Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 07:33:04 -0700
From: Mike Staples <mstaples-AT-argusqa.com>
Subject: Re: Meaning


Thanks to you as well Greg.

GBORGERSON-AT-delphi.com wrote:

>         What I'm trying to get at when I say personal meaning is a
> little
> of both senses of personal. That is, the phenomenon is experienced by
> the
> individual and it has a special significance.

I was wondering if you might be able to contrast this with a phenomenon
is that is not experienced by the individual, that has any meaning for
the individual at all. Do you know what i mean? The implication is that
there is meaning that is not experienced by the individual and has no
special significance to the individual. My question hovers round, I
think, this notion of the individual. I am wondering if you can make a
clear distinction between the experience/signficiance that is not a part
of whatever we are calling and "individual" versus
experience/signficance that is. And I'm not saying that you can't make
this distinction, necessarily, I just want to question it further.

> For instance I see a
> chrysanthemum and tears comes to my eyes because it reminds me of my
> deceased brother. Now this is a personal experience as most people
> don't
> think of my brother when they see this particular flower in this
> particular
> color. SO this is the kind of experience I'm talking about.

Yes, I understand. The question I have, I suppose, is whether or not you
can make this experience into a kind of subjective meaning that stands
over and against meaning's of another sort, so that you can then ask
after "personal" or "individual" meanings versus meanings of a public
nature (I suppose would be the alternative). In grinding this through
for myself, it seems as though the public meanings are still my personal
meanings, just as the inauthentic is still "mine". And maybe this is
where the answer lies...the difference between authentic and inauthentic
meaning?

>         It seems that what you are saying is that this flower is
> language.
> In that case it would be a very personal sort of language.

The use of personal here is still flipping my buttons. I still see a
division being made that, for me, calls for clarification.

>         I have to say that I'm with Henry on interpretation

Well I don't dissagree with Henry, but I don't dissagree with Michael E.
-- who says he does not agree with interp-all-the-way-down -- either.
somehow or other, I'm livig with both.

>         The issue I'm struugling with has to do with the balance
> between
> the personal and the cultural, the individual and the social and
> what's
> left of the individual.

So it seems that getting really really clear on what the meaning of
personal and cultural is would be of great importance! I too am very
interested in this. Lately, I have been thinking about one step back --
of the difference between the ontic (perhaps issues of the personal --
whatever that turns out to be) versus the ontological (issues of Being).
I still see these divisions between Being and beings cropping up in many
different ways, over and over again. Is it the case in psychology that
we can boil all issues down to Being issues? Or do we recognize ontic
issues on the one hand, versus Being issues on the other hand? Or is
there some other formula? Or do we just say that, "Well, this ontology
stuff is very interesting, but we don't know what any of it means at the
ontic level" and simply relgate it to the world of thinking about stuff,
while psychology is kept strictly to the social-work level, concerning
itsel with behavior? I think, at this point, that I am partial to the
"Some issues are ontological, and some are ontic" scenerio.

I'm not very happy with this posting, Greg. Feels very incomplete...as
if it isn't really expressing quite what I want to say. And have to race
off to a meeting. But I'll send it just the same. Keep that sail trimmed
hard to the winds of thinking!

Michael S.






     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---