For and against epistemology

pp. 168-195

in: Alex Callinicos, Is there a future for Marxism?, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1982

Abstract

One of the implications of the "revolution of language" discussed in Chapter 2 was that our relation to reality is irremediably discursive. There is no such thing as the immediate, direct, intuitive contact between subject and object which for so many philosophers since Aristotle has provided the foundation of our knowledge of the world. Knowledge by acquaintance is a myth, all knowledge is knowledge by description, mediated, organised in discourse, connecting with "things' only through "words". It is worth noting that this thesis is not specific to French philosophy — in sohne version it would be accepted by many English-speaking philosophers and therefore is not entailed merely by the particular theory of language originating from Saussure.