Communicative action–no matter how rational or no matter how far the ordered consensus goes–makes it difficult for speech to account that which it does not anticipate, i.e., the other. So I guess I side against the public reason of Habermas or Rawls (not that this is what Jonathan is arguing for) in any communitarian attempt to limit what is sayable.

In this post, Jonathan argues for the appropriateness of some sort of humility when making a narrative that includes beginning-middle-end. I think he means humility in making narratives that give meaning to human life and a good life whether political, philosophic or theological. Insofar as one makes such a narrative with confidence, it automatically becomes a “meta-narrative” and is thus worthy of incredulity as Lyotard informs us is the claim of postmodernity. I think Jonathan accepts this version of both modernity ( as “meta-narrative”) and postmodernity (as a stance of “incredulity”–is it a “moral stance” or simply an “attitude”?).

In this way Jonathan seems to advocate a humility cum skepticism which recognizes the inability to know the whole before one speaks and as one speaks. In this view, one comes from a whole place of unkowability which may not even be a whole in the first place. At best, one (as an individual human being) is a part within a larger whole that can be acknowledged but of which nothing meaningful can be said. Even if one posits that the part which knows it is a part is the only part that is aware that it is a part–and hence is the only part aware of the question of the whole (philosophy or science)–this does not guarantee a true knowledge of the cosmos. Is the person who knows simply one being amongst other beings that have no distinctive qualitative difference? Jonathan allows that the text of Holy Scripture is not merely one text amongst many, so perhaps he likewise thinks that the human being is not simply one amongst other beings.

Nonetheless, frank acknowledgment of the world outside of one’s self and its sheer this-ness and there-ness (i.e., Dr. Johnson’s kicking of the stone in refutation of Berkeley)–even an understanding of an ordered and created world in which one finds oneself–does not make the basis for a fully transparent account that could be in accordance with reason. Jonathan is a radical skeptic.

As a consequence Jonathan argues for a kind of humility in speech.

I think he goes too far in saying that excessive speech as in the case of science and philosophy (or even as the certainty of theology as divinely revealed and understood as faith?)–if it is indeed such excessive speech–is some kind of abuse of language and hence a violation of the the political order and law. The political order might correspond (or ought to correspond) to orders other than the logocentrism or logographic necessity of some versions of philosophy. Even as rhetoric–in part a means of persuasion and a kind of speech not reliant upon the discursive logic of mathematics–the suggestion that the political order well-ordered is reflective of the kind of prevalent rhetoric of a given society at a given time is asking too much. It seems to silence speech simply–whether philosophic or poetic. It appears to be indicative of a kind of antipathy to speech–i.e., misology.

Politics is not simply rhetoric and vice versa. Knowledge of the nature of things is also key, even if the motivation for seeking that knowledge of nature is determined by the pre-philosophic political rhetoric from which one comes and with which one is invariably a part.

Speech transcends the deeds of politics. The pure conformity of deeds to speech is probably impossible–and perhaps undesirable. However, a conservatism that makes speech impossible is not very good. It is true that the “metaphysical” politics of modern literary types who proclaim atheism from the rooftops is problematic, but an aversion to narratives as exemplary of the very same excessiveness, seems to undercut any valid criticism (in speech) that can be made of such excess and danger and gutter subversiveness.