Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 10:55:05 +0200
From: Michael Eldred <artefact-AT-t-online.de>
Subject: Re: philosophy 101 diaphanous thoroughfare


Cologne 11-Sep-2001

Kenneth Johnson schrieb Sun, 9 Sep 2001 08:45:12 -0700
       Von:
          Kenneth Johnson <poochiegraig-AT-home.com>:

> Michael schrieb:
>
> >A little belated, having just returned from a holiday in Oz. This is not
> >just an
> >issue of turning up one's nose or not, but of whether Dreyfus' commentary on
> >_Being and Time_ introduces (lit.: leads in) the reader to a view of what
> >Heidegger had in view. I take it that a common man's interest in
> >philosophy is,
> >like the philosopher's, to learn to think.
> >
> >I don't have any William James or C.S. Peirce on my bookshelves, so let me
> >quote
> >Encyclopaedia Brittanica on pragmatism:
>
> Good morning Michael, _very_ nice to hear your written voice here again!!!

Hi Kenneth,

Pleased to hear from you too.

Totally unrelated to what you say (if that is possible), but I like it: I recently
read, written on the wall of the studio of Brett Whitely, one of Australia's great
names in painting who overdosed on heroin in 1992 at the age of 53, the studio
being situated in Surry Hills, Sydney:

"Once a philosopher,
Twice a pervert."

Cheers,
Michael
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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_-
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>
>
> For some reason and in a general way your thoughts on pragmatism and
> dreyfus below flash a couple N things to mind, and since these also center
> on the xself let me use them also to make a little polemic there too:
>
> Man as the most endangered animal - he needed help and protection, he
> needed his peers, he had to learn to express his distress and to make
> himself understood; and for all of this he needed "consciousness" first of
> all, he needed to "know" for himself what distressed him, he needed to
> "know" how he felt, he needed to "know" what he thought. For, to say it
> once more: Man, LIKE EVERY LIVING BEING, THINKS CONTINUALLY WITHOUT KNOWING
> IT [only those, btw, who have the Xself experience, _know_ this "other"
> thinking - intimately]; the thinking that rises to _consciousness_ is only
> the smallest part of all this-the most superficial and worst part-for only
> this conscious thinking _takes the form of words, which is to say signs of
> communication_, and this fact uncovers the origin of consciousness.
>
> In brief, the development of language and the development of consciousness
> (_not_ of reason but merely of the way reason enters consciousness [here
> the X experience again}) go hand in hand. Add to this that not only
> language serves as a bridge between human beings but also a mien, a
> pressure, a gesture. The emergence of our sense impressions into our own
> consciousness, the ability to fix them and, as it were, exhibit them
> externally, increased proportionately with the need to communicate them to
> _others_ by means of signs. The human being inventing signs is at the same
> time the human being who becomes ever more keenly conscious of himself. It
> was only as a social animal that man acquired self-consciousness-which he
> is still in the process of doing, more and more [the X as the ultimate of
> this "more".
>
> ----
>
> "Life no argument" -  We have arranged for ourselves a world in which we
> are able to live - with the postulation of bodies, lines, surfaces, causes
> and effects, motion and rest, form and content: without these articles of
> faith nobody could now endure to live! But that does not yet mean they are
> something proved and demonstrated. Life is no argument; among the
> conditions of life could be error [GS 121]
>
> ---
>
> "The four errors" - Man has been reared by his errors: first he never saw
> himself other than imperfectly, second he attributed to himself imaginary
> qualitites, third he felt himself in a FALSE order of rank with animal and
> nature, fourth HE CONTINUALLY INVENTED NEW TABLES OF VALUES AND FOR A TIME
> TOOK EACH OF THEM TO BE ETERNAL AND UNCONDITIONAL, so that now this, now
> that humand DRIVE and state took first place and was, as a consequence of
> this evaluation, ennobled. If one deducts the effect of these four errors,
> one has also deducted away humanity, humaneness and 'human dignity'. [GS
> 115]
>
> [I realize the X experience is not couched inside the "terrific" depthspeak
> of a Heidegger (nor in the deeptrain style of his commentators) and so this
> casts it off and away into the merely practical mode of thinking
> presentations, not worth the salt - but - - if you deepsters, said
> respectfully, were to actually "try" it hands on, and open yourselves to
> its absence of mystery and presence of utter magic - - - -]
>
> -k
> ======>




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