I do wonder what the distinctions are meant to be if they are nothing more than our language or experience. Are we the distinctions being spoken about? Am I the keyboard I'm using write this message? — TheWillowOfDarkness

I am not the keyboard, I am the pragmatic relation with the keyboard. No 'i' apart from this relation , and no keyboard apart from it. Both the 'I' and things have no existence apart from this being-in-the -midst-of.

Deleuze is specifically pointing a thing and its identity are beyond us. They are true by difference itself, not by our particular interpretation or experience. — TheWillowOfDarkness

IS it possible to think of a thing which doesn't matter to us, which has no significance for us? Is it possible for a thing to have a meaning independent of a way in which it is relevant to us in a particular context? I say no. Things emerge always in the midst of our concernful , relevant dealings within a particular context of involvement in the world. A thing is a 'matter' FOR us.

I know you have an interest in Deleuze(you referenced him earlier in this thread in response to another poster), which is why i mentioned him. I also mentioned him because I think he is among the most rigorous representatives of the kind of position you are supporting and which I am critiquing. — Joshs

No, you mentioned him because you saw another generic opportunity to wheel out your pet concerns which are tangental and irrelavent to the thrust of the thread. Derridians are like the fucking Borg, assimilating indiscriminately while bleeting on about differance. No one is here to talk about bloody affect. Buzz off.

I am not the keyboard, I am the pragmatic relation with the keyboard. No 'i' apart from this relation , and no keyboard apart from it. Both the 'I' and things have no existence apart from this being-in-the -midst-of. — Joshs

But I have the capacity to remove myself from the keyboard, thereby annihilating that relationship. And if I go on to establish relationships with other things, then just like the relationship with the keyboard, not one of these is a necessary relation. Therefore the "I" really is apart from the relations.

If you want to position the "I" as necessarily "in-the-midst-of", then you must start with the relations which are necessary to the "I". If you do find these necessary relations, I think you will also find that the "I" is not in the midst of them. Was the "I" in the midst of the sexual relation which brought you into existence?

OK, well I guess the point - or at least, my point, my takeaway, is something like: don't take your eye off the transcendental. I think this is what I was gropingly getting at in the OP when I tried to emphasize that more than just facts were at stake in denying that houses can turn into flowers. I hadn't employed the vocabulary of the 'transcendental' to make the point - I was a bit too caught up with exposition - but I think it's appropriate and I think it puts into relief what's at stake.

Perhaps it's not necessarily a 'deep' point, but it is, I think, one worth making, especially considering the chorus of voices that have replied that 'houses don't turn into flowers' just is another (physical?) fact. But even saying that, that's not the 'only' point to be made. Leaving aside the context regarding this all arising as a response to skepticism (which I think I've elaborated upon enough), the other side of this is something like: okay, if it's important that not everything attests to just another fact, if it's important that one takes the transcednental into account, what kind of thing is the transcendental?

And this, in turn, is where 'living' our transformations comes into play: I'm trying to insist (using another term I've not yet employed) on the immanence of the transcendental, on the way in which it is mutable and occupies the underside of the empirical (of 'facts'), rather than being 'transcedent' and fixed beyond the world. The cinnabar-sunrises connection is just a way of trying to specify how this all fits in the broader philosophical tradition, trying to show how all this can be seen as a response those concerns, rather than just being some kind of idiosyncratic, weird example drawn from outta nowhere for no particular reason.

In my conversations with you on this topic, these are some of the comments I've made in an attempt to show goodwill and respect:

" I find your contributions to be among the most thoughtful of the commenters on this site, and since there are few others here who are willing or able to engage at any level with Derrida , I occasionally see if I can draw you into incorporating him into discussion, even if just in the form of a critique."

"You are a thoughtful and well-read philosopher."

"I don't want to annoy or threaten or bore you. If something that I am trying to present is off-topic, I don't want to derail the discussion. But i can't know what is off topic without your help. If it will help you to call me an idiot or a sycophant of the most tedious tendencies of the Derrida brigade, I don't mind. I'm just hoping to get more of a glimpse of your analytic skills "

These are some of your responses to my perhaps less-than-focused arguments:

This Derridian regurgitation is fucking insufferable, please fucking stop. — StreetlightX

Derridians are like the fucking Borg, assimilating indiscriminately while bleeting on about differance. No one is here to talk about bloody affect. Buzz off. — StreetlightX

I think all of us should remind ourselves from time to time how our responses on this site might affect others. We don't know what kinds of personal difficulties they may be having in their lives. There can be a fine line between healthy debate and hurtful comments.

Okay, I apologize, and I'll try not to speak like that to you in the future. My frustration comes from the fact that you're responding in terms that have nothing to do with the OP (you literally wrote a paragraph of questions about Heidegger - ????), and you continually respond to things I don't say. All I'm asking is that if you respond, you do so with the terms of the OP, or if not them, set out, explicitly, how your own might relate to it and are relavent. I'm not here to talk about Derrida, or Heidegger, or Deleuze, or 'centres', or 'structures', or 'presencing', or even Cavell for that matter. If I cite names it's a matter of acknowledging providence and paying intellectual debts, that's it. Don't use proper names as a crutch or substitute for conceptual analysis. I used to do that - still sometimes do - and it's a horrible, philosophically stultifying habit, especially on a public forum.

I've posted plenty about what I do take this thread to be about, and perhaps you can take cues for further discussion from those posts, or at least ask me where things seems unclear or problematic. Hell, if you want to have a different discussion than the one here, PM me and we can hash something out.

But I have the capacity to remove myself from the keyboard, thereby annihilating that relationship. And if I go on to establish relationships with other things, then just like the relationship with the keyboard, not one of these is a necessary relation. Therefore the "I" really is apart from the relations. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree, no particular relationship with a thing is a necessary relationship. All relations are contingent and temporary. What is necessary is relation in general. The 'I' and the 'thing' only ever emerge via relevant relation between the two.It will always be a new and particular 'I' and 'thing' that co-appear from moment to moment, since 'things' are not self-identical persisting essences.

Was the "I" in the midst of the sexual relation which brought you into existence? — Metaphysician Undercover

I know it sounds paradoxical, even absurd, but the 'I' is in the midst of the thinking and talking about any fact, whether that fact consists of things that I do or things that happened without me or before I was born . What I talk about, as well as what I point to as an object , is always what is relevant for me, matters to me, is of concern and significance to me right now. It's not that first there is a something and then it takes on relevant meaning for me. The relevance comes before the object in itself and defines its particular meaning for me in terms of its immediate 'use'. But the same goes for the me' that stands in relation to an object or matter. This is a kind of radical pragmatism, allowing for no reality outside of relevant relating, no existence outside current context. We can begin from this stance and derive science and the possibility of 'independent' facts from it.