OPM 131 Day 4 on Mt. Desert Island, Tremont, Hodgon Pond,
Pine Cone Cabin.
The first prompt of today’s commemorative blog
post is the forest clearing we found ourselves in after hiking the Gorham
Mountain trail. The three of us sat on three boulders having a well earned lunch after the hike. The big rocks formed a kind of triangle, and
I noticed this before looking up and seeing there was a open circle above our
heads, revealing the blue sky and puffy white clouds above. “This is a clearing,” I said. For Heidegger a clearing, or opening in the
forest where the sunlight can shine through.
Klärung is the German word for clearing, and Aufklärung is the German word for Enlightenment. Heidegger
emphasizes the one side of this monumental
word as part of his ongoing critique of humanism, or that Enlightenment
legacy of placing the human subject at the center of things. Human thinking, specifically meditative
thinking, is an ontological even that happens in a specific time and place that
is given to us. Es gibt (it is given). It is
not made, and the thinking that arises there (da) characterizes the being-there of the human being. This is always the way things work for
humans, according to Heidegger, and that’s why it’s always a matter of
ontological modalities or the specific being-there (Dasein) that arises from what is given. The clearing, which Heidegger derived from
his daily walks in the Black Forest where he spent much time in his famous
hut. While he claimed that he didn’t
have a normative or ethical project, but only a descriptive and
phenomenological one, it’s impossible for me to accept this claim, especially
from the later Heidegger, the one I rely on almost exclusively in these
meditations. So while it’s true that the existentiale modalities are like
Kant’s categories: a priori conditions
for the possibility of action, the almost exclusive concern for the later is
locating the ground for meditative thinking; that is to say, the clearing that
gives the space and time for such thinking.
The question I’m left asking myself is whether or
not the mapping of ontological locations is a form of metaphysics, an
understanding of principles and causes in the manner of Aristotle’s
‘artist’? The meditations happening in
this third week of June, including OPM 131, are all contrasting the
Aristotelian tradition of analytic knowledge with the tradition of
contemplative and meditative thinking, which I suggested the in a recent post
(OPM 129), arises in the location where philosophy and theology meet. Of course, there is quite a bit of analysis
in theology, and it may be that I’m going off track with that comparison. Indeed,
the meditations are poetic and phenomenological, and non-systemic, and
this would place them outside that discourse.
3.0 - (Monday, Portland, ME) - Aufklärung versus Klärung. I hadn't recalled that distinction before encountering it here. Foucault makes a commentary on Kant's essay and emphasizes a place of overlap between the two, when he says that "enlightenment" can also denote find the "way out" (Ausgung). Foucault more or less continues Heidegger's post-humanist position that emphasizes place. Meditative thinking is conditioned by location. But location is always understood or described through language, throufh human terms, which is to say, "mapped." Thinking is thus a response to the situation that is given (es gibt). For Foucault, being enlightened implies finding the fissures, or breaks, or the way out of a normalizing discourse. Plato's Allegory could be read in this way, if the emphasis is placed on the cave dweller's ascent. In the fall semester I had a seminar of students who wondered why there was only one way out of the cave. There may be and probably are others, I responded. And it's a worthwhile exercise to imagine alternatives and wonder how the ascents might be different. What if the cave dweller found a way out that took them away from the fire, a path that was guided by the light from above and outside of the cave? How might there experience yield different results? Or what if the ascent occurred at night, under a full moon? If the sun is the metaphor for the source of all things, and, more importantly, the figurative source for the enlightenment, what would the light from the moon inspire? The moon's "light" is a glow, so the emphasis is on the power to be shown, rather than the power to show. Perhaps this would put emphasis on the place-based description of thinking? So instead of discovering the source of things, what is discovered is the manner through which things appear, the formative effect. That is definitely something missing from Plato's Allegory, i.e., the impact or effect that the Sun has upon the liberated cave dweller. He encounters the Sun and has an epiphany, or perhaps the conclusion is reached by analogy. This seems to be an important point for Plato: "how" versus "what" we understand. The shadows in the cave are analogous to the things outside of the cave. The fire in the cave is analogous to the Sun. We understand via analogy or comparison. What is missing in the story is the impact upon the cave dweller. Plato says that he would not want to return to the cave. But he doesn't explain why, other than to indicate that he is experiencing a unique kind of happiness (eudaimonia), which for Aristotle is what contemplation yields in the highest form. And there is a sense in which this happiness as a shining or glowing of the soul that is displayed or revealed in manner or disposition. Plato doesn't have a word for the formative effect, but there is an Attic word that describes that impact, one that has been central to the history of western philosophy: autonomy.
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