The Atlantic Monthly loves philosophers

What do philosophers do when they don't become professional philosophers?  Reasons why you should major in philosophy? Read more in this Atlantic Monthly article.

Philosophy in the News (well, mostly the Atlantic Monthly)

The Atlantic Monthly has been talking about the growing number of philosophy majors for some time, as in this Atlantic Monthly article and more recently this Atlantic Monthly article (Wabash professors will be teaching both of the texts in that second article's picture, so yeah, we're current).  But now they just can't stop talking about it as this article evidences.

Philosophy majors in the news: The Unexpected Ways Philosophy Majors are Changing the World of Business.  Turns out, philosophy can change the world.

Wait... Seriously?

            Thinking about writing and communicating via a written blog provides some unique problems, but Jacques Derrida’s article titled "Signature Event Context"  hopes to modify the common conception of writing nonetheless. He explains that there is a “distance", or "Differance" between the writer and the reader that can never be breached. Once a writer has written something, the reader will have to come to some sort of understanding on his or her own accord, which may not necessarily be what the author intended.

          Derrida elaborates on the distance between the author and the reader when he writes, “…a written sign carries with it a force that breaks with its context... this breaking force is not an accidental predicate but the very structure of the written text.” When an author is in the midst of writing, much like I am at this very moment, the author is in, “a certain ‘present’ of the inscription the presence of the writer to what he has written…the wanting-to-say-what-he-means.” The “present of the inscription”, for Derrida, is something like the context in which an author’s work was originally produced. The meaning of the author’s writing, however, is not determined by this context.  When a person writes something, those words must have meaning to a reader regardless of original intent or the context in which it was written.

            In an attempt to re-word this idea a little more directly, Derrida suggests that the original context and intention of an author does not have command over what the author’s text actually means. This concept becomes even more interesting when we think about how it impacts the process of interpreting another author’s work. Because Derrida believes in an irreducible absence of an author's intention and attendance, the reader or interpreter of a text is left to glean meaning from nothing but the text itself. The context in which a text was written or the original intent of the author cannot be determined from reading someone’s work, which leaves a reader with nothing but the written words that formulate a specific, coherent work to determine meaning.

            To illustrate my point, one mode of communication comes to mind: satire. For example, let’s look at a recent article published by The Onion regarding the first openly gay athlete in the NFL: 

“Providing further evidence of the hesitancy in professional sports to accept homosexual athletes as equals, a new poll published Thursday revealed that more than 97 percent of NFL players are still not ready to date a gay teammate. "Throughout the league there’s a lot of archaic attitudes toward homosexuality, and I’m just not sure NFL players are comfortable enough to enter a monogamous relationship with a gay teammate," said an anonymous player who felt that a steady dating situation with a homosexual teammate wouldn’t be worth the distractions in the locker room.” Full Onion Article

If we were to accept Derrida’s explanation of writing, we quickly begin running the risk of positing a inherently incorrect interpretation of this article as “true.” For Derrida,  if I, as the reader, acknowledge that this bit of an article has become separated from the author’s original context and intentions, I am left to my own devices to glean some significance from the words before me. I must use the system of symbols and meanings found within the quote to determine a fair interpretation of the text.

 So, what does The Onion article mean? Allow me to rehearse a false interpretation that Derrida’s concept of authorship would accept as true: It is a news story concerning a major breakthrough in the NFL. Just as the rest of our country, the National Football League is adjusting to an evolving and more accepting world, but this change doesn’t come without growing pains. For example, some players just don’t feel ready to start dating other men. Gay athletes might be able to play professional sports without hiding their sexuality, but the rest of the players still aren’t ready to embark on romantic relationships with their gay teammates.

For those unfamiliar with The Onion, the interpretation I just provided is unequivocally misguided. The Onion, by nature, is sarcastic or facetious; it is not meant to be taken seriously. Positing that this article is an attempt to explain the unique dating pressures surrounding the first openly gay NFL player is simply incorrect. In fact, the article’s purpose is much different. Through humor, the Onion is attempting to mock the media firestorm surrounding Michael Sam and his entering this year’s NFL draft. Networks like ESPN seem to mention the fact that an openly gay man is playing football every twenty minutes. They bring in current and former players and coaches to explain how a gay player will affect an NFL team. It seems The Onion saw this constant focus on Michael Sam as an opportunity to poke fun at the often mellow-dramatic sports media and the way this story has been covered.

It seems satire, in general, provides an interesting challenge to Derrida's concept, because satire relies on the manipulation of implied intention. The Onion writes poignant and funny articles because they are written in a way that makes them appear and sound earnest. In this way, The Onion's satire works because the implied intention stands in direct contrast to the author's sincere intention, which is to highlight the media's folly by pretending to take absurdity seriously. Lastly, it is important to note that this sarcasm is determined by the author of the text, not the reader: an audience can laugh at what appears to be serious because it is understood that, in fact, the author intended just the opposite.  

According to Derrida, however, my initial understanding of this article is justified. The reason I know the Onion is meant to be taken as a joke is because the Onion does not hide their intentions. Somebody who regularly reads The Onion is aware of these sarcastic intentions, despite the fact that they are never explicitly written in the text. This, however, means that Derrida would not be able to use a relation of symbols strictly limited to this article to understand what it means. Derrida, after rendering an attempt to understand the author’s intentions useless, allows for the possibility of justifying a falsehood. Furthermore, someone who subscribes to Derrida’s outlook would not only run the risk of misreading this text, but it becomes almost impossible to prove how or why a literal interpretation demonstrates misunderstanding. There is no evidence suggesting The Onion’s article is meant not to be taken seriously within the given quote, yet the meaning of the quote is determined, at least in part, by the author’s implicit intent. 

Using a line of thinking that hopefully resembles Russell’s correspondence theory (Stanford Encyclopedia Summary) , a re-focused summary of my argument looks something like this: “The Onion's article is sarcastic” is a true interpretive statement because it corresponds to the true fact that “ The Onion wrote a facetious article” (remembering that they write this way because they very much intend to). However, if I said, “the onion’s article is a literal and sincere news story,” Derrida’s philosophy makes it impossible to have this statement correspond to any true fact outside of the article itself. I cannot posit, “The Onion intends for their news to be taken seriously” or that “ The Onion does not intend for the news to be taken seriously” because an author’s intent no longer impacts the meaning of the text. The inability for Derrida to fully account for the truth underlying either of these statements allows for the potential to justify false interpretations. 

 It seems the only way to understand the meaning of such a satirical piece of writing is to understand that the author did not intend to be taken seriously. In the case The Onion’s brand of satire, ignoring the author’s intention is turning a blind eye to the meaning of the text, a meaning that cannot be recovered as long as the reader remains ignorant of original intent.

The N-word

The NFL or National Football League has been under great scrutiny for their constant implementation of rules that are for the "safety" of the players. Many people have jokingly said that it's like a tough game of two-hand-touch. The league has lost a lot of respect for being the rough and tough game that it was back in the 1980's and early 1990's. With this being said, the NFL is at it again, implementing a rule that this time isn't for the players physical health, but presumably mental health this time.

The NFL is thinking of implementing a rule that would forbid any player on the field from using the N-word without consequence; consequence being a 15 yard penalty for the team that the player represents.

Michael Wilbon of ESPN has been against this rule from the time that it was brought up as being possible, to the point that it has become a reality. His argument against this rule is that he knows many people that use the N-word and isn't a derogatory term by any stretch, in fact it is a term used to refer to friend. Michael went above and beyond to prove his point that it isn't about the word as much as it's about "who uses it."

This concern is best brought up in the face of Derrida I believe. Because Derrida seems to believe that through the work of an author, no matter the author, the truth can be found if the author is no longer around. That the author isn't necessary for the correct meaning to found in the piece of work being studied. Therefore in this situation it is possible that Derrida would critique this rule because although we could posit arguments for what the meaning of the words are that a football player speaks to another, we wouldn't know that we have the correct meaning without knowing the meaning of author himself.

This problem will be a major sticking point in sports for years to come, I'm sure. But one thing I think is important to keep in mind when determining if author matters or not, is the fact that dissecting someone's words and words alone is a science. There is a specific meaning to each individual word and if we dissect meaning in this way than it must be a science. However the problem with this is the fact that satirical literature will never be understood when we try to find meaning via a scientific proof the way that the NFL is trying to do.

 

Up in smoke...[Parental Discresion].

Disclaimer: This post contains content related to Marijuana and other paraphernalia as well as explicit lyrical content and a movie containing content that is rated by some organization with more morals than I as being for mature audiences only.  You have to purchase the movie to watch it, so I am not responsible for your viewing anything other than the preview.  Should the preview offend you, I guess I will care if Hinduism is right and I am reincarnated as a fruit fly in Hays Hall.....I probably still won't care...  

Do you all remember the Cheech and Chong movies?  Quite the comics back in their day.  Recently, rappers Snoop Dogg (now Snoop Lion) and Wiz Khalifa starred in a movie called Mac and Devin go to High School.  The movie can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube, for a fee of course.  Mac and Devin go to High School is a movie which is promoting, arguably, four things: marijuana acceptance, acceptance of the culture of the modern younger generations or at least a major sect of it, as well as unity, and it also might be critiquing the American Educational System.

These four constructs can, I am claiming, be best explained if we accept Foucault's analysis of the author in his work, What is an  Author?.  In this work, Foucault claims that the author is dead as we only refer to the author and do so in various and important ways and ultimately, as Michael Mancher puts it (sorry, it only gives the abstract when I try to link it),

 "Foucault sees the author-function as one which reveals the convergence of a complex web of discursive practices. As these practices change or disappear and as new practices appear, the author-function will necessarily reflect those changes. Thus, the author-function can be described in sociohistorical terms as a practice or group of practices."

Keeping these things in mind, the intention of this movie can be seen best, which is not to say that this movie's philosophies are the best, if we accept Foucault's analysis.  The "practices that change or disappear" that Foucault talks about are the category that the works of the author fall under and are referred to by the name of the author, the author being a standard of comparison that other works are measured, and the actual person that the author is and that his/her text(s) (works) refer(s) to (Mancher, 1995).

This film falls under a couple of categories.  First, the "stoner movie" category, the archetype for which might arguably be any of Cheech and Chong's films.  This is not to say that this movie ought to be measured against any of Cheech and Chong's movies as I am sure that there are many stoner movie-connoisseurs that can find all of the finer tones of the classics that make the old better than the new.  This  is to say, however, that this movie is intended to be viewed in an altered state, namely, while under the influence of marijuana.  Though I am in no way a legalist I do not condone illegal acts.  Enough said.  The second category that this movie falls under, and the more important one, is the "Snoop and Wiz" category.  These two rappers are known for their less violent (especially now for Snoop) approach to hip-hop.  Their lyrics focus less on the violent side of gangster rap and more on the creature-comforts, namely getting high and copulating.  This movie focuses mainly on the former but still has some rather explicit inclusions of the latter.  This is, arguably, very telling of a very significant sect of today's youth, good or bad -- take that as you may.



As far as a standard of comparison is concerned, this movie can have two directions of comparison.  One to Snoop's past lyrics and the other to Wiz's.  As I have already mentioned, they like smoking weed and having sex.  These themes are consistent across both of their portfolios in their raps as well as their cinema.

The third facet of this Foucaultic analysis of authorial intent is the reference to the actual characters themselves as authors.  I think that it helps here to consider Snoop and Wiz more in terms of the characters that they play as well as their real-life selves.  The characters that the two are playing are in high school.  Spoiler alert, Mac (Snoop) is a repeat failure, held back academically for fifteen years or so and a daily stoner, enjoying the finer things in life which is the supposed reason he has yet to graduate.  Devin (Wiz) plays the reigning valedictorian at N. Hale High School who is struggling to keep his spot at valedictorian and get his scholarship to Yale with his overbearing girlfriend.  To make a long and very entertaining story short, the film depicts the wonderful life of being a kid in today's school system and does so by depicting said life in a high school centered around the consumption of cannabis.



Are Snoop and Wiz and the producers, themselves, making a claim about American education, or lack thereof? Whatever the case may be, two pop-culture icons have made a rather successful movie, and may have tried to provide a little insight into the phenomenon of American schooling which is seemingly lacking in terms of the claim of education.  This movie pushes the themes of marijuana awareness and acceptance, draws attention to the culture of a large part of our modern-day youth, and speaks to the unity that can be had, even if it is mediated by a scheduled substance.  The meaning of this film, again, take it as you will, can be, in my opinion, best understood by a careful inspection in the fashion of Michel Foucault's work What is an Author.  Also, as a final point, I think more attention should be spent questioning what is acceptable as education.  If what we are doing today is so off-putting that youth are turning to drugs instead of "education", which I am not claiming that marijuana is itself good or bad, but if weed is the magical ingredient, then perhaps we have cause for questioning.

Bohemian Oversights

We're often convinced that compositions rich with imagery -- works of fiction, certain musical pieces, poetry, and so on -- possess deeper meanings than what we can glean from surface-level interaction with them. But who or what endows each composition with a deeper meaning? There are at least two potential solutions to this question (and perhaps they're just long-standing arguments that don't really get at any solutions at all): 1) The creator of the composition is the one who provides its deeper meaning. 2) The societal (dis)placement circulates the composition and thus provides its deeper meaning.

By societal (dis)placement, I mean two separate things. First, let's neglect the parenthetical "dis." When we turn our attention to these compositions, we can't help but think that there are a number of contextual or societal side issues that demand our focus in addition to the primary compositions in question. Things like time period of production, or whether the composition's advent was in reaction to something separate from it, or the political climate surrounding the composition's initial presence. The other meaning of (dis)placement I hope to make clear, the one for which "dis" is not optional, is the possibility that the composition might be ripped entirely out of the clutches of the author's initial intention and reformed by societal influences -- in this case, the composition's significance would be replaced.

Let's dive into these potential solutions with regard to a musical composition rather than the broader "compositions rich with imagery." We'll use some philosophical concepts too, but only as guides for insight. I am inspired by the words of our own Dr. Trott, who stated in a previous blogpost that it is better that we not enter into discourse with our standing beliefs and understanding of philosophical systems as weapons for justification, but rather that we be open to real conversation that doesn't rely on our particular biases.

-- "Sometimes I Wish I'd Never Been Born at All" --

A deeper meaning embedded in Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody"is claimed to exist. Not only do fans who obsess over the composition debate this deeper meaning, but the band itself asserts that there is one. But here's the catch: they won't disclose it.

"Mercury refused to explain his composition other than saying it was about relationships; the band is still protective of the song's secret."

So how do we reconcile these two issues? The first solution mentioned earlier, concerning authorial intention, doesn't seem completely adequate: we find hints of the second solution seeping in. Freddie Mercury, the creator, refused to explain the lyrical meaning, which shows us that Mercury probably had one in mind. But because it has been kept secret still by the living members of the band, societal (dis)placement has had to take over.

Jacques Derrida weighs in on this when he considers code in an essay entitled "Signature Event Context." His overarching claim is that in order for something to be considered writing, it must be able to function in the absence of both the writer and whom the writer addresses. For Derrida, codes can never be secret, because each coded message is capable of being deciphered, "iterable for a third party," and so capable of being decoded over and over again even if the writer and the intended recipient cease to exist.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" stands as a code, then, and it seems that Derrida would say that, even if Queen's members all passed away, because there is an encoded meaning, we can still consider "Bohemian Rhapsody" a work of writing -- someday, somewhere, even if everybody who knew of Queen and their meaning-filled song had passed away, the coded contents, indeed the meaning, could be repeated.

But is that a satisfying answer? Derrida seems to suggest that writing necessitates absence, and not just metaphorical absence. Writing is divorced from the author the moment it is written; writing has no need for readers in order to be what it is, but it only needs to retain the possibility of being repeated, cited, whether on purpose or on accident. 

Derrida's stance appears to align almost completely with the second of the two solutions above, that of societal (dis)placement, and even further than that, his seems to align with the second of the two interpretations of (dis)placement provided earlier -- if citation and repeatability determine that something is writing, then society is responsible for endowing a composition with meaning and pulling the textual offspring from the clutches of the parental author. Society is responsible for the divorce of text and author; it couldn't be any other way.

I wonder if it is enough that somebody might someday happen upon what Mercury meant by his lyrics. After all, if Queen keeps good on the promise (threat?), there will be no way to corroborate societal interpretation with authorial intention. Unless, of course, if in instances like this, when the composer refuses to disclose the meaning of a composition, that is the intention.

E. D. Hirsch, a scholar of a different mind than what we've seen in Derrida, argues in an essay entitled "Validity in Interpretation" that authorial intention ought not to be banished when the aim is understanding a text's meaning. He blames poets T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound for the onset of the era in which it became "sensible" to ignore the author -- but this can't be fair, can it? Perhaps Hirsch is partially right. Eliot and Pound may have claimed that, for their particular compositions, it would be better for their readers to be kept in the dark about their poems' meanings. Here again, just as we found in our analysis of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," it might very well be the case that the two poets intended for this darkness.

Musical, poetic, perhaps even fictional compositions do not receive their import from the existences of every other musical, poetic, or fictional composition. A stone foundation does not become made of sticks merely because the house atop the foundation is made of sticks. Every composition is not divorced from the meaning that its author imparted just because some composers have intended to keep their intentions hidden. Even when the intention is concealed, we cannot ignore authorial intention.

Writing doesn't exist if there is no writer, a fact inverted in the writing of Derrida, who claimed that writing necessitates its author's absence. And a foundation's nature doesn't change just because something else is stacked on top of it, a fact inverted in the analysis of Hirsch, who claimed that the plague of ignoring authorial intent could have been started by the intentions of a couple of poets.