From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Tue Sep 16 2003 - 19:05:21 BST
Hi Scott
Found your post below very interesting. I don't
think there is much between us, Matt suggested that
your approach was similar to mine. Although, I think
it would take quite a bit of work to close certain language/
background reading differences. The Barfield stuff looks
very similar to Macann, I will investigate further. When I say
Being/Language/Man I think that you can talk about phenomenal
reality and focus on one of these elements. You can't escape any
entirely but you can move closer to one and further from the other.
Experience is all human experience (even maths and particles, maths
is a form of language, its assumptions are conected to human experience,
and particles have to enter human experience via certain equipment and in
a certain language for us to posit them and test them and talk about them).
We structure experience in terms of language, but there is Being which
has to be more than language and human experience but is therefore both
undeniable but also all but ungraspable. There is also no doubt that human
experience/consciousness has been on some kind of journey, separating
subject
and objects, grasping objects, manipulating objects, moving away from the
unity
of Being. And yes, somehow Being accounts for subjects and objects, and
human being
participates in Being, so it is very plausible that there is some contact
with the unity that
underlies subject/object alienation. Some of this stuff goes beyond Pirsig
as you suspect,
but I think Pirsig does well to open a space where some of these issues can
be considered.
Certainly in myth, I've read Neumann's The History of Consciousness', there
is lots
of interesting stuff that is a long way from subjects-objects, so I would
say yes, closer to
Being. And again, meditation is further from language/man and nearer to
Being (original unity).
To end a new poem:
What can we say for sure of man and world?
A coming together?
A focal point
for light.
The light gathers from near and far
from now and long ago.
A gathered world
that is haunted
by it’s own passing
and possibilities.
Hand and star.
Death and daughter.
And before birth:
The bang.
The carbon and metal making furnace.
Globe and food.
Language, land, law and master.
But now: Pop and football.
Opera and Heidegger.
And time.
And time to disturb a mountain
of poverty.
Regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott R" <jse885@spinn.net>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Monday, September 15, 2003 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: MD Dealing with S/O pt 1
> DM,
>
> > DM: One moment you are asking me what is real A or B, well
> > sorry I have no interest in these dualisms where one side is valued over
> > the other.
>
> You said: "My dictionary says that nominalism is anti-realist, which I am
> not." which sounds to me like you are saying "I am a realist". So I was
> merely
> asking which type of realist you were. I was trying to find out what you
> mean by "ontological phenomonologist"., but now that I've looked at the
> Being and Becoming thing, I see (not really, just know where to look
further
> if so desired.)
>
> I thought you might be coming from a similar place, although
> > you seem to skip between so many vocabularies I am no sure what
> > you are saying. I do think you can't point at any thing-it-itself, but
> > perhaps you can stop pointing from your point location and just
> > say 'Man/Language/Being'. -where I am quite happy to say that Being
> > is divine and therefore divine is in the mix, but not otherworldly old
> > noumenal.
>
> What do you mean by "just say 'Man/Language/Being'"? That is, what is one
> saying this about? In fact, I don't get this at all, after "I do think you
> can't point at any thing-it-itself".
>
> >
> > Scott: While I say that there is no phenomonal without the noumenal (and
> > vice versa).
> >
> > So an old fashioned Kantian at heart! So how do you distinguish between
> > these two realms then?
>
> My difference from Kant is that I do not assume the noumenal is
unknowable.
> Instead, I follow Barfield's line of thought (as given in his book "Saving
> the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry"), that in earlier times, people
> perceived the noumenal "behind" the phenomonal, calling it spirits, gods,
> etc., while in present times (since roughly 1500 AD) that kind of
perception
> has gone away, so we treat phenomena as objects. The promise is that the
> noumenal can be recovered, but not as before. (The earlier stage he calls
> "original participation", the later one "final participation", where
> "participation" means an extra-sensory link between the observer and the
> observed.).
>
> The two are distinguished in that one (phenomena) involve sense-perception
> and the other (noumena) do not.
>
> > I just say phenomenal to avoid dualism, so it is not the
> > phenomenal that is defined opposite noumenal, I don't want any
opposites,
> > what do you want to include in noumenal that is not part of phenomenal,
I
> expect
> > nothing that I would not prefer to include, especially as I just do not
> want your
> > divisions, there is only phenomenal experience, if its in there we can
> talk about it,
> > if it is not then it is no where!
>
> How do you classify mathematics, or subatomic entities? Neither are
> phenomenal, yet we can talk about them.
>
> There is one dualism it is hard to ignore, and that is that we think and
we
> perceive. I don't want to imply that one can't find a higher unity, but I
> think it is absurd to say that we can have a non-dualist starting point.
>
> > Do you want some kind of super natural power? Just give up this Plato
> stuff, read some Pirsig, if there is anything that is important its got to
> be
> hear and now for me.
> > Am I annoying you yet?
>
> Yes (to both questions). I've read Pirsig. I don't agree with all of it.
As
> for dismissing Plato (and Aristotle and the medievals), that is a question
> that needs reevaluation in light of the fact (if one agrees with Barfield)
> that consciousness has evolved since
> their time. Hence we are criticizing them without acknowledging that their
> data was different from ours. (And ours is the impoverished set of data).
>
> You might say that opposite phenomena is nothing, but nothing has got to
be
> > there for
> > phenomena to be there.
>
> There are phenomena, and there is awareness of phenomena and thinking
about
> phenomena. The latter two are not explicable in terms of the former. So
> there is something other than phenomena.
>
> >
> > If you want to examine phenomenology, the One and the Many,
> > and human consciousness, in a plausible package see Chris Macann's
> > Being and Becoming at onlineoriginals.com including some contact
> > with the ideas of Nishida.
>
> I looked -- see above. For Barfield, you may want to look at
>
> http://www.praxagora.com/stevet/fdnc/appa.html or
> http://eyelight.webservepro.com/
>
> > You drop a lot of hints Scott, don't just do -ve stuff, what are your
+ve
> > suggestions.
>
> By "-ve" and "+ve" do you mean negative and positive? I'll assume so.
>
> My positive suggestion has been, and has been practically since I started
> posting here, that Barfield has a lot to say on such matters as what the
> intellectual level is all about, and on why SOM arose in the first place.
>
> - Scott
>
>
>
>
> MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
> Mail Archives:
> Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
> Nov '02 Onward -
http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
> MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
>
> To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
> http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
>
>
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Sep 16 2003 - 19:07:58 BST