John, you've said something very interesting here and I'd like to draw your
attention to it.
>
>>Jim again: I think McDowell's conclusion touches on the point I was trying
>>to make when I remarked previously that, in a sense, all education is
>>"aesthetic education."
>
>You just trying aren't you? Well I don't see anything really pretty in your
>aesthetics nor redeeming exactly. What about the cultivation of a
>sensibility for environmental virtue? Why the great emphasis on elevating
>'aprehension' and 'comprehension' to the top of the heap of all human
>capacities?
A simple trip to the dictionary helps me understand the "essence" of the
difference between "apprehension" and "comprehension." Listen to this, and
then I'll relate it to some stuff you said earlier.
"apprehend v.t. 1. To lay hold of or grasp mentally; understand; perceive.
2. To expect with anxious foreboding; dread. 3. To arrest; to take into
custody. 4. Obs. To take hold of. v.i. 5. To understand; grasp. Syn. 1.
Apprehend, comprehend, and understand agree in meaning to seize with the
mind, but to apprehend is merely to perceive, while to comprehend something
is to grasp its meaning in its entirety: to apprehend the difference
between right and wrong, to try to comprehend the meaning of love.
Understand is close in meaning to comprehend, but can also mean to have
insight into or sympathy with: My [spouse] doesn't understand me." (F&W
Stan. Coll. Dict.)
John, this is a lot like the example you pitched to the list the other day,
e.g. when you wrote:
>It makes a vast difference therefore if the objective value of forest
>health, integrity and stability/resilence is perceived intersubjectively by
>a community of persons with specialized knowledge (integration of data,
>information, knowledge is three dimensional, a construct, but extremely
>valid in most cases) versus the perception of the 'uninformed' passerby who
>merely glances at the forest (much of this kind of rhetoric bases knowledge
>derives from Jims primary quality and one example is Patrick Moores notional
>forms of re-cognition, or what I would call seeing forests as immortal
>simply because where ever you see green and tall trees which have a vision
>of sustainability).
Whereas the dull, uninformed passerby who merely glances at the forest,
only "apprehends" the forest (can't "see" the forest for the trees, eh?),
in contrast the ecologically literate and ontologically super-saavy Super
Forester is able not only to "apprehend" the qualities in the forest, but
also understand and comprehend them in a way that makes sense of the
*meaning* of these qualities, i.e. what their *value* is to the forest.
The (aesthetic) education I advocate, then, promotes the ideals of
understanding and *comprehension* as the core environmental "virtues," as
you put it. But first, John, it seems to me that you have to get the
uninformed passerby to *see* the trees before he or she can start to begin
even grasping the idea of a forest *in* the trees.
I'm not saying this to piss you off or anything, John, but consider this:
maybe the "forest" itself is a tertiary quality. I've never really thought
about it before in these terms, but you simply bring the best out in me,
John. :-) just some more food for thought to go with your Merlot this
evening.
cheers,
Jim
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