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

[Guest guest]

Dennis, returning to your interesting rewrite of Carter's text:

>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."

 

It has occurred to me that if we take our 'being' (dasein?)

to be the formed gesture in the above thought-complex,

then we've actually introduced a new subject: the gesturer.

 

For doesn't a gesture imply a gesturing? And hence a gesturer?

 

Now it may very well be that we are all

gestures of a deeper subjectivity,

but I don't think that was what Carter was getting at,

nor what Carter thought Nishida and Heidegger were getting at.

 

I think the original text meant to imply that linguistic gestures

were given by regular human beings as communicative acts,

but was trying to 'say' that each linguistic act is a gesture

which points beyond itself, rather than a representational sign.

I think Carter believes Heidegger and Nishida shared a common

insight into, first, the limitations of language to fully say

that which yearns for expression, and second, the fact that

the meaningfulness of language arises in large part from its

being a 'gesturing' wherein the words transcend themselves.

 

To sum up a reading of the original text:

human subjectivities are gesturing with language,

and human subjectivities are reading the gestures,

which gestures point beyond themselves,

and which readings are a following of the gesture's pointing,

all of which occurs as a foreground gesturing

emerging in a clearing of Nothingness, Emptiness, or Being.

But the Emptiness/Nothingness/Being which provides

the place for gesturing, cannot itself be taken up into

the gesture, although we can read intimations of it

in the lining of the gesture.

 

But I rather like your metaphor that we are gestures,

and the implication of a gesturer in the depths.

 

-- Max

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Max Harris wrote:

 

<snip>

> 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.

 

Marcia:

 

Excuse me for barging in but your comments reminded

me of some thoughts that I pondered awhile back. I admit

I have not been following this thread so I apologize ahead

of time if I am way off.

 

I ran across an idea once that suggested at three types of

language. The language of form as the word, the language

of being as the symbol and the language of will as gesture.

One of the things I thought of was that there are some gestures

that have echoed down through time with such force that

we still hear their message generations later. This may

connected with archetypes and will perhaps as a stepping

into and allowing for "me" to be the carrier.