Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 06:15:45 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: HAB: Ideally discursive learning


Ken--I think I understand your concern about the infinite recursion
implicit in using procedures to justify norms.  Several responses
(not "replies"): 
	-- I think you, with Faust, are looking for "was die Welt am
innerstens zusammenhaelt". 
	-- I believe the same criticism can be applied to our very
existence and apperception of reality:  how do we know that our
consciousness, grounded in one concrete organization of matter (and
even to call it "matter" is already to buy into this problematic
system of categories), is the only one possible?  I personally have
a very real sense of this ... what to call it -- uncertainty? the
Taoist "wu shi"? ... from time to time.  The Bible makes this origin
unproblematic by saying that in an earth that was "without form",
God divided the light from the dark.  But that merely gives a name
--"God" -- to the original ambiguity;  it doesn't solve it.  Taoism
is more forthright in its recognition of this ambiguity.  Here is
Chapter 14 of the Tao Te Ching: 
	Look, it cannot be seen -- it is beyond form. 
	Listen, it cannot be heard -- it is beyond sound. 
	Grasp, it cannot be held -- it is intangible. 
	These three are indefinable; 
	Therefore they are joined in one. 

	From above it is not bright; 
	From below it is not dark: 
	An unbroken thread beyond description. 
	It returns to nothingness. 
	The form of the formless,
	The image of the imageless,
	It is called indefinable and beyond imagination. 

	Stand before it and there is no beginning. 
	Follow it and there is no end. 
	Stay with the ancient Tao,
	Move with the present. 

	Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao. 
				[Feng & English translation]


	-- In my paper on the two moments of discourse ethics, I
talk about how in the second moment, M2, we ultimately are faced
with the very ambiguity that concerns you:  "In the end, [we must]
make [our] decision based on circumstances that are unique to [us]
and perhaps even accidental. Having already applied what reason [we]
can bring to it, [we] at last have to lay [our] future at the feet
of [our] lifeworld."  [If you're interested in the full argument,
the text of the paper appears on my web site.] What I'm implying is
that we are ALWAYS faced with that ambiguity, not just in our search
for the ultimate (past) ground of justification.  It seems to me
that this is where the concepts of faith and grace are necessary:
facing our decisions, we are always already in the situation of
having to trust that we are walking on something firm, that we are
not in the cartoon character's situation of having gone past the
edge of the cliff and walking on nothing at all (and, when we notice
it, falling).  We look down, see that there seems to be nothing
underneath us, and yet also see that we aren't falling -- and so
keep walking, not understanding but not stopping either. 

	-- I am reminded of someone I knew who, on an acid trip,
looked around at the people she was tripping with and realized, with
a shock, "we're just all monkeys waiting to die."  Having noticed
this, she concluded that she may as well kill herself, but --
knowing that she was on an acid trip -- she decided not to do
anything until she came down.  "If I think the same way tomorrow,
I'll kill myself then," she decided.  So tomorrow came, and she
still thought the same way, but she decided not to kill herself,
since (or so I gather) she realized that it was as meaningless to
commit suicide as to live.  I think we're all always faced with that
same existential choice.  There is no ground, there won't ever be
any ground, and the only real choice we have is whether to keep
walking in acceptance of that ignorance. 


Your local mystic, available for hire, write for rates, easy payment
plans available, all credit cards accepted,

Steve

*************************************************************
| Stephen Chilton, Associate Professor, Dept of Pol Science |
|    Univ of Minnesota-Duluth / Duluth, MN 55812-2496 / USA |
|                                                           |
| 218-726-8162/7534   FAX: 726-6386   Home: 724-0979 (home) |
| www.d.umn.edu/~schilton    EMAIL: schilton-AT-mail.d.umn.edu |
|                                                           |
| "You cannot demand your rights, civil or otherwise, if    |
| you are unwilling to say what you are."                   |
|	- Merle Miller, novelist [via Shawn Burich]         |
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