Re: Onticality

I'd like to talk some more into this question of the how's and what's of the working ( thinking) relationship between the ontic and fundamental ontology. Now I'm wondering about the "neurotic," those moments that seem to interfere with thinking (anywhere along the line between the practical and the philosophical) by absorbing one's capacity for focus. I think this condition, which by the way, is not even mine( I wouldn't burden you with such irrelevant personals), but rather the neurotic as such-- similar, I think, to what the Greeks called "Akrasia," which I insist, no doubt mistakenly, can be translated as "being out of sorts"--does have to do somehow ( some-how) with thinking the ontological, perhaps primarily because of how thinking the ontological must be, by definition, the most absorbing and focused of all possibilities for thinking. Perhaps that's why thinking or even thinking about thinking sometimes can make one so happy.

Allen(very happy for the moment)

Every once in a while, I think it pays to once again look into the onto--what is it in the ontic that not only is transposable, but perhaps even must be transposed into the ontological as a constituent of ontological thinking, or, to put it another way, What is fundamental in fundamental ontology?

Based on Aristotle, I would say that that transposable ontic etwas must be justice: A common sense of what is right, of dikei, and a thinking through of the particular situation in which that common sense of what is just might be threatened seems (at this frenzied moment) as essential to fundamental ontology as religion (as such). And that to me says a lot.

I guess I'm also saying( I still think with Aristotle) that the judgement,made through the discourse we hold in common, that our shared sense of what is just is threatened, is as reasonable and valid as any "philosophical" argument that holds water ( or doesn't hold water) with us.

That's not to say that everyone would agree. That's not the way sensus communis works. Even the Romans knew that it was not a matter of numbers, but the discourse--It's all in the discourse baby!

Best regards,

Allen( embroiled by the political, local in this case, but that really doesn't matter)

M and M

The point you make below Marilynn is very similar to that made by Jan Patocka (The Czech philosopher I mentioned in an e-mail from Prague, mentor of Vaclav Havel, student of Husserl and Heidegger) talking about the relevance to philosophy, especially Husserlian a phenomenology to the situation he and other "velvet philosophers" faced during late communism, really the most suppressive time during the thirty years of "occupation." Before reading a collection of lectures he gave in the homes of friends (He was forbidden to teach at the University) called PLATO AND EUROPE, I would have wholeheartedly agreed with Michael. Now I seem to be thinking about a slightly more fluid version of "fundamental ontology," which considers, which is willing to consider, how reflecting on the time which we participate in making might bear on our thinking about Time and temporality, as in thinking through the apparent tautology, "Time is temporal."

Best regards,

Allen

P.S. Michael, "you've gone and changed your name again!" This is a step which should not be considered lightly. Jacob changed his name to Israel (okay, so it was somewhat different, but the fact that he thought he heard a divine command to that effect is sort of beside the point) which wreaked havoc in his family and is partially responsible for the present crisis in the Middle East.

But, of course, whatever you decide is okay by me.

Michael,

I quoted this for the interesting first sentence. It has momentum, which is
sadly lost by the end - but the singularity of human nature. We could give
him the benefit of the doubt and assume that his thinking is
'philosophical'. In the context he is comparing the timing of the first
publication 1924 to the second edition 1950, and thinks that the
multiplication of atrocities should increase the tension for historical
thinking. But the span of time, from the world wars to his writing of the
preface was still too short to goad us into thinking about history, though
the materials of atrocities for comparison with the Greek encounters is
there.

I picked up this volume to review before delving into Ortega y Gassett's
work using Toynbee as a foil for his own spin on 'universal history'.

Marilynn quoted Toynbee:

> "Thinking is as unnatural and arduous an activity for human beings as
> walking on two legs is for monkeys. We seldom do more of it than we

have

> to; and our disinclination to think is generally greatest at the times

when

> we are feeling the most comfortable...
>
> ...but twentieth-century Western man, with a most exceptionally

comfortable

> quarter of a millennium behind him, is not very well equipped for this
> necessary but difficult intellectual task...
>
> In essence, the historical experiences which wrung these thoughts out of
> Greek souls are akin to the experiences through which we ourselves have

been

> passing. The Greek thoughts...are reflections, in human minds, of world
> wars and class wars, cultural encounteres at close quarters between

peoples

> with sharply different social heritages, atrocities and acts of heroism,

and

> all the other enigmatic patterns, woven in the part-colored web of Good

and

> Evil, that stimulate human minds to wrestle with the paradoxes of Human
> Nature."
>
> A. J. Toynbee - 1950.
> Preface to Second Edition of Greek Historical Thought

Marilynn, I presume that "thinking" here means thinking as in

philosophical

thinking and not just that everyday cogitating or reckoning or opining

that

seems to go on incessantly; and that by " Greek thoughts" we are talking

of

the likes of the pre-Socratics and Plato and Aristotle (as well as

perhaps,

Homer, Sophocles, Aristophanes, et al). The second two quotes seem to be
somewhat contradictory: the first suggests that with relatively

comfortable

environs and conditions, 20th C western man is "not very well equipped for
this necessary but difficult intellectual task"; whereas in the 3rd, the

> "historical experiences" that stimulate thinking are very much the same
for

the Greeks as 20th C western man (who is ill-equipped?). But anyway, his
thesis in these quotes seems to be that certain kinds of historical

environs

and conditions (namely, war, conflict, hard contact with difference, good

&

evil acts) are a stimulus (and perhaps necesary) to thinking; and thinking
consists in wrestling with "the paradoxes of Human Nature". One thinks

then

of philosophy as the explanations of the so-called 'human condition' that
itself becomes more highly defined and outlined under certain hard & harsh

&

testing conditions, that shows its paradoxes more clearly when under
extremes, that the thinkers (being human) also thereby gain a heightened
grasp of such humanity under such extremes because they too are under such
extremes.

I think he indeed feels a heightened tension from a study of recent
conditions, covered over but the comfort (of the late 40's early 50's?) of
the ill-equipped animal, for which thinking is 'unnatural'.

You probably know I am going to argue against this thesis, but before I do

I

need to know whether you think I have gotten hold of the critical points,

or

interesting enough critical points, or not...

Is Toynbee going along with the oft quoted bit of the Heraclitean fragment
that is usually translated as "War is the father of everything...[etc]",
where polemos is interpreted as war, struggle, strife, etc? And ta panta

is

interpreted as simply the cosmos, the universe. I, of course, have argued
against this interpretation of polemos and ta panta, although it is highly
prevalent.

You are most likely correct - Toynbee is prey to the popular reading of
polemos. I don't see a problem, though, with strife as a part of the
interpretation/translation - Heraclitus' polemos is not 'war' in an
ordinary sense - he is most likely responding to a line in Homer - "Zeus is
the father of all" -
replacing Zeus the handmaiden of apportioning Moira with a principle of
differentiation - a laying forth of difference through time and place. But
I don't think the words strife or even struggle (minus the politically
charged baggage and the interpretation of this as external hardship) need to
be left aside. Struggle is as close as one's self, as one's neighbor and
spouse. And it is always accompanied by the cohesive power of Philotes.


In the 'Heraclitus Seminars' Fink argues for the equivalence of
a

whole set of Heraclitean paronomasic terms (logos, sophon, polemos, pyr,
hen, karainos, etc), in their 'steering', 'bringing-forth', etc, relations
with ta panta, polla, etc. At least the question must be raised as to
whether war (as a good interpretation of polemos) fathers everything, and
thus (if the answer is yes) we have the ancient wisdom ratifying the

always

prevalent doxa (even in 'comfortable' modern times) that it is struggle

and

hardship and pain, etc, that brings out the best in humans (being a part

of

everything), and thus the best in thinking too, it being regarded as just
one more activity and entertainment, or cultural exercise, that humans
engage in to puzzle out the meaning of 'human nature'. Is this the thesis?

I can only imagine that Toynbee's motivation - particularly given the
opening sentence - is not to simply add the product of strifing as one thing
among many to muse about in the puzzle of 'human nature'. He falls prey to
the question of a human nature, though. Will have to consult Ortega for
more clues.

Best,

ML






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