I sent this note last night, but after 18 hours, it still hasn't been
posted to the group. So, I am sending it again. I apologize if anyone
gets it twice.
Thanks,
Tony
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Martin,
I think I figured it out! Thanks to your advice about _BT_ 44, and some
help from the Hull and Crick translation of "On the Essence of Truth." I
think you are right. A few passages from Crick and Hull might help to
ellucidate the answer:
"The thing so opposed must, such being its position, come across the open
towards us and at the same time stand fast in itself as the thing and
manifest itself as a constant. This manifestation of the thing in making
a move towards us is accomplished in the open, within the realm of the
Overt, the over character of which is not initially created by the
representation but is only entered into and taken over each time as an
area of relationships."
Now the critical line:
"The relation between representative statement and thing serves to
implement that condition which originally started to vibrate, and now
continues to vibrate as behavior."
The phrase "to implement that condition which originally" clearly
suggests that the relation between statement and thing follows upon the
openness between thing and human being, that condition wherein the
"manifestation of the thing [makes] a move toward us [and which] is
accomplished in the open."
This also makes sense out of the other statement I was concerned about,
and which Hull and Crick translate as: "All working and carrying out of
tasks, all transaction and calculation, sustains itself in the open, an
overt region within which what-is can expressly take up its stand as and
how it is what it is, and thus become capable of expression." Though the
translation of this passage does not seem significantly different from
the one in _Basic Writings_, clearing up my earlier misconception brought
them both to light.
Finally, Crick and Hull translate _Verhalten_ as behavior instead of
comportment, thereby foreclosing on my earlier problem of trying to
determine the relata for comportment. Behavior does not signify a
"towards" in the same way that comportment does, though certainly
bahavior is always towards something in some sense. Perhaps we might say
that the "toward" is less explicit and important in behavior than in
comportment. In any case, _Verhalten_ was not meant to refer to the
relationship between "statement" and "thing," nor to the relationship
between "man" and "thing," as I was trying to make it refer. I now see
where I was confused.
Thanks so much for your help. Now I can move on to section 3.
Yours,
Tony
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Anthony F. Beavers, Ph.D. / Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion
The University of Evansville / Evansville, Indiana 47722 / (812)479-2682
Metaethics, Metaphysics, Phenomenology and Existentialism
Philosophy and the Judeo-Christian Tradition
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