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Eli.the.Halpern |
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Mar 15 2007, 8:16 PM EDT
Sorry, this has to be in two parts sine it's too long.One thread that I have been trying to follow throughout all of these readings has been the role of history in each philosophy. The notion of history seems to be a very divisive one among philosopher's whose frameworks might otherwise fit well with one another. For writers like Barthes and Marx, the myth and the commodity are sapped of history. They appear eternal and original. For Althusser, "ideology has no history" (159); it is "omnipresent, trans-historical . . . eternal. (161)" In this sense, one might be able to describe commodity or ideology in terms of myth, or figure myth and commodity into the structure of ideology. While Barthes, Marx, and Althusser tend present the loss of history in a negative light, other philosophers saw a need to negate the notion of historicity. In his later writing, Barthes emphasizes of the trans-historical nature text; he wants to eliminate the notion of author and origin, to allow the structure of text to breathe to life in the moment of its reading. There is also a strong tradition of synchronicity among philosophers like Saussure, who believe that structures like language come about all at once and in relation to each other (paradigmatically). In his "Structure, Sign, and Play," Derrida outright states: "the respect for structurality, for the eternal originality of the structure, compels a neutralization of time and history. (263)" In order to examine a structure, whether it be that if ideology or commodity, one must "brush aside all facts" at the last second in order to truly grasp its structurality. Do you find this valuable? |
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