dear keith,
i guess i am not clear what you mean by self-(en)closing. when you say "i
ride a bike" surely you are including yourself as the "i" of an
observer/reporter of your observations. but earlier you talked of
self-closing experiences, which i read more as being walled in a particular
activity without the ability to doing other things at the same time -- like
riding a bike, having a conversation, ejoying the stars, and thinking of
where this all ends up.
what about so called flipp-figures. you observe it one way. without
knowing that there is another way, this most likely is the only way you see,
coming to the conclusion that you see IT the way it is. then someone tells
you of the possibility of another way of seeing. with a little bit of
effort you get into it. this questions the IT that you are seeing and goes
back to what a text is without seeing.
this is an example of being locked into a way of seeing at the exclusion of
other ways. but it also demonstrates that language, conversation with
someone else can get you from one way of seeing to another way of seeing,
and that the source of the categories in which you see are very much the
product of language use.
klaus
-----Original Message-----
From: Dr Keith Russell [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, October 13, 2000 12:51 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Bicycle Knowledge self-closing experiences
Dear Klaus,
I don't mind the pluralist approach and the vagrant epsietmology of
self-outsiding. We can distract attention and we can draw attention.
I think the same issue, under a different guise, arises in the recent
comments of Ken on whether there are facts of nature etc. My earlier
comments about giving the status of texts to texts is a quick way to focus
the issue. That is, ones attention is drawn to a text only when the status
of the text is given as a moment of attention. This then becomes
self-enclosing so that I make talk about "my reading of a text". This is in
the old sense that a "reading" is a full
construction/deconstruction/critical analysis and not simply the visual
recognition of words on many pages. Such an approach allows that the
intentionality opf consciousness is underwrittenb by a propositional
directionality that is deemed to be inherent in the text. It is not
something that simply arise in my reading, rather it is something that
adheres to the text. Now, all of us, including the woof woof, can point out
all the distractions of attention that might be called upon to break down
the text into a series of discreet sensations - this leaves us with less
than alphabet soup. Granting the hypothetical status of text to a work read
allows for the kind of personal growth in consciousness that is typical of
Hegel and Dewey - see here that good old book ART AS EXPERIENCE.
Phenomenologists should have no trouble with this hypothetical text in as
much as intentionality is the core of consciousness - it makes a whole world
of difference to my knowledge whether I allow that a construct may exceed me
in all dimensions, including my own constructions, or whether I stay fixed
in the paucity of my own immediateness. Language has always and will always
excced me. This is only useful to me in as much as I allow that I may come
to know that which I do not know and in as much as I allow that I may come
to know that which someone else has inscribed, in their intentionality, an
object of consciousness. Or else, I interrupt each
sound/word/grapheme/morpheme/syntagmeme as it eneters my attention and I
distract my intentionality by re-assigning my attention. This is the silly
game of children who spin around until they fall dizzy to the floor. Follow
the bouncing ball if you must, buit follow it everywhere until the silliness
becomes apparent. That is, do it at table, in bed, on the toilet, while
sneezing, while talking, writing, reading, looking, thinking - and so on.
Bouncing ball is a way to re-start attention not a way to go.
all the best
keith
Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
keith,
please realize you are talking about riding a bike. knowing you are riding
a bike (without momentarily talking about it) comes from the same source.
how else would you know (or potentially tell something) that you are riding
it rather than drifting unaware in the multiverse of diffuse conceptions?
riding a bike is not self-closing unless you are entrapped in it, unless you
can't stop or change to something else.
also you could be riding a bike and having a conversation with someone at
the same time. you might do this in parallel mode without one interfering
with the other. you might shift your attention from one to the other
leaving the unattended process to habit. the point is if you can get out of
it i can't see it self-closing.
klaus
At 03:27 PM 10/12/00 +1000, Dr Keith Russell wrote:
Dear Klaus,
I don't think practice necessarily is self-closing but I do see that any
instance of practice IS of necesiity self-closing - that is, when I am
practicising I am - when I am not I am not. This is not simply a
function of languge, it is a spatio-temporal-identity thing. Thus I am
the man riding a bike when I am a man riding a bike. This externality
haunts all my efforts to stay within my subjectivity - take Sartre on
SHAME for instance - my identity as a bike rider is put upon me and
taken from me just as the place and charge of particles is put upon them
and taken from them. All the phenomenology in the world will not fix my
soul to the fixing point of the absolute nor will it have my soul slide
into the gutter of the incomplete. No irony will forgive my urgent need
for mediation and hence I ride the bike, but never again do I ride the
bike. Perplexity is upon me like the tiger of Jung. As Joyce might say:
"Latin me that you Trinity Scholars".
keith
---------------------------------
i don't think practice necessarily is self-closing. yes, there is the
category of riding a bike and its denial. but this category resides in
the use of language, not in its practice.
first, we may ask when does one ride a bike? when one sleeps on the
wheels of a bike lying on the floor? when one works out on a stationary
bike in a fitness center? when one balances on a bike without moving
(except to keep the balance)? i think we are reasonably clear what it
entails "riding a bike" and so it is with design.
---------------------------
klaus krippendorff
gregory bateson professor for
cybernetics, language, and communication
the annenberg school for communication
university of pennsylvania
3620 walnut street
philadelphia, pa 19104-6220
telephone: 215.898.7051 (office); 215.545.9356 (home)
fax: 215.898.2024 (office); 215.545.9357 (home)
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/krippendorff/index.html
<http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/krippendorff/index.html>
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|
