Thinking/Writing in the stream of
[the second of a two night
engagement – brief by GD at MSG standards, but the 7-9 show runs were something
of the late 80’s and early 90’s. Back in
’79 the GD would play the usual 2-3
shows per venue. As for 1/8/79 it
happens to be the top choice amongst DHs these days, topping these days even
the iconic 5/8/77 Barton Hall show in terms of numbers of downloads! Should I make it to campus today in time to
record a new DZ – my first attempt at taking the NJT this morning was a
failure; delays into NYC Penn caused such a mess that I couldn’t get my foot on
the train. So back to 29 Sunset Drive
for the morning writing, and hopefully, I’ll make it to Hempstead with enough
time to record the DZ, which will feature music from these two ’79 MSG
shows. For now, “just listen to the
music play!”, write/think. And:
"Don’t worry about me,
no.
I ain’t in no hurry, no, cause I
know where to go."]
The writing on 1/8/05 is a
meditative return to the beginning of the project; a return to the original
inspiration, that most generous mood in relation to Plato’s offering. It expresses a sense of solidarity towards
the community of philosophers past, present and future. And it is a writing that for the first time
in a very long time is working through a fundamental ontological description of
Being. Here, then, is a return to the
originary that does not constitute a ‘reversal’ in the sense that Schürmann
describes it in the citation I made in yesterday’s commentary. He writes: “With the
originary concept of ontology and the ontological concept of the originary we
leave the phenomenology of reversals…Rather, presencing itself is to be
understood as originary…as pure coming-about.”(140) What is happening on 1/8/05 is an attempt to
think the originary concept of ontology, the originary as presencing as ‘pure coming-about’ as becoming. To think becoming is to work through the
attunement of Being via learning; to enact
becoming. The technē of
thinking is learning; happening both
through phenomenological description – the work of meditative thinking (poiesis)
– and through dialogue – the work of
koinōnia
(praxis).
The return to the
originary concept of ontology got underway yesterday (1/7/15) with the
meditative commentary on the fragment from the lyrical Preface to Being and Learning; the fragment ‘in
which’ and ‘partake in’. A connection
was implied between the ‘in’ and the ‘on’, which appeared in the question Can this ‘turning’ be separated from the
‘on’? That question was prompted
by curious relation between the original initiative happening with the turn and the turning on. In other words,
does the turn toward Being happen
because the desire to think Being has been turned
on? And the answer given was a
resounding NO!
And with that response a return
to fundamental ontology, a return to the thinking of the originary concept,
which gets underway by emphasizing that the the place ‘in which’ thinking
happens is the place where we
‘partake’ in becoming. When we are turned on to thinking we are on. ‘We are on’
denotes enactment and attunement. In the
commonsense way it signifies what we mean when we say someone is in the flow or
‘is on’, and in an athlete or a musician being on their game, or in the zone, etc.
But on signifies Being; it is the ancient Greek word (transliterated) for
Existence. Recall yesterday’s (1/7/15)
commentary:
Because
the ‘on’ is the on, Being of beings.
When Aristotle asks ti to on?, he is
asking What is Being? Parmenides and
before him Heraclitus already offered the response: Being and thinking arise
for us as the Same. And this puts into motion the entire history
of philosophy, which is propelled not so much by the question of Being, but by
the response to the question of Being, which Heidegger recalls in his lectures
under the title, What is Called Thinking? For me, the project of originary thinking is
the project that returns to the original question What is Being?, understanding
that response to that question to always be concerned with experiments in
thinking. When Heidegger asks about what
is ‘called’ thinking, he is referring us both to the call of thinking, but also
how me respond to that call aka how we make philosophy, the technē of
thinking.
Presencing understood (thought)
as orignary, as pure coming-about, demands a thinking of becoming, that is, of actualization, realization.
Fundamental ontology thinks Existence, and what on 1/8/05
this thinking is described as becoming.
The project of originary thinking
unfolding as the poeisis and praxis of learning unfolds “from a
reception of Being that receives the prePlatonic heralding of presencing as the truth of Being’s
unfolding, specifically Heraclitus’ logos. We reiterate this here, as we draw near to
our concluding [meditations]…to be reminded that we share with Plato the
presumption that the essential concern
of philosophy of education is articulating the event of attunement with Being. To dwell in learning is to abide in the love
of Being. To be a lover of learning is
to be a lover of the love of Being, to be seized by the attunement with
Being. This is why the philosopher is
described as the lover of learning, for s/he is enthralled and taken up by the
encounter with Being.”(BL 339) This description reminds me of the moment
last July when, in the pages of this blog, I was working through the prompt I
received from Heidegger when he insisted that thinking happens by way of the
heart, a claim that Heidegger received in listening to Pascal. On 7/16/14 I wrote the following in my
commentary:
“Spirituality is a term borrowed from Foucault who defines
[cf. OPM 145, July 9th] it as the necessary work undertaken by
the thinker to experience an encounter with the truth. Spirituality
is what I call the anticipatory, and preparatory work;
the work that conditions us to become adept at the turnings, such
as the turn from the mind to the heart. In this way,
spirituality prepares us for the experience of compassion. In
turn, compassion is an example of the event of appropriation, when we are
gathered into an experience of the totality, which has a host of names, and one
of them is Spirit.”
It seems, then, that to understand the replacement of
‘painstaking’ by ‘compassionate’ we need to recognize the implications for the
self/person that is revealed by the semantic shift. And for this recognition we can look at OPM
148 (July 12th) where compassion is identified as the important turn from the mind to the heart that is
prepared by the anticipatory and preparatory work of spirituality:
“Compassion is the
shift to the heart, a transcendent moment when the suffering of the present
(the passion) gives way to a kinship with the totality, when we find ourselves
in communion with the seemingly infinite fecundity of life.”
The
turn is a turn from the ‘mind’ to the ‘heart’ and from self to other, and to
Spirit. Love, in the complementary and
perhaps even dialectically related eros
and agapē. What of philia? And what of sophia? Learning enacted
through meditation and dialogue replaces ‘philosophy’. But this replacement is made tentatively
today; ten years ago it remained the
central categorical description of the collective enactment of attunement.
The
meditation on 1/8/05 of the fundamental ontological description of “the Being
of beings” as “the event of existence itself, unfolding as a dynamic process,
un-bound, creatively free in the play of appearing/hiding.”(BL 340)
This description follows from the ‘hearing’ of Heraclitus’ logos.
And it is also the moment where we encounter the source of the description of
enactment as mimesis, and the most
fundamental claim that learning as
attunement is only a mediation. Learning enacts creativity – poiesis and praxis – but not creation. And this follows
from the fundamental ontological post-humanist and anthroperipheral description
of Being as not “a Creator, but
Creation it-self, the processural happening of Be-ing in space and time.”(BL 340)
From this follows not theo-logy (thinking of God) but huacaslogy: thinking in
sacred place. Again, on 1/8/05 this is
still called philosophy: “Every ‘philosophical’ project is an en-acted response
to the question of Being, and expression of the philosopher’s attunement to
Being itself….to be attunded to Being is to be seized by the openness of the
Open where Being en-opens an-archically, bursting beyond each and every
[closed] systematizing that all philosophers are, despite the most poeticizing
leaps, are caught within. What this
indicates…is that all philosophical ‘systems’ or ‘projects’ taken together are
expressive of Being’s dynamic.
Philosophy, but no single philosopher, is capable of articulating the
truth of Being. In turn, the role of the
philosopher…is to take up his abode in/with the Open and beckon others to join
him there and, in this way, cultivate the conditions for the actualization of
philosophy…The philosopher can not ‘speak’ on be-half of Being, nor as a
spokesman for the be-ing of human.
Rather, as the sage, the teacher, the philosopher can and must cultivate
the conditions where learn can happen, where an authentic en-counter with the question
of Being unfolds.”
Recall
from 1/7/15:
And this
puts into motion the entire history of philosophy, which is propelled not so
much by the question of Being, but by the response to the question of Being
And recall the announcement of
the huacaslogical, from my contribution to Lapiz volume one:
What we
discover through the reduction I am proposing is a phenomenology of originary
thinking arising from the originating huacaslogical question: ¿Dónde Estamos?
(Where are we?). [‘Huacaslogical’ is
a neologism that combines the Incan word huacas
(sacred place) with the Greek word logos
(philosophical account, wisdom)]
endnote: ‘Huacaslogical’
is a neologism I have constructed for this project. The category combines the Incan word huacas (sacred place) with the Greek
word logos (philosophical account,
wisdom)….the shift is one from Heidegger’s and existential question of Being,
i.e., Who are we?, to my project’s question: Where are we?
No comments:
Post a Comment