Briefly, some other thoughts on the Times and Seasons discussion about Mormon "intellectuals" as postmodernists. I wonder if the fundamental materialism of Mormons yet the acceptance of transcendence entails us seeing transcendence as immanence in a very strong fashion. Put an other way, we can't conceive of anything transcendence independent of immanence. There are no substantial forms or platonic ideas existing independent of material objects.
How is this postmodern? Well traditional Christian philosophy tends to adopt Platonism or modified Aristotileanism which does allow a transcendence independent of matter. (I say modified Aristotileanism as I think Aristotle's form made little sense independent of substance - but I'm not an Aristotle expert in the least and may be misremembering) Traditional "modernism" tends to deny the transcendence or when it does accept it, as in Descartes, put an essential divide between matter and transcendent substance.
This is where postmodernism restores the unity of the transcendent and the immanent. Perhaps a quote from Derrida is in order.
One of the definitions of what is called deconstruction would be the effort to take this limitless context into account, to pay the sharpest and broadest attention possible to context, and thus to an incessant movement of recontextualization. The phrase which for some has become a sort of slogan, so badly understood, ("there is nothing outside the text" [il n'y a pas de hors-texte]), means nothing else: there is nothing outside context. In this form, which says exactly the same thing, the formula would doubtless have been less shocking. I am not certain that it would have provided more to think about. . . .
. . . A few moments ago, I inisted on writing, at least in quotation marks, the strange and trivial formula, "real-history-of-the-world," in order to mark clearly that the concept of text or context which guides me embraces and does not exclude the world, reality, history. Once again (and this probably makes a thousand times I have had to repeat this, but when will it finally be heard, and why this resistance?): as I understand it (and I have explained why), the text is not the book, it is not confined in a volume itself confined to the library. It does not suspend reference--to history, to the world, to reality, to being, and especially not to the other, since to say of history, of the world, of reality, that they always appear in an experience, hence in a movement of interpretation which contextualizes them according to a network of differences and hence of referral to the other, is surely to recall that alterity (difference) is irreducible. Différance is a reference, and vice-versa. (Limited Inc, 136-37)
This idea of "nothing outside the text" or nothing outside context is essentially this idea that form always is immanent in a world. Signs aren't preceded by a transcendent meaning but rather signs constitute meaning and transcendence. I think this gets at why Jim Faulconer might appeal to Heidegger as an Aristotilean. Just as for Aristotle form and matter are always bound together, I think it is within these forms of postmodernism. (Some might say this is true with Plato as well - but there things are far more complex I think)
This gets us into the discussion of "enchantment" in Mormon thought. I really like the notion of enchantment but simply note that Mormonism erases the division between the "enchanted world" and the regular world of common sense. In doing so it finds the enchantment within common sense and brings things considered enchanted into the realm of common sense. Damon Linker points out that conversations with God certainly are within the "enchanted" realm. However Mormons give this a twist, making such discussions phenomenologically closer to everyday conversations than "mystic experiences."
This reminds me of an example Jack Caputo uses when discussing Heidegger. He brings up the Zen example of how we perceive a mountain. "Before starting the road to enlightenment mountains were just mountains. When on the road to enlightenment mountains were no longer mountains. When youíve achieved enlightenment mountains once more were just mountains." I've probably mangled the exact quote somewhat. The idea though is that we have an enchantment in how we see the world. But it is a double move where after we have this enchantment, we once again see things as natural.
I get a lot of people finding this page while looking for "there is nothing outside the text." Since it is such a misunderstood phrase, and since the above wasn't really about that quote, let me add the following. In my opinion Derrida is very dependent upon Heidegger. Those of you who read Being and Time recall the big deal Heidegger makes about being-in-the-world. The idea is that we never are one thing along. Rather we are always already entangled in a web of relations. It ends up indicating a strong holism. Heidegger, in turn, got a lot of the notion from Husserl and his notion of a horizon in phenomenology. All of those notions contribute to what Derrida does and expresses.
Indeed part of the reason Deconstruction is possible is because of that already being in a world. You never can avoid context and context undermines a lot of what philosophers try to do. In a sense logocentrism is attempting to find a sign that doesn't depend upon context, that isn't "in the world."
That's the overly simplified version of things. If you go back to Derrida's main work, On Grammatology, you'll find that the first half is just this insight of Heidegger's brought out through Saussure's semiotics with a little bit of Peirce added in. (Actually Derrida neglects Peirce horribly in that work, since Peirce had already developed a lot of what Derrida gets at more than a century earlier)
Just a few more brief comments to "there is nothing outside of the text." I was rereading a some discussions I was in back a few years back. There were two excellent quotes by Derrida that are relevant. The first was from an interview that touches upon the phrase.
Deconstruction is always deeply concerned with the 'other' of language. I never cease to be surprised by critics who see my work as a declaration that there is nothing beyond language, that we are imprisoned in language; it is, in fact, saying the exact opposite. ... Certainly, deconstruction tries to show that the question of reference is much more complex and problematic than traditional theories suppose. It even asks whether out term 'reference' is entirely adequate for designating the 'other.' The other, which is beyond language and which summons language, is perhaps not a 'referent' in the normal sense which linguists have attached to this term. But to distance oneself thus from the habitual structure, to challenge and complicate our common assumptions about it, does not amount to saying that there is nothing beyond language. (Kerney, Dialog with Contemporary Continental Thinkers, pg 123-24)
As I read Deconstruction, it is much closer to the realist camp than it is the empiricist camp. However it takes the position that we can't speak of reality. It gets us more to (paraphrasing since I'm at work) Nietzsche's comment that there is no phenomena, only interpretations of phenomena. What Derrida does deny us is an unfiltered access to reality. Reality is never encountered, only texts representing reality.
The readibility of the text is structured by the unreadability of the secret, that is, by the inaccessibility of a certain intentional meaning or of a wanting-to-say in the consciousness of the character and a fortiori in that of the author who remains, in this regard, in a situation analogous to that of the reader. (Derrida, Given Time, I: Counterfeit Money, 152)
One way of reading all this is that phenomena is always presented to us as text. Clearly text is more broadly construed than just writing. Text is meant within a notion of signification in general.
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