Contingencies of Value: Alternative Perspectives for Critical Theory

Rating:
Summary: sobering example of current literary theorizing
Review: Herrnstein Smith is to be commended for tackling so difficult a subject, especially in view of how inadequately equipped she is in the field of value theory. To readers who have studied philosophy, this book--when dealing with such questions--has an undergraduate feel to it like a term paper (for instance, her tendency to quickly gravitate to the most general terms). She is also not informed on the politics of the field of philosophy. For example, she accepts Richard Rorty's claim that he is a pragmatist. (Rorty is an ordinary language philosopher who, like others of his school, adopted the label of another philosophical school because those schools had been weeded out of philosophy departments by the end of the 1980s.) So, her discussions of "pragmatism" have nothing to do with pragmatism. Readers with some knowledge of philosophy would be advised to read a book by authors who know what they are talking about, such as A Book Worth Reading. When marshalling the terminology of literary theory, however, Herrnstein Smith is in her element and wields the jargon with the best of them. She criticizes others of her kind, wowing them with references to Kant and Hume, "feedback loops" and "economies" and "axiological logic". She also dazzles naïve readers with her "logic." For instance, in reply to the counterargument (p. 112) that her claim (that there is no truth) is self-refuting because if no statements are true, then her statements are not true--she replies that this argument "begs the question"! (and thus betrays that she does not know what a circular argument is). She justifies this dodge by arguing that she is allowed to assert contradictions because she is offering an "alternative description." (p. 113) Overall, if you think that claims about the sad state of current literary theory are exaggerated, you should read this book.