Before reading OPM69, I discovered that the meditations written between April 20-26 were not included in Being and Learning. Indeed, the last sentence from the meditation on April 19 is the last sentence of chapter 4, and then chapter 5 on Heraclitus begins with the material that appears at the mid point of the mediation written on April 26. As I note in my pre- and post-reading commentary, I have no clue how or why this material was not published! And while this certainly causes me to experience something like the disorientation I describe as a principal characteristic of the experience of learning at the inceptual moment, at the beginning when learning is initiated, I feel that this mystery of the omitted material is part of the strange gap that preserves or spares the possibility of improvisation. Here improvisation appears in an intensely phenomenal way, as an encounter with the written material as 'concealed' or 'hidden' aka mysteriously absent from the final edition. In this sense, the text is acting, or performing improvisationally! I'm not at all exaggerating when I make this point, and say as much in my commentary when I acknowledge that part of the motivation for this ten year commemoration is to revisit material that has remained 'un-read' for the past decade. Reading the meditations slowly and carefully, and within the same temporality they were written, is revealing on many levels. When I reviewed the material for publication I only focused on making the obvious cosmetic changes, i.e., correcting typos, spelling errors, inserting paragraph breaks, and, of course, deciding where chapters should begin and, presumably, end. And this is precisely where this strange gap in opening for me, as I don't recall how or why chapter 4 ends where it does and how or why chapter 5 begins at the place it does. Memory! The need to archive, to take notes and record changes!
Consistent throughout these meditations is the claim that learning gets under when we encounter the offering of human freedom in the form of Being's presencing. But if the offering is one side of the twofold play, the other side is absencing, and this is what I am experiencing with the withdrawn and hidden material, and the absence of the memory of how and why this material does not appear in Being and Learning. It is not that is was 'forgotten.' Rather, it withdrew and remains hidden, and only disclosed in the originally printed meditations, which are commemorated these six days between April 20-26.
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 - Well, it's helpful that the 2.0 commentary alerted me to the "missing" pages. 10 years after the 2.0 commentary, which was a few years after the publication of "Being and Learning," my memory of the editing process isn't any clearer. So I have no recollection of why the OPM's written between April 20-26, 2004 are not part of the book. Perhaps I wanted a clean break between the engagement with Plato's Allegory and Heraclitus? That would be the only explanation, because the material written on this day 20 years ago is a continuation of my engagement with the Allegory; specifically, the moment of "reception of the disposition" of learning after the encounter with the 'Sun.' In yesterday's 3.0 commentary I emphasized this moment as the encounter with significant work of art, the event of learning initiated by the aesthetic experience, which I emphasized happened spontaneously and without cause. Here, when I write about receiving the disposition, this entails the modality of expectation that anticipates and hopes for the aesthetic experience but doesn't guarantee it. Further, the OPM from this day emphasizes the Arendtian line I took yesterday, which was inspired by her essay (lecture) "Philosophy and Politics." In that essay Arendt suggests that Kalon (the Beautiful) should have been the Principle of principles, as opposed to Agathon (the Good), because it is responsible for the shining forth that, for me, denotes the appearance of authenticity, which is the condition for the possibility of the being (object) appearing as significant. The work is significant because it is authentic, and the shining forth of Kalon enables authenticity. It is the presence of Kalon that enables authenticity. To the question, But can Kalon be present yet not perceived?, the answer is "Yes." The calling of significance, of meaning, may not be received. And this is what the Sage, as pointer, is indicating through relaying of the call, through evocation, or what I describe as evocative saying (questioning). Teaching involves the cultivation of the situation where significance can be encountered. On this day 20 years ago in the OPM I write of the "longing" of the freed cave-dweller to experience the encounter significance with others. "This longing represents the authentic reception of the offering from the Sage...to learn is to think alongside and with others." Here I am suggesting that the relationality (or what I am currently describing as the dialectice) between subject (learner) and significant object is the same logic that gathers the learning community together. The dialogic gathering of the learning community is both mediated by the common encountered significant object, but also the gathering itself. Dialogue is another situation with authenticity and significance.
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