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I
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Morton, Michael.
Thecriticalturn:studiesinKant, Herder,Wittgenstein, and
contemporarytheory/MichaelMorton.
p. cm.-(Kritik)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0-8143-2376-6(alk. paper)
1. Literature-Philosophy. 2. Skepticisminliterature.
3. Dogmatisminliterature. 4. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804.
5. Herder,JohannGottfried,1744-1803. 6. Wittgenstein, Ludwig,
1889-1951. I. Title. II. Series.
PN49.M67 1993
801-dc20 92-13153
DESIGNER1S. R. TENENBAUM
There is a massive central
coreofhuman thinkingwhichhas nohistory ... :there
are categories and concepts which, in their most funda
mental character, change not at all. Obviously these are
not the specialties of the most refined thinking. They
are the commonplaces of the least refined thinking;
and are yet the indispensable core of the conceptual
equipmentofthe mostsophisticatedhuman beings. Itis
withthese, theirinterconnexions, and thestructure that
theyform, thatadescriptive metaphysicswillbe primar
ily concerned.
P F. Strawson, Individuals: An Essay in
Descriptive Metaphysics
ABBREVIATIONS
AR The AutonomyofReason
CIS Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity
CP Consequences ofPragmatism
CTH The Critical Theory of]iirgen Habermas
CV Contingencies ofValue
DWN DoingWhat Comes Naturally
HL "Historyand Literature"
ITC Is There a Text in This Class?
KMA Kanfs Theory ofMental Activity
KTI Kant's TranscendentalIdealism
OC On Certainty
PI Philosophical Investigations
PMC The Postmodern Condition
PMN Philosophy and the Mirror ofNature
RC "A Reply to my Critics"
SSR The Structure ofScientific Revolutions
SWS Herder's Siimtliche Werke
TLP Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
UP "What Is Universal Pragmatics?"
Z Zettel
INTRODUCTION
AMONG THE MOST SALIENT DEVELOPMENTS IN RECENT YEARS IN
thefield ofliterarystudiesisthe muchdiscussed, analyzed, commented
upon, and argued over ascendancy of"theory.nThe kinds ofthingsthat
those active in the field today are inclined to say about the objects of
theirprofessional concern havecome to be informed by"philosophical':>
considerations ofone sort oranother, both to an extent and in afashion
seldom ifever discernible in the work of their counterparts ofas re
centlyas agenerationago. Efforts todetermine thedistinctivenatureof
literary texts and the procedures one ought to follow in interpreting
them-efforts that have figured prominently in discussions among crit
ics for almost as long as there has been something recognizable as lit
erature in existence at all-have been largely either supplanted by or
assimilatedtoinquiries regardingthe status ofknowledgeclaims in gen
eral and the possibility, or lack thereof, ofsuch claims ever being se
cured. The lattersort ofreflection looms large in contemporary critical
deliberationsinawaythat, sofaras I cantell, was notthecase (orrarely
so) prior to about the early-to-mid-1960s. Questions of what we can
plausibly claim to be able to say about the meanings ofliterary works
n
have been "reinscribed within a co~text ofradical interrogation ofthe
possibility ofsaying, or meaning, anything about, or by, anything; and
n
this "recontextualization has in turnfurthered, at the same time that it
13
14 INTRODUCTION
has been furthered by, the tendency to question the legitimacy ofdis
tinguishing in any fundamental way between specifically literary texts
andanyotherkindatall. What, ifanything, canweknow?Andhow? By
whatcriteria?Howdoweeven understandthesequestions?Andassum
ing that we do understand them in some way, what answers, ifany, can
we reasonablyhope tofind for them? Ithas, I think, become all butim
possible-and perhaps not even "all but" anymore-for anyone in lit
erary studies who does not at least take cognizance ofsuch questions as
these and ofthe various issues that they raise, whetheror not one seeks
to engage such questions and issues directly onesel( to claim for one's
work the serious attention ofothers in the field. And to the limited ex
tent that I am in a position to assess recent developments in otherareas
ofthehumanitiesand so~ialsciences, muchthesameseemsincreasingly
to hold true there as well.
The starting point for the reflections on these and related matters
that Iofferhere isatwofoldconviction: first, the dominant tenorofcrit
ical studies today is, as it has been for at least a decade and a halfnow,
one ofprevailingskepticismregarding the possibilityofsecuringknowl
edge claims; second, this skeptical outlook nonetheless represents, as
skepticism always has done, a wholly untenable position. A claim this
sweeping, of course, already demands at least some elaboration and
qualification. Two particularly important points requiring attention are
the following. First, the term skepticism covers a considerable amount
ofnot entirely uniform philosophical ground. In its long history, it has
been employed by friend and foe alike to refer to a number ofbroadly
similar, but also distinguishable, attitudes toward the nature of reality
and the relationships to it capable ofbeing entered into by the human
mind.1 Whatever the differences in detail, however, skepticism always
comes down eventually to either an outright denial or something that
entails a denial that anyone ever has definitive knowledge ofobjective
reality. And it is in this sense that I use the term throughout the dis
cussion here. It is particularly important, I think, to insist on the term
ever in this connection. The notion ofa partial or qualified skepticism,
understood as a skepticism applying only to certain phenomenal do
mains but not to others, or within a given domain only to a certain ex
tent but no further, strikes me as simply an oxymoron; for itwould also
concede, atleast tacitly, that there isafterall somethingout there, orin
us, ofwhich we can in the end be truly certain. To take an often-used
example, this is rather like being only a little pregnant. There is, of
course, a perfectly standard nontechnical use ofskeptical in which the
term expresses nothing more than doubt or suspicion regarding some
knowledge claim or claims in particular. To characterize oneself as
INTRODUCTION 15
"skeptical" in this sense is merely to indicate a desire not to be overly
credulous. This is, however, no more to adoptskepticismas aphilosoph
icalposition in the senseofthatnotion relevantto the discussion here
the sense to which in particular, as I shall argue, the skeptical strain of
contemporary criticism is committed-than it would be to adopt paci
fism ifone were to inlpose on oneselfthe restriction offighting only in
just wars.
Second, although at least some critics today actually do seem to pro
fess a more orless undilutedform ofskepticism in the sense ofthe term
just given, one ofthe more strikingfeatures ofthe contemporary scene
is the way in which many othercritics seek in effect to combine a basic
penchant for skepticism with one ferm or another of metaphysical
dogmatism, drawing on now the One, now the other, standpoint as the
occasion demands, but with little apparent sense for the fundamental
self-contradiction to which in so doing they commit themselves.2 One
principal reason, indeed, that it has often proved so difficult to develop
acoherent synoptic viewofthe contemporary critical scene is precisely
the extraordinary number ofdifferent ways in which individual critics
somehow manage to preserve in their own thinking this coexistence of
the mutually exclusive. At the same time, however, there is also a cer
tain fairly definite chronology to be noted here. The mixture ofdogma
tism and skepticism did not happenall atonce. Rather, itwas onlyafter
primarilyskeptical modes ofthoughthad gaineda more orless substan
tialdegree ofacceptancein theirown rightthatvarious dogmaticstrains
then began to begraftedon to them. And, partlyfor this reason,I want
provisionally to hold the two positions apart and continue for the mo
ment to treat skepticism by itself.
To put, then, what I take to be the key point with regard to skepti
cism in slightly different terms: the skeptical outlook denies that such
things as facts about the world are knowable with certainty by human
beings. The principal reason for expressing this view as a matter of
denial is to blockinadvancea move bywhich manycontemporaryskep
tics believe they can rescue their position. This is the contention that
they are not actually "asserting" anything; rather they are, for example,
merely "trying to change the subject" or "proposing a new way of
looking at things not bound to notions of'truth' or 'falsehood' at all" or
somethingofthe sort. As Donald Davidsonobserves, however, tobeac
counted "skeptical," a theory need not "make reality unknowable"; it is
sufficient that it "reduce reality to so much less than we believe there
is."3This finely nuanced distinction is, I think, ideally suited to captur
ing much ofwhat is most characteristically skeptical in contemporary
theory. It applies perfectly, for example, to the conflation of text and
16 INTRODUCTION
opinion-about-textthatisamongthe mostprominentfeatures ofliterary
criticism today and of which we will consider some specific instances
later. The expression "what we believe there is," by the way, does not
refer in Davidson's idiom to mere opinion or supposition. As we shall
see, one ofDavidson's most important insights, central tohis version of
what I will be callingthe critical standpoint, is the recognition that be
liefis inherently, in his word, "veridical."
In place offacts and our knowledge of them, the skeptical outlook
posits such things as contexts ofbelief, differential perspectives, ideo
logicalcolorings, culturally determined matrices ofperception, and the
both various and variable interpretations thatfrom time to time a given
individual or group may happen to adopt (contingently, as it is some
timesput)onthe basisofthesecontexts, perspectives, andtherest. The
vocabularyofbeliefcontexts, interpretations, contingency, and thelike,
in addition to beingfamiliar tovirtuallyeveryone in criticism todayas a
resultoftheworkofsomeofthecurrentlymostinfluentialfigures inthe
field, is at the same time, however, also one towhich no avowed skeptic
ofthe past, from Pyrrho to Mauthner, would have felt the slightest dif
ficulty assenting. It is worth noting this, I think, to remind ourselves
onceagainofboththe ancientlineageandthe essentialcontinuityofthe
skeptical tradition from antiquity to the present. Though it is surelytoo
much to characterize the history of philosophy, with Whitehead, as
merely "a series offootnotes to Plato," it would by the same token also
be difficult to deny that philosophers have frequently overestimated by
a wide margin the degree oforiginality actually represented by their
works. For examples ofsuch overestimation one certainly need look no
further than to many skeptically inclined thinkers ofthe late twentieth
century. Repeatedly in their writings one finds, whether expressly or
only tacitly, the same fundamental conviction that what theyare saying
really is being said for the very first time in the whole long history of
thought. And given this belief, it is then not surprising, ofcourse, that
we also regularly find the same writers confidently predicting the im
minent dawn ofa new era in human history, now that the old dogma
tisms, positivisms, and other superstitions ofthat ilk that had held the
human race in thrall for so long have at last been overthrown and put
behind us once and for all.
Assuggested, skepticaldoctrineinoneform oranotherhasbynowto
aconsiderable extentacquired the status ofavirtualorthodoxyin much
ofcontemporarycriticism. That reality is merelya kind offiction, truth
a species ofmetaphor, and understanding a form oferror or incompre
hension are today, for many, things that literally go without saying. In
characterizingthisviewasnonetheless untenable, itswidespreadaccep-
INTRODUCTION 17
tance notwithstanding, I do not mean simply that I think skepticism is
mistaken;againstthatcharge theskepticwillalwayshavereadythestan
dard response: "Howdo you know?:>:> I mean that skepticism is incoher
ent, that there is no way ofeven enunciating it as a position one might
consider adopting that does not at once collapse ofits own unintelligi
bility. The skeptic:>s "How do you know?:>:> is in this way preempted and
underminedinadvancebytheotherofthe twobasicquestionstowhich,
it has been alleged, all philosophical inquiry sooner or later comes
down, namely: "Whatdo you mean by that?:>:> Not merely the burden of
proof, butthe logicallypriortaskofshowingthathe has even succeeded
in makingsense, thus remains squarelyon the shoulders ofthe skeptic.
Butitliesin theverynatureofwhathe is tryingtoassertthat this isalso
an obligation he is never able to discharge.
In the-Preface to the second edition ofthe Critique ofPure Reason
Kant characterizes his philosophical enterprise as, in the first instance,
a "negative:>:> one.4 In the second edition of his Fragments on Recent
German Literature (written, incidentally, more than a decade before
eventhefirst editionofthefirst Criti.que), Herderoutlineshisvisionfor
a similarly conceived, but in this case linguistically-based, "negative
philosophy.:>:>sAnd both in the Tractatus and in the Philosophical Inves
tigations, as well as elsewhere in the post-1929 writings, Wittgenstein,
too, indicates that he sees the primary task ofphilosophy as, in a sense
fundamentally similartothoseofKantand Herder, a"negative:>:>one: the
purpose of doing philosophy is not to propound positive doctrine;6
ratheritis toclearawayconfusion,7andinthatwaytohelppeoplereach
a point at which they can carryon with their lives in a manner at least
unencumbered by the kinds ofpseudo-problems that arise from a mis
apprehension ofthe grammar ofordinary language.8 Kant, Herder, and
Wittgenstein together provide the principal sources of inspiration for
this book. And in the same spirit as I take theirs to have been, I see its
purpose as also primarily a negative one.
Criticism today, it seems to me, finds itselfto a large extent in a po
sition analogous to the one ofwhich Wittgenstein speaks in the Inves
tigationswhenhesays:"Apicturehelduscaptive. Andwecouldnotget
outside ofit, for itlayin ourlanguage and language seemed to repeat it
to us inexorably:>:> (PI, § 115). The '~:piQture:>:>in question-not the one to
which Wittgenstein is referring, but the one that seems to have capti
vated much ofcontemporary critical theory-is a "negative:>:> one in its
own right, though in a sense ofthe term quite different from Kanfs,
Herder:>s, Wittgenstein:>s, and a fortiori my own. Its characteristic vo
cabulary is that.of indeterminacy, de-centering, anti-foundationalism,
displacement, and so on through a by now generally familiar list. In a
18 INTRODUCTION
word it is, again, the standpoint ofradical denial that I suggested a mo
ment ago has been the defining mark ofskepticism in all ages.9 Once
trapped within this "prison-house oftheory," as it were, one may easily
end up going through much the same sort ofquasi-ritualistic motions
thatWittgensteinintheInvestigationsdescribesashavingcharacterized
an earlier stage ofhis own career. Referring to TLp, 4.5 ("The general
form ofa proposition is: This is how things are"), he says: "This is the
kind of proposition that one repeats to oneself countless times. One
thinks that one is tracing the outline ofthe thing's nature overand over
again, andoneis merelytracingroundtheframe throughwhichwelook
at it" (PI, § 114).10 Similarly, but in the opposite direction, ifone has
once been persuaded ofthe inevitability ofthe assumptions underlying
the skepticalposition, itwill notbe surprisingifonethenfinds the con
clusions regarding the supposed indeterminacy ofmeaning and nonex
istence of objective factuality in which these assumptions issue (the
manifestlycounterintuitivecharacterofthese conclusions notwithstand
ing) wholly compelling as well. One continues "tracing ... over and
over again" what might be called "the general form ofhow things are
not" and fails to recognize that in sodoingone is infact "merely tracing
round the frame" that "holds one captive."
The impressive degree ofacceptance enjoyed by skeptical outlooks
today is to a large extent a reflection ofthe enormously powerful influ
ence of Nietzsche. One supposes that in adopting a broadly skeptical
standpoint with regard to matters of fact or meaning one is in effect
merely being a good Nietzschean-that one is, for example, simply re
alizing the full implications ofa notion such as the "death ofGod." Yet
I think contemporary skeptics have on the whole been a bit hasty (at
best) in concludingthat theyhave actuallyassimilatedall that Nietzsche
hadin mindwith that message.11Justas Friedrich Schlegelforesaw that
an inability to take seriously any longer the aesthetics ofthe beautiful
would not in itselfentail the end ofaesthetics perse, butwould instead
merely give rise in time to what he called an "aesthetics ofthe ugly" (a
prediction that, it seems scarcely.necessary to add, has been more than
amplyborneoutin the presentday12), so Nietzsche recognized that the
news ofthe "death ofGod" would not in itselfautomatically produce a
general liberation from dependence on god-surrogates ofall sorts. Nor
would it be necessary that to perform their function such surrogates
have an overtly positive or substantive nature. At the conclusion ofOn
the Genealogy ofMorals he states, in a formulation that goes to the
heartofhis analysis ofthe phenomenon ofnihilism, "Man would rather
will nothing, than notwill"-or, as the passagehas also been translated,
somewhat less literally, but in a manner that may nonetheless bringout
INTRODUCTION 19
its relevance in the present connection even more clearly, "Man would
sooner have the void for his purpose than be void ofpurpose."13 What
follows the era oftheology, ofdomination by images ofGod, is by no
means necessarily a time freed of dependence on such images alto
gether. It can equally well be one dominated by images ofGod-in-His
absence, the deus absconditus, and so, concomitantly, by the sort of
negative theology that devotion to such images requires.
Arthur Danto notes that what "the final aphorism of the Geneal
ogy ... does is [to] restate the instinct of ressentiment: nlan would
rather his suffering be meaningful, hence would rather will meaning
into it, than acquiesce in the meaninglessness ofit."14 And he observes
further, with respect specifically to the "announce[ment of] the death
of God," that "[i]t is plain that [for Nietzsche] God did not die that
something else should take His place"; the idea was "rather [that] the
place [should] die with the occupant." Things, however, have not quite
worked out that way:
The genius ofthe third essayofthe Genealogy lies in its inventory
ofthe disguises the ascetic ideal takes, so that positions which de~
fine themselves as contrary to asceticism only exemplify it. As a
class, these occupants ofthe position vacated by God impose on
their subscribers a network of interpretation of suffering and
project a kind of utopian redemption: science, politics, art, and
certainly much that passes for psychological therapy, only change
the name ofthe game.15
Dantolistshereinstancesofpositive, orsubstantive, surrogatesadopted
to fill the place ofthe now vanished, though not yet vanquished, God.
But, as suggested a moment ago, there are also negative, or privative,
versions ofthe same thing, and since about the mid-1960s, this is in
creasingly the form that the quest for god-surrogates has assumed in
critical theory. Onecouldlooklongandhard, I think, withoutfinding a
bettercapsulecharacterizationofthe psychologyofcontemporaryskep
ticism than as an unwillingness to"acquiescein the meaninglessness"of
precisely that which one believes one has exposed as meaningless. A
truly consistent deconstructionist, for example, would withdraw into a
silence ofCratylan impenetrability.16 But in fact, ofcourse, that never'
happens. Instead, this sort ofskeptic insists that,even the (presumed)
condition of"meaninglessness" somehow"be [made] meaningful" in its
own right. And thus he "will[s] meaning into it," ifonly in negative arid
purportedly self-cancellingfashion-as he puts it, "under erasure."
Robert Scholes characterizes Derrida's "presentation of the history
of writing," in the "Science and the Name of Man" section of Of
