Saturday, February 12, 2011
In-der-Blog-sein
Walking Distance on getting to think.
Walking Distance on getting to think.
But the mind is a puzzling thing. If you force it to think about something, it may not be ready to do so, at least, not in a way that will be clear to you. It will reject the ideas and follow other distractions, or it will work so hard that it just produces a raging headache. When you want to sleep, it will decide to keep you up because NOW it has something to tell you. Or ask you. Or demand of you.Making visible by bringing into the light sounds too Platonic. Blind people also have a clearing. ¶ 10:33 AM
All you can do is go with it, go about your days, fitting in the reading and the thinking and the dissecting. Cry a little. Get mad. Refuse to continue. Use every expletive you have ever learned, and make some up while you’re at it.
Until you reach a clearing. I can’t believe this term came to me, because it is one that I learned during my PhD coursework a few years ago. At the time, it was profound but ever-so complex, at least to me. It is a pleasant surprise to realize that I retained this idea and am able to apply it to my research experience. Learning is a wonderful thing.
Martin Heidegger developed a philosophy of being that introduced the term “clearing” as an opening through which entities other than ourselves can emerge out of hiddenness, or are made visible by a bringing into the light.
Comments:
<< Home
"Making visible by bringing into the light sounds too Platonic. Blind people also have a clearing."
That is a fine point which really is crucial for catching the hint regarding what Lichtung really means, a meaning which is not viewable, still less conceivable, unless it is HEARD in (the word) lichtung. However, I believe we can offer the same generosity of listening even to this participial phrase "a bringing into the light" --after all, what this could be heard as saying is "a bringing into the realm of what is light" i.e., a making lighter, free-er, in the sense of bringing something into that place which is no longer surrounded in thicket but is instead open and able to let sound resound, or, again, as Heidegger has said, is "free for resonance and echo." True enough, "bringing into the light" is immediately and predominantly suggestive of "illuminating by brightening", but maybe it is precisely the fact that this visual connotation is IMMEDIATE that suggests a rarer, later, still-to-be heard meaning ---a meaning which is none other than the word to be heard itself!
That is a fine point which really is crucial for catching the hint regarding what Lichtung really means, a meaning which is not viewable, still less conceivable, unless it is HEARD in (the word) lichtung. However, I believe we can offer the same generosity of listening even to this participial phrase "a bringing into the light" --after all, what this could be heard as saying is "a bringing into the realm of what is light" i.e., a making lighter, free-er, in the sense of bringing something into that place which is no longer surrounded in thicket but is instead open and able to let sound resound, or, again, as Heidegger has said, is "free for resonance and echo." True enough, "bringing into the light" is immediately and predominantly suggestive of "illuminating by brightening", but maybe it is precisely the fact that this visual connotation is IMMEDIATE that suggests a rarer, later, still-to-be heard meaning ---a meaning which is none other than the word to be heard itself!
Here, also, I would note Heidegger's move from the clearing as a place of light, to a place of space.
"A forest clearing is what it is, not because
of brightness and light, which can shine within it during the day. At night, too, the
clearing remains. The clearing means: At this place, the forest is passable."
On the Question Concerning the Determination of the Matter for Thinking, Oct. 30, 1965
"A forest clearing is what it is, not because
of brightness and light, which can shine within it during the day. At night, too, the
clearing remains. The clearing means: At this place, the forest is passable."
On the Question Concerning the Determination of the Matter for Thinking, Oct. 30, 1965
Walking distance also writes, on down a bit, "Everything that we come to know and experience in the world enters into us through this clearing. Heidegger called it Dasein."
The "into us" suggests a container with an opening as MH's "clearing." It seems to me that Plato, with his "forms," leans more toward a notion of paying attention to what we already know, even while it may be forgotten. Don't the realists and the empiricists argue over whether the opening is to Plato's forms (or whatever term they use to describe the ideal world) or the tabula rasa's (to select a familiar example) opening to Kant's intuitions?
Isn't there a development in MH's Dasein from what we already are (in S&Z) to what we try to become (in the Beitrage)? So that "Walking distance's" moment is one of insight for her that may prove useful rather than MH's clearing that still waits to be embraced by her? as well as the rest of us, most likely?
The "into us" suggests a container with an opening as MH's "clearing." It seems to me that Plato, with his "forms," leans more toward a notion of paying attention to what we already know, even while it may be forgotten. Don't the realists and the empiricists argue over whether the opening is to Plato's forms (or whatever term they use to describe the ideal world) or the tabula rasa's (to select a familiar example) opening to Kant's intuitions?
Isn't there a development in MH's Dasein from what we already are (in S&Z) to what we try to become (in the Beitrage)? So that "Walking distance's" moment is one of insight for her that may prove useful rather than MH's clearing that still waits to be embraced by her? as well as the rest of us, most likely?
an opening through which entities other than ourselves can emerge out of hiddenness, or are made visible by a bringing into the light.
Might one take a photo of the Entities when they emerge?? :].
Platonic Forms are IMHO quite different than Heidegger's...entities (or Being, etc). As you probably are aware.
Not actually perceivable, but...understood, visavis Reason (ie, there is an agency issue, usually with platonic schema, is there not). A proper or just act or decision suggests...Justice, apart from the actual events. Marie Antionette, executed via guillotine--a Just Act, but ...the criterion itself is not evident.
Might one take a photo of the Entities when they emerge?? :].
Platonic Forms are IMHO quite different than Heidegger's...entities (or Being, etc). As you probably are aware.
Not actually perceivable, but...understood, visavis Reason (ie, there is an agency issue, usually with platonic schema, is there not). A proper or just act or decision suggests...Justice, apart from the actual events. Marie Antionette, executed via guillotine--a Just Act, but ...the criterion itself is not evident.
"Might one take a photo of the Entities when they emerge??"
Maybe, but we'd likely see only what we are prepared to see. We could well have photographed countless Egyptian people (as no doubt did Mubarak) but not seen them as willing to die for social change. Or poured CO2 into our atmosphere and not seen Pakistan's and Australia's flood waters.
Maybe, but we'd likely see only what we are prepared to see. We could well have photographed countless Egyptian people (as no doubt did Mubarak) but not seen them as willing to die for social change. Or poured CO2 into our atmosphere and not seen Pakistan's and Australia's flood waters.
the detection of the C02 in the atmosphere depended on "normal science" however--for that matter, whether the warming was due to man-made CO2 (a rather small proportion of the atmosphere), or natural remains an issue (the forcing experiments have not established man-made CO2's the culprit--other GHGs appear to be involved, such as methane)--there appears to be some warming, slightly, in some regions--assuming temp data's reliable--and Al Gore not exactly...Freeman Dyson, who's still a bit skeptical (not the same as Faux news denial). Others are as well (a UCSB physicist just resigned due to excessive AGW hype)
--Im not opposed to some of the later Heidegger's...holism (for lack of a better term--) but...I don't think he offers us a...complete Weltanschauung (tho often taken as such). Critiques of mechanism, industry, ...capitalism did not start with Heid's "Question". Kroptokin offered rather cogent criticism of...Technostructure, though ...maybe a bit soft--did not accept Hegelian-marxist tradition, never joined the reds, or nazis, etc. Feyerabend another, though in PF's case, he's taking on the academic science establishment itself--.
Post a Comment
--Im not opposed to some of the later Heidegger's...holism (for lack of a better term--) but...I don't think he offers us a...complete Weltanschauung (tho often taken as such). Critiques of mechanism, industry, ...capitalism did not start with Heid's "Question". Kroptokin offered rather cogent criticism of...Technostructure, though ...maybe a bit soft--did not accept Hegelian-marxist tradition, never joined the reds, or nazis, etc. Feyerabend another, though in PF's case, he's taking on the academic science establishment itself--.
<< Home
