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Summer – 2006 | Volume – 21 |
| Review | ||
Some Observations on Critical Theory : A Collection of Critical Essays
Author : Sharanpal Singh.
Central Book Agency, 2005, 223 pages. Rs. 395/-
Book Review : Dr. Satnam Singh Sandhu
Reader, D.C.C.,Patiala-India 147002
The author of the book under review makes it clear at the outset that the intent of this publication is “to point out and present the richness of Luhmannian oeuvre… to transport Luhmann to this part of the globe.” The book is a collection of essays on diverse topics, like : Saidian polemics and politics of postcoloniality, Said’s concept of contrapuntility, the problematics of the other and the space devoted to it by such theoreticians as Antonio Gramsci and Jurgen Habermas.
Paper on Frye attempts to document the Canadian critic’s earnest endeavours to strive to impart “a coordinating principle” to criticism, since criticism according to him needed the methodical spirit of a science.
Postmodernisms, both Jamesonian and gender-centred receive attention, in equal measure. Jakobsonian theoretical model has been revisited to reappraise the semiotic and the semantic, to focus on the opulence of poetic language. Jacques Derrida did as much for the linguistic as for the philosophical. The postmodern autological and self-referential received adequate attention, as also the domain of humanities stands invaded by linguistics and philosophy. Metalanguage is the language of the day. Present epoch of interdisciplinarity is further perspicaciously perspectivized by Luhmann as he talks of the significance of the invasion of social sciences and literature by natural sciences. A comparison of his autopoietic theoretics, the study of self-referential social systems, with Derridean deconstruction reveals that the two seminal thinkers are kindred spirits.
According to Luhmann “phenomenology describes meaning as a surplus of references… as references beyond what is intended at any given moment.” These references can scarcely be brought to a definitive closure, rather they lead into horizons for which the world itself comes to serve as the final horizon. The world is thus to be seen as the counterpart of meaning, as a world illusion that offers a closure to the ceaseless continuation of all meaning references, including self-referential ones. It is a closure that in actuality is never achieved. In the terms of Luhmannian form analysis, meaning has been defined (under Hlusserlian influence) as the unity of the differences between actuality and potentiality, both in experiencing and communicating.
“Postscriptum” by the author caps the study, highlighting the productivity of paradoxicalization, since poetic language and tropes like metaphor evince a paradox of form. The perspective throughout the book is the poststructural difference - theoretical. The sole exception is a comparison of the Australian author, Patrick White’s novels with the epical quality of Melville’s oeuvre.
The study succeeds in focusing on the central aim : that the Greek term krinein stands at the root of the English word “criticism”, and it means to appraise “to decide.” This aspect was further popularized by the “critiques” of Kant, and even in the face of the polemics of skepticism, criticism purported to construct, although now, with the onset of theory, theoretical rigour is upheld per se, since the present age revels in cogent and rigorous self-analysis, the sole significant avowed preoccupation of the contemporary. Perhaps, in this sense, it can be said that the present study is helpful.
