a question of “Philosophy” (as gardening)

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If the Philosophy Department disappeared from your university, what difference would it make?

Its literature could be covered in other departments, right? Since every domain’s curriculum has its “foundations” component or “theory” component, the correlate philosophical literature could find good place in the wider context of its subject matter, as part of a rich appreciation of the domain it pertains to. Right?

philosophy as conceptual work

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So, the new year begins. I have a lot of work anticipated. I'll begin the year here—and, I expect, begin to make this blog central to my work—by sharing a passage deleted from a posting today to the Habermas list.

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A subscriber's recent indication of concern for “applying Habermasian conceptions” brings to mind my recent interest in distinguishing “theoretical” from “conceptual,” so let me take an opportunity to briefly discuss that, for the sake of Habermasian work (which is so conceptual).

The meaning of ‘clarivoyent’

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You think it's a mispeling of 'clairvoyant'. In a posting yesterday, I said "I feel almost clarivoyent,...." As misspelling, 'clarivoyent' varies with the norm (Chaucer wouldn't know the difference), which is a lexical establishment, that which an accepted dictionary represents. Lexicography has empirically determined the factical norm (i.e., what's normal, in the statistical sense) and declares a common-custom norm, in Habermas' sense of principle D (but as emergent validation, rather than organized validation), in light of etymological background (the legacy of cultural evolution), though sometimes certifying that multiple spellings are widely used. Meanwhile, the lexicologists worry about emerging and fading trends in usage, which contribute to revisions of dictionaries. The Oxford English Dictionary expresses universalistic recommendation for the language (not just representing definitive history), and its calling is universally accepted by English lexicology.

a secularization of prophetic calling

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Can religious sensibility grow to love its place in deep time, beyond tangles of theistic vanity?

In one of the postings from that Habermas group exchange I mentioned in the previous posting, K briefly renders an argumentation strategy for renewing the integrity of prophetic calling for progressive politics, which I want to dwell with further. None of my comment below was part of the email exchange. First:

K> Amanda Anderson[...] claims that sincerity functions more as a legitimating factor for existing norms, which is why postmodern theorists reject it as simply re-inscribing dominant power structures. Postmodern theory tends to favor authenticity, she claims, in the sense of rejecting existing norms (and assigned identity categories) and challenging the status quo.

G (today): I mistakenly recalled that you wrote that Anderson favored authenticity, but maybe the upshot is the same since, apparently, she accepts the sense of norms that allegedly causes the postmodernists to favor authenticity over sincerity.

a note on authenticity vis-à-vis sincerity

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In an exchange on Habermas earlier this week, the correspondent wondered (“K>>” below) about my earlier characterization of the distinction between sincerity and authenticity (“G>>>”), in response to a question from K (“K>>>>”). I responded briefly (“G>”), then more free associatively offline yesterday, which I’ll archive here (following my quoting of our exchange on this point, over four emails. The entirety of the four emails, via the Yahoo! Habermas group [May 1, 2022: which no longer exists], can be made available.

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Aug. 8-9

K>>>> - Can/should we distinguish between sincerity and authenticity, as Amanda Anderson has done in her excellent defense of Habermas (“The Way We Argue Now”)?

G>>> Yes. Habermas would, I think, explicate this distinction in terms of the difference between (a) a way of life (“ethical life” in chapter 1 of Justification and Application, implicating one’s whole exemplification of lifeworldliness, so to speak), which may be variably authentic/inauthentic; and (b) one’s self-representation in communicative action, relative to one’s fidelity to asserted beliefs or values regarded as normative for interaction. Authenticity tends to pertain to living a life; genuineness pertains, for Habermas, to intentional stances in interaction.