VARIOUS EXTRACTS - SECTION 9
|
||
email me <1> C9 presents the opportunity to respond to the limitations of tradition. One of the concluding comments about what KJ's said to Jeanne Hersch (JH) TA58 [22 and or 23] should now be addressed. The refuge sought in tradition such as that felt by Pi while visiting the Sistine Chapel, and the misinterpretation of KJ words -- a suggested death-bed confession of futility which is suppose to show the worth of tradition over independent reasoning -- as reported by JH and supposedly sustained in TA58 and now TA68C9, deserves answering. If allowed to stand it could result in talking about tradition and art at the expense of the meaningfulness of KJ's philosophical and scientific works. JH and Pi appear to be of similar ilk. <2> KJ clearly did not think JH exercized the potential for comprehending his views. In the Library of Living Philosophers, ed. Schilpp, '57, Tudor, pp770-770 and 834ff he answers JH's critique of him. Here he speaks of her "pessimistic view of the present" and responding to her criticism that KJ inadequately participates because not traditional enough--and of course we are talking about religious institutional tradition and pictures in chapels -- iconology. Against JH's view that tradition is valid as a universal truth KJ says: "Against this...pictures, symbols, and assertions ... are not universally valid ..." (773) And: JH "seems to argue as if she were standing outside, as if one could see how the world must run ... [as though speaking inside the Chapel looking out -- GW]. She speaks of tradition in the same fashion." (774) JH "sees and thinks and expresses indirectly by letting the intellect make its leaps, which she herself does not quite believe." (776) And "Jeanne Hersch reports a conversation, in which I am supposed to have said ... (834) and "...if it took place" is true but not in the way JH interpreted it. (836) and he clarifies the meaning (on 836). <3> ----------------------------------- SUBJECTIVISM’S CIRCULARITY VS. RESURRECTED OBJECTIVITY by Glenn C Wood 3 April 2004, posted 17 April 2004, TA69, C23 Wood's comment relevant to TA69C10 In item 2. I said there is knowledge without a know-it all knower, and Herbert chose the title “knowledge without a knower?” to caption this C23. The choice of “knower rather than know-it-all” shows intent on prejudicing the reader into suggesting that I am quilty of violating his psuchologism (MIR). Intro: It's circularity; McCarthy's et.al.'s spots of correctness; and KJ's resurrection. <1> "Without objectification there is no consciousness. While I am awake, I arrive at clarity only when I have some object before my eyes or before my thought. But each object implies a subject. Although each can, to some extent, be separated from the other, it is always at the cost of truth, whether in factor of a mere objectivity --to which our object belongs only as a mere point common to all consciousness -- or in favor of a mere subjectivity, to which no valid object belongs, and which for that reason withdraws into the darkness of each individual self, leading to confusion." (See KJ's debate with Bultman (RB), Myth and Christianity. Joseph Johnson (JJ) would find KJ's reference to the mode of abstraction in the same reference though not quoted here but see <8> below.) <1.1> With circularity in mind, I would assume that normal communicants understand the above quote. For instance, to converse further with McCarthy (Mc) I'd have to reread -- but don't have the time now -- previous contributions, i.e., I'd not presume incapacity to grasp subjectivity -- though his syllogism to me (see Mc TA69C11 to GW's C7) points toward incorrectness, i.e, evolutionism. There are those who appear to have no introspection tendencies, e.g. due to things like cultural influences. Objectivity is especially dangerous as a pole to sit on if one's background is steeped in iconological tradition (and that's why in some religious cultures a consensus is easily swayed toward accepting evolutionism with an authority as compelling as clear objects, and without introspection hallucinations are easily mistaken for reality, e.g., a whole religious culture which emphasizes objectivity at the expense of introspection will always be guaranteed immature minds' hallucinations to support the religious force, like there's one in Spain, one in France, one in Mexico etc.). <1.2> A thinker can consciously decide to rest on one pole or the other for some special -- or worse -- general purpose, while ratio or rational circularity is perpetual. If one leans on subjectivity, objectivity is more than instantaneously, (but used and then denied in "0-D" when support is sought through bibliolatry such as divinely inspired words -- Anaximander ?). When HM and vG stand on one, continued communication in the scientific mode requires an adamant intentional slow-down on the other. That means risking the chance that if one is objective it could appear there's agreement with Mc's worldview, and that's the precarious spot I must impatiently hover over in this discussion. <1.3> HM and vG and Joseph Johnson (JJ) have emphasized subjectivity to the point of an absolute worldview. JJ admits it opening -- a sign of intellectual honesty. Circularity is unavoidable when talking about the mind-brain, and subtle emphasis emerge such as a reaction to scientism's reversal to the brain-mind question though the brain when subject to subatomic physics reduces to a lot of known stuff but infinitely unknown too. There's compelling awareness that we are influenced good and bad no less by inherited mind-stuff than decayed brains and none at all by Broca's pickled brain. Here again, mental predisposition and physical preconstitution continues in circulation, and the former is amendable to conversion experiences, and the latter to genetic manipulation. Along the way we look for errors with no hope for zero tolerance -- in the scientific attitude. And the search must not be lesser around the peripheral edges of comprehension where feelings are relied upon and less a clear object of investigation. From the periphery of reason come emotional urges that cut short scrutiny, and to the brainwashed, the search ends and takes repose in something like viewing a chapel ceiling, or the bombardment of high intensity ideas continues to the point of confusion, hallucination, and pathos. <1.4> KJ sees the problem and speaks to scientific knowledge, and he does so in his General Psychopathology (GP). It is relevant in as much as Forum-contributions indicate a pathological method is needed for further understanding and discussion. All quotes unless otherwise indicated are from GP, and the section on the Whole Human Being. (The pathological discussion will follow <2> "What is Scientific Knowledge?") <2> What is Scientific Knowledge? There is knowledge without a know-it-all knower. There are various categories of knowledge (not levels like on a ladder necessarily), but scientific knowledge amounts to what is general and compelling (though as compelling relatively as the sun rising and setting, or more compelling that morning and evening occur). It is based on methods, and what's testable by everyone, including the sifting of facts, and excludes going with scary destructive fashions "but with a view to a universal and lasting application. What is known scientifically can be demonstrated and proven in such a way that any reasonable person at all capable of understanding the matter cannot evade the compelling truth of it." But they have been "clouded by misunderstandings." (768) It takes not merely a knower to see this, but knowledge encompassing and transcending a knower. It takes wisdom's never ending quest for more knowledge while aware that knowing less and less surpasses the quest, whether knowledge of self or others. Though research might be compelling, limitation is also equally and encompassingly compelling. In psychopathology, another's knowledge must be interpreted, whether patient or physician. Scientific knowledge here involves compelling discussion without presuming a holy-land or ground used in struggles for power. "In the name of science we have been wrongly satisfied with mere conceptualization, with mere logical method, mere clarity of thinking. These are necessary conditions for science but even when there they do not yet constitute science in its full and factual sense because they lack the objectivity which comes from actual experience. When simple thinking is confused with an objective knowledge science becomes lost in empty speculation and the resultant endless possibilities." "Science is wrongly identified with Natural Science." According to KJ there are sciences -- i.e., there are areas of compelling knowledge -- other than biology, physics, and chemistry. "Some psychiatrists particularly emphasize the natural-scientific character of their methods, especially when in fact this is missing." I think this is HM's position relative to the naturalism in brain-mysticism, and his "0-D" is the salve to remove the ism, or plug the holes from which comes revelation that mingles with knowledge; (but when applied to other-than-brain-mind knowledge, the source of enlightenment is shaved off; such as the patient who can communicate experience effectively if wisdom prevails on the part of the therapist, and the reports/records of observers -- and "0-D" congeals into something radical; it deteriorates into a demythologization of the human being, cutting off the greatest part of what makes for the whole human. However: "...Natural science is indeed the groundwork of psychopathology and an essential element in it but the humanities are equally so and, with this, psychopathology does not become in any way less scientific but scientific in another way." Here we have others' knowledge without a specific knowing scientist, and “RC” (Radical Constructivism) -- both the radical and the ism aspect -- makes less than absolute sense if it means that construction on these grounds should proceed only with the cynical or critical faculty fully engaged regarding objective and subjective factors beginning with self examination. <6> KJ's Primary and Secondary Comprehension, circularity continues KJ's distinction between secondary and primary comprehension as well as the distinction between the historical and historicity are examples of objective/subjective circularity. Historical individuals have their own primary experiences, and their peculiar historicity or individual handling of compelling or immediate experiences. Secondary comprehension is inescapable when attempting to determine the primary comprehension of others on either the near or remote side of the historical. Our experience of other's experience is primary to us but secondary to others. KJ's meaning of historicity is the individual-subjective side of primary comprehension of the world we are and in which we are. Historicity is individual as independent and autonomous but balanced, buoyant, if the historical is not excluded. Meaningful discussion requires this circularity, but in the world including others, objectivity is primary and autonomous but not at the exclusion of the historicity of others. <7> The similarity of 0-D and RC to Bultman's theology and dissimilarity with KJ's philosophy -- wisdom's perpetuity regarding limits. KJ views above can be found in his debate with the theologian Rudoph Bultman. They are clear there and one can make application to familiar language and concepts expressed on the Forum, especially if one has a religious-fundamental background, or some sort of fundamentalism that has been overcome, and has encompassed it with understanding. It can be no less clear to evolutionism's comprehension, for, the dogmatism of the theologian is a replica of the religious dogmatic position of evolutionism. <8> Abstraction Abstract thinking too is referred to in that Bultman/Jaspers' debate, and abstraction, for KJ is one of the modes of handling the encompassing we are and the encompassing we are in, but does not cover the Encompassing of all encompassings. The Encompassing cannot be subjected to abstraction unless one remembers it cannot be done without coming close to committing something unpardonable like violating the spirit involved in the scientific attitude. One can suppose "0-D" and RC are reactions (not transcendental for there's no enlightenment as to what is really behind what appears to be radical-ism) to that danger but the ground seems, to me, tossed out in an attempt to retain the primary comprehensibility and historicity of the authors, i.e., HM and vG. <9> More on KJ's meaning of science and/or knowledge. <9.1> Because of the emphases on subjectivity by some Forum contributors, quotes from the first listed scientific principle is especially important: "the individual...manifests itself at three levels": he is shown to be an empirical reality in the various ways in which he becomes objectively explorable as a creature of this world; he illuminates himself from his own sources in making use of the different encompassing modes of his Being; and as he searches in the world and founders there, he unifies and becomes conscious of his true origins and destination. "It is only at the first level that he is accessible for scientific investigation." In other words, illuminating for himself the existential situation is not subject to scientific investigation, but yet can be meaningfully and convincingly discussed and thereby encouraged in others. <9.2> The second listed principle is mentioned here because it shows the pitfall of the first principle. "For purposes of empirical research the individual becomes a theoretical construct of factors, parts, elements, components, functions and forces from which he is constituted. Should a philosophic illumination of this human being be possible over and beyond this then it can form a background for all the particulars of our knowledge of the empirical man but it cannot be a knowledge in itself. To treat illuminating ideas as objective knowledge is a fundamental distortion of philosophy into a pseudo-science." Here knowledge is distinguished from philosophy, and not to be mistaken for a metaphysic, i.e., compelling natural science that is more mysterious than understood (if I recall correctly Aristotle placed piles of clear material on his desk, and unclear material "after", the clear being what determines the meaning of meta, and aristotelianism then and now romanticizes about the arrangement). <9.3> I'm suggesting here that the illumination of "0-D" (zero-derivation thinking) and “RC” (radical constructivism) easily slips into a meta-like or pseudo-science whereas it is best to admit the tendency to philosophize about one's communicable primary comprehensions. <9.4> Here are a few extrapolated words from other principles mentioned in the same context: "While knowledge encounters limitations everywhere which mark the margins of our comprehension, knowledge of ourselves encounters limitations where something becomes inaccessible to us from another source as an unknown reality." <9.5> "Human life in itself can be tangibly felt as present in the knower and the known when we find ourselves at the margins of what we can scientifically explore." "The individual as a whole never becomes an object which can be known ... the individual ... escapes ... systematiz[ation]" and "the individual is always more than he knows or can know himself to be or than anyone else knows him to be." <9.6> I'm trying to show that when one takes the position that only the knower can know, it should be clear that this knowledge is possibly less than the worth of wholly-others' knowledge or primary comprehension, and that there's no damage done to the autonomy of selfhoodness if one admits a replication of ideas and conduct, and searches more for the life rather than the death of others' meaning. I mean what are zero-derivation's or radical constructionism's (constructivism’s) antinomies to the Decalogue for instance (other than keeping the Sabbath day any holier than the first day)? Or what is the difference between "0-D" and forgiveness of stifling guilt, and the “RC” view that says, I don't have to replicate the cross for that price has been paid and I'm free to construct my own religious institution with an easy confessional box? "0-D" is the ultimate in clarity, clearly non-sense and non-empiric thinking without referents for an instant beyond inner and outer space-time, and universally meaningless if nothing verifiable can be compellingly and truthfully communicated. <10> The similarity of "O-D" and RC to the Resurrection concept "0-D" talk is like an ex cathedra pronouncement, a judgment against those who remember their dependency on the world of objective others, and ignores individual secondary comprehension and which includes what can be transferred to primary comprehension. The R and ism of “RC” seems threatening to "other-knowledge" too and suggests secondary comprehension is unnecessary to primary formulations. <10.1> Not forgetting the limits of knowledge qualifies the quantitativeness of science. It does not short-circuit the methods and communicable findings. Bultmann, the theologian, was claiming scientific existentialistic bases for his handling of uncertainty surrounding things like the resurrection. He and KJ disagreed on how to communicate meaning if a dead body cannot come back to life. KJ demonstrated a much more meaningful way of handling it than Bultmann. Bultmann starts with leaning toward the certainties assumed in science to the point that it became a pseudo-science which replaced his myth's meaningfulness. Because KJ seriously leans toward the unknowable -- at no expense to known and knowable -- which increase as knowledge increases, he can talk intelligently about the resurrection. I mean, if an individual comprehends little-to-a-lot by comparison with others--about the self, and even flesh and blood knowledge is restrained, why should not the resurrection have less meaningful connections--especially in view of the social and individual objective psychopathological phenomena -- confusion and hallucinations. Jaspers starts, I think, with the meaningful connections that can be made out of testimony (which in this case would include the biblical-physician Luke I'd think), and does not omit the inhibiting possibilities of what is determined normal for one generation and abnormal for another. Myth to Jaspers must be distinguished from myth content; the latter always needing interpreting for meaning, but the former cannot be eliminated anymore than can God die. <10.2> What must be avoided is the exploitation of the reduction of the miraculous to some current particular time and place compelling for everyone by some institution with divine authority. Instead of a resurrection's influence on the individual, it becomes a miraculous confirmation of a religion in a world where all power struggles are associated with religion or a pseudo-fixed-culture. To encourage a crusade to the site of the resurrection via the suffering intensities of Jesus due to the sin of power struggles is to miss the point of whatever zero-derivation or radical constructionism there is to the concept or form of thinking needed for a meaningful resurrection of understanding. What I'm suggesting here is that HM and vG occupy a good position for seeing the value of the resurrection (a form of momentary zero-derivation), and the moving of the spirit (talked about by KJ in the debate with RB) in the transforming (a form of radical reconstruction) of independent groups with autonomous individuality encourage while discouraging political spin-off motivations. After all the crucified, buried, and resurrected Jesus has a lineage that was not only inherited from the peripheral region of Abraham but “pagan”- Moab too (see the Story of Ruth). ---------------------------------------- MULLER BASHES A CRITIC OF GLASERSFELD by Glenn C Wood 20 September 2004, posted 2 October 2004, TA73, C28 HM "I find the pronouncement in the commentary below that constructivism is dead a trifle exaggerated, to use Mark Twain's expression on a similar occasion in 1897." GW: Constructionism is deader than Moses, Kant and Jaspers. Some of their elementary ideas have been exagerated, embellished within Constructionism through suppressing the historical sources. (My interchanging constructionism with constructivism is intentionally distracting.) To invite comments and then preface with a Doctor's introduction such as this seems improper. It would have been better to have allowed M. Kosleff to speak without the editor using the occasion to stand up a in effect hug E von G It seems like a show of support for someone thought to be a possible 0-D ally. Why not let the author of ,TA73 defend himself? M. Kozloff's comments seemed to me quite appropriate. He made his point colorfully and followed by excellent substantiation. I think Jaspers would be happy with Kozloff position. I am. --------------------------------------- AN IMAGINARY THERAPEUTIC “SESSION” WITH MULLER AND GLASERSFELD by Glenn Wood 22 September 2004, posted 16 October 2004, TA73, C29 Overview Note -- In this forum the authors of "zero-derivation" and "radical-constructionism" have violated the bounds of sound epistemological method. This has been done by loosely applying their method to religion. Karl Jaspers, a prophetic (but critical) friend of religion, is not to be associated with this misuse. Note: In the repeated C6 title below my comments are in brackets. Then there's a preface that perhaps should be read first whether anything else is read for it gets to the heart of the methods essential for understanding and comprehending psychic disturbances ("0-D" and "RC"?). Then, some of the C6 is restated and annotated with bracketed GW (mine) reactions. STAY CLEAR OF PARMENIDES' TRAP [GW: OBVIOUSLY THIS IS A DOGMATIC CAPTION, A FUNDAMENTAL OR ELEMENTAL NOTION ABOUT THE PHILOSOPHER'S RELATIVELY NORMAL THINKING. ERNST VON GLASERSFELD'S RESPONSE TO C6 IS A BIT MORE CAREFUL ABOUT CASTING A PRIVATE INTERPRETATION OR CONSTRUCT AT PARMENIDES WHERE EvG STATES IN R6 "...he remains a mysterious thinker." (But then R6 capitalizes on the myth aspect by staking a claim for support therein).] {1} Preface I want to begin by addressing a suggestive statement in your (HM) first footnote (* reader please review it and the context its meant to clarify). The statement there seems to imply that Karl Jaspers in his General Psychopathology in speaking about "brain mythology" somehow instrumentally supported, just enough to give credence to, the development of formulas ("0-D" and Radical Constructionism). (This suggestion, i.e., the footnote, is supported through understanding the psychic, the ideas, expressed by HM in the body of the here-repeated and annotated C6.) It seems implied that Karl Jaspers is credited only with vaguely seeing the problem of brain mythology and that zero-derivation and constructionism would have been clear about it and are resolving it. {2} The section of KJ's General Psychopathology (hereafter GP) HM refers to is showing how psychopathology differs from other sciences. The myth is that any science can be thought whole enough to dismiss psychopathology as too subjective. KJ effectively shows "They should give up psychopathology and confine themselves to the study of cerebral processes and general physiology." (p.28, 1963 University of Chicago Press.) HM and EvG should confine their formulas similarly for they have preconceived notions of religion that prevent understanding and comprehending. First, in comprehending this section of GP we must comprehend what KJ means by "static" and the context of psychopathology and normal psychology. KJ shows the meaning of "static." "Static" is not to be interpreted as referring to something ontological and/or ontic, as rigid structures that can be dismissed outright as dangerous (religion is an example of rigid structures often given by HM and now expressed by EvG). {4} The use KJ makes of "static" has nothing to do with a functional gestalt gone bad in the course of normal mass reaction to forms of life orders (See Man in Modern Age). The English translator (preface of GP) touches on the difficulties of terminology like "Verstehen" and "Erklaren." Jaspers clarifies meanings in the introduction to this, the seventh edition. He does this on page 28 I've commented on this previously in Forum comments to HM, regarding the use of subjectivity and objectivity, and the differences between verstehen and erklaren. I attempted once to communicate the meanings by reference to empathy (which every therapist uses), which is still inadequate except when both static and genetic can be used in the context of the complex unity of being. “Complex unity” are Jaspers terms and differs from HM's formula of 0-D; it differs like a glass is either half full or half empty. {5} What does static mean to Jaspers? I remember the days when static interrupted the normal radio reception. Static stood out to the point that normalcy was disrupted. Parents could be heard saying: "now don't give me any static." Joseph Johnson's (a KJF TA author) research with a form of cosmic static influenced his views, if I recall correctly. When psychopathological manifestation occurs it is like static. It's a definite event, an interruption from the norm, but it is not something that can be identified as a bad or rigid dysfunctional concept due to normally poor perception. We have to think of static as phenomena but stationary only in so far as it is distinguishable from the flow of being's complex unity, the ground of normalcy. A nation's defense in wartime might depend on efforts at clarification and making proper connections regarding static interference with communication. {6} The point is that there is no similarity between HM's grounds for "0-D" and the meaning of "static" in Karl Jaspers' systematic and methodical treatment of the science of psychopathology. However, the view has been expressed on this forum that "0-D" is so foreign to normal thinking that one might be able to say it approaches the psychopathological. It's like a core of void. It seems to withdraw into nothingness more than by acting out -- except in the effort to draw religion and mystery into a withdrawn nothingness where revelation cannot come from complex unity. If we turn the radio off the static situation has been eliminated, but not without breaking off communication with the normal world. Clarification requires that the static be fairly heard amidst normal reception, and research continues in meaningful connections. {7} In HM's "*" footnote he mentions Jaspers' view of brain-mythology. In my English translation the words ('brain-mythology' are found in quotes, possibly due to earlier indexes) are found the index referring to page 28. The words as such are not there in the text, but certainly the thoughts are there. He's speaking of scientists who only accept something that can be perceived by the senses: "not what can be understood through the senses ... They should give up psychopathology and confine themselves to the study of cerebral processes and general physiology." So, brain mythology excludes what can be...understood...through the senses, and of course this includes empathy with a reciprocally charged sympathetic comprehension. It's what I did in TA51 regarding the religion known as the Mormons -- the static phenomena must be understood comprehensively rather than simply saying the religious experience ought not be taken seriously, which is what HM and EvG obviously do with religion. They should give up religion (or, I'm grinning, get some before being critical as outsiders). {8} Remarks Below I've repeated some of HM's TA73C6 with some transactional comments. <1>...RC advocates. In my opinion it can serve as a signpost for the future of epistemology, that is, of the conceptual basis of science and other fields. [GW: As any seminarian comprehends, constructionistic thinking is nothing new.] Constructivism refers, I think, to an unstructured matrix that can serve as a fallback position for any de-constructed positive assertions. [GW: "Unstructured matrix" here is unlike KJ's complex unity. Matrix, rather than "complex unity" in too feministically dogmatic and limits the encompassing of encompassing.] With this unifying aspect in mind, [GW: It's as unifying as a family can be without a fatherly reference point, a paternal Transcendentalistic potential.] <2> KNOWLEDGE EXPERIENCE <5> One is confronted with unstructured experience, it "is given", [GW: Here is where your faith in constructs differs from Jaspers' faith in objectivity: He refers, for instance, to the "complex unity" of the normal world of others when dealing with the static phenomena of abnormal thinking.] but mental structures are not [GW: Do you work with schizophrenic patients where you work?]. Structures are often freely created, but always within limits that are determined by feedback (and, like for instance for architectural designs, the constraints can in addition often be explained in objective terms like gravity, or the physiology of color perception). Therefore, structuring is not haphazard, nor identical with free invention. And although, in some instances, a variety of structures can be used to serve particular needs, most structures are not invented in the sense of being made up at random. [GW: Some, that is, some truth here, but we are being led along somewhere near a trap -- your personal aversion to "complex unity" and religions that are independent of mainstream institutional religion (consider the connection of Mcgill to mainstream religion).] <6> In some areas this process results in structures of much variation in degree of definition and of uniqueness (for instance in structures like the self, or religious concepts) [GW: Ah Ha! Here you're probably referring to self-images from fixations regarding inferiority to superiority, i.e. something abnormal to a balanced or buoyant feeling at unity with ... God. But you're going to try to show how while thinking of extrapolations from such aberrations, religion is not a given from the complex unity. Religion, you will imagine, is an aberration, and sick inspiration]. In the case of many everyday physical objects like eggs or stones, the structuring possibilities are more constrained, unequivocal, and structures are more persistent than elsewhere. This has given rise to the erroneous notion that the structures are thrown (ob-jected) at you in pre-fabricated, ready-made, form, and even that such objectivity is the nature of all reality. Since properties like persistence and unequivocality facilitate itemization and quantification (and thus the use of objectivity and mathematics), the wish arises to use that type of unequivocal word-gestalt concept also in other areas, where the conditions differ, which may result in failure. [GW: There are more meaningless than meaningful connections being made here as we will see later, for, again, we are being led along a gestalt ridden path and the assumption is made that everybody else is forgetting they have gestalt glasses on that will color the complex unity of being. Awareness of preconceived, biased, prejudiced notions is old hat.] <7>... Beyond the notion of plural, the combination of gestalt-items with words gives rise to counting and mathematics, and furthermore to the idea of self-contained objects, i.e., things-in-themselves (cf. [35ff], and TA57 [10]). The latter can be useful as a shortcut "as-if-ontological" working-tool. [GW: Nothing new here, but it would be well to show Heideggerian thinking is an example of the misuse of the phenomenological tool, and reemphasize Jaspers' use of phenomenological thinking as a tool. But you're apparent aversion to religion is where we're headed, I think.] <8> But it may mislead into MIR-belief (in the form of traditional ontology), in case the as-if aspect (as having itself been structured in experience) is neglected, and then thinking becomes inverted.** [GW: See my comments in the preface above regarding this footnote.] Being aware of the tool-character of all concepts (without and with words) helps to counteract being trapped in a belief in pre-constructed objectivity, and to regain access to open thinking, to Anaximander's unstructured apeiron. [GW: Here the frequent mention of Anaximander and apeiron reminds me of Pood, our neighbour ... My father and I were lying under a black walnut tree near the road ... contemplating in silence the night's catastrophic tornado which had killed hundreds. Pood came by on his tractor and after a few sympathetic comments dismissed our wondering about the loss of life and complexity by saying "I know ..." We both looked at him for the rest of the knowledge and he said "...God." Well, access to open thinking especially through your traditional words does not necessarily lead to meaningful action, does it?] A fundamentalist belief [GW: You know "fundamental" is an emotive term especially for you and in a large section of the education industry upon which positions such as yours depend.] in given pre-established structures, including objective ones, is the opposite of open mind. But confining characteristics are already built into verbal communication per se, due to its tendency to develop into differing languages, as it was described in the story of the tower of Babel. [GW: Here we need to apply Jaspers definition of static phenomena in comprehending such unreasonableness. Here are the meaningful connections that an empathetic and normal therapist can comprehended and describe: Awareness of inverted thinking is not your structure for in the ** footnote you refer to R. M. Rilke who was inspired by observing animals who have no construct traps (I doubt that is true) and sees gestaltung or constructs as potential traps. In this revealing footnote the word "always" is used twice pointing to how whole concepts are unavoidably lost as tools, unless we remember (going back to the text) Anaximander's (back to the footnote) apeiron. Further authoritative associative connection is then made with traditional words like "God" (back to the text) and reference to the Bible's tower of Babel. The static phenomena described above amounts to evidence of the disruption of normal subject-object experience; it's what stands out, flutters too much, on the peripheral edge of psychopathological; it's at least a psychological, philosophical complex. Now, being the editor of the KJF, what remains is to put a Jasperian spin into this rationalism.] <9> The recall of actions is helpful provided they are appropriate (or viable in EvG's terms). This applies also to mathematical actions [38], which can be used for those features in experience that are itemized with the help of gestalt-recall. But if the implied assumptions are inadequate they will eventually need to be changed, as it happened with the concepts of absolute time and space, or the general validity and persistence of gestalt formations in particle physics. Some other ontological assumptions (for instance in religion) [GW: Here we go again: ontological assumptions and religion are equivocal to you] may also profit from becoming more operational. [GW: Surely in the recesses of your consciousness is the Biblical Jesus. You know, the one who was crucified for open thinking and action the practical consequences of which eventually led to the outlawing of torture. Let's see if the connection is made ..] <10> A PROCEDURE FOR CONCEPT-EVALUATION? In the absence of MIR-belief, [GW: This is an oversimplification, a placard, a whole concept camouflaged by an abbreviated formula, and ignores Jaspers discourse on the use of words like subjective and objective in dealing with diseases of the mind and body.] all knowledge is stored-for-recall how-to knowledge (savoir-faire) [9], often with the help of stored patterns of gestalt-formation tools, of activity [30] like movements in sport [32], and actions in mathematics [31].*** IR should probably not only be declared unknowable (Vico [6]), [GW: There is no such popular thing as MIR except as your absolute concept. There is thinking about (Jaspers') "complex unity" as being more than mentalization can reduce.] impossible; rather than being a pre-structured outside reality and truth, it is an ad-hoc mental tool (namely, as-if-MIR). The awareness that all mental (mind-and-nature) structures are tools would then be a central feature of constructivism, implying a general validity of constructivism as a reference procedure (rather than theory) for conceptual structures. The forest in EvG's metaphor [12] is not pre-structured, it too implies the subject's construction (not invention) activity, albeit in a quite rudimentary way. [GW: But, useless to say, there is no such forest in being among beings.... This discussion could become frustrating except for complex unity. Surely, this is a therapeutic session that should take place in an institution. What is your work there at the McGill hospital, if I may ask? The only reason to continue this session is to show the Internet public that such elemental thinking manifested here is irrelevant to Karl Jaspers]. <11> The explicit start of epistemological construction from no given structure (zero-derivation, 0-D) implies complete skepticism (cf.[4]). [GW: Epistemology is by definition and common sense the theory of knowing which includes the human faculty of critical thinking in process, perpetually there , as a creeper gear (Old trucks had a creeper gear), it's retrospective and prospective thinking; it's restroactive, active, and pro-active. Critical thinking does not need a Holy Land locality like "0-D" for pilgrimages to remain engaged. Critical thinking sees unethical and immoral perpetuity in zero derivation.] <12> EvG outlines implications for studies in the didactic sciences [45-46]. [GW: In other words you mean the education industry] NOTES Some MIR-objectivist (naturalist) philosophers nowadays wonder why, when (as they claim) everything is objectively given, there is something incomprehensible like subjective experience at all and then indeed try to transform subjective experience into a (given and pre-structured) object (cf. TA67 and its discussion). Their preoccupation is understandable, and ever more so as more details of the brain functions needed for thinking and for subjective experience become available. But whatever will happen in this field : no objective fact or process, in the singular or plural, can ever be available except inside ongoing subjective (individual and collective) experience. Nor can they ever be identical with subjective experience. And furthermore, no one can exit from the bubble of his/her experience; experience is first [GW: No, no no. Experience is first experience of structure, wombs are exited], structures (and objective explanations) are later. (In my opinion this is the crucial conceptual point in what used to be called "brain-mythology"; cf. Jaspers). The sentiment of beauty, the understanding of a poem, the appreciation of music, of a painting, and any other subjective experience, are not identical with the activity of various neural networks that is necessary for it to occur. But they can be shown to have brain activity associated with them. E.g., electro-encephalo-graphic activity corresponds to mental function to some extent, it is a rather crude indicator or brain activity. Functional brain scans and other methods can become more specific but the conceptual problem remains. The mental function can be described in subjective terms (phenomenology) as well as objectively (e.g., behavior, facial expression, muscle potentials, brain events), but in all cases, the to-be-structured experience comes first. [GW: No, the structured come first as instructors.] My problem with this characterization of the constructivist position is that it tries to show that RC refers to a property of "the neuronal (or cognitive) apparatus", which is just as objective as "the environment" though some ambivalence about the latter can be seen in para.4 of this quote, where outside reality is questioned while the neuronal apparatus is simultaneously treated as an unquestioned given pre-structured (and also outside) reality (MIR). [GW: Ok. Now keep your epistemological method confined to physiology like this.] This attempt seems to be a consequence of the wish of cognitive science to become an objective discipline like physiology or physics (implying realism, i.e., MIR-metaphysics, which can only function in an as-if mode). As I see it, this ambition is self-contradictory. It misses the main point of constructivism - and indeed of cognition - namely that all (individual and collective) experience includes the (individual as well as collective) subject from the start, together with the "world" and the "all", and that all "objects" (and "selves" too) start as crystallizations [GW: Your should have started C6 -- without the abbreviated formula's embellishments -- with similar the thinking prior to the words "start as crystallizations."] within experience. Experience cannot be transmuted into objective entities, be they neuronal networks or something else [GW: Here, to defend the jump to what you consider the pathology of fundamental religion, the words "something else" had to included.] And besides, in case one decides to think in objective terms (whether naive or as-if), it makes no sense to assume that "information does not penetrate from outside into the system" (para.3). That would imply that the objective brain is isolated from everything else in an objective world, which clashes with just about everything we know about brains, unless they are dead. In my opinion the above formulation causes many more problems than it solves. Evidently the conceptual basis of the constructivist position still requires much clarification and discussion, even for those who (like the author of the quoted summary) are convinced that RC is a good idea. [GW: Obviously this footnote was added after reflecting more responsibly on that said in the body of the C6. But it presents only an apparent open mindedness, for it simply opens the door for diminishing religious phenomena to zero status. Let's see how this in done in the next footnote:]** In his eighth Duinese Elegy . R M Rilke says that animals "see the open", while humans have constructed traps that occlude this open view. Conceptual structures (Gestaltung) "reality" : "the world", our "self", doctrines have become inverted and are then not seen as tools but as the pre-constructed (outside) essence of reality and of our lives. Thus we are always taking leave from the open (the unstructured, God, [GW: Here it is, a subtle equivocation identifying God with something other than the complex unity of being.] apeiron); and, to the extent that we take word-concepts as "the reality", we always face (conceptual) death, since all structures can be de-constructed. Rilke asks "who has turned us around like that ?" We have allowed our language-instrument to become so primordial in our thinking that it can do that to us. [GW: Here there probably intervened in your thoughts the N.T. "In the beginning was the word..." which I'll comment on where it appears in another of your Comments.] *** In a previous communication (TA45 [8c]), I wrote that in science "[t]ruth and facts are rules for action, they are not static ontological assertions . [GW: Note your use of static. Using "static" in this way again after comprehending Jaspers use of terms in GP is strange. There is nothing in being that is this stationary. Even nothing is no-thing, but there is a permanence like a complex unity. Heraclites and Parmenides were not wholly right or wrong. One of my early sermons included Parmenides as an example of the stability of complex unity from a religious and philosophical faith perspective.] ---------------------------------------- Concerning the discussion of religious concepts, see my note at the end of R2, TA70 – HFJM ----------------------------------------- <1> Opening comments -- "Representation" is apperception. I've little criticism of the representation ideas EvG expresses in this Article. Spin-off statements are obvious though. The apparent humility involved in the first paragraph, i.e., his understanding of the uncertainties involved in the complexities of apperception, is reduced by grasps for certitude by homage paid to Vico, who is somewhat obscure compared to the earlier Spinoza, Locke, and Hobbs -- for that matter Descartes too (What would Vico have been without Descartes to minimize and criticize?). I've read that Vico wrote in vague ambiguous terms and that almost every movement from psychoanalysis to existentialism has claimed him as a founder. Another spin-off is the jump from Vico to the space-time locale of Anaximander. That's HM's fallback for inspiration for "zero-derivation." It seems like a manifestation of a psychic phenomenon to be held on suspicion for something. For instance, he has expressed an agreement with HM's views (in TA73R6) on religion "I love Muller's suggestion that religions should adapt some of their ontological assumptions to the practice of living. But I'm afraid they won't -- they stand and fall with the contention that they possess absolute truth." These spin-offs here and there from the point of representation or apperception, this aberration, qualifies for the application of some of KJ's work on psychopathology, especially his work in Agnosia. They seem like disturbances of recognition (forgetting forebears), disturbances of apperception (camouflaging disorientation within by setting up paper authorities). Kozloff in C15 has in part confirmed, in didactic matters, Constructionism (C) is to be counted among the deceased. What I mean is that C is as dead as our forebears but carried along by current pallbearers who have forgotten or are unaware of former contributors. The theory of "representation" and "re-presentation" expressed in TA 73 is, for instance, phenomenology, epiphenomenology, and apperception. My (GW) bracketed comments below attempts to clarify this within some of the repeated TA 73 text. The particular references to Karl Jaspers (KJ) are mainly from his General Psychopathology, pp. 169-179, 1969, English translation, The University of Chicago Press. [E7] Re [E11] Re [E14] Re [E15] Re [E16] Re [E17] Re [E18] Re [E20] Re [E21] Re [E22] Re [E23] Re [E24] Re [E25] Re [E26] Re [E29] 5. REPRESENTATION AS RECONSTRUCTION Re [E36] Re [E37] Re [E38] Re [E39] Re [E40] |
||