PPM55 finds its way back to the question concerning the preparation, the question as to whether or not we are prepared to receive the call of Learning. We are still in chapter 4 on Plato's Allegory (pp. 88-89 in Being and Learning), and after a jam on the unilateralism of the puppeteers, the ones who stage the entire theatre of deception that is the cave, I suggest that there are at least two ways to think about this 'preparation' that don't necessarily fall into the now broken hegemony of chronological and teleological 'education' qua schooling. The (re)turn to the more originary and fundamental ontological tradition of education via philosophy, which Plato's allegory exemplifies, is the essential way of the work that is offered in this phenomenological writing project that was ultimately published as Being and Learning, and continues today with the originary thinking project. Thus, the two ways of thinking about 'preparation' from the originary are as follows: through a messianic temporality, or from the revelatory ontology of aletheia. The former, as I discuss, bears the heavy burden of an anticipatory waiting upon the savior as an emancipatory figure. While I'm attracted to this discourse, the figure of the Sage, specifically as it appears in Plato's allegory, can in no way be anticipated by the cave-dwellers who live within the unilocular and uni-ocular, and the incessant repetition of the same. A messianic temporality has as its disposal the memory of a time before slavery/oppression and thus can anticipate the force of the coming emancipation in the covenant made with that past time toward the coming future. The cave-dwellers have no such memory. Thus, the alternative that I opt for is the aletheialogical, or dynamic of the truth as twofold play of concealment/disclosure. In this sense, the cave-dwellers dwell in the 'darkness' of concealment (the cave), in the one-side of the truth of aletheia. However, if we take the dynamic of the twofold play seriously, then the weight of the flow will ultimately flood the low, or, so as not to mix metaphors, the light of day must balance the dark of night. Put otherwise, it is inevitable that the truth of disclosure will break the hold of the truth of concealment, but without denying its necessity as preparing the way. Here, then, is how one might think of the bondage of the cave-dwellers as being prepared for emancipation and the full force of the power of human freedom.
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 - My 2.0 commentary takes up the problem of preparedness, and offers a more thorough exploration of this paradox that the 3.0 commentary I offered the other day. The alternative between a messianic and aletheialogical relationship to the guide's arrival, to being set free and put underway with Learning, is offered. Of note, today, 4.08.2024, is the aletheialogical dynamic of concealment/appearance on this day of total lunar eclipse of the sun! Perhaps more on that later after it occurs?
ReplyDeleteBut when I re-read PPM55, 'Being and Learning,' pp. 88-89, the original meditation was actually focused on describing further 'unilateralism.' And with this more focused description emerges the 'unilateral' as an imposition. With this description a dichotomy is identified that enables me to describe the contrasting dialogic relationship of Being and Learning that is evoked by a call, specifically the call of the Sage, who is most likely the mysterious figure freeing the cave-dweller in the Allegory. With the dialogic relationship we have the Sage calling via the evocative question or saying, or perhaps the initial call happens through a pointing to the work of art, the object of study. And this pointing may be happening in the Allegory with the act of unlocking the chains. The pointing, which in my class via Heidegger, who introduced the figure of the pointer, we likened to writing, can also be a pointing towards writing, to the result of a making, towards the poetic act as sustained significance, or meaning gathered and held across time, enduring meaning. This is how I am describing the object of study, what gathers the learning community in common study. And because that study is dialogic the object of study is also offering an invitation, a calling out, but not an imposition, not a declaration to affirm or recognize it in a particular way. This is authoritative voice that is silenced, or as PPM55 puts it, the "silence of authoritative voice" preserves the opening of the arrival of dialogue, for the saying and hearing of something new, something unforeseen, for the spontaneous and improvisational. The Sage points to the object which is itself freedom from its maker, which is an important theme in the "fate" (fata) of the text (libelli) as Benjamin puts it. The book has its own fate and the reader, the one who picks it up and studies it, has an encounter with the book, intersects with the fate, and in that encounter an aesthetic experience may occur. Here for the first time, or so it seems, I am being emphatic in placing writing (the book, generally speaking) within the set of "works of art," and describing a particular kind of reading "study." In this case "study" is the receptive modality that mediates an aesthetic experience, which is the first stage in dialectic of a philosophical education. And with the process described in this way, the first moment in freeing the "prisoner," the one bears the weight of the imposition of the unilateral gaze the "one-way" of doing things, happens with the Sage (the philosophical educator) points to the significant object, e.g., the book. Now the book stands out and has a special place, and although I have today placed it within the category of "artwork," I'll have to be careful when, in the Routledge book, I describe how this placing of the book happens once I have described the learning and the aesthetic experience. In other words, if the philosophical education is put underway by the aesthetic experience then the book can be that which mediates the experience. More needs to be said about that move! Perhaps in tomorrow's 3.0 commentary, the 20/10 years later writing that is feeling more like 1.0 insofar as I'm feeling less bound by the content of the original meditations, and yet more bound by the process of unbound writing that organized the original project. And this is because the Routledge book project is consistently calling me and grabbing my attention!