i think i picked up the idea of "conversation" from a b3n w4tson backlash argt against de saussure!

[dubdobdee]

geuss on rorty on "conversation" (and some discontents)

have only skimmed this: am totally back-achey and mentally fuzzy today and not getting my ideas in order on ANYTHING, least of all chumpdom left right or elsewhere

am tryin to do a (small) bit of spring cleaning -- or at least its pintsize cousin "putting stuff away"

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

anyway the reason to use "vector" is the sense that there's actually a DRIVE in a particular direction: and this is the one thing that i can't get a fix on in pragmatism, how to institute the non-immediate drives: or to put in in terms of a recurring kogan-esque concern, how to stop dubdobdee being distrcated from every shiny new topic that passes by and to focus on finshing an OLDER thought

universities are of course full of devices to focus the swivelheaded student on longer goals, but they are often (always?) devices that inculcate a disdain towards the immediate as event-to-respond-to

[koganbot]

Well, can't there be something between "I need to get this paper in by 8:30 tomorrow morning" and "I need to describe the totality of everything"? That is, immediate goals and not-so-immediate goals? In any event, when I complain about, e.g., Meltzer not following through on his ideas, it's not that I have in mind a particular endpoint or a definition of when a conversation is done, but more along the lines of "When Meltzer said that '"Like A Rolling Stone" represents an attempt to free man by rescuing him from meaning, rather than free man through meaning,' he didn't take the next step in trying to work out what he or Dylan was trying to break free of or what of what one achieves in being so freed." This doesn't mean Meltzer has to leap to the finish line or even envision a finish line, but something more than the abstract problem of "meaning" was on his mind. There's no reason that he can't be at least a bit specific, like, OK, what specifically do I wish I were free from, now how does Dylan's wordplay open things up for me? That question would be impetus for me, why not for Meltzer?