If Lacan is interesting it’s because he resumes Parmenides. Those who rediscover the crisis of representation today seem to have charmingly vague ideas about the continuity of this discussion (I am reminded of another joke, the one about the student asked to discuss the death of Caesar: “What? Dead? I didn’t even know he was sick!”). But even admitting the considerable age of the crisis, I still don’t understand what the hell it means. I cross the street on a red light, the cop blows his whistle, and then fines me (not someone else). How can all this happen if the idea of the subject is in a state of crisis, along with the sign and reciprocal representation? I begin to suspect this is not the point. But then what was having the crisis? Can we clear it up? Or is it the notion of crisis itself that is in critical condition? Or are you subjecting me to a series of terrorist actions? I protest.
Back to reason, that is, to the definition of. As we move through the forest of the different and age-old philosophical definitions, we can (with the crudeness of one allowed only a few hundred words) outline five basic meanings:
- Reason is that type of natural knowledge, characteristic of man, opposed on the one hand to mere instinctive reactions, and on the other to intuitive knowledge (such as mystical illuminations, faith, subjective experiences not communicable through language, and so on). In this case we speak of reason to say that man is capable of producing abstractions and of speaking through abstractions. This notion does not seem to me to be undergoing a crisis; man is made in this way, beyond any doubt.
At most we must decide to what extent this proceeding by abstractions is good compared to other ways of thinking, because undoubtedly the person who has mystical visions also thinks. But speaking of the crisis of reason is itself formulating an abstraction, using our rational capacities to cast doubt on the goodness of a certain type of exercise of these same capacities. 2. Reason is a special faculty of knowing the Absolute by direct view; it is the self-knowledge of the idealistic ego; it is the intuition of prime principles which both the cosmos and the human mind obey, and even the divine mind. This concept is undergoing a crisis, no question about that. It has given us far too many headaches. If somebody comes and tells us he has a direct view of the Absolute and tries to impose it on us, we kick him. But don’t call it crisis of reason. It’s that man’s crisis.
3.Reason is a system of universal principles that precede man’s abstractive capacity. At most man may recognize them, perhaps with difficulty and after long reflection. This is Platonism, no matter what name it’s given. It is an illustrious position, and its crisis is considerable, from Kant on (and even earlier). This is the notorious classical reason. You come across it even in mathematics or contemporary logic. Its crisis is obvious but not universally accepted. What does it mean, to say that the sum of the inner angles of a triangle must always add up to one hundred and eighty degrees because this is a necessary truth?
At most one should discuss the difference between universal truth, evident truth, and postulated truth. If I posit Euclidean geometry, it is necessary truth that the sum of the interior angles equals one hundred and eighty degrees. As a rule we aspire to the freedom to change the postulates in special situations. If someone grants me that freedom, I grant him permission to use the notion of necessary truth. Obviously, it is over decisions of this sort that the battle for definition number 5 is waged, as we will see below.
4.Reason is a faculty of judging and discerning (good and evil, true and false). This is Cartesian common sense. If you insist on the natural origin of this faculty, you return to something close to definition number 3. This notion today is surely undergoing a crisis, but in an ambiguous way. I would call it a crisis of excess: This innocent naturalness has been shifted from reason to other “faculties,” such as Desire, Need, Instinct. Instead of insisting on the crisis of this notion (surely fairly dangerous and “ideological”), I would find it more useful to create a crisis for the certainty of its surrogates. In this respect, the new Cartesianism of the irrational, so to speak, seems to me far more upsetting.
To say that these four definitions of reason are in a state of crisis is like saying, after Galileo and Copernicus, that the earth moves around the sun. It may be necessary to add that the sun is motionless only in relation to the earth, but the first affirmation is now watertight and the idea that the sun moves around the earth is surely undergoing a crisis (but why repeat it?).
5.Thus we come to the fifth definition. Which is also in a stateof crisis, but a different crisis from the others. It is not so much undergoing a crisis as it is critical, because in a sense it is the only definition that allows us to recognize a “rational” or “reasonable” way of constantly creating a crisis in both reason and classical rationalism and in the anthropological notions of rationality and, in the final analysis, its own conclusions.
The fifth definition is very modern, but also very ancient. If you reread Aristotle carefully you can derive it also from his writings, with some prudence. Reread Kant (and rereading always means reading with reference to our problems, explicitly subjecting the original picture to criticisms and precautions);
Kant still works pretty well, too, in this regard.
As I was saying, in this fifth meaning, rationality is exercised through the very fact that we are expressing propositions regarding the world, and even before making sure that these propositions are “true,” we have to make sure that others can understand them. So we have to work out some rules for common speech, logical rules which are also linguistic rules. Which is not to assert that when we speak we have to say always and only one thing, without ambiguity or multiple meanings. On the contrary, it is rather rational and reasonable to recognize that there exist also discourses (in dreams, in poetry, in the expression of desires and passions) that mean several things at once, contradictory among themselves.
But precisely because it is fortunately obvious that our speech is also open and has multiple meanings, every so often, and in certain matters, we have to work out agreed norms of speech, for specific situations where we all decide to adopt the same criteria for using words and for linking them in propositions which can then be debated. Can I reasonably assert that human beings love food? Yes, even if there are dyspeptics, ascetics, and anorexics.
We must simply agree and establish that, in this area of problems, statistical evidence can be held reasonable. Is stylistic evidence valid in establishing what is the “right” meaning of the Iliad, or whether Bo Derek is more desirable than Sigourney Weaver? No, the rules change. And who doesn’t agree with this criterion? I won’t say it’s irrational, but allow me to look at it with suspicion. If possible, I avoid it.
Don’t ask me what I must do if it sneaks in; it will be reasonable to decide in what way when the situation arises. Both the laws of logic and those of rhetoric (in the sense of a technique of argument) belong to this type of reasonableness. Fields must be established in which the former are preferable to the latter.
A logical friend said to me: “I renounce all certitudes, except the first mention.” What’s rational about this attitude? For the layman, I will explain in a few words. The modus ponens is the rule of reasoning (and hence the rule for a comprehensible and agreed discourse) whereby if I assert if p then q, and acknowledge that p is true, then q can only follow. In other words, if I agree to define all French citizens as Europeans (and we agree on this meaning postulate), then if Monsieur Ali Hassan is a French citizen everyone must recognize that he is European.
The modus ponens does not apply in poetry, or dreams, or the language of the unconscious in general. We must only decide where it has to apply, that is, begin a discourse after deciding whether or not we accept the modus ponens. And naturally we must agree on the premise, because someone may want to define as French citizens only those born in France of French parents with white skin.
Sometimes, when it comes to the definition of premises, the meaning-postulates that we want to accept, infinite conflicts can develop. It is then reasonable not to insist on the modus ponens, until all agree on the premise. But afterwards, it seems reasonable to obey the modus ponens, if it has been assumed as valid. And it will be rational not to refer to the modus ponens in those cases where we can
