In
the conclusion of the meditation from 11/24/04 and yesterday’s commentary
(11/24/14) I focused on the gathering force of the learning. In the commentary I described the gathering
force (koinōnia)
as a syncretic interaction between ἀγάπη (agápē)
and ἀγών
(agón). There is some confusion here with this
description if one is thinking under a linear logic rather than a circular aka one manifesting through an eternally recurring force. The phenomenology that describes
the dynamic relation between Being and learning is thus properly understood as operating under a circular logic. In turn, the the temporality of this phenomenology is unfolding in the ‘time that
remains’, in the place organized by kairos.
Like the logic of the monastic work day,
in that place where there is no ‘beginning’ ‘middle’ nor ‘end, ’ the thinking that describes the ‘force field’
where these waves of energy interact has to resist the grammar of chronological
time.
Koinōnia is always already presencing, and this constant presencing is disclosed ἀγάπη (agápē) and philia.
Why on 11/24/04 is philia singled out as the volatile energy?
Koinōnia is always already presencing, and this constant presencing is disclosed ἀγάπη (agápē) and philia.
Why on 11/24/04 is philia singled out as the volatile energy?
First
and foremost it has to be said that on 11/24/04 philia was the term that framed the description of the speculative
phenomenon (the conceptual) unfolding
during the meditation. The exegetical
prompt was Arendt’s reading of Aristotle, in which ἀγάπη doesn’t
figure. Today, in the wake of Paul
(after Heraclitus) ἀγάπη figures prominently,
such that koinōnia has always to be
thought as disclosed through ἀγάπη and
philia.
Disclosure
is a technical term for the phenomenological work I am undertaking, and
denotes, first and foremost, the character of the appearance made by phenomenon
being described. Disclosure denotes
appearance as an offering and a gift. [nb:
there is an extremely important and nuanced distinction between the ‘offering’
and the ‘gift’, and, this is not the place to take it up. Suffice to say here I am writing another
promissory note, and another that declares the need to engage Rocha, who alone
amongst my colleagues has worked out a sophisticated description of the
distinction between the gift and the offering.]
I
mention disclosure as signifying gift/&|or\offering because on 11/25/04 the
volatile force of philia is taken up
via Prometheus [without any mention of the young Marx?!]. The attempt is made to name the presencing
of the hidden gods indicated by Heraclitus and with this identification
describe koinonia not simply as a
spiritual (divine) gathering force, but to show this as a disclosure of philia, and today I would add ἀγάπη. Prometheus presents himself as an offering,
and he offers a gift: fire [freedom, liberation, emancipation, power] The myth of Prometheus is re-called as “the
first teaching of the first gift” in order to describe the presence of an
originary offering in the learning event.
“Prometheus gathered the flames....With his gift he makes the first
offering, the first teaching, the flames from which arise the hearth of the
forge that binds…the excess of the overflowing heart.”(BL 286)
Metaphors are mixed, for
sure, in the description that attempts to join together light and sound. More prudent would have been to follow the
form of the remnants of Heraclitus and leave separate the descriptions
happening through the mythical figure of Prometheus. Alas light and sound appear together as
qualities of the overflowing heart. The
heart is burning and at the same time beating; lightning and thunder;
illuminating and resounding: “A sudden, unexpected flash, that brief bright
revealing light...The sounding of the hidden harmony…the rolling thunder, that
most subtle, deep and consistent beat of the heart’s rhythm, abiding
with-in.” And further along, “The
un-expected steering flash of insight, an en-lightening; the constant, steady,
gathering rhythm.”(BL 286)
The figure of Prometheus
in one telling of the myth is a kind of tragic figure who sacrifices his
immortal status with his offering to mortals. Prometheus
is tragic but, of course, there is redemption in his descent from Olympus; a
redemption in his offering, yes, but not only in the gift of fire. What redeems him and renders his
transgression against the gods an act of justice is the compassion that set him
on his way. And this gift of compassion
is the more originary offering. Compassion denotes the heart as burning and
beating, as overflowing and empty….
3.0 (Tuesday, Portland, ME) - Agon offers an important foil in "LEARN" when I describe the spirit of the learning community that is organized by Philia. Here is a fragment that resonates with the OPM/2.0 from today 20/10 years ago: "The discussion is not a matter of listening to or expressing one’s “own” voice. Amnesia sets in when the dialogue becomes a matter of “speaking one’s truth,” or a student believing they possess the “correct” or even “true” knowledge of the text, or that attaining such knowledge is the necessary outcome of the discussion. The dialogic process of philosophical learning is not a matter of correctness, nor of attaining “true knowledge,” but of exploring with others the partial and incomplete phenomenological reception of a significant object of study, the “true” (authentic) meaning of the text as conveyed by “whatever essentials addressed themselves” to each student. During the moment of discussion, the principle of agonism (Agon) is suspended by the principle of insufficiency, and the students are disarmed of the habits they are promoted by schooling. Competition is rendered moot by the egalitarian character of whatever, which denotes that “everything” and “anything” that is highlighted from the text can and will be shared, no matter what. Indeed, the discussion is inspired by the spirit of amor fati, which, as Heidegger reminds us with the term Gelassenheit, is a releasement of the self-certain subject’s will to judge and criticize, a letting-go of the will to power that is fundamental to the agonistic debate that stands in opposition to discussion. The spirit of amor fati suspends the logic of “schooling” and thereby avoids what Heidegger describes as falling “into the clutches of planning and calculation, of organization and automation,” (MA, 49). AND: "Discussion is gathered by and also moved by the shared resonance and repercussion of whatever essentials have called out to the students from the book that each has studied on their own. Sharing is the manner of commonality, and “doing nothing” is the cipher for discussion as a collective performance as opposed to a contest (agōn) or battle of words. Socrates turned to dialogue as a way of negating agonism, and the practice he introduced was based on philía, the love shared by friends. This is the same philía that is at the root of philosophy (philosophia, love of wisdom). Discussion is a philosophical dialogue, the collective performance that enacts freedom. The significance of the performance, what makes the discussion meaningful, which is to say, what produces the shared repercussion of the significance offered by the book/text, emerges from philía. An agonistic exchange is combative, it is a debate rather than a discussion, and there is a predetermined outcome: an “achievement” enjoyed by one or a select few that have mastered the rules of debate and can “win” the approval of the instructor who represents and reinforces the norms of schooling. The “winning” students’ “achievement” is only an imitation of the authoritative know-it-all “master” instructor. What they demonstrate is “mastery” itself, the capacity to exercise the individual power to control and dominate. But, as Arendt reminds us, the outcome of debate is merely “one form of achievement among others. It is then indeed no less a means to an end than making is a means to produce an object. This happens whenever human togetherness is lost, that is, when people are for or against other people.” (HC, 180)
ReplyDelete3.0b - AND: "When the classroom becomes an agonistic contest, a war of words, the dialectical negation of philía occurs when its antithesis appears: phobia. The war of words is grounded upon and reinforces schooling’s most compelling force: truth as correctness (veritas). The fear (phobia) of being “wrong” produces an anxiety that motivates combat but also demoralizes those who refuse to partake in the contest. The first moment of “victory” happens in the alienation of those students who are overwhelmed by the fear of mistake, error, or the debilitating judgment from their peers and/or “teacher” aka instructor. Then the “real” contest begins, and the students motivated to dominate the conversation turn the classroom into an arena of debate, with the teacher acting as judge. Debate is not discussion, and what is produced is meaningless sophistry, a competition between misleading or fallacious arguments. The fallacy resides in the assumption that a definitive “truth” can be extracted from the book/text. The long history of sophistry mimicking philosophy endures with schooling’s ethos of competition. Observed from the outside, the debate appears to be a spirited discussion. But debate is not discussion, and the “power” felt by the combatants is the will to power that produces the impression that something significant has unfolded with the war of words, the feeling of “victory” over one’s peers, and, more importantly, over the book/text, which is reduced to a prey that has been tracked and hunted. The contest that produces a pyrrhic victory of “knowledge” is devoid of philía. As Arendt reminds us, in the agonistic debate “speech becomes indeed ‘mere talk,’ simply one more means toward an end…here words reveal nothing…and this achievement…cannot disclose the ‘who,’ the unique and distinct identity of the agent.” (HC, 180)"
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