I have been finding Richard's insights very compelling. His points that
foundations in origins is inadequate for reasons of causation hold up.
Though I would throw in the Burkian notion of organic evolution of being and
meaning. This is precisely what I I believe H bemoaned as lost and
fragmented beyond repair in the world. A garden of Eden as it were. The
resuscitation of authentic being did and does necessitate a new language,
the creation of new being.

It is also highly valid to hold up one's own experiences as a measure of
what this entails and means. No language can ever substitute the
transfiguration of being as realized.

Which brings me to several thoughts involved another language which creates
an ontological foundation for metaphysical being: music. And here I would
suggest a more formal creation of music integrated with more fully realized
states of being which incorporate visual and conceptual language. Before I
invite too many caveats, let's accept that all music is in some sense a
system or structure of being in action. Even in its most basic and
unconscious forms. But we are dealing with conscious systems which lead to
the creation of a new hermeneutics.

Monteverdi devoted himself to creating an interpretive system for opera. He
believed he could create a meta language which established relationships
between tonal structures, emotions, and gesture. Ultimately he could not
resolve the visual, emotional, and conceptual. Yet one only needs to listen
to Orpheus, or other works to experience the state of being he wishes to
share within a language of art. It is also difficult to escape what was
later described by Bach and Schopenhauer as the veil. Veil of tears, Veil of
Maya. And as later described by Stephen Crane, "caught in the stubble of the
earth, like an unfolding veil."

Avoiding excessive musicology, why not skip to the transfiguration of this
division between metaphysical being and its manifestation in life on earth.
Beethoven of course. Ode to Spring. The assumption of newly created life
within the collective expression of genius. All that. But there is a great
deal more behind this, and beyond. Beethoven too created a new language,
connected to the past and experience, but something never before realized.
He achieved this in an ontological sense. He subjectively expressed the
vigor and passion of youth, without the reflection of deeper experience. He
was a virtuoso in his beginnings as a great composer [whether or not you
like his work, just as I may not *like* H]. He then goes on to create a
system of conventions based on these original inspirations of being. He
explores being as far as he is able, formally and expressively. In his later
work, where he achieves transfiguration, both convention and fullest
expression unite, and he is transformed. His music is transformed, because
it can be experienced by others, together, with him, beyond self, aware, and
most definitely as a living beingness. My words are quite clunky here. I
attribute anything resembling insight to Theodore Adorno. Most of you will
know the reference, which is Thomas Mann's depiction of Theodore Adorno's
musical lecture in Santa Monica in Dr. Faustus. Chapter XIII I think. The
one of the old professor with a stutter.

Then there is Schoenberg, Miles Davis, maybe even the Beatles. Who's to say,
and shouldn't we allow for all relativity which supports, oh I don't know .
. . unconsciousness mediated by consciousness. Being, when there is no
thought of being, and it is sublime to be so.

I also only use music as another medium. One which oftens shapes the
experiential and narrative line of a film as much as the visual.

My simplistic elaboration is to express that art can do what no philosophy
is ultimately equipped to do. Great artists are philosophers. Does it work
both ways? Is it even safe for this to be possible? Can reason, matter, and
energy add up to consciousness and Being?

Of course not. Which changes nothing. Zen, epiphany, flow, love, cosmology,
reason to great purpose, are all pathways. And only that. Why else be alive,
if we are already in a perfect state?

That this can never be an excuse for evil and intentional destruction would
be the one absolute I would ever make as a mere mortal.

Susanna

p.s. I honestly don't want to go back and edit, so please excuse any faux
pas.


> H attempts to circumvent numerous traditional  problems by introducing a
> fresh mind set delivered by a transfiguration of accepted language designed
> to impress upon us the power of his novelty in a coherent manner. By
> "necessarily" I meant that ordinarily language was inadequate for his
> purposes. After all, language forms are developed daily to deal with new
> circumstances. In a W'n sense, he is creating a new form of life.




>
> I agree that seeking origins (from what, where) is inadequate because among
> other grounds, it fails to relate to causation (origin is not cause) and
> thus lacks sufficient explanatory power. Similarly explaining phenomenon in
> terms of things because, aside from obvious intuition, there is no
> sufficient, adequate ground for establishing the relationship between
> premises (facts, axioms), derivational rules and the resulting conclusion
> sets (consider Tarski). "What things are" presupposes a set of valuations.
> Here I agree with H - it can't be done except by means of relations the
> validity of which will always be open to valuations.
>
> I submit that "what does being mean" is unavoidable from any perspective,
> east, west... but I disagree that H's language  becomes "very transparent"
> and
> in particular  that his terms become, based on the foregoing grounds,
> "precise, informative, surgical". I will return to this point.
>
> James' provocative submissions deserve evaluation. I disagree along with
> Nietzsche that Eastern thought has a "more sophisticated and coherent
> tradition" and that the problem of being addressed by "endless convoluted
> speculation" is somehow circumvented by simply and magically determining
> that 'something either is or isn't". I have danced with the "wild" ones in
> meditation and have practiced the ultimate" meditation in motion" (martial
> arts) for many years and have yet to experience "either/or". Quite simply,
> we are not designed to work that way. We do not begin and end with ourselves
> because
> even if there were a self, it would be an interpretation. I became convinced
> upon accepting the Humean challenge, namely finding the self. Try it and see
> whether you find a "self" or innumerable states of consciousness, the veil
> of Maya. It's no wonder many Easterns view the self is an illusion. In any
> event, what state of consciousness qualifies as an "is"?. Maybe Om is just
> as
> many claim, a residual noise based on our physiology. And when/how exactly
> do you know that "any" state is "yourself". I submit that you don't and that
> the answer is blowin in the wind.
>
> The notion of the equivalence of "logical construction" and the K'n
> thing-in-itself sounds like a misreading and makes no sense. How does one
> tie these two concepts together in any consistent acceptable way. And no one
> has submitted  the impossible notion that language "is the thing itself"
> .
> As for  mind games, N postulates that we are comprised of sub-selves
> (units of power)  that compete with one another to gain access to
> consciousness (echoes of Leibniz' monad, Schopenhauer's and Freud's
> unconscious). Here he foresaw the advances in psych/physiology. Awareness is
> a reduction like mp3. What comes to consciousness is a compressed version
> after elimination. (interesting lit relating to all 11 senses).
>
> Where I differ from the H is the emphasis on the power of and the obligation
> imposed on the "self". A mistake that Sartre corrected prior to his death.
> Perhaps
> god manifests himself in the unending mysterious process (Whitehead).
>
> To return briefly, my original debatable psychoanalytic guess (insight) was
> that the impetus for H's project was his incredulous confrontation with the
> mysterious "thing". I don't mean to suggest anything like Adler's
> inferiority compensation but rather a Nietzschean confrontation with life
> from
> a position of strength.
>
> Time to go outfor dinner. I tend to go stream so forgive any rambling which
> I don't have
> time to correct. I intended to include Goedel, Derrida, Popper but that's
> another venture.
>
> Incidentally I read Iain Thomson's "Can I Die? Derrida on Heidegger on
> Death" yesterday and recommend it highly.
>
> As an aside, I upgraded my German language skills thru the Goethe Institute
> and am rereading Nietzsche in the original. I am surprised to confront a
> more light-footed, funny fellow.
>
> Regards, Richard