Week 6: The Enlightenment
6. Why is the 'Enlightenment' still an issue for Post-Structural thinkers? In what ways do Habermas' and Foucault's accounts of modernity and of the Enlightenment differ? Why does it matter? What questions do the debates over the Enlightenment raise about the issue of legacy and inheritance?
Of course the Enlightenment is still an issue for all present academics. Even beyond the birth of modernity in 1492, the Enlightenment period has had the most profound impact on all thought and continues to effect present philosophy. Where we once looked to the Greeks for a basis to philosophy and academic practise, all advanced though now owes an exorbitant debt to the actions of Enlightenment thinkers. Such are the lasting consequences of that period of time, that undoubtedly, until we have some new profound event to clear the cobwebbed corridors of academia, nothing will be able to function within our ivory tower without some reference to that great affecting period, the Enlightenment.
Foucault's views on the different periods of times remain utterly unique. Tinted by his insistence on the term episteme and overwhelming focus on the obscure founders of new thought processes. Habermas and the rest of the regular establishment looks on the great movers and shakers and not those who stayed at the sidelines.
To some degree, who we concentrate on when analysing the past doesn't really matter beyond personal taste, until one begins to claim heritage from the ancients and ancestors. If we see ourselves as working from the works of those who have gone before, then we aught to remain respectful of their opinions as we can read them and of their context. People in different ages certainly approached things in different ways, even if this was simply due to differences in what people have been taught as true in different times. A result of this is that we could accidentally transfer twenty-first century notions onto the past and unforgivably tryto hold the dead accountable for things that were not their fault.
Outline some of the ways you think Derridaʼs theories of deconstruction and différance unsettle certainties about the self, truth, and meaning. Are there any ethical implications that emerge out of his work? If you think there are, what might these be?
I do not think, therefore I am not.
OR
Deconstruct this!
The Agate Lamp Within Thy Hand
Since his mother's death a month ago, William Levett lived alone in the house of his adolescence. Though years had passed since laughter last filled the halls, the recent silence was especially cutting, and as he walked from room to room there was a continuing echo of his memories. His sister Caroline arrived that afternoon, with her husband Eli, and sensing the abject melancholy that had taken her brother, she had stayed.
After a silent dinner, Caroline retired to her old bedroom, while William went up to his study and worked late into the night. Tiring about half-past three, he went downstairs to fetch himself a drink before sleep. In the blackness at the bottom of the stairs a green light flickered from the drawing room. The colour was not unusual in the house, since William's father had purchased a pair of antique lamps of highly polished silver with distinct emerald green glass bowls. Yet William was certain he had extinguished it before he had gone upstairs.
From the doorway, William saw Caroline standing before the lamp on the mantlepiece. She was wearing her nightclothes, a long white gown that hung close to her body.
'Caroline, my dear?' spoke William as he approached, 'what are you doing awake at this hour?' She turned, her face in silhouette, edged in a brilliant shimmering aura, and kissed William wholly and passionately on the lips. At first he resisted, but he felt her hands holding him tight, and gave in, falling against her body. He closed his eyes for a moment and felt her warmth leave him. Opening his eyes he found himself alone in the room.
Taking the lamp he went upstairs and looked in on her bedroom. The door stuck for a moment but he forced it open, the room was untouched, the bed was made, and a thin dust had settled on all surfaces. He searched the whole house and found no sign of her anywhere. Her coat was not in the hall, in the dining room his plate was empty but hers was still full.
With the lamp lighting his path he went to his car and started towards her home, desperate to know where she was, desperately hoping to hold onto his sanity. A red light ahead caused him to slow, but as it became overpowered in green he accelerated into the junction, crashing into another car head-on.
-----
The windscreen was shattered with pieces everywhere reflecting into his eyes. The cars had joined so utterly that there was no visible join where one ended and the other began. The crumpled bonnet was an umbilical line from driver to driver. He crawled out and found the body of the other driver, a woman. He picked her up and studied her features. Her shallow breathing whispered against his face. She clung to life with lessening determinacy. Unable to support her any longer she fell towards him and he kissed her apologetically.
-----
Eli came out to the site directly from the Arrivals lounge. The detective had been selective with his details, only that there was a crash and his brother-in-law was believed to have been killed. Dawn was breaking, rendering the spotlights over the cars pointless. Walking over to them his shoes stuck to the tarmac. The bodies of the two drivers were on the ground, covered loosely by a single white sheet. The Medical Examiner pulled it back.
'Well Mr. Reed, is this your brother-in-law?' Tears fell to the ground and mixed with the blood. 'We've not been able to identify the woman yet either.'
'I can.' Eli murmured 'She's my wife.'