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November 15, 2008
In the introduction to The Aesthetics of Decay: Nothingness, Nostalgia, and the Absence of Reason Dylan Trigg says that he criticizes the claim that reason is the guarantor of progress. He quotes Paul Feyerband thus on reason, who says that a benefit of reason is its lack of content:
since, it enables special groups to call themselves ‘rationalists,’ to claim that widely recognized successes were the work of Reason and to use the strength thus gained to suppress developments contrary to their interests”.
Trigg adds that Feyerabend’s comments correctly identify what is fundamental to reason: firstly, the my thological lineage, which implicitly testifies to a once unified perspective. Secondly, the supposed legitimacy reason confers upon thought and praxis. Thirdly, the absence reason creates in its fall from certainty. That the reality of the myth has now eroded does nothing to lessen the enthusiasm of “rationalists.”
Trigg says that his book undertakes the task of reaffirming the decline of reason, so exploring the space deserted by this decline. The point of departure is that progress is compatible with the absence of rea-
son and that the supposed antithesis of progress—decline—is the means by which a critique of progress is possible.
Trigg asks: How will this possibility be realized? He replys thus:
Since reason, after Kant, has sought to be essentially placeless in its universality, depending, as it does, on formal rather than particular properties, placing reason in a spatial and temporal context will establish the conditions under which the ambiguity of reason gives way to the clarity of its absence.
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Gary,The defense and advocacy of reason is a big theme in the culture wars altogether. Some of the players.
Reason Magazine courtesy of the benighted Randian "objectivists".
The Reason Project promoted by Sam Harris.
That chap in Rome--the one in the clown costume. And his minions, even Pell here in OZ.
Right wing religionists via Stand to Reason and Let Us Reason etc etc (and their multiple inter-linking groups)
The influential crackpot "religionist" Ravi Zacharias via The End Of Reason
Gab-fests held in Rome titled The Grandeur of Reason put on by the catholic "radical orthodox" pooh-bars. Zizek even gave a talk!