From: "henry sholar" <H_SHOLAR-AT-marta.uncg.edu> Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 7:26:15 EST Subject: Re: Perspectivism >Steve Callihan: >"The ripe fruit wants to fall." Sorry, I don't have my finger on exactly >where this is from, maybe Zarathustra (anybody know?). Ascendancy and >descendancy, in other words, belong to a coherent whole, as coequal >potentials. Rising and falling. Living and dying. It is, in other words, not >on the basis that things rise or fall that a value may be ascribed. Rising >and falling are not values, but the twin potentialities (coming to be and >passing away) that underly any being. Mr. Potato-head: Heidegger --with the distinction between Being & beings-- would say that things get disclosed & forgotten, uncovered and covered back up. But what gets disclosed is disclosed (to us) not from theory but from our cultural practices & our developed skills. there is in this primordial disclosure a zen-like quality of being attunded to things and knowing those things in those primordial (primary) ways. i call it zen-like because in the west we usually don't pay attention to our attunements to things unless they breakdown. >Nietzsche's point about will to truth is, I think, much further along this >line of thought. It is essentially that the affirmation of becoming--coming >to be and passing away, or life as birth_and_ death (or growth and >decay)--requires a strength that is other than what is normatively human. >Oedipus eyes and Odysseus ears are required, as he put it. Resoluteness in >the face of death (the nether side of life) is bravery. This is, in other >words, the Nietzschean ground on which Heidegger puts forward his notion of >authenticity. Along this line of thought, will to truth may be thought of as >possessing the twin potentialities of authenticity and inauthenticity. As >authentic, it is the eyes of Oedipus, the ears of Odysseus. As inauthentic, >it is the three monkeys, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. The human >norm, however, is inauthenticiy. The authentic is the exception. (parenthetically, this is a kind of moralism tucked away in an ontology--& i note yer specifically naming _b&t_ authenticity: "anticipatory resoluteness." but, i'm one of those heideggerians who think that heidegger had real difficulties with this after _b&t_ -- if he didn't reject it all together.) Ontologically here, nietz still has language which is essentially intentional, & therefore "subject/object." Intentionality, and descriptions formalizing that intentionality, is another parting of the ways for heid with nietz. >It seems to be that you are asserting that the foreground belongs to the >background, and must first be separated (focused, if you will), before it >can be said to form a discrete appearance (phenomenon). Prior to such a >separation (or focusing), neither foreground nor background could be said to >be phenomenologically distinct. This would seem to fit with Nietzsche's >notion of a prior reduction (the equating of the inequatable) which must >occur prior to any perspective (stand-point) coming to be. It is, in other >words, only in relation to a perspective that a foreground and a background >may be said to be, but prior to the arrisal of any perspective, something >must already have been fashioned from which a foreground and background >might then be resolved. This is very much implicit, I think, in Nietzsche's >thinking, and is what distinguishes his thinking from a mere positivism, for >instance. i'm not saying there is an essential separate distinction of "foreground" and "background." i don't even understand "foreground." i think there is always dynamic connection between everything that we can describe as a perspective, which i prefer to call a cultural practice, and the background of all practices, skills, and more. first, there is no isolated appearance ever, especially because there is no isolated perceiver ever. one gains one's 'perspectives' because one is skillful within the pracitces and customs of a culture that enables one such "perspectives." all of these perspectives (well, not all, 'theoretically' they are infinite) are 'grounded' by the background which is for one thing, all of the other unconsciously assumed perspectives that are interdependently linked to 'the perspective" and also the background is more just these other perspectives (cultural practices). I think "the background" is both "all the cultural practices" but it is also "the work" of history, that is, it is the very fluidity of change that gores on around us constantly, disclosing as well as covering up things as our skills and practices change, ie, we forget old skills and pick up new ones. the distinction between the background ad a bunch of skills, and the background as this dynamism of historical change is crucial. and, once agin, it denotes the ontological difference, the notorious ontological difference. >Except that Nietzsche, it seems to me, denies the distinction between pure >and practical reason. Pure reason is, itself, practical, in other words. To >assert otherwise would be to assert, ala Kant, etc., that the value of a >perspective might be adjudged by its reason. This is what Nietzsche >specifically denies. Reason and logic afford us no means to adjudge the >truth of reason or logic, in other words. Knowledge cannot know itself. The >question of the ground of reason comes down to two alternatives: 1) divine >fiat and 2) natural development (or evolution). Nietzsche opts for the >latter on the grounds of it simply being more "reasonable," if you will. Or >why resort to a fantastical explanation (divine fiat), when a perfectly >rational, if not entirely exhaustive, explanation is available. Shit >happens, in other words. none of the "reasons" is of primordial importance, the pure, the practical, the logical, the green one, the autumn one-- reason is not associated essentially to our most primary knowledge. our primary knowledge is bodily and culturally developed skills and practices that enable coping with and caring for our 'world.' you are (still) arguing logic and reason here. you are still presenting apologetics for a formal holism. i am saying the holism involves driving cars, tuning a radio station, hammering a nail, etc, not distinctions between pure and practical reason. (i know not nor do i care whether reason and logic adjudge the truth of reason and logic or whether knowledge can know itself. i don't think any of that makes any sense except perhaps in terms of numerical calculation. nonetheless, it is not at all what i am talking about; it is not the same level of description as safely taking a freeway exit off the interstate.) >And these cultures are, for Nietzsche, perspectives. They are the >perspectives themselves, and cannot be said to be what underwrites the >perspectives vis-a-vis each other. A perspective exists prior to our coming >to know and elaborate what it is, in that it is the result of a development >relative to which knowledge only comes late. A perspective is a growth (or >will to power). The "tacit" understandings form the body of the perspective, >but a body which remains primarily removed from view and which we only come >to know second or third hand, as "affects" (wills) and "projections" >(representations) for instance. Peirce here speaks of reality as being >triune, as being composed coequally of action (firstness), feeling >(secondness), and thought (thirdness), a notion he traces back to Hegel. you are into the formal holism deep now, Steve, you are tracing the actual existence of thoughts and perspectives as though they were things. i know you are assuming a "formal" stance with this language, but that only means you are metaphorically claiming the existence of these mental states. that's one of the things worng with formal holism. >The question here would be whether culture, as a general phenomenon, might >be said to provide a ground. Still, that would only provide a ground that >might be said to be true for us, a "species perspective," as I've put it. It >would compose what is absolutely true for us, but could not be said to be >what is absolutely true as such (although, we can't say positively that it >isn't the absolutely true as such). The first thing that would have to be >excluded, however, would be morality. There is no general agreement as to >morality that runs across all cultures. Each culture possesses its own >"good," in other words. > >However, even a species perspective, it seems to me, must be highly >speculative. Not something ever known in any final sense, in other words. At >most, it seems to me, it implies that there is an infinite multiplicity of >perspectives, of which ours is only one. still using your formal language, you are approaching what i mean by background as you approach that (formal) "infinte multiplicity of of perspectives." > >Except neither Nietzsche and Peirce are doing what you suggest. My >suggestion, rather, is that the underground agreements between Heidegger, >Nietzsche, and Peirce are more abundant than what might appear at first >sight. Both Nietzsche and Peirce assign a practical ground to reason and >logic that is, itself, something other than necessarily logical or >reasonable. Peirce refers to logic, for instance, as a "habit." Nietzsche >refers it to a _pathos_ or "affect." The three are in agreement here, it >seems to me. Know-how, in other words, is an already existent "affect," a >state of pathos that always already animates us in relation to the object of >that pathos (the world of things). this is said in cartesian language: "...relates us to the object of that pathos..." no matter how many words for it there are, "pathos" affect" "feeling" even "will to power"-- the framework for this is still subject/object ontology, a formal, logical stance. this is as far as i could take it the last few days. i know i'm not satisfied with my attempts at clarity, so i'm sure it is frustrating to you as well--for which i apologize. i will try another tact, perhaps. thanks for directions to Peirce, perhaps that will help. kindest regards, henry --- from list nietzsche-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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