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exemplary itself is an integral element of the theoretical difficulties facing classics in particular. |
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This leads to my fourth worry. Since Kant (in particular) the relation between a theory or a general principle and its exempla or instances has been increasingly viewed as less than straightforward. Of course, within the scope of a paper of this length, a description of any important body of theoretical work will tend to be partial, and any example, equally, will tend to be limited and, to a degree, misrepresentative. But there is a more general argument about a necessary gap, a necessary interplay of difference, between examples and general cases. For Kant, who was instrumental in setting this question on the agenda, it is both a historical problem of teaching from the past, since the 'historical structure of the example as such causes a perpetual deferral within the pedagogical scene, given that the ideal which the example represents is always beyond attainment';3 and a metaphysical problem since philosophy's dependence on examples without examples, philosophy 'gropes, uncertain and trembling, among meaningless concepts'4 is partly what distinguishes philosophy from (the ideal of) pure science.5 The distinction between the example as the (unobtainable) ideal model and the example as the specific case (which may become exemplary) continues to provoke aesthetic and political debate. As Marx wrote of the glorious Greek example, 'the difficulty we are confronted with is not, however, that of understanding how Greek art and epic poetry are associated with certain forms of social development. The difficulty is that they still give us aesthetic pleasure and are in certain respects regarded as a standard and unobtainable ideal'.6 How and why Greek literature may be exemplary is part of a lengthy discussion on the nature of exemplification. |
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This set of problems is particularly pertinent to the work of Jacques Derrida and to what has been called 'deconstruction' or 'post-structuralism' my theoretical remit for this volume. For Derrida has repeatedly interrogated the boundaries between the language of criticism and the language of the objects criticised, between philosophy and literature, between theory and illustration, as he pursues his analysis (and performance) of writing as a practice. As he puts it, most notoriously and apophthegmatically, 'il n'y a pas d'hors-texte'. Or as de Man writes with equal brusqueness, 'the difference between' literature and criticism is 'delusive'.7 One |
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3 Lloyd (1989) 15, a fine study. For further on Kant see Gadamer (1975) 37, 2538; for further on the historical nature of the example see Stierle (1972); Quint (1982); Hampton (1990). |
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4 Kant's remark, from the preface to The Metaphysical Foundation of Natural Sciences, is discussed by Caruth (1988) 26. |
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5 See the excellent study of Caruth (1988). |
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6 Marx (1970) 217. |
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7 De Man (1979) 19. |
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