Seductive Reasoning: Pluralism as the Problematic of Contemporary Literary Theory by Ellen Rooney

Author:Ellen Rooney [Rooney, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary Criticism, Semiotics & Theory, Philosophy, Movements, Critical Theory, Feminist
ISBN: 9781501706998
Google: inK4DgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Cornell
Published: 2016-11-01T14:01:25+00:00

III

Despite his reference to the police state, Fish seems to underestimate the will to authority (and knowledge) that lurks beneath all of pluralism’s calls for stable and determinate meaning and an end to solipsism and relativism. His theory of interpretative communities is offered as a balm to pluralist fears, yet it begins to resemble an incitement, the very challenge Fish vows not to make. Of course, if pluralists have been misled by their own “caricature” of post-structuralism, genuine consolation will inevitably resemble (at least briefly) the very thing they have most feared. Once it is clear “how little we lose” (367) by embracing post-structuralist theory, this difficulty should fade. Fish comes closest to achieving the reconciliation he seeks when he addresses the problem of authority by way of the concept of continuity.

Initially, it seems that the kind of authority Fish offers to pluralists, authority confined within interpretative communities, authority entirely dependent upon contexts or situations and, finally, recognizing differences, would simply not satisfy the requirements of the problematic of general persuasion. At the same time, he makes very strong claims for the authority of the individual interpreter—often figured as a teacher—within the persuasion model. The text persists as an “obvious and inescapable” structure of meanings; “the shared basis of agreement sought by Abrams and others is never not already found”: “students always know what they are expected to believe.” Such statements seem to contradict other remarks that stress that interpretative communities are determinate and limited. The possibility that immediately comes to mind from the title story of Is There a Text in This Class?, that is, the possibility that there might be two texts in one class, is never seriously addressed. And its theoretical consequences are ignored. The concept that resolves these apparent contradictions is continuity; continuity governs all relationships among interpretative communities in a pluralist commonwealth.

I have pointed out that Fish sees an inevitable continuity in the practice of literary criticism. Whereas Raymond Williams argues that certain forms of radical semiotics fall outside the dominant paradigm of literary studies altogether, Fish argues that even the most radical form of interpretation must have some relation to the center of the interpretative community, even if that relation comes under the title of “off-the-wall” interpretation. An outside is defined, first of all, by its relation to an inside. “There is never a rupture in the practice of literary criticism” (358). Furthermore, no matter how exotic or marginal the reading, simply in order to be conceived of as an interpretation, it must fall within the parameters of the game of interpretation. Hirsch says, play by the rules of the logic of inquiry or the discipline will cease to exist as a discipline, and then where will we be? Fish recognizes that if disciplines cease to exist as a disciplines, they will reappear elsewhere as something else, or rather, as more of the same: “interpretation is the only game in town” (355).

Several things are in play here. On one level, Fish has essentialized interpretation, naturalized it.

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