Religion (1997) 27, 129–138

Postmodern Disseminations and Cognitive Constraints

G B*

Prouver que j’ai raison serait accorder que je puis avoir tort.Es-tu mon serviteur ou non?Beaumarchais, La folle journée ou le Mariage de Figaro, I,i

Dissemination, floating signifiers, mise en abîme, rejection of master narratives,transgression, power, absence: if one were to take seriously the slogans that constitutethe vocabulary of postmodernism—a contemporary academic ‘discourse’ which despiteits professed anti-totalizing aims is as relentlessly totalitarian as those it seeks toundermine—one could not possibly talk of cognitive constraints, for any mention offixed boundaries would be guilty of seeking to resurrect a discredited ‘master narrative’apparently responsible as much for the syllogism as for the Gulag. Having developed anesoteric vocabulary which, like the one employed by theologians, has a built-inmechanism that allows its users to claim that those seeking to refute it have not, andindeed cannot, understand its potentially infinite nuances or its self-correcting nature,this discourse and those who wrap themselves in it can appear as inexpugnable.Nevertheless, despite or because of this alleged inexpugnability, it may not be entirelyuseless to examine from a cognitive perspective some of the claims made or implied bypostmodernists. To that effect, I will make use of three books authored or edited byPascal Boyer—Tradition as Truth and Communication, Cognitive Aspects of ReligiousSymbolism, and The Naturalness of Religious Ideas—along with a few other studies.To be sure, it would be unwise to expect that those who have embraced the

postmodern dispensation will accept the relevance of findings which, indebted as theyare to certain epistemological premises, cannot but be seen as yet more examples ofbiological reductionism and, worse, of naive humanism. In any event, in order to enterinto these debates it will not be necessary to start from zero. Given the affinities betweenthe postmodern rejection of foundations1 and other forms of relativism, one wouldexpect that the controversies about rationality and relativism that have taken placeduring the last three decades would shed light on this latest anti-Enlightenmentideology.2 That is indeed the case, and the availability of a number of studies, mostly byBritish authors,3 relieves one of the need to go into details. At the most elementarylogical level, that is, in terms of the self-refuting character of relativistic systems,Habermas has demonstrated, for example, that an attempt such as Foucault’s

*P B, Tradition as Truth and Communication: a Cognitive Description ofTraditional Discourse. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990, x + 140 pp.,$49.95 ISBN 0 521 37417 0.

P B, The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: a Cognitive Theory of Religion.Berkeley, University of California Press, 1994, 15 + 324 pp., $35.00ISBN 0 520 07559 5.

P B (), Cognitive Aspects of Religious Symbolism. Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press, 1993, ix + 246 pp., $44.95 ISBN 0 521 43288 X.

0048–721X/97/020129 + 00 $25.00/0/rl970072 ? 1997 Academic Press Limited

‘genealogical’ approach to history suffers from the same ‘präsentistische, relativistische undkryptonormative Scheinwissenschaft’ that it condemns. Along similar lines, Dews showswhat is in any case obvious: that by claiming that he can detach his genealogy frompower, Foucault refutes his own extravagant claims about the universality of power.4 Atan equally elementary performative level, Sperber reminds us that ‘the best evidenceagainst relativism is, ultimately, the activity of anthropologists’.5 We encounter aninstance of self-refutation even in terms of the terminology favored by postmodernists,as the very use of the prefix ‘post’ perhaps reveals not just the touching anxiety of thosewho want to be au courant but also the eschatological, even messianic nature of the newmovement.6 Indeed, if, like the postmodernists, one were prone to make momentousclaims about the peculiarities of the ‘West’7, one could say that the very presence of thatprefix places postmodernism squarely in the obsessive Western concern with progressand even with forward—as opposed to cyclical—temporality.In order to come to terms with developments such as postmodern philosophy, one

should approach them not only from a sociological or anthropological angle but alsofrom a cognitive one. This approach requires that in studying ideological formations,one pay attention not just to the social needs underlying them but also to the cognitiveconstraints which lead to ideological formations acquiring certain shapes—society as anorganism, for instance—and not others.8 One way in which one could approach thisstudy would be by considering the interaction between metaphors and traditions. Froma cognitive angle we can say that instead of freely crossing intertextual space, metaphorstend to anchor abstraction in a materiality ruled by a kind of naive Physics (see Johnson;Boyer 1994a, p. 104) and by representations of agency, in such a way that thisgravitation toward materiality and agency leads to the generation of bodily metaphors.This process can be seen at work in the tendency toward anthropomorphization ofdivine figures found in all religious traditions (see Benavides 1995a), a tendency whichreformist religious movements manage to overcome with the greatest difficulty, andusually for only a short time. At the same time, in The Invention of Tradition, Hobsbawm,Ranger and their collaborators have studied from a historical and sociological perspec-tive how, instead of having been present from time immemorial, practices considered astraditional are in fact invented. Finally, in a remarkable series of studies Boyer has shownfrom a cognitive perspective how traditions are neither the unproblematic presences thatmost of us assume nor the result of a process of free generation, analogous to the freepunning favored by deconstructionists. He demonstrates that traditions are generated,perceived and remembered according to certain rules which are related to theacquisition of ‘salient memories, which are then used as guidelines, together withknowledge, in the evaluation of subsequent situations’ (Boyer 1990, p. 37). Boyermaintains that instead of theories or worldviews, it is salient events and surface propertiesthat are transmitted and stored, the cause of traditional repetition being ‘people’sconservatism about the surface properties of interaction’ (Boyer, 1990, p. 143; cf. p. 17).But is it possible to do justice both to the process of invention and to that of

generation—to the fact that traditions are manufactured in order to validate a group’sclaims and to the fact that these processes take place within the limits set by ourcognitive mechanisms? In order to understand this intersection not of freedom andnecessity but of two kinds of necessity, it is necessary to remember that in order for aspecies to be able to function in any world its members must elaborate categoriesand systems of classification which correspond to the realities of that world. Thiscross-culturally stable process is already at work among children, who, according tosome researchers, have the capacity to organize causal percepts at twenty-seven

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weeks. Other experiments indicate that the spatio-temporal conditions that must beidentified in order to think in causal terms can be singled out by infants of four and ahalf months. Children’s conceptual equipment includes a number of spontaneouslyevolving constraints which allow them to distinguish among the properties to beexpected in different ontological domains and which are closely related to theemergence of causal thinking. One of the frequently undesirable results of theunavoidable interplay between ideology and these spontaneous cognitive constraints isour propensity to extend to social differences assumptions that have proved successfulin dealing with the natural world. This process, which corresponds to what Topitschhas labelled biomorphism, will become less pronounced in societies whose membersno longer interact with organisms other than other humans or pets. It must be keptin mind, however, that despite the generally pernicious ideological effects ofbiomorphism, complete disregard of the experiences formed when dealing with livingthings will have grave consequences for the survival of groups or individuals. 9 It is atthis point that the confluence of ideological and cognitive approaches proves to befruitful. For if it is necessary to pay attention to the ideological uses to which thesecognitive mechanisms can be put—the most insidious among them being thetendency to view society in organic terms, as well as the proclivity to represent, andby the same token validate, authority by generating divine anthropomorphicfigures—it is also imperative to realize that the effectiveness of these ideologicalconstructs depends upon the ease with which we can conjure up imaginary bodiesand no less imaginary actions, and the facility with which those representations aretransmitted.10 It can be said in effect that it is because of the naturalness with whichorganismic conceptions of reality impose themselves that looking at reality throughthem satisfies a utopian longing for that which is spontaneous. But by the sametoken, that very naturalness can be manipulated for ideological ends: in this senseutopia’s dreams are ideology’s ground.These issues are not unrelated to the postmodern uneasy relation to ideology and

utopia. If, in their eagerness to return to a prelapsarian state, the current denouncers ofmodernity must reject the ideological and cognitive formations that seem to be theembodiments of all of modernity’s evils, they must at the same time continue to dependupon the same ideological and cognitive mechanisms to establish themselves and theirtheories as utopian alternatives. To return to a world which is not ruled by identity andpresence, they must reject the tyranny of the signified11 and that of the state—not justthe modern nation state, whose emergence parallels the Enlightenment, but anyassociation that involves solidified difference, that is, difference which, seen asnonarbitrary, as identical with itself, appears as ruled by the principle of identity. At thesame time, postmodern must repudiate the very possibility of the existence of thecognitive mechanisms that generate those differences, since, as the product of evolution,these mechanisms would also have to be regarded as nonarbitrary and therefore as ruledby identity. Claiming utterly to reject the totalitarian rule of a self-identity that reignsthrough sacralized differences,12 postmodern utopians postulate a rule of pure differenceand gratuitous transgression, one which, however, being undifferentiated and groundedonly upon itself, is even more subject to the rule of identity. Like most transgressions,postmodern ones, particularly when enacted under the auspices of academic institutions,prove to be little more than ritualized, riskless mirror-like inversions of the establishedorder.13 In any event, postmodern utopians’ protests against reason are less protestsagainst a message against which nothing can be done—for any action against themessage would require making use of it—than protests against the messenger: protests

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not against a reason which is after all unassailable but against reason’s messenger,modernity.But, mystical antinomianism aside, it is the case not just that our experience as

species sets limits to the kind of ludic dissemination favored by postmodernists but alsothat in order to be perceivable, the disseminations themselves must make use of thespecies’ cognitive mechanisms; therefore, even if the so-called master discourse of theEnlightenment were to be utterly abandoned, there would be an underlying cognitivemaster discourse which the species could transcend only at the cost of extinction. Theproblem for postmodern masters is that while the peculiar logic of their system andthe expectations of their devotees force them to make momentous declarations aboutthe end of signification or about end of ‘man,’ such claims require a degree ofcomprehensibility as well as the existence of those who do the comprehending.Consider, for example, the wager that Foucault makes in suave apocalyptic tones at

the conclusion of Les mots et les choses: ‘l’homme s’effacerait, comme à la limite de la mer unvisage de sable’ (Foucault 1966, p. 398). Since (except for some radical environmentalistgroups) it would be exceedingly difficult to find a philosophy that openly proclaims theneed to act in a way that would necessarily lead to the disappearance of actual humanbeings, or that presupposes their nonexistence, it will be imperative that, like mostphilosophical concepts, this key postmodern theologoumenon be understood in asemi-propositional rather than in a propositional manner.14 That is one of the reasonspostmodern utterances are frequently referred to not as arguments but as ‘gestures’; asowing their being less to reasoning than to the agency of the theorist; not as true or falsebut as the frequently contradictory but nonetheless memorable episode15 in thefragmented unfolding of an author’s career. If one approaches from this perspectivethe appeal of the postmodern prophets of extremity, it becomes clear that despite theemphasis on anonymous discourses and on the death of the author, it is precisely thesovereign gesture of the master thinker, the groundless decision of the Author, that hasto be obeyed.16 Boyer identifies as characterizing ‘charismatic proclivity’ (Boyer 1994,pp. 167–9) and ‘traditional discourse’ many aspects of both postmodern philosophers andpostmodern philosophy aspects ranging from the causal connection between the truth ofthe utterance—or, actually, the power of the gesture—and the status of the speaker(Boyer 1990, pp. 99, 100) to the fact that ‘traditional utterances’ are remembered in anepisodic rather than in a semantic manner (Boyer 1990, p. 43). Instead of the allegedpostmodern conceptual space—variously conceived as a pleroma inhabited or ratherconstituted by power; or, in a negative theology fashion, as a vertiginous self-cancellingruled by difference/deferral; or as infinitely, and gratuitously, fractured—we seem tofind a pre-modern conceptual space in which texts are accepted, remembered andemployed by virtue of their having been produced not by mere shamans who, after aninitiatic journey, are able to wrestle game or a diseased soul away from a powerfuldivinity but by a theoretical caudillo who can wrestle his genealogy from Power itself.My aim, however, is not so much to show that a body of high-sounding claims is

incoherent or wrong: in the present academic climate, claims based upon experimentalresearch will be dismissed out of hand as ‘positivism’ or, devastatingly, as merely boring.Rather, concerned as I am with studying both the ideological and the cognitive reasonsfor the appeal of ideologies, I seek to demonstrate that a cognitive approach can explainthe reasons for the formal appeal of certain postmodern claims. It is true that this attemptmay in fact appear as redundant, since there is no dearth of studies which putpostmodernism in its place. To mention but one particularly lucid example, in TheCondition of Postmodernity David Harvey places postmodernism in its proper social and

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above all economic location as the counterpart of a capitalism that ‘is becoming evermore tightly organized through dispersal, geographical mobility, and flexible responses tolabour markets, labour processes, and consumer markets’ (Harvey, p. 159). From thisangle, focusing on the carriers of this discourse, one can regard the riskless, indeedinstitutionalized, verbal antinomianism in which postmodern academics engage as thecri de coeur of those who, after the almost disappearance of public intellectuals, arecondemned to irrelevance (Benavides 1995b). Less charitably, we can understand theirvehement denunciation of any grand récit, and of any notion of causality, as the denial oftheir own parasitic position in relation to the master discourse of capitalism. But, evenwhile granting that Harvey’s and similar explanations are correct, it is still necessary toinvestigate why some varieties of postmodernism have become more fashionable thanothers, and why the peculiar inversions found in Derridean deconstruction and inFoucaultian cratology have assumed the shapes that have made them so popular amongacademics.17

For this reason, and given the limited space available, rather than attempting a closereading of the foundational postmodern écrits, it may be better simply to refer to whatcan be called the postmodern vulgata—that is, the set of semi-propositions thatconstitute the master discourse. One of them is the notion of écriture. Despite Derrida’sdisclaimers about the metaphorical character of the primacy of écriture, the very absurdityof the extreme version of the claim cannot but command one’s attention18 (the fact thatthis claim will appeal to those in the writing professions is also worth keeping in mind).The same is true of the perverse reversal of the relationship between the ‘signifier’ andthe ‘signified’, the two components of the Saussurean sign made in De la grammatologie.Here the utopian talk about ‘floating signifiers’ transforms them into signifiers ofthemselves, which means in effect that in a coincidentia oppositorum kind of way ‘signifiers’are both ‘signifiers’ and ‘signifieds’, and therefore the process of signification has ceased.More insidious than the disappearance of the signified is the fact that this play of mirrorsmanages to conceal once and for all the most important component of the process ofsignification, namely, the referent. Deconstruction therefore turns out to be but anotherinstance of idealism.In Foucault’s case, the replacement of a power that represses by one that brings into

being performs the same functions as the Derridean play with signification: the reversal ofone’s expectations and the consequent ‘salience’ (in Boyer’s sense) of the new understand-ing of power functions in a way that seems to exemplify Shklowsky’s concept of‘defamiliarization’ (ostranenie)—except that in this case, the foregrounded object of ourgaze (to use a modish term) is less power as a concept than the theoretical daring of theauteur. In Foucault’s case, theoretical bravado reaches its climax not with mere reversal butwith the transformation of power into a cosmic principle, for at its most inflated, powerfunctions as the fons et origo, nay, as the very substance of all that is. Such exorbitationrenders power worthless for any analytical purposes. Yet the very emptiness of the notionproves that the attempts to conceptualize a space freely traversed and constituted by apower that is grounded upon itself leads back to the irrefutable self-identity of tautology. Inpolitical terms, power’s self-validation leads not only to the quaint anarchism of well-placed academics but also back to the decisionism of the 1920s and 30s, an issue that cannotbe explored here. In terms of cognitive constraints, Derrida’s and Foucault’s first principlesprove that, however far one may want to go, one’s conceptual space is limited byparadoxes on one hand and by tautologies on the other.This is not the place to engage in an exercise in comparative mysticism. Indeed,

considering that Foucault’s speculations are most likely of no more than passing interest,

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one may not want to spend any time exploring the parallels between his tautologicaluniversalization of power and Nicholas of Cusa’s last attempts to conceptualize theground of everything, a ground that is also the ground of itself: the supreme tautologiesbuilt around power—possest, posse fieri, posse ipsum—which together with the non-aliud—the tautology built around identity and difference—occupied the Cardinal’s lastyears, superseding the earlier paradoxical formulation of the coincidentia oppositorum. Still,if such research were to be undertaken, and especially if it were clear that Foucault hadnot read and appropriated Cusanus’ ideas, one would have to come to the conclusionthat the more extreme a philosophical speculation and the more it seeks to escape fromconstraints, the more it will be shaped by logical forms. A key difference between thetwo is that, unlike Foucault, Nicholas did not attempt to base a political philosophy ona tautology.19

Having employed the terms ‘mystical’ and ‘mysticism’ in this discussion of post-modern discourse, it is necessary to say that this use is not derogatory. Quite thecontrary. Any exploration of the formal features of extreme forms of discourse willinevitably lead to those utterances which, even more than the predictable postmodernones, seem to push the process of signification in their own predictable way to its logicallimits. But here as well, one would have to investigate the logical structure and (possiblymaking use of some of Bloch’s and Boyer’s insights, who, however, do not explore thisissue and employ the term ‘mysticism’ in the sense of ‘supernatural’, as most Britishanthropologists do) the cognitive salience of mystical texts, utterances and actions. Atthe same time, it is necessary to explore the ideological functions of those mystical texts,paying attention to the already mentioned interplay between the utopian/mystical andthe ideological. One must consider interaction, for example, between the desire totranscend the limitations of grammar or hierarchy or gender (or of desire itself) and thehistorical and social location of this yearning (as done by Kolakowski and Certeau). Inthis context, the parallels among some of the postmodern masters’ rejection of presenceand master narratives, Adorno’s tortured negative dialectic, and some of the utterancesusually labelled as ‘mystical’ (particularly those of the negative theology type) are notsurprising at all—even though, when talking about the Frankfurt school and Frenchpost-structuralism, one is tempted to say, paraphrasing Marx, that what made its firstappearance as tragedy has reappeared as vaudeville. Likewise, the negative-theologyapproach to Derrida favored in some Catholic circles is not simply one moreexample of the traditional theological ability to enlist anybody and anything in itsreenchantment enterprise. Such annexation seems rather to parallel the process under-gone by Adorno’s collaborator, Horkheimer, when his own negative philosophytransfigured itself into a mystical search for the wholly other.20

As in all cases of cognitively deviant systems of signification, whether we are dealingwith postmodern texts with speculation about the non-identical, or with the pseudo-Dionysius’ shining darkness, it is the unexpected, counterintuitive character of the text,utterance or theory that constitutes its appeal.21 At the same time, we should keep inmind Boyer’s remarks to the effect that religious representations could not berepresented ‘if their ontological assumptions did not confirm an important backgroundof intuitive principles’, which means that ‘one must strike a balance between therequirements of imagination and learnability’.22 Following Boyer, one can say that aphilosophical system that comprises only counterintuitive claims will fail, while,conversely, one that confirms only intuitive ontologies will have little attention-demanding power (see Boyer 1994a, p. 122). In terms of deconstructionist andpostmodern ideologies in general, this means that if it is true that for a number of

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reasons, including the appeal of the counterintuitive character of postmodern claims, anumber of academics will cling to the new philosophy (until a new one comes along),it is also true that because this philosophy does not confirm most people’s intuitiveprinciples, it will be rejected by them. To be sure, this rejection will trouble neithertheorists nor academics. On the contrary, since the doctrine’s lack of appeal will beunderstood in a self-validating manner as having been caused by the tyranny of one ofthe many Western ‘-centrisms’, the rejection itself will increase the counterintuitiveappeal of the teachings. (A similar process is at the heart of Adorno’s notion of thenon-identical and in mystical discourse and practice.) In all these cases, however, it isthe formal characteristics—the cognitively constrained postmodern disseminations—ofthe system which, acting as magnetic surfaces, attract (or repel) those who willremember (or forget) them and who, if a conversion of sorts occurs, will see the worldthrough the lenses it provides. In this sense, but only in this sense, it can be said thatbeing what they are by virtue of their formal characteristics, all philosophical andreligious discourses are, like aesthetic creations, reducible only to themselves. Still, onehas to ask whether these irreducible surfaces would have acquired their salient forms,their shapes, if mechanisms other than cognitive ones had not been at work bringingthose surfaces into being.23

Notes1 As Hans Albert’s Critical Rationalism demonstrates, the rejection of foundationalism does notentail the rejection of serious thinking (Albert).

2 On rationality and relativism see Wilson, Hollis and Lukes, and Horton. One uses theexpression ‘shed light’ not without trepidation, given the current lack of popularity ofoculocentrism.

3 British (and Canadian) authors are generally less credulous in matters continental than theirAmerican counterparts: see Callinicos 1989; Connor; Dews; Harvey; Palmer. See alsoHabermas and Merquior.

4 On Foucault see Habermas, p. 324 (italics in the original), and Dews, p. 193. For an overallcritique of Foucault it would be difficult to surpass Merquior 1985. On universals see Brown.

5 See Sperber 1982, p. 180; cf. Gellner, p. 185.6 The parallels between postmodern and Madhyamika Buddhism defenses against accusations ofself-refutation have been noticed more than once; what is not sufficiently emphasized is that theinstability of soteriologies based upon paradoxicality necessarily leads both to the elaboration ofphilosophies built around tautologies—philosophies which, however, cling to their soterio-logical conceit (see Benavides).

7 Particularly inept are Derrida’s (and his admirers’) Orientalist phantasies about the presumablyunique ‘Western’ character of phonocentrism and logocentrism (Derrida 1967). Anyone in theleast familiar with Indian philosophy knows that nothing in Western philosophy and mysticismreaches the intensity of the Indian concern with language as sound (which goes back to the daysof the Rg Veda and continues to this day). At the risk of stating the obvious, it may be necessaryto remind Derrideans that the devanagarı alphabet is syllabic, not ideographic, it being necessaryto use a special sign, virama, to cancel the vocalic sound in order to represent, instead of the usualsyllable, say /ta/, the consonant /t/. This last detail is relevant insofar as it reminds one of theextent to which this alphabet ‘always already’ conveys vowels along with consonants. As forlogocentrism, a perusal of any competent book on Indian or Buddhist philosophy will disabuseone of platitudes about the supralogical Oriental mind (there is no need to say anything aboutphalocentrism: a look at a Linga should suffice).

8 This approach is indebted to a number of publications by Maurice Bloch and Dan Sperber; seeBloch 1985, p. 31ff.; 1991; Sperber 1985, 1987. See, more recently, Boyer 1992, pp. 28, 41;1993, p. 33ff.; 1994a, pp. 14–28, 59, 84–8, 265; 1994b, p. 391; Lawson, p. 191.

9 On child development see Bloch 1985, p. 27ff.; Boyer 1992, p. 43–5; 1993, pp. 35, 129; 1994a,p. 110ff.; on cross-cultural stability see Boyer 1994a, p. 291; on causal thinking see Boyer 1994a,pp. 137–8, 152; on domain specificity and intuitive ontologies see Atran, p. 57ff.; Boyer 1994a,

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p. 100ff., 154; 1994b, p. 394ff.; on the evolutionary reasons for making these assumptions seeBoyer 1990, p. 105. Since I have been asked to discuss postmodernism from a specific angle,making use only of a couple of recent books, I will limit the number of references to aminimum.

10 On the epidemiology of representations see Sperber 1985; 1990; 1994.11 The tyranny of the signified rather than that of the referent, the latter being the truly

unmentionable presence.12 This indeed seems to be the way in which religion functions: see Benavides 1989 for

preliminary remarks on religion as the sacralization of difference.13 On whether transgressions transgress see Benavides 1995b.14 On propositional and semi-propositional representations see Sperber 1982; 1985; 1990. An

application of these concepts and further references can be found in Benavides 1995a.15 On aletheia as ‘no-forgetting’, ‘not forgettable’, ‘attention-demanding’ see Boyer 1990, p. 49.16 It can be argued, of course, that this deification of the intellectual agent applies not just to

postmodern maıtres à penser or to their totemic father, Nietzsche, but to any importantintellectual figure. This is no doubt true, and probably has to do with our proclivity to think inanthropomorphic terms; nevertheless, anyone who has had to endure a sycophantic ‘asNietzsche says’ or ‘as Foucault says’ will have noticed a breathless urgency that would beunimaginable in a reference to, say, Habermas (not to mention Hans Albert or Perry Anderson).

17 Some may simply want to argue that the reasons for the popularity of certain authors in USuniversities has to do with the availability of translations. For despite their clamor for a multitudeof clashing discourses, postmodern devotees tend to want to have theirs in English.

18 Gellner has consistently emphasized the need to investigate the role played by absurdity quaabsurdity in behavior and discourse: see Gellner, pp. 34, 39, 43 (also in 1970, pp. 36, 42, 46).

19 The works in which Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64) explores power as the foundation of all thatis are De principio (1459), Trialogus de possest (1460) and De apice theoriae (1464); speculation onthe non-other can be found in De genesi (1447) and De non-aliud (1462); all of them can befound in the second volume of his works (1966). On Nicholas’ journey from paradox totautology see Benavides 1983, which is devoted to a comparison between two systems builtaround tautologies—Cusanus’ and Nagarjuna’s. While the soteriologies of the deconstruction-ists and the madhyamikas revolve around the issue of identity and difference, as does Cusanus’speculation about the non-other, Cusanus’ speculation about power carries to its logicalconclusion what Foucault in a exhibitionistic manner tried to grapple with five hundred yearslater in front of an expectant audience.

20 The parallels between mystical discourse and Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s critical theory areexplored in Benavides 1990.

21 See Sperber 1994, p. 55; Boyer 1992, pp. 51–2; 1994a, pp. 48, 59, 112; 1994b, pp. 394, 404–5.22 See Boyer 1992, pp. 45, 52; 1994a; p. 121, cf. p. 287; 1994b, p. 406.23 I intend to address this issue in a forthcoming essay tentatively entitled ‘Aesthetics, Ideology and

the Irreducibility of Religious Surfaces’.

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GUSTAVO BENAVIDES is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at VillanovaUniversity. His most recent publications are essays in Religion and in Curators of theBuddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism (University of Chicago Press, 1995).

Department of Theology and Religious Studies, Villanova University, PA 19085, U.S.A.

138 G. Benavides