Archive for the ‘Philosophical topics’ Category
Protected: Reflections: On Socratism as a way of life
Posted in on academic philosophy, on Aristotle, on courage, on ethics, on liberal education, on Nicomachean Ethics, on Plato, on politics, on Socrates, on the Apology, on Xenophon, philosophy, philosophy (short), tagged agora, amelo14, andresmelo, apology, Aristotle, on Socrates, philosophy, politics, rarefaction, reflection on October 13, 2007|
Reflections: On Socrates’ Apologies and agoristic philosophy
Posted in books, on agoristic philosophy, on Aristotle, on courage, on ethics, on Nicomachean Ethics, on Plato, on Socrates, on the Apology, on Xenophon, philosophy (short), tagged agora, agoristic, amelo14, andresmelo, apology, Aristotle, on Socrates, philosophy, rarefaction, reflection on October 12, 2007| Leave a Comment »
For those of us who find the life of Socrates to be a truly philosophical life, perhaps THE model of the philosophical life, some aspects of his two Apologies (for I take Xenophon’s Apology as seriously as Plato’s) truly stand out.
First, these apologies are intended as a defense, a juridical defense of a way of life which physically endangers he who holds fast to its foundations. If this is so, then the first striking aspect of Socratism nowadays lies in that it is very rare to have an academic philosopher actually have to engage in such a public defense. This is odd and puzzling. Perhaps it is because philosophy has opened a space for itself among our democratic societies. But most likely, in doing so, philosophy has lost its most original and powerful reality. To put it boldly, one could even say that philosophy has actually retreated although it thinks itself to be at the very forefront.
Second, the Apologies show something that is altogether striking. Socrates’ audience, once he begins his voyage towards learning of his own wisdom which lies in knowing that he does not know, is not an academic audience. My life within academic circles has allowed me to see argumentation amongst academicians many a time. But herein lies what is striking, Socrates sought in the Apology as his interlocutors others, namely, artisans, poets, and politicians. It is these who find themselves angered by Socrates’ words and actions. It is they who take him to court. In this respect one could say that Socratic philosophy is essentially agoristic, it has its place primarily in the agora, the public space par excellence. Nowadays academic philosophy has lost sight of this and therefore has lost sight of the political foundations of Socrates’ life (Heidegger specially so). In this respect, if one has worked outside academia, it is not surprising to find the very real anger by many towards the “uselessness” of the philosophical life. Little in academic circles prepares one for such anger. Much can and has to be done to redress this.
It is little wonder that in classical political philosophy the civic virtue of courage is mentioned repeatedly. It is mentioned in order to moderate it via the courage of reflection. Little is heard of such topics today; for instance, Aristotle’s books on the virtues within both of his Ethics are quickly passed over as irrelevant to our condition. This amounts to a kind of unreflective surrender. In this same vein, little is said about rhetoric itself, the public political art par excellence. As a matter of fact, this is precisely why Xenophon is no longer taken seriously in academic circles themselves! (How many philosophers actually are such that excellent generals write about them?)
Agoristic philosophy is the foundation of Socratic political philosophy. Actually, agoristic philosophy is the foundation of all serious philosophy (both beyond the seriousness of the spoudaios and the seriousness of the modern intellectual.)
Protected: Reflections: An approach to photographic nudes
Posted in literature, on eros, on myself, on nudes, on photography, tagged amelo14, andresmelo, art, nudes, photography, rarefaction, reflection on September 1, 2007|
Reflections: Socrates on love-charms and magic spells
Posted in on eros, on ethics, on Socrates, on Xenophon, philosophy (short) on January 18, 2006| Leave a Comment »
Socrates on love-charms and magic spells
Xenophon reports many intriguing conversations Socrates had with fellow Athenians and foreigners. One of these was held with an extremely beautiful young woman called Theodote who, given her beauty, frequently posed for painters and artists. The very end of their conversation reads like this:
“How, then,” she said. ‘would I be able to induce hunger in someone for what I have?”
“By Zeus,” he said Socrates, ‘if, first, you neither approach nor offer any reminder to those who are satiated until they stop being full and are in need again. Then, if you offer reminders to those who are in need by means of the most decorous intimacy possible and by visibly wishing to gratify, yet fleeing —until they are most in need. For it makes a big difference to give the same gifts at that point, rather than before they desire them.”
And Theodote said, “Why then, Socrates, don’t you become my fellow hunter of friends?”
“If, by Zeus,” he said, “you persuade me.”
“How, then, might I persuade you?” she said.
“You yourself will seek this out and will contrive it,” he said, “if you have some need of me.”
“Then visit me often,” she said.
And Socrates, joking about his own lack of busyness, said, “But Theodote, it is not very easy for me to find leisure, for in fact many affairs both private and public deprive me of leisure. And I also have female friends who will not allow me to leave them day or night, since they are learning love charms and incantations from me.”
“Do you understand these things, as well, Socrates?” she said.
“Well,” he said,” why do you think Apollodorus here and Antisthenes are never absent from me? And why do you think Cebes and Simmias are present from Thebes? Know well that this hasn’t happened without many love charms, incantations and spells.”
“Then lend me the spell,” she said, “ so that I might draw it first against you.”
“But, by Zeus,” he said, “ I myself do not wish to be drawn to you —but that you come to me.”
“Then I will go to you,” she said. “Only receive me.”
“But I will receive you,” he said, “unless some female dearer than you is inside.”
Xenophon Memorabilia III, 11 (Translation by Amy L. Bonnette, (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1994)
No wonder ugly Socrates ——who knew he knew nothing—– also knew he only knew much about only ONE specific topic. That topic was eros. In this respect he is not far from artists, who also claim to know much about our erotic life.
Protected: Reflections: On the desire to read
Posted in on eros, on poetry, on reading, on thought itself, philosophy, tagged amelo14, andresmelo, books, desire, eros, philosophy, rarefaction, reading, reflection on December 9, 2005|
Protected: Reflections: On my art and “T” people
Posted in literature, on liberal education, on liberality, on myself, on T people, on thought itself, philosophy, tagged amelo14, andresmelo, art, myself, rarefaction, reflection, T people on October 28, 2005|
Reflections: On trees, deep ecology and poetry
Posted in A Refuge of Nocturnal Birds, deep ecology, literature, on ecology, on poetry, on Quasimodo, trees, tagged amelo14, andresmelo, art, bird, ecology, eros, poetry, quasimodo, rarefaction, reflection, tree on July 15, 2005| 5 Comments »
(Note: FOR AN IDENTICAL PRESENTATION WHICH INCLUDES SOME PHOTOS, PLEASE SEE THE FOLLOWING: link )
On trees, deep ecology and poetry
1. Introduction
Most of us, if not all of us, have a particular fondness for and connection to living things. And since each of us is unique, we have greater connections to some living beings over others. This connection is very difficult to articulate. For example, some people have a fondness for dogs; still others for tarantulas. Dali was fond of flies, though most of us aren’t. I myself have always had a particular fondness for trees. I cannot tell you why exactly; I can only say that my adolescence was close to them. I was lucky, I got to know MANY diverse trees. But many other living beings were also close to me, and yet my fondness for trees stands out. This journal tries to articulate this connection.
But, fortunately, I am not the only one. Here at dA many people are fond of trees and flowers. One need only check out the photography category Nature to find thousands upon thousands of photographs being uploaded constantly. And I ask myself, what are all these deviants trying to say? Of course, not all such deviations are artistic, but they DO show that artists and non-artists have a strong and deep connection with the living.
But for some, it is poetry which is THE privileged art that opens this connection with the living more primordially than any other. This journal is also about this connection with poetry, with a poem that tells about our connection to trees. Once, one such poem came to me. It is a poem about trees. I am sorry, I must correct myself. It is a poem about A very unique tree. These are the opening lines of this poem entitled A Refuge of Nocturnal Birds:
“High on a cliff there’s a twisted pine;
intently it listens into the abyss
with its trunk curved down like a crossbow. ”
(Salvatore Quasimodo; Nobel Prize, 1959.)
Poetry uses such deceptively simple words! I mean, I am sure most of us know each and every single word just read. So much so, that we think we have understood these few lines. But then I wonder, why would Quasimodo receive the NOBEL prize if things are as simple as they appear? Surely there is a mystery brewing here. Perhaps our complex modern lives have made us a bit hasty. We know too much and rarely pause.
Instead, I propose we listen “intently” again to the poem as this peculiar pine listens intently to the abyss. But this is not easy; for I am not sure if our capacity to listen is at its best. How could we listen being surrounded, as we are, by so much noise pollution? How could we listen if we are always talking? Have we forgotten to listen in our hectic age?
But much more importantly, and these are the VERY difficult questions which guide this journal: if indeed we CAN listen to the world of living things —–if we can listen to their Being— what would it mean to be able to listen TO them? I mean something not too complex. I mean, in part, this; the latest I heard, trees just DO NOT speak. Or, more to the point, how exactly can a poem speak for trees in an age in which trees are becoming extinct because of our technological encroachment? How can we humans –specially artists and philosophers— let trees speak? Or, can/should we just shed our technological understanding of the world, an understanding in which trees have lost their symbolic enchantment? How, indeed, to let them speak without Imposing our anthropocentric voice unto them?
This journal attempts to be a very incomplete preparation towards new types of encounters. Mainly, it is shared so that together we can listen more clearly to our fondness for trees and other living beings. But like the twisted pine in Quasimodo’s poem, before getting to the poem itself, we must —unfortunately— make some preparatory twists.
2. A puzzle
The previous questions carry with them a very perplexing puzzle; it is a puzzle which is of particular interest to us modern Westerners for we alone have brought about the demise of a mythological understanding of the universe and the beings which inhabit it. To this we shall return; but for now, how to express better this puzzle which I feel so intensely?
In one of the most beautiful Platonic dialogues –—the Phaedrus, which deals with erotic discourse— Socrates says something altogether puzzling to us moderns. Phaedrus teases Socrates by telling him that he rarely leaves the city of Athens for the countryside. In the countryside Socrates seems to be totally lost. Socrates seems to not be much of a hiker, as we modern city dwellers in our polluted cities have become. To this teasing, Socrates responds:
“Forgive me, best of men. For I am a lover of learning (philomathes). Now then, the country places and the trees are not willing to teach me anything, but the human beings in town are. But you ….” (230d; Translated by James H. Nichols; Ithaca, Cornell University, 1998) ” (on the web a lesser translation, see:
[link]
(In this regard see the striking lack of reference by Xenophon’s Memorabilia (Ithaca, Cornell University, 1994) to Socrates’ studies in natural philosophy, a silence which points to the puzzling relation, to say the least, between “natural philosophy” and “political philosophy”.)
Socrates is of the city, rather than of the countryside. What could Socrates be getting at? But, is this true? Don’t we have anything to learn from trees? Isn’t Socrates absolutely wrong here? We might think about this possibility: Socrates just simply did not foresee an age in which the very existence of the Earth would come into play because of the powers we have harnessed as humans caught in our technological grids. Of course, Socrates knew VERY WELL the Greeks could destroy themselves. But for US humans to destroy the Earth, that, I think, was a situation Socrates could not have foreseen.
And yet, might not there be some truth to Socrates’ important point? To see what might be behind his point just consider a very simple question once again: when was the last time you actually spoke to a tree, and it actually answered back? By the same token, recall the opening lines of the poem above. The tree in Quasimodo‘s poem is NOT the tree which I see through my window. I bet you, the tree outside does not actually listen to anything, for it just does not have ears! So after all, it seems, Socrates has a point. Trees cannot teach us much. But, is this true?
It is this ambivalent questioning which moves me to try to listen more carefully to what trees might say to us humans in an age in which trees are continuously fallen and seen as standing reserve ready to be cut, rather than as the wilderness of which we are an integral part. This is why, in contrast to Socrates’ words, I must let you listen to Tolkien’s words. In particular, we listen with deep gratitude to how Pippin tried to describe his encounter with the Ents, the oldest inhabitants of Tolkien’s symbolically rich world:
“One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them, filled up with ages of memory and long, slow, steady thinking, but their surface was sparkling with the present; like sun shimmering on the outer leagues of a vast tree, or on the ripples of a very deep lake. I don’t know but it felt as if something that grew in the ground –asleep, you might say, or just feeling itself as something between root-tip and leaf-tip, between deep earth and sky had suddenly waked up, and was considering you with the same slow care that it had given to its own inside affairs for endless years.” (BOOK II; ‘Treebeard’, pg. 77)
How could we not learn from such creatures? How could we not wish to become like them? I mean ; “enormous wells with ages of memory of slow thought and a sparkling present as surface”, who does not seek something like this before death arrives? We moderns in particular; how could we not learn from beings whose motto, Tolkien tells us, is “do not be hasty”?
It is the pull of these two views, summed up in the contrasting words of Socrates and Tolkien, that move me to write this journal. I am extremely fond of trees, but I do not want to simply project my fears upon them. If they do indeed have nothing to teach me, I prefer to know.
3. Two understandings of trees; secular biology and sacred wisdom.
To better understand this puzzle, which I myself find difficult to grasp and even to share with you, one can bring to memory certain stories. Think of the role trees play in two very important events in human history. One concerns the origins of Buddhism; the other, the origins of our modern scientific approach.
It is said that Siddhartha, at the age of 29, was forever transformed when he came upon the sight of four very special humans: an old crippled man, a sick man, a decaying corpse, and finally a wandering holy man. The sight of suffering and the search for a meaning to such suffering, became the meaning of his life. Years later, it is said that while sitting in meditation under a bodhi tree Siddhartha reached enlightenment and became a Buddha.
“But, what does all this have to do with trees?,” impatiently you ask. Very much. The Bodhi tree plays a central role in the story; Siddhartha could just as well have been meditating in the shower when he reached Nirvana. Or under an orange tree. But that is not how the story goes. Instead, there is something in trees, specially THIS tree, which brings us closer to certain fundamental and sacred truths about ourselves and the universe. No wonder in Buddhism the bodhi tree is considered to be THE tree of wisdom; it is both sacred and its name literally means “supreme knowledge”. ([link] ) Scientific nomenclature itself has been so struck by this that it calls the tree, using its binomial categorization, ficus religiosa! [link]
(If you come from a Christian background, as many of us do in the West, you might ponder about our very own initial myth, that of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge: “And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2; 9; For a consideration see Thomas Pangle Political Philosophy and the God of Abraham“ [link] )
But we modern westerns also have another, very different story about trees. It is the story of Sir Isaac Newton’s tree. ( [link] ) It is said that the apple that hit Newton on the head allowed him to think anew our relation to the universe and its fundamental laws. The privileged realm above in the heavens could now be understood by the very same laws which were applicable to the natural world right here in our Earth. Of course, this might not have happened exactly as the story goes, but the myth has greatly become part of our understanding. And I ask myself, can you sense how different roles the trees play in each of these two very important stories? What Newton discovers is not wisdom in the company of a wise tree, but his universal mathematical understanding over and above any tree. For ALL trees are covered by the laws of gravity. In contrast, in Buddhism, NOT ALL trees are wise trees. Newton and Siddhartha sought the comforting shadow of trees for two VERY different reasons. [link] .
What this story reveals then, if I am right, is that we can no longer safely move without reaching into BOTH stories. Trees, in the West particularly, have definitely lost the strong symbolic powers which once attached to them and linked them directly to the Gods. It would seem that this is simply a loss. But I do not think so. The story of yet another tree may help us to understand the necessity of both discourses. It is the story of the neem tree.
On the one hand, ayurvedic medicine has known for centuries of its multileveled benefits. They are so many that it is actually called the “village pharmacy”. So a pre-scientific understanding has already gained much. But the biological-scientific understanding seems to provide the possibility for this tree ‘s playing a central role in the defense of complex ecosystems themselves:
“Of primary interest to research scientists is its activity as an insecticide. Many of the tree’s secondary metabolites have biological activity, but azadirachtin is considered to be of the most ecological importance. It acts by breaking the insect’s lifecycle. Research has increased in the past few years as the desire for safe pest control methods increases and it becomes apparent that this tree will be able to play a role in integrated pest management systems.“
[link]
It seems, then, that both discourses have MUCH to gain from their interaction. And yet, at the same time, we are overly conscious of the destruction of trees and rainforests in our world. We no longer have the confidence we once had that the solution to our technologically generated dilemmas can be cured by the use of technology itself. We recognize that something has gone wrong with this scientific-instrumental view of nature. We fear, rightly, that it does not have the tools to pull itself out of the dangers it generates.
And the tension of our initial puzzle, which I hope has progressively become clearer, returns. On the one hand it is WE humans who are disrupting the planet and therefore humbly must take into consideration the symbolic relevance of other living beings. But on the other hand, we somehow sense that WE alone have consciousness of the world and know what it would actually mean to SAVE or DESTROY this living world of ours. Perhaps if we try to understand more closely the dangers of instrumental reason we can get clearer still on this difficult puzzle. Here, the aid of some philosophers is much required.
4. Instrumental reason and deep ecology
To see how deep we are into this scientific model of understanding nature, we can do an exercise in memory. Biology courses provide a great example. For, it seems, we moderns take it for granted that the way we classify nature and seek to understand it, is THE primary way of access to the world. A standard biological definition of a tree reads: “A tree can be defined as a large, perennial, woody plant. Though there is no set definition regarding minimum size, the term generally applies to plants at least 6 m (20 ft) high at maturity and, more importantly, having secondary branches supported on a single main stem or trunk.” [link]
That we do not feel any uneasiness at this view of trees, should indeed make us a bit uneasy. This understanding of trees is quite unique and problematic. Don’t you see something odd here? First of all, it is indeed odd to even try to define trees. Of course, biology requires it. But, is this mode of access the PRIMARY access to trees we must adopt? What this model emphasizes is not without problems. We classify, categorize, measure and analyze. Don’t you feel you are objectively being told what a tree is, as if the tree were being observed from above, rather than the tree being a participant in a complex ecosystem? And such definitions usually continue by telling us what we westerners seem to love, they proceed to speak of superlatives. We are immediately told about the tallest, the widest, the oldest, constantly seeking in reality what we can quantify analytically. However, as for the height of trees, it is interesting that we are told: “the heights of the tallest trees in the world have been the subject of considerable dispute and much (often wild) exaggeration.”. Trees serve our purposes for recognition by others; we want to have the tallest tree near US, so we can stand out much taller than we actually are.
But how to quantify what for others is the sacredness of certain trees? The Bodhi tree does not seem to stand so much physically apart from all other trees as it does spiritually. To have been the one tree under which marvelous events occurred, what more could a tree wish for? A more comprehensive, a deeper, understanding of trees is required. Trees must be allowed a voice beyond their classification. Poetry, as we shall see, is such a possibility.
Many philosophers have likewise pointed out how strange this view of reason is; primarily because it begins its processing by severing our access to the world of living things. For it to work accurately and cleanly, it must begin by separating us form the world. This is a non-starter for many of us. This strangeness can be revealed as well in our modern maps. This type of reason is known in philosophical circles as “instrumental reason”: It has a complex history of its own connected to the rise of the new science defended by Bacon and Descartes. Among other things, when one speaks of instrumental rationality the idea is that we consider the means without thinking reflexively about the ends to which this means might lead us. Production must keep increasing even if there will in the end be nothing to produce with. We seem caught in this self-destructive dynamic. Underpinning this view of the world is the preponderance of a cost-benefit analysis and in general a utilitarian outlook to ourselves, others and nature. Taylor sums up the issue quite well:
“Instrumental reason has grown along with a disengaged model of the human subject, which has a great hold on our imagination. It offers an ideal picture of human thinking that has disengaged from its messy embedding in our bodily constitution, our dialogical situation, our emotions and our traditional forms of life in order to be pure, self-verifying rationality. This is one of the most prestigious forms of reason in our culture.“ (“The Ethics of Authenticity”, a MUST read for ANY artist, pg. 102)
Disengaging ourselves from trees, easily we topple them. We might say to ourselves: “They cannot engage in dialogue; so much the worse for them.”
To this position the Romantics, among many, revolted. They pointed out the dangers of this separation between humans and their natural world. Art became a way to bridge the disconnected parts which conformed a mechanical view of the universe. To make a very long story short, what has come out of such critiques is what is known as a stance called “Deep ecology”. This position stems from a reconsideration of what language reveals about ourselves and the world we inhabit. Under it, living things place a demand on us humans which moves us beyond our anthropocentrism into a view in which we “let things be”. In an article entitled “Heidegger, Buddhism and deep ecology”, Michael Zimmerman writes:
“Buddhism, Heidegger and Naess argue that puncturing the illusion of permanent selfhood would alleviate the infliction of such suffering by freeing one from the illusory quest for total control. Being liberated from the illusion of egocentrism also frees one from the spontaneous compassion towards other beings human and non-human alike. One ´lets things be´ not for any external goal, but instead simply from a profound sense of identification with all things” (pg 263-264)
It is not by chance that it is Buddhism which leads the way here. Siddhartha knew much about trees, or so it seems. Now, this perspective in itself is not without problems, but it stands as a powerful critique of the anthropocentric view which sees humans as dominators of nature, rather than as one of the highest expressive possibilities of the natural.
Deep ecology reconsiders seriously the role language plays in our relation to the world. Instead of using language to classify the world, words become the way to disclose things and allow them a voice beyond our own. Having language center exclusively on humans likewise makes it impossible to hear subtler languages which open humans to realities beyond their own anthropocentric paradigm. Our initial puzzle seems to have found a possible response. Although it is WE humans who have language, it is by changing the way we understand language, that we can hear the voice of the living things to which we belong. Something like this is what Taylor is trying to get at with the use of the term “epiphany”:
“what I want to capture with this term is just the notion of a work of art as the locus of a manifestation which brings us into the presence of something which is otherwise inaccessible, and which is of the highest moral or spiritual significance; a manifestation, moreover, which also defines or completes something, even as it reveals” (SotS pg 419)
Art in particular provides the human possibility in which epiphany can be realized. Perhaps now we are more prepared to listen to Quasimodo’s poem about a very unique tree.
5. A poem about a unique tree: “A Refuge of Nocturnal Birds”
Do forgive so many twists and turns. Now, finally, to Quasimodo’s complete poem. A Refuge of Nocturnal Birds, reads:
“High on a cliff there’s a twisted pine;
intently it listens into the abyss
with its trunk curved down like a crossbow.
A refuge of nocturnal birds,
in the deepest hours of midnight it resounds
with the swift fluttering of wings.
Even my heart has a nest
suspended into the darkness, and a voice;
it, too, lies awake listening at night.”
Let’s listen to it a stanza at a time. We must remain open to see what poetry can reveal and transform as it reveals. It reveals complexities, even if made up of the simplest of words. As few other arts can, it reaches origins.
.
First Stanza
“High on a cliff there’s a twisted pine;
intently it listens into the abyss
with its trunk curved down like a crossbow.”
The poem opens by distancing us from what appears is its main character. High on a cliff, far away, one sees a tree. But this tree is not just any tree. It could have been a maple, or a eucalyptus. But no. It is a pine. “Why a pine?,” you might ask. Only later shall we see. We must be patient and not skip the lines of the poem. We must not be hasty as Tolkien’s trees remind us. But then we puzzle a bit. This pine is no ordinary pine; it is instead, twisted. But tell me: have you ever seen a twisted pine? Aren’t pines the straightest of trees? Why does Quasimodo do this?
Perhaps that this special pine is twisted tells us something. It is a pine which has undergone a transformation. Its nature is no longer what other trees of its species take for granted. It has mutated. It stands out. And we imagine all other pines blushing somewhat at the sight of such abnormality. In contrast, Siddhartha would not have mocked this tree. .
Having described the tree and its location, we are now told what it actually DOES. Trees aren’t really the most active of creatures. But this tree is special. It is a listening tree. It listens with its twisted trunk. How does it listen? This tree listen INTENTLY. It is an intense twisted tree. What does it listen to? It listens to the abyss. It listen to the depths; to the depths of time and the darkness of origins.
And through the magic of words Quasimodo suddenly transports us from the distance on the high cliff afar, to a certain closeness to this tree. We are moved , with a few words, to focus on the shape of its trunk. The tree trunk provides the solidity of a tree’s very existence. Just remember the biological definition of trees. It is the trunk which holds the branches, not the other way around. Surely a tree without a trunk is like a person without a spinal chord. And this tree’s trunk has a special form; that of a crossbow. And we puzzle at Quasimodo’s choice of words. A crossbow for what? This pine intently listening is both a pine and a crossbow. Now we suddenly understand why it MUST be a pine. For a pine has the form of an arrow. This pine listening intently projects itself ready for flight as an arrow thrown from its very own being towards itself. But how can this be so? Have you ever seen a tree move? How can it move while remaining in its place? Trees seem to have a certain magic to them.
Second Stanza
“A refuge of nocturnal birds,
in the deepest hours of midnight it resounds
with the swift fluttering of wings.’
Quasimodo gives us pause to rethink what has happened. And while we do so, we return only to suffer a move towards the inside. This fantastic tree, shunned by other trees in their upright existence —–which does not mean this tree is not itself upright, only that it is so in a very different way— has a peculiar function. It is the tree chosen by the surrounding birds. It is a refuge for life. Bent, it can carry the birds which upright trees might not. These winged friends flock to it at night, when the light of day is gone and great perils arise. Waiting in time, probably remembering its own rings, suddenly this tree resounds in the darkest of moments. And we look carefully at Quasimodo’s choices upon the many which opened before him while writing. This tree “resounds”. Why not simply say that this tree “sounds”? Why emphasize that it RE-sounds. Perhaps because this tree has sounded before, and will sound again at midnight as long at it lives and there are humans to tell the story. Other trees seem soundless in comparison.
It resounds at a specific time; at the time in which much of night has gone by, and still much of night is still to come. One needs strength to survive until midnight and great hope to survive afterwards. For dusk is long past, and dawn is far away. How can we be sure dawn will in fact arrive? This tree has no songs of its own, though its rings have the memory of countless singing inhabitants it has outlasted. This unique tree resounds with the fluttering of wings. Swiftly the birds ——who take refuge in it as a home—– give it motion and musicality. Instead of simply lying asleep within the tree, they keep it close company. It is as if the birds —-in gratitude towards this special tree— want to take the crossbow which this twisted tree is, directly into flight. Unable to fly, this tree is now prepared, because of the presence of fluttering birds, to fly. For we are truly grateful to refuges; particularly to those refuges which took us in the midnight hours of our lives. Specially those refuges who gave us shelter based on the DIFFICULT maturity of true generosity. Grateful as Siddhartha must have been before he became another; a much better other.
Third Stanza
“Even my heart has a nest
suspended into the darkness, and a voice;
it, too, lies awake listening at night.”
And we catch our breath for we are heading towards the end. We began far way, only to enter into the very branches which hold these birds within. But now, suddenly, WE appear to ourselves for the very first time. The twisted tree OUT there in the cliff, the birds OUT there in the twisted tree, becomes the tree IN which WE live. We are not the tree, but we are close. Have you ever been close to a tree? Quasimodo tells us that even our hearts have a nest here. But we KNOW we are not birds If you have doubts, try to fly into the abyss. And yet, a bit like birds, we create our nests from the twigs and small branches of our lives. Furthermore, for Quasimodo the nest is not primarily for our brains, or legs; though it is ALSO nest for them. It is primarily a refuge for our hearts. This twisted tree is a refuge for artists who value our emotional human existence as a privileged way of accessing the world which surrounds us in constant immediacy.
Quasimodo is grateful as well; even HIS heart has a nest. This is why he shares this poem with us. He does not simply want a nest for himself, but rather a nest for US. But this nest, we are told, lies suspended. It lacks a firm grounding which guarantees total safety. Total and firm grounding is not a possibility for us moderns, as it was possible for earlier times. Our access to nature as moderns cannot have the grounding we once knew in earlier mythologies which allowed for a direct connection between trees and gods. We know of science and its understanding. This is why our nest lies suspended in the darkness. .A strong and compassionate refuge is required precisely in such times. It is in darkness that the generosity of shelter becomes a gift. Suspended in the darkness and close to the abyss, Quasimodo’s poem allows us to reconsider ourselves and our relation to the world of trees.
And then the MOST puzzling aspect of the poem appears as a lightning bolt. Quasimodo briefly adds “and a voice”. Not the tree’s voice. Not the birds’ voices. Not Quasimodo’s voice, for he could just as well have said “my” voice. And yet it is A voice. This voice does not have the presumptions of possession, but rather discloses, in the darkness, the possibility itself of a language in which things are freed unto themselves for us to hear them. And what does it say? Nothing; for our human voice may perhaps have said too much. Instead, it is open to the difficult activity of listening beyond our own speech. This voice is open to the disclosure of nature in the very words of the poem we are reading together.
In contrast to so many voices, this voice lies speechless; it awaits the time to speak, to open itself in renewed speech. It listens, as once the twisted tree we knew at the beginning of the poem did. Awakened, it has allowed this tree access to language. Our consciousness –liberated from pure instrumentality – becomes itself a crossbow which projects the tree as an arrow into the abyss. This voice, the voice of the poem itself, resounds ever again as we feel the pull to return to the beginning, to its origin. Perhaps in it, awake at night, we might feel the echoes of a faint refuge for us humans, specially of us artists. Instrumentality has seen the possibility of a depth beyond its dangerous limitations.
6. Conclusion
This has been, once again, a long journey. I am grateful if you have been a refuge to my weak words. Perhaps now we are more prepared to listen for calls which we might otherwise miss. Perhaps at least this call must be heard; the tree of life must be heard before we continue climbing up the tree of knowledge. For it seems we know much, but live well little. Perhaps together we are now better prepared to listen to Quasimodo’s deceptively simple words. Let’s listen intently:
A Refuge of Nocturnal Birds
“High on a cliff there’s a twisted pine;
intently it listens into the abyss
with its trunk curved down like a crossbow.
A refuge of nocturnal birds,
in the deepest hours of midnight it resounds
with the swift fluttering of wings.
Even my heart has a nest
suspended into the darkness, and a voice;
it, too, lies awake listening at night.”
(RIFUGIO D’UCCELLI NOTTURNI
In alto c’è un pino distorto;
sta intento ed ascolta l’abisso
col fusto piegato a balestra.
Rifugio d’uccelli notturni,
nell’ora più alta risuona
d’un battere d’ali veloce.
Ha pure un suo nido il mio cuore
Sospeso nel buio, una voce;
sta pure in ascolto, la notte. link )
Reflections: On Space, Western Architecture and 9/11
Posted in literature, on 9/11, on architecture, on ecology, on Heidegger, on maps, on politics, on religion, on space, philosophy, tagged 9/11, amelo14, andresmelo, maps, philosophy, rarefaction, reflection, space, Western on June 17, 2005| Leave a Comment »
(Note: FOR AN ALMOST IDENTICAL PRESENTATION WHICH INCLUDES SOME PHOTOS, PLEASE SEE THE FOLLOWING: link )
On Space, Western Architecture and 9/11
[link]
1. Introduction
Perhaps the best way to surprise oneself is to look a bit more closely at what seems totally obvious. Looking at it more closely may surprise and can give us great pleasure. What was always there, suddenly appears for the very first time. For instance, if you use glasses, you know you never actually see them. Until you loose them; THEN you go into “panic” mode. One such deceptively simple reality lies behind the concept of space. We move through space as fish through water; we rarely even notice it. Again, we seem to do so only negatively, that is, specially when some object obstructs our movements and we trip. Suddenly we find ourselves cursing the thing which made us “think” about space itself!
Or you might wonder at spatial realities we take for granted; for instance, that the space in the classroom —-or in prison, or in the hospital, as Foucault points out—- must be set in such and such a form. If the classroom is simply a set of rows, then the teacher appears as all-governing; if the chairs are set out in a circle, then the teacher becomes a participant, although still a privileged one. And for sure, in many cases there may be no chairs because of poverty. But the issue concerns not simply objects out there, as in the classroom, but even the very way we relate to others. In the previous example of the classroom, the space between students and professors in North America has strict legalistic and prohibitive boundaries; meanwhile, in Latin America teachers and students require a certain closeness which sometimes even involves the comfort of benign touch.
But isn’t space just something quite easy to understand? Under a common view, a view to which we moderns have become accustomed to, the puzzle behind space is easily “answered” by being equated to the distance between things. Want to know the space between two things? Well, just measure it. The measurement gives 2 meters, that’s the space between stuff. (However, even when space is quantified, we cannot agree as to how to do it; some of us use meters, others who are more powerful use feet.)
Leaving aside the issue of how surprising it is that our bodies are fit for space (Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor marvels continuously at this taken for granted issue), and leaving aside the very important Kantian discussion of space, it must be stressed that the relation of the artist to space is quite unique and privileged. Here in dA, specially in the area of photography, one constantly sees amazing photographs of architectural landmarks. Architecture is THE foundational art that deals with the issue of space, in particular, modeling those lived spaces in which we humans inhabit our meaningful spatial world. In this sense, the first cavern which was inhabited was no longer simply a cavern; it had already become a primitive home affording the security of a shelter which allowed for the appearance of symbolic painting, for communal language and for a concern with the divine.
This foundational role of architecture was ironically captured by Frank Lloyd Wright who, while constructing the Guggenheim Museum, had to deal with letters by renowned artists who complained about the impossibility of their art being displayed on the curved walls and low ceilings of the, then, very controversial museum. Wright —-exemplifying his personality—- responded: “If the paintings are too large, cut them in half!” Such words allow us non-architects to acknowledge that architecture has an understanding of space which most of us lack. However, to reflect on the conceptual nature of the space which is the concern of architecture, is a task not all architects may have the skills to do. For this, some philosophers are needed. It is in this respect that architects –one could even say in general those many artists interested in issues of spatiality— and perceptive philosophers —trained in the difficult process of clarification of conceptual realities– must work together to get clearer on the perplexing nature of space. Perhaps in their combined efforts they might cross those spaces and boundaries which separate them. We political philosophers feel the need for such collaboration; do artists and architects?
Furthermore, it seems clear that the way we inhabit space is transformed historically and reflects our political regimes. The architecture of a democracy is not that of an aristocracy; the castle is not the place for a voting society. The architecture of a theocracy, such as that of Iran, is not that of a parliamentary regime. As our brilliant Colombian Architect Rogelio Salmona –creator of the inspiring Virgilio Barco public Library in my beloved Bogotá— wrote: “the architectonic is the path which I followed in order to find that modernity begins with a new perception of space … he who wants to produce another system of figuration, representation and construction of space, must know its evolution and know the moments ruptures are produced.” Spatiality has a history and therefore it is traversed by temporality. In this respect one should not expect the architectural spaces of Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, Modern Canada, and that of the Inuit’s to be identical. But more primordially, the representation of space by the modern West becomes a topic unto itself.
The political question on the nature of modern spatiality becomes all the more urgent if one attends to the events of September 11, 2001. But you might ask: “what would the way we decide to inhabit space have anything to do with politics (a common theme of all my journals)?” Well one could do an exercise in imagination. The atrocious and cowardly attacks of 9/11 on the USA specifically, and on the West in general (e.g., the later infamous attacks on Madrid in 2004) —–it seems to me—- could be seen as attacks on some of the elements of the Modern Western conception of space. In this respect, the guiding questions for this very tentative journal is: If our views of space not only have personal or artistic values, but more primordially political and theological ones, then: Are the attacks of 9/11, which transformed the world radically, an attack on the very concept of space which guides the western view of spatiality? And connected to this question: Is there something that can be seen as arrogant, even hubristic, about some of our North American architecture, in particular of our financial institutions who have sought to reach the sky through the building of ever taller and taller skyscrapers? But if there is some truth to this, as the anti-globalization marches seem to portray, can we just simply let these institutions collapse without attending to the dangerous repercussions of such positions? More importantly; isn’t the emptiness we all felt after the 9/11 attacks, the very condition which allows us to reconsider our sense of space?
And going further still into very difficult and dangerous territory: does this sense of space as radically secular come into conflict with a sense of space permeated by the presence of the divine? “What do you mean,” you might ask. Well this; a Muslim’s sense of space is radically different from that of a secular westerner. For instance, if you are a secular unbeliever you might consider: have you ever thought about having to kneel down in prayer five times a day –according to the position of the sun— and forcing your body to direct itself towards a spatial reality which is the foundation of your faith, of your very sense of being and of your connection to the divine? [link] Do we westerners —even those who are believers— ever stop five times to reach out for the divine through the positioning itself of our bodies? Or consider the following: a pilgrimage is the way a believers traverses worldly spaces towards a certain reconciliation with the divine. Now, each and every Muslim ––with some monetary and health related exceptions— must do one in his/her life? In contrast: where does our western pilgrimage head towards? Unsure of myself, I ask, can two such different views of space actually find a space to meet? Or must space be obliterated continuously by the two parties, making it a real impossibility for us to inhabit the very same Earth which is our only spatial possibility?
Fortunately for us, there are within our western traditions, architects who have seen the issue very clearly. Among them, Kahn, Wright, Niemeyer, and Libeskind. In this respect perhaps it is worthwhile to remember what Wright thought of modern skyscrapers, the symbol of North American economic power: “Wherever human life is concerned, the unnatural stricture of excessive verticality cannot stand against more natural horizontality.” Words by Wright that could not have foreseen the unacceptable atrocities perpetrated on 9/11 by extremists intent on simply obliterating space.
2. The philosophy of western spatiality; our maps.
So, how could one go about seeing what is behind these different concepts of space, if in fact we move through our spaces as fish move through water? I once asked a young boy how fish took a shower if there were already in water. He was puzzled. I laughed a bit, but I feel the same way with regards to our notion of space. In this respect I laugh a bit at myself. If we are “immersed” in our spatial being in the world, how to find a way to surprise ourselves? Here, recourse to history is one fundamental possibility.
If our understandings of space have a history, then ours is the history of the radical and, hardly questioned, compression of time and space. If previously the distance between us and others we loved was mediated by letters which took long periods of time to reach their destination —-think of how difficult it was to arrange battles as the succumbing of the Spanish Armada shows—-, now the instantaneous connection of those near to us is easily achieved via email, internet messenger, blogging and SMS. Cyberspace complicates the picture even more given that the space of truly realistic video games further deepens our puzzles. The amazing spaces “within” such games, and the spaces shared by those playing on-line is non-existent. Even money and financial transactions have lost their spatial touchability; e-commerce allows virtual reality to guide our everyday transactions. Many of our work relations are likewise mediated by cyberspace, a strange kind of space which we know is nowhere. Just puzzle a bit about our own dA; it allows for the instantaneous communication through thousands of kilometers with fellow deviants who share paintings and photographs that are “spaceless” images repeated constantly and instantaneously (well, almost!)
All in all, it seems as though the reality of spatiality becomes obliterated in our virtual world. I firmly believe this is why, in a world guided by images, the fall of the Twin Towers was perceived by many as a “movie”; which it CERTAINLY WAS NOT. No wonder it is harder and harder for us to even think the question itself. As David Harvey in his amazing The Condition of Postmodernity puts it:
“As space appears to shrink to a ‘global village’ of telecommunications and a ‘spaceship earth’ of economic and ecological interdependencies —to use just two familiar and everyday images —- and as time horizons shorten to the point where the present is all there is (the world of the schizophrenic), so we have to learn how to cope with an overwhelming sense of compression of our spatial and temporal worlds.”
For many this tendency began historically with the emergence of science which required a quantifiable view of space as providing the basis for the certainty of objective data needed to develop a scientific understanding of the world. . But I cannot deal with this issue here (though many, including Taylor, have dealt with the issue extensively; see his “Overcoming epistemology”.)
But, how to get at this problematic if one is not a “trained” philosopher or architect? Well, I will try to show you a way to do it. I will tell you where I live. Goggle maps provide us with the possibility of pinpointing the very exact space which we inhabit. So here is where I live; approximately, just in case any deviant wants to get back at me for having to read such long journals!
http://amelo14.deviantart.com/art/Journal-Space-2-19526771
You look and find everything all too familiar. THAT is part of the problem. But do you have a sense that there is something very limiting about this representation of space? “Well, “ you could reply, “how else can one go around places then?” And I wonder worried, “so you do not see it”. Well, I must not give up and try to allow you to see what is so strange here. Take a look at another period in time in which other types of relations to space existed. Take a look at some early medieval maps:
Paris Map 1250
Chronicles of St. Denis 1364-1372
Now you at least see that OUR maps are profoundly different. You look a bit startled. And of course you laugh a bit and say to yourself: “Poor people they were so ignorant then, they just simply did not have the technology to map out correctly their maps.” And I agree, in part: I mean, look at those little houses, well, was that drawn by children? Did Klee draw these maps?
But maybe, you might just start to ponder whether it is YOU who does not see what those maps take for granted. A bit worried, you start to realize that the medieval maps were not guided by the x-y coordinates of the Cartesian grid. In contrast, early medieval maps represent the world in terms of the world’s significance to the inhabitants of these spaces. What mattered was not the distance between the houses, but the houses; and if a given place had a special significance, well, it was actually drawn to stand out. The church, the castle, Prince Amelo’s retreat, were much larger than they actually were in reality. And besides, you might just start to see how your modern eyes are connected to a secular way of seeing the world. The Chronicle of St. Denis is a mapping which involves the stages of the life of a Saint. Remember what we said at the start of the Muslim pilgrimage? Our maps certainly have no sense of any pilgrimage whatsoever; their function is to get us around as quickly and efficiently as possible. Harvey summarizes well the issue: “Maps stripped of all fantasy and religious belief, as well as any sign of the experiences involved in their production, had become abstract and strictly functional systems for the factual pondering of phenomena in space” (249). Charles Taylor, the architectonic foundation of my Ph.D. thesis, adds: “A way is essentially something you go through in time. The map on the other hand, lays out everything simultaneously, and relates every point to every point without discrimination”. (176)
And we wonder how come we have never seen this before. What else might we not be seeing? What else might we not even want to open ourselves to seeing? A firm conviction of the Socratic uneasiness which sets itself up against those who simply know they know, motivates me to write this journal, to face up to my own ignorance of myself and of the spatial world I inhabit daily.
3. The Cartesian model of spatiality in modern architecture: Le Corbusier
and the city of Brasilia.
But, what does this have to do at all with architecture as the privileged art dealing with space? A lot. The Cartesian gird which informed our maps, itself informed the construction of architectural reality. Even Descartes understood that his method, set out in his Discourse on Method —–the pillar of early modernity—– implied that cities should be ordered rationally by truly rational city planners: “..and the way they make the street twisted and irregular, one would say that it was chance that placed them so, not the will of men who had the use of reason.” (Part II). And what is most intriguing about this whole story, and to be as brief as possible, is that architects like Le Corbusier, in their defense of modernity, tried to implement in their works the presuppositions of this type of rationality based on an overconfident sense of technological progress which would, allegedly, allow for the realization of noble social projects. The rational and efficient use of space is seen clearly in Le Corbusier’s plans for Paris:
It is a spatial layout which reminds us of images in the famous documentary Koyaanistqatsi, and of images of the inner city projects in North America which later decayed progressively in contrast to the initial intentions of their creators.
But perhaps the single most impressive attempt to instantiate this model is the creation of a capital city itself where nothing stood before. Such is the case of the absolutely amazing example of Brasilia, capital of Brazil, which was built from scratch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brasilia#A_planned_city It was built during 4 years, starting in 1956, and followed Le Corbusier’s ideals of modernism. As a modernist project, it was built as a totally new beginning, so as to point how modernity is a radical new start which sees previous ages with a bit of disdain. Medieval maps of course appear a bit inferior, they appear as the products of dark ages. Furthermore, to emphasize the radical importance of political space, the capital was built in the very centre of colossal Brazil, in order to ensure the unity of the Nation as was established in the constitution itself.
Brasilia under construction
[link]
[link]
But as with our modern maps, the meaningfulness of those inhabiting Brasilia itself took second place. This is why today nobody can go to places in Brasilia without having to deal with excessively long walking distances for the city was designed with an unquestioned and naïve view of the role of automobiles in our modern city streets. As citizens in Brasilia put it in a popular saying that points out the deficiencies of this model of spatiality: “(in Brasilia) the inhabitants are born with wheels instead of feet.” (Turning further North for a second, we are dismayed as 6 smog alerts have already covered the space which is our Toronto this year; precisely, in part, because of the excessive use of cars. This is a stark reminder that the way we decide to inhabit our space has everything to do with our day to day quality of life. My dear Bogota is ahead in this respect with its car-free days, model public transportation and famous limiting of cars by their license plates.)
And to have a better grasp for what was on the mind of the architects of the time, their utter optimism with regards to technology, Brasilia itself was made to be seen from above as resembling a modern airplane!
Brasilia: City Plan
[link]
This is certainly an extremely cruel irony when one thinks of the disastrous outcome which resulted from the hijacking of the US airplanes on 9/11. It showed the world the possibility of using aircraft as destructive weapons of the very space which embodies some of the very important ideals of the West.
4. Deconstructing our modernist spatiality
So how can this perception of space be transformed? It has actually already been done for many years by postmodernists architects and their critiques of modernist architects such as Le Corbusier; as well as by well-known architects such as Wright (see his Fallingwater house, [link] ), Kahn (see his National Assembly in Dacca Bangladesh, ), Gaudi (see his Sagrada Familia, [link] ) and Niemeyer (see his Niteroi Museum in Rio, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Niemeyer). Harvey once again provides a good summary of some of the broad differences: “Above all, postmodernists depart radically from modernist conceptions of how to regard space. Whereas the modernists see space as something to be shaped for social purposes and therefore always subservient to the construction of a special project, the postmodernists see space as something independent and autonomous, to be shaped according to the aesthetic aims and principles which have nothing necessarily to do with any overarching objective, save, perhaps, the achievement of timelessness and ‘disinterested’ beauty as an objective in itself”. (66) Another way to put is as Wright does: “Beautiful buildings are more than scientific. They are true organisms, spiritually conceived; works of art, using the best technology by inspiration rather than the idiosyncrasies of mere taste or any averaging by the committee mind.” Or elsewhere: “Organic buildings are of the strength and lightness of the spider’s spinning, buildings qualified by light, bred by native character to environment, married to the ground.” Positions which are beautifully captured in the most famous house in the world:
Fallingwater
But given that my concern is to bridge the space constantly separating artists and philosophers, I will briefly look indirectly at the work of Martin Heidegger who, of all philosophers, stands only second to Nietzsche on his writings on modern art. In his very difficult Being and Time, using his very complex language, he dedicates numerals *22-*24 to the issue of a reconsideration of Cartesian spatiality. There he says some truly odd and difficult things to understand. For example, Heidegger says: “In Dasein there lies an essential tendency towards closeness. All the ways in which we speed up things, as we are more or less compelled to do today, push us towards the conquest of remoteness.“ *23, (106)
What might Heidegger be getting at? Well, primary and negatively, he is all for an intelligent critique of our conception of space as being guided by the Cartesian framework in which space is what can be simply measured; a methodological framework which presents the world as something out THERE to be objectively considered. Instead, for Heidegger in our everyday going about spatially in the world, we are ALREADY moving in space in a primary way which is rarely questioned. This is why Heidegger speaks of our primordially already “being-in-the-world”. Heidegger loves to use examples of everyday utensils to bring out what is obvious, but has been lost from sight.
Those utensils we actually use in our dally lives are never found in independent spaces, but rather are found in a network of spaces which interconnects them. Things occupy a space in this web of significance which is never questioned except when something goes wrong. We all remember our mom “freaking out” when she found the basketball in the living room. “THAT is not its place,” she constantly reminded us. This normal affair partly reveals how the spaces we humans inhabit are set up in ways which provide meaning to our surroundings Or think of what happens when your remote control is nowhere to be found. We rarely pause to think about it, but not finding the remote upsets our moving about in the world in such a way that, for the most neurotic of us, we just can’t go on. We can’t even continue watching the movie, or even pause to turn on the TV ourselves!
The multiplicity of spaces in which we move about daily conforms a network of meaning which goes unquestioned just as we saw with our modern understanding of space itself. We could not even question the maps we use daily; it is for this very same reason that we cannot see anything strange or deforming about them. For while we move in space, we cannot think about the issue; we just move. We simply use the map, and that of course, is what they are there for. Can you imagine trying to get to the CN Tower and suddenly some philosopher starts to talk about the x-y grid! We would never get anywhere!
I fear I have lost some of you in mapping out this last section which I have compressed beyond what is acceptable. So because we are all artists here, let me try another example from literature. The work of Albert Camus allows us to get a better grasp for what Heidegger might mean. If we remember spaces which we inhabited once and no longer do —- the houses of our childhood, the countries we have left, the parks we used to play in, the farm we used to visit, our first apartment—, if we try hard to imagine them, we might see what is so odd about a Cartesian view of spatiality. Remembering them, the network of signification stares us directly. Camus allows us this return in his Return to Tipasa:
“Yet I persisted without very well knowing what I was waiting for, unless perhaps the moment to go back to Tipasa. To be sure, it is sheer madness, almost always punished to return to the sites of one’s youth, to relive at forty what one loved or keenly enjoyed at twenty . But I was forewarned of that madness … I hoped, I think, to recapture there a freedom I could not forget” Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus and other essays, “Return to Tipasa, pg. 196. Vintage Books, 1983.)
Revisiting the spaces which formed us, requires revisiting ourselves as we once were. This is not easy, for the places might no longer be the networks of significance they once were. The old family house is now simply a broken-down store; the park where we played, condominiums surrounded by pavement; the farm, a guerrilla outpost. But as Camus writes, we are simultaneously reminded of the very freedom which allowed us to leave these places in the first place. For in some cases —–more than just “some cases” I fear is more accurate for the lives of artists and philosophers—– these places might have become a bit like caverns or cages. According to Camus, we remember through this exercise in imaginary revival the courage it took to embark ourselves towards new spatial possibilities. This, some immigrants, specially those who have thought through their courage a bit, know all too well. It is this same courage we need to undertake in order to reconsider our own modern spatiality which came radically into question after the horrifying collapse of the World Trade Center Towers; now, their space can no longer be filled by anything except a memorial of what once was, and is no longer there.
5. Conclusion
What is obvious has the tendency to surprise us the most because it is the most hidden from us. Because it is so “obvious”, we rarely have the courage to confront it. Something similar happens within families. But thanks to the combined work of artists and philosophers we can start to move towards reconciling ourselves, not only with ourselves, but with other cultures by means of a critical dialogue in which both parties argue intelligently about their unquestioned presuppositions. For this task, the help of philosophers, specially artistically-inclined philosophers, is required. For this task, the help of artists/architects, specially philosophically-inclined artists, is required. For it is clear we do not want to become the inhabitants of the deadly space which surrounds the doomed panther in Rilke’s famous poem :
“His tired gaze -from passing endless bars-
has turned into a vacant stare which nothing holds.
To him there seem to be a thousand bars,
and out beyond these bars exists no world.”
For this is the world of those who perpetrated 9/11 and left for thousands of unsuspecting victims only the reality of collapsing space and timeless grief.
Libeskind’s plans for WTC: “Memory Foundations”
Appendix: secular and/or divine spaces?
Briefly in what follows I put forward, as a result of the previous exercise, some tentative parallels on some plausible differences between a space guided by secular reason, and one founded upon the faith of the divine, particularly, though not exclusively, as seen in Islam:
Secular
1. Notion of immediacy and compression of space through continuous technological encounters via cell-phones, email, messengers.
2. The space of the individual as the paramount foundation of meaningfulness; giving authentic meaning to my spaces is done through my direct participation.
3. The skyscraper as the outstanding achievement of western architecture, symbolizing the economic strength and political unity of the most powerful reaching, as high as materials can, to a secular sky above.
4. A Cartesian model of spatiality conforming to Euclidian geometry which makes of reality something detached and scientifically observable.
5. Earth as the unique and sole spatial abode which requires of our human care.
6. Architecture as the art which dignifies our secular presence in a world which famous architects transform in the search for a certain kind of immortality, that of creation. As Philip Johnson said: . “All architects want to live beyond their deaths.” [link]
Divine
1. Notion of space mediated though the presence of the divine as can be seen in the importance and lay out, for instance, of the Mosque and the parts which conform its architecture, including the Mihrab and the Minbar. http://www.islamicarchitecture.org/architecture/themosque.html [link]
2. The space of the individual takes a secondary role, overshadowed by the divine moral commands which include specific roles for the body; kneeling, fasting, preparing for pilgrimage, among many others.
3. The temple as the architectural summit: the Mosque as the greatest architectural achievement in praise of Allah.
4. Marveling at the possibility of geometry by including geometric patterns repeating themselves infinitely in great architectural works. These attempt to lead us through perception itself to the unity of the infinite in God: “Driven by the religious passion for abstraction and the related doctrine of unity, the Muslim intellectuals recognized in geometry the unifying intermediary between they material and the spiritual world” http://www.islamicarchitecture.org/art/islamic-geometry-and-floral-patterns.html [link]
5. God as the unique reality beyond any spatial finitude. God as spaceless and yet the sole creator of space.
6. The only true architect is God as exemplified by the poetic psalms of impressive King David: Psalm 31: 1-3 ”In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness.; Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for a house of defense to save me.; For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me.”
Reflections: Resignation letter regarding tenure due to illness(es) (Spanish)
Posted in education, letters, on academic philosophy, on Aristotle, on eros, on health, on illness, on Nicomachean Ethics, Philosophical topics, tagged amelo14, andresmelo, education, illness, letter, PhD, philosophy, political rhetoric, tenure, university on December 4, 2002| Leave a Comment »
Santafé de Bogotá,
Diciembre 4 de 2002,
PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD JAVERIANA
DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOSOFÍA
Padre Vicente Durán
Decano
Facultad de Filosofía
REF: CONTINUACIÓN LABORAL CON LA UNIVERSIDAD JAVERIANA
SEMESTRE I 2003
Estimado Padre Durán:
Por medio de la presente quisiera hacerle saber padre que he tomado la difícil decisión de no continuar el próximo semestre como profesor de planta en la Universidad Javeriana. ¿Qué decirle, padre, acerca de esta decisión? Muy acertadamente —pero tal vez por razones poco comprensivas de situaciones concretas—- se me ha resaltado la importancia de intentar ser más conciso y pulido en mis escritos. Trataré de serlo.
Sin duda interesa recalcar sobretodo el agradecimiento que le tengo a la Universidad Javeriana por darme la oportunidad, así fuese breve, de sentir el placer —-en medio de las dificultades físicas—- de enseñar temáticas que son de absoluta importancia para mí. Esta oportunidad ha transformado mi vida radicalmente. Eso se lo debo a ustedes y no hay cómo agradecerlo. Espero que con mi futura mejoría general pueda regresar a la actividad de la enseñanza. Pero sin duda la actividad de lectura filosófica puede “sin dificultad” continuar.
¿Por qué no continuar en la Javeriana? Las múltiples razones se las he dado a conocer personalmente tanto a Alfonso como a Fernando. A ambos les agradezco —y se los he hecho saber de una u otra manera—- muchas cosas, pero sobretodo el que ante una situación difícil por lo menos hayan hecho lo posible para que no se hiciera más difícil aún (como podría haber ocurrido). No quisiera imaginar cómo hubiese sido todo si no me hubiese ido más o menos bien en las encuestas, y en las labores que cumplí. Pero en tanto que dichas razones las articulé claramente, incluso muchos meses atrás, no interesa pues volver a recalcarlas, a re-sentirlas.
Tal vez sólo me permitiría recordar dos cosas. La una tiene que ver con palabras del propio rector de la Universidad, Padre Gerardo Remolina. En un artículo titulado ”Reflexiones sobre la formación integral“, indica él uno de los aspectos más importantes para ser profesor. Allí escribe:
“Es aquí donde se encuentra la semilla de la vocación del docente que se convierte en maestro; es decir, en alguien que sabe comunicar sus conocimientos con y por amor, con el corazón. Maestro es quien sabe llegar al corazón de su discípulo y contribuye así a convertir en universal su saber.”
Entiendo sobretodo estas palabras en el sentido del eros socrático y/o en el sentido de ágape de Taylor; no en un sentido romántico simplista e ingenuo. La razón más importante para dejar la Javeriana, no es mi grave enfermedad per se (pues sería bastante extraño que entre mejor me encontrara físicamente, pudiese “hacer” menos); radica, por el contrario, en que no estoy seguro de que estas palabras se tomen a veces con la seriedad que requieren por parte de algunos docentes. Pero entonces preguntaría usted, ¿hombre, Andrés, por qué no ayudar a cambiar esta situación? Lo hice como profesor de inglés, tal vez lo hice en cierta medida este año. Pero sin duda esta pregunta la haría una persona bastante sana. La respuesta es que, aunque pude volver a caminar luego de no poder hacerlo por mucho tiempo (¿alguien se imagina lo que es esto para un deportista consumado?¿Resulta incluso molesta la pregunta?), aunque pude bloquear muy intensos dolores continuos durante meses que permeaban mi corporeidad noche tras noche, aunque pude eliminar casi todas las grandes cantidades de drogas que tuve que tomar, aunque tuve que vivir con las consecuencias de decisiones de alta complejidad y cuestionable racionalidad, aunque pude sobrevivir el suicidio de mi muy querido doctor Fernando, aunque pude comenzar el doctorado y obtener muy buenos resultados, aunque pude ganar la convocatoria y dar hasta la última gota de esfuerzo y aprender de la oportunidad al mismo tiempo, aunque pude casarme y hacerlo de manera hermosa; aunque todo esto es verdad, pues la verdad es que fuerzas pocas tengo. Y esa si que no era la idea.
En segundo lugar me permitiría recordar algunas palabras de Aristóteles. Sin duda hasta ahora comienzo mi esfuerzo por comprender más y más su ética; en gran medida gracias a las preguntas generadas por el profesor Thomas Pangle. Pero, aún así, me interesa recuperarlas. Hacia el final de la Ética Nicomáquea, en el libro X, se indica:
“además, la educación particular es superior a la pública, como en el caso del tratamiento médico: en general, al que tiene fiebre le conviene el reposo y la dieta, pero quizá alguien no le convenga, y el maestro de boxeo, sin duda, no propone el mismo modo de lucha a todos sus discípulos. Parece pues, que una mayor exactitud en el detalle se alcanza si cada persona es atenida privadamente, pues de esta manera cada uno encuentra mejor lo que le conviene” (Ética Nicomáquea, Libro X, 1180b7-14)”
Sin duda el caso de una persona que está en medio de una recuperación para nada asegurada, de una enfermedad crónica grave, implica cierto tipo de “educación particular” que va más allá de cuestiones estratégicas (ascensores, etc.). (Y sin embargo, pocos saben —–tal vez sólo mi esposa—– cuáles fueron las implicaciones de no haber dictado mi primera clase este semestre en un salón por confusiones estratégicas.) Desafortunadamente en el momento en que se requería de mayor comprensión por parte de algunos colegas, primó más el interés de justificar la decisión tomada en términos de recibir otro profesor de planta en el Departamento. No hubo falta de exposición verbal de la compleja situación vital por la que yo vivía (vivo), y sí en cambio cierta negligencia en términos de sabiduría práctica y paciencia. Por ejemplo, si algún elemento que puede disparar la artritis, es un cierto tipo de tensiones añadidas, llamémoslas “extracurriculares”, a las que todos tenemos que vivir en el día a día. Tal vez ustedes se pueden dar el lujo de investigar si dichos elementos son subjetivos u objetivos; un enfermo no. Uno no se puede dar muchos lujos. Sin duda tal vez las palabras de Aristóteles representen la encrucijada de la Universidad moderna; pero no puede jamás ser la encrucijada de la filosofía, y menos aún, a nivel de doctorados.
Dado el preocupante futuro que percibo tendría en Colombia ––sobretodo en términos de seguridad médica—- he decidido viajar a Canadá que es como mi segunda patria. Espero poder continuar mi doctorado, pero ya estoy absolutamente consciente que para poder hacerlo primero debo o recuperarme en punto cercano al 90-100% (o como Mockus pide, al 110%); o encontrar un espacio en el que pueda realizar ciertas actividades, siendo optimistas, al 70%. Pero si no pude en la Javeriana —-que hasta cierto punto en realidad trató de proveerme un espacio, y repito, por eso estoy inmensamente agradecido— pues no hay razón para ser demasiado optimistas en ese aspecto. Pero dejar de leer e investigar, nunca.
¡Creo haberme extendido una vez más en demasía! ¡Tal vez aprenda a ser más concreto con el correr de los años; confiando en que sean muchos más!
Padre, le deseo salud, la mejor de las suertes y felicidad; y, en verdad, le pido que en sus rezos me tenga presente. Recordaré su pregunta acerca de la relación entre el lenguaje y la verdad, e intentaré la búsqueda de posibles respuestas. Además, le entrego a Alfonso y a Fernando una copia de esta carta de despedida.
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Profesor Andrés Melo Cousineau
Reflections: Taylor y los argumentos transcendentales (Spanish)
Posted in on Charles Taylor, on Kant, on transcendental arguments, philosophy, tagged amelo14, andresmelo, philosophy, rarefaction, reflection, Spanish, Taylor, transcendental arguments on May 8, 2002| Leave a Comment »
PhD Seminar
Introducción
El ensayo de Taylor titulado “The Validity of Transcendental Arguments” (TVTA) sorprende. ¿En qué sentido? En la medida en que el ensayo que le precede, llamado “Overcoming Epistemology”, parece crear una tensión entre los dos. Esto es así ya que pareciera que una superación de la epistemología involucraría una crítica radical a los argumentos transcendentales: ¿no son estos, por excelencia, argumentos de tipo epistemológico? Es decir, ¿no plantean ellos la cuestión epistemológica de cómo, dado un sujeto de la experiencia, logra éste mismo sujeto vincularse —-de alguna manera “conectarse”—- con los objetos que están allá “afuera” para ser conocidos? Sobretodo la aparente tensión se revela en la medida en que Taylor pareciera no ser un aguerrido defensor de Kant sobre quien señala al final de su ensayo (“TVTA”): “fácilmente podemos sentir que el intento de Kant de formular las condiciones límite para la experiencia fue infectado por ciertas doctrinas filosóficas de su tiempo, y que la naturaleza de esta coherencia debiera ser caracterizada de manera diferente.” (mi énfasis; p. 33).[i] En parte, sin duda ese otro intento de caracterización es el tayloriano. Sigue él ciertas concepciones criticas del modelo epistemológico como son las de Dasein en Heidegger —Dasein es siempre un “estar–en-el-mundo” y no un sujeto desvinculado de dicho mundo— o la consideración de sujeto como être-au-monde de Merleau Ponty. Y el que resulte extraño ver a Taylor defendiendo cierta reinterpretación de estos argumentos lo recupera bien Keith Hewitt en “Taylor on phenomenological method: A Hegelian refutation” para quien hay demasiadas semejanzas entre Kant y Taylor. Según Hewitt, en últimas, para ambos “la subjetividad o la razón no se manifiesta en el mundo real, y el mundo, de manera acorde, es en gran medida algo que es ‘extraño’ u ‘otro’.”[ii]
Pero precisamente el interés de Taylor es, creo yo, reinterpretar los AT para superar su origen meramente epistemológico. Para desarrollar el argumento me interesa mirar tres elementos interrelacionados: 1) mirar brevemente el movimiento de los argumentos trascendentales y cómo son ellos utilizados en Kant, 2) mirar las innovaciones de Taylor que encarnan dichos AT en la praxis corpórea situada mundanamente, y finalmente 3) mirar una pregunta pictórica.
1. Qué es un AT y cómo se dan en Kant su originador
Roderick Chisholm en su “¿Qué es un argumento trascendental?”[iii] nos entrega el movimiento característico de los AT que son el resultado de un cierto tipo de procedimiento trascendental (PT). Primero se advierten ciertos rasgos generales de un objeto de estudio. Posteriormente, tras la reflexión, se llega a principios relativos a las condiciones necesarias de la existencia de dicho objeto. Finamente aplicando estos principios se deducen ciertas consecuencias con lo que culmina el argumento trascendental: “uno concluye que con ello se ha mostrado que las proposiciones así deducidas están justificadas”(pg 86). El análisis trascendental kantiano inaugura este tipo de argumentación.
La revolucionaria investigación kantiana en la primera Crítica revela que existen, aparte de nuestra experiencia a través de los sentidos, formas a priori como lo son las de la causalidad y la unidad. Estas formas no se nos dan ellas mismas dentro de la experiencia, pero enigmáticamente también es cierto que es sólo a partir de su presencia que el experienciar es del todo posible. La expedición crítica en busca de los fundamentos racionales de dichas categorías, las estructuras universales de la razón que permiten la organización del mundo fenoménico, es la “Filosofía Trascendental”. Se aleja ésta tanto del empirismo simplista como del dogmatismo realista al comprenderse como “todo concomimiento que se ocupa no tanto de los objetos, cuanto de nuestro modo de conocerlos” (CRPu, 58; mi énfasis). Las preguntas fundamentales de dicha filosofía trascendental incluyen:¿Cómo es posible la experiencia de objetos reales para nosotros modernos herederos de la ciencia? ¿Con qué derecho podemos argumentar racionalmente que nuestro conocimiento realmente hace referencia a objetos “allá afuera”? ¿Cómo puedo constatar racionalmente que mi conocimiento “sale de sí” y hace posible la objetivación? (CRPu 139).
Por ejemplo, al determinar la categoría de la unidad —que la experiencia por sí sola no puede garantizar ya que el simple hecho de que la luz solar cambia constantemente cambia por ende la percepción de cualquier objeto real—– reconozco que ya en mí como ser humano racional hay una unidad que no es propiamente la misma de la categoría en cuestión. Esta unidad original, que logra integrar los troncos de la sensibilidad y del entendimiento, es precisamente aquella que permite la utilización de la categoría particular de la “unidad” (y claro, de toda otra categoría subsiguiente). ¿Qué unidad es ésta tan peculiar? Para Kant esta unidad es la unidad fundamental de la conciencia pura trascendental, es la unidad de la apercepción, de la autoconciencia. Aquello que Descartes no pudo explicitar referente al cogito, logra en Kant una más profunda demostración. La unidad de la subjetividad trascendental hace posible la experiencia misma: “el entendimiento puro constituye pues, en las categorías, la ley de unidad sintética de todos los fenómenos, y es lo que hace así primordialmente posible la experiencia” (CRPu 150; mi énfasis). Sin ella seríamos incapaces de organizar el mundo de una manera tal que lo podamos conocer, y sobretodo conocer científicamente. La autoconciencia para Kant hace posible el mundo humano y el entendimiento en particular es por lo tanto “él mismo la legislación de la naturaleza ….. sin él no habría naturaleza alguna, esto es, unidad sintética y regulada de lo diverso de los fenómenos” (CRPu 149; mi énfasis).
O como lo pone Taylor, quien comienza su ensayo aludiendo precisamente a Kant: se parte del insight[iv] de que debemos poder distinguir en la experiencia “un orden objetivo de las cosas de un orden meramente subjetivo.” (pg 20). Solo así tenemos experiencia de algo; una experiencia no objetual no es humana. Pero precisamente esa unidad la entrega, en Kant, el yo trascendental ya mencionado: “Debo poder reconocer de todas mis experiencias que son mías; en otras palabras, el yo pienso debe poder acompañar todas mis representaciones”.[v] El PT, señala Taylor, es de tipo regresivo; se parte de una faceta innegable de la experiencia y por medio de la argumentación regresiva se articulan las condiciones necesarias de dicha experiencia. El punto final de la argumentación proveería una tesis concluyente más sólida, a saber, un llegar a aceptar en la articulación argumentativa que hay una necesidad incuestionable de que nuestras experiencias tengan cierta unidad que es característica de la experiencia de nosotros como sujetos.
2. AT reapropiados por Taylor.
Pero si Taylor no está aquí interesado en cuestionar la validez del argumento kantiano sino sólo señalar su tipo (p. 21), entonces, ¿qué, más concretamente, pretende? Sin duda recuperar el tipo de argumentación cuya forma ha sido reapropiado por la filosofía, por ejemplo, de Merleau Ponty. Reemitiéndonos a Ponty queda inmediatamente claro que el punto de partida no es el kantiano, es decir, el de un sujeto contrapuesto a su objeto que le es externo (recordemos la muy problemática dicotomía kantiana: “el cielo estrellado sobre mí y la ley moral en mí”). Por el contrario el punto de partida es la percepción de un agente corpóreo; y sin embargo, según Taylor el proceder es semejante. Se parte una vez más de “ciertas características incuestionables de la experiencia”, a saber, la percepción del ser humano como agente encarnado (embodied). De allí se llega a comprender que un sentido de nosotros como agentes corpóreos es condición necesaria para que nuestra experiencia tenga las características que en efecto tiene. Regresivamente se concluye que nuestra experiencia es —–mejor dicho, sólo puede ser—– la de agentes encarnados/corpóreos (embodied subjects).
Taylor se cuida de ser malinterpretado. El que el sujeto esté vinculado al mundo como ser corpóreo en tanto ser perceptivo, NO quiere decir que causalmente sea dependiente de ciertas propiedades corpóreas. Claro, sin luz el ojo no ve; pero la vinculación tayloriana va más allá de esta afirmación causal. Por el contrario explica Taylor:
“Por el contrario la afirmación es que nuestra manera de ser como sujetos es en aspectos esenciales la de agentes encarnados. Es una afirmación acerca de la naturaleza de nuestra experiencia y pensamiento, antes que de las condiciones empíricas necesarias para estas funciones. El decir que somos esencialmente seres encarnados es decir que es esencial para nuestra experiencia y pensamiento que sean las de seres encarnados”. (pg 22)
¿Cuál es la experiencia más fundamental de dicha encarnación? Para Ponty, como hemos dicho, la percepción. Todo humano percibe; esto incluso así algunos de sus sentidos se haya perdido, o surjan casos extraños como los de la sinestesia en los cuales los sentidos se entrecruzan generando mundos un poco extraños para nosotros con sentidos “comunes y corrientes”. Pero, ¿por qué es está función humana la más básica? Primero, señala Taylor, porque siempre está ahí, mientras “yo” esté allí; bajo otra tradición, incluso el fin de la “apatheia” estoica parte precisamente del pathos humano. Y segundo porque es el fundamento de toda otra manera de “tener” un mundo: “nuestra apertura primaria al mundo, el horizonte ineludible de toda otra, es a través de la percepción”. (pg 23). Nacemos percibiendo y tan lo hacemos que pronto nuestro mundo se reduce, según un freudiano, a un seno. Es decir, la percepción es ESENCIALMENTE la de un sujeto corpóreo/encarnado/vinculado con el mundo. De nuevo, “esencialmente” quiere decir no que la percepción depende de ciertos estados causales de nuestros cuerpos —por ejemplo es un hecho causal que en tanto ser humano no escucho ciertos ruidos “subsónicos” realizados por los elefantes—- sino que nuestra experiencia perceptual es tal que sólo podría ser la de una agencia corpórea arraigada en un mundo.
Por ejemplo –y a diferencia de las categorías epistemológicas kantianas— el campo de percepción está constituido por un “arriba-abajo”. La pareja “arriba-abajo” permite configurar el mapa perceptivo coherentemente. De lo contrario, la experiencia sería una en que “no sabemos dónde están o qué son las cosas; perdemos el hilo del mundo, y nuestro campo perceptual no es ya el acceso al mundo, sino los confusos escombros (debris) en que nuestra manera normal de comprender las cosas se derrumba.” No por nada los rescatistas deben practicar una y otra vez la desorientación que sigue a la caída de un helicóptero en el agua; el mundo se hace anormal y debo salvarme.
Pero el campo “arriba-abajo”, ¿se constituye él a partir de la experiencia? Sin duda se activa con ella; pero es ella la que en cierto sentido permite experiencia cualquiera. Por ello señala Taylor que el “arriba-abajo” no sólo está relacionado con mi percepción corporal. El “arriba-abajo” no depende de una referencia a lo más arriba que tengo, a saber, mi cabeza. El arriba cuando estoy acostado, doblado e incluso boca abajo –tratando de impresionar a mi novia— no es referido a mi cabeza. Pero entonces pensaríamos que su configuración se da primariamente a través de los objetos del mundo. ¿Qué es arriba? Miré para el cielo; o más dramáticamente el Hades abajo, el Cielo con mayúsculas arriba.
Por el contrario para Taylor: “mi campo tiene un arriba y un abajo porque es el campo de un agente de este tipo. Está estructurado como un campo de acción potencial.” (mi énfasis, 23) Pero Taylor duda un poco y se pregunta, ¿no será demasiado apresurado descartar la posibilidad de que la orientación arriba-abajo se desprenda de indicaciones en el mundo? Como pregunta él: “¿cómo sé lo que es arriba excepto si miro la tierra?” O en términos bogotanos, todos sabemos que al decirle a un taxista que suba por la próxima calle nuestro referente –casi inconsciente—son los cerros orientales. Sin embargo para Taylor hay una confusión aquí. Claro, tenemos que percibir el mundo para saber dónde está el arriba, y podemos ser engañados por distorsiones perceptuales como los espejos en circos o en automóviles. Sin duda necesitamos de indicativos (cues) adecuados. Pero lo que comprendemos por estos cues es precisamente la direccionalidad arriba-abajo. Y esta bidireccionalidad humana —-dentro de un complejo de preposiciones direccionales que tanto nos enseñaron en Plaza Sésamo—- lo que señala es que: “lo que son arriba y abajo, mejor, son las direcciones orientadoras de nuestra acción y de nuestra postura.” Incluso un astronauta en el espacio, que como en Odisea 2001 es desprendido de su nave por un robot “enloquecido”, “sabe” que, siendo humano el orientarse a partir de un “arriba-abajo”, pues resulta aterrador no poder hacerlo.
Y aquí comienza la innovación de Taylor. Los AT para él abren no una postura epistemológica propiamente, sino una postura practico-vivencial: “percibimos el mundo … a través de nuestras capacidades para actuar sobre él.” Percibir es el más rudimentario actuar humano; no en vano la aparición de la perspectiva es ella misma un producto histórico que involucra otro tipo de actuar sobre la naturaleza (ver SotS Cap 12 en lo referente al arte renacentista). Lo que abre la direccionalidad arriba-abajo es mi actuar, me permite reconocer el escenario de mi quehacer. Taylor privilegia cierto tipo de pragmatismo sobre un mero conocimiento ensimismado: “somos esencialmente seres vivientes, y como tales actuamos sobre el mundo … Estamos por lo tanto ineludiblemente abiertos al mundo” (mi énfasis: 25). Pero además este tipo de orientación espacial se asemeja para Taylor —como señalábamos en el anterior ensayo—-a la orientación del ámbito de la ética y del bien: “La orientación en el espacio resulta ser similar a la orientación en el espacio físico. Sabemos dónde estamos gracias a una mezcla de puntos topográficos (“landmarks”) ante nosotros y de un sentido de cómo hemos viajado para llegar a ellos.”[vi]
En este sentido la direccionalidad arriba-abajo no es un dato contingente que se descubre empíricamente, sino que es constitutivo de nuestra experiencia como sujetos corpóreos. Análogamente en el ajedrez el movimiento de la reina es constitutivo del juego porque o sino no existiría el juego de ajedrez. De manera similar lo es la capacidad orientadora humana: “no podríamos tener un sujeto con un campo articulado como el nuestro que de manera contingente no fuese un agente corpóreo. Su ser un agente corpóreo ayuda a constituir su campo.” (p. 25)
2b. ¿Qué establece el argumento trascendental?
Le importa señalar a Taylor que dichos argumentos no establecen una verdad ontológica. Su prueba no es en este sentido una que convenza a un escéptico radical. Se excede el propósito de los AT si se toman como una prueba ontológica que concierne la naturaleza definitiva y transhistórica del ser humano. Por el contrario “lo que se demuestra es que nuestro pensamiento , nuestra experiencia, y en general nuestra función como sujetos debe ser descrita como esencialmente el pensamiento o experiencia de agentes corpóreos” (26) Dicen algo de nuestra vida como sujetos corpóreos; o en otras palabras no podemos ejercer subjetividad y ser en el mundo sin un sentido de nosotros como sujetos que son cuerpo. (¿No podríamos decir que si Geist se encarna lo hace porque nosotros, sus vehículos somos corporeidad?) En particular en su constante confrontación abierta pero decidida con el reduccionismo neurofisiológico enfatiza que los AT no cierran la pregunta de si un tal sistema sea posible en efecto. Los AT como los ve Taylor no cierran el campo del saber, permiten saber qué campos —-en plural— son posibles para los humanos.
Pero si no deciden qué en últimas somos, entonces ¿qué deciden? Poco o mucho. Apuntan a señalar que somos seres encarnados en prácticas. Si bien no prueban en su regresión condiciones a priori incuestionables para Taylor sus conclusiones son muy significativas. El que demuestren que somos seres corpóreos “si muestra la forma que cualquier relato debe tener que involucre nuestras autocomprensiones.” (p. 27) En términos prácticos las implicaciones para las ciencias sociales son totales. Las aproximaciones a la comprensión de lo humano que pretendan comprender a complejidad de lo que somos en términos solamente reductivos (por ejemplo el doctor Llinás), o dualistas (por ejemplo la separación kantiana entre sujeto y objeto), no ven la complejidad de nuestra constitución humana. En ese sentido para Taylor incluso: “los resultados puedan no ser válidos pero el problema es claramente significativo.“ (p. 27)[vii] Un ejemplo importante lo hallamos en el otro ensayo para esta sesión. En “Interpretation and the Sciences of Man” al considerar el ámbito de lo político ——¿no es éste el ámbito de la praxis por excelencia?; y cabe recordar que Taylor es profesor de Ciencias Políticas— la posibilidad de predicción a partir de una análisis objetivo de la realidad se hace cuestionable. Toda explicación política por el contrario debe comprender que su “objeto”, que son los sujetos humanos corpóreos “enredados” en significaciones intersubjetivas (p. 39), tiene al menos tres propiedades: 1) los sentidos son para un sujeto en un campo(s); 2) estos son sentidos parcialmente constituidas por autodefiniciones interpretativas, y 3) pueden ellas ser re-expresadas o hechas explícitas por una ciencia política (claro, no la del modelo epistemológico). (p. 52)
2c. ¿Cómo establecen lo que establecen los AT?
Para Taylor hay tres características de los AT que requieren de explicación. En primer lugar presentan afirmaciones de indispensabilidad, es decir, se muestra cómo la condición de afirmación en la conclusión es indispensable para que la característica identificada al inicio sea posible como lo es. En Kant las categorías deducidas son indispensables para la coherencia de una experiencia que pretende conocer el mundo objetivo. En Taylor el sentido del sujeto como agente corpóreo con una orientación arriba-abajo es indispensable para comprender qué es ser un agente de percepción corporal. O en otras palabras, es indispensable que la experiencia sea como lo revela el AT para que la experiencia pueda del todo ser, en efecto, como es.
En segundo lugar las afirmaciones de indispensabilidad son de carácter a priori. Ninguna experiencia empírica me da la categoría de la unidad; ninguna experiencia perceptiva me da el campo de orientación de un arriba-abajo. Para Taylor por ende pretenden los AT no ser sencillamente probables sino apodícticos; incluso indica él que se toman como puntos de partida auto-evidentes. En Kant “simplemente vemos que la experiencia debe ser de algo para que sea experiencia, o que el yo pienso debe acompañar todas mis representaciones” (p. 28). En Ponty no es posible un ser humano que no sea un agente viviente que es en el mundo como ser encarnado. Los AT por lo tanto pueden considerarse como afirmaciones de indispensabilidad de carácter apodíctico. En tercer lugar estas afirmaciones son de la experiencia; la vivencia experiencial es la que les provee su anclaje más profundo. La categoría de la causalidad me permite organizar el mundo; el campo de arriba-abajo me permite orientar mi acción. Por ello los AT son cadenas de afirmaciones de indispensabilidad apodíctica que conciernen a la experiencia; en esa medida su anclaje es incuestionable. Exagerando; ningún escéptico saltaría desde un piso 23 para “probar” su escepticismo.
Pero dado este anclaje tan sobreseguro Taylor se pregunta, si son auto evidentes ¿por qué demostrarlos? Siguiendo su defensa del valor de la articulación en los seres humanos, Taylor recalca que los AT precisamente proveen un insight sobre nuestra propia actividad. Este insight nos señala que nuestra actividad humana tiene un punto, que la actividad humana está constituida de ciertas maneras y no de otras. Vuelve Taylor al ejemplo el ajedrez; jugar ajedrez es reconocer las reglas del juego; la reina no se puede mover en “L”. ¿Por qué? Porque no. En inglés al verbo “advise”, en uno de sus usos le sigue un “objeto” y un “infinitivo”: “I advise you to go to a psychiatrist”. ¿Por qué? Porque sí. Y es así independientemente de que los alumnos quieran, como en español, decir algo como “I advise that you go” (spanglish para “Yo le aconsejo que usted vaya”).[viii] Estas reglas son constitutivas; su uso correcto demuestra la comprensión del juego de mesa o del juego lingüístico. Aludiendo al ajedrez cabe recordar el pasaje en que el hermano de Meimei —-niña genio del ajedrez—- responde a las preguntas de su inquieta y aún muy niña hermana:
–“¿Por qué?” Pregunté mientras movía el peón. ¿Por qué no pueden moverse más pasos?”
–“Porque son peones,” me dijo.
–“¿Pero por qué se cruzan para capturar otro hombre? ¿Por qué no hay mujeres y niños? (nota: muy interesante pregunta)
–“Por qué es el cielo azul?¿Por qué tienes que hacer preguntas tan estúpidas? Preguntó Vincent. Este es un juego. Estas son las reglas. Yo no las hice. Mira. Aquí. En el libro”[ix]
Meimei es bastante filosófica, es decir cansona con su preguntar.
Ahora bien, dejando de lado el problema de qué quiere decir que un computador azul “juegue” ajedrez y le “gane” a Karpov (¿con quién fue a festejar el computador?), lo cierto es que Taylor señala que es extraño pensar en dudar del jugar ajedrez jugando. Claro, un escéptico radical puede preguntar, ¿qué le asegura que de verdad está jugando y no es un sueño? Para Taylor los AT no están dirigidos a este tipo de escépticos. Como lo pone Taylor: “es difícil ver cómo uno podría darle sentido a la duda de que sabemos jugar ajedrez y estamos jugándolo ahora.” (p. 29) La conciencia de las reglas de ajedrez es en un sentido importante indudable. Tan indudable es que desde otro campo del saber, la literatura –que abre la corporeidad tal vez mejor que toda filosofía—- encontramos el siguiente cuento titulado La sombra de las jugadas: “En uno de los cuentos que integran la serie de los Mabinogion, dos reyes enemigos juegan al ajedrez, mientras en un valle cercano sus ejércitos luchan y se destrozan. Llegan mensajeros con noticias de la batalla; los reyes no parecen oírlos e, inclinados sobre el tablero de plata, mueven las piezas de oro. Gradualmente se aclara que las vicisitudes del combate siguen las vicisitudes del juego. Hacia el atardecer, uno de los reyes derriba el tablero, porque le han dado jaque mate y poco después un jinete ensangrentado le anuncia: Tu ejército huye, has perdido el reino.”[x] La práctica que es el ajedrez parece ir mucho más allá que sus reglas constitutivas; aun cuando sin ellas no podría ser.
Pero dejando esto de lado, hay una similitud entre la regla de la reina como constitutiva y la percepción como siendo esencialmente la de una agente corpóreo; ambas son, nos dice Taylor, articulaciones de nuestro insight respecto al punto de nuestra actividad. En términos de orientación espacial da sentido a la actividad de estar conciente (aware) del mundo, de comprender (grasp) la realidad en que somos y actuamos. Es esta primacía de la normalidad la que permite que reconozcamos rupturas como rupturas: “mi conciencia (awareness) se fragmenta en una confusión tal que no constituye una conciencia en un sentido apropiado.“ (p. 30)
Pero son diferentes estos dos casos ya que la regla de la reina ya está formulada (aunque es raro aprender ajedrez con alguien leyendo la regla; más bien nos muestran). En cambio en el caso de la percepción no hay una especie de manual de articulación, así los genetistas estén intentando crear un manual de lo que somos. Articular lo que puede ser la percepción nunca será el percibir; pero articular la regla de la reina es precisamente lo que es ser reina en ajedrez. Los AT no permiten señalar cuáles son las condiciones de falla dada una formulación definitiva aceptada; como sí lo podemos hacer con el manual de ajedrez. Movió la reina en “L”; error. Pero los AT referidos a la percepción al menos permiten reconocer las condiciones de una percepción característica del agente corpóreo. Como lo pone Taylor: “Es decir, si no pudiese reconocer que cuando todo se fragmentara en confusión, el awareness había fallado, entonces no podrías considerarme como aware en primer lugar. No somos aware del todo a menos de que reconozcamos esta diferencia.” (p. 30-31) Una experiencia sin awareness alguno no es experiencia humana. Para que haya rupturas debe haber previo un saber de qué involucra estar aware.[xi] Incluso para Taylor resulta extraño preguntar “¿am I aware?” No puedo dudar de se si estoy aware y en este sentido los AT “articulan afirmaciones de indispensabilidad referidas a la experiencia como tal”.
Los AT son articulaciones argumentativas que el debate filosófico explicita para mejor comprender las condiciones límite y exitosas de nuestra actividad humana. (pg 31) Su movimiento, como Taylor ya ha señalado en SIA, comienza con una caracterización embrionaria que es tan sólo esbozada (sketchy). Partiendo de esta experiencia vivida se señalan los elementos para que dicha experiencia tenga cierta coherencia. Finalmente se concluye que la coherencia se debe a la “aplicación” de ciertas categorías, como en Kant, o a modos de organización espacial de la percepción, como en Taylor. El primer punto es fácil de comprender –todos percibimos; esto es autoevidente. Para Taylor la conclusión logra en su articulación argumentativa “llenar” de contenido esta primera intuición. (“the former simply spells out what the latter adumbrated” (pg 32))
Y sin embargo señala Taylor que los AT aún siendo APODÍCTICOS, están ellos abiertos a nuevas articulaciones. En parte porque no podemos saber, a diferencia de la regla de la reina, si hemos formulado las cosas adecuadamente. Sin duda Taylor cree, como lo señalamos al inicio, que la postura kantiana esta “infectada”. Keith cree que la de Taylor frente a Hegel está a su vez “infectada”. La noción de corporeidad de Foucault vería tanto a Taylor como a Keith como un poco “infectados.” Desde una perspectiva ecologista tal vez el punto de partida no pueda ser el de la corporeidad antropocéntrica. Pero, según Taylor, además “vemos” a través de la percepción corpórea en vez de a ella. Es un poco pedirle a un miope que se quite las gafas las ponga lejos y nos las describa. Nos diría: “préstamelos para ver bien”. O en otras palabras, los AT articulan el punto de una actividad que no podemos sino tener, pero en tanto articulaciones están abiertos a debate interminable. Como concluye Taylor “un TA válido es indudable; pero es difícil saber cuándo se tiene uno, al menos uno con una conclusión interesante. Pero esto parece ser cierto de la mayoría de los argumentos en filosofía.” (33)
3) Una pregunta pictórica[xii]
¿Qué percibimos en la siguiente imagen metamórfica de Escher?
[i] Claro, Taylor provee una lectura de “aristotélica” de Kant en su artículo “Kant’s theory of freedom”.
[ii] En “Taylor on phenomenological method: A Hegelian refutation” , sacado de la interesante revista electrónica Animus. Párrafo *42 (www.animus.com)
[iii] Chisholm, Roderick, Argumentos Transcendentales, (comp. Cabrera, Isabel), UNAM , México, 1999.
[iv] En su artículo “Interpretation and the Sciences of Man” Taylor provee una muy buena discusión de lo que es para él insight . (pg 53-54). No en vano termina dicho artículo con una alusión a la Ética Nicomáquea de Aristóteles.
[v] Pero la crítica por su propia naturaleza no acaba, su proyecto es fundamentalmente un proyecto sin fin. Por ello cabe referirse brevemente a las criticas presentes en la obras de Husserl y Heidegger. Para Husserl, en particular en algunos apartados de su obra madura Crisis de las Ciencias Europeas y la Fenomenología Trascendental, encontramos múltiples cuestionamientos acerca de las presuposiciones kantianas. Entre ellos cabe resaltar la incapacidad de Kant para radicalizar su propia perspectiva y así cuestionar los fundamentos de su pensamiento. La fenomenología husserliana —que conoce ya de los descarrilamientos de la tecnología y de la política liberal en el siglo XX— logra comprender que antes que la subjetividad trascendental científica encontramos la subjetividad precientífica cotidiana. Se revelan así las bases de la razón instrumental y su intento por monopolizar todo el campo de la razón y del ser. Para Husserl “lo realmente primero es la intuición meramente subjetiva-relativa de la vida mundana precientífica.” (128 CCEFT). La aparente universalidad del proyecto kantiano comienza a revelarse como un proyecto culturalmente remitido a la historia de Occidente. Pero a su vez ésta radicalización de la cuestión trascendental en Kant, encuentra a su vez una revolucionaria crítica en la importante obra de Heidegger. En primer lugar, en su Kant y el problema de la Metafísica argumenta él, planteando ideas de Ser y Tiempo, que la CRPu es el primer intento serio sobre la posibilidad interna de la ontología y no simplemente un investigar epistemológico. Pero es en Ser y Tiempo en donde la cuestión trascendental da paso a la reformulación del ser humano en cuanto Dasein, ser cuya característica ontológica principal es la de ser-en-el-mundo. El proyecto trascendental inmerso dentro de la dicotomía epistemológica sujeto-objeto da paso a una novedosa postura ontológica sobre la pregunta del ser que revela las peligrosas presuposiciones de la matematización de la naturaleza.
[vi] Taylor, SotS pg 48.
[viii] Un ejemplo similar se da al final del artículo de Taylor sobre Foucault.
[ix] Tan, Amy, “Rules of the Game” pg 7; en World Writers today. ScottForesman, Glenview, 1995
[x] Edwin Morgan en Antología de la literatura fantástica (comp. Borges, Jorge Luis, Bioy Casares, Adolfo, ; Sudamericana, Buenos Aires, 1994.) Otro ejemplo de la relación entre el ajedrez y la práctica vital es:
LIFE AND CHESS (Thomas Huxley)
“The chess board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.”
Otro ejemplo sería el artículo de Poe “Maelzel’s Chess-player”.
[xi] Por eso es importante recuperar en el ámbito ético la noción de crisis de identidad que aparece en SotS. Punto al cual se aludió en el anterior ensayo.
[xii] Otras preguntas podrían ser:
1. ¿Cómo se relacionan los AT con la identidad, el bien y las evaluaciones fuertes? ¿Abren los AT la ética? ¿Cómo se relacionan con el ámbito político?
2. ¿Como comprender la critica de Rorty de que Taylor funciona muy kantianamente dentro de la tradición de un “en sí” en la realidad? Ver su ensayo “Taylor on truth”
3. ¿Cómo se entenderían los AT desde una perspectiva foucaultiana-nietzscheana?
4. ¿Qué es lo crucial del ajedrez? El que sea juego constituido por ciertas reglas? O principalmente que se comprende como una practica en que la reina es mucho más que una simple reina. Por ejemplo en el “Hombre que calculaba” se habla del poder de la reina:
—–“¿Y por qué la reina es más fuerte y poderosa que el mismo rey?:
—- Es más poderosa … porque la reina representa , en el juego, el patriotismo del pueblo. El poder mayor con que cuenta el rey reside, precisamente , en la exaltación cívica de sus súbditos” Capítulo XVI pg 104-105. Algo que le vendría bien , exagerando, al cívico humanismo de Taylor.
5. ¿Qué puede querer decir un AT para los indígenas paeces en donde precisamente la idea de cómo se relaciona mi cuerpo con el mundo parece carecer de todo sentido e incluso arrancar de un error, para usar palabras nuestras epistémicas? Es decir, si es de nuestra tradición occidental la división “interno” /”externo” , y si esta división conlleva como lo señala Taylor una instrumentalización de la naturaleza, ¿cómo entonces generar las condiciones de diálogo con otras culturas en las que dicha separación no sólo no ha ocurrido, sino que antes bien dicha separación ha destruido el ámbito propio en donde otros tipos de agencia se hace posibles? Por ejemplo en “Cuerpo Cosmos en los Rituales Paez” (Hugo Portela, pg 41) se revela la relación existente en esta cultura entre lenguaje, noción de agencia y cosmos. Como señala Portela “el cuerpo humano para los Paez es un territorio compuesto por agua. Piedra, cumbres cerros, huecadas, raíces., tallos cogollos, hijas etc,… existe una relación topológica cuerpo humano geografía”. Tan es así que los lexemas entrelazan lo corporal con lo natural. Lenguaje, ecosistema y cuerpo son indiferenciables. Palabra, orden cósmico y agente activo permanecen íntimamente ligados. Tan es así que para un paez decir “Yo soy árbol” es como decir “yo soy indio” (pg. 46). ¿Podríamos entablar un diálogo referido a los AT que sea intercultural?
Rarefactions: by Andrés Melo Cousineau 
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