OPM 86 is read back in Portland, where I am, finally, after what seems to be a marathon of events that got underway at the very end of February when I was in Chicago at the APA through Albuquerque PES mid March, back and forth to Hofstra, with a trip in Philly, then the last two weeks that included a second trip to New Paltz,a presentation at LAPES/Columbia, a dissertation defense, and then this past week in Stubenville, Ohio for the recording of Sam Rocha Trio' 'Late to Love' album! And throughout all of that I have been recording these 10th anniversary commemorative videos.
In terms of the writing from this date in the project, OPM 86 says it much better than I could summarize, so I'm going to cite two excerpts. The only thing I would do is to call attention to the fact that Prometheus, who made an appearance in my blog post yesterday, appears in the meditation, which continues to explore the story of Heraclitus.
"Heraclitus' fragments are an exemplar of wisdom poetry. We find in them many examples of sayings that point to the ineffable and call attention to the beckoning that is conveyed in the appeal of language. If the essence of poetic saying is to deliver the beckoning of that which appeals in language, then the poetic saying must convey this appeal without drawing attention to the saying itself."
"Learning is essentially hermeneutics as a interpretative process that involves a kind of dismantling, breaking or destruction, both as a dismantling breaking freed, as in releasement from the immediate, and a constructive breaking ground, as in the cultivation of new meanings that will, in turn, be deconstructed."
"The poetic saying of the Sage conveys the unfolding [of Logos]. To 'convey' is 'to carry, bring, or take from one place to another; transport; bear' and thereby 'to communicate; impart; make known.' But in a more archaic usage to 'convey' is to 'steal, purloin, to take away secretly.' The poetic saying of the Sage is thus akin to the Promethean delivery of fire, of wisdom. The is the conjuring character of evocative speech, which has the effect of transporting or guiding into the mysterious."
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 - First there is the matter (stated above) of Learning as a hermeneutic undertaking. As the project now stands, the hermeneutic moment is the second, and stands for the poetic making of something significant. But is the interpretation of the evocative saying something significant, lasting, enduring? I suppose it could be, but it would be a real stretch of the category of "significant object" to describe a response to said object as akin to it. I'm not prepared to go that far. So that raises important questions that culminate in with: is the end of learning the making of a significant object, the poetic praxis of making art? If this is the case then perhaps the scope of what I am calling learning (as opposed to Learning) is limited to art students, to students a conservatories. That may be the case but that limitation would have to be worked out in a future writing, after completion of the Routledge book. So that leaves me with the dialectic as it's currently described: apathetic encounter with the significant object (in OPM 86, the evocative saying of the sage that carries us over into the domain of learning, currently study or close phenomenological reading), next the hermeneutic response to that object (interpretation of the book/reading, or responding the evocation, the calling out of an interpretation), and then third moment, which remains open at this point. And it might be that there is not synthetic third moment, and the dialectic of philosophical education, or what this past week in class I described as the liberal arts, is aporetic, and thus an example of what Arendt describes when identifying the Socratic dialogue as meaningful without reaching any conclusion! The Socratic dialogic jam session, making music with others, goes out there and doesn't resolve but returns to the original question (theme) all the while happening over the steady groove, the pocket of listening. Listening, openness, reception, letting-be are the supportive groove maintained by the proverbial rhythm section. It's what has to be present in order for the jam session to happen. And currently its this jam session, the dialogic exchange between those who meet together to exchange their interpretations and share in the making of a collective response, it's with this congregational poetic praxis that we encounter the third moment.
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