File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1999/lyotard.9902, message 23


Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 09:55:14 -0800
From: Lois Shawver <rathbone-AT-california.com>
Subject: Re: the rest is silence


Anita,

Your last post makes good sense to me.  Let me follow your
distinction between a "what" understanding and a "why"
understanding.  I think in doing so we are negotiating a
language-game that is local and provisional, in the way
that Lyotard talks about in the beautiful last section of
his essay, the Postmodern Condition.  I believe the fact
that our language is local and provisional, however, does
not limit the scope of our topic.  We are just setting up
our language tools with no commitment to carrying these
particular definitions into other arenas.

May we continue?  "What understanding" is (perhaps not
exclusively) the understanding of terms or rules of the
game.  "Why understanding" is an understanding of the
other's subjectivity.  To achieve "what understanding' I
might just say "What do you mean by 'going out for
dinner?'"  But to achieve a "why understanding" I might
invite you to tell me the narrative of some critical
events in your past and I would listen not only to your
words but I would let your words enlarge my imagination as
to the scene of these critical events in your life.
Nothing so imaginatively picturesque would be involved in
the negotiation of terms in a "what" understanding.

The "why understanding" seems much more profound but I
let's not dismiss the 'what understanding" too rapidly.
Don't you think my accepting your definition of things
enhances the possiblity that i can glimpse some hint of
your subjectivity?  That the calibration of our language
tools has the power to facilitate the deepening of our
powers to appreciate each other's experiential self?

..Lois Shawver



   

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