Many of the posts in the commemorative blog talk of the disclosure of possibility, the offering of freedom. But I have myself offered few examples of my own experiences with this offering. Well, today, while completing my paper -- my epilogue for Lapiz (the journal of the Latin American Philosophy of Education Society) -- at the Drew University library, I was inspired to explore the stacks and see what relevant holdings they had. I was particularly interested in finding Walter Mignolo's edition of Jose de Acosta's Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias. When I went down to the stacks where the book is shelved I encountered the very twofold play I have written about in Being and Learning, and blogged about for the past two weeks: the peculiar darkness as well as compelling and provocative emptiness on the shelves. Incidentally, the book was not on the shelf. But that's besides the point, because what I encountered, and what was disclosed to me, was something much more powerful than any one book. Indeed, the very dearth of volumes indicated to me the power of the project that I have been called to undertake; both literally and figuratively 'called' in the sense that I write of evocation, or evocative saying (Sage). Called by the folks at LAPES who are editing Lapiz (Ana Cecilia Galindo, and Jason Wozniak) and invited me to write the epilogue to the first volume, which includes papers by Linda Alcoff, Maxi Gomez, Eduardo Mendietta and Sam Rocha. And, figuratively, of course, by the ontological force that propels the particular history of this hemisphere that has given rise to the particular existential situation of what I calling the ladino. At any rate, I made a short video just now that documents my experience of encountering the dark and empty stacks here in the Drew University library.
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 remember that day at Drew U, which was my go-to place to work back when my folks still lived at 29 Sunset Drive. There's a bit of a coincidence as this day, 10 years later, my students and I will be taking up Plato's Republic, bk. VI 507-508, where Socrates identifies the Sun, which will be the object of most significance in bk. VII's Allegory, as the source of light without with things as they are can not be seen. "if light is a thing of value, the sense of sight and the power of being visible are linked together by a very precious bond" that is made possible by light. The Sun "above all the rest, is responsible for making our eyes see perfectly and making objects perfectly visible." The emphasis is on the "perfect" (telios), which is often understood via Aristotle as the "end" or "goal".
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