[lotus-and-sunflower] Heidegger, Zen and the Simple Subject

[Guest guest]

Very interesting comments, Dennis!

 

At the outset I should say that when interpreting texts its

hard sometimes to distinguish between when we are trying to

restate what someone else meant and when we are offering a

new 'interpretation' of a text which varies somewhat from what

the author probably intended. AS a self-described 'Ricoeurian'

when it comes to interpretation theory, I have no problem with

the power of a text to say more than what the author meant to say,

and its in that spirit that I answer your question below.

>Max, originally I asked you if there was a subject or "seer" somewhere in the

following passage.

> "This is the double aperture of seeing the formed gesture,

> against the profound background

> of the empty and silent stage.

> The gesture of language is but a gathering,

> a hinting, in a clearing of being,

> in an unspeakable emptiness."

>Max, would I be correct to interpret this passage from Carter as follows

(brackets used for emphasis):

> This is the double aperture of [being] the formed gesture,

> against the profound background

> of the empty and silent stage.

> [i am] but a gathering,

> a hinting, in a clearing of being,

> in an unspeakable emptiness.

>Aren't the two statements saying the same thing? If so, at least in the second

we now have a subject without presuming a "seer" behind the formed gesture and

at the same time have enhanced ".... the intimacy of the subject in the scene."

 

My response:

The two statements aren't [always] saying the same thing,

but can be interpreted to say the same thing.

 

When you substitute 'being' for 'seeing' you displace the

subject from the seer of the gesture to the gesture itself.

I suppose the text can play both ways (if one thinks 'being'

when reading 'seeing'), but I think the authorial intentions

of the original text were that the [immediate] source of the

linguistic gesture was [on the surface] non-identical with

the subject appreciating the formed gesture.

 

However, I think you're correct in sensing that these ideas

about language and being are also largely transferable to

ideas about the subject. I think both Heidegger and Zen

see the formation of the subject and the scene as two aspects

of one process of being-in-the-world.

>Also, we can avoid the absurd notion that language can be "thought of" as this

or that. In Kevin's words, "[Language] is what we are." In this context language

 

is part of the formed gesture that we are.

 

Some of us don't think its absurd to think about language, and

not all of us see llanguage as the prime or sole determinant of

our being. I know some deconstructionists and structuralists

advocate this, and I entertained it for a short period, but I

now feel human being has more determinants than just language,

even conscious being.

>We can also avoid concepts like:

> 1) "transformation of the subject,"

> 2) "escaping an ego"

> 3) "new way of being in the world"

>And musings like:

> 4) "Should I have said 'the two are really one,

> internally bifurcated into a duality of aspects

> in close embrace with each other in their oneness?'"

> 5) "Or should I have said "the seer and the scene

> are two modes of being of one Being, and are

> in close embrace in their being together?'"

>which were proposed by you in your earlier responses to me.

 

I don't know if changing 'seeing' to 'being' accomplishes all

this, for I don't know if that change in conceptioning erases

the subject from the scene; it just re-envisions it as a gesture.

 

But I'm not sure which subject or which seer you feel your

version of the text eliminates. In what I think is the

authorial meaning of the original text, it is presumed that

'subjects' 'use' 'language', or that there is a subject 'seeing'

the 'formed gesture', and I suppose there is an implication that

a subject gave rise to the formed gesture, but I don't see any

third 'seer'. When you identify the subject with the gesture,

you are certainly helping to intensify the noticing of the

'intimacy' between subject and its life-world (thanks), but

what else is being accomplished? Is there still communication

between subjects in an inter-subjective world? Is there still

a paradox between foreground and background?

 

There is another passage from Carter's essay which I will have

to share as I think it addresses some of the issues you raise.

But understanding Carter (and Heidegger and Nishida) is one

thing, and presenting your own ideas though working through

the texts of others is another thing, and I appreciate your

interesting suggestions which emerged in your own thoughtful

reflection on these texts.

 

-- Max

 

 

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