Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 07:02:56 -0800
From: Mike Staples <mstaples-AT-argusqa.com>
Subject: Re: Archetypes


BobAuler wrote:

> the fact that an eskimo may see a tree and have no idea what it is
> does not
> mean he sees it any differently than we do.  even if he may at first
> confuse
> it with a deity or a strange looking walrus doesn't mean he sees it
> any
> differently than we would if we saw a space visitor of radically
> different
> form.  they are still "things" whether they have familiar names and
> emotions
> connected with them

MS: I would agree with your conclusion about things still being things.
But I would question your conclusion about the meaning of that thing.
And since the thing is also its meaning, I would question your
conclusion that the eskimo sees the same "thing" that we might. I would
argue that the eskimo's seeing a walrus or a deity is the eskimo's
seeing something quite different than we might see. By saying that the
Eskimo is just wrong about what she sees and will come to the light of
what the thing really is at some point (and that will be the same thing
we see), you are perhaps constructing a world of
interpretation-independent objects that fly in the face of
phenomenology. As henry has pounded into me (a long a bloody battle that
turned my 53 Buick, V8 into a squeeky VW in need of a tune-up), dasein
is interpretation all the way down.

Michael Staples




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