This
morning when I was reading Schürmann I encountered the beginning of the chapter
on Nietzsche, which is organized around the ‘basic words’ in Nietzsche. With these words Heidegger is able to formally
talk about Nietzsche but materially about technology, the epoch of Being’s
presencing appearing as machination.
With Nietzsche and the will to power, Heidegger insists, metaphysics
comes to a close; and epochally this closure is disclosed as technology, the
machination of thinking via instrumental reasoning. I mention this only to remind myself of
approach I ought to take when I begin the process of writing the draft of a
small book in a year from now (and hopefully in only 9 months), when the
editing of the PES Memphis papers is completed and I am at the onset of my
sabbatical. First and foremost I’ll need
to identify the ‘basic words,’ and then proceed to write under these words as
categories of thinking. This approach
will be a departure from the approach of working with personas as figures of
thought with whom I am having an ongoing conversation; that is, a departure
from the approach I took in the writing of the meditations I am returning to in
the pages of this blog. [nb:
I have some unanswered questions regarding these basic words as
categories of thought, and I suppose Aristotle is the primary resource for
responding to those questions.]
Koinōnia
is a basic word. Another is
harmony. And a third is difference, or
what I have for the past week been writing as ‘diff’rence’ – [written this with
gratitude to Derrida (différance) for
reminding us that philosophy is a craft, and something we make. And while I’m expressing gratitude to
Capitaine Jacques, I need to make a promissory note to write a chapter or
section on Derrida’s failed moment on stage with Ornette Coleman, which I take
as disclosing the limit point for Derrida’s claim that philosophy is a matter
of graphos (writing). I am also interested in that moment in Paris
because it seems to tell us something about music-making philosophy. To be continued…]
Koinōnia,
harmony, and diff’rence are a trinity of terms that help me to describe the technē
of dialogue. This technē
is a practice that, for my concerns, makes two distinct yet complementary forms
of being: thinking (intra-dialogic) and community (inter-dialogic). On 12/10/04
I continued to focus on thinking, describing it anachronistically as “part of
the authentic manner of being-in-the-world.”(BL 305) Meditative thinking is described both as a ‘comportment’ and as a ‘practice’. Thinking appears
as both passive and active, as showing the twin existential situations of being a subject (subject to) and having subjectivity (subjecting). The intra-dialogic event of meditative
thinking is first and foremost initiated by the calling (the passivity of being subject to the call): “this practice unfolds
from the reception of Being’s originary call…”(BL 305)
The originary call
can also be described as the re-calling (memory) of natality, or “the affirmation that recognizes the
fundamental distinctiveness that exceeds the ‘calling out’ of a ‘single, unique
human being speaking with but one voice and recognizable as such by all
others.’”(BL 305) Natality is thus re-called as pure potency
(the power dispensed by Being that is actualized through thinking and community
– of course, not exclusively, but this is what I am concerned with today), and
not simply as the fact of singularity, as Arendt puts it. In fact, on 12/10/04 I am pushing back
against the equivalence between singularity and natality via the reduction to
diff’rence, the category that allows us to think and describe the excessive
character of all phenomenal appearance.
The re-collection of natality is now properly described as a re-calling;
the sonic is able to gather without insisting on a unity; hence ‘harmony’
replaces the category of ‘unity’ when singularity is displaced by
diff’rence. “What is recognized is not a
‘single’ being, but a be-ing-in-the-world unfolding within a seemingly infinite
and wholly indeterminate array of dynamic relations. The in-definite and open-ended character of
these relations is conveyed by the recognition of alterity.” (BL 305)
[nb: this moment in the
meditation from 12/10/04 is a recurring theme in my work that this past year
organized my contribution to the first issue of Lapiz; in turn, the reduction to diff’rence takes me to la fenomenología
del
originario,
which unfolds as the methodology of the one occupying the existential position
that arises from what I describe as “the collision zone of the uma pacha that gives rise to the question ‘¿Dónde Estamos?’…As I was writing this piece and
drawing inspiration from Andean/Incan fundamental ontology, specifically from
their phenomenology of enqa or sami (the animating essence permeating
all things) as being disclosed originally in the natural world, specifically in
the mountains, I could not resist thinking in geological terms. The conceptual mezcla I make between the two allows me to describe the originary
ground of ladino ontology as a
mountain range created by something akin in human history to plate tectonics: a
convergent plate boundary formed by cultural tectonic plates crashing into one
another. This geological event is also
called a collision zone…”]
The reduction to diff’rence -- from which we encounter the dialectic as
the logic of the gathering force of koinōnia
– reveals an ontology that refuses the categories of metaphysics and resists the
demands of veritas (ethically and
existentially appearing as ‘friendship’), and is an affirmation that is at the
same time “a dis-confirmation of the ‘unified wholeness,’ a de-familiarization
that conveys the presencing of excessive meaning and thereby presents an
‘opposition’ and ‘resistance’ via the recognition of alterity. By dis-rupting the unitary, the affirmation
of difference en-acts the very ‘contradiction’ and ‘splitting up’…of the
singular and the unified.”(BL
306)
The categorical other of natality is the category of ‘being-toward-death’ that appears on 12/10/04 as name for the play of difference. The releasement “into the freedom of excess” happening by way of “the on-going dis-confirmation, de-familiarization, de-construction/splitting-up and contradiction of the ‘unified self.’”(BL 306) Self-overcoming is described as enforced by death; the subject subjected to being-toward-death is released into the non-self, which has been described using the lexicon of Buddhism as anatman. This works insofar as we talking about meditative thinking, but not when we are talking about community. Being-toward-death and natality correspond dialectically: the death of the unity reveals natality as what is always already exceeding the singular. “To affirm the natality of each being is to recognize the [diff’rence] of each being. This affirmation recognizes the ownmost potentiality of each being.” (BL 306)
La Fenomenología
del Originario is first and foremost a project initiated by a rigorous recalling
of the existential condition arising from the collision zone, and so we can
call it a project of re-membering; hence a project of gathering (legein) via
description (logos). But insofar as the gathering is a
recalling, a remembering, it is the work of memory that disrupts “the logic
that imposes itself upon the horizon of being with a forgetfulness of Being’s
essential sway and the twofold play, specifically the truth of concealment that
always with-holds and with-draws from the appearance of the unified whole.
Forgetting this with-drawal is a strategic response to the fear of
contradiction. Recalling this withdrawal is the response to the
un-certain yet imminent futural unfolding with the play of difference…”(BL 306) La Fenomenología del Originario is first and foremost a project initiated by a rigorous recalling of the existential condition arising from the collision zone.
The categorical other of natality is the category of ‘being-toward-death’ that appears on 12/10/04 as name for the play of difference. The releasement “into the freedom of excess” happening by way of “the on-going dis-confirmation, de-familiarization, de-construction/splitting-up and contradiction of the ‘unified self.’”(BL 306) Self-overcoming is described as enforced by death; the subject subjected to being-toward-death is released into the non-self, which has been described using the lexicon of Buddhism as anatman. This works insofar as we talking about meditative thinking, but not when we are talking about community. Being-toward-death and natality correspond dialectically: the death of the unity reveals natality as what is always already exceeding the singular. “To affirm the natality of each being is to recognize the [diff’rence] of each being. This affirmation recognizes the ownmost potentiality of each being.” (BL 306)
3.0 (Tuesday, Big Sky, Montana) - I did it..I submitted the final draft to Routledge!! Here is the final version of the abstracts for the book: LEARN explores philosophical learning as a practice of studia liberalia (liberal arts education), and offers a phenomenological description of this practice as occurring in three distinct moments: reading, writing and discussion. Together, the first two moments are captured under the heading of Study and are experienced in solitude. The third moment, Discussion, is experienced in community. Each of these three moments are mediated dialectically by a significant object of study, specifically, a work (book, text) from the history of philosophy. The first two moments happen in the solitude of study, when the student alone with the work is able to receive and document “whatever essentials” calls out to them, as Heidegger puts it. The third moment, discussion, happens in the company of others when students collectively explore whatever essentials have spoken to each of them and together go improvisationally wherever the dialogue takes them. Together, the three moments of philosophical learning inspire moments of what Hannah Arendt described as an experience that “is certainly extremely rare: the gift of thinking poetically.”
ReplyDeleteLearn to listen, listen to learn. Each of these moments of philosophical learning -- Reading, Writing, Discussion -- begins with and is sustained by listening. By “moment” I am not referring to a quantitative measure of time, but to a singular event within a process. A philosophical education is a learning for learning’s sake, is also a unique and perhaps a rare experience in this outcomes-based epoch. And this is why, in contrast to the means>end logic of schooling, each moment of philosophical learning can be described as a singular event: sui generis and autotelic, one of a kind and complete in itself. Each moment is both singular and related to the others. Together the dynamic relationship between these moments constitutes the dialectic of a philosophical education.
3.0b: AND
ReplyDelete1: Reading
Chapter 1 offers an extended description of the first moment of a philosophical education: phenomenological reading. The first moment begins, dialectically, with a periagôgé: a turning-around of the student from the “herd mentality” of schooling and towards the solitude of study where they encounter the enduring significance of a book/text. The periagôgé of the student is initiated by an invitation from the teacher to pick up and read, tolle lege! This Latin phrase was made famous by St. Augustine, whose encounter with this call to learn is a primary source for describing phenomenological reading as a sonic event and philosophical learning as via listening. As Heidegger put it, we can only learn when we have first unlearned, and, further, what we need to do is learn to listen closely. Thus, a student is able to respond to what is essential or most compelling in an object of study (a book/text) when they are entirely focused on listening and receiving meaning from it, which is what is occurring with phenomenological reading that is happening in the solitude of study.
3.0c: AND:
ReplyDeleteChapter 2 offers an extended description of the second moment of a philosophical education: writing. This writing is a documentation of whatever essentials have been called out or broken through the “noise” of school that distracts a student from philosophical thinking. The student who accepts the invitation to move into the solitude of study is ready to learn philosophically by listening to the reading. Metaphors indicating the acquisition of knowledge will not suffice. This reader is not ‘grasping’ or ‘extracting’ from the text. Rather, they are collecting the enduring meaning of the text and producing a précis. The précis is written with the intention of being shared and discussed with others. The précis is a form of writing that is inspired by phenomenological fidelity towards the object. It is a restrained response that wants to preserve the original voice of the text. Epochē is the term that describes this practice of recording what breaks through from the text, a documentation that refrains from hermeneutic interpretation. As Schürmann reminds us: “The word epochē is a term borrowed from the Stoics. In their usage epéchein signified an act of halting, withholding, interrupting.” The précis emerges from listening and receptivity that silences the will to explain.
3.0d: AND finally:
ReplyDelete3: Discussion
Chapter 3 offers an extended description of the third moment of a philosophical education: discussion. When they gather, the dialogic learning community collectively explores and interprets the précis of fragments that each student has collected upon hearing what has broken through from book/text. Discussion is a collaborative form of learning that revolves around and is organized by the openness of book through which the fecundity of meaning resonates and is heard by each student in the solitude of study. The object of study remains open-ended and endures with significance as if it were being studied for the first time because with each epoch there is a new discursive field in which it is received and then discussed by students. Further, discussion is organized around the book/text as res publica, a significant object they have each studied and thus share in common. The teacher invites them to circulate what they have collected and thereby solicits from them the possibility of experiencing commonality, which dialectically complements the solitude of study. The solicitation to gather into a commonality is a repetition of the one that invited each student to pick up and read in the solitude of study. But now, in the moment of discussion, philosophical learning is happening through a dynamic dialogue between the voice of the book/text and the voices of the students, a dialectical play between the commonly shared book/text and the manifold ways it speaks to them.
3.0e: And why not include the entirety of the Epilogue:
ReplyDeleteEpilogue
When Heidegger says to his students, “most thought-provoking is that we are not yet thinking,” he is indicating that thinking is an end in-and-for-itself, a learning for learning’s sake, and the not yet is a cipher for the khaos the poetics of the discussion circulate around and through. Philosophical learning is an encounter with the poetic that inspires thinking by offering what remains elusive, mysterious, a riddle that can be answered in many ways. The significant object of study, the book, remains open and illegible but enduring with significance, and with the arrival of its presencing expresses the power to draw students back to the modality of poetic inspiration. The moments of philosophical learning are a wondering and wandering “into the enigmatic.” Heidegger describes the “enigmatic” as what appeals to us. The appeal or address of the text elicits wonder because it holds back interpretation with an appeal that captivates the reader and holds the attention of the student with its saying. Whatever essentials call out to the reader also restrains him and thereby conserves his response and thereby opens up the possibility of interpretation that he can experience with his peers and teacher. The book restrains a response by compelling listening. The student remains silent because the text has something to say. The listening that is compelled is repeated during the discussion, when the sayings of the book are recited (said again) and then rehearsed (heard again). Learning begins and continues with listening, and thus a student experiencing the dialectic of a philosophical education finds themself placed in that place of receptivity, that threshold in between past and future that Nietzsche calls the Moment. They take up that location when they are in the solitude of study, and again when they are gathered with others in a dialogic learning community. In that place, the Moment, they experience the dynamic flow of philosophical thinking, a flux that arrives from the past and the future, and thereby holds them in a dynamic present - presencing: the being of becoming. This dynamic present is a current, the flow even the Current. The current Moment is otherwise called “the draft.” The dialectic of a philosophical education places a student therein, the same location where Socrates stood. Indeed, as Heidegger reminds us: “All through his life and right into his death, Socrates did nothing else than place himself in this draft, this current, and maintain himself in it. This is why he is the purest thinker.”