PPM32 follows Socrates further into his purposeful wandering (peregrenatio), both in the figurative sense of exploring the multiple versions of his legendary mission, and reading that against two important moments: the teaching he received from Diotima, and the message he received from the dream figure who called him throughout his life "Socrates, practice and cultivate the arts. Socrates, make music!" In between those two lines, those two callings, or, perhaps better, bearing the tidings of those two message, Socrates practice of philosophy as the cultivation of friendship is now understood a kind of pilgrimage where the end is the way and the way is end, or better, the end and means collapse because unlike the pilgrim's walk, the camino espiritual, there is not fixed point or destination outside of the dialogic movement and gathering of the learning. As I mention in my commentary after the reading, there is, however, a sense in which the figure of the Sage -- a word that is significant in its capacity to mediate the German word for saying (Sage) with the Taoist name for the teacher -- is complicating the horizontal movement of the dialogic learning community, the gathering of equals. So, how does the 'teacher' figure into this community? how this one who is wise or overflowing with wisdom figure into this movement? Do they stand apart? Or in what sense are they within and without, the threshold, yes?
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.
3.0 - I have to recite the a moment from the commentary (above) from 10 years ago: "reading that against two important moments: the teaching he received from Diotima, and the message he received from the dream figure who called him throughout his life "Socrates, practice and cultivate the arts. Socrates, make music!" In between those two lines, those two callings, or, perhaps better, bearing the tidings of those two message, Socrates practice of philosophy as the cultivation of friendship is now understood a kind of pilgrimage where the end is the way and the way is end, or better, the end and means collapse because unlike the pilgrim's walk, the camino espiritual, there is not fixed point or destination outside of the dialogic movement and gathering of the learning." In yesterday's 3.0 commentary I emphasized the multiple personas of Socrates. I've been locked into the music-making Socrates that I have of late neglected the many other guises. IN turn, I have committed myself to revist those characters in the Routledge book. And so it is a nice coincidence to read this distinction stated so emphatically and offering so resolute an inference. And speaking of the book, this fragment might be a doozy to use in the preface off the opening sentence, "I teach in a circular building." Currently, I'm ambiguous about the cultivation of friendship as an apt description of the dialogic learning community. I find myself remembering Iris Marion Young's description of the public as the random gathering of citizens who for a moment share the same space for a common purpose, such as riding a subway car. I'm also unclear about how I am thinking about my students and the work we are doing. However, I still very much feel this work is a journey and indeed a pilgrimage. The framework of the learning place is what captvates me at the moment. And today was a momentous day with the discovery of Gaston Bachelard. "The Poetics of Space." I read a bit of the Intro this morning and was blown away by the symmetry between Bachelard's project and my own. The overlap appears to be rooted in the 'momentary flicker' of poetic inspiration, and the spontaneity of that moment. There's the captivation in relation to what Bachelard names the 'poetic image.' But the real mind blower happened when I read Bachelard writing of resonance and reverberation, waves and harmony. I'm still shaking my head in disbelief 12 hours later, still feeling the buzz from the encounter with such intense symmetry. Coincidence. But maybe synchronicty! The search of synchronicity. Now there's an inspiring way to describe the work I am doing with my students, or inviting them study, research and experiment with.
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