Systems Theory
Not sure how easy this is to follow but out of context, but here goes:
But does the "siding," as Rasch puts it, with contingency reveal the hidden transcendent (thus, impossible) point of view of systems theory? It would seem the validity of the theory would depend on the answer to that question--a question that is in addition enormously difficult to even think about, let alone answer. Can you posit contingency as "infinite" without immediately putting a limit on it by the very statement? It would seem that according to Luhmann this is a necessary pragmatic act as well as an unavoidable theoretical one.
Let us rephrase our question one last time. "What can we say we see?" might mean: Is there one single, accurate description of the world? Encore: Is the/a "correct" description of the world necessary, or necessarily contingent? The law of excluded middle demands an unequivocal answer: "Yes" (necessary) or "No" (contingent). Quine attempts to occupy that excluded middle ground and answers "Yo." But one can see that such an answer "sides," so to speak, with the original "No," for in accepting the relative validity of both positions, it denies the exclusivity demanded by the affirmation of necessity. And yet, though this middle position sides with the negative answer by excluding ultimate exclusion, it is not identical to it. In opting for "ontological relativity" (Quine 1969), one does not simply observe contingency as one might observe objects; rather, one presupposes contingency as an irreducible value. Put another way, if one can entertain competing descriptions of the world as incommensurable but equally valid, one does so not from a position that can see the adequacy of each position but rather from a position that posits the necessity of competing contingent descriptions. In a world where descriptions proliferate and faith in the authority of reason has gone the way of faith in the authority of God, contingency becomes the transcendental placeholder. "Modernity" is the name we have given to this necessarily contingent world.Very interesting to compare the idea of occupying the middle ground with Heidegger's "ontological difference" and Vattimo's "interval" (which is exactly what I'm doing in a paper).
--William Rasch, Niklas Luhmann's Modernity
But does the "siding," as Rasch puts it, with contingency reveal the hidden transcendent (thus, impossible) point of view of systems theory? It would seem the validity of the theory would depend on the answer to that question--a question that is in addition enormously difficult to even think about, let alone answer. Can you posit contingency as "infinite" without immediately putting a limit on it by the very statement? It would seem that according to Luhmann this is a necessary pragmatic act as well as an unavoidable theoretical one.
3 Comments:
I will have to re-read the post to get a better grip of it...but I have a couple books by Quine and found the reference to him interesting. It seems to me that the author is only looking from one "logical" form, and maybe this has something to do with systems theory that I do not know...I do not even know what it is, or know it by that name at least.
As for "choosing" or "not choosing" with respect to contingency, does this not implicitly accept a deductive model? Does science "choose" b/w contingency and necessity when it uses inductive reasoning to make observations of the world. Science does not say "it is," but rather "it seems to me as I percieve it, and that is all I can say." At the most science hopes for a harmonious chorus of "it seems to mes" that give an approach to "it is."
Of course, this sounds like it comes out on the side of contingency, but is it not really just skipping over that premise altogether (of course, the Enlightenment gave lots of reasons for things without God that secretly relied on God's existence)? What I am really getting at is Nietzsche's "gay science," the science of never accepting one premise, but testing from as many different premises as possible. Does this side on "contingency?" Even so, is this a new transcendence?
What is often so unsettling about Nietzsche is the complete lack of transcendence...a philosophy with holes that are not synthetically bridged over with a system or "lept" over with a "teleological suspension."
I think that if you are going to do a deductive logical function then you are probably going to assume a side on the law of excluded middle (its arguable as to whether deductive logic is even possible without it), but you need not deduce. Can you practice the "gay science" and not choose sides? Attributing something like that with a chosen side may just be a way of paving over the holes in someone else's philosophy in order to satisfy one's psychological need for continuity, consistency...to make "world" intuitive.
One of the nice things about Systems Theory (so far) is that it explicitly acknowledges its own paradoxes.
So when you, or I, ask if it is a new transcendence, the answer is, of course, yes. But it's built into the theory that every description is contingent necessarily, even the contingency is contingent! As you can see it's very difficult! I am leaving out some of the more radical hermenuetic and obversational stuff because it's just too involved to get into here.
In other words, yes you must always take a side, but by taking that side you are inevitably limiting your perspective.
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