George Steiner, Real Presences and Liberal Scepticism

In Real Presences, George Steiner "argues a wager on transcendence" (214). The wager is, more precisely, that the fundamental aesthetic act is an imitatio of an original, divine, act of creation that transcends empirical proof. Steiner clearly hopes to tempt at least some of his readers into making the same wager themselves. At the same time, however, he emphasizes that his proposal - "that there is some fundamental encounter with transcendence in the creation of art" (228) - is unacceptable to "the prevailing climate of thought and of feeling in our culture"(228). It is unacceptable to deconstruction, with its contrary presumption of immanence and absence. It is unacceptable to "logical atomism" and "logical positivism" - and by extension to most contemporary anglophone philosophy - because it exceeds the bounds of empirical or logical argument. Among the most pervasive sources of opposition to the purported encounter with transcendence, is "liberal scepticism" (227). With this tag - he also refers elsewhere to 'sceptical positivism' and 'sceptical rationality' -  Steiner presumably aims to refer, not so much to a particular philosophical school or tradition, but to a widespread intellectual mood: sceptical, rational and suspicious of transcendence.

    How, then, does Steiner hope to convert the late twentieth century sceptic? Steiner's overall rhetorical strategy in Real Presences can be seen as a sustained attempt to use the sceptic's own suspicions against him. Deconstructive nihilism, he concedes, cannot be refuted "on its own terms and planes of argument"(132). To the sceptical empiricist, moreover, he concedes that his convictions concerning transcendence are 'verification transcendent'. But for Steiner these sceptical tendencies do not go far enough. It is precisely because verification transcendence "marks every essential aspect of human existence" that one must, in confronting great art, take something like a leap of faith. Moreover, it is precisely "in the light or, if you will, in the dark of the nihilistic alternative" represented by deconstruction that one supposedly finds further motivation to take Steiner's wager.

    However, this rhetorical strategy seems to me to exaggerate the distance between Steiner and the liberal sceptic. For one thing, the key step in Steiner's argument, the recognition of pervasive verification transcendence, is one many liberal sceptics would presumably be happy to take. Moreover, although it might seem that Steiner's next step - the irrational wager itself - marks a decisive break from scepticism, I suggest that even here Steiner is closer to the liberal sceptic than he appears to think. After all Steiner is careful not to present his 'wager' as a return to dogma - he is not a postmodern dogmatic theologian. Indeed it is precisely because he is extremely reluctant to present his convictions as a matter of straightforward empirical belief or propositional assertion that he resorts at key points to such terms as 'wager', 'conjecture', 'affirmation'. At this point, Steiner should perhaps have drawn on the liberal scepticism of I. A. Richards, with his distinction, for example, between intellectual and emotional belief. Placing himself within this ultimately Coleridgean sceptical tradition might have served not only to clarify his views, but also to tone down his antagonistic stance toward 'the prevailing climate of thought and of feeling'.