the aroma of coffee. — Banno
One has to be made free from language, even though language leads and controls the conversation in acknowledging just this. Fascinating to behold the world unhinged from the categories of ordinary thought. Mystical. — Constance
But this movement, call it (Kierkegaard called it that) from first order ordinariness to acknowledging one's throwness is universal, belongs to the structure of conscious awareness itself. Granted, from this, one can go different ways. I find myself doing serious reading in the so called French theological turn, with Jean luc Marion, Michel Henry, Emanuel Levinas and others examining Husserl's reduction and epoche and its radical disclosure once we realize that that great Kantian division in being is all wrong: the appearance IS being.
Husserl, then Heidegger then all the post Heideggerian thinking (that I certainly do not keep up with; you know, I have another life) leads some extraordinary revelations that are not contained within discussions of ordinary language, but are found outside of these, in the world; and then back to discussion.
But with analytic thinking, extraordinary revelations are simply off the table, which is why it has been in crisis for a long time now. It has run the course of everyday language possibilities. I object to materialism because this term carries considerable baggage in its exit from scientific contexts to metaphysics. Heideggerian/post Heideggerian thought pulls emphatically away from this. — Constance
But ask Husserl about this. When you confront the world phenomenologically, you are NOT seeing a natural world at all. You are witnessing phenomena. Have you read his Cartesian Meditations? — Constance
I would never disagree that goodness is what we care about. I would ask that the question go one step further: what is it t care about something? What is the anatomy of a care, for it has parts: I care about my cat being free of fleas. Now, analyze this phenomenologically you find an agency of caring, me, and that which is the object of my caring, my cat, but what do I care about specifically? I am looking for the essential feature: just as Kant looked for the essential feature of a rational judgment, and pulled away from particulars to generalize, so I am looking for the essential ethical feature, the kind of thing that, were it absent, the ethicality would vanish as well. What I care about is my cat's suffering (as well as mine having to deal with fleas around the house). What makes this a care all is the value, the measure of pain and pleasure and joy and suffering and everything in between, that is in the balance, at risk, whatever.
It is a transcendental argument, just like Kant's, for it serves as an index to transcendence. Where Kant's CPR was an index to pure reason, Here I postulate the idea of pure value, adding quickly that I by no means think there is anything such as a pure anything. This kind of thinking only serves to underscore a feature of an unknowable primordial unity. — Constance
I don't follow why you believe that knowledge of how to ride a bike is not also at least partially ineffable (knowledge) in principle, especially given your hesitation to concede that an exhaustive list of instructions would give one knowledge. — Luke
It'd be more interesting to say something is ineffable because it's not even teachable, or not even learn-able, rather than because we don't know something. — Moliere
"Ineffable" doesn't mean "not teachable". As per the definition I gave earlier, it means "ncapable of being expressed or described in words"; i.e. "not sayable". — Luke
I am not arguing that something is ineffable because we don't know it. Instead, I'm saying that it's ineffable when we do know it but can't express that knowledge in words; when we can't say it. — Luke
Dualists one and all. As humans are by their very nature. Or, perhaps, the very nature of their intelligence. And the later-modern advent of phenomenology becomes self-justified, in that no one likes the idea that we cannot immediately describe our own sensations, as early-modern metaphysics demands. Rather than wait for the system to complete its task as a whole, it is claimed as possible to circumvent half of it, yet still lay claim to knowledge. Abysmally short-sighted, I must say. — Mww
Didn't I already acknowledge this, in saying "sure, I'm using the word in a special way"? Surely we're still able to make distinctions? — Moliere
I'd say it's because it's teachable. It'd be more interesting to say something is ineffable because it's not even teachable, or not even learn-able, rather than because we don't know something. — Moliere
It is, ideally, merely a descriptive discipline, a cultivation of our ability to pay attention to our experiences. — Janus
The most important aspects of the practice of any art cannot be taught. So, they are not teachable, but they are learnable in the sense that you can, with practice, improve.
Same goes for meditation; you can be instructed as to how to sit, how to breath, how to hold your shoulders, your head, your tongue and so on, but that's it, the rest, the important part, is entirely up to you — Janus
Yes, obviously you and I treat sensations differently, and no, it is not possible to reconcile the contradiction intrinsic to those differences. You ask how is it that we can talk about sensations, but I ask what is it about sensations that enable them to be talked about. Your question treats language use as subject, presupposing sensation as that which satisfies the criteria by which we can talk about anything. My question treats sensation as subject, presupposing only that we can talk about anything iff it meets certain criteria. Your question has always an affirmative response, but mine has always negative, hence the impossibility of reconciling the differences. — Mww
If all language construction and use originates in the brain, and no chemical information given from the sensation of aroma is ever received in the brain, it cannot be aroma to which language construction and use is directed. — Mww
Isn't phenomenology a collection of different ideas, with some shared approaches, themes and influences? I thought the original project of Husserl's was to create a new foundation for certain knowledge - a kind of rationalist, Platonist approach befitting a mathematician. — Tom Storm
And, I'm hesitant to believe that the most important aspects of any practice cannot be taught, because of Stanislavski. — Moliere
But I think philosophy is closer to a craft like art is a craft. So in asking after the ineffable, I pretty much have in mind things like the limits of language, the limits of reason, the limits of knowledge -- that sort of thing. And the mystical provides interesting cases for different preferences of inference — Moliere
So, although I know nothing about Stanislavski, I suspect that his teaching would consist more in showing than in saying. The student then either "gets it" or doesn't. You cannot teach how to become a good painter or poet, although you can teach certain basic techniques.
This also brings me to think of aesthetics; you can't teach people to see beauty, or harmonious composition, and you can't explain what beauty or harmonious composition is; people either see it, come to see it, or they don't. — Janus
Truth is bound to language. And if the mystical is not true, because it is outside of language, in what way can we claim that it is reasonable?
I think that it's difficult to maintain some of these distinctions while seeking the mystical. If one has experienced the mystical then they can philosophize about it. But if one is seeking the mystical, to be unbound by language, then I think that's likely when we've hit the boundary of philosophy. (also, something funny here -- when mystics disagree)
The queerness of this being, since here we are talking about it, can we then predicate anything worthwhile of the beyond-language within language? There may be the mystical, the un-speakable -- but is all such talk about the unspeakable itself worthless, or not? — Moliere
I guess what it comes down to, then, is that which is shown ineffable?
Or, more subtly, in what cases is that which is shown ineffable, and why? — Moliere
it would be wrong to treat teaching as moving something from one mind to another. It is better thought of as bringing about certain behaviours in one's students. Hence it is a public exercise.
Improving is a public enterprise. It can be seen, or it amounts to nothing. — Banno
Mysticism is then nonsense, but it is an error to read "nonsense" here as a pejorative. — Banno
It would be wrong to treat teaching as moving something from one mind to another. It is better thought of as bringing about certain behaviours in one's students. Hence it is a public exercise.
Improving is a public enterprise. It can be seen, or it amounts to nothing. — Banno
↪Janus, ↪Moliere, it would be wrong to treat teaching as moving something from one mind to another. It is better thought of as bringing about certain behaviours in one's students. Hence it is a public exercise.
Improving is a public enterprise. It can be seen, or it amounts to nothing. — Banno
the transfer — Moliere
Is the public appearance of the behavior the moving of something from the behavior to each of the minds who are witnessing it, — Joshs
The personal experience which leads to improvement is not at all public, although of course the results are. — Janus
We do talk about the aroma of coffee. — Banno
And we do talk about that aroma, which might rather eccentrically be worded as "it is the aroma to which language construction and use is directed". — Banno
it is the chemical composition of coffee that gives it that aroma. — Banno
the aroma of coffee is not reducible to chemistry. — Banno
involves ritual, pleasure, anticipation, awakening, and so on. — Banno
there are two distinct ways of speaking about the same thing, for what of a better differentiation, one chemical, the other intentional. — Banno
Yes, we do. We also talk about swimming like fish, flying like birds, going to the ends of the Earth. — Mww
Nary a one of ‘em ever registers on the brain as a sensation. — Mww
the aroma of coffee is not reducible to chemistry.
— Banno
Than what was the point conveyed by listing the chemicals as the source of the aroma of coffee? — Mww
involves ritual, pleasure, anticipation, awakening, and so on.
— Banno
Yes, these are aesthetic judgements concerning human feelings, rather than the discursive judgements concerning human experience. More dualism. — Mww
What is it that is seen when we observe a behavior? Is the public appearance of the behavior the moving of something from the behavior to each of the minds who are witnessing it, unmediated by individual interpretation? — Joshs
Notice the metaphor. It easily becomes reified.
What is transferred? In teaching someone to play, they become able to move their fingers in a certain way. In teaching someone to add, they become able to participate in a group of language games such as sharing, bookkeeping, calculating change. It's the action that counts, after all. — Banno
. In teaching someone to add, they become able to participate in a group of language games such as sharing, bookkeeping, calculating change. It's the action that counts, after all. — Banno
Improving is a public enterprise. It can be seen, or it amounts to nothing. — Banno
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