Philosophical reflections emerging from various encounters.From Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida,and Nietzsche.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Merleau-Ponty- "The Phenomenology of Perception" IV
It is perhaps here in the temporality chapter that the true significance of the Phenomenology of Perception is brought to the foreground. We live in fields of fields, of which temporality is simply the most basic, or perhaps the most originary. We historically have had the tendency to privilege the activities of thetic intentionality and disregard the level of ‘mere’ existence which lives beneath it. This example, of what Merleau-Ponty would call “high altitude” thinking, is precisely that which Merleau-Ponty is aiming at when he points at the pre-objective present which is the basis upon which thetic intentionality can function at all. It is therefore the case that this “high altitude” thinking seems to undermine its own claims to objective validity, when it fails to notice that it is erected upon a “pyramid of time” sexual energies, mistaken utterances and even possibly erroneous conclusions. In short, we reckon with all that is given explicitly and that which is not explicit, that which is simply operant in every effort to express, act, or engage with others and the world we share. What we project, in the first place, is the same thing we encounter again and again in every reflection, in every attempt to step back from the flux and arrest its flow if even for a moment, and that is a world which comes before me and yet which I effect with my own movement and the movements of others. The world is always given in advance as part of my unfolding which is the movement of time.
Merleau-Ponty- "The Phenomenology of Perception" III
If metaphysics is“–the coming to light of something beyond nature–” then sexuality would have metaphysical significance. The body as it opens upon others is fundamentally sexual, that is it uncovers the world in the ambiguity of a sexual field. Desire, love, modesty and shame articulate a metaphysics of the world as it is uncovered in embodiment. We cannot isolate the sexual kernel from the general unfolding of experience it is part of the texture, the fabric, or the style of existence. In transcending ourselves when encountering the other in a movement of existence we come across the other as desirable, repulsive, as stimulating perhaps even in ways beyond our capacity to name The point is that these ways are simply operant in our perception such that it seems to be true to say that in order to adopt the rationalist, or idealist perspective we must completely forget the fact of our existing and ignore the metaphysics of the everyday layer of experience. The indeterminacy of existence is not some accident, or mistake in perception, it is the metaphysics of perception itself.
Merleau-Ponty- "The Phenomenology of Perception" II
Merleau-Ponty’s account of the phenomena of the phantom limb and anosognosia emerges from his dialectical engagement with the physiological and psychological accounts of the same phenomena. His account of being-in-the-world, as a pre-objective view of the world and phenomena therein, is a mediation between the failures of the physiological and psychological accounts. By placing being-in-the-world firmly in the unified structure of the body, the body becomes the invisible center of perception. In this sense, the availability of the body’s capacities would be that which is most often taken for granted in our everyday way of being-in-the-world. The body is, therefore, the product of biological and cultural inheritance. Furthermore, each particular moment brings with it the entirety of my past and the past of the species. The body is, therefore, both a personal and practical field and the anonymous field of a body in general. Explained through being-in-the-world, the phenomenon of phantom limb appears as the pathological adherence to a world wherein the absent limb would still be available and afford itself to our intentions. Similarly, in the case of anosognosia, the subject is pre-refectively aware of a deficiency on the level of his being-in-the-world, but simply refuses to reflect upon it in order not to feel the absence. Merleau-Ponty’s account upsets the traditional account, which suffers from the prejudice of presence, by returning to the layer of lived experience, which encounters the body as an “I can”.
Merleau-Ponty- "The Phenomenology of Perception" I
In the first place, we would come across colours upon a different sort of background, a background which is the projection of a sedimented history, something like the history of our experiences to date. While colours would not yet form any part of our perceptual experience, in the truth of the first time, we would gain access to them as a kind of indeterminate experience. Faced with the ambiguity of the indeterminate experience we would take it up into ourselves, in a movement of appropriation, such that the background, or the history of our experience to date will be altered in the wake of this novel experience. In this movement, the movement between the passive encounter with the first appearance of colour, and its appropriation into the now altered structure of consciousness, we render the indeterminate content of experience determinate. The structure of consciousness has been altered in the wake of this movement, in view of its capacity to understand, or reactivate the truth of the first colour experience. This experience opens up a new dimension of possible experience; it is in this sense that Merleau-Ponty invokes the notion of horizons and the possibility of extending or broadening their scope. It is the case, therefore, that every subsequent encounter with colour will be founded upon the truth of the first time. The establishment of a necessary structure, an a priori, in turn assures that the truth of the first time remains present every time. This is not to say that this structure is static, or does not undergo alterations and refinements of its own, but rather that each subsequent colour experience is already understood in terms of the a priori sedimented in the appropriation of the inaugurating experience.
This account is essential to the sustained critique of the intellectualist and empiricist traditions, in that it provides and account of learning which is suspiciously absent in either account. Merleau-Ponty provides an account about how it is that we come to understand the world in terms of the experiences we have therein. We do not perceive things in the world as a kind of ‘tabula rasa,’ but rather as already part of a tradition, which interprets. It is therefore the case that even in our founding movements, in the truths of the inaugural perceptions they are already part of a framework, or background of previously interpreted phenomena. For Merleau-Ponty, among the primary task seems to be an attempt to get behind, or perhaps underneath these inaugural experiences in order to make manifest the layers of a priori sedimentation that contribute to the interpretation of indeterminate phenomena in certain determinate ways.
Heidegger- "Being and Time" VI
The temporal horizon, in the account of the understanding is taken ecstatically in the sense that it is taken as primarily composed of a past present and a future. The understanding is for the most part a futural structure in that it is always already engaged in projecting its possibilities into the future. It is always ahead of itself in its projections. In “anticipation” the understanding is authentically projecting its possibilities as possibilities. Inauthentically, the understanding simply “awaits” the realization of itself in possibilities, which have been given to it in advance. The present, taken in resoluteness, is authentic in that it remains resolute in the face of the unrealized projections, or possibilities of the understanding. The present, taken inauthentically, makes present the ‘now’ as something present at hand. The past taken resolutely remains possible as a repetition, as something, which remains a possible projection into the future. Inauthentically, the past is forgotten and is closed, or settled the way things are settled in everydayness. In each case we have an understanding, which can close, or allow itself to be determined by the inauthenticity of the given ways of being. Or, it can maintain itself as an authentic possibility of itself in the sense that it can remain open to the projection of its own possibilities.
The understanding, as understood from the horizon of temporality, gives the understanding to itself as something to be understood. In other words as the understanding projects itself into the future and, in turn, faces itself as that towards which it is on the way. The understanding therefore encounters itself temporally as something to be understood.
Heidegger- "Being and Time" V
Resoluteness is precisely the projection of Dasein’s Self–not the they-self of das man–towards its Being-guilty as resolved even in the face of anxiety. Anxiety, which once again appears in the face of the ‘not-yet’ as the possibility of impossibility of Dasein. As such it makes sense when Heidegger states that “Only when it ‘qualifies’ itself as Being-towards-death does resoluteness understand the ‘can’ of its potentiality-for-Being guilty” (BT- 306). In other words it is only in resoluteness, which is a way of actively or resolvedly letting oneself be, can death be taken up as a possibility. In order for this active passivity to be lived we must turn to the structure of anticipation that is seemingly already implied in resoluteness itself. It is only in Being-towards-the-end, that is Being-towards-death, as a kind of running ahead to the totality, that resoluteness can manifest the authentic potentiality of its Being in the structure of Being-towards-death as anticipation. It is therefore the case that only in anticipation can Dasein’s Being-guilty be taken as an opening as the structure of the ‘not-yet.’ It is only through “anticipatory resoluteness” that Dasein can disclose itself and the world authentically in terms of its potentiality-for-Being-a-whole. In each case anticipation at once encounters the non-relational, the possibility of impossibility, as a possibility. Anticipation discloses the possibility of Dasein’s primordial Being-towards-death as possible. “As Being-towards-the-end which understands–that is to say, as anticipation of death–resoluteness becomes authentically what it can be” (BT-305). To adopt this actively passive stance we would continuously take possession of ourselves as a whole. A whole in-terms-of-which and for-the-sake-of-which are.
Heidegger- "Being and Time" IV
If we are attentive to the movement Heidegger outlines, we can see that the whole is presupposed and that the structure is never closed until we ourselves are at-an-end, until the event of our “demise.” It is therefore the case that death reveals that by living towards the “not-yet” we are, as it were, living towards the infinite opening in the structure of Being. Death reveals this possibility by making manifest the “possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein” (BT 251). In other words Dasein is presented with the possibility of its own impossibility. Death forces Dasein to reckon with its own finitude – a finitude from which it cannot escape. It is the case however, that this reckoning goes further, in the sense that Dasein is forced to face its “ownmost” possibility, that towards-which it has no capacity to relate; it is precisely the inability to relate. Even further as possibility, this kind of reckoning reveals to Dasein the impossibility of its going beyond even though it can envisage a beyond all the same. Dasein is thrown towards a possibility to which it cannot relate and cannot overcome; it is thrust upon the end of itself. Dasein is always already its end when it reckons in this way, in that it always completes itself in the movement of reckoning. However, until it’s demise, it continuously finds itself disposed, able to go further to beyond itself. This way of Being-towards-death makes manifest the possibility of Dasein’s Being-futural as a kind of temporal unfolding in time.
Heidegger- "Being and Time" III
If we attend carefully to the movement that Heidegger unfolds–and to the attention we are able to give to it–we see that through our attentiveness we do not add anything to the understanding that wasn’t already there in advance, rather we realize the understanding in terms of the possibilities it already has. We must keep in mind the structure of the ready-to-hand– encountered circumspectively in terms of the ‘in-order-to’ that it possesses in reference to a totality of equipment– with which the understanding is always already actively involved. The understanding engages with ready-to-hand entities in terms of the background, the totality of involvements, the world of significance, which is a shared one. The understanding occurs, as it were, pre-cognitively, as a kind of pre-thematic engagement with the shared world. The prefix ‘pre’, does not mean to suggest that this way of engaging with the world must necessarily be thematized, but rather, that it always possesses this as a possibility of itself. When Heidegger says that, “in interpretation, understanding does not become something different. It becomes itself” (MR, 188) he is pointing to the movement whereby interpretation accomplishes the understanding as something. The ‘as’ structure of interpretation is such that it is already involved in the unfolding of Dasein in terms of a totality of involvements, and opens up the possibility of making explicit the meaning structures latent therein. If this world of significance is indeed a shared one, as Heidegger suggests it is, then how often are we given over to the interpretations of others? How often do we engage in the movement of interpretation and surrender ourselves to the ready-made interpretations? It is only through this movement of becoming attentive that we are able to engage with the strange movement of the hermeneutic circle.
Heidegger- "Being in Time" II
Circumspection, if we attend to Heidegger’s formulation, is a non-theoretical way of ‘seeing’ which discloses entities in the world in a certain way. In other words, when Dasein is at its best it engages or is involved in a context, or environment, which it already understands circumspectively. Even further, ready-to-hand entities are always encountered circumspectively in terms of their ‘in-order-to’ functions. Or, in other words, the ready-to-hand entities, which Heidegger calls ‘equipment,’ are always already rendered determinate in terms of their ‘references’ and ‘ assignments.’ These ‘references’ and ‘assignments’ are already determined in light of the totality of equipment, or the world wherein and within which they appear. As such the ready-to-hand, as opposed to the present-at-hand, is not a thing which we might examine in terms of its properties, nor something we might subject to some kind of theoretical account of its nature. Rather, it is something we would encounter in the flow of our unfolding, such that it would afford itself to something we are already engaged in. For example, we would not need to think of the hammer in order to nail two boards together, rather the hammer would simply offer itself, as if assigned to our intention, to hammer in a kind of effortless movement a seemingly thoughtless way of skillfully engaging with the world. Furthermore, hammers would make no sense circumspectively in a world without nails and boards and things that require hammering. As such hammers make no sense outside a context of reference to the equipmental totality.
Being-in-the-world, has thus far presented itself as a meaningful way of being situated. It is, as Heidegger articulates it, a way of coping with the world pre-reflexively in light of the activity we are already engaged in, namely the activity of Being-in-the-world. As such, we encounter equipment, which offers itself to our understanding gaze, in terms of the possibilities it affords and the totality of equipment from which it comes. Any attempt to speak, or say what it is we are doing, or any failure in the performance of the task will draw us out of the state wherein we find ourselves already meaningfully engaged and place us before present-at-hand items and contexts which we seem to no longer understand.
Heidegger- "Being and Time" I
Heidegger begins with the question “What is meant by “Being-in”?” Taking this question as his point of departure, Heidegger proceeds to demonstrate how this question has been answered incorrectly by the Cartesian tradition. In the first place, this way of proceeding intends to demonstrate that for the most part, Dasein’s Being-in has been taken ontically in the sense of being something merely present-at-hand alongside other present-at-hand entities in the world. As such, the Cartesian tradition has passed over a much more basic phenomenon of Being-in-the-world as an a priori state of the Being of Dasein. Due to the absence of the ontological question, Being-in has for the most part been taken to be “knowing the world” grounded in a subjectivity which encounters a world of objects. Heidegger treats Being-in equiprimordially, or in such a way that its essence may not be given in any single modality of its Being. Furthermore, because Dasein’s Being-in-the-World, a particular modality of Being-in, is for the most part presupposed ontically it is most often veiled ontologically or understood negatively in terms of entities which it itself is not. By proceeding, as it were, apophatically, Heidegger will attempt to uncover a positive characterization of Being-in-the-world, not as something present at hand but as state of Dasein’s Being.
If we take Being-in, as Heidegger suggests, to have a dual meaning–both the sense of a location, or a dwelling alongside, and a kind of absorption, or concern for that dwelling–then the world would be the space wherein Dasein finds itself concernfully located. Dasein is principally absorption in the world, or in other words Dasein always already has a world. We are, as it were, faced with a departure from the Cartesian tradition, which has taken Dasein’s relation to the world to be one of a knower to the objects of knowledge. In Heidegger’s account Dasein’s Being-in is inseparable from World in that Dasein always already understands itself in terms of its environment, which constitutes a kind of field of familiarity to which Dasein has recourse. Notice that this Being-in-the-World is not a theoretical standing before, nor an epistemological relation between a subject and a world of objects but an existential modality of Dasein’s Being-in.
Dasein, therefore, is always already concernfully situated in the world and always already understands itself environmentally in terms of a totality of possible involvements. Dasein’s Being-in-the-World, is not conceived nor perceived in a manner present-at-hand, but rather, Dasein is always already Being-in-the-World. Dasein’s facticity is such that it comports itself in terms of the entities it finds within the world, and expresses itself in terms of its Being-in-the-World as its primary mode of Being.