SIDI MOHAMED BEN ABDELLAH UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Arts & Human Sciences
Sais-Fes
MASTER: “CROSS-CULTURAL & LITERARY STUDIES”
"Literary, Cultural, Gender & Media Studies" Lab.
“Against Theory”
By Steven Knapp
and Walter Benn Michaels
Reviewed by Ismail FROUINI
Introduction:
“Against Theory” is an essay written by the two American
neo-pragmatists Steven Knapp[1] and Walter Benn Michael[2] and
published in Critical Inquiry 8 (Summer
1982). After its publication, the essay has engendered controversy. Critics, mainly E. D. Hirsch, have reproached Knapp and Michael for the severe criticisms these critics received. They published a series of responses to many critics. These responses include “A Reply to Our Critics” published in Critical Inquiry, Vol. 9, No. 4 (June, 1983), “A Reply to Richard Rorty: What Is Pragmatism?" Critical Inquiry 11 (March1985) and “Against Theory 2: Hermeneutics and Deconstruction” (published in 1987) in Critical Inquiry. All these articles have been co-authored by Knapp and Michael. On the side of other critics, the essay has sparked off academic discussions and reproaches; for instance, E. D. Hirsch wrote an essay with the same title of Knapp and Michaels’, “Against Theory?” the essay was issued in the same source Critical Inquiry Vol. 9, No. 4 and one year after Knapp and Michael’s in (June, 1983) and Richard Rorty’s "Pragmatism and Literary Theory II: Philosophy without Principles" that was published in the Critical Inquiry 11 in 1985. The essay mainly revolves around the premise theory is otiose since it matches with practice (praxis).
1982). After its publication, the essay has engendered controversy. Critics, mainly E. D. Hirsch, have reproached Knapp and Michael for the severe criticisms these critics received. They published a series of responses to many critics. These responses include “A Reply to Our Critics” published in Critical Inquiry, Vol. 9, No. 4 (June, 1983), “A Reply to Richard Rorty: What Is Pragmatism?" Critical Inquiry 11 (March1985) and “Against Theory 2: Hermeneutics and Deconstruction” (published in 1987) in Critical Inquiry. All these articles have been co-authored by Knapp and Michael. On the side of other critics, the essay has sparked off academic discussions and reproaches; for instance, E. D. Hirsch wrote an essay with the same title of Knapp and Michaels’, “Against Theory?” the essay was issued in the same source Critical Inquiry Vol. 9, No. 4 and one year after Knapp and Michael’s in (June, 1983) and Richard Rorty’s "Pragmatism and Literary Theory II: Philosophy without Principles" that was published in the Critical Inquiry 11 in 1985. The essay mainly revolves around the premise theory is otiose since it matches with practice (praxis).
Contextualising the essay at the very beginning is
deemed worthy and, to some extent, necessary. Being publishing in the early
1990s, the essay appeared as a reaction to the penetration of French theory to
the American academia and university. These French theories, mainly structuralism
and post structuralism, have started disempowering the American theoretical
paradigms (New Criticism) at that time.[3] Moreover
during this period theory in American and elsewhere was at its high-water mark
and even a hot-button issue amongst critics.
Knapp and Michaels’ Thesis:
Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels argue
that people delude themselves and become entangled with theory when they make
three fundamental mistakes. A critical reading of this essay necessitates at
the outset some preliminary explanation or even close reading of the title
“Against Theory”. Grammatically speaking, the title is a noun phrase; it is of
two words (preposition + noun); its head is theory. We come to know, therefore,
that “theory” is pivotal and dominant the realm of criticism. It also indicates
the uniqueness of theory which lacks its, to use Hegelian notion, dialectic and
co-operator, praxis. Semantically speaking, the title is straightforward, it is
oppositional and dismissive. “Against Theory” is only another way of saying
anti-theory(zing) then could be probably substituted for “for/towards practice
and praxis[4].
Moreover, viewed from another analytical perspective, the title is discursive.
It makes it clear that the subject position of the authors is being against
theory and theorization by and large. It therefore “excludes” all that is
theorizing. In the same vein, theory is (an agent of) discourse, for it shapes
the reader’s process of interpretation. Model, conception, abstract(ion), and
assumption are all metonyms for the word theory. Having said this, the two
critics seem to contradict themselves by falling in the pitfall they are
arguing against, that is theorizing. What Knapp and Michaels are doing is a
kind of meta-theory; that is to say they theorize to argue against theorizing.
Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels
start their assay by defining “theory”. The first lines of the essay read as
follows, “By "theory" we mean a special project in literary
criticism: the attempt to govern interpretations of particular texts by
appealing to an account of interpretation in general.”[5] Theory,
simply put, is a means that shapes the process of interpretation(s). It is also
a paradigm that “positionally” and “discursively” offers certain critical
account of a text and disempowers and excludes other ones. To date, literary
theory has concerned itself with two main issues. First, critics seek “Objective” and “valid” Interpretation; second literary critics seek the possibility of “correct” and “closest” interpretation. This latte is, as a matter of fact, the by-product of
the former. Critics all over the world have never come to terms as to which of
these to use. This sounds quite logical due to the pluralistic mode of the
order of discourses that shape their move.
The gist of Knapp and Michaels’ argument is that
literary critics have made some ontological and epistemological[6] “mistakes”.
These “mistakes” are all linked to their assumption of “theory” which,
following their definition, govern their interpretation. The first “mistake” is that readers should not
differentiate between meaning and intention. Interpreting or grasping the
“entire” meaning of a piece of writing. For example, Hirsch, they argue:
What seems odd about Hirsch's formulation is the transition from
definition to method. He begins by defining textual meaning as the author's
intended meaning and then suggests that the best way to find textual meaning is
to look for authorial intention. (p. 725)
Hirsch, as a matter of fact, ascribes a god-like
authority to the author. This, undoubtedly, would disempower other potential
readings of the text. Some critical and literary theorists, including Roland
Barthes, argues that any text is polysemantic; it has no single interpretation.
In this respect, Barthes states “To give an Author to a text is to impose upon
that text a stop clause, to furnish it with a final signification, to close the
writing.” [7] The
coming back of the author’s intention must be ransomed by the death of the
reader and therefore the death of criticism. At this level, W. K. Wimsatt Jr.
and M. C. Beardsley remind us “that the poem (any literary work of art)
is not the critic's own and not the author's (it is detached from the author at
birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend about it or control
it). The poem (any literary work of art) belongs to the public.[8] (My
italics).
The other “mistake” that critics make, according to
Knapp and Michaels, is that making difference between language and speech act.
This is another epistemological mistake that backs up the Knapp-Michaels
thesis. “De Man's separation of language and speech acts rests on a mistake.”
(p. 734) for Knapp and Michaels, language and speech act are inseparable:
In our view, however, the relation between meaning and intention
or, in slightly different terms, between language and speech acts is such that
intention can neither be added nor subtracted. Intention cannot be added to or
subtracted from meaning because meanings are always intentional; intention
cannot be added to or subtracted from language because language consists of
speech acts, which are also always intentional. (p. 736)[9]
At this level, they distinguish between two kinds of
theorists. Positive theorist, like P. D. Juhl, who adds speech act to language
to foreground a meaning; negative theorist such as Paul de Man who subtracts the authorial intention and who relies on the formal rules and public
norms of language to “to preserve what it takes to be the purity of language from
the distortion of speech acts.”
The last mistake, according to Knapp
and Michaels, is when some critics, mainly Stanley Fish, separate between
knowledge and belief. It is an ontological mistake. They argue that “knowledge
and true belief are the same.” The epistemology of both belief and knowledge
are different, however. Equating the two is an epistemological “mistake”; there
different methodologies that govern each of these notions. Critics cannot
always adopt the same perspective to reach certain “knowledge” or “belief”. For Fish, the truth of knowledge is that all
beliefs are equal.
The
theoretical impulse, as we have described it, always involves the attempt to
separate things that should not be separated: on the ontological side, meaning
from intention, language from speech acts; on the epistemological side,
knowledge from true belief. Our point has been that the separated terms are in
fact inseparable. Our point has been that the separated terms are in fact
inseparable. (p. 741)
In a nutshell, Steven Knapp and Benn
Michaels conclude their essay by stressing the very first point the make from
the title that “the theoretical enterprise should
therefore come to an end.”[10] They argue that since there is that gap between theory and practice, theorizing should be doomed. Yet what seems inconsistent in the Knapp-Michaels thesis is their inability to work outside the realm of theory. Simply put, what are Knapp and Michaels doing but theorizing? Their discursive theoretical background (Neo-pragmatism) replaces its emphasis on the practicality rather than “theory” which they suggest to be impractical. Following the thread their argument, Knapp and Michaels argue at the very outset that “theory” “governs the interpretation” and then they conclude by claiming “the theoretical enterprise should therefore come to an end.” This, beyond doubt, is another “mistake”, I believe, that is made these critics. All in all theory and practice/praxis are the twins that usually meet.
therefore come to an end.”[10] They argue that since there is that gap between theory and practice, theorizing should be doomed. Yet what seems inconsistent in the Knapp-Michaels thesis is their inability to work outside the realm of theory. Simply put, what are Knapp and Michaels doing but theorizing? Their discursive theoretical background (Neo-pragmatism) replaces its emphasis on the practicality rather than “theory” which they suggest to be impractical. Following the thread their argument, Knapp and Michaels argue at the very outset that “theory” “governs the interpretation” and then they conclude by claiming “the theoretical enterprise should therefore come to an end.” This, beyond doubt, is another “mistake”, I believe, that is made these critics. All in all theory and practice/praxis are the twins that usually meet.
Works Cited
Steven Knapp and Walter
Benn Michaels, "Against Theory," Critical Inquiry 8 (1982): 723-42.
Barthes,
Roland. "The Death of the Author." Image / Music / Text.
Trans. Stephen Heath. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. 142-7.
Ashcroft,
Bill, and D. P. S. Ahluwalia. Edward Said. London: Routledge, 2001. Print
[1] Steven Knapp
is associate professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley,
and is the author of Personification and the Sublime: Milton to Coleridge
(1985).
[2] Walter Benn Michaels (born 1948) is an American literary theorist; he is
professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and is the
author of The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism (1987). And The
Shape of the Signifier: 1967 to the End of History (2004).
[3] I am much obliged to Professor N. LAHLOU of Sidi Mohammed Ben
Abdellah for helping me critically understand this essay and other related
issues of this sort.
[4] I shall refer
to the Gramscian notion of “Praxis” rather than practice; the former refers to
the social reform and change, while the latter could be grasped as the
application of any theory to any literary production.
[6] I deem it
worthy to make it clear what it is meant by the two philosophical notions:
epistemology and ontology. Epistemology is the he
science or philosophy of knowledge, investigates the definition, varieties,
sources and limits of knowledge, experience and belief. Ontology is the science
or philosophy of being. It is the branch of metaphysics which examines the existence
or essence of things, producing a theory about what exists or a list of things
that exist. (these definitions are taken from Bill Ashcroft and Pal Ahluwalia’s
Routledge critical thinkers on Edward Said p. 56)
[8] W. K. Wimsatt Jr. and M. C. Beardsley, “The Intentional
Fallacy” The Sewanee Review, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1946) p 4
[9] Steven Knapp
and Walter Benn Michaels, "Against Theory." Critical Inquiry 8
(1982): 736.
[10] Steven Knapp
and Walter Benn Michaels, "Against Theory." Critical Inquiry 8
(1982): 742.
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