Help
Sign In
deleuze
March 2008 
Intellectual Impostures of Intellectual Impostures
Posted on Nov 26th, 2006
by 
Joel Morrison
Joel Morrison
A Review of Mr. Dawkins Review of "Intellectual Impostures" by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont. ...originally posted as a comment to this blog piece:
http://wolftrappe.blogspot.com/2006/11/postmodernism-disrobed-review-of.html
Unfortunately, the truths of the postmodern movement, as obscured by the common trash as they are, have equally been lost on Mr. Dawkins, Mr. Sokal and Mr. Bricmont.
In a word..."hermeneutics."
What the authors fail to realize is that philosophy is indeed not science, and should not be read as such...even when it uses the ideas and words of science in new contexts for which they, the scientists, are wholly unfamiliar, and unqualified to judge.
The meaning of any text is a function of the interface between reader and writer; i.e. hermeneutics. The authors don't UNDERSTAND the text and they fail to understand the limitations of their own personal, and in this case, failed, reading. Certainly it is not true that all readings are created equal, as the extreme post-modernists would have us believe, but by this token it is by no means clear in these cases that a failure to make sense of a text is the correct reading either.
Is a failure to interpret, an interpretation of failure?
I have read Mr. Sokal and Bricmont's previous book "Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science" and found it enlightening. They found some of the most brilliant post-modernist prose out there, but in most cases they entirely missed the point of the "nonsense" which they attempted to criticize. This new book seems more of the same. A case in point. They cite Deleuze and Guattari, clearly unable to understand the prose, and then leave it to their common reader to follow suit, naturally adopting the easy and comfortable collective belief that a failure to interpret is an interpretation of failure.
The postmodernists have adopted, and indeed adapted the words of science for their own specialized use. To interpret those same words in the original scientific meaning is indeed to throw a wrench into the gears, to disrupt the "multi-dimensional machinic catalysis" of the non-linear meaning. This is the root of the failure of Mr. Sokal and Bricmont to understand not only the texts they criticize, but the distinction between science and philosophy itself. Philosophy is not science and it should not be addressed as such. Philosophy is a meta-science and indeed, at the edges of empirical knowledge, every bit as much, and necessarily so, an art; a function critically of intuition as much as erudition, logic and knowledge. Philosophy attempts to synthesize and analyze all forms of knowledge together and apart, and is not limited to the resources of any one of them, such as the limits of their own specialized vocabularies. Science has a fertile ground of concepts for philosophy to adapt, and often radically, for its own meta-scientific and creative uses. Any scientist attempting to make sense of this adaptation—-especially in the case of the fertile imaginations (and this in the good way stated by Einstein, “imagination is more important than knowledge”) of Deleuze and Guatarri—-will fall flat when he takes those words, which in his scientific context are all-to-familiar, at face value in this radically new context. The authors have stripped these passages from their "multireferential, multi-dimensional" context and then naturally failed to make sense of the adapted meanings of their own words and concepts. They then impose this failed hermeneutic as if it were pregiven and absolute, expecting their unwitting, and equally unqualified readers, to follow suit.
They have failed to learn from their enemy the value of context and hermeneutics. This is not to excuse the occasional errors that will occur in all human endeavors, philosophy not being an exception, but merely to expose the limitations of a "scientific" reading of philosophy. Scientists should know, especially if they have any knowledge of the philosophy of their discipline, that one must follow the injunctions of the "paradigm" if one is to find its meaning. In this case, one must understand the context and adapted meanings of the words in use before one can first understand, and then pass judgment on the text. Essentially the judgment being cast--when the failure to interpret is taken at face value--is that the postmodernist authors have simply played with the meaning in a radically new context for which the scientists are no longer truly competent to judge. Not having followed the injunctions of the "paradigm" (scare-quotes indicate a loose adaptation of the term) to learn from the context the new, adapted meanings of their beloved vocabulary, the "experiments in hermeneutics" by these scientists venturing into this new terrain of philosophy, have naturally failed. Philosophy is not science, and is neither inferior nor derived from, or reducible to it. Scientists would be wise to learn this and to suspend judgment over what they are often not qualified to understand.
If, on the other hand, a philosopher attempts to describe a scientific theory, and bungles it in the context of the science itself, that is another issue entirely. The philosophers, in this new case, have wandered into the scientist's domain and in this case the scientists are doing us a favor by pointing out the flaws. This is not the case here, however, with these quotes, stripped of their context and meaning, or "disrobed" as the authors so poetically put it. In these cases, the post-modernists have taken the science into their own world to be trans-adapted for new meanings, a typical evolutionary strategy, as Mr. Dawkins should be aware. And in this case of meta-criticism the scientists have wandered into a new and unfamiliar space, that of post-modernist philosophy, in which they are incompetent to judge. They are attempting to reclaim the old meanings of their terms, but this is as futile and meaningless as attempting to reclaim the pre-mammalian jaw-bones that have been functionally adapted into the delicate sensorial operations of the mammalian ear. To reclaim those words, concepts and ideas for science--as if science had an ownership and hold on the evolution of even its own language--is analogous to ripping out the angular, articular and the prearticular bones so critical to mammalian hearing. It is equally as mal-directed and violent, and equally a step back down the "ladder" of evolution, at least in a particular domain.
http://wolftrappe.blogspot.com/2006/11/postmodernism-disrobed-review-of.html
Unfortunately, the truths of the postmodern movement, as obscured by the common trash as they are, have equally been lost on Mr. Dawkins, Mr. Sokal and Mr. Bricmont.
In a word..."hermeneutics."
What the authors fail to realize is that philosophy is indeed not science, and should not be read as such...even when it uses the ideas and words of science in new contexts for which they, the scientists, are wholly unfamiliar, and unqualified to judge.
The meaning of any text is a function of the interface between reader and writer; i.e. hermeneutics. The authors don't UNDERSTAND the text and they fail to understand the limitations of their own personal, and in this case, failed, reading. Certainly it is not true that all readings are created equal, as the extreme post-modernists would have us believe, but by this token it is by no means clear in these cases that a failure to make sense of a text is the correct reading either.
Is a failure to interpret, an interpretation of failure?
I have read Mr. Sokal and Bricmont's previous book "Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science" and found it enlightening. They found some of the most brilliant post-modernist prose out there, but in most cases they entirely missed the point of the "nonsense" which they attempted to criticize. This new book seems more of the same. A case in point. They cite Deleuze and Guattari, clearly unable to understand the prose, and then leave it to their common reader to follow suit, naturally adopting the easy and comfortable collective belief that a failure to interpret is an interpretation of failure.
The postmodernists have adopted, and indeed adapted the words of science for their own specialized use. To interpret those same words in the original scientific meaning is indeed to throw a wrench into the gears, to disrupt the "multi-dimensional machinic catalysis" of the non-linear meaning. This is the root of the failure of Mr. Sokal and Bricmont to understand not only the texts they criticize, but the distinction between science and philosophy itself. Philosophy is not science and it should not be addressed as such. Philosophy is a meta-science and indeed, at the edges of empirical knowledge, every bit as much, and necessarily so, an art; a function critically of intuition as much as erudition, logic and knowledge. Philosophy attempts to synthesize and analyze all forms of knowledge together and apart, and is not limited to the resources of any one of them, such as the limits of their own specialized vocabularies. Science has a fertile ground of concepts for philosophy to adapt, and often radically, for its own meta-scientific and creative uses. Any scientist attempting to make sense of this adaptation—-especially in the case of the fertile imaginations (and this in the good way stated by Einstein, “imagination is more important than knowledge”) of Deleuze and Guatarri—-will fall flat when he takes those words, which in his scientific context are all-to-familiar, at face value in this radically new context. The authors have stripped these passages from their "multireferential, multi-dimensional" context and then naturally failed to make sense of the adapted meanings of their own words and concepts. They then impose this failed hermeneutic as if it were pregiven and absolute, expecting their unwitting, and equally unqualified readers, to follow suit.
They have failed to learn from their enemy the value of context and hermeneutics. This is not to excuse the occasional errors that will occur in all human endeavors, philosophy not being an exception, but merely to expose the limitations of a "scientific" reading of philosophy. Scientists should know, especially if they have any knowledge of the philosophy of their discipline, that one must follow the injunctions of the "paradigm" if one is to find its meaning. In this case, one must understand the context and adapted meanings of the words in use before one can first understand, and then pass judgment on the text. Essentially the judgment being cast--when the failure to interpret is taken at face value--is that the postmodernist authors have simply played with the meaning in a radically new context for which the scientists are no longer truly competent to judge. Not having followed the injunctions of the "paradigm" (scare-quotes indicate a loose adaptation of the term) to learn from the context the new, adapted meanings of their beloved vocabulary, the "experiments in hermeneutics" by these scientists venturing into this new terrain of philosophy, have naturally failed. Philosophy is not science, and is neither inferior nor derived from, or reducible to it. Scientists would be wise to learn this and to suspend judgment over what they are often not qualified to understand.
If, on the other hand, a philosopher attempts to describe a scientific theory, and bungles it in the context of the science itself, that is another issue entirely. The philosophers, in this new case, have wandered into the scientist's domain and in this case the scientists are doing us a favor by pointing out the flaws. This is not the case here, however, with these quotes, stripped of their context and meaning, or "disrobed" as the authors so poetically put it. In these cases, the post-modernists have taken the science into their own world to be trans-adapted for new meanings, a typical evolutionary strategy, as Mr. Dawkins should be aware. And in this case of meta-criticism the scientists have wandered into a new and unfamiliar space, that of post-modernist philosophy, in which they are incompetent to judge. They are attempting to reclaim the old meanings of their terms, but this is as futile and meaningless as attempting to reclaim the pre-mammalian jaw-bones that have been functionally adapted into the delicate sensorial operations of the mammalian ear. To reclaim those words, concepts and ideas for science--as if science had an ownership and hold on the evolution of even its own language--is analogous to ripping out the angular, articular and the prearticular bones so critical to mammalian hearing. It is equally as mal-directed and violent, and equally a step back down the "ladder" of evolution, at least in a particular domain.
Access: Public
This is a comment posted in a seperate thread, by the original poster of Dawkins' essay. I'll follow with my reply in the next comment.
http://wolftrappe.blogspot.com/2006/11/responses-to-two-comments-to-begin.html
_____________
To begin with, “Intellectual Impostures” is the French/U.K. title of “Fasionable Nonsense.”
SUBTILLION
Before I address any specific statement in your text, I’d like to say that you yourself in the act of denying the validity of reading Lacan and others’ texts from a scientific viewpoint have violated the entire concept of hermeneutics. You have done so by attempting to undermine the validity of an entire interpretive community (even if it be so small as merely Sokal, Bricmont, and Dawkins – and I assure you, it does not). What makes you so privileged to assume such a dominant and egregiously exclusionary position? It is acceptable to react against an interpretive community that undermines (or attempts to undermine) the validity of yours by, in turn, undermining it itself? Doesn’t that violate the whole spirit of things?
“Unfortunately, the truths of the postmodern movement, as obscured by the common trash as they are, have equally been lost on Mr. Dawkins, Mr. Sokal and Mr. Bricmont.”
What exactly do you mean by the word “truth”? Do you mean a universal truth? Or do you mean an objective truth? Or do you simply mean what happens to be true right now (by which I mean, of course, “then”) at the moment of your writing the word “truth”? Perhaps by using the word “truth,” you meant “non-truth.” If so, did you mean the simultaneously absence and presence of truth? Most notably, it would seem that, at the very least, by your creation and application of the word “truth” has, by the very action of your writing it, attempted to assume the dominant position in a violent hierarchy of your own creating (namely, “truth” and “non-truth,” or, for the beginner, the presence of said “truth” and/versus the absence of said “truth”). So, already, it seems you miss the “point” of the philosophy you adore.
“What the authors fail to realize is that philosophy is indeed not science, and should not be read as such…” AND “Certainly it is not true that all readings are created equal, as the extreme post-modernists would have us believe, but by this token it is by no means clear in these cases that a failure to make sense of a text is the correct reading either.”
On what basis do you, presumably as the heroic defender of postmodernism, determine the correct reading of a text? Once again, you have created a violent hierarchy: “correct reading of text” in contrast to “incorrect reading of text.” And, interestingly enough, you once again assumed the dominant role over what you perceive to be an incorrect reading of a text: 1) On what basis can you state that an incorrect reading of a text is, indeed, incorrect? 2) On what basis do you determine the correct or incorrect reading of a text other than your own tastes and/or desires?
3) To remove my tongue from my cheek for a mere moment, just saying that it’s so don’t make it so: if you make an assertion (i.e. “You don’t understand ____,” which, by the way, has largely been the extent of the postmodern response to Sokal, Bricmont, and others), please be prepared to substantiate, not by purposefully complexifying the subject, but by simplifying it, as I apparently am so silly as to be unable to comprehend neither whit or word of the supposed genius(es) in question. 4) Also, it is the height of hilarity to suggest that Lacan’s texts cannot be evaluated according to any objective criteria or standard; however, Sokal and Bricmont’s critique of Lacan is held to some supposedly “objective” standard, namely, yours. If the critique is, why isn’t the original text? 5) Lastly, if Lacan’s texts are just “poetry” and “art,” then why would he pretend to be a psychoanalyst? And if he’s a psychoanalyst, why was he writing poetry (professionally, I mean)? (And if he is a psychoanalyst, why doesn’t his method of psychoanalysis produce beneficial results in his patients?)
Lastly, before you continue your admittedly spirited defense of Lacan and others on the sole basis that Sokal and others like him “do not understand” and “misinterpret” and “fail to read correctly,” please read the post immediately below this one (it’s a sixteen page essay about Lacan from the viewpoint of a former disciple and contemporary psychoanalyst, “From Lacan to Darwin”). You may find it illuminating.
UBERMEISTER SWEDLOW, I’ll address your comment later, but you may find “From Lacan to Darwin” interesting as well.
posted by michael u at 6:54 PM
Hi Michael,
Thank you for taking the time to address my points, and try your own hermeneutics on my hermeneutics of this hermeneutic.
I'll try to clear up the miscommunication, as I see it (i.e. from my relative and limited pov).
By “truths”, I mean “relative truth,” and certainly not absolute or universal Truth, which I believe is a contradiction in terms. IMhO, there is relative truth in all ideas, even those of Sokal, Bricmont and Dawkins. And no, I was not excluding a scientific, or even an objective analysis of philosophy, only pointing out its limits and that these authors did not comply with the injunctions of this particular paradigm (again speaking loosely), namely learning the new context and vocabulary of the authors they seek to criticize. They simply were not being scientific, and this is indeed why they failed to understand the passages they claimed (falsely) were meaningless. But most scientists have little training in inter-paradigmatic science. They often don't understand that in order to viably criticize something, including any alternative scientific paradigm, you must first understand it to the point that you can see its relative truths, i.e. you can see the world from its eyes, so to speak. That is the injunction for the paradigm that these scientists have failed to comply with, and thus they have failed to be scientific. They simply have not taken the time to learn the new, transfigured vocabulary.
Furthermore, I do not assume to hold any pregiven or absolute hermeneutic on this (or any other) topic myself. But I do happen to be a student of Deleuze, especially as his interpretion of the rationalists, Spinoza and Leibniz, are concerned. Deleuze's interpretation, in the history of philosophy, is by far the best I have seen. My point is simply that once you actually find, what Deleuze calls “the plane of consistency” in his own thought, it is far from meaningless, and his style, I have found, while being highly creative, is very logical, clear and rational.
And indeed, as a student of Deleuze, I am very much prepared to simplify and discuss the aspects of his work that I have studied, namely his rationalist metaphysics. I am nearly finished writing a book that does (among other things) this very a thing (www.spinbitz.net). Feel free to ask any question about his work, for which I am familiar, and I will simplify it for you. I do find Deleuze's words often overly complicated, but this is because he lacked some critical underlying concepts needed to make his ideas simpler. After studying him, I do not feel his intent was ever to complexify for the sake of complexifying, but his philosophy is an art, and his complexity is generally for the sake of his own creative exploration of ideas.
So, no, I am not a heroic defender of postmodernism, and I have only really studied in depth one “post-modernist” (not counting Nietzsche). I have not even attempted here to defend Lacan, given that I don't know his work. But I am a defender of Deleuze and his work on Spinoza and Leibniz, which I feel is critical and very valuable for the project of rationalism as a whole. So, again, feel free to ask any questions regarding his work on these two philosophers, and anything about his metaphysics and ontology, and even some aspects of his epistemology, and I'll be happy to simplify them greatly.
Again, Thank You for taking the time to respond to my comments.
All the Best,
Joel Morrison
www.spinbitz.net
Here's another comment from the same post/commentary:
I would have to take issue with the statement that Sokal and Bricmont failed to “comply with the injunctions of this particular paradigm (again speaking loosely), namely learning the new context and vocabulary of the authors they seek to criticize.” I think that is exactly what Sokal and Bricmont did, namely emulating the paradigmatic 'phrase regimens' of Lacan and company so well that they even succeeded in fooling dialectical experts like Ross and Aronowitz at Social Text. Yet, ironically, Lacan, Baudrilliard and Delueze, etc. abjure from publishing their pseudo-scientific musings in any science journals.
So they have coopted and transfigured a particular mode of signifying - namely that if mathematics, physics and science in general, without disclosing any of the isomorphisms.
I do not doubt that some of these writings can have “meaning” in a poetic or metaphoric sense but that meaning must inhere in the reader, or along the reader/writer axis. It emphatically does not inhere in the text itself – this according to Stanley Fish.
That being said, I do find some of Deleuze and Guattari's ideas, namely the Rhizome, to be evocative and would be happy to explore that metaphor further, in a metaphoric inter-paradigmatic sense.
signed,
euthydemos,
a reader
… and my response:
Good point, euthydemos. But I was not talking about their publication of their pseudo article, i.e. “the Sokhal affair”. I was rather talking about their admittedly failed attempt to make sense of the text that they pasted out of context. If they really knew the “paradigms” of the thought they were attempting to criticize, these ideas would not be meaningless. They are, however, ripped from a complex web of ideas which they were critically embedded, and thus even harder to decipher without that context. I know because Deleuze's thought once appeared equally as meaningless. It was only when I found his work on Spinoza and needed to delve in deeper and find the “plane of consistency” in his thought, that it began to make sense. Now it just seems rather straightforward, considering his historical position in the evolution of these ideas.
Again, I disagree with the conclusion of these authors that Deleuze, in particular, is purposefully partaking in obfuscation. I think it is because these authors are not really Deleuze scholars–i.e. they have not undertaken the “injunctions” required to understand the “paradigm” of Deleuze's thought–that they came to their, IMhO incorrect, conclusions. And again, I'd be happy to simplify and generalize the aspects of Deleuze about which I am familiar.
The Sokhal affair is entirely another matter, which just goes to show the inadequacy of the peer-review process in general, in that, even in science, it is used to maintain the status quo at the expense of new ideas. The affair really has nothing to do with the validity of these thinkers at all, namely Deleuze, but with the editor's of the journals.
…And furthermore, “emulating the paradigmatic 'phrase regimens'” is not the same thing as actual understanding. The postmodern generator can emulate the “phrase regimens”, yet it clearly cannot understand even what it writes, let alone the texts which it emulates.
So again, I stand by my comment. Sokhal and Bricmont failed to comply with the scientific method and go through the injunctions of the paradigm to adequately critique the texts. That is why they failed to make sense of it and only succeeded in “emulating the paradigmatic 'phrase regimens' of Lacan and company so well that they even succeeded in fooling dialectical experts like Ross and Aronowitz at Social Text.” Props to them for exposing the so-called “experts” and for shaking up the peer-review system in general.
euthydemos then followed up with a comment about rhizomes, and I'll include his quotes in my response:
Perhaps you could shed some insight on the following:
<snip>
Actually, I have not studied Deleuze’s concept of the rhizome in depth, but I’ll give it a shot.
“A rhizome as a subterranean stem is absolutely different from roots and radicles. Bulbs and tubers are rhizomes. Plants with roots or radicles may be rhizomorphic in other respects altogether. Burrows are too, in all their functions of shelter, supply, movement, evasion, and breakout. The rhizome itself assumes very diverse forms, from ramified surface extension in all directions to concretion into bulbs and tubers … The rhizome includes the best and the worst: potato and couchgrass, or the weed.” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 6- 7)
This is simply a straightforward commentary about the difference between rhizomes and roots. I am partially just guessing here, but I think Deleuze was using the rhizome to break from the domination of the root/tree hierarchical system of thought, with its centralized idea, the thesis, that all must ultimately pass through. Deleuze wanted to liberate thought to wander in a more nonlinear, and acategorical fashion.
“A rhizome (h)as no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo. The trees is filiation, but the rhizome is alliance, uniquely alliance. The tree imposes the verb “to be,” but the fabric of the rhizome is the conjunction, “and…and…and…” ”
(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987)
Having not studied in depth Deleuze’s concept of the rhizome, I am not certain what Deleuze is getting at with the “to be” thing, but the “and…and…and…” seems relatively clear. The rhizomatic methodof writing and thinking, if I understand correctly, opposes the definitive or numerical identities of essentialism and Platonism, and allows representation to resonate into other possible meanings, freed from the absolute categories of the “to be” assignment.
“The rhizome is an anti-genealogy.”(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p.11)
“The rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative model. It is a stranger to any idea of genetic axis or deep structure.” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p.12)
Obviously the tree/root is the genealogical metaphor, with a single trunk in the middle, and the rhizome is closer to the genealogical bush. The rhizome opposes the single, absolute mode of thought, fracturing it into its other hidden possible resonances.
“Many people have trees growing in their heads, but the brain is more like a grass than a tree” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, pg. 17).
This is great! A little poetic license. Again, this should be clear by now. Just don’t take it literally.
“We invoke one dualism in order to challenge another. We employ a dualism of models only in order to arrive at a process that challenges all models” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, pg. 20).
Not clear what Deleuze’s dualism of models is, but I’d guess it is the tree/rhizome dualism, and it then seems clear that this dualism is meant to shake up the hegemony of hierarchical models, with their absolutistic trunk/stems, in favor of a more realistic morphological variety.
“The rhizome is an acentered, nonhierarchical, nonsignifying system without a General and without an organizing memory or central automaton, defined solely by the circulation of states.” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p.21)
Again, this should now be clear, despite the new ideas, such as “organizing memory”, “central automaton” (conceptual metaphors for the trunk) and the “circulation of states” (a conceptual metaphor for the nonlinearity of the rhizome morphology. I don’t happen to know the precise meaning of those concepts, having not studied his rhizome.
Amen to that!
I'm not familiar with the background of Sokal et. al, but it seems to me a deep flaw in analytic philosophy to think there is any method, any proscribed, institutionalised way of “doing philosophy” as if it were a science. I don't think philosophy is a science. I don't think there's “progress” in philosophy. What would that be? We still read Plato.
Hi Gunnar,
Yeah, I think there is certainly a sense in which philosophy doesn't progress, in that the main “problems” of ontology and epistemology were solved long ago. There are “truths” in philosophy that never die, precisely because they are true, they speak of the eternal, sub specie aeternitatis (and this is indeed why Spinoza was so certain he had found truth in his own philosophy). The earliest case I know of would be the Taoists, but then again with the pre-socratics, buddhists (e.g. Nagarjuna), neo-platonists, spinoza, hegel, deleuze, etc. Philosophy is cyclical. Every progression seems to build off a regression. We forget the solutions to find them in a new way. This is how academia keeps its tenure. (see the book, “The Truth About Everything” by Matthew Stewart, for a fascinating, if cynical, discussion on the subject) But with every new way comes indeed a bit of evolution, in the form of new concepts, ideas, metaphors, literature. At the very least, progress unfolds as the new truths in other domains (e.g. science, art, mathematics) become enfolded into the mix. And there are those who seek (and succeed) to transcend-and-include (rather than transcend-and-negate) the truths of the past, instead of building their philosophies on the recreation of solutions past, which they destroyed (consciously or unconsciously) for very purpose of feigning originality.
Haha! That academia constantly reinvents itself in order to secure its tenure, its flow of cash…well, it's cynical but I guess it's right. I guess most philosophers motivations are at base “Finding stuff out for the sake of finding stuff out” or something like that; if the public only knew…
You seem to think it's merely a contingent matter whether there's progress in philosophy, that it's just a consequence of the “insights into truth” by Spinoza and Deleuze etc. I'm not so sure about that. I think the issue is just that: you have no independent means of checking which solutions/theories are “better”, and thus have progressed over its fellows. Maybe you're on to something with the “transcend-and-include” idea…at least that's how I tend to view progress in science, i.e. that you can
actually derive earlier theories from newer ones. But this might be biased as well. Maybe the Wilberian transcend-and-include just is dependent on a particular (Hegelian) view of how history and ideas unfold.
“You seem to think it's merely a contingent matter whether there's progress in philosophy, that it's just a consequence of the “insights into truth” by Spinoza and Deleuze etc. I'm not so sure about that.”
Actually, those “insights into truth” were the reason philosophy doesn't evolve, i.e. because truth is eternal.
“I think the issue is just that: you have no independent means of checking which solutions/theories are “better”, and thus have progressed over its fellows.”
Theories check themselves based on their utility, and it is in the sense of utility, that ideas, including philosophical ones, evolve.
“Maybe you're on to something with the “transcend-and-include” idea…at least that's how I tend to view progress in science, i.e. that you can
actually derive earlier theories from newer ones.”
Yeah, it seems to make sense to me.
“But this might be biased as well.”
Biased? What isn't? But in what direction or dimension do you detect a bias?
“Maybe the Wilberian transcend-and-include just is dependent on a particular (Hegelian) view of how history and ideas unfold.”
I see a Hegelian bias in all of philosophical history, which exoteric Wilber unquestioningly seems to inherit. Deleuze offers an alternative lineage in the history of philosophy, which my work expands upon. Nevertheless, it's difficult to see fault in the general idea of evolution as a transcend-and-include process. I'd love to hear your criticisms on that, however. Also, it's plain to see that evolution is not a universal or absolute feature of reality, but rather neccessarily includes its identical-opposite, involution.