A Critique Of `Modernism' And `Postmodernism':

An Understanding Of Textual Engagement

				N.K.Tointon, 1996

A Critique Of `Modernism' And `Postmodernism':
An Understanding Of Textual Engagement

Abstract

	This paper is divided into six sections. 
	The first section, in the form of an Introduction, discusses how the treatment of the ambiguities of the subtitle are allowed to structure this paper. To start with the expression `textual engagement' will be shown to have two meanings, namely a phenomenological sense (also hermeneutical and existential senses) and a polemical, intertextual sense. Then it will be shown that the expression `understanding' has a third meaning, besides phenomenological and polemical senses, namely, a diplomatic sense wherein `an understanding' in the form of a concordance can be reached, and has been reached, between these warring parties of the `modernist' and the `postmodernist.' That within this accommodation commensurable grounds can be found that allow these two factions to find an area in common for a critical and constructive debate.
	In the second section of this paper the intertextual nature of the meta-textual dimension of textual engagement in its phenomenological sense is introduced and examined. It will be shown that an examination of a text with this type of orientation, e.g., a dictionary, on this level of investigation can only produce and reproduce endless processes of circular displacement and/or endless processes of an open ended deferment. Moreover, in practice, this type of text can only be made meaningfully useful for a reader through the insertion of textual input.
	In the third section we explore the metaphor operating behind the dictum of a `returning back to the things (themselves).' It will be shown, treating `things' through retention as `texts,' that while a `close reading' on a metaphorical level can be useful that on a literal level this dictum would be impossible to put into practice.
	In the fourth  section a way out of this impasse in our search for meaning and meaningfulness, between, on one hand, endless displacement and/or deferment, and, on the other hand, the  mere `blindness' of a sheer textual short-sightedness, there will be shown the existence of a middle path through a balanced bracketing, or i.e., a transcendental suspension, of these two poles in textual engagement. This third dimension will be called `non-textual' by virtue of the fact that this facet, or orientation, in the reading of a text through its sense of spontaneity and immediacy appears to be neither textual nor meta-textual in its essential character, i.e., neither `read as a text' nor `seen as some form of a genre or mix of genres.'

	In a fifth section these three facets in the process of textual engagement (in a phenomenological sense) will be shown to collectively constitute a hermeneutic circle and a mechanism will then be proposed to show how this circle is actively circumnavigated, namely, through a distinctive succession of transcendental suspensions.
	In the sixth and last section of this paper the ramifications of these insights will be collected together to show that modernist and postmodernist readings of a text are but two necessary facets to be found in our textual engagement with a text. That a more adequate reading of a text should take both of these orientations into account along with that of a non-textual appreciation. Hence the recognition of commensurable grounds for the critical and constructive debate between these two warring factions, and, thence the creation of `an understanding' in the form of an open accommodation between these various disparate `styles' of textual treatment.

    Noël Tointon (Re-edited 31.8.02)

A Critique Of `Modernism' And `Postmodernism':
An Understanding Of Textual Engagement.

1. Introduction

	This first section, in the form of an Introduction, discusses how this paper is structured. Fundamentally, the treatment of the ambiguities of the subtitle structure this paper. To start with the expression `textual engagement' has two meanings, namely a phenomenological sense (also hermeneutical and existential senses) and a polemical, intertextual sense. By a `phenomenological sense' is meant at the experiential level of the actual phenomenon of the text's production and reproduction. This will be discussed as taking place under three correlative orientations, namely, the meta-textual, textual and non-textual aspects; respectively examined in sections two, three and four of this paper (mapping, respectively, orientations of a more hermeneutical, phenomenological and existential nature). By `polemical' is meant that level of textual engagement where authors of texts interact textually with respect to each other. 
	In this subtitle the expression `understanding' has a third meaning, besides phenomenological and polemical senses, namely, a inter-relational, diplomatic sense wherein `an understanding' in the form of a concordance can be reached, and has already been reached to some degree or other, between these warring parties of the `modernist' and the `postmodernist.' [These two types of text-producers by virtue of the quotation marks indicating that they are bracketed with various qualifications that effectively question any attempt to treat an orientation as something completely distinctive in its own right without some form of an overlapping relationship with other contrasting orientations. That within this accommodation commensurable grounds can be found that allow these two factions to find an area in common for a critical and constructive debate. As an example of a `modernist' we might like to substitute `Husserl' or `Plato.' As an example of a `postmodernist' we might like to substitute `Derrida' or Baudrillard.' Not, I might add, that it is possible to substitute the name of any philosopher purely within these bracketed, and qualified, orientations.]
	The second section of this paper introduces and examines the meta-textual dimension of textual engagement in its phenomenological sense. It will be shown that a text with this type of orientation on this level of textualization can only produce and reproduce endless processes of circular displacement and/or endless processes of an open-ended deferment in their definition of identity. Moreover, in practice, this type of text can only be made meaningfully useful for a reader through the insertion of actual textual input. To quickly demonstrate these assertions I shall use three dictionaries and their entries concerning apples and oranges (and mandarins) in order to show that processes of definition on a `merely' meta-textual level cannot be used to define identity on a textual level of articulation.
	In the third section we explore the metaphorical-setting operating behind the dictum of a `(returning back) to the things (themselves).' It will be shown, treating `things' through retention as `texts,' that while a `close reading' on a metaphorical level can be useful that on a literal level this dictum would be impossible to put into absolute practice.
	In the fourth  section a way out of this impasse in our search for meaning and meaningfulness, between, on one hand, endless displacement and/or deferment, and, on the other hand, the  mere `blindness' of a sheer textual short-sightedness, there will be shown the existence of a middle path through a balanced bracketing, or i.e., a transcendental suspension, of these two poles in textual engagement (on a phenomenological level of investigation). This third dimension will be called `non-textual' by virtue of the fact that this facet, or orientation, in the reading of a text through its sense of spontaneity and immediacy appears to be neither textual nor meta-textual in its essential character, i.e., neither experientially `read as a text' nor `seen as some form of a genre or mix of genres.'
	In a fifth section these three facets in the process of textual engagement (in a phenomenological sense) will be shown to collectively constitute a hermeneutic circle, and, a mechanism will then be proposed to show how this circle is actively circumnavigated, namely, through a distinctive succession of transcendental suspensions.
	In the sixth and last section of this paper the ramifications of these insights will be collected together to show that modernist and postmodernist readings of a text are but two necessary facets to be found in our textual engagement with a text. That a more adequate reading of a text should take both of these orientations into account along with that of a non-textual appreciation. Hence the recognition of commensurable grounds for the critical and constructive debate between these two warring factions, and, thence the creation of `an understanding' in the form of an open accommodation between these various disparate `styles' of textual treatment.

2. The Meta-Textual Dimension In Textual Engagement

	In Derrida's explication of différance there can be no arrival at a transcendental signified only a continual process of displacement  or deferment. In my opinion this process of displacement or deferment can only take place at the meta-textual level of engagement in the reading of a text, i.e., only on that meta-level of textual reference that talks `about' texts; directly examines their manifestation on a textual level as a `context' in its `framing' of its associated text(s); investigates the `functions' of texts and their emphasis on a rhetorical dimension (as opposed to a more metaphorical level of `textual' involvement); analyses their apparently intended adoption and individually adapted exercise of genres; invokes a reference to other texts or the dimension of the intertextual, etc. In this regard the use of titles, statements of intent, outlines of the purpose of a text, definitions, rules for the use of that text, etc., are primarily meta-textual in complexion. Being `about the text' they cannot be `primarily' textual even though these same aspects might be found textually presented in that text, e.g., in the form of a title, comments on how to read that text inserted in that very text itself, etc.
	This aspect of the text being meta-textual in complexion cannot be textual per se. Hence in this displacement about the text, in its discussion `about the text,' it cannot be correctly textual, in a primary sense, even if printed on that very page of text being read by you. Being `about' the text it cannot, therefore, function primarily as `textual' per se. 
	A classic example of a meta-textually oriented text is that of dictionary - a set of definitions about the names of various objects, states, entities, etc. But this type of text by itself cannot by itself, on a `mere' meta-textual level of explication, actually differentiate and designate the nature of those items, as `texts,' therein defined either in general terms of reference or on a more specific, particular directed level of indication.
	To demonstrate this impossibility let me show you how a dictionary by itself, when examined within those limited meta-textual terms of reference, cannot practically differentiate the actual difference in general or specific terms of reference between two types of fruit obviously quite different, let us say an apple and an orange, or, not so obviously different, let us say an orange and a mandarin.
	"The Concise Oxford Dictionary" defines an apple as a round, firm fleshy fruit of the rosaceous family. Now tell me is it not the case that most fruit are round in shape to some extent? Indeed, apples and oranges (and mandarins) are all round in shape. Moreover, most fruit are firm unless ripe or extremely ripe. Then all fruit have `flesh' in some form or other. And don't we have some difficulty with this concept of `flesh.' How can the `body' of a piece of fruit be treated as fleshy in content? Surely flesh is found on meat products? Do we need to tell vegetarians that eating fruit is eating flesh? Or is this `flesh' only `metaphorical' and, that being the case, how then can any thing other than our `metaphorical teeth' be sunk into the same?! 
	The "Collins Dictionary" also defines the apple tree as of the rosaceous family and in another entry defines the same.
	On the other hand the "Universal Dictionary" defines the apple as of the Malus genus without defining the same - invoking no doubt a sense of the intertextual wherein this term, in its turn, can be found to be defined, albeit extra-textually.
	Then again, while the "Collins Dictionary" defines apples as being `red, yellow or green' the "Universal Dictionary" defines the same as only `red and yellow.' Of course we must not forget that oranges before they ripen are green and then, again, when they ripen can be either red, yellow or orange.
	Other entries describe the flowers of the apple flowers as either pink or white. But what are flowers? Is it not the case that many other plants and fruit tress also have small white or pink flowers?
	With oranges and mandarins looking very similar this play of definitions gets even more ridiculous if left only on this level of continual displacement and deferment with out some form referral to the actual objects themselves. E.g., "Collins" tells us that `mandarins' are `like tangerines.' Then under the entry of `tangerines' we are told that this fruit is `like small oranges.' One must wonder, therefore, if for the literal minded that some `small oranges' might not be `mandarins,' and v.v.
	From this short analysis it should be obvious that definitions in referring to other defined terms and expressions do so either in finite loops of a circular `displacement' or in open-ended strings of an infinite `deferment' (that in all probability are equally constructed from finite loops of an indefinite covert nature).
	But all this displacement and deferment can be short circuited if we can just look ourselves and refer directly `back to the things themselves,' to echo that phenomenological dictum!
	The moral of this demonstration is this: textual displacement and deferment is essentially a meta-textual phenomenon, and, such a phenomenon by itself cannot differentiate and designate texts in a specific fashion despite the degree of detail defined in those meta-terms of reference. That, eventually, we must accept the fact that these definitions, and other meta-textual structures and processes, can only be made meaningfully useful through the insertion of the appropriate textual input. Put quite simply, it is only when we insert our life's experience into the reading of a dictionary that we can in practice make practical sense of that reading. In other words, the textual aspect of a reading does not `defer' (in the same manner) to the displacement experienced in the meta-textual aspect realized in that same act of reading.

3. The Textual Dimension In Textual Engagement

	The conclusion suggested in this failure of meta-textual definition to define a specific text, etc., in overtly textual terms of reference was to `just look' and `return to the things themselves!' In this next section of my argument let me demonstrate that a close textual reading of the phenomenon to hand will also fail to achieve this desire for identification and designation, this need for a description of that designated, this search for value, for meaning and meaningfulness.
	In the adoption of this phenomenological dictum of "(returning back) to the things (themselves)" I don't wish to discuss in what sense that motto was originally proposed. Time does not permit me to conduct this interpretive reading. The point of this exercise residing in my intentional mis-reading of this formula and showing that in those re-interpreted pure terms of reference there will also be a failure to establish this differentiation and designation of the phenomenon treated as a `text.'
	Let me elaborate upon this concept of mine concerning the identification of the `phenomenon' with a `text.'
	Through retention the phenomenon constituted in intentional consciousness is effectively re-simulated in time. Without this process of simulated repetition the phenomenon would not be able to be `fixed in time' so to speak before our attention. Hence the textualization of the phenomenal simulation, through retention, in order for it to manifest itself as a phenomenon-for-us. This concept of `simulation' being essentially an act of `re-simulation,' namely, a `simulation of the simulation' and not equally a `simulation of that which is not simulated,' or a `simulation of that which exists prior to that act of re-simulation.' This concept of `simulation' as `re-simulation' certainly not invoking a representational model of reality (rather an absolute, non-absolutist re-presentational model of engagement along with all the qualification necessary to reinforce the unitary and mutual nature of the Life-World, etc.).
	In general terms of reference the hermeneutic principle of `the close reading of the text' is certainly not without merit, a practice that can be approached from an infinite number of directions and whose evaluation need only ask how appropriate was that reading and how productive was its critical fruitfulness? However, on a literal level such a reading cannot be conducted in absolute terms of reference! One could imagine what it would be like to read a novel if the printed page was placed immediately in front of the eyes and the distance between this page and one's self became progressively diminished. A certain `transcendental distance' is necessary in order to read the text be it a painting or a novel, a photo or the images on a computer screen. As we progressively loose that sense of distance there is a progressive loss of conventional discernment. In the reading of this novel, e.g., first, the semblance of the page would disappear, then, the sense of actual sentences would be lost, then, words would not be appreciated, then, the letters that constituted those words themselves would not be seen as letters, and, finally, even the sense of the presence of a text itself would be lost, only the memory that there had been a text in front of one's self would be all that might remain.
	Hence we must conclude, that in metaphorical terms of reference only a close reading of a text is possible, but, that in literal terms of reference a close reading is just not possible. In essence, a return back to the thing itself, as a text qua text, is just not possible in absolute terms of reference! Thus, in our search for meaning and meaningfulness, in our search for absolutely accurate designation and description we can neither seek a textual resolution of this desire nor find a meta-textual clarification of its ideal configuration! Should we conclude, therefore, that forever we must be lost between an almost blind, shortsighted awareness of the text, and, circular processes of displacement and/or endless processes of deferment. The closer we metaphorically move towards the text it disappears in front of us and the more we move away from it the more we are swept up in endless cycles of displacement and endless currents of deferment! Is there, therefore, no way out of this impasse? No satisfaction of this desire for `value,' for a `sense of presence,' or `trace,' even if only simulated and resimulated?

4. The Non-Textual Dimension In Textual Engagement

	Obviously for there to be the realization of value, the relative stability in the creation and re-creation of meaning and meaningfulness, there must be an exit from this impasse between endless movement in meaning, on one hand, and, on the other, our effective metaphorical `blindness' in the face of the `blankness' of the `mere' text! 
	This exit, I believe, is realized when a middle path is adopted, when our attitudes towards these two poles of the textual and the meta-textual are subjected to a process of active balance and bracketing, in effect, nothing other than the performance of a transcendental suspension. Moreover, it was noted previously, that the substitution of textual material into these `currents' of the meta-textual was necessary in order to make sense of the meta-textual and vice versa. That, in our overall engagement with the phenomenon of the text the correlativity of the textual and the meta-textual demanded that the `texture' of this interaction could be neither `merely textual' nor `merely meta-textual.'
	How is a suspension of these two poles of the textual and the meta-textual achieved? It is one thing to merely suspense, e.g., our ontological beliefs, and, quite another to suspend two, or more, items of different semantic range. To suspend and bracket our ontological beliefs, or our ethical values, or our aesthetic judgments, etc., is one thing, but, how can we do this with different categories at the same time?
	For a start it is the products and processes produced in that interrelationship between those semantic fields that structure and enable the manifestation and simulation of that relationship. Thence, that granted, we now have the grounds wherein we can performance the suspension of those products and processes that constitute that interrelationship. In a similar fashion to the model of `correlativity' that Husserl argues for, as taking place between noetic activity and noematic productivity,  a suspension is performed on the correlativity of that interrelationship under investigation. To assist our understanding of this relationship between the textual and the meta-textual we can also invoke a harmonic modeling of this interaction.
	In a harmonic modeling of this interrelationship we would note that the relatively distinctive nature of the textual foreground is perceived as relatively dissonant in its contrast against the consonant background of the conformity of meta-textual genre-expectations. Out of this relationship between the progressive, future oriented nature of genre-expectations and the already formed, retrospective nature of the textual, in a well-formed text that sense of harmony, that sense of resolution therein engendered and entered into, creates and re-creates a sense of the existential, along with its sense of the spontaneous and the immediately given. This third polarity, by virtue of this semblance of spontaneity and immediacy, and its non-comparison to the `reading of a text' and the `genre expectations of the meta-textual,' establishes what might be described as, in effect, that which is `not textual' in nature, or, more correctly, as a facet of textual engagement that is perceived as relatively `non-textual' in orientation. This perception of the relatively non-textual seems to situate us in an ongoing sense of the `eternally present,' a sense of the present whose fullness or completion is dependent upon its enrichment from these poles of textual-retention and meta-textual protention (along with a `directly textual' experience of the overall relationship itself from the point of view of the center of the phenomenon of that relationship when these three poles themselves are actively engaged in a state of transcendental suspension and balance; the existential `moment' of the non-textual acting as a `doorway' into this `centering of the relationship' through an existentialization of that sense of the present/presence).
	By this appellation of the `non-textual' I don't mean the `not textual,' that which has no connection whatsoever with the reading of a text. Rather, what is more meant is the sense in which a text seems to dissolve before us and reveal those apparent intentions that manufactured its original entextualization. It is that same feeling of the effectively `non-textual reading' that instantaneously arises when a question is asked about a certain text that has already been adequately read. If I were to ask you if you enjoyed that particular novel I saw you reading last week in all probability you will be able to immediately answer my question and reply. A sudden recollection that seems to involve no sense of the calculative. You don't have to ask yourself, in recollection, if you enjoyed and understood the first page, if you enjoyed and understood the second page, etc., or whether you enjoyed the first chapter, the second chapter, etc., or even if, overall, you enjoyed and understood this text in the form of a novel. It is usually the case that an answer more often than not arises before the enquiring sentence itself in speech has had time to run its course (assuming that this enquiry was well-formed meta-textually and textually and the means of its communication were appropriately established). It is with respect to this apparently effortless, non-contrived facet of the textual experience that I have named it as `non-textual' (giving a non-textual contrast to the seemingly all pervasive textual `texture' produced and reproduced between the poles of the textual and the meta-textual in their correlative entextualization of all processes of simulation).

5. The Hermeneutical Circle In Textual Engagement

	Over-riding all processes of textualization are genre expectations what ever the nature of that text (be in `classical' or `non-classical' in scope), be it that `novel' being read in front of us or our `writing a letter,' be it our looking at a `painting' or our intention `to walk along the street,' be it our perceiving `the unfolding of a fresh flower' or our merely thinking a certain `type' of thought. In this regard genre-expectations, being meta-textual by nature, imply a more synthetic or holistic orientation. On the other hand the nature of the text per se is constructed and perceived as consisting of bits and pieces treated in and through various sequences that in time eventually detail and re-confirm, flesh out the integrated nature of that genre.
	In essence the `overall meta-textual nature' of the text gives to that text its `form' whereas the textual `detail' constitutes the `parts' out of which that particular text is given its specific identity. In effect the meta-textual orientation and the textual orientation constitute dialectical `moments' in a hermeneutic circle, a cycle of meaning generated from the relationship engendered between `wholes' and `parts' and vice versa. Moreover, the existential nature of the `non-textual' orientation gives us a third moment in this generative circle of the productive  and reproductive creation of value, value in the form of meaning and meaningfulness. This `moment,' in its being in the `present,' in effect gives us an indication of an entrance and exit from this same circle (and its evolution of value) from the simulated center of that `circle.' This current, experiential sense of center giving us a sense of `place in the world,' a sense of psychic location in our own personalized  adoption and adaptation of the social mapping of the cosmos that is found culturally to hand, a sense of `designation.' On the other hand, the nature of that repetitive turning, and returning, constitutes the sense of its `significance,' or a `description' of that currently designated center in accordance with a thematization of its `type.' This texture in turn characterizing `us' as certain type of person capable of appreciating the nature of that `type' of constitution.
	As already intimated in this paper, in the Introduction, the mechanism behind the active manifestation of value within this hermeneutic circle was nominated as a "distinctive succession of transcendental suspensions." At this point, therefore, let me discuss the transcendental nature of this succession (and in the process allude to the resolution of a number of more or less `pseudo-problems' concerning the experiential nature of the transcendental suspension, the intentional object, etc., and their relevance to this debate between the `modernist' and the `postmodernist').
	For the Husserlian the productive (and reproductive) nature of the transcendental suspension, or epoche, is essentially spontaneous, immediate and non-mediated albeit from an `aspectival point of view.' But, in an initial understanding of the transcendental suspension as a `bracketing of our ontological commitments,' one must wonder how this `spontaneity' and `immediacy' is realized within what seems to be such a relatively static framework, or, indeed, how the suspension itself is maintained? The various metaphor behind the expressions `bracketing,' `putting out of play,'  `suspension,' etc., all seem to have an initial semblance of activity, but, once their work has been completed, has been put in play, one might wonder what else is there that could be kept in a state of play in order to re-create that experientially apperceived sense of the suspension as something productively and reproductively dynamic. Therefore, to theoretically establish this more dynamic sense of the ongoing process of the suspension and its fundamental role in the progress of the hermeneutic circle let me complete this section with the following set of explanations.
	If we were to entertain a certain belief about the world, let us say that `x is a' what would it mean to subject this apparent `fact' to a transcendental suspension? In my opinion to subject this fact to a transcendental suspension we would have to simultaneously entertain the contrary situation, namely, as an equal possibility, that `x is not a.' This simultaneous `holding' of the fact and its contrary in effect simulates metaphorical thinking where we can analyze a certain metaphor along parallel lines. E.g., the metaphorical expression that `the moon is like cheese' means that `the moon is both like cheese and not like cheese.' If, on the other hand, we were to treat this apparent metaphorical expression in a literal, non-metaphorical fashion we would arrive at the fact that the moon is regarded as being `cheese-like by virtue of being cheese.' In the metaphorical mode you might say that we would like to have both `our cake and eat it' so to speak.
	The transcendental suspension of textual content therefore creates in effect a metaphor, a metaphorical structure whose function has a certain rhetorical effect. If we say `the moon is like cheese' we mean `like cheese in a certain manner' and not that the moon `is' cheese. In creatively unpacking the significance of the analogy we might like to say that traditional cheeses were more often than not round, pale in complexion and sometimes pockmarked with round holes, etc., i.e., the moon could be favorably compared analogically to a traditional cheese. The rhetorical force of the metaphor could therefore be said to be meta-textual in orientation because of its informing the text of the metaphor in the selectively distinctive fashion and that it does so in conformity with the genre-expectations of that metaphor. Otherwise the metaphor would have to be `(re-)set up' to highlight some other feature of the phenomenon of a cheese that might profitably be alluded to. In effect, therefore, the transcendental suspension of a text highlights its metaphorical nature and in the process exposes the meta-textual, rhetorical force of that adopted, and possibly re-adapted sequence of genre expectations alluded to through the utilization of that set of metaphors embedded in that text and/or in that meta-text if the actual text, in its entextualization, is without the presence of overt metaphor (as in e.g., in a telephone directory).
	Therefore, the transcendental suspension of the text, if it possesses overt or covert metaphorical structures, what ever their meta-status, exhibits the rhetorical functions of the relatively meta-textual. Or, we might like to put it another way, in the form of the following question. If the transcendental suspension reveals a metaphorical reading of the embedded textual metaphor how is it possible to escape this limbo-like land of the simultaneously `is' and `is not?'
	In my work as a psychiatric nurse I am often confronted by people in various types of disfunctional mental and behavorial states where they seem to be trapped in just this type of `suspension.' E.g., in agitated depression, in the state of schizophrenic catatonia, in obsessive-compulsive disorders, etc. I often find in people with a profound, agitated depression, e.g., that those people are often unable to make up their minds about going to bed at night-time even though they know they want to go to bed, being extremely tired and that it be well past their bed-times. Making this decision for them, and giving them a gentle nudge towards their bed, they at first seem to resist with an equal degree of counter-force but then they just give up happy that someone else can make this decision of `their going to bed' for them. Their sense of `relief,' in this act of `resolution,' is indeed quite literally palpable.
	To further illustrate this `suspended' aspect of the suspension let me relay the following anecdote. Some time ago a shopkeeper reported to the local community center how a living stature had installed himself at the traffic lights outside his business premises and had now been there for the last thirty-six hours. Brought into hospital it was obvious that this person was suffering from a pronounced form of catatonic schizophrenia. Later, when this person had recovered from this phase of his illness he was asked what he was thinking of at the time of his `installation.' Apparently, he was involved in the following dilemma. He had always been taught to press the button on the traffic lights in order to cross. However, he also `knew' that to press this very button would mean the nuclear annihilation of the earth that very instant and that he could not be responsible for. Trapped in this suspension experientially entertained at the center of this moral dilemma this person lost his freedom. In contrast, in practical terms of reference, we must ask ourselves how the Husserlian in their pursuit of the transcendental suspension is not trapped in this type of structure and, indeed, can claim a sense of greater freedom through the exercise of such a methodological procedure.
	If the transcendental suspension of the content of the text is the creation of a metaphorical reading how do we get out of this state of the conjunction of `the is and the is-not.' Quite simply, I believe, the answer is to `suspend the suspension!' By this I don't mean to stop doing transcendental suspensions but to subject the process of the transcendental suspension itself to a process of transcendental suspension. In its own way, moreover, this does indeed stop the suspension. Trapped in the metaphorical suspension you make your rhetorical exit via the very bracketing of that same suspension itself. 
	However, this stratagem of a double suspension does not make way for the sense of the existential wherein there is experienced a sense of an `ongoing suspension.' E.g., confronted for the first time by a very wonderful painting, or, the sudden panorama of a very scenic landscape, we might find ourselves standing in front of this vista almost effortlessly engrossed in the sublime detail unfolded before us. How might this sense of the ongoing suspension be achieved? Might it not be the case that a further suspension of this double suspension could do this for us? Might we not now experience a similar problem as that envisaged on the level of the metaphorical, namely, a feeling of being trapped in the flow, in this dynamic sense, of an ongoing suspension. No longer trapped in a static sense of the suspension but now a feeling of being trapped in the flood of its seemingly permanent unfolding.
	At this stage in our thought experiment I suspect that I don't need to give a resolution of this next problem to beset us.	To enter and leave simultaneously this third level of the ongoing transcendental suspension all that need be done is to subject this aspect of the `transcendental suspension' to a fourth process of transcendental suspension and therein enter and exit simultaneously from the attractive power and fascination of its grip exercised therein upon the imagination. 
	To complete this sequence of speculation I would like to subject this four-fold transcendental suspension to one more state of transcendental suspension. It is my current thought on this matter that one more suspension, a suspension of the effectively `trans-existential' and its accompanying sense of the `directly-textual,' that this additional suspension would, in effect, either collapse this whole edifice of `simulated-simulation' and return it back (step by step?) to the level of the relatively pre-constituted wherein the metaphorical was allowed to emerge, etc., or, allow it to enter some higher, more organized level of psychological functioning? 
	These later speculations aside, in my explication of the hermeneutic circle at the center of textual engagement, as I perceive it, that from out of the preconstituted pre-textual there arises the metaphorical enstructuralization of the textual. Then, there arises the rhetorical enfunctioning of the meta-textual followed by the ongoing non-textual simulation of the existential. Then, in a fully developed balance of these three moments of the textual, meta-textual and the non-textual, there arises our freedom to enter and leave this overall dimension of the directly-textual..?
	But, this position to date accounts only partially for the hermeneutic circle acting in one direction! Might not the reverse direction in this hermeneutic circle be metaphorically set in motion through a progressive de-construction of these levels in the hierarchical imposition of the transcendental suspension? In effect through a series of de-hierarchical `de-transcendental suspensions' getting our hermeneutic circle to work in both directions, i.e., from parts to wholes and v.v. By these means demonstrating a movement back from the existential sense of the non-textual... to the pre-metaphorically pre-constituted...? (The collective harmony of those three regions of the textual, meta-textual and non-textual re-creating and simulating this sense of that which `touches' upon the `directly-textual'). That by these means the various levels of interaction within, and without, this hermeneutic circle can nominate the current center of our psychological, social and political being-in-this-world, designate and differentiate all value engenderetherein within the openness of this intersubjective transcendental realm of the Life-World!

6. Conclusion

	What conclusions can be drawn from this paper that might establish commensurable grounds and means for a resolution of this debate between `modernists' and `postmodernists,' between textualists and meta-textualists whose orientations are essentially forms of `textualism' and `meta-textualism'?
	First, on a textual level, a return to the things themselves as `texts' qua texts can be achieved but not through a close reading on a textual level of textual engagement. That such a reading is approached through the imposition of a balanced, thorough transcendental suspension of all the facets and processes encountered in this fundamental phenomenon of textual engagement!
	Second, playing around with titles, definitions, margins, and other meta-textual devices and regions of the text can only result in endless processes of displacement and/or deferment. As to whether this is an illuminating experience or not is dependent on how relevant and how skillfully conducted such an investigation is brought to bear on that text to hand!
	Third, to experience and re-experience the immediacy and spontaneity of the non-textual dimension in all its existential richness, or existential poverty, it should be neither `overlooked' by `postmodernists' nor `looked over' (as if merely textual) with too great a desire or focus by `modernists' because it is only through a dynamic balance of the transcendental suspension of the mutual correlativity of the textual and the meta-textual that the simulation of the text is allowed to materialize, appear to have a self-critical life and mind of its own!
	Fourth, the relative richness of a text can be appreciated on a text by text basis and not on the basis of a prejudgment of mere genre alone or a so called close reading of its textual entextualization. Then, texts, of a similar genre, can be evaluated in terms of the relativity of their apparent intrinsic merit from an appreciation of the intensity and originality of those acts of resolution discharged within, and between, the sequence of tropes that appear to harmonically constitute that text!
	Fifth, although not argued for in this paper, the author of a text remains `the author of that text' because the apparent intentions of that `author' impregnate that text holistically from their point of view and can be apparently re-created in the reading of that text, to some degree or other, and, that despite the replication of that text its enplacement in the world remains uniquely situated in the contextual history of its own simulated production and re-simulated re-production. It should be noted, however, that it would be the case that in a text that is not well-formed that certain `relatively-intrinsic' features and/or `relatively-contextual' features would be found to be `inadequately formed' in the best reading possible of that text!
	Finally, because the overall process of textual engagement on phenomenologically-textual, hermeneutically-metatextual and existentially-nontextual levels of textual engagement is similarly constructed it implies that commensurable grounds have always existed between these various `styles' of textual investigation. Hence the apparent rift between the modernist and the postmodernist practitioners of textual investigations can be seen as both stylistically distinctive and experientially inter-commensurable, albeit in the distinctive fashion that has brought that text into existence productively and re-productively! Hence some `understanding' of the nature of textual engagement must already be in some form of existence for these two parties to have already entered into some form of a critical debate. Moreover, in the production and reading of any text whatsoever the necessary  presence of these three polarities must have already entered into some form of a fully functioning accommodation.
	That this process of critical interaction can only be assisted by a further clarification of this process of `textual engagement' as already indicated in this paper. This complex process of `understanding' paying particular attention to affective, pre-cognitive, pre-textual material; to the correlative spheres of the textual, meta-textual and the non-textual; to the  apparent simulation and re-simulation of value harmonically set up through resolution, and reinforced through its repetition, as put in place within the experiential boundaries of that text in harmony with the apparent intentions of that author or those authors. That the well-informed text rewards the reader with a surplus of value both phenomenologically, through their attention to the phenomena of this world of experience; hermeneutically, through an explication of the author's apparent intentions in all their definition, ambivalency and oversight; and existentially through the recreation of value discovered in the resolution, spontaneity and immediacy of that text.
	Hence the debate between the `modernist' and the `postmodernist' can be clarified through a `phenomenological appreciation of textual engagement,' and, that the `polemical nature of this debate' can be productively refined through the strengthening of this `understanding' generated in, and through, this type of phenomenological investigation!

								             Noël Tointon, 3.8.96.

Note: This ‘Incomplete First Version’ of this Paper can be Used as a Commentary 
on the ‘Final Version’ as Completed Above 

On The Necessity Of the Intentional Object?!
A Critique of ‘Husserl’ and ‘Derrida’

Abstract Of Paper

I. 	The Nature Of The Problem To Be Dealt With By The Paper

1.	The critique of the representational model of reality is accepted as valid.
2.	Given 1. the proposition of one Life-World is asserted.
3.	Given 2. and given the proposition that all parties in a relationship must be in direct relational contact in order for there to be that relationship, it is proposed that the intentional relationship must involve a direct relationship between the intender and the intentional object (the latter being defined in a neutral fashion, i.e., left open as to whether it is to be defined as some sort of state, object content, feature, etc.).
4.	Given 3. it then follows that we have a problem as to the `nature' of the intentional `object' - if it is mediational then given the direct nature of the intentional relationship what need do we have for these surplus entities, and, if it is the `object as intended' how can it be re-constituted in consciousness by us for us?

II.	Resolution Of This Problem As Outlined By This Paper

1.	In an examination of textual deferment, after Derrida, it is argued that deferment only operates in meta-textual terms of reference. 
2.	To demonstrate 1. a dictionary, as a classical example of textual deferment, will be used to show how in practice it can not be used by itself to successfully differentiate and designate objects, etc. In the demonstration chosen we look at its ability to differentiate apples, oranges and mandarins from each other.
3.	Given the failure of 2. into this breach we invoke the phenomenological dictum "(returning) back to the things (themselves)." In an intentional mis-reading of this dictum `things' are defined as texts (on the grounds that through retention the simulation re-simulated is essentially a text). The hermeneutics of a `close reading' is invoked. However, although a metaphorical use of this rule may be found to be useful, in practice a close literal reading is something that cannot be put into effect. Hence the failure of a literal `reading of things as texts qua texts.'
4.	Given the failure of 2. and 3., and there being nothing else other than invocations of the occult, for a resolution of this dilemma we try a simultaneous suspension/suppression of the appropriate co-responding texts and meta-texts. 
5.	However, given my explication of the unproductive and paralyzing nature of the simple suspension a  `double suspension' is instead invoked, i.e., the suspension of the suspension. It is then argued that the successful resolution of this dilemma has been obtained.
6.	In the form of a conclusion it is argued that the intentional `object' is indeed mediational but in the ongoing suspension of the suspension of the same direct relational contact is then `immediated.' This aspect of the text being treated as `non-textual' by virtue of the parallel suppression/deconstruction/suspension, etc., of the text and the meta-text.
7.	In the process of 6. criticizing these mis-readings of Derrida and Husserl, indicating the need for a positive re-evaluation of both philosophers in the light of this indirect critique and therein creating the need for a dialogue between `post-modernist' and `modernist' styles of discourse. In the process reinstituting a sense of positive cultural continuity with the past rather than the current emphasis on a relativist, negative disvaluation of history, etc., as interpreted in a modernistic light, etc...

Introduction

	The proposition of a Life-World, through the character of its transcendental nature, is a direct critique of that still dominant world-view that insists on, one hand, a completely private, inner world of consciousness, and, on the other, a parallel realm of objects in a so called `external world.' The transcendental nature of this world-of-life, through suspension, collapses this dichotomy between an inner world of our thoughts and an outer world of objects. Moreover, the transcendental nature of this `bracketing of phenomenal experience' also suspends the equally artificial segregation of the world of the ego from its intersubjective enplacement in a complex social world of a community of egos.
	Given this critique of the natural attitude as expressed in and through this type of representational format it stands to reason that this transcendental realm of being is shared by this community of egos and that there can be in this regard one, and only one, Life-World. 
	Now, given that there is this one transcendental world of the Life-World and our experiential embodiment in just such a realm, it follows that we must seriously ask ourselves how our relationships in this dimension could not be otherwise than direct, albeit with a degree of clarity dependent upon our position, perspective and powers of appreciation, etc. If we actually stand in a relationship with a certain object x then it follows that we must be directly in a relationship with that object x otherwise that relationship is in some sense indirect and to that degree not a proper relationship.
	Furthermore, if we accept that consciousness is intentionally constituted, is intended towards some type of object, then we must seriously consider if  such an object as an `intentional object' is actually necessary given the direct grasping and contact made by our relationships in this one world of the Life-World?	
	By intentional `object' is meant any object, state, content, designation, or feature, etc., intended in an act of consciousness. I.e., when experientially dealing with some type of event that current relationship under focus is directed towards the co-responding party of that type of event. This definition is meant to be philosophically neutral to the extent that I don't wish to enter, in this paper, into any of the controversies surrounding just such a topic. However, I would like to point out that as certain intentional acts don't meet with their intentional objects, states, etc., as apparently intended, i.e., are never satisfied, never seem to reach or are found not to have reached their intended targets, it implies that to some extent intentional entities intended seem more to act as mediations for what may or may not satisfy their apparent intendedness. But, if the Life-World is `the one and only transcendental realm of being,' and, all conscious relationships therein are engendered in such a manner that all parties are in direct contact with one and another, i.e., actually in a relationship with one and another, it follows that all intentional objects as forms of indicators or mediators would be totally unnecessary. That, in essence, the `intentional object' could be none other than the `object itself as intended.' Hence the main title of this paper is, correctly, ironic in nature. The use of both the exclamation mark and the question mark indicating that this aspect of the title is not to be interpreted without the appropriate form of qualification as yet to be explicated in this paper!
	The sub-title to this paper is "A Critique of `Husserl' and `Derrida.'" On one level of analysis, through the use of the single quotation marks, it is my intention that these two philosophers in this paper be read, or rather mis-read, as symbolic respectively of `modernist' and `post-modernist' philosophers in general. This double critique of mine seeking, in effect, to overcome the impasse in cultural continuity created by the incommensurability created between such styles of philosophical engagement. This `critique' being a critique of both Husserl and Derrida, an exercise that assumes that there is some degree of merit to be found in both styles of discourse. On another level we might also like to view such a device of the single quotation marks as placing `this reading' of these two philosophers in a state of transcendental suspension in order to overcome the damage created by this type of attempt to force these type of provisional mis-readings. 

	To introduce this double critique let me briefly comment on the following sections that divide the various stages in my overall argument concerning the so called `necessity of the intentional object!?'

	In Section I I will examine the meta-textual nature of textual deferment. An experiment will be conducted to see if it is possible to use only a dictionary to distinguish in practice between an apple and an orange, and an orange and a mandarin?
	In Section II in the light of the failure of the meta-text to pin down in practice the definitive definition of a text, or set of texts, we look at a close reading of a text, in a literal sense, in order to investigate if this "return to the thing, or text, itself" can achieve this degree of practical appreciation of distinctive detail.
	In Section III in the light of this second failure, at the level of the textual, I will investigate if a mutual simultaneous suspension of the meta-textual and textual might instead achieve this for us.
	In Section IV I will attempt to argue that only in and through a double suspension of the text and meta-text, i.e., a suspension of the suspension put in place between the text and the meta-text, that this act of mediation performed by the so called intentional `object' can be performed in a non-mediated, direct fashion, i.e., establish our direct relationship with that `object as intended.'
	In Section V, in the form of a Conclusion, the more important consequences of this analysis will be briefly re-outlined along with an examination of the implicit ramifications this critique has for an overcoming of this impasse in cultural continuity grounded in this discontinuity between modernist and post-modernist styles of discourse.

Section I - That Textual Deferment Is Meta-textual In Nature

	In Derrida's explication of difference there can be no arrival at a transcendental signified only a continual process of displacement  or deferment. In my opinion this process of displacement or deferment can only take place at the meta-textual level of engagement in the reading of a text, i.e., only on that meta-level of textual reference that talks about texts, directly discusses their contexts, functions and articulates their apparently intended adoption and exercise of genres, invokes a reference to other texts or the dimension of the intertextual, etc. In this regard the use of titles, statements of intent, definitions, rules for the use of that text, etc., are primarily meta-textual in complexion. Being `about the text' they cannot be primarily textual even though these same aspects might be found textually presented in that text, e.g., in the form of a title, comments on how to read that text, etc.
	This aspect of the text being meta-textual in complexion cannot be textual per se. Hence in this displacement about the text, in its discussion `about the text,' it cannot be correctly textual even if printed on the very page being read of that text in front of you. Being `about' the text it cannot therefore be textual per se. 
	A classic example of a meta-textually oriented text is that of dictionary - a set of definitions about the names of various objects, states, entities, etc. But this type of text by itself cannot by itself actually differentiate and designate the nature of those items therein defined either in general terms of reference of on a more specific, particular level of indication.
	To demonstrate this impossibility let me show you how a dictionary by itself cannot practically differentiate the actual difference in general or specific terms of reference between two types of fruit obviously quite different let us say an apple and an orange, or, not so obviously different, let us say an orange and a mandarin.
	"The Concise Oxford Dictionary" defines an apple as a round, firm fleshy fruit of the R. family. Now tell me is it not the case that most fruit are round in shape to some extent? Indeed, apples and oranges (and mandarins) are all round in shape. Moreover, most fruit are firm unless ripe or extremely ripe. Then all fruit have `flesh' in some form or other. And don't we have some difficulty with this concept of `flesh.' How can the `body' of a piece of fruit be treated as fleshy in content? Surely flesh is found on meat products? Do we need to tell vegetarians that eating fruit is eating flesh? Or is this `flesh' only `metaphorical' and, that being the case, how can any thing other than our `metaphorical teeth' be sunk into the same?! 
	The "Collins Dictionary" also defines the apple tree as of the R. family and in another entry defines the same.
	On the other hand the "Universal Dictionary" defines the apple as of the Malus genus without defining the same - invoking no doubt a sense of the intertextual wherein this term, in its turn, can be found to be defined.
	Then again, while the "Collins Dictionary" defines apples as being `red, yellow or green' the "Universal Dictionary" defines the same as only `red and yellow.' Of course we must not forget that oranges before they ripen are green and then, again, when they ripen can be either red, yellow or orange.
	Other entries describe the flowers of the apple flowers as either pink or white. But what are flowers? What other plants also have small white or pink flowers also?
	With oranges and mandarins looking very similar this play of definitions gets even more ridiculous if left only on this level of continual displacement and deferment with out some form referral to the actual objects themselves. E.g., "Collins" tells us that `mandarins' are `like tangerines.' Then under the entry of `tangerines' we are told that this fruit is `like small oranges.' One must wonder, therefore, if for the literal minded that some `small oranges' might not be `mandarins, and v.v.'
	But all this displacement and deferment can be short circuited if we can just look ourselves and refer directly `back to the things themselves,' to echo that Husserlian dictum!
	The moral of this demonstration is this: textual displacement and deferment is essentially a meta-textual phenomenon, and, such a phenomenon by itself cannot differentiate and designate texts in a specific fashion despite the degree of detail defined in those terms of reference.

Section II - That ‘Close Readings’ Of A Text Are Impossible

	The conclusion suggested in this failure of meta-textual definition to define a specific text, etc., in those terms of reference was to `just look' and `return to the things themselves!' In this next section of my argument let me demonstrate that a close textual reading of the phenomenon to hand will also fail to achieve this desire for identification and designation.
	In the adoption of this phenomenological dictum of "returning back to the things themselves" I don't wish to discuss in what sense that motto was originally proposed. Time does not permit me to conduct this interpretive reading. The point of this exercise residing in my intentional mis-reading of this formula and showing that in those re-interpreted pure terms of reference there will also be a failure to establish this differentiation and designation of the phenomenon treated as a `text.'
	Let elaborate upon this concept of mine concerning the identification of the `phenomenon' with a `text.'
	Through retention the phenomenon constituted in intentional consciousness is effective re-simulated in time. Without this process of simulated repetition the phenomenon would not be able to be `fixed in time' so to speak before our attention. Hence the textualization of the phenomenal simulation, through retention, in order for it to manifest itself as a phenomenon-for-us. This concept of `simulation' being essentially an act of `re-simulation,' namely, a `simulation of the simulation' and not equally a `simulation of that which is not simulated,' or a `simulation of that which exists prior to that act of re-simulation.' This concept of `simulation' as `re-simulation' certainly not invoking a representational model of reality (rather a re-presentational model along with all the qualification necessary to reinforce the unitary and mutual nature of the Life-World, etc.).

Section III - The Paralysis of the Suspension

[The suspension is effectively a parallel entertainment of information (whether that be written in textual, meta-textual and/or non-textual terms of reference). By virtue of its paralleling of information there is put into effect an act of paralysis. To remove the paralytic effect of this paralysis I have invoked the idea of the suspension of the suspension (thereby putting into effect the dialectical thematizations of the hermeneutic circle, etc.). This idea of ‘the suspension of the suspension (etc.)’ has been taken up in my psychological writings, especially in the context of psychosis where it has been defined as being trapped within the suspension. Different types of suspension, in states of psychic disorder, in different places within the epistemological hierarchy of the psyche re-producing different types of psychosis.]

Section IV - The Immediate Nature of the Double Suspension

[The aspect of the existential mirrors the moment of the suspension qua suspension. However, all aspects and dialectical moments of the hermeneutic circle can be defined as types of suspension. So the analytical has been defined as a metaphorical suspension, etc. However the existential moment should, on a relatively simple level of examination, be considered as  primarily ‘suspensional’ by virtue of its balanced cancelling of both the metaphorical conjunctive suspension and the rhetorical disconjunctive suspension as analysed elsewhere. This produces the sense of the non-textual. Moreover, a balance of all three moments of the analytically reductive, synthetically reconstitutive and the suspension of the same gives us then a sense of the ‘not textual’ wherein a direct relationship between the person, other persons, objects, intentional objects, states of affairs, etc can be ‘seen’ to take place, i.e., experienced as that directly encountered (as a simulation qua simulation). Further work needs to be done to explore this trully existential dimension of reality, the very experiential dimension of the life-world itself]

Section V - Conclusion: The Simulation of the Simulation

[All experience is as a simulation, a simulation of a simulation, because all textual phenomena are re-presented in order to persist in intentional consciousness through protention. Moreover, as all experience is directly entertained within the all embracing ambit of the life-world it implies that we can never experience the pre-simulated as it is only through simulation that we have access to such simulation! So, even though, the intentional object is experience directly it is as a ‘simulation of a simulation’ etc, and never as the ‘simulation of that which existed before simulation’, or, as that ‘which is just not simulated’.] 

 [Consequently, although experience is directly entertained it is done so through the simulation of the simulation, etc. Therefore the intentional object, dependent upon our (non-transcendental/ transcendental points of view, allows us to conceive the intentional object as both mediated and immediated in the life of the intentional subject, etc.]

Noël Tointon, x.y.96.
Partial re-edited, 25.3.02. 
(Especially sections in between [   ])
Re-editied 31.8.02

............................................................
Note the formula of the `x' of the `x' is `non-x.' E.g., the simulation of the simulation is a non-simulation, the essence of essence is non-essence, the text of the text is the meta-text, the metaphor of the metaphor is the non-metaphorical (rhetorical), etc.

Note an edited version of the first draft of this paper can also be found in Minor Papers: Under the title of The Necessity of the Intentional Object.