Compared to PPM18, the reading of PPM19 happens in the quiet of a last hours of the morning, in contrast to the evening before when the coincidence of The Dead Zone from Chicago offered the backdrop for a 'noisy' reading. I take time in my pre-reading commentary to talk about the ghost of legitimacy that haunts the project, and why the move to include Lao Tzu needs some justification, and thus, despite what I've been claiming in many of the meditations, the juridical voice returns, but here in its rightful place. Indeed, I explain that I was and remain very conscious of the fact that the turn to Eastern philosophy can not dilute that tradition of its serious contribution to the history of philosophy. This is why it is important, first, to emphasize my turn as based on the symmetry I recognize between Heidegger, specifically his later work, and Eastern philosophy, specifically Zen Buddhism and Taoism. Second, Jaspers, with the commentary he offers in his two volume work on the 'great philosophers' is the other source of legitimation for my move. And so I turn to Jaspers' commentary on Lao Tzu when it is appropriate to do so. The highlight of the meditation itself is claims: "We call the Way of Learning hermeneutics." This sentence is coupled with a citation from Heidegger that concludes the meditation: "Hermenes eisin ton theon -- we are interpreters of the gods." In between the two is another citation from Heidegger: "in order to abandon my own path of thinking to namelessness," and one from Lao Tzu: "Eluding sight, eluding touch...Profound it is, dark and obscure." All this to call attention to the mystery that is at the heart of the relationship between Being and learning, and, what's more, to draw attention to the event of learning happening at the border or limit of language. Is this border the same at the threshold that marks the exit beyond the School [of Athens]?
February 13, 2014 was the 10th anniversary of the original experiment that produced 363 phenomenological mediations, published as 'Being and Learning' (Brill: 2012). Each day between Feb 2014-15, I returned to the original meditations, and my commentary is documented here. And then, again, on February 15, 2024, on the 20th anniversary of the first days of the original experiment, I revisit and comment on a daily basis, once again.
(20/10 yrs later) - What stands out to me in 2.0 reflection is, first, the mood of critique, which I was in with my 3.0 response yesterday. The mood that dominates the reflection, both 2.0 & 3.0 is the mood of kinship, of solidarity with the project, where thinking back or re-collecting with the past writing (re)renergizes the current state of the project. But apparently when reading back 10 years ago I had a moment of self-critique, perhaps feeling a bit self-conscious about the inclusion of Zen and Taoist categories. But as I wrote earlier this week when these Eastern philosophical traditions made their first appearance, these traditions were part of the curriculum I was teaching. Moreover, as I wrote above in 2.0, I had for many years appreciated the symmetry between the later Heidegger and those Eastern traditions. Most relevant was Heidegger's conversations with a visiting Japanese scholar. So there isn't much need to "defend" the inclusion of Zen and Taoism in the project, althogugh
ReplyDelete(note - the above was actually written yesterday....but posted this morning...oh well, as I wrote a few days ago, in this 3.0 I don't feel the same pressure to meet the daily writing protocol, so long as I'm more or less keeping up with the original daily meditations!)
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