Philosophy, Literature, and Intellectual Responsibility

Author(s): Tom Rockmore

Source: American Philosophical Quarterly , Apr., 1993, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp.
109-121
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the North American
Philosophical Publications

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American Philosophical Quarterly
Volume 30, Number 2, April 1993

PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE,
AND INTELLECTUAL RESPONSIBILITY
Tom Rockmore

JL HIS is a paper about intellectual respon? The claim that the intellectual differs from
sibility in the wake of the increasingly visible others through the possession of particular in?
turn toward relativism. That intellectuals tellectual capacities peculiarly adapted for
have a special social obligation, a kind of con? discerning truth founds the well known con?
ceptual noblesse oblige follows squarely viction that intellectuals have a special role in
from a certain, absolutistic conception of discerning the nature of, the real possibilities
knowledge supposedly available to intellectu? for, and in helping to realize, the good life in
als only?let us call it for present purposes a society. This conviction leads to a sense of con?
Platonic conception of knowledge whether or ceptual noblesse oblige. If only intellectu?
not it is precisely what Plato meant. If, as I als will what they do best, then society will
believe, the present trend in philosophy and benefit from it. In short, intellectual respon?
literature represents a widespread revolt sibility rests on the views that there is truth,
against this view of knowledge, then the very roughly knowledge about the way things are
idea of intellectual responsibility needs to be in some absolute sense, and that intellectu?
rethought. This paper will consider the con? als are indispensable to ascertain truth.
cept of intellectual responsibility in the views If this is the view of intellectual responsibil?
of Richard Rorty, Martin Heidegger, and Paul ity, then the need to reconsider it in a relativis?
de Man. The thesis I want to develop is that tic age is suggested by challenges raised
in this relativistic age, it is necessary to re? against the general intellectual aptitude to dis?
think the concept of intellectual responsibil? cern truth and the concept of truth that intel?
ity from a relativistic angle of vision. lectuals are supposedly uniquely suited to
I. THE PROBLEM OF ascertain. Recent revelations about Heideg?
INTELLECTUAL RESPONSIBILITY ger, Luk?cs, and de Man call into question the
very idea that intellectuals distinguish truth
For present purposes, let us assume that we from falsity in the social realm any better
understand the term "responsibility" without than anyone else. Certainly, the actions of
further discussion. Obviously, there are many these and others ?the list is potentially very
kinds of responsibility, intellectual, moral, scien? long, since it could include Sartre and Beauvoir,
tific, and so on.1 A general idea of intellectual those apostles of responsibility, as well as Gen?
responsibility derives from the deeply rooted tile, Pound, C?line, perhaps Malaparte, and so
conviction, perhaps most deeply ingrained on?suggest that at this late date no one, per?
among intellectuals, that singly and as a group haps least of all an intellectual, should be
they have a comparative advantage in acquiring overly sanguine about the capacity of intel?
truth and knowledge in a final, absolute sense, lectuals to come to grips with the world in
and that such truth and knowledge are socially which we live. Precisely this argument has
useful, on some accounts even indispensable recently been made by Gadamer on behalf
for society. of Heidegger.2
109

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110 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Then there is the increasing turn away from writers and artists lack knowledge and, for
the view of knowledge as absolute, precisely that reason, tend to lead us astray.
the kind of knowledge that intellectuals are The well known Platonic argument against
supposedly able to discern. In an increasingly literature and the arts is developed in a num?
secular age, it is increasingly difficult to claim ber of places, especially in books 3 and 10 of
either that there is a reality of some perma? the Republic. As Aristotle will later do in the
nent kind, or, if there is, that intellectuals or Poetics, here Plato takes a mimetic view of art
indeed anyone else can know it. For those as simple narrative or imitation [373D] and of
committed to "objectivism," namely "the ba? the artist as imitators [mimetai, 373B]. Imita?
sic conviction that there is or must be some tion is fine provided that it is grounded in
permanent, ahistorical framework to which knowledge that the artists and writers do not
we can ultimately appeal in determining the possess. Instead, the imitators offer only an
nature of rationality, knowledge, truth, reality, imitation of an image that is far removed from
goodness or Tightness,"3 the problem is not reality [597D], hence from truth or knowl?
whether objective reality in this sense exists edge. Plato insists from his well known mi
but rather how to get in touch with it. sogynistic angle of vision that, worst of all,
Certain forms of religion seem still to cling imitation without knowledge is capable of
to this model of reality. Yet the model is in? corrupting the best men.
creasingly abandoned in our secular age, for This selfcongratulatory view for the social
instance through the proliferation of forms of relevance of philosophy rests on assumptions
nonrepresentational art and the philosophical about the distinction between appearance and
turn to relativism following from the apparent reality, access of the philosopher to the forms
demise of foundationalism, the main episte or reality, and the intrinsic social utility of
mological strategy of modern times. Although philosophical knowledge. Philosophical the?
few are willing to declare themselves for rela? ory and good social practice form a contin?
tivism,4 there is a relativist tinge to all forms uum since knowing the true and doing the
of antifoundationalism, as well as in pragma? good are inseparable. This latter inference
tism that is currently the hottest thing in echoes through the later discussion, in mod?
American philosophy, and in postmodernism ern times in Kant's idea of philosophy as in?
that can be represented by Lyotard's idea that trinsically concerned with the interests of
there is and can be no overarching tale, and so on. human being [teleolog?a rationis humanae].6
II. INTELLECTUAL RESPONSIBILITY In our century, it is restated in Husserl's view
AND PLATONISM of transcendental phenomenology as neces?
sarily linked with human ends and Heideg?
The idea of intellectual responsibility is ger's similar claim for his theory of being.
often understood on a broadly Platonic model Even if one were to accept the traditional
that accords a preeminent role to the philoso? view of philosophy as the ultimate source of
pher in the search for knowledge. At a mini? knowledge, the very idea of a basic connection
mum, Platonism can be understood as a view between knowing the truth and doing the
of knowledge surpassing a merely empirical good, or between philosophical knowledge
awareness of the world in which we live? and social good is clearly questionable. Such
where things come into being and pass events in our sorry times as the fascist Heideg?
away?through privileged cognitive access, ger's adherence to National Socialism and
accessible only to philosophers, to another, the Marxist Luk?cs' adherence to Stalinism
stable type of object. This metaphysical suggest that one can no longer insist on this
scheme leads to the conception of philosophy connection without qualification. The dimen?
as the science of sciences, the only source of sions of the problem can be stated by point?
knowledge and truth in the ultimate sense and ing to an apparent paradox: in view of
socially indispensable. Literature and the Heidegger's well known adherence to Na?
arts in general are harmful since as Iris zism, how is one to maintain that Heidegger is
Murdoch points out,5 like sophists, who blur a great philosopher, that philosophy discerns
the distinction between the true and the false, truth, and that Nazism is evil?

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 PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE, AND INTELLECTUAL RESPONSIBILITY /111

It is not easy to escape from this paradox. If nying that art is necessarily mimetic. If that is
we draw a distinction between Heidegger the the case it does not follow that literature is
great philosopher and Heidegger the ordinary socially useful, although it no longer follows
Nazi we overlook the way that his Nazism fol? that it is intrinsically disutilitarian as Plato
lowed from and was justified through his thought.
thought; and we tacitly concede that his philo?
sophical theory, which he thought essential for
III. RORTY AND LITERATURE
the future of humanity, is of no social use. This
Recent views of intellectual responsibility
strategy commonly employed by Heidegger's
due to Rorty, Heidegger and de Man can be
closest students to save him, or at least to save
regarded as efforts to understand this theme
his thought, tends to deny Heidegger's con?
by departing from the Platonic model. Intel?
cept of human being as existence, a basic ele?
lectuals, including philosophers favoring the
ment in his position. If this argument is Platonic scheme, have never been unani?
successful, then it fails since it saves Heideg? mous about a Platonic view of their own so?
ger through an argument that he cannot ac?
cial role. In their own ways, the Platonic view
cept. Elsewhere I have argued at length that
is denied, in no special order, by such thinkers
the intimate connection between Heidegger's
as Hegel, Marx, and Dewey, as well as many
life and thought raises deep questions about others.
the traditional claim for the social relevance
As part of the ongoing revolt against Plato
of philosophy.7 This strategy is further trou?
bling since it requires us to deny the ancient
nism, a number of philosophers, including
Richard Rorty, have tried to rehabilitate lit?
link between the true and the good, between
the theoretical truth of Heidegger's thought erature. Until recently, Rorty was mainly
and its practical social relevance. known for his interesting, often idiosyncratic
Plato's view of literature is susceptible of approach to analytic philosophy. But over the
two readings: either literature is harmful, or it last ten years or so, since emerging so to speak
has no redeeming social value. Now art as out of the pragmatist closet, he has extended
such, even on Plato's account, is not problem? the scope of his concern to continental phi?
atic?in fact, it could not be in view of the losophy and then to literature. Other analytic
undeniable literary qualities of Plato's writ? philosophers have made the pragmatic turn in
ings which, were literature of all kinds to be recent years?one thinks of Quine, Putnam,
proscribed, would have no redeeming value. Rescher and Margolis, for instance?but Rorty
In part, for this reason, Plato's theory has differs from them all in the extent of his preoc?
often been read against Plato's express wishes cupation with literature.
in order to contend that art and literature can In his sustained attack on the idea that a
tell us about the world and ourselves. theory of knowledge can be based on a mi?
Iris Murdoch, for instance, takes an anti metic view of reality,9 Rorty took an anti-Pla?
Platonic line, supporting writers like Tolstoy tonic line leading once more to the familiar
who hold that art promotes good, on the conviction, widespread in the modern tradi?
grounds that art is a special exercise in intel? tion since Hegel, that philosophy has come to
ligence in discerning the real.8 In the same an end. All of modern philosophy is shot
way, Marxist literary critics from Luk?cs to through with the related idea that if we only
Caudwell simply suppose that the distinction go about it in the correct way we can bring
between the way things are and the way things philosophy to an end. The Young Hegelians
only appear to be can be discerned by some? believed that philosophy had been brought to
one able to judge from the point of view of a peak and an end in Hegel's thought. Marx?
human being. Great literature, for instance the ists beginning with Engels tend to regard
realism of a Balzac, portrays the world the Marxism as located beyond philosophy on a
way it is despite the intentions of the author. new scientific plane where philosophical
It is only art devoid of knowledge that is in problems that are real, but that philosophy
need of explanation. And this problem can be cannot resolve, can finally be solved.
handled in an expeditious way by simply de Rorty's view of the end of philosophy, an

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112 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

idea that seems to recur endlessly throughout truth, he has moved to provide content to his
the modern philosophical tradition, is based claim for the edifying nature of philosophical
on his reading of analytic philosophy and the conversation that, in the wake of the collapse
inference that if philosophy is impossible of the epistemological dream of perfect
then there is only edifying conversation at knowledge, denies that philosophy is just
the end of the line. His conception of con? words. Here he bolsters his view of the utility
temporary philosophy as edifying conver? of philosophical edification that can no longer
sation is based on three assumptions that are pretend to truth and finds a new role for lit?
never clearly stated: the idea that the entire erature through his conception of the liberal
philosophical tradition culminates in ana? ironist. If "irony" means something like "the
lytic philosophy; the further view that ana? use of words in a way directly opposite to their
lytic philosophy depends in a crucial way usual meanings," then the name is itself ironic
on foundationalism; and, finally, the point since Rorty clearly means to attribute a mean?
that if foundationalism fails then philosophy ing to the intellectual discussion that sur?
no longer figures as a source of knowledge. passes mere figures of speech.
Each of these assumptions is problematic. For Rorty, who follows Judith Shklar, a lib?
To begin with, it is not obvious that philoso? eral is someone who is opposed to cruelty, and
phy reaches a high water mark or an end in an ironist, who sounds suspiciously like an
analytic philosophy. Analytic philosophers, as anti-Platonic relativist, is someone who ac?
Sluga points out, have often expressed this cepts the contention that socalled ultimate
conviction, in Schlick's idea that the rise of ideas and beliefs are merely contingent and
analytic philosophy is a turning point, in cannot be justified by appealing, in Rorty's
Ayer's view of the revolution in philosophy, words, "to something beyond the reach of
and in Dummett's claim that Frege is the first time and chance."13 "Irony" appears to mean
modern philosopher.10 As Rorty withdrew something like "relativism" understood as
from the analytic orbit, even as he continued what is left after one gives up theology and
to write mainly about analytic thinkers, he metaphysics, central elements of the old
started to doubt the preeminence of analytic canon intended to ground our deepest beliefs.
philosophy. He later began to qualify this The liberal ironist cherishes the hope that
claim to the point that he now thinks that the cannot be justified in any final sense for a
analytic and continental traditions are merely diminution in suffering, perhaps something
incompatible approaches, roughly distinguish? like a better society, what Rorty refers to as a
able through their ahistorical and historical liberal utopia.14
orientations.11 In this view, philosophy and literature have
Rorty's skepticism about philosophy is a approximately equal billing. Unconcerned to
byproduct of his scepticism about a solution overcome the distinction between the public
of the problem of knowledge that has been a and the private, Rorty regards certain philoso?
central philosophical theme for more than phers and writers as models for private perfec?
two and a half millennia. The foundationalist tion, as distinguished from others concerned
strategy for knowledge is a main theme of with making society better.15 He uses the same
modern philosophy. Although the tide has distinction between the public and the private
now shifted in favor of antifoundationalism,12 to pick out two classes of books: those that
the debate is still under way and important help us become autonomous, and those that
defenders of foundationalism are still active help us become less cruel. The latter are fur?
in its defense. Finally, it is unsatisfying to infer ther subdivided into books that enlighten us
that if foundationalism fails philosophy can about the effects of social practices and insti?
only assume the form of edifying conversa? tutions, and those that bring to our attention
tion, a form of intellectual kibitzing, since that "our private idiosyncrasies on others."16 In
seems to deny that there is or can be a specifi? the latter category, he places works by
cally useful philosophical role. Nabokov and Orwell.
Rorty has seen this point in his more recent If this is an accurate reading of Rorty's view
work. Even as he has discarded the idea of of the liberal ironist, then at least three obvi

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 PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE, AND INTELLECTUAL RESPONSIBILITY / 113

ous objections come readily to mind. First, none, since he is then deprived of the possibil?
Rorty's way of reading works by Nabokov and ity of justifying his own alternative theory.
Orwell as warning the liberal ironist against The third difficulty concerns the sense in
the temptation of cruelty is reductive in a which Rorty's conception of the liberal ironist
manner that casts doubt on the very classi can be said to improve on the older model of
ficatory scheme he wants to illustrate. the intellectual who, in virtue of one's interest
Nabokov is not a bad example of a contempo? in reason, is useful for society. From the angle
rary aesthete, a writer caught up in the pursuit of vision of social responsibility, Rorty's iron?
of private pleasures but not terribly con? ist seems about in the same position as phi
cerned with the existential problems occur? losophers have been in all along in
ring in the outside world. While we may read proclaiming that intellectuals are indispensa?
him as exemplifying private foibles, such as a ble to the good life. Yet it is hard to make this
middle aged man's infatuation with a nym argument stick without some kind of underly?
phet, what the French call le d?mon de midi, ing metaphysics, such as Plato had, but Rorty
his writing is hardly edifying, no more than refuses. In its absence, one is reduced to some
faintly amusing, scarcely representative of a version of the Kantian claim that reason is in?
public or even a private standard of how not trinsically relevant without the capacity to ar?
to be cruel. Nabokov's writing is arguably less gue for this point. It is for this reason that
edifying than his celebrated passion for lepi philosophers such as Aristotle concluded long
doptery that Rorty could reasonably have held ago that philosophy is its own reward since
up to us as a model of the autonomous life. there is no other payoff. Rather than respond?
Conversely, it seems arbitrary to classify Or? ing to the problem of the social relevance of
well's work as teaching us only or even mainly intellectuals, in proposing his conception of
about private idiosyncrasies. A more interest? the liberal ironist Rorty has merely brought
ing classification might be as a reflection on forward his pious hope.
the evils of modern civilization [The Road to
IV. HEIDEGGER BEING AND POETRY
Wigan Pier], especially the fight against po?
litical totalitarianism, including the down side As a liberal, Rorty admits everyone to the
of that fight [Farewell to Catalonia; 1984; discussion on an equal footing, placing phi?
Animal Farm] and the evils of empire [A Col? losophy and literature on the same level. It is
lection of Essays]. Further, the idea that one hard to call Heidegger a political liberal. His
can distinguish radically between the public initial, rather Platonic view of philosophy as
and the private spheres17 underlying Rorty's conceptually prior to anything else?in Being
classificatory scheme is no more plausible and Time, and later in the rectoral address in
than the idea following from utilitarianism the effort to found National Socialism in fun?
that, say, we have a private right to private damental ontology?is later followed, after
damage, as it is in practice difficult, perhaps the celebrated but obscure turning in his
impossible to show that what one does pri? thought, by an anti-Platonic inversion of the
vately is without public consequences. relation of literature and philosophy.
A second set of problems concerns the de? Heidegger's effort to rehabilitate poetry fits
liberately Utopian quality of this analysis. well with the anti-Platonic temper of the
Rorty raises the standard liberal hope that his times. The anti-Platonic reaction in philoso?
own view of irony will spread to us all in the phy points to other disciplines, particularly
form of a liberal utopia.18 But there seems to modern science, as the appropriate source of
be no reason why that should ever occur un? knowledge. The idea that philosophy has no
less it is reasonable to hope that everyone will intrinsic task of its own to perform is mani?
work through the Platonic tradition and come fest in the general positivist view that truth lies
out at the other end with the conviction that in science only, as distinguished from philosophy.
our actions need not be grounded or otherwise On one interpretation, philosophy's only real
justified. In fact, Rorty cannot dispense with all task is to show that physicalism is acceptable,
justification, despite his suggestion that there is or in a weaker version that extensionalism is

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114 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

the way to go. Similarly, Heidegger argues that rests on an underlying view about a univocal
truth in the final sense derives from poetry. reading of his texts. The assumption of an
In the wake of the rectoral address, and the authentic, or single correct reading of a text,
failure of the rectorate, and several years be? any text, is dubious. Although some textual
fore his cycle of Nietzsche lectures, Heidegger readings can be excluded as incompatible
turns to poetry as a source of extra philosophi? with the text they are meant to interpret, in
cal truth. He develops his thesis about the sub? many cases a given text can support a plurality
ordination of philosophy to poetry in the first of readings. It follows that the idea of a single
series of H?lderlin lectures (1934-1935) that correct, or authentic textual reading, on which
are mainly devoted to an appropriation of the Heidegger relies for his interpretation of
poet for the purposes of Heidegger's own the? H?lderlin, is indefensible. One has only to ask
ory. Heidegger dogmatically claims that to what the correct reading, say, of the Iliad is to
adopt another reading of H?lderlin than his see that the question is not meaningful.
own is to reduce the poet to ineffectualness; There is a sense in which poetry founds or
for one misses the essential point that "he [i. grounds a people whose way of being is cap?
e. H?lderlin] founded the beginning of an? tured in poetic form, as the life of ancient
other history, the history that begins with the Greece is captured in the Homeric poems. Al?
struggle about the decision on the coming of though in rare occasions, the life of a people
flight of God."19 In developing his conviction is strikingly reflected in literary form, it would
for "H?lderlin's poetry as the poet of poets"20 be absurd to suggest that Homer brought an?
Heidegger intends to surpass metaphysics and cient Greece into being. At most, he gave lit?
philosophy in poetry that is a kind of saying erary expression to essential aspects of
or of revelation helpful to us in our time of ancient Greek life. Yet if we grant a similar
need in telling us who we are. Since the his? status to H?lderlin's poetry, there seems to be
torical existence of peoples that underlies no reason, other than Heidegger's simple
genuine philosophical knowledge springs preference for H?lderlin over other great
from poetry, poetry is deeper than philosophy.
German poets, to deny equal status, say, to
For Heidegger, we literally are language, Goethe or Schiller, or even to Thomas Mann,
and poetry provides the most basic form of
or more recently Boll and Grass, as writers
language in which our being as human beings
who capture something essential about Ger?
is finally made available to us. He accords
many.
pride of place to poetry as a means to deliver
If poetry, above all great poetry, offers es?
us to ourselves?as beings defined through
sential insight into the life of a people, it does
our use of language?from within the poetic
dimension. In fact, since "the fatherland" is not follow that the Platonic ordering of phi?
being, and the poet is the voice of being, losophy and poetry should be inverted.
Heidegger's inversion of the Platonic convic?
Heidegger concludes, in a passage that
tion in his exaltation of poetry and his re
sounds suspiciously like Nazi propaganda at
a time when he has supposedly broken with lated denigration of philosophy is
Nazism: apparently based on nothing more than his
unsupported affirmation. Heidegger cannot
This [i. e. the fatherland?T. R.] does not play the follow thinkers like Goodman in denying cog?
external role of a closely related case, in terms of
nitive privilege to one discipline over others22
which the passing away and coming to being in
since he requires a privileged source of insight
the passing away can be illuminated in an ex?
emplary fashion; on the contrary, the being of
into being in the wake of the alleged failure
the fatherland [Seyn des Vaterlandes], that is, of philosophy. Yet a prior commitment to his
the historical existence of its peoples [des own view of being is too slender a thread to
Volkes], is experienced as the authentic and support his literally unjustified conviction for
sole being, from which the basic orientation to the cognitive priority of poetry.
beings in general arises and wins its structure
V. DE MAN: HISTORY AND FICTION
[Gef?ge}*1
Heidegger's claim for H?lderlin's poetry In their own ways, Rorty and Heidegger

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 PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE, AND INTELLECTUAL RESPONSIBILITY / 115

take an anti-Platonic stance in order to re? Man seems at most to be guilty of insensitivity
verse the Platonic view of the rank order be? toward others, including his family, anti-Semi?
tween philosophy and literature. Each tism,23 and duplicity with respect to his past.24
rehabilitates the writer: Rorty holds up the Heidegger's personal failings, which are cer?
salutary effect of fiction over philosophy that tainly more significant, include his member?
can no longer claim to attain truth; and ship in the German National Socialist Party
Heidegger holds up literature, specifically [NSDAP] that he served for a time as rector
H?lderlin's poetry, as the unique source of the of the University of Freiburg, his denunciation
truth that philosophy unsuccessfully sought. of colleagues, and his disguised but persistent
Although influenced by Derrida, and through commitment to an ideal form of Nazism as it
him, by Heidegger, Paul de Man, the literary never existed otherwise than in his mind even
critic, is closer to Rorty in maintaining that after the War, when there was no longer any
knowledge is impossible, and there is finally need to maintain either a public or even a pri?
only fiction. Through his attack on the distinc? vate commitment to National Socialism. In an
tion between history and fiction, de Man obvious way, one can now say of Heidegger
pushes anti-Platonism a decisive step further what one cannot now and perhaps will never
in abolishing the distinction between appear? be able to say of de Man: his later thought
ance and reality that survives in Heidegger's cannot be understood without taking into ac?
writings early and late, and that Rorty appar? count his steady commitment to a kind of Na?
ently abandons when he gives up the concept zism.
of truth. There is a limited similarity in the way that
The writings of Rorty and Heidegger raise Heidegger and de Man have been defended
questions about the relative roles of philoso? by their disciples. Jacques Derrida, who is
phy and literature for a socially responsible hardly a disinterested party, has sought to de?
intellectual. De Man is not Heidegger, and af? fend both Heidegger25 and de Man.26 It is not
ter recent revelations about his wartime jour? surprising, since in both cases the problem is
nalism his situation is not strictly comparable a link to Nazism, that many of the arguments
to Heidegger's in the wake of the scandal raised to defend de Man?such as Rodolphe
about his turn to National Socialism. There Gasch?'s claim that de Man was naive but not
are obvious differences between de Man and irresponsible, yet motivated by a desire to
Heidegger in intellectual stature and personal criticize vulgar anti-Semitism27?are similar
involvement, as least as the facts are now to arguments raised to defend Heidegger.28
known. Although a brilliant literary critic, Yet whereas there are texts in Heidegger's
even perhaps a literary critic of the first rank, corpus that bear on the relation between his
de Man's intellectual stature is minor com? thought and his Nazism that are still not avail?
pared to Heidegger's if measured by such able to the public, de Man's defenders seem
standard criteria as the size and importance of to have made all the texts, including those that
the respective oeuvre, its influence on others, are clearly incriminating, available with dis?
the number of disciples, the frequency of patch.
translations, and so on. Heidegger's involve? Unlike de Man, who luckily died before
ment in Nazism is even more troubling than de scandal enveloped his thought, Heidegger
Man's precisely because of his extraordinary in? lived on and was forced to confront the scan?
tellectual stature as one of the main philoso? dal of the link between his thought and his
phers of our time, for some the most important politics whose force is still not spent.29 He de?
thinker of this century, the author of what is per? voted many years to what can charitably be
haps the most important philosophical work called an exercise in damage control. Heideg?
since Hegel's Phenomenology, for some one ger's "Letter on Humanism,"30 particularly
of the small handful of permanently great phi? the remarks on the turning in his thought, his
losophers. Spiegel interview, and an earlier effort to ex?
De Man's personal failings, although cer? plain away his Nazi turning as meaningless,
tainly significant, are also not on the same suggest how an orthodox Heideggerian
scale as Heidegger's. As things now stand, de should act on his behalf. Following Heideg

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116 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

ger's idea of the turning, that in Derrida's de? Husserlian phenomenology to literary theory
fense becomes a turning away from philoso? in uncovering ideology.
phy and away from Nazism, Derrida in effect Since de Man and the Marxists take differ?
abandons Heidegger the man, whom he does ent views of ideology, there is only a limited
not discuss, as well as Heidegger's early analogy in their shared concern to unmask it.
"metaphysical" writings in order to save Marx and the Marxists hold that on economic
Heidegger's later thought, precisely that part grounds affecting the relation of thought to its
of the Heideggerian corpus that determined social context some representations of social
Heidegger's reception in France; on the con? reality are significantly distorted. De Man,
trary, Derrida has intervened in the debate to who refers to the German Ideology, holds a
save both de Man's life and thought.31 rather different conception of ideology under?
Rorty responds to the problem of intellec? stood as "the confusion of linguistic with
tual relevance in order to provide a meaning natural reality, of reference with phenomenal?
to philosophy at the end of the dream of per? ism."39 He indirectly indicates that his own
fect knowledge. Heidegger has a similar prob? view is a replacement for the Marxist theory
lem at the end of metaphysics with the in stating that literary criticism is a more pow?
difference that he claims that the problem of erful tool than any other form of inquiry, in?
being, in his view the central philosophical cluding economics, for exposing ideology,
problem, is also the central problem of human for instance ideologies present in literary
existence. De Man turns explicitly to the works, or the relation of ideologies and phi?
theme of intellectual relevance in the essay losophy. For de Man, literary criticism is the
"Resistance to Theory" from which his last master science, deeper than all others, the
book takes it name. final bulwark against ideological distortion.
De Man claims to detect a resistance to lit? Since de Man contends that the arguments
erary theory due to its social relevance. In his against literary theory are invariably based on
view, this resistance is perceived as a resis? crude misunderstandings of basic terms,40 we
tance to the use of language about itself;32 a must be careful in offering criticism. I would
resistance to reading;33 and as a resistance to like now to question, not the claimed useful?
the rhetorical or tropological dimensions of ness of literary theory in general, but rather
language.34 According to de Man, those who de Man's view of it. I find two arguments in
resist literary theory "are merely stating their de Man's texts to support his claim that liter?
fear at having their own ideological mystifica? ary theory is socially useful in uncovering ide?
tions exposed by the tool they are trying to ology as he understands it: his view of
discredit."35 language, and his celebrated attack on the dis?
De Man's view of literary theory as expos? tinction between history and fiction. These
ing ideology seems to build on an idea of de two doctrines are clearly related. Roughly
mythologization that he earlier found in stated, his view of language criticizes the idea
Husserlian phenomenology. In a famous es? that language, or at least a certain type of lan?
say, Kant argues for a reading of the En? guage, can refer, and his attack on the distinc?
lightenment as human being's emergence tion between history and fiction criticizes that
from a self-imposed immaturity.36 In an iso? to which language could refer.
lated passage in his last unfinished work, De Man does not want to hold that lan?
Husserl speaks of demythologization [Ent guage cannot refer at all since, if this doctrine
mythisierung].37 De Man, who notices this were true, it obviously could not consistently
passage in Husserl, attributes to him a be stated. He holds a weaker view that in
closely Kantian view of philosophy as "a self some instances what, followed Saussure, he
interpretation by means of which we elimi? calls the sign and the signified fail to coincide.
nate what he [namely Husserl] calls Examples cited include anthropological ob?
Selbstverhiilltheit, the tendency of the self to servation?presumably a situation in which
hide from the light it can cast on itself."38 It is the field anthropologist is unable fully to un?
only later that de Man then reattributes the derstand someone from an alien culture?
critical social role earlier attributed to everyday language, and fiction that precisely

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 PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE, AND INTELLECTUAL RESPONSIBILITY / 117

assumes that it is not possible for the sign to ognize that fiction is only that only if one ac?
coincide with its referent. knowledges the distinction between history
De Man's view of the way that language re? and fiction that de Man is at pains to deny.
fers or fails to refer is too embryonic to be Since to the best of my knowledge no one de?
interesting. His related attack on the distinc? nies the fictional character of fiction, it is plau?
tion between history and fiction is, however, sible to read de Man as contending that it is a
extremely important. His attack, in essence a mistake to take literature to refer to anything
deconstruction of the distinction between his? beyond the text. In that case, we can under?
tory, or fact, and fiction, is now embedded stand his assertion as a further, bizarre devel?
within a lengthy debate. Hayden White, for in? opment of Derrida's famous textualist
stance, writing in de Man's wake, provides a contention that there is nothing beyond the
long list of writers hostile to history, who be? text45 to which literature refers since litera?
lieve, with Joyce's Daedalus, that "history is ture cannot tell us anything about anything
the 'nightmare' from which Western man must outside the text.
awaken if humanity is to be served and Derrida supplements his idea that there is
saved."41 White points to Nietzsche as one nothing outside of the text through an attack
who opposes art to history as a form of ab? on referentiality, never so far as I know simply
stract intelligence, or Apollonianism, that stul? stated but rather exemplified, which can be
tifies the Dionysiac side of human being that, paraphrased as the view that language is in?
as Heidegger would say impedes authenticity. adequate to refer. In the first chapter of the
In a discussion of Derrida's reading of Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel argues
Rousseau, de Man remarks that in the text against sense certainty as knowledge roughly
there is always a confusion between fact and on the grounds that you cannot say what you
fiction.42 In a discussion of Blanchot, he mean or mean what you say. In his writings,
writes: "Fiction and the history of actual starting with his edition of Husserl's essay on
events converge toward the same nothingness; the Origins of Geometry, Derrida similarly
the knowledge revealed by the hypothesis of argues that any effort to refer to a real object
fiction turns out to be knowledge that already turns out to refer as well to an unknowable
existed, in all the strength of its negativity, be? absolute origin.46 Through his reading of
fore the act of consciousness that tries to Husserl's theory from a Heideggerian per?
reach it."43 In a work on reading, he writes spective, Derrida arrives at something like the
that
point that Hegel makes about sense certainty,
it is always possible to face up to any experi? a point that Derrida then generalizes to any
ence (to excuse any guilt), because the experi? effort to know on the basis of his view of
ence always exists simultaneously as fictional metaphysics.
discourse and as empirical event and it is never Derrida is a skeptic if scepticism is under?
possible to decide which one of the two possi? stood as the claim that theory of knowledge
bilities is the right one. The indecision makes it and knowledge are impossible within the
possible to excuse the bleakest of crimes be? framework of the philosophical tradition as it
cause, as a fiction, it escapes from the con? has been understood until now and as it can
straints of guilt and innocence.
possibly take shape.47 He is, however, not a
As I read de Man, in these passages he is skeptic from the socalled postmetaphysical an?
making two points: First, there is a regrettable gle of vision closely related to Heidegger's the
tendency to confuse fact and fiction, in short ory after the celebrated turning where
to take fiction for fact; and second, since the philosophy has supposedly been left behind
distinction between history and fiction is not for thought [Denken].48
viable, historical responsibility cannot be as? The obscure Derridean claim for textuality
signed. If this interpretation is correct, then can be construed in at least two ways, in the
the two points are inconsistent in an obvious first place to mean that everything is subject
way, and the first one is perhaps internally in? to interpretation and, in that sense, like a text.
consistent as well. From that angle of vision, his claim follows
One can complain about the failure to rec from the early Heidegger's appeal to herme

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 118 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

neutics in a phenomenological framework. is equivalent to denying the very possibility of

Heidegger simply extends the idea of textual intellectual responsibility.
hermeneutics to the entire width and breadth In his attack on the distinction between his?
of experience. The controversial aspect is tory and fiction, de Man may be relying on a
whether experience in general is susceptible view of interpretation as undercutting the
to a hermeneutical approach. The same Der possibility of historical knowledge. According
ridean claim can also be construed to mean to Heidegger, all assertions, even those in the
that there is nothing outside of texts since socalled hard sciences or mathematics, rest on
there are only texts. interpretation.49 For Heidegger, interpreta?
If De Man's objection to the supposed con? tion is a circular process that develops a prior
fusion between fact and fiction rests on a de? conception of the subject matter. Since history
nial of anything beyond the text, then it leads rests on interpretation and all interpretation
to scepticism with respect to the very idea that rests on a prior conception, one might infer
literature as fiction can possibly tell us any? that there is neither historical knowledge nor
thing about our world or ourselves. According knowledge of any kind.
to de Man, literature is not a myth since it is De Man's skeptical argument is mistaken if
aware of its own fictional character. Unlike it relies on the interpretative character of his?
Plato who argues that literature falls short of torical knowledge. Although alternative inter?
depicting reality and unlike Heidegger who pretations of historical data are possible,
argues that only literature can depict reality, history is not reduced to fictional status. In?
de Man contends that at the limit literature deed, both Heidegger and de Man seem un?
cannot correctly be taken as referring to or as troubled by the interpretative dimension in
depicting anything external to it. claims to know. Heidegger maintains his ef?
De Man's underdetermined attack on the fort to study being despite his acknow?
distinction between history and fiction can be ledgment of the hermeneutical character of
interpreted in two ways: in a strong sense as all understanding. And de Man explicitly as?
the claim that since it is all fiction literature sumes that literary theory provides knowl?
does not refer beyond itself, say to some other, edge by unmasking ideology through the
further realm, reality; or in a weaker sense discussion of literary language.
as the claim that there is a distinction be? De Man's assault on the distinction be?
tween history and fiction although history tween history and fiction is related to an effort
cannot be named since naming is impossible. to overcome Cartesianism that suddenly
On the stronger view, history would just turn seems to be everywhere in the recent discus?
out to be another kind of fiction. If history sion concerned with antifoundationalism and
does not exist, it is difficult to see how de the end of metaphysics. In his influential dis?
Man could know it to be the case. The skep? cussion of knowledge, Descartes relies on a
tical claim, namely, that there is a distinction method that came to him in a dream to defeat
between history and fiction although we such obstacles as the confusion between
can neither know nor name history, is more dreaming and waking. Like Derrida, de Man
interesting. is committed to some form of deconstruction,
There are two possible arguments in de a conceptual practice that is never clearly de?
Man's writings in favor of a skeptical view of scribed, perhaps in order to avoid its own de
historical knowledge due respectively to the construction. For de Man, if not already for
crucial referential limits of language and the Derrida, deconstruction serves the skeptical
hermeneutical character of historical knowl? purpose of plunging us back into a Cartesian
edge. If there is no distinction between his? dream in which there is no difference between
tory and fiction, then the referential limits history and fiction. If de Man is correct, then
of language become unimportant. In either he has undone the entire concern with ration?
case, the inability to make out this distinc? alism that pervades the Western intellectual
tion is significant since to deny that there tradition from its beginning since he has
exists or that we can pick out a distinction be? shown that we cannot name reality if there is
tween fact and fiction, reality and appearance no reality to name.

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 PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE, AND INTELLECTUAL RESPONSIBILITY / 119

It is obvious, then, that the stakes are high. frequency against the traditional Platonic
The problem is not deconstruction as such, view of philosophy. The common thread in the
since it is important to deconstruct or other? various views collected here is a challenge to the
wise overcome congealed but meaningless Platonic conceptual matrix through exalting lit?
distinctions like that between materialism erature over philosophy or denying that there is
and idealism that had lost its meaning long anything but fiction.
before the collapse of Marxism. Yet decon? The Platonic model was always unsatisfac?
struction becomes problematic when it is tory since it attributed a privileged role to a
used to attack rational discourse in general, certain kind of intellectual while disenfran?
for instance in the skeptical effort to claim chising everyone else through a self-serving,
that no rational discourse is possible. For the vertical model of knowledge. In our relativis?
latter, more general point cannot rationally be tic age, when the center no longer holds, when
demonstrated. the transcendent dimension has all but disap?
De Man's normative view of literature that peared, it is too late to understand the intellec?
does not refer to any reality outside the texts tual role through a putatively privileged access
appears to be false. Obviously, literature often to an invisible world. In our increasingly secu?
moves us precisely because it tells us about lar world, we can no longer return to a version
something as nebulous but as important as the of the scholastic view that knowledge must be
human condition, for instance in Dos grounded in religious faith. Nor should we argue
toyevsky's novels. Yet the human condition that because intellectuals cannot have perfect
cannot be reduced to a series of texts. Luk?cs' knowledge they can have none at all, leading to
idea that fiction is useful only when it assumes the extreme claim that we need to turn away
the form of social realism50 is clearly false from intellectuals,51 as in the Leninist idea that
since such writers as Beckett and Kafka whom any cook or bottle washer can lead the
he excludes from his literary canon offer pow? state.52 Yet to fail to attribute a special kind of
erful insight into the human condition. Yet de knowing to the intellectual is to undercut the idea
Man is even more radical than Luk?cs since of intellectual responsibility.
he appears to deny that fiction can tell us Although we cannot return to the Platonic
about the world and ourselves. If Hegel is cor? view of an invisible reality known only by in?
rect that we are all children of our times, then tellectuals of the right stripe, we can maintain
not only philosophy but literature of all kinds the weaker view that intellectuals have a com?
inevitably refers beyond the text to the social parative advantage in understanding the
reality in which it emerges. world in which we live. If this is correct, then
VI. INTELLECTUAL RESPONSIBLITYIN intellectual responsibility consists in utilizing
AN AGE OF RELATIVISM this comparative advantage in understanding
our times and ourselves within them. The re?
Our present concern is with the very idea of sult is a kind of relativism but within the rela?
intellectual responsibility from a relativistic tion to one's time there is truth and falsity.
angle of vision. The traditional conception of And the intellectual is responsible in doing
intellectual responsibility, like the traditional what an intellectual does best as a way of pro?
view of knowledge, is rooted in a Platonic con? viding insight in a variety of ways without cog?
ception of philosophy. In this relativistic age, nitive privilege, including philosophical,
challenges have been raised with increasing literary, and other.

Duquesne University
Received April 30,1992

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120 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

NOTES

1. For an anthology on moral responsibility, see Peter A. French, The Spectrum of Responsibility (New
York: St. Martin's, 1991).
2. See Hans-Georg Gadamer, "The Political Incompetence of Philosophy," in The Heidegger Case: On
Philosophy and Politics,Tom Rockmore and Joseph Margolis,eds. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1992), pp. 364-71.
3. Richard J. Berstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics and Praxis (Philadel?
phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), p. 8.
4. See Joseph Margolis, The Truth About Relativism (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1991).
5. See Iris Murdoch, The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1971), p. 31.
6. See Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kants Critique of Pure Reason, N. K. Smith, trans. (London and New
York: Macmillan and St. Martin's, 1962), B 867, pp. 657-58.
7. See Tom Rockmore, On Heidgger's Nazism and Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1992).
8. See Murdoch, The Fire and the Sun, p. 80.
9. See Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979).
10. For these views, see Hans Sluga, Gottlob Frege (London: Routledge, Kegan and Paul, 1980).
11. See Richard Rorty, Essays on Heidegger and Others, Philosophical Papers, vol. 2 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 21.
12. For discussion, see Antifoundationalism Old and New, Tom Rockmore and Beth Singer, eds. (Philadel?
phia: Temple University Press, 1992).
13. Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p.
xv.

14. For detailed criticism, see "Rorty's Liberal Utopia," in Richard J. Bernstein, The New Constellation:
The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/Postmodernity (Cambridge: MIT, 1992), pp. 258-92.
15. Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, p. xiv.
16. Ibid., p. 141.
17. lb id., p. xiii.
18. Ibid.,p. xv.
19. Martin Heidegger, H?lderlins Hymnen Germanien und Der Rhein, Freiburger Vorlesung Winterse?
mester 1934/35, Susanne Ziegler, ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1980), p. 1.
20. Heidegger, H?lderlins Hymnen Germanien und Der Rhein, p. 252.
21. Ibid., pp. 121-22.
22. See Nelson Goodman, Ways ofWorldmaking (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1978).
23. For de Man's anti-Semitism, see his article, "Les Juifs dans la litt?rature actuelle," Le Soir A March 1941
reprinted in Paul de Man, Wartime Journalism, 1939-1943, Werner Hamacher, Neil Hertz, and Thomas
Keenan, eds. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988), p. 45.
24. There has been an extensive discussion on the significance of de Man's wartime journalism. See
Responses on Paul de Man's Wartime Journalism, Werner Hamacher, Neil Hertz, and Thomas Keenan
eds. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1989).
25. See Jacques Derrida, De l'esprit, Heidegger et la question (Paris: Galil?e, 1987).
26. See Jacques Derrida, M?moires pour Paul de Man (Paris: Galil?e, 1988).
27. See Rodolphe Gasch?, "Edges of Understanding," in Responses on Paul de Man's Wartime Journa
ism, p. 209.

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 PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE, AND INTELLECTUAL RESPONSIBILITY / 121

28. For a review of the French controversy concerning Heidegger's Nazism, see Rockmore, On Heidegger's
Nazism and Philosophy, chapter 7: "The French Reception of Heidegger's Nazism," pp. 244-81.
29. For a recent collection of materials revealing the efforts of Heidegger's followers at what can charitably
be called a "whitewash," see Martin Heidegger and National Socialism: Questions and Answers, G?nther
Neske and Emil Kettering, eds. (New York: Paragon, 1990).
30. For the influence of this text in bringing about a French reading of Heidegger's thought as humanism,
see Tom Rockmore, Dark Star: Heidegger and French Philosophy (Los Angeles and Berkeley: University
of California Press?forthcoming).
31. See Jacques Derrida, "Like the Sound of the Sea Deep Within a Shell: Paul de Man's War," in Responses
on Paul de Man 's Wartime Journalism, Werner Hamacher, Neil Hertz, and Thomas Keenan, eds. (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska, 1989), pp. 127-64.
32. See Paul de Man, The Resistance to Theory, forward by Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1986), p. 12.
33. De Man, The Resistance to Theory, p. 15.
?>4.Ibid.,p.ll.
35. Ibid., p. 11.
36. See "What Is Enlightenment?," in Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays,Ted Humphrey,
trans. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983).
37. See Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der europ?ischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Ph?no
menologie, Walter Biemel, ed. (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962), p. 340.
38. Paul de Man, Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism, introduction
by Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), p. 15.
39. De Man, The Resistance to Theory, p. 11.
40. See de Man, The Resistance to Theory, p. 12.
41. Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1978), p. 31.
42. See Paul de Man, Blindness, and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism, p. 136.
43. De Man, Blindness, and Insight, p. 75.
44. Paul de Man, Allegories of Reading: Figurai Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), p. 293.
45. See Jacques Derrida, De la grammatologie (Paris: Minuit, 1967), p. 227.
46. See his ?11 of his introduction to Edmund Husserl, L'origine de la g?om?trie (Paris: Presses universi?
taires de France, 1974), pp. 155-71.
47. Since he regards the era of metaphysics as closed, it is surely tantamount to scepticism to claim that the
ideas of knowledge and of theory of knowledge are metaphysical. See Jacques Derrida, La voix et le
ph?nom?ne (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1967), p. 3.
48. See "The Letter on Humanism," in Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, David Farrell Krell, trans. (New
York: Harper and Row, 1977), p. 242.
49. See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, trans. (New York:
Harper and Row, 1962), ?33: "Assertion as a derivative mode of interpretation," pp. 195-203.
50. See Georg Luk?cs, Studies in European Realism (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1964).
51. There is a widespread suspicion of intellectuals as knowing anything at all. See Paul Johnson, Intellec?
tuals (New York: Harper and Row, 1988). The following is a typical passage (p. 342): "What conclusions
should be drawn? Readers will judge for themselves. But I think I detect today a certain public scepticism
when intellectuals stand up to preach to us, a growing tendency among ordinary people to dispute the right
of academics, writers and philosophers, eminent though they may be, to tell us how to behave and conduct
our affairs. The belief seems to be spreading that intellectuals are no wiser as mentors, or worthier as
exemplars, than the witch doctors or priests of old. I share that scepticism." See further, Richard Hofstadter,
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (New York: Knopf, 1964).
52. See Andr? Glucksman, La cuisin?re et le mangeur d'homme (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1975).

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