Saidian and Rortian Humanitas

In The World, the Text, and the Critic, the late Edward Said restates the three pillars of humanitas (cosmos, logos, and skepsis). Moreover, he extends the notion of skepsis beyond its definition (a suspension of final judgment upon matters where the available data simply does not warrant such finality) to its embodiment in critical practice: "...criticism must think of itself as life-enhancing and constitutively opposed to every form of tyranny, domination, and abuse; its social goals are noncoercive knowledge produced in the interests of human freedom" [WT&C, 29].

It is no accident, by the way, that Saidian humanitas corresponds (nicely) with Rortian (where we find the concern for "the world" expressed as "solidarity," the concern for "the text" expressed as "contingency"--for all textual meaning is context dependent--and the concern for "the critic" expressed as "irony"--a word Said recommends that we couple with "criticism" [WT&C, 29]).

This correspondence is due to the fact that Saidian and Rortian humanitas are genuine modes of that peculiar disposition or orientation--where the genuine article is distinguished from "false friends" by reference to the confluence of its three pillars.

Heidegger's maddening Letter on Humanism aside, genuine humanitas is (and has always been) an orientation predicated upon cosmos, logos, and skepsis. The struggle with metaphysics--if it is even necessary--is but a side-show and a distraction. As Rorty reminds us in his late appreciation of Gadamer: "being that can be understood is language."

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.