Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

["James Piat" <piat1 AT bellsouth.net>]

Dear Ken,

 

Thanks for your comments.  I think you make a good point.  However,  it seems to me one could as well argue that the naive realists take a partial truth (that the ability to communicate depends in part upon a shared or common interpretation of events) and generalize it into an absurdity  -- i.e. what is self evidently the "real" meaning of events for oneself is also self evidently the meaning of events for everyone.  Such egocentrism reminds me of the joke that professor Bloom appears to have mistaken his own bowel sounds for the rumblings of the universe.  

 

Best as always,

Jim Piat

 

Jim,

   Deconstruction tries to take a partial insight and stretch it into the whole truth. The humorous thing about it is not where it will finish, but where will it start? It must appeal to what it supposedly undermines in order to get the first word out. It is too much a tool for an ideology and too little a tool for thought. As for harshness, things happen in a context. I think that is what Percy recognized in his denunciatory remarks about deconstruction.

Ken A.