Theoria

(Cross-posted to Long Sunday)

Ian Hunter’s article, “The History of Theory” (Critical Inquiry 33, 78-112), has come up in recent discussions as an alternative to the rather stagnant “‘Theory’ Wars” that seem to creep up every so often.

Some non-exhaustive comments/notes:

(1) His essay begins, “One of the most striking features of recent discussions of the moment of theory in the humanities is the lack of even proximate agreement what the object of such theory might be and about the language in which it has been or should be conducted” (78). He continues, “it is fruitless to begin a history of theory by trying to identify its common object or shared language” (80). All the same, Hunter proceeds throughout his essay to deflate a wide body of literature under the single, monolithic heading of ‘theory’ in order to tie his larger argument together. (Larger argument discussed below.) The deflation occurs through the construction of a rather strange chain of equivalences: “the contents of theory … together with its cognates structuralism and post-structuralism” (80), “in the emergence of what would become known as deconstructive philosophy and, more generally, theory” (81), “the inseparability of structuralism and post-structuralism” (82), “a certain kind of philosopher or theorist” (85) and “the apprentice phenomenologist or theorist” (86). This chain combines and recombines throughout: ‘philosopher and theorist’ and ‘phenomenologist or theorist,’ on the oen hand, and ‘deconstructive philosophy, that is, theory’ and “structuralism and post-structuralism, that is, theory,’ on the other. Thus, the philosopher, the theorist and the phenomenologist are all equivalent. Similarly, deconstructive philosophy, structuralism and post-structuralism are all the same, that is, ‘theory.’ On the one hand, a chain of “figures of thought” (95) and their “postures” (83). Hunter’s avowal to avoid identifying the “object” and “language” of “theory” results in him calling nearly everything “theory.” It seems, on this level, his project is a non-starter. If “theory” does not have a history (he constructs this counter-argument in parallel with Derrida’s remarks on philosophy; but, then, why not begin with Althusser; viz, “ideology has no history”?) it isn’t for the reasons he is arguing against or for the reasons his “opponents” suggest: it is because “theory” is an object that has resisted definition. (c.f., Nietzsche, of course, “only that which has no history can be defined.”)

(2) The question of Hunter’s sincerity must be raised. That is, to what extent is Hunter, qua historian of theory, willing to take the claims and arguments of those he is studying seriously. I can’t help but wonder, especially insofar as he quickly drops his original term, “attitude,” for another, “posture.” For instance, “theory’s posture of critique adopted in relation to so-called empiricist and positivist sciences” (83), “the posture of intellectual contempt for the sciences of facts” (87) and theory as a set of “veiled instructions” (96).

(3) The explicit and implicit uses of Foucault leave me a bit worried. The main thrust of his argument is that theory is an “attitude” (81), a “posture” (83; see point above for more references), a “figure of thought” and a “conception of history” (95), the “work of the self on the self” (96), “a particularly intense hermeneutics of the self” (98, 105), and a “persona” (104). The only reference throughout the paper on these concepts is to Foucault’s lecture, “On The Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self,” which discusses Greek and early Christian ethical practices. The problem here is that Hunter unproblematically lifts these concepts – without citation, attribution, or discussion – from a discussion of ancient ethics and “applies” them to the present. While it is certainly possible to construct an analytic of ethical practices, Hunter does no such thing, points to no such discussion elsewhere, and removes a particular argument from its context transforming it into a trans-historical “theory.” While he implicitly structures his argument around Foucault’s last works on ethics, he explicitly attacks Foucault’s earlier archeaological works, without a discussion of the possibility of transformations in Foucault’s own thought through his career. (For instance, why archaeology was displaced by genealogy which was displaced by ethics.) In addition to failing to elaborate upon his (re-)working of ethos, Hunter also fails to convincingly explain why this is the best way to proceed with a history of theory. Even if he is right that a focus upon language or object is prone to failure, this does not guarantee that his own approach is correct.

(4) The discussion of “literary theory” is preposterous, especially coming from a quasi-Foucauldian like himself. “When, in the 1970s, literary theory opened its campaign for control of Anglo-American English departments – for example, in works by Jonathan Culler, Eagleton, and Jameson – it did so through a particular delegitimizataion and reconstruction of the existing discipline, in this case various versions of the so-called New Criticism” (104). The first problem is the distinction between “literary theory” and “New Criticism” (as though New Criticism isn’t already “literary theory”) and the relation between “literary theory” (a term which only begins to appear at this point in his argument) and “theory” as such. But these problems are not particularly interesting. What is more interesting is the claim of a “campaign,” which is signalled by three cited texts; Culler’s Structuralist Poetics (1975), Eagleton’s Criticism and Ideology (1978) and Jameson’s Marxism and Form (1971). For a campaign, the opening salvo is quite dispersed over time (a period of seven years stretching from the early to the late seventies), leaving one to wonder how co-ordinated it was in the first place; i.e., the extent to which it was a “campaign” which already suggests the previous existence of an intentional, defined programme with specific objectives. In other words, it presupposes the existence of not only a “strategy,” but also a “strategist.” There’s little indication that such a strategy or strategist existed. And, if there was, Hunter makes no reference to it – except, of course, three books published a number of years apart, two of which were “Marxist” and one of which was “structuralist.” Worse for his argument is that he suggests that campaign was buttressed by the “prestigious persona of the theorist” (104). But how could the “persona of the theorist” be “prestigious” if it had not yet laid claim to dominance within the discipline? If a campaign was launched, it was to gain control of the discipline and, thus, enact a redistribution of awards and statuses. The objective of the campaign – i.e., statuses – cannot be a weapon on the part of the challenger; a challenger attacking the already existing status of the (“so-called”) New Criticism. Further, is there possibly any conflict between the explanation of theory as ethic and theory as campaign for control?

(5) Finally, the discussion of social theory – something I had looked forward to being a “social theorist” myself – was not only disappointing, but wrong. The reason that Hunter is wrong is that he ignores the larger context of sociology – the discipline in which social theory is practiced – in the sixties and seventies. His argument is as though Habermas just appears. First, he claims that Habermas presents the introduction of phenomenology into sociology. This is not the case at all. Sociological theory (i.e., Parsonian structural-functionalism) was already under attack from within sociology by Parsons’ own students, specifically the ethnomethodology of Garfinkle based upon Schutz’s social phenomenology. For Garfinkle, the attempt to was to re-direct sociology from the “macro” to the “micro” – a programme rapidly followed up, in different ways, by people such as Goffman and Geertz. Indeed, the phenomenological movement within sociology was already so pronounced prior to Habermas’ intervention that Habermas was able to attempt a synthesis of Parsonian macro-sociology and Garfinkle-ian micro-sociology. The issue, then, is one that Hunter signals earlier in his essay (“Our argument, though, is that this reworking took place not through the virtual relations of the episteme but as a series of concrete intellectual struggles” (103), but which also disappears at its most manifest moment; viz., the attempt for any discourse seeking to pass through the threshold of scientificity to transcend its essential lack of foundations (something Hunter notes earlier, “do battle for the privilege of foundational status” (79)). While he is correct to see Habermas as an intervention into the issue of foundations and to see Habermas as proposing a “social theory” solution to the problem. (Although not explicitly thematized as such.) He nonetheless misses the relevant dispute between sociological theory (or, in Parsonian language, “a general theory of society”) and social theory (that is, the introduction of interpretative, symbolic and cultural concerns into sociology that had been displaced by macro-structural concerns of integration).