PPM47, the last of the month of March, takes what Heidegger in his reading of Plato's Allegory calls part three. I'm quite interested in the 'power' or 'force' of that enables the mysterious liberator to emancipate the cave-dweller. Along with the point of origin, i.e, where s/he arrives from, the power they arrive with is also unknown. What is understood from the story is that they know what must be said in order to enable the cave-dweller to stand up and turn around, and, then move up the 'steep and rugged ascent' and out of the cave. In other words, they know how paideia works, and they work it on the cave-dweller. And for this reason, I call this mysterious liberator a Sage, for s/he represents precisely the figure of the 'philosophical educator' who represents the 'teacher' capable of bring about the work of philosophy, i.e., learning in this most significant ontological sense.
Highlights of PPM47, which corresponds to Being and Learning, pp. 78-79, are the following:
"In his commentary on the Allegory...Heidegger says, 'Real freedom is attained only in stage three. Here someone who has been unshackled is at the same time conveyed outside the cave 'into the open.' There above ground all things are manifest." Following this prompt from Heidegger, we are able to understand the culmination of paideia is the phenomenological attitude of letting-be, or the repose of gelassenheit.
Another highlight: "it is clear that anyone hearing the story understands that the one who is released could hardly walk, and certainly would require assistance to make an ascent up the long and steep passage way. The 'dragging' and 'hauling' suggests that the apprentice who is to be drawn out of and away from the 'comforts' of the domestic habituation will do so with much trepidation. The 'comfort' and 'security' of habit is not so easily abandoned, and we refer here not simply to the anxiety and the foreboding that emerges from the disorienting and estranging perceptions. More important is the incapacity of the novitiate to take the first steps, to get underway and begin the process of movement that will lead him outside and into the open."
Now this was certainly a timely bit to read, because moments before recording this session, I was speaking with my colleague Sam Rocha about his recent experience with his students in his philosophy of education course; specifically, the disorientation they are feeling at this point in the semester 'like being in the matrix.' My response was to emphasize the need for him/me/us to take responsibility for putting our students underway, that is, for disorienting them by interrupting their habits of 'thinking' and challenging them to wander way from the 'security' of education as they have grown accustomed to doing it. We can not simply give them equipment they don't know how to use and say, Go and trek up that mountain! Rather, we need, like the one leading the cave-dweller out of the cave, to stand beside them, and in some cases, behind them, and guide them out and stay with them in their wandering. Indeed, for it to be what I have been calling purposeful wandering, i.e., learning, we need to be there in an authentic way with them. We must also be wandering, even if we have already wandered some before meeting them.
Highlights of PPM47, which corresponds to Being and Learning, pp. 78-79, are the following:
"In his commentary on the Allegory...Heidegger says, 'Real freedom is attained only in stage three. Here someone who has been unshackled is at the same time conveyed outside the cave 'into the open.' There above ground all things are manifest." Following this prompt from Heidegger, we are able to understand the culmination of paideia is the phenomenological attitude of letting-be, or the repose of gelassenheit.
Another highlight: "it is clear that anyone hearing the story understands that the one who is released could hardly walk, and certainly would require assistance to make an ascent up the long and steep passage way. The 'dragging' and 'hauling' suggests that the apprentice who is to be drawn out of and away from the 'comforts' of the domestic habituation will do so with much trepidation. The 'comfort' and 'security' of habit is not so easily abandoned, and we refer here not simply to the anxiety and the foreboding that emerges from the disorienting and estranging perceptions. More important is the incapacity of the novitiate to take the first steps, to get underway and begin the process of movement that will lead him outside and into the open."
Now this was certainly a timely bit to read, because moments before recording this session, I was speaking with my colleague Sam Rocha about his recent experience with his students in his philosophy of education course; specifically, the disorientation they are feeling at this point in the semester 'like being in the matrix.' My response was to emphasize the need for him/me/us to take responsibility for putting our students underway, that is, for disorienting them by interrupting their habits of 'thinking' and challenging them to wander way from the 'security' of education as they have grown accustomed to doing it. We can not simply give them equipment they don't know how to use and say, Go and trek up that mountain! Rather, we need, like the one leading the cave-dweller out of the cave, to stand beside them, and in some cases, behind them, and guide them out and stay with them in their wandering. Indeed, for it to be what I have been calling purposeful wandering, i.e., learning, we need to be there in an authentic way with them. We must also be wandering, even if we have already wandered some before meeting them.
3.0 - 20/10 years later, Easter Sunday. I haven't yet tried my hand at an Easter reading of Plato's Allegory, but there are some obvious parallels, specifically the unshackling of the chains (forgiveness of sins?), the upward movement from the world (spiritual ascent), and the return to that world renewed (resurrection). All of this is, of course, placed within an existential discourse, one that borrows and recodes the language of the New Testament.
ReplyDeletePicking up on PP47 and the 2.0 commentary, what jumps out is Heidegger's reading, which I mentioned in a commentary a day or two ago, I read closely and commented on in an extended way during the pandemic in 2020. I hope to draw on some of that material this semester when, in part 3 of the course, we study the Allegory. But consistent with the position I've been taking the past 3 days, Heidegger emphasizes the Allegory as revealing the possibility of human freedom, experienced in the Open Region, which, for Heidegger, is the location where the cave dweller is released when they led out of the cave. Heidegger: "Real freedom is attained only in stage three. Here someone who has been unshackled is at the same time conveyed outside the cave 'into the open.' There above ground all things are manifest." I would have to consult Heidegger's essay again, but I suspect he is developing a distinction that is consistent and relatively faithful to Plato's Allegory, where any sense of "freedom" that is experienced in the cave is, like everything else, "false" (psuedo). For example, one could say the cave-dwellers are "free" to name or not name the shadows that are appearing before them. This is a false sense of freedom, and I believe it was William James who described false choices because they were not truly dependent on a judgment regarding all possible alternatives. And, anyway, the freedom that Heidegger is describing as "real" is not a matter of chocies, nor of the will. It is the freedom from the will, the freedom experienced when things are made manifest. It is the freedom experienced in relation to the honest, authentic, real, etc. In this sense it seems to be a form of "negative" freedom, or freedom from false choices, from the so-called "marketplace" and it's limits. The phenomenological approach demands a putting aside of the subjective self as the focus of attention. It is not in "reflective practice" that we experience the kind of freedom experienced in the releasement (gelassenheit) that Heidegger identifies as happening in the Allegory. There is nothing "reflective" at all in the movement -- periagoge (turning around of the soul) -- that the Allegory is describing. The freedom experienced in releasement (gelassenheit) is first and foremost the freedom experienced in the periagoge (turning around of the soul), the revolutions, as it were, of the soul (Bachelard's retrieval of "soul" is important here as touchstone for deploying this turn). The circularity of time was important for Plato, and his theory of recollection was based on it. And this was itself based on the circulation of the planets and stars, the orbits too. Plato was knowledgeable of the Pythagorean teaching on the cosmic harmony of the sounds produced by the rotation of the planets. Circulation, circulation, rotations, revolutions, all significant and perhaps most significant for Plato. And this is another reason why the cave-dweller must return to the cave. It's important, as Heidegger emphasizes, that we appreciate the stages of the Allegory. But given the importance of periagoge, the circular and linear movement that are happening within and between each stage remain in balance with one another. The ascent and descent have equal value. And to bring it back full circle to the beginning of this commentary: the passion (suffering) and redemption (resurrection) go hand in hand, and the story of Easter, like the blues, can only make sense when both moments are held together.