As a result of some of your comments, I have been inspired to write a follow up to my previous post. First of all, my conception of human possibility is not nearly as fluffy, optimistic and powerful as it might seem (as you will soon find out). A couple of important clarifications (and/or additions) need to be made to better understand my position.
First, hermeneutical phenomenology and the possibility it allows should not be used as a spring board into the morass of subjectivity. There is an objective component of correlating the external world with one's sensory interpretation of it. In other words, one's possibility as a tanning salon receptionist is not equal to the possibility of Siddhartha Gautama's life as an enlightened exemplar of truth. Through comparisons of this nature, we can agree that there is some objectivity at play. There should always be room for subjective movement within a framework, but there are superior frameworks of possibilities. This goes back to my first real post - if your interpretation of the good is drugs and porn, then your view is simply objectively inferior. We could argue about this, but I've got much more to say in this post so I'll leave it for now.
Second, hermeneutical phenomenology makes no specific claims about control. I spoke of a harmonic relationship of one who has apprehended the true association he/she has with the external world. Understanding this bond as a more egalitarian relationship, does not equate to holding any power over the external world. In fact, the harmony of this relationship is a tumultuous one. Sounds paradoxical, but the very notion of harmony is one of balance, and balance can only come if there are two divergent systems competing with one another. When they are adequately reconciled, harmony is born. The peace of the hermeneutical phenomenologist is found through humility. This humility can only be grasped by a sense of severe irony.
Let's assume that I'm right for a moment about hermeneutical phenomenology. Let's say that it's not just "an interesting idea" but that most of us are deceived about the external, objective world, and that as a matter of fact our own consciousness holds just as much ontological weight as the universe itself. As I described in my previous post, this is a liberating idea. One which makes a copernican shift from an alienated, forsaken view, to one where the human conscious subject is of equal import. I also discussed how this idea leads to a new understanding of one's possibilities for his life. This we could say is a "nugget of hard-earned wisdom." Here is where the irony emerges. Recognizing possibility is only practicable if we understand our limits. Even though our conscious existence holds great weight, our experience proves that we are in control of very little. The irony is that our exuberance from this hard-earned wisdom is dramatically and painfully curbed by that car crash that breaks your ribs and nearly kills you. It is thwarted by a run in with the lowly transient begging for his last meal. It is quashed by a parent's death. But perhaps most painfully, it is repealed by even a casual examination of history. Over 20 million murdered by Stalin, 6 million+ Jews exterminated by Hitler, crusades, murder, rape, we all could go on and on. The irony is here is that man's possibility it seems, results in the most horrific acts imaginable. For the innocent, any sense of possibility is frustrated by this irony (RIP the "secret"). If we want to bring God into this (in the Christian sense), Christ, the very exemplar, the being of perfection, the blameless one, the Savior of the world, was brutally crucified. Perhaps we can find no greater example of irony we than this. Life is a grand irony, and there is nothing any of us can do to change that.
I'll now move to a more optimistic view. All life is suffering. The only reason we feel pleasure is because we take a break from the suffering. When we eat, we alleviate the suffering of hunger. Our very temporal nature is one of perpetual suffering until death. It is ironic that we seek pleasure, a relief from this suffering, as a light at the end of the tunnel, yet death affirms that we'll never fully escape the dark. This of course is a rather morose view on human life, one which we usually ignore (for good reason). Even further, it is one that seems to rarely check out with our own experience. For you sitting here reading this, few of you will think to yourself, "yes, I am suffering quite severely at the moment." My definition of suffering however, is a valid one if we look at the nature of a human being's life as a tension between desires and fate. I bring this up to show that the ultimate possibility for man is death.
While this sounds like a terribly pessimistic view, there are important implications that actually salvage the idea (in my opinion) and shape it as powerful and significant. I'll save a full discussion of time and temporality for another, uhh... time, but we must explore "death as man's ultimate possibility" a bit further. Anything meaningful in our lives comes about because we will die. This is a crucial point about our existence. When we perform an action, it becomes meaningful because tomorrow, we might not be able to perform this action. We embrace this even in the way we reason through day to day activity. When deliberating over two choices, we often put forward the argument, "let's do x because we can do y at any time." If we could do anything at literally any time, there would be no significance to our actions. Temporality then lends two crucial components to our lives, 1) limits our possibilities and 2) gives meaning to our actions.*
Ok enough of the "depressing" stuff. Let me tie this together. It seems that through hermeneutical phenomenology, our consciousness as an ontological entity aligns us with the external world in a significant way. It also seems that through our concern, we interpret things in terms of possibilities for us - this is liberating. Our ability to reflect and make comparisons show that not every possibility is equal. There is plenty of room for movement and individuality, but there is a reflective framework, unique to human beings, that is superior to other frameworks. Once we have embraced this, become liberated and set a path to create ourselves, we are struck with tragedy, with a lack of control, and with a severe sense of irony. This leads to an understanding of human frailty and temporality, from which we gain an understanding of death and become all the more humble for it. This humility and understanding of human, temporal limitation, helps us to understand what is truly significant, and what isn't. From here we construct a new life. We create new values. These values are forged in a fire of interpretation, experience, irony, suffering, humility, temporality and significance. Perhaps this paints a clearer picture of where hermeneutical phenomenology leads. It is in a sense the first step. In my previous post, I laid out the ontology of our consciousness and how it relates to the external world as well as explained how this leads to interpretational possibility driven by concern. Now we can better understand both the limits and the magnitude of possibility within a world of limitation.
*If you are a believer in an afterlife, or eternity, this seems troubling. I consider this a metaphysical discussion, that is interesting, but impossible to resolve. If there is indeed an afterlife and we persist for eternity, I suppose at that point we must be equipped with some sense of infinitude - which, clearly, we currently and critically lack.
Thursday, 30 October 2008
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6 comments:
I like this:
Once we have embraced this, become liberated and set a path to create ourselves, we are struck with tragedy, with a lack of control, and with a severe sense of irony. This leads to an understanding of human frailty and temporality, from which we gain an understanding of death and become all the more humble for it. This humility and understanding of human, temporal limitation, helps us to understand what is truly significant, and what isn't. From here we construct a new life. We create new values. These values are forged in a fire of interpretation, experience, irony, suffering, humility, temporality and significance.
I'm going to find something I can disagree with in your next post...I promise. ;)
Hi, Mark. Another good post. My thoughts (sorry it’s long):
1) I was always under the impression that “hermeneutics” had kind of a religious overtone – a more specific insinuation of interpreting scripture and whatnot. I suppose I could look it up, OR you can just tell me if I’m accurate? If yes, is that an intentional implication?
2) I love what you said about balance. It’s an accuracy that many people, myself included, rarely think about.
3) I also like what you said about humility. The irony of having nearly infinite possibility (or, I guess, infinite within the confines presented by one’s interaction with the external world – which is all I was trying to get at with my “Secret” jab, by the way; we can’t really be ANYthing specifically because – outside religious belief – we can’t access that kind of power) and needing enough humility to find balance is kind of overwhelming – so strong, in fact, that embodiment is probably unattainable for most people. Either one negates their own possibilities, or misuses possibility – in drastic ways: like in the historical examples you shared and sometimes in much more subtle ways. What is it? You put one crab in a bucket and it will crawl out, but you put two in a bucket and they’ll keep each other in there because the one will always pull the other one back? It’s hard to watch someone else fulfill their possibility if you’re not fulfilling your own, perhaps? I don’t know if we’re really as bad as that, but it sure seems that’s a disappointingly common reaction. How often does one really, sincerely celebrate another’s success?
Possibly worse than abruptly ending another’s possibility (which I can only say specifically because I believe in an afterlife), sometimes we spend an entire life seeking to prevent others from understanding their possibility – needlessly criticizing, putting up roadblocks and otherwise demeaning those around us – maybe so we don’t have to confront our own reality and possibilities (often those that we’ve given up). In some ways, I think this is more painful – the continual destruction of possibility. I realize this is a tangent, not terribly related to where you’re going and incompletely formed, so I’ll stop.
4) “I’ll now move to a more optimistic view. All life is suffering.” = magic.
5) What is the difference, in your view, of recognizing and fulfilling “possibility” and making “choices?” Is possibility the conglomerate of all choices one can make? Is it more, less, completely different? How?
6) I’m not sure death as the ultimate possibility is really so disconcerting for a believer in the afterlife. The fact is: this life ends at death. The afterlife and eternities are a different kind of life. In some ways, it’s a continuation – if you are to keep knowledge and experience – but even the most generous of religions will say, “this is all you’ve got.” Buddhism, in teaching reincarnation, would tell you that you only get your chance to live that experience ONE time. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying possibility ends at death. After all, it MAY be true. And as a believer in an afterlife, I still see it as an end to some possibilities – specifically mastering myself and finding truth through completely blind struggle. There is beauty in both those things that cannot be achieved in any other way – and it’s a struggle I need.
And by: "Buddhism, in teaching reincarnation, would tell you that you only get your chance to live that experience ONE time." I mean: "Buddhism, in teaching reincarnation, would tell you that you only get your chance to live EACH experience ONE time."
Dude.
Remind me to tell you my "Secret" story.
Hermeneutics is a very broad concept with applications going back to Greek antiquity. I believe the subset of hermeneutics that applies to bible studies began around the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the renaissance. Biblical studies are but one aspect of hermeneutics however. Hermeneutics in a religious context was not my intention (although certain religious conclusions could be drawn by the reader). Most notably, hermeneutics deals with 'interpretation' (the word itself is from Greek meaning interpret). It was Heidegger (with Dilthey paving the way) who shifted hermeneutics to hold an ontological application. Understanding the world becomes an interpretational state of being. It is what it means to BE human. We by necessity interpret and understand the world as it's given to us in a pre-scientific way.
In response to your "possibility vs. choice" question, I think it's given that they are to a certain extent correlated. This is kind of a tricky question because it depends on what we're referring to when we talk about "choice." Presumably choice underwrites every action. The unavailable option is of course the option not to choose. Maybe what you're getting at is how possibility relates to action. To this idea, I think that hermeneutical phenomenology takes the following condition - one of self-understanding. The the "self" relates itself to objects in the world. It orients through interpretation. This requires action in the sense that we must interact with the world using our senses. Therefore the self is always active in the way it synthesizes experience. The possibilities come into play through this process. In the example of the stick, we see the stick AS possibility, not just for it's scientific properties. In the same sense, the self relates itself to itself through possibilities. Because of this, the options are vast. The process of synthesizing experience is, of course, an action and therefore the way we follow through with the resulting possibilities is also action. As far as choice is concerned, some conception of an autonomous agent is presupposed. We certainly act as if we are making choices, and certainly making choices in general is an unavoidable condition of existence. Hopefully that helped!
Also, for further information, check out this link. It is very interesting. Section 4 is of particular relevance.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermeneutics/
I think you have to copy and paste the link... annoying, sorry.
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