The unknown I was talking about was this mindless state prior to waking up to critical reflection — frank
That's fair enough; it might be merely a terminological disagreement. My take on it though is that it is better (more in accordance with common usage and understanding, that is) not to confine the terms 'mind' or 'consciousness' to states of explicit or thematized awareness. I can make up my mind for example without being explicitly aware of doing so at all. — Janus
You could say that the hermeneutic circle is the oceanic sphere, or fishbowl perhaps, within which we swim through our lives. — Janus
That makes sense. The reason "mindless" is resonating with me is that I've long thought of analysis as the primary activity of mind. It's the part of us that separates good from evil, me from not-me, subject from object. The body doesn't do that. The body doesn't understand negativity (like not-red or not-soft). It deals in positives. Maybe rationality is what we could call it instead of mind? — frank
So how are we positioned psychologically when we talk about that fishbowl? Talking about it implies some vantage point, doesn't it? Outside it? — frank
I think the pre-reflective body/ mind implicitly distinguishes good and evil, self and not-self, and thus subject and object. These distinctions as explicit rely on their implicit pre-objectified counterparts — Janus
Are you agreeing or disagreeing with Dreyfus? Heidegger? — frank
In other words if there were no pre-reflective understanding of self and other could we ever arrive at the explicit position of self and other? Is the new explicit understanding not then,in that sense, precisely an understanding of the "fundamental" pre-reflective state? — Janus
But the explicit positing of subject and object is derived from that fundamental way of being, a way of being wherein I would say that subject and object are "always already" implicit — Janus
I suspect a thread on the Dreyfus-McDowell debate would probably be a huge help in sussing out the issues you two are running up against. — Ilyosha
So this would be a way to address the relationship between logic and the world: we actually don't use logic for most of the actions we take...
Driving a car or riding a bike are obvious examples of mindless action. — frank
This a perspective Heiddeger shared with Kierkegaard. It means that the conscious me is understood to ____ from a mindless state of established practices. I left the verb blank because I'm not sure how to describe it. — frank
...a mindless state of established practices... — frank
H goes from that insight to the idea that we must always start from somewhere within the hermeneutic circle. — frank
I don't agree they're mindless. We talk about know-how and 'knowing how' because we move about the world with embodied knowledge, inculcated in us by ourselves or our carers/teachers, through logical rule-making, rule-explanation, reflection and repetition — mcdoodle
I think what's key here, from Dreyfus' vantage point, is how you mean to interpret the transition from "pre-reflective" to "explicit". If you mean to say that a conceptual understanding of self-other merely makes explicit our pre-objective/pre-reflective experience, then I think you're disagreeing significantly with Dreyfus. If you mean to say that this transition is transformative of our experience, then I don't think Dreyfus would disagree with you at all. — Ilyosha
BTW, I suspect a thread on the Dreyfus-McDowell debate would probably be a huge help in sussing out the issues you two are running up against. They're fascinating issues, and I have no fixed views, though I wish I did. — Ilyosha
Do you disagree with Dreyfus' view? — frank
I would be disappointed because I've been turning into an anti-realist existentialist. — frank
You said you think there has to be implicit distinction making in the pre-reflective state. Could you say more about that? What does it mean to discern distinctions without reflection? — frank
Would it not be possible to hold both views? If a conceptual understanding makes explicit our pre-reflective experience it seems natural enough to think that this making-explicit would also transform our experience. Still, I don't see any kind of gulf between the two 'modes' of experience, so no kind of troublesome "dualism" would seem to be involved. — Janus
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