Wherein and where-by are all subjectivities given as what they are?
Phrased this way the "wherein" and "where-by" more obviously come to be
located in language, or speech, to be more exact. When one speaks, the
central
ambiguity of subjectivity, of being a subject, is introduced in and
through one's way of saying what one says. One cannot speak without saying
what one has to say this way or that.
Once spoken, what is usually considered the subjectivity of the
subject, is now explicit, is given material, tangible form. The cat
is out of the bag!
Jud:
Dear Nunc - The way I see it there is nothing remotely 'ambiguous' about speaking. The act of
talking makes it quite plain that one is the speaker. One either speaks -
or one remains silent.
If one speaks one HAS to choose some words to say what one is attempting to
communicate.
There is nothing mystical or ambiguous about this. It is a physiological fact. We open our mouths,
wag the tongue and our ideas spew out in the form of spoken words.
If one is speaking or crossing the road and one finishes speaking or reaches
the other side,
the words have been spoken, or the other side of the road has been reached -
it is as simple as that.
The act has been accomplished. The judgements based on our individual personal impressions and 'subjective' feelings
will have been only partly and vaguely communicated in the act of social relation - but a least an act of
communication will have been executed, albeit inadequately.
Subjectivity - objectivity - like any other abstraction can NEVER be given material, tangible form.
If you are capable of creating a tangible material form out of abstractional
'subjectivity' you are wasting your time
as a university lecturer - you could be on TV earning millions, for only
Jesus Christ is said to have pulled
off those sort of parapsychological tricks.
Dear Judsy,
In order to continue to try to be of some help in your education even though we are so
far apart, I have Highlighted some key repetitions in what you said above. Aside from
the resemblance to the Big W's sense of what constitutes reasoning: " The reason I say
there was contact between Sadaam and Al Qaida is because there was contact between Sadaam
and Al Qaida," this way of speaking keeps you stuck.
You see Judsy, if you want to really think about these matters, philosophize, so to speak, you need to stop simply repeating yourself with what seem like an endless array of variations of the same point ( a misuse of obviously remarkable powers of imagination) made essentially at the same level of language-thought. You need
to venture more deeply and try to look into what's being said, including what you're saying,
in order to investigate the how of it's saying, of thoughts coming to language. It's a deliciously
complex process, which is eminently accessable to just the sort of phenomenological investigation
I've been trying to teach you all these years.
Furthermore, the act of thinking itself, let alone the act of turning thought to speech (all of which,
by the way, might very well be thought of as constituting the same act, as is the very thought of it I just spoke, and so on. . .) are miracles of the first order, worthy of all kinds of mystical, even divine
attribution. The distinctive thing about what I do as a university lecturer in philosophy is attempt to understand the process from inside itself, without committing the sort of solipsistic, abstractionist withdrawl , which in your youthful ignorance, you're always accusing me of. The "work" of the million
dollar comics, wits and Jesus imitators you mention is weak and uninteresting by comparison--literally a waste of time, despite the big bucks.
There were some other repetitions in your note which might be worthy of comment, but I must run to a luncheon engagement. How about we meet together for tea about three.
Your Loving Nunc
Allen:
Enter "rhetoric." Through the rhetorical possibilities available to say one's saying this way or that one attempts to hide one's "subjectivity" by saying one's saying as
if it were not just one's way of saying, but the saying of what is.
Jud:
One doesn't 'say ones saying' - one speaks certain chosen words from one's
vocabulary in order to convey meaning,
or in the way Heidegger practiced: one speaks certain chosen words from one's vocabulary in order to convey
fancy-sounding meaninglessness. Rhetoric is a verbal weapon used by people using language effectively to please or persuade,
in the manner of Heidegger in his high flown style; mistranslations of the Greek, vomit-inducing neologisms, excessive use of verbal ornamentation and confused and empty style. Restricted to plain speaking and a straight forward unambiguous format, Heideggerianism would fizzle-out overnight as utterly laughable and comedic on par with the Rowan and Martin Laugh-in.
As would analytical philosophy "expanded" to meet the demands of the poetic speaking which obtains
in Heideggerian phenomenology. This is an easy one Judsy. Every kind of speech has a rhetoric
which is appropriate to it, a way of saying things that (you're right about this one) gives what you say persuasive force. It's just that to certain philosophical elitists blinded by a self induced literal , linear certainty (relatively easy to come by), their own rhetoric becomes invisible. This is the invisibility that goes with presumptive power. You ask a long standing American W.A.S.P. about his ethnicity, he replies that he has no ethnicity, no ethnic background from whence he comes. The invisibility of whiteness, maleness, etc.
Allen:
This move requires conventions of proof, method. . .SCIENCE. Philosophy, Heidegger claims, is unique amongst the
human practices "invented" to deal with this problem of subjectivity, in
that it proves nothing,
and is therefore useless to any endeavor outside of itself because it says
what it says with the full
recognition that its saying is no more than a basic movement of factical
life.
Jud:
Here for once he speaks the truth - that is if he speaks of transcendentalist 'philosophy.' [cough!]
Analytical philosophy [or better still nominalistic philosophy] is another
matter, for it deals with that which exists in the world and not with the
human 'subjective' subject and his 'problems' of 'angst' and fear of the world,
and artificially constructed 'Daseins' or 'Being in the world',
Oh Judsy. Your innocence and naivete are so charmingly transparent. By simply looking at your
language in the above sentence (Now really look at it, please. . . for your old Nunc) you speak
of your philosophy as "dealing with that which exists in the world. . . " You said it: Philosophizing (a kind of observing, however you see it) must necessarily DEAL WITH that which exists. This dealing -WITH ( Heidegger calls this Umgang in der Welt) of necessity involves Dasein as a subject-in-the-world, and so the "how" of subjectivity, that is, of having a world, which having, is expressed SUBJECTIVELY, is the most distinctive thing about you dear boy, and thereby merits our closest philosophical attention.
and does not
wail that "only a God can save us now" and other weakling rubbish suitable
for rusk-nibblers, but deals with practical problems concerning how the world
really is, and what exists and what doesn't. The subjectivity and the moaning
bit the analyticals leave to the subjectivists and Heideggerian [only a God
can save us now] Futilitarians.
Allen:
But as the basic movement of factical life that it is, the saying
of philosophy insists on continually throwing its own subjectivity into
question, by way of
moving towards its essential interchangeability with all other subjectivities. This questioning guarentees
incompleteness because of the impossibility of reaching this
interchangability in and through
one's saying, even though it( the interchangeability of
subjectivities) is "essential" to the thinking/existential analytic of Dasein.
Jud:
As long as it is plain that this philosophical doctrine is the Heideggerian one all that you say is true.
Heideggerianism IS interchangeable with most other mental pathologies and personality problems such as
feeling of indefinable anguish, death, insecurity, fear of the outside world, helplessness [Only a God can save us], etc. In fact strictly from a psychological point of view it is probably true to characterise Heideggerianism as
a mild form of mental disturbance and neurophysical imbalance.
Unworthy of you, and therefore unworthy of comment.
Allen:
I think I managed to keep the ambiguity essential, but whether I did or not ...
Jud:
Like all competent Heideggerians your skilful handling of ambiguity, rather
than spoiling everything with plain unambiguity of speech is a credit to you.
You would have made a wonderful politician, lawyer or psychologist Nunc.
When I first came to Heideggerianism I was contemptuous of the equivocation,
evasion and doublespeak, but now I enjoy it - it's like playing word-games or
philosophical charades. One grows to like it - as it is a form of conceptual
crosswords or semantic scrabble. The bottom line. There is NO WAY that
Heideggerianism could be called 'Philosophy,' - not in a month of sundays - but
with further familiarity it can become amusing and enjoyable as a way of
talking about the world of the imagination [rather than the REAL world] as one
takes it all with a fistful of salt that is... and everyone has to earn a crust.
---
Well, in a month of Sundays, I don't really claim a whole lot more for philosophy, except
that it be called philosophy. About the salt, though, I've been told to substantially lower my salt intake,
and I'm afraid I'm allergic to bread (wheat, gluten to be exact), so the world as I have it, imagination
and all, is the real world. I don't really have much choice in the matter.
As always, your
Nunc
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