Dear Klaus and Chuck


Klaus wrote:
> we might distinguish pre-linguistic and
> linguistic experiences, or more generally, since distinctions of this kind
> do not present entirely unambiguous stepping stones, we might simply start
> talking about a history of acquiring concepts.

I would like to make a very strong point (even though I should be
consolidating). Why should we always place our theoretical and practical
experience in relationship to language?
Imagine the language paradigm is over and the aesthetical/embodied paradigm
is starting and we are part of this transformation at this moment.
 
Oddly this transformation for us is through a text-based media.

If we consciously change our western thinking ( Johnson and Lakoff)  so that
we do not put mind and language first but rather body/mind and
percepts/concepts. (I place body and percepts first because they have been
discriminated by science and philosophy so long but if we exchanges
knowledge with more aesthetical methods we could create a wheel where
neither body or mind can dominate.)

So Klaus I agree with you very much! I for one  would gain a lot from
further discussion in... how should we say.... The events (historical and
real time) that make up an embodied concept.


But I would like to suggest that we are careful about how we formulate this
search. I disagree with you Klaus by calling it "pre-linguistic" and even
"history of acquiring concepts".  We should be open to other modes of
exchanging knowledge such as knowledge through artifacts, which is what
design is all about. In this aesthetical paradigm the  language used to
explain this  knowledge is tightly correlated with the artifact, and the
words will  make little sense without referring directly to the artifact.
 

Klaus wrote:
>levels are always logical constructions.  Feelings have no level, they are just
>felt.  experiences have no level, they are just experienced.

I am slowly getting accustom with the idea that there are objective aspects
(perhaps no levels) to feelings. The more I allow myself to think in this
way the more I find support in literature. My roots on this issue start with
Goethe view on Science. Goethe unlike most philosophers in aesthetics moves
back and forth between concepts connecting of art and science and the actual
experience with color phenomena in space. Martin Buber,  Susanne Langer and
Lakoff and Johnson have all given me ways to grasp objective feelings.

Take care

Cheryl 

     




My reference here is: www.hum.gu.se/humfak/aktuellt/konf.html
I listened to Angele read and talk about her research at an Embodiment
conference in Gothenberg:

Sällström Pehr, Goethe och naturevetenskapen Carlssons Stockholm Sweden 1993

Goethes W. Goethes Färglära.  Kosmons Järna Sweden 1979 ( Physicist Pehr
Sällström translated and commented on passages in order to update or further
explain goethes ideas)
 
Buber, Martin Människan och hennes bildkonst, Dualis förslag Luvika (1999)
Heideler 1955