A few notes on Dabashi and Gramsci

Dabashi

1. The nameless other

“thinkers that have actually earned the dignity of a name”

“What about thinkers outside the purview of these European philosophers; how are we to name an designate and honour and learn from them with the epithet of ‘public intellectual’ in the age of globalized media?”

The concept of a “public intellectual” requires the dignity of a name. This is also a matter of language: will we, for example, lose the fear of mispronouncing names in other languages in order to create that dignity, honor, and designation?

2. The center of the universe

“Where do they fit in?”

The center as fictive/colonial act. Political, historical, and literary responsibility of adjusting the scale? Also, “unmitigated structural link”: how are structure and scale connected (I’m thinking here also about our reading of Kant and the measurement of beauty and the sublime.)

(Also HOGAN: “before European colonialism” (1); colonialism, modernity, globalization and the creation of a center.

3. Writing and knowledge

“That goes without saying, for without that confidence and self-consciousness these philosophers and the philosophical traditions they represent can scarce lay any universal claim on our epistemic credulities, nor would they be able to put pen to paper or finger to keyboard and write a sentence.” Question of writing as epistemology and information/knowledge?

Gramsci

1. Umwelt

"Everyone acts according to his culture, that is the culture of his environment" (364)

Question of semiotics and communication. Individuality and self-centeredness in a globalized Welt and Umwelt. 

2. Science and skepticism

"Its original meaning was that of 'science of ideas,' and since analysis was the only method recognized and applied by science it means 'analysis of ideas,' that is, 'investigation of the origin of ideas." (375)

What makes a method scientific? (Thinking about Galilei and reasoning as basis of scientific proof) How do we analyze?