diane,
it seems that your statement
> the assumption of a universal authority in matters of cultural authority
is
> kind of contradictory, isn't it?
presupposes that cultures represent ontologically distinct spheres and that
there can be no knowledge of culture but only knowledge within specific
cultures.
But there is no evidence for this and, to the contrary, evidence against it
unfolds daily before our eyes in various processes of globalization of
culture and has always occured whereveer cultures have met. Ultimate
absolute translatability, the poet's dilemna, is not at issue here. I
believe Engels said this well when he wrote:
"Ants have eyes different from outs, they can see chemical (?) light rayws
(Nature, June 8, 1882, Lubbock), buts as regards knowledge fo these rays
that are invisible to us, we are considerably more advanced than the ants
and the very fact that we are able to demonstrate that ants can see things
invisible to us, and that this proof is based solely on perceptions made
with our eyes, shows that the special construction of the human eye sets no
absolute barrier to human cognition.
"In any case we shall never find out how chemical rays appear to ants.
Anyone who is distressed by this is simply beyond help."
If eyes don't set barriers to cognition, why should culture?
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Diane Hodges <dhodges@ceo.cudenver.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 9:11 AM
Subject: chapter four and cultural histories
> - interesting to note the difficulties and discomforts from American
> readers of chapter four -
> questions about "who" is the authority citation for making statements, and
> so on.
>
> as we've discussed before,
> cultures privilege different authorities, so that Australian scholars
> refer to authorities that might not be recognized in the USA,
> just as with England, Irish, Welsh, Swedish, Norwegian, German, Italian,
> and so on and so on.
>
>
> diane
>
> "If you'll excuse me now, I'd like to be alone with my sandwich."
> Homer
>
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