Once again, reading on the sun drench backyard of casa Duarte 29 Sunset Drive, the material written on this date ten years ago continues the transition from the analysis of Plato's 'allegory' to Heraclitus and does so in two ways: first, by way of the content of the 'allegory,' specifically the meditation moves along with the allegory into the open region beyond the cave; second, by way of Heidegger, who offers an important quotation that helps me to focus even more on the figure of the Sage who awakens/emancipates the student and thereby puts learning underway through their evocative saying. Heidegger's discussion of 'disposition' as an existential modality (a way of being) and one that has a specific power or force is important for me, because it highlights the way the Sage puts learning underway through their comportment, their manner, their way of being that qualifies them as a Sage. The defining or essential characteristic of the Sage is their capacity to guide via preservation or conservation, that is, to safe natality, the capacity to act, and at the same time to liberate or emancipate it. In some ways this is expressed in the maxim: "letting learning be learned."
In OPM 68 I write: "The sparing as freeing is an offering by one who has been freed, who wanders in the open region, who speaks with the evocative saying of the Sage. The Sage offers herself as disposition, as the one who is disposed to learning with others...this offering appears as a transformative disposition, as a a disposition that puts learning underway, that is capable of releasing and turning. This is the disposition of Being unfolding in the dynamic process of the twofold play. The sparing as an offering which frees 'is the disposition that transports, transports us into this or that basic relation to beings as such. More precisely, disposition is what transports us in such a way that co-founds the time-space of transporting itself. We cannot yet ask how this transporting is to be understood. But this question is an essential track within our question of openness as such (existence)[Da-sein].'(Heidegger) In fact, we have not only taken up this question, but offered a tentative response throughout our exploration, for we have understood this transporting as another moment within the purposeful wandering together we have named Learning.'
Final thought: during my post-reading commentary, I note that this transitional writing (from Plato's 'allegory' to Heraclitus) is a return in form and feeling to what should properly be called 'originary' or 'original' in the sense of initiating thinking and/or being initiated by thinking, by the phenomenological encounter. As I said in my post-reading commentary, today the subtitle of Being and Learning would be "Originary Phenomenological Meditations." And so, in the improvisational spirit of the original experiment I will, henceforth, abbreviate each of these commemorative daily readings OPM: Originary Phenomenological Mediations.
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 - 20/10 years later, again, outside celebrating the end of winter/the arrival of spring, but in the backyard of Casa Duarte on Turkey Hill in Stroudwater, Portland, Maine.
ReplyDeleteIn yesterday's 3.0 commentary, which set a new standard in terms of brevity, I highlight the Sage as a pointer, as the one who indicates the significant object to be taken up by the student. And I also suggested that this pointing can also happen through writing, which means the Sage (the philosophical educator) can most certainly be the writer who points through their scribing. This was a description I initiated with my students when we read Heidegger earlier this semester. Heidegger is, again, central to the original meditation from this day that apparently also marks the day 10 years ago when I started using the alternative OPM (original phenomenological meditation). Originality is not the target of the 3.0 commentaries, which are a bit more mundane and prosaic, waiting for the moment of inspiration but not searching or anticipating it. 3.0 is one part return to the original and another part chronicle of what is happening with my project today, and that includes documenting what I'm teaching. But originality is what I engaged on this day 20/10 years ago, the pointing towards the original by the Sage. The key is Heidegger's equating of "sparing" with "freeing." And here is the important fragment from Heidegger: "the sparing as an offering which frees 'is the disposition that transports, transports us into this or that basic relation to beings as such. More precisely, disposition is what transports us in such a way that co-founds the time-space of transporting itself. We cannot yet ask how this transporting is to be understood. But this question is an essential track within our question of openness as such (existence)[Da-sein].'(Heidegger). The "transportation" Heidegger is referring to is the captivation happening to the cave-dweller, which is a redux of the "carrying aloft" that happens to the youth in Parmenides story of philosophical transcendence. These are all tales of transcendence from the cave, the well-trodden path, the herd, etc., etc. The transcendence that takes us into an encounter with singularity, and thus with autonomy. I appreciate Heidegger writing "We cannot yet ask how this transporting is to be understood." For me, this indicates the mystery of spontaneity, the magic of improvisation, which is not an effect of a cause, but appears suddenly and unexpectedly. This indicates learning as an event, the singularity of the aesthetic experience, the anticipated (perhaps) but still mysterious encounter with the solitude of the work of art. Heidegger is playing with the disposition of the one who is able to be transported, and here is a way of approaching the question of preparedness that I raised a few weeks ago. To be prepared for the event is to be ready, to be disposed towards. The disposition of the learner is the one who is ready for transportation. Sparing is thus putting aside something, and to be ready to keep oneself in reserve, which is another way that we can understand Arendt's conservative education: preserving natality. Natality, then, can be understood as what remains in reserve, put aside or conserved for the encounter with the new. Natality can be described as the modality of absence, and perhaps this is why silence and the modality of listening captures so well the readiness or preparedness for being-transported, for transcendence. What remains absent is the totality of presence, a totality that can only happen momentarily. Transcendence is the sudden, spontaneous instant encounter with the uncommon, exceptional uniqueness (solitude) of the work of art. Transcendence occurs with the aesthetic experience. And conservative education is the attempt to find ways to spare (free) the learner for that encounter.