Date: Sat, 03 Oct 1998 10:22:43 -0400
From: "Erick A. Medina" <erick_medina-AT-hms.harvard.edu>
Subject: Re: Meaning


I've been following this fascinating discussion and would like to jump in
with a few comments.  Apologies in advance for my German and for being
long-winded.

As a clinical psychologist I have to admit I find approaches to the mind
from contemporary cognitive science to rely on too limited a notion of
language and meaning.  It seems to me that in the attempt to model the mind
on a machine (e.g., Fodor, Dennett) language becomes little more than a
wheelbarrow for semantic contents and meaning is reduced to something like
Habermas' 'communicative competence'.  Now I like Habermas, but he like
others seem to me to reduce to taking a test which one can only take
pass/fail.  In any case, I'd like to hear from others how such a
perspective might intersect with the perspective I understand Heidegger to
be offering.

Where I find Heidegger useful is precisely in the opening up of the
ontological dimension in language.  I think that effective therapy begins
with a serious awareness of the ontological difference, and ideally takes
place in the 'ontological realm' where a Clearing ('das Offene', not so
much a reified, re-presented 'place') is prepared for individuals to bring
and thematize their particular way of Being-in-the-World.

At least that is my preferred framework for exploring what I consider
serious ontological issues:

What possibilities for Being are embraced?  Which ones are simultaneously
rejected?  How is this individual 'presencing' him/herself through
language?  To what extent is this individual's life filled with ontic
events ('Erlebnis'/encounters with beings) or ontological experiences
('Erfahrung'/'encounters with Being)?  What is this individual's way of
Being-in-the-World?  And finally, am I being sufficiently neutral and/or
self-disclosing to allow this individual's particular mode of
Being-in-the-World to make itself present, or am I, by my way of Being,
closing down some possibilities myself?

Through this lens, it seems language becomes less of a wheelbarrow and more
of a garden where both therapist and patient participate in creating
(ideally) an edifying work of art in which both individuals participate and
are found.  Most of all, such a 'garden' for me falls away from being a
mere 'thing' among 'things' but a privileged 'Event'/'Ereignis' which has
at least the potential to provide a temporary 'dwelling' for Language (as
the House of Being).

Now just how precisely to do this is the question I struggle with every
day.  No two patients or even consulations with the same person are alike,
so I wonder how others out there are bringing an ontological awareness to
their work of teaching, writing, or doing therapy.  Thanks in advance--


Erick A. Medina
Clinical & Research Fellow in Psychology
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School



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