed very practical and concise for a philosophy lecture, but honestly I mostly skimmed through topics for the quote. Wanted to reference it in a paper on obscurantism, but no one seemed to know exactly where it came from. Your comment helped immensely!
Some people were asking about what the context for the lecture might be. He seems to be talking about Grice's Cooperative Principle and its maxims. You can read more about here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle
Wish I could find the lecture that this clip was taken from so that I could source it better. If anyone knows, please let me in on it.
This is apparently taken from his Philosophy of Language lectures at Barkley. The Internet Archive has recordings of Fall 2010 {I won't link them here because RUclips tends to punish comments with links.) It was from Lecture 21, around 40 minutes in.
"Don't be ambiguous, don't be too wordy, be brief, be orderly, and avoid obscurity."
Who could possibly disagree with these simple rules?
""Don't be ambiguous, don't be too wordy, be brief, be orderly, and avoid obscurity.""
keep it nice and simple :) and what is the state of usa right now regarding reason and logic by the way ? Yep exactly...
"Yep exactly..." what friend? Where's the correlation with being objective in your speech and the current state of affairs here?
Quantum physics, currently.
Be boring
There are many reasons to be grateful for John Searle, and this may be one of them. It's quite liberating. Having said that, in defence of the 10% (as little as that?) it does provoke a more creative response from the reader. If you understand too easily, there's a risk of being passive, and indeed of not even taking the trouble to understand carefully or deeply. If you look at someone like Derrida, while yes, he's maddening at times, there's a reason for the playfulness and complexity. If you say only what is sayable clearly within the saying-system, you're going to be limited in what you can say. The problem is surely more to do with charlatans like Lacan who have one good insight, overstate it, and obscure it to hide the fact.
Did Foucault trolls Searle ?
Does anyone know what lecture this is from?
This is apparently taken from his Philosophy of Language lectures at Barkley. The Internet Archive has recordings of Fall 2010 {I won't link them here because RUclips tends to punish comments with links.) It was from Lecture 21, around 40 minutes in.
In a word: No. First, I don't think he was addressing 'us'. The excerpt appears to have been taken from a lecture. Second, my understanding is he was not discussing their 'theoretical output', but describing their style of writing. You can refer to his concrete example ('The Logic of Practice') to verfiy his claim.
To be fair on French philosophers, the symbolic logical trappings in much American philosophy (Searle's included) seem to me to function in the same way. Though their presence in the text might be justified in terms of rigour, more often than not they are simply a barrier to understanding, and they contribute nothing to clarity since they are typically defined in the terms of ordinary language.
You strike me as someone who has absolutely no grasp on analytic philosophy. The starting point of analytic philosophy is that ordinary language and surface grammar fails to tell us anything about the true logical form of proposition. If you read anything at all on Frege and Russell, you would know how wrong and ridiculous your statement is. Symbolic logical trappings? lol, good for you, you are not trapped by logic and you can say anything you want and nothing you say comes close to anything true
hao zi
I didn't say anything about the starting point of analytical philosophy. My point was that if symbolic logic notations are defined by sentences of ordinary language, then they get us no nearer to the "true" logical form of the proposition supposedly hidden behind the ordinary language. Then unless they are being used to streamline a chain of reasoning (and in my experience they often don't do this) they are just decorations (trappings: look it up in a dictionary) with no more revelatory power than the ordinary language sentences in which their definitions are written.
cannonballsimp I don't think that anyone should take the form of sentences of mathematical logic for the form/syntax of sentences of a natural language. It (mathematical logic) is a tool that can help us systematize our thinking about a particular topic when properly applied--- as is the case of all mathematical models. I also don't see the problem of defining mathematical notions in terms of ordinary language. Mathematical notation just abstracts away inessential detail and regiments the reasoning utilized.
There was no need for hao zi to respond so sharply to you, but I must point out that symbolic logic is not actually defined in terms of ordinary language. It is a purely formal system of symbolic primitives and rules. Any natural language in a formal logic textbook is there for ease of explication, not required for definition. You could define the same system in a programming language, or another formal language, for example. I do agree with you that some works of philosophy make use of symbolic logic where it is not necessary. Others, particularly those involving philosophy of mathematics and logic, or philosophy of language, sometimes require it in order to be clear and precise. When you are trying to deal with abstractions, often using natural language can obscure subtle fallacies that translation into symbolic logic will make readily apparent. Also, in fields of computational science like A.I. and automated theorem proving, symbolic logic is a necessity, for similar reasons. It is the purest and most rigorous form of reasoning, if not the most expressive or easy to understand.
Even though I think there is a problem in PM philosophy in that it tends to obscurantism and gibberish, I would hope people would use this as a caution to be had before reading a particular work in PM philosophy rather than using it as a reason to never check them out. Note: I'm not a fan of PM philosophy but more a fan of the analytic philosophers; and I disagree with many PM ideas.
Foucault writes ok and translation improves his clarity, Bourdieu just is a bad writer (I don't mean a bad sociologist, just a bad stylist when writing), it's not a philosophical position of his, no matter how good what he is saying, he is just bad at putting sentences together in text and no translator can save his texts from that without feeling exhausted. In oral presentations his style is more acceptable. I agree on your views about Searle, his texts bore me to death; speaks nice tho.
Was this lecture from the late 99s or 00?
The worry for me is that both analytic and continental philosophy can sound child-like. When we use the term solipsistic skepticism we can easily dumb it down to say 'Y'know that thing in the matrix, it could all be a simulation', but philosophers we can often feel terrified that people may doubt our theories based on how intelligently we present them. As such, continental philosophy came up with qualifying ideas through complex rhetoric, hoping they appeared intelligent by virtue of literacy. Analytic philosophy came up with clearer ideas, given that you learnt to speak a whole new language, i.e. if you shown, even a very intelligent person, an essay on Logic, they'd struggle to understand it more than a philosopher would. I believe that's why English-speaking non-philosophers will more likely go for work by Sartre, rather than say Against Narrativity by Galen Strawson. Both deal with very interesting ideas but whilst anyone, given enough time, could read Sartre, only someone familiar with Metaphysics can get through some of Strawson's, or perhaps a better example David Lewis' work. I'd definitely like to see an educated layperson read David Lewis and tell me that his ideas are "clear".
Is there any way I can cite this? Whats the date for this recording, and in what context are Searle saying this?
I'm citing this in a book right now. I will just give the information we have here: URL, description, the fact it's a RUclips video.
This is my full bibliographical entry, Chicago style: Searle, John. 2012. ‘Foucault and Bourdieu on continental obscurantism’. RUclips video, 5:53, excerpt, posted by “theorrhea,” December 18, 2012, ruclips.net/video/yvwhEIhv3N0/видео.html.
This is from one of his Philosophy of Language lectures which are available as podcasts online. (archive org) Not sure whether it's Fall 2010 or Fall 2011.
Philosophy of Language 2010, about halfway through Lecture 21.
Perhaps that says more than if he was being honest
Does anyone have the source for this?
This is apparently taken from his Philosophy of Language lectures at Barkley. The Internet Archive has recordings of Fall 2010 {I won't link them here because RUclips tends to punish comments with links.) It was from Lecture 21, around 40 minutes in.
I feel like it's not enough just to thank you. Your reply was so useful, so specific, that I can hardly believe I'm reading an actual RUclips comment. My eternal thanks for the lecture number and timestamp. By the way, I have the series in question but only listened to one of the lectures. I noticed that the recording started to repeat itself after a while. Given your evident familiarly, how commonly does that happen in the other lecture recordings? @@Xob_Driesestig
@@1rcanada Your thanks should go to @benw2307 who found it and left it in a reply to a comment by @cube2fox in this comment section. I merely copied it and replied it to everyone in this comment section who was asking about the source.
i think foucault might've been taking the piss
I think Foucault just didn't have anything intelligent to say
Use short, concise, and clear words
Where is this excerpted from?
This is apparently taken from his Philosophy of Language lectures at Barkley. The Internet Archive has recordings of Fall 2010 {I won't link them here because RUclips tends to punish comments with links.) It was from Lecture 21, around 40 minutes in.
@@Xob_Driesestig wow thanks for the quick reply :)
@@bobloblaw10001 :D
Truth!
"Don't be ambiguous, don't be too wordy, be brief, be orderly, and avoid obscurity."
keep it nice and simple :) and what is the state of usa right now regarding reason and logic by the way ? Exactly...
I'm getting the sense you are not a fan of America.
I think the assumption that Searle is first making is that we all agree that we should keep it true. That's not the state of the USA right now. There's no better way to promote BS than applying these basic rules (Don't be ambiguous, don't be too wordy, be brief, be orderly, and avoid obscurity) to your BS and prejudice.
Not believing in truth is even worse than promoting BS.
American analytic philosophy is doing pretty well
What does continental philosophy offer except for different interpretations of Nietzsche and Marx?
It offers access to the french "elite" schools where the French are taught about how France is the only smart nation in the world.
what does analytic philosophy offer except for different interpretations of locke and hume?
@@juliussw9153 literally everything
@@juliussw9153 goes way further than Hume and Locke bruh, but there are some inspirations from both.
@@eapooda insofar as nietzsche and heidegger among others draw from the presocratics, i'd say that the continental tradition goes way back too. one should not discard either tradition, because they offer completely different insights. analytic philosophy is for the most part concerned with external phenomena (drawing from the british enlightenment empiricism), whereas the continental tradition is more concerned with internal phenomena (drawing from german enlightenment idealism). most thinkers from either tradition have failed to make profound insights into the other realm. however, there are people from both schools like wittgenstein and deleuze, who have made significant and robust philosophical bridges between the two realms. one should study and appreciate both traditions, even though most people will prefer one over the other. however, to label one as completely useless is nothing but a sign of great ignorance.
"Sean G3 years ago
The latest dumb "innovation" by Google - for some reason I can't copy-paste comments I made to someone into this box. Well I'm not typing them again, so bad luck."
I agree that the sort of literature in question has awful prose and it could be clearer. However, I've become weary of the way much of the analytic tradition fetishizes "clarity". This is how they subject themselves to criticism of their own: the focus on thinking about aspects of the world that are the most intelligible. But the most intelligible isn't necessarily the most important. There's something extremely artificial about avoiding ambiguity at all costs, as language itself is ambiguous. If in considering the world in it's most meaningful depths we find obstacles within the language to express it, must we give up the world? A little ambiguity is inevitable, perhaps even desirable.
If continental philosophy sins in obscurantism, analytic philosophy sins in superficiality.
Perhaps you should read Wittgenstein : "Wowon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen." What we can speak isn't necessarily what is important, but should we try to speak about something, which we can't? It would be impossible. Another quote: "The limits of my language are the limits of my world." What we can speak about is something that we can clearly think about; what can't be said, can't be thought clearly. We are thinking within the limits of our language (maybe we should try to find these limits and remove them?).
Legomies fin I *have* read Wittgenstein. It doesn't really make things any simpler. That second quote is hard to argue with, but it says nothing about the *nature* of language. His own conception of language changed throughout his career from the Tractatus to Philosophical Investigations. Notoriously, so did it's limits and "the world".
Well we don't have to follow Wittgenstein all the way. We can just take the second quote as "guide". If we wan't to speak about something, then why can't we do it clearly? If we were to speak in such manners that any meaningfull interpretation would be hopeless, then we would walk in dark, with little to no clue where to go next (or where we are ). And I understand the limits that this quide puts to us (there are many things that I also think are very important but highly obscure). My own solution is simply art, for I think, that art has such properties that go beyond language. But art speaks about what we can't speak. To use art to speak about something that can be said clearly, is in my opinion misuse of the art.
Legomies fin I don't think you understood me. I'm not advocating obscurantism, I'm simply pointing out the complexity of the issue. What you quoted from Wittgenstein is so uncontroversial and trivial that it barely works as a guide. It's not much better than saying "A = A".
If we can only relate to the world through language, we have to talk about the nature of language first. How *it* relates to the world. Only then can we start talking about how to use it meaningfully (and clearly). What you say about art is pretty interesting. In fact, I'd say it squares rather neatly with the latter Wittgenstein's language games: a discursive environment that relates to a concrete experiences of the world. Art, in this sense, is a language game. It may not be "clear" but that doesn't make it any less meaningful or worthy of consideration: it is a way of elucidating an aspect of the world.
Well that's a very interesting point (art as a language game). Also the problem of the nature of language is very real; I don't have a certain opinion about it, but I think that the concept of "language games" has something very true in it. That the meanings of words and sentences are "constructed" by human behavior. My main reason for this believe is "game-theoretical semantics", which is a formal (don't stop reading :D) way of describing these "language games". Now you can easily see from here, that if the language games are what bounds language and the world togethor, then by studying them trough game-theoretical semantics, we can study the connection between language and the world.
I'm not however fully convinced by this, but I think it's very fruitful way of seeing the problem about the nature of language.
What does the whole of Western philosophy have to offer apart from different interpretations of Aristotle and Plato?
who needs anything else?
This was a lot of words to day nothing. "Be clear and succinct"-- and yet what is clarified with this statement? Is anyone any wiser about anything because of it? About the content of German or French philosophy?
The latest dumb "innovation" by Google - for some reason I can't copy-paste comments I made to someone into this box. Well I'm not typing them again, so bad luck.
I'm pretty sure Foucault would have never said what john here "quotes" around 0'43" ("pourquoi tu écris si mal").... It's pretty obvious that anglo saxons intellectuals failed with this "continental" classification". How can seriously put in the same class: psycho analysis, romanticism, existentialism, structuralism, deconstruction, critical theory etc etc.... (yes there is a tone more...).
Searle was quoting himself, not Foucault.
Bourdieu was a sociologist, not a philosopher .... And it's clear as cristal if you read him in its original version (there is a lots of terrible translations from english translators of "continental philosophy" though i 'll give you that). But if one can't make this basic distinction there is a huge problem for me....
Clear as crystal, pls spell English correctly. :-D
Different interpretations of Hegel and Heidegger.
I never found Foucault all that difficult to follow. But Searle is superficial and simplistic.
You're mistaking simplistic with clear and superficial with accessible
If you can’t understand Foucault, well... lol
His own way of telling htis story is redundant and thus at least not "excellent" in style. Also his way of referring to himself as most excellent example of being "clear" intrigues me;
BS, Foucault wrote in a literary sense. Searle writes as a materialist.
Searle makes a good point here. However, neither Foucault nor Bourdieu were philosophers.
flathead
Be boring: no wonder philosophy is dead.
A man who has incredibly rigorous standards for truth is asking us to judge two philosophers entire theoretical output on hearsay?
More racist and cultural ignorance from the irrelevant analytic philosophy 'tradition'.
Irrelevant? Might want to rethink that...
Racist against the French? Is that a race now? Do words have meaning in your philosophy?
Bourdieu actually just writes badly.
childish.