Memory in the Ontopoiesis of Life: Book One, Memory in the Generation and Unfolding of Life (Analecta Husserliana)

MEMORY IN THE ONTOPOIESIS OF LIFE

A NA L E C TA H U S S E R L I A NA THE YEARBOOK OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

VO L U M E C I

Founder and Editor-in-Chief: ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning Hanover, New Hampshire

For other titles published in this series, go to http://www.springer.com/series/5621

MEMORY IN THE ONTOPOIESIS OF LIFE Book One Memory in the Generation and Unfolding of Life

Edited by A N NA - T E R E S A T Y M I E N I E C K A The World Phenomenological Institute, Hanover, NH, U.S.A.

Published under the auspices of The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning A-T. Tymieniecka, President

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Editor Prof. A-T. Tymieniecka The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning 1 Ivy Pointe Way Hanover NH 03755 USA [email protected]

ISBN 978-90-481-2317-9 e-ISBN 978-90-481-2501-2 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2501-2 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009926801 c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009  No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA / Toward the Reformulation of a Classic Problem: Memory in the Ontopoiesis of Life

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SECTION I MEMORY ALONG LIFE’S GENESIS HALIL TURAN / Memory and the Myth of Prometheus

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ERLING ENG / A History of the Idea of Organic Memory

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CLARA MANDOLINI / Memory and Action: The Conscience of Time in Personal Becoming in Bergson and Blondel

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CARMEN COZMA / Phenomenology of Life on Memory: Revealing the Creative Human Condition in the Music Art Universe

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SECTION II HUMANIZING NATURE LESZEK PYRA / The Anthropocentric Versus Biocentric Outlook on Nature

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HANDE GÜLTEK˙IN / Ecological Design and Retrieving the Environmental Meaning

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TAMARA EMELYANOVA / Philosophical-Historical Aspects of Land Relations (on Example of Russian North Nations)

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ELDON C. WAIT / The Phenomenon of the Gaze

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SECTION III CIPHERING HUMAN EXISTENCE ISIL ¸ ÖZCAN / Kierkegaard and the Phenomenology of Repetition in the Nouveau Roman

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GÜL KALE / Notion of Forgetting and Remembering in Piranesi: Fireplace as the Setting of a Dionysian Play

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CEZARY JÓZEF OLBROMSKI / The Category of the “Now” in Husserlian Phenomenology of Time—Polemic Against Derridean Anti-Presentialism

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SITANSU RAY / “Smritir Bhumika” (The Role of Memory): Some Memory-Related Poems and Songs of Rabindranath

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˙ / Memory as a Challange to Human Existence – MACIEJ KAŁUZA Aspects of Temporality and the Role of Memory in Reference to Guitton’s Concept of Time

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KIVILCIM YILDIZ SENURKMEZ / Time, Memory and the Musical Perception

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SECTION IV PLAY OF MEMORY IN SELF-IDENTITY OTHERNESS AYHAN SOL AND GÖKHAN AKBAY / Memory, Personal Identity, and Moral Responsibility

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LUDMILA NIKOLAYEVNA POSELSKAYA / Memory as a Positive and Negative Motivation Component in a Person’s Activity

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JAN SZMYD / “Interpreting” the Modern Times – Possibilities, Limitations, Social and Vital Functions

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E. FUNDA NESLIOGLU / The Activity of the Self-Realization Within the Context of the Fabricated Identity of the Consumer Self and Its Transformation

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LUDMILA MOLODKINA / Utilitarian-Aesthetic Dynamics of Nature

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SECTION V MEMORY IN THE CREATIVE ONTOPOIESIS OF LIFE ELGA FREIBERGA / Memory and Creativity in the Context of Ontopoiesis of Beingness: A-T. Tymieniecka and A. Bergson

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SALAHADDIN KHALILOV / About the Correlation of Memory and Remembrance in the Structure of the Soul

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ERKUT SEZG˙IN / The Interplay of Light and Dark

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ALEKSANDRA PAWLISZYN / Memory – The Possibility of Creation in a Learning World – Interpretation

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NAME INDEX

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AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S

The present collection, first volume on the topic of memory to be followed by Vol. 102, is gathering papers presented at the 57th International Phenomenology Congress, held by the World Phenomenology Institute on the subject: “Memory in the Ontopoiesis of Life” which took place at the Istanbul Kultur University, in Istanbul, Turkey on June 18–22, 2007. Our co-organizer and host, Professor Erkut Sezgin merits our heartfelt thanks for a dedicated preparation and personal cooperation in carrying our conference. To Rector of Kultur University, Professor Dr. Tamer Kocel and Professor Dr. Dursun Kocer, who directed the services provided for the conference and his assistants Yrd. Doc. Dr. Hikmet Cadlar and Yrd. Doc. Dr. Gursel Hacibekkyrodlu go our sincere thanks for the delightful hospitality that we all thoroughly enjoyed. We cannot forget the heartfelt dedication given to the joint common effort of the day-to-day care for the run of the conference by our faithful collaborators, Professors Carmen Cozma, Halil Turan and Aleksandra Pawliszyn which assured a smooth progress of the proceedings. We owe them our heartfelt thanks. The beautiful setting of the Kultur University in this wonderful city of Istanbul have enhanced the friendly atmosphere of this unforgettable occasion. We owe also our thanks to Jeff Hurlburt for his dedicated editorial help in preparing this volume. A-T. T.

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T O WA R D T H E R E F O R M U L AT I O N O F A C L A S S I C P RO B L E M : M E M O RY I N T H E O N T O P O I E S I S O F L I F E

D E S C R I P T I O N O F T H E R O L E O F T H E PA S T I N T H E T E M P O R A L SUCCESSION OF OUR LIFE COURSE

In the concise sketch that follows, we consider memory to be an essential function of life by which the storing, renunciation, reframing of the otherwise irremediably lost past promotes the progress of life and sustains its continuity. As the temporal unfolding of the course of life proceeds, memory, our experiences, now past and receeding further and further from the actual, could fall into oblivion. But as it happens, memory crucially sustains the present and future in life’s development, indeed, guarantees their unfolding. Our primary attention to memory proceeds directly from our concerns in our present situation: our attention to remembering an event, an experience, a thought or impression brings to the fore an instant of the timing of the course of life. This attention pinpoints the moment of a present phase of timing. It strikes the actual moment of our experience, and yet simultaneously our attention pulls up reflections “images,” “traces” of what is actually gone, what has lost its active power, its active role within the circumambient milieu, and what has lost the striking appeal of reality as well. It is now only a remembrance of the past. A glance at the course of our lives makes it obvious that attention always favors the present instant of active becoming or duration, given its concrete facticity. Further, life’s timing in the course of its becoming is oriented toward the future. All of life’s functional tentacles, its functional line, extend the present into the future, projecting through imaginative planning, but they also rooted in the past, from which that line derives its constructive/destructive direction or tendency. Indeed, the foreseen future completes the past, and that in numerous ways. V I TA L M E M O R Y A N D T H E L I V I N G A G E N T O F L I V I N G B E I N G N E S S E S P E C I A L LY

We spontaneously see memory as a special human functional prerogative—the storing of traces of experiences, understandings had and interpretations made xi A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, xi–xvii. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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in the course of life in such a way that these images, impressions, thoughts can be restored in “re-membering” in some or other fashion to yield a fuller “picture” of one’s life horizons. But we do have to take into consideration that animals, even those of the simplest constitution, being endowed with a minimal degree of conscious sentience, do manifest reflexes manifesting the retrieval of past instants in the present, so that the urgency of acting in the present becomes apparent to them. Witness the alert response of a fly or a bird before danger, the ability to differentiate among foodstuffs, even the refusal of food by a pet on the basis of preference alone. This facility enables us to solicit the collaboration of dogs in tracking a fox or a criminal, in retrieving fowl or detecting illegal drugs. We cannot deny that there is here a sort of storing of impressions or at least a residual virtual reactivity to present/actual situations that is “revived” in further appropriate situations, which indicates that there is an essential provision for such in life’s process, that life advances through returns to past experience that establish a habitual reaction. In brief, we have to consider this residue of consciousness in the living agent to be a vital, life-promoting device for securing the living being’s maintenance/advance or preventing its regression or death. It seems obvious that this reactivity joining the present actuality and the past is, first of all, an innermost, already there in wait, device of the vis viva in the form of a vital consciousness/sensitivity; here is a principle for a constructive line of succession, one allowing, facilitating, if not guaranteeing, advance/progress or strategic regress. Secondly, however, there may be a coordinative function played by the living agent’s higher conscious activity that goes beyond the retention of the past and which during its constructive activity aims at the conscious discovery of a surmised active past, that searches the active past actually seeking its constructive meaning, a search primed for the re-constitution of the sense of experience. With this step we reach the question of the “truth” of the past, that is, of the past’s resuscitation in the present. But before we focus on this classic issue, we have to conclude our discussion of how vital memory promotes the continuity of the living agent’s functioning. This vital memory—the conscious trace, and even more particularly its less than fully conscious prototype—lacks an obvious, empirically traceable continuity. If we would seek for the interconnections in the organic constitutions of living beings accounting for their interaction in their environments and allowing for their survival and coexistence, we would get too involved in the infinitely complex network of nature, extending from the local environment to the cosmos, so that no clear passage between virtual vital experience and its focused re-actualization in the midst of life’s events would emerge from the picture.

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An empirical search for this passage would lead scientific investigators further and further into an infinite regress yielding no identifiable, that is, palpable congenital linkage among life’s continuous elements. The functional steps of life do follow each other sequentially and constructively, but this continuity relies precisely on active vital memory, the crucial instrument of the life process, without which growth and progress/regress would not occur. This coherent connectedness we can see does follow a constructive design that varies in concrete singular instances according to the available circumambient conditions, certainly, but also and foremostly accords with the more general constructive laws governing generation and decay. Yet as we follow these laws the crucial point of contact that would make the status quo self-explanatory eludes us.

T H E T R A C E O F T H E PA S T

H OW A R E W E T O U N D E R S TA N D T H E T H R E A D OF LIFE’S CONTINUITY? The “traces” of past occurrences that we find in our present-day reality are slightly incongruous with the present, that is, their witness is somewhat faded. Their objects do not have the vividness of immediately present impressions. There is not in them the feeling of awakeness that immediate experience has. The particularities that these “traces” of our past becoming exhibit have an element of conjecture or inference in them, a reliance on a somewhat conjured familiarity with real objects; we have here suggestions of real objects, forms and existence that are analogous to what we identify in our present reality, which analogy may be too far fetched. By this surmised identification, these imaginative inferences, we place things by correlation within the network of the flux of becoming of the real world. Whatever we consider to be the origin of the trace, it is basically the fruit of conscious activity at various levels. There would be no trace of a child’s feet on the wet seashore, no monuments of past cultures, no records of famous battles transmitted in chronicles, etc. without this conjectured, imaginative retrieval of their sense within the logoic network of the real. What is lost in the transformability of becoming and what may be restored to our view of the world? The trace is the intermediary key to the past. What is being retrieved is clearly an imaginative conjectural presentation of the past that takes the trace as its reference point, but what is the thread of continuity between past experience, events, thought, etc. and its re-membrance in a given actual present?

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And so, as noted above, the past assumes in our experience different roles within innumerable perspectives arrived at in our life courses, but, as Erwin Straus emphasized, it is the trace itself that has been the chief focus of our philosophical as well as scientific ponderings.1 As Straus brings out in his historical review of the development of the issue, the matter of memory requires a basic reformulation.2 Already in the oldest conception of memory, that left us by Aristotle, it is seen as an image left by affect (pathos) not only in that part of the body that generates (ensteht) it but also in the soul correspondingly. Thus memory was conceived as a lasting image and an inclination to retrieve it, and so the bringing together of two different phases of temporal becoming, a bridging involving two changeable networks of reality—bodily/physiological processes that imprint an image as a trace of the actual as it vanishes, on the one hand, and the canvas of the psyche, which despite its streaming, changeable nature maintains an often lasting inclination to recall that particular impression, on the other. It is in terms of these two basic and intimately intergenerative functional schemata that memory has been conceptualized over the centuries, whatever the modifications made on Aristotle’s thinking. The differentiation of the corporeal/physiological and the conscious/psychological operations of becoming still stands in that our contemporary exploration of memory’s physical aspect down to the neurological level has not superseded this groundwork separation in the account of how the trace that is a memory originates. This means that the continuity between the physiological and the psychic remains inexplicable. A grounding of that continuity is called for. Should we pursue the long series of interconnections in the physiology of memory in nerve and brain on the one side and the series of psychic/mental operations on the other, we will not find the passage between them we are seeking other than in life’s ontopoietic constructivism. But to say that still does not yield to us the linkage, the steps by which a memory is constructed. It is first to be asked how even a vaguely recurring image generated by this physiological-psychic process within a series of the living agent’s moves within a particular circumambient conditions could come to be summoned up in psychic experience at a different phase of the flux of becoming. First of all, it is within the groundwork of the originating lifeworld itself that we may seek the general constitutive directives and framework of becoming as well as specific genetic sequential patterns to be followed in singular lines of becoming. But how then can we bridge the hiatus between the two temporal phases of the process of memory, the instant of the image’s physiological imprinting and the moment of the psyche’s recall? With that question we realize more deeply

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the nature of the situation. If the trace of the “image” is recurringly recalled at different phases of the temporal flux of the becoming of life even though both the individual subjective psyche as well as the objective circumambient world have changed and have changed independently, then we do not have in the constructive orchestration conducted by the brain-psyche sufficient explanation for the linkage we find made in remembrance. We are compelled then to seek the passage from physiological imprint to psychic recall not in a genetic linkage but within the all-embracing sense of the world’s becoming and of life, in what I call “the ontopoietic sense of the logos of life,” which sustains the expressions of becoming at their originary level. Trying to explain memory in terms of linkages or steps of becoming yields but fragments of a picture. It is rather the sense of the ontopoietic memory of the progress of life that carries our re-membering. The crux of the enigma of memory is not, therefore, the origination of particular images or traces, for that first imprinting is already mysterious, the gulf separating the corporeal and the psychic being already there. The ground of memory is rather to be sought in the logos of life’s becoming, its timing itself in accordance with its sense. This sense runs through the fragmentary traces of becoming later retrieved as the human mind retrieves the past. What serves as the basis of this uncovering of the lost forms, colors, and sense of past life is the subjacent network of the ontopoietic logos subtending both impression and sense. The forms indirectly “re-cognized” in the present are marshaled by the lived network of the organizational forces of the logos of life that subtend life’s lawfulness and functional sequences.

O R G A N I C M E M O RY

As we have seen, traditionally the emphasis in philosophers’ consideration of memory’s temporal development has fallen on the conscious aspect of memory, that is to say, on memory as exercised by living agents that either at least sense or are fully aware. Memory is thus seen as aiding in the direction of life. Our own attention, however, is turned toward a contrasting type of memory, one in which it is not the living agent’s conscious direction, to whatever degree consciousness be developed, that is key. Rather, we consider this agent—living consciousness, the “I”—as a differentiation of the circumambient world of life in which it is active. As Erling Eng put it, “My usual experience of the organic is that of waking consciousness, while the condition in which the organic remembers me lies outside of consciousness rather like dreaming or trance awareness.”3 Thus, an organism has its particular past and in its genesis establishes a memory of its stages and phases, to begin with the differentiation of

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the embryo and all the prenatal developments of life, the phases of the constitution of the functional apparatus of life leading to the entire apparatus of organs comprising the newborn individual fitted upon his or her entrance into the postnatal round of life, the life system of the world. Fascinatingly, as Eng continues his argument, in the postnatal period we find the infant continuing its prenatal condition, its “foetalization.” Eng insists, “To the extent of this interpenetration of prenatality with our postnatal world, we are never finished with our birth.” It is, indeed, through the organic “memorization” of our prenatal stages that we advance thereafter. Owing to this organic memory—owing to an implicit use of our organs—we participate in the world in which we continue, by which we are as if “remembered” without our willful effort or consent, without awareness. We are not even aware of our prenatality, where awareness as such does not occur, sensing does not occur in an intersubjective way, not beyond some rhythmic exchange with one’s mother. The organic progress takes place owing to the repetitive continuity of the steps of organic growth. The obvious manifestation of this genetic order is seen in the hierarchical organization of the central nervous system, in which more primitive levels are preserved, replaced, and transformed by subsequent levels. The growthsustaining fetal stage of our organic unfolding comes to light in our childhood, adolescent, and adult lives in aspects of our stress, fatigue, trauma, psychosis, and in nocturnal dreams. It would seem, then, that it is the maintenance of the organic genetic phases that sustains our continuous existence—in which that organic growth and habits can unfold in our constructive progress. However, the organism which carries the beingness of the living is not identical with the conscious center of the agent, its conscious directional motor, its “self”, the self of the living agent, the human self. The self cannot be subsumed under organic constitutive prerogatives. The constitutive, constructivism establishing the orchestration of organic moves and maintaining its progress, does not explain what is the key factor of this orchestration which is directing the individual’s unfolding within its circumambient conditions. Such a unifying factor, which would conduct well the continuity of the organic bio-memory. What is the continuity of the steps of the unfolding for the future usage is an open question. When it comes to the organic, bio-memory continuity, it is no longer the image, and its original experience that would allow us to overcome the hiatus between active consciousness and a retrieved trace for which we would seek a bridge between consciousness and re-cognition of the real fact, an event, a real object, etc. We have here not the question of congenital continuity between a

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trace and its prototype, but the continuity of an actual functional becoming in two of its temporal phases of accomplishment. This continuity cannot be other than the thread of sense being installed by the logos of the temporal unfolding (3). In conclusion: memory emerges as the crucial instrument of the ontopoietic becoming of life. To be continued in Book Two Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka NOTES 1 Erwin Straus, “Über Gedächtnisspüren,” Der Nervenarzt, Jahrgang 31, Heft 1, 20 January 1960, pp. 1–12. 2 Ibid., p. 12. 3 Erling Eng, “A History of the Idea of Organic Memory,” below in this volume, pp.

SECTION I M E M O RY A L O N G L I F E ’ S G E N E S I S

HALIL TURAN

M E M O RY A N D T H E M Y T H O F P R O M E T H E U S

ABSTRACT

In Aeschylus’ interpretation of the myth, Prometheus is depicted as having bestowed upon humankind not only the techn¯e of reproducing and using fire for any conceivable art, but practically all arts and sciences. Memory, in this interpretation seems to be the necessary condition of all sciences. If any systematic inquiry is possible only through keeping past experience in memory, then Prometheus’ keeping the fire in a narthex must be a metaphor that refers to “keeping” in a universal sense. Hence, what Prometheus stole away from Zeus by keeping it in a narthex is not simply fire as a tool, but the method to reproduce that tool. The ancients seem to have drawn relations between keeping characteristic features and orders of phenomena in memory and mastery in arts, but do not seem to have thought of an evolution of the human capacity of reasoning, they simply assumed that that power was a godly gift. Prometheus’ contrivance of carrying the ember in a hollow narthex, similarly the Lockean conception of memory as storehouse for ideas refer to locations and distances for things which can hardly be in space as actual objects of perception are. It is possible to conceive the capacity in question as a product of the entities that are said to be stored, that this power of keeping evolved through repercussions of past perceptions. Further, against skeptical arguments concerning the reality of the past, the reliability of memory can be shown in terms of mastery in technai: if one has the power to employ efficient tools to change the course of events, either in nature or in society, the reliability of memory is justified in Promethean terms. According to the myth put into verse by Hesiod, Titan god Prometheus saved the human race from corruption by giving them the fire he has stolen from Zeus.1 The king god, already furious with Prometheus who took part with human race and deceived him for his share in sacrifices, decided not to send his bolts and bereaved men of fire. Prometheus carried the fire from the mount Olympus to the earth by keeping it in a hollow fennel-stalk. Fire, the use of which is the means to any conceivable practice for the amelioration of human life, has a great metaphorical power; for, the art of kindling fire, the first significant techn¯e, appears to embody the archetypical method necessary for all kinds of arts. Keeping ember in a closed space as in a fennel-stalk suggests an 5 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 5–15. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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ancient technology to reproduce fire, hence a method to keep both the burning object in a closed space, and the knowledge of the causal order in memory. In Aeschylus’ interpretation of the myth, Prometheus is represented as having bestowed upon humankind not only the techn¯e of reproducing and using fire for any conceivable art, but practically all arts and sciences.2 Aeschylus makes the god speak of the former state of humankind as devoid of any capacity of reasoning necessary for protection from and command of natural events: First of all, though they had eyes to see, they saw to no avail; they had ears, but understood not; but like to shapes in dreams, throughout their length of days, without purpose they wrought all things in confusion. . . . They had no sign either of winter or of flowery spring or fruitful summer, whereon they could depend, but in everything they wrought without judgment, until such time as I taught them to discern the risings of the stars and their settings, ere this ill distinguishable3

The command of a language, the capacity of distinguishing and relating seemingly distinct phenomena like vocal signs and mental images, or risings and settings of stars and seasons, are all marks of understanding. Understanding appears to be possible through the recognition of similarity between distinct events, through the recognition of a past in distinction from the present and the future. Without a reference to this past one could hardly distinguish an appearance as a sign, let alone interpret it as indicating the verisimilitude of related phenomena. Aeschylus emphasizes that the most important of Prometheus’ benefactions is the science of number and writing, the greatest aid to memory: Aye, and numbers, too, the chiefest of sciences, I invented for them, and the combining of letters, creative mother of the Muses’ arts, wherewith to hold all things in memory.4

Memory, in this interpretation seems to be the necessary condition of all sciences, both of those which we share with the ancients like medicine, and those which have lost their meaning with us, like the art of soothsaying. Apparently, the Greek verb prom¯etheomai, “to show forethought for”, is a key to understand the significance of Prometheus’ boons for the human race. If any systematic inquiry is possible only through keeping past experience in memory, then Prometheus’ keeping the fire in a narthex is a metaphor that refers to “keeping” in a universal sense. One keeps ember to kindle fire again, one keeps things, tools or memories of regularly ordered appearances to make use of them in further similar settings; hence, all techniques are possible through such keeping. The method of keeping fire in the form of ember seems to be more important than fire itself; for, fire will never be extinguished as long as one knows how to keep it. Therefore, what Prometheus carried away from Zeus by keeping in a narthex is not simply fire as a tool, but the method

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to reproduce that tool. Putting a piece of ember in a hollow fennel-stalk is a totally different kind of act than kindling fire. Success in this reproduction seems to be possible only through the assumption that the future will be like the past: it must always be possible to light a new fire with ember as has always been. Even prophecy must be based on the assumption that a particular order of appearances as signs will be associated with a set of appearances similar to those formerly perceived. The interpretation of the myth of Prometheus by Hesiod and Aeschylus suggests the idea that the ancients drew relations between keeping characteristic features and orders of phenomena in memory and mastery in arts of all kinds; hence, all inductive and deductive reasoning, all arts and sciences, or, in general, all purposive activity is thought to require such keeping for success. But to have such a capacity to keep is to have the consciousness of having had the experience of similar settings in a determinate whole which one calls one’s life, or one’s past. It appears that no phenomenon can be identified without various references to this whole; for, features and orders of things are distinguishable as what they are, if one can connect the present to the past through relations of similarity. Of course this does not mean that novel aspects or relations of things cannot be discovered. However, since it is impossible to conceive of a discovery without employing the tools already at one’s disposal, without theories, without logic, or without the most general assumptions that have proved to be reliable, it seems natural to argue that what is dissimilar is also identified through similarity in a higher order. The totality which one calls the past is constituted by memories which appear as independent and isolated facts or sequences of events. On the other hand, none of these distinguishable parts can be identified as what they are, without reference, at least to previous similar and related phenomena. An important question that the myth of Prometheus suggests is the following: is it because one has a capacity of memory that one can learn and practice a method, or is it because one repeats certain order of phenomena in practice that one can build oneself a memory? In other words, is the faculty called memory a prerequisite of orderly practice, is it a product of practice? The answer to this question would depend on general metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of human thought. The ancients, the anonymous thinker who first conceived of the myth of Prometheus, and the Greek poets who elaborated it, for example, seem to have assumed that memory is a faculty causally independent of its contents, since they thought that before the Titan god’s boons no systematic practice was possible. The ancients do not seem to have thought of an evolution of the human capacity of reasoning, rather they seem to have simply assumed that that power was a godly gift. Whoever thinks that memory is an innate faculty, either those who think that it has been bestowed by some

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benevolent deity, or those who simply take it to be innate without a question of etiology, will argue that one can store in an orderly fashion and use what one has marked as an effective contrivance because one has such a capacity. This conception of memory refers to an original capacity of storing, in analogy with a space reserved for storing tools. In this sense the hollow narthex represents a capacity for keeping fire. Analogously, the power to keep the order of phenomena related to kindling fire in mind is a capacity for the art of kindling fire. But visualizing the storehouse metaphor in all the details it brings to mind would rather blur our picture of memory. It may be necessary to draw analogies between the spatial concept of containing objects and keeping thoughts, perceptions, that is to say, non-physical objects in a space of a peculiar sort in order to conceive how the faculty of memory operates. However, it seems possible to increase the explanatory power of this spatial representation by rejecting the idea that memory as a capacity, as a holding power is “given”, or innate. Memory may not be given; it may be a product of orderly and prominent phenomena. In other words, it is possible to conceive of memory as a capacity, a power formed by what it is said to contain. Hence, this faculty comes to be what it is as the shadows, so to speak, of phenomena of actual experiences keep echoing, as if in a hall that continually increases its extension. Thus, memories would be echoes in an imaginary hall where all significant speech, all beautiful tunes reverberate as long as one is capable of hearing them. This conception of memory too seems to imply that a hall, a space is necessary to produce the echoes, but this would be a misleading interpretation. We are inclined to think of a closed space for those echoes to exist. But the metaphor is intended for something else. This view of memory as repercussions of the past may also seem to imply that there must at least be a power to distinguish and find particular sequences that form distinct entities. Although this may be true, that there is a power to recall these entities and measure them to be at a distance in time does not mean that there must be a space, a “place” of some particular sort to store these entities. Of course, the narthex, or the Lockean storehouse view of memory5 too, in the final analysis, employs the concept of physical space as a metaphor: the use of a tool, the habit of starting a course of events which would enable one to regenerate certain phenomena cannot literally be kept in a space. A spatial conception of memory cannot, of course, be referring to a space to store things in the literal sense; for, what can be stored therein are ideas, distinguishable order of phenomena, habits and the like. But, such a metaphorical reference nevertheless seems to be natural: as one speaks of a distance between past events, or of keeping them in memory, an analogy with three dimensional space is readily drawn. Prometheus’ contrivance of carrying the ember in a

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hollow narthex, John Locke’s conception of memory as storehouse for ideas, the metaphor relating memories to echoes, all such imaginative descriptions of memory refer to locations and distances for things which can hardly be in space as actual objects of perception are. Although almost all conceivable discourse on memory would employ extension as an image, memories cannot be in space as the objects of which they are memories. Representations of memory in metaphorical terms that refer to extension seem to derive their explanatory power from the analogy one is naturally inclined to draw between that which preserves, namely space, or room for things stored, and a power to store or to keep them. Recollections, unlike the actually perceived objects or successions of events, cannot be located in some extension; they are thoughts. But, as goods or tools are saved from the destructive power of nature by being kept in storehouses for future use, memories can be said to be kept or stored for the same end. It is generally taken for granted that experience is the prerequisite of the practice of any techn¯e; all the intellectual tools one uses, language, all methods of inference and all techniques of artistic expression do necessitate practice. Hence, no method could be employed or developed if memories of such practices were not kept alive, just as no production could be possible without the proper preservation of necessary tools. The analogy between memory and a space for preserving certain objects is informative in so far as it draws a relation between tools and methods. No doubt, the spatial metaphor in the myth of Prometheus has preserved its brightness until today. But the conception of memory as a capacity for storing objects brings to mind certain difficult questions. How could one conceive the art of kindling fire by using a piece of ember kept burning, for example, as an object to be kept in some closed space? A piece of fire can be preserved in a closed space, but we cannot think that the method of kindling fire by using ember thus kept burning is preserved in a space. A piece of ember can be said to be preserved as a “tool” in a hollow stalk, but the practice that makes use of this tool cannot be said to be preserved in a similar sense. Therefore, although the conception of memory as a closed space may be adequate for depicting how ideas as tools are preserved, the metaphor seems to lose its power as we try to envisage how memory is involved in learning the practice of an art or the application of a method. In Aeschylus’ interpretation, Prometheus’ invaluable gifts to mankind are technai of all kinds; the poet does not seem to distinguish between practical arts and mathematics. Any conceivable art or science rests on a method which implies a capacity or power to repeat a series of intentional acts with necessary minor adaptations to particular cases. Historically speaking, these

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methods or contrivances, as in the artistic representation of Prometheus’ stealing fire by putting it in a narthex, must have been discovered accidentally by some human-like animal. Seeing that the ember will thus be kept burning, this intelligent being must have conceived of a particular method of kindling fire. Indeed, this perception of the efficacy of the sequence of acts to attain an end seems to be requisite for mastering any techn¯e. This must have been what took place in the consciousness of some intelligent being whose reasoning can, at least in principle, be conceived of. But, it is difficult to imagine this human-like animal as carrying out mental operations with an innate capacity of memory, as placing, so to speak, each significant perception in a memorial space it is endowed with. Rather, it seems more plausible that the capacity in question is a product of the entities that are said to be stored, that this power of keeping evolved through repercussions of perceptions of certain vital series of events, as it must have been the case in the discovery of the technique of keeping ember burning. The same evolution must have taken place in more abstract reasoning, in mathematical operations, in the discovery of a technique of addition or multiplication, for example. Hence, the power of keeping certain signs in memory could be conceived as causally linked to continued practice of techniques or methods, and the space where the memories are located as expanding with mastery of various practices related to human life. Let us consider the art of cultivation, which is principally a set of methods to attain specific ends or products. It is evident that learning and teaching these methods are essential for the practice of an activity like agriculture. “Culture” requires memory as the capacity for learning and teaching. Similarly, memory appears to be the principal requisite for societal organization and hence for the distinction of the human being from the plain animal. The myth portrays Prometheus as the teacher of humanity, as a benevolent god who transforms the herd into a society. Prometheus’ gifts are not alms; the god offers keys to employ powers of nature for the benefit of human life. Everything Prometheus is said to have bestowed on humankind is a method, a techn¯e to be mastered and developed. Hence, the myth could be read as making memory the basic requirement of culture, that is, of organization in arts and division of labor. Learning and teaching of the technai necessary for human life must be possible only in organized communities. Therefore, according to the myth, Prometheus bestowed on the humankind the art of politics once he bestowed arts common to well-organized societies. Let us now reconsider the metaphoric representation of memory as capacity in the spatial sense. No techn¯e can have a place, as a tool has; the mythological account seems to suggest that keeping is vital for any method, but the act of keeping assumes a different sense if what is said to be kept is an order of

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events, and not an actual spatial object like a piece of ember or a physical tool. On the other hand, it seems very natural to represent the past, or memory as a storehouse, or a closed space where the goods and tools have their appointed places. The hollow narthex provides a space to keep one of the most valuable goods. Similarly, storing tools and goods is necessary for all practical arts. But the act of keeping the order of events, that is, learning the practice of an art, as in learning to kindle fire with a piece of ember kept in a closed space does not admit of being placed. Hence, technai cannot be preserved in a space as goods or tools can. One may draw an analogy between methods and tools, but it is difficult to imagine memory as a repository of methods; for, methods are not tools, tools may be parts or products of methods, but neither the apprehension of the utility nor the practice of a method can be accurately depicted in terms of placing or storing. Prometheus’ contrivance cannot be conceptualized in terms of extension, nor could his political view on mankind. With fire and all the technai of an organized society, humans are no longer at the mercy of the gods, or of nature; with Prometheus’ help they attain a considerable power. Although the practice of these arts and primarily that of the art of politics necessitate ordering both in spatial (as in designing the physical environment), and in organizational sense (as in the allotment of rights and responsibilities in manufacture and services), it is difficult to conceive of memory merely as a place to store. Storing must be possible if there is a space, a capacity, a material ability to contain, but the ability to organize, use, and to enlarge that space appears to be more important than having that space at one’s disposal. Neither memory as capacity, nor its contents as memories can be conceived purely in terms of extension, but the notion of order or arrangement seems to be underlying the act of storing in any functional sense. Thus, one could neither reach the required object or tool, nor recall the essential properties of objects and sequences of events without having an orderly collection of things of the peculiar sort at one’s disposal. A memory, no matter how much capacious, must be defective unless what is stored therein is in order; neither acting nor communication would be possible without such an ordered aggregate of memories. It is clear that any representation of the present or the past should be one in which proper signs or images are so arranged that they can be reckoned to signify what is or was the actual case. This must be true both for reflection and communication. The order thus represented must appear “objective”, that is, claims concerning the properties of particular things and events must be verifiable through various perspectives, either personally or with reference to those who communicate. Even the most ordinary form of communication, namely that of calling the other’s attention to something requires the employment of tools that would represent the order of things in the customary way.

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Language admits only certain signs to represent things and processes, and dictates how and where those signs are to be employed: one is not at a liberty to use any temporal or modal sign to denote the characteristics of a particular set of phenomena, for example. One can hardly survive as a member of a community while failing systematically to represent the objective order of things and hence failing to make the others act in cooperation to attain a personal or a public good. Culture, both in the current and the archaic sense of cultivating, requires cooperation and hence communication. Memory must be operative in communication in various ways; it must, for example, help one to represent to oneself the actual order of phenomena, that is, it must enable one to differentiate the significant parts of a perceptual flux and relate these parts to one another in a coherent manner; and it must also enable one to recall and apply the common signs to refer precisely to these parts and their relations. Objectivity and communication must be inseparably linked to each other; for, it is neither possible to believe that one can objectively represent the world without at the same time being convinced that one can make oneself understood, nor to believe that one communicates successfully if one has doubts about the general reliability of the representation in question. The use of any language in an efficient manner seems to be the fundamental requirement for communication and hence for the practice of any art, neither of which is possible without a power that would enable one to remember what one has learned or discovered. One does not need a further proof that memory is the necessary condition for any practice. As an adequate power of “storing” and ordering is necessary for learning any practice, it is clear that this power is necessary for being recognized as a part of a community. For, without a capacity to learn, recall and employ common methods, life in a community is either a dependent one, or simply impossible. Although it is obvious that memory is indispensable for competence in all these practices, its vitality in mastering any art might enable us to comprehend how a social order, and survival as a part of a community necessitates the power of relating the past to the present and to the future. It is impossible to imagine a qualified member of a community who cannot master certain mathematical and linguistic skills. This is apparent not only in the practice of a particular method of production, but also in ethical and political reasoning. No doubt, competence in language or the ability to use efficient expressions conducive to a particular moral or political aim underlies the power to determine the course of life with the others. Ethical and political judgments are put forward with a concern for the future; although they appear to be concerned with value attributions to acts or persons in the past, they are all intended to change the order for the future. Without a circumspective evaluation of the past, which certainly requires a sound memory, no reasonable value judgment is conceivable.

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A power of retaining the tools for communication and for determining the future appears to be as indispensable for life as that of acquiring them. Discovery of how nature and society operate and invention of tools or methods to make them behave in a particular way necessitate a capacity to keep the order of events in memory. Further, it also seems to be necessary that there must be a correspondence between the order and presence of what is retained in memory and the order of things in reality. In other words, what one recalls must be a faithful copy of an actual past with its parts arranged in a particular order. This is so obvious that one only needs to consider whether the application of any method could be conceivable without repeating the steps of an operation in a fixed order which one remembers to have worked in previous cases. Needless to say, both these steps and their order of succession as a whole should have been experienced in the actual past as how they appear in memory. Otherwise, it would be impossible to speak of a power of keeping, but only of imagination. The recognition of the past as the totality of phenomena whose arrangement can never be changed seems to be necessary to any conception of memory. There may not be any means to discover whether these are representations of past events that had really happened and that the whole past is composed of such real experiences, but it is beyond doubt that there is a temporal distance and an “extension”, so to speak, which is continually expanding. This “past” is readily conceived to be constituted of memories of perceptions and thoughts of every kind whose common feature is being prominent for some vital reason. One has this conception of past, if one has the consciousness of having experienced those entities that constitute it. Hence, what is called the past must be the totality of everything that appears to one as having once, that is, a measurable time before happened. Whether this conception could be ultimately justified against skeptical arguments, however, is not clear. For example, it is conceivable that some entities that appear as having been experienced may just be arbitrary fictions of the imagination; the whole past may be a deception of some sort. Again, it is conceivable that the whole world was created only minutes ago, as Bertrand Russell entertained as a skeptical hypothesis.6 Similarly, if, as Descartes thought, an omnipotent being creates everything anew at each instant, then this being must also be creating the whole past for the meditator.7 If the creator of this moment is a deceiver (unlike the benevolent and veracious God of Descartes), then the location of all appearances on the time scale becomes dubious: a childhood memory, for example, may not have been experienced at the time one perceives as childhood; although it may appear that a certain number of years has passed, it may, according the hypothesis, be the case that those memories are created a moment ago, so that the past, or what appears to

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be the past with the peculiar perspective of distances in a time scale, may partially or totally be different from what appears, or simply non-existent. Thus, it is logically conceivable that this instant is composed of things existing only at this instant without being dependent on a real past; it may be the case that this moment comes into existence as what it is along with what is ordinarily called the memory of a whole past. How, then, could the reliability of memory be justified against such hypotheses? A plausible answer could be offered once more by referring to the myth of Prometheus: it may be argued that memory proves to be reliable as long as it constitutes the basis for any conceivable successful method. An ultimate justification that memory is a totality of discernible processes or successions as they are represented to have happened in a certain order, and that these entities have happened at the location or distance they appear to have happened may not be possible. But, all arts, all methods require a common understanding of what reality, needs and possibilities are. For an objective, that is, a common order of things it is essential that all arts and methods should be employed with a good will of veridicality. It is also possible to tell lies about reality, but persuasion by lying requires the power to misrepresent the order of events so flawlessly that an equally consistent counterfeit order can appear to be the original, which is practically impossible. Hence, in order to determine the course of events in common reality, either in nature or in community life, it is necessary to act as an equal member, to be honest and careful not to misrepresent what appears to be the objective order of phenomena. Of course one must also be vigorous enough not to fail in one’s serious attempt of veridicality. Therefore, mastery in technai of natural or political order offers the principal means for justification of the reliability of memory. A reliable memory is one in which both the qualities of things and their common order are retained lively, which keeps expanding without breach, and therefore one which can serve the future. Orta Do˘gu Teknik Üniversitesi, Felsefe Bölümü

NOTES 1

Hesiod. Works and Days, 47–52. Prometheus Bound, 460–2; Aeschylus, trans. H. W. Smyth (Michigan: Harvard University Press, 2006); pp. 256–7. 3 Ibid., pp. 255–6 (Prometheus Bound, 447–59). 4 Ibid., p. 257 (Prometheus Bound, 460–1). 5 Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Ch. X, 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). 6 Russell, Bertrand. The Analysis of Mind (London: Allen and Unwin, 1968); p. 159. 2

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7 In fact, Descartes did not formulate his methodological skeptical argument along these lines. But, if it is conceivable that a powerful evil genius deceives the Cartesian meditator, it is also conceivable that it deceives by creating everything anew each moment, as Descartes thought that some cause (the all-powerful and benevolent God) is capable (see Third Meditation, AT VII, 48–9). In this sense Russell’s hypothesis can be viewed as a derivative of Cartesian methodological skepticism and the view that time is discontinuous: I may be deceived by a powerful being about the reality of the past.

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A H I S T O RY O F T H E I D E A O F O R G A N I C M E M O RY

As there is a geometry in space, so there is a psychology in time, in which the calculations of a plane psychology would no longer be accurate because we should not be taking account of time, and of the forms that it assumes, forgetting Proust, The Fugitive, III, 568

ABSTRACT

“Organic memory” means that I – more exactly me – am (or is) by memory remembered. Not I but the organic, namely that which has become differentiated in and through my own vital activity, and this must include the differentiated world, this memory remembers me. It is different from the way in which we ordinarily experience memory, namely as its users, hence the difficulty of conceptualizing it. Such memory involves the world as its medium, whether of our own body taken as part of the world, or of various parts of the world which emerge as something like “found objects”. In and through my own activity I am as it were remembered by my body and by parts of the world. “Organism” holds both the meaning of being remembered by its past, as well as meaning of the world construed in my “dismembering” of it, in and through my own activity. While I as it were dismember the organic, the organic is remembering me. My usual experience of the organic is that of waking consciousness, while the condition in which the organic remembers me lie outside consciousness, rather more like dreaming or trance awareness. Transformation of the relatively undifferentiated embryo into the differentiated organism with its complementary envelope is that of a constantly enlarging and ever more complexly articulated sphere. Throughout however it retains the possibility of regression as well as of progression in organization. “Organic memories” are involuntary memories, memories mediated by, and touched off

First International Congress on Pre- and Peri-natal Psychology July 8–10, 1983 – Toronto, Canada.

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by concrete particulars in our surroundings. Here the classical observations have been made by both Freud and Proust. “Birth” stands for the assumption of the use of our organs. This assumption of our effectors obscures that memory which is constitutive of them. The medium of the world eclipses the memory character of their apparent mechanism. Our organism construes the world it requires, not only to make up for its losses, but first of all to actualize still unrealized possibilities. Here needs emerge out of gratifications. The human infant, of all creatures, is perhaps the most helpless on its entry into the world. For many months, perhaps a year, its condition is fetal, compared with the postnatal competency of other animals. This is the idea of human “foetalization”, as advanced by the Dutch physiologist Bolk, in the 1920’s. This also implies that the newly born infant human is involved with the world in a far more prenatal fashion than other animals. The human being is a prematurely born animal. To the extent of this interpenetration of prenatality with our postnatal world, we are never finished with our birth. Thus it is that human visions of death can so frequently refer to a completion of birth, in and through which identity will finally be realized. For the human the meanings of womb and tomb are commingled, and reversible. Pascal says: “Sleep, you say, is the image of death; for my part I say that it is rather the image of life (Pensees, #5, 358, Penguin ed.)” Identity remains, if interminable, as a constantly fruitful task, if considered in the context of persisting prenatality. A pre- and perinatal psychology is one of identity as open, realized in and through the body within the world. This openness is no less apparent in the non-seasonal character of human sexuality. The presocratic physician philosopher Alcmaeon observed that “human beings pass away because they cannot join the end to the beginning.” If we start from our present life, then to “pass away” can only mean loss. But if our prenatality, i.e. our biological openness, is taken as starting point, then to “pass away” reveals its hidden sense as birth. We “pass away” only because – out of forgetfulness and limitation of understanding – we make absolute the distinction between beginning and end, rather than realize the way in which they are reciprocally related in the figure of a life. Insofar as our memory is organic, that is, implicit in the use of our organs, it is as if we are remembered by the world. Birth remains the most obscure event of human experience. Often our idea of it has taken the form of a vision of a life after death. In Plato’s recital of the myth of Er at the end of The Republic, life after death passes over into the life before birth, the division marked by the soul’s passage through the river Lethe, in which it loses the memory of its earlier life.

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The world as divine, as described by Plato’s Socrates in the Phaedo, is the world in the perspective of prenatality, sacred in its character as originary. One Greek philosopher in fact referred to the boundary of the world as that of a hymen. But we remain within the earthly envelope. Our astronauts attempt to adventure outside it, but can go only so far. Venturing to the edge of the terrestial uterus, they are always trailing an umbilicus. Adventures in space are altering the awareness of our origins, transforming our imagination, evoking the possibility of an archaeo-psychology. From my own work with psychotic persons, I have never ceased to remember a woman who suffered her body as having been, like a glove, turned inside out. The cultural myths of a “mundus inversus”, the inverted world, or the “floating world” of Japanese aesthetic, may be understood as allusions to a sphere of prenatality, “through the looking glass.” Myths too in which blindness is associated with wisdom are also relevant: blind Homer, and blind Teiresias, the questioner of Oedipus, whose quest for self-knowledge was realized in self-imposed blindness. The knowledge of the world before birth is without use of the eyes. The prenatal situation is unique in several respects. It is without eyesight, it is largely or relatively free of any sense of gravity for the “hysteronaut”, and there is no intersubjectivity that we might understand. But there is hearing, and we do have evidence of its functioning in the frequently cited instances of responses to music, and above all, in the infant’s response to the rhythms of its mother’s heart. If there is no second person as such for the foetus, yet we can imagine the awareness of prenatality. This is an awareness, an “acknowledge”, in which that which is known is salient over that which does the knowing. This is the sense for which Husserl reached in his obsession with intentionality, as it is also that which accounts for Freud’s self-styled “mythic” Triebe. Organic or involuntary memory is discovered in the absence or failures of voluntary memory, so that there is a reversal of the usual relationship of figure and ground in our experience. For the nineteenth century this reversal was given scientific status in what Haeckel called the “fundamental biogenetic law”. According to this law, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. That is to say, the development of the individual repeats the stages of development of itself as a type, in the course of realizing the possibility of contributing to its still further elaboration. Repetition, and this means retrieval of origins as well, is the condition of continuing creation. Ordinarily, like Orpheus leaving the underworld, we recover the past only in facing forward and going on, fulfilling its import which trails us in the fruits of our own ongoing activity; the past is never to be recaptured in its pristine original condition. Hence Goethe’s advice: “What you’ve from your

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fathers inherited, acquire it, if you would make it yours.” When this tie with the ongoing creative utilization of experience is torn or twisted, through shock, or injury, a lapse into pathology and symptomatology is at hand. With what can a history of the idea of organic memory be said to have begun? If we set aside the evolutionary and “involutionary” ideas of the presocratics, then it is the Orphic vision of Plato at the end of The Republic, in which he describes the return of souls to the world: In the evening they encamped by the Forgetful River, whose water no pitcher can hold. And all were compelled to drink a certain measure of its water; and those who had no wisdom to save them, drank more than the measure. And as each man drank he forgot everything. They went to sleep and when midnight came there was an earthquake and thunder, and like shooting stars they were all swept suddenly up and away to be born (Republic, Bk. 10, Pt. 11)

To those who at this point object to this as a myth, we reply with Freud’s words: It may perhaps seem . . . as though our theories are a kind of mythology . . . But does not every science come in the end to a kind of mythology . . .? (Freud, S.E., 5, 283)

What is of interest to the psychologist in the account of Plato is that the order of events, namely the drink of the water of forgetfulness, followed by earthquake and thunder, succeeded by the shooting stars of birth, reverses the order of events in the formation of a traumatic disorder of memory. Most if not all, involuntary memories derive from forgetfulness following an event in some way shocking, alarming, or overwhelming. In human life birth is first, then the traumatic experience, the “earthquake and thunder”, and last the forgetfulness of the Lethe drink. This sort of reversal is a necessary one in the history of our idea. It is best represented in works of the imagination. I refer you to three works of our own time which reveal the experience of memory as a progressive recovery of the time of our origination, the time of continuing original disclosure, and this without yielding to the temptations of nostalgia. Incidentally, a classical scholar (D. Frame) has recently advanced the thesis that the Greek word for return, nostos, as we see it in “nostalgia”, literally the pain of return, is etymologically linked with the Greek word for mind, or reason, i.e. nous, and that such a tie accounts for the figure of the crafty returning Odysseus in Greek mythology. In each of three stories I have referred to, the time of the protagonist’s experience moves in a direction opposite to the time of the narrative itself. The world closes in while things become big. If the effect is disquieting it is also strangely satisfying; there is a sense of silent accomplishment. Finally, a sigh of death merges with the cry of birth. The three writers are: Carlos Fuentes, in The Death of Artemio Cruz, Alejo Carpentier, in The Steps of Time, and Ilse Aichinger with her Spiegelgeschichte.

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Prenatality is creative only in and through remaining behind, once again like the figure of Eurydice, or as a latency symbolized by the loss of sight in Greek myth. Blindness is accompanied by the acquisition of wisdom, and as in the case of the blind seer Teiresias, the interrogator of Oedipus, with clairvoyance. The originary separation insofar as it is suffered as trauma, is succeeded by the sense of a hidden continuing resource. The sexual difference itself may be now experienced as a memento of this spearation as in Aristophanes’ myth of the origin of eros in the Symposium. The sexual act is viewed as an effort to recover the ground of the difference itself, prenatality, before the advent of the world. Ferenczi, Freud’s colleague, gave expression to this idea in his Thalassa, which matched Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle. History understood merely as a positive account of past events only serves to mask the extent of our latent prenatality. “Organic memory” is the obverse of any positive history, the latter representing the perhaps necessary attempt to cope with the losses incurred in birth.Such an attempt seeks to recover the fullness of prenatality within the time and space of the post-natal world. The fulfillment sought in the transient world is a dreamlike evocation of that prenatal fullness out of which birth occurs. Why extend the period of memory to life before birth? First, as Ewald Hering pointed out somethat more than a hundred years ago, conscious memory is like heredity in that it too is reproductive. Sexuality, both as aim and as attached to an object, is repetitive. Such a memory can however only be realized in the wake of the imperfect fulfillment of its projects; it is like Eurydice, who accompanied Orpheus as a presence only as long as he did not turn to regard her directly. A variety of phenomena indirectly support the assumption of such residual prenatality at the heart of human experiencing: (1) the relatively fetal character of the human infant at birth, as compared with other animals, first characterized by Bolk, and then developed by Portmann; (2) the hierarchical organization of the central nervous system according to Hughlings Jackson, in which more primitive levels are preserved, opposed and transformed through subsequent levels of organization; (3) a corollary tendency to regress to earlier acquired habits under stress, fatigue, or trauma; (4) nocturnal dreams, and psychotic states in waking; (5) visionary experience. The history of a pre-natal psychology is one which, like archaeology and genealogy, can only be retroflectively worked out. However three periods of such a history may be roughly distinguished:

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(1) that of antiquity, in which the prevailing tendency was to experience birth in elegiac fashion, to consider birth an unfortunate event, as in Sophocles’ words in his Oedipus at Colonnus: Say what you will, the greatest boon is not to be; But, life begun, soonest to end is best, And to that bourne from which our way began Swiftly return. (Theban Plays, Penguin, 109)

Man compared with the other animals, was seen as deficient by birth in special adaptations to nature. (2) late antiquity and the medieval period. This was marked by a displacement of the sense of birth to a subsequent post-mortem spiritual existence. The ancient notion of man as deficient, compared with the other animals, and hence driven to be inventive, was obscured in late antiquity and the subsequent medieval period by the idea of man’s sinfulness vis-a-vis his Creator, and of his suffering as the punishment for his insubordination or his false sense of power and independence; (3) the period since 1800, with its new evolutionary conception of human existence, as seen in Herder’s, Lamarck’s and Goethe’s sense of earthly life. Herder revived the notion of man as deficient, but now with the idea of this as a spur to his development. The embryological researches of K. E. von Baer furnish a model for a future pre and peri-natal psychology. “Biology” appeared as a neologism in 1800. The new sense of earthly life dominated nineteenth century thought in the form of the idea that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, an idea whose power has proven irrestible in the face of repeated criticisms. It was the grand formulation of organic memory from the beginning to the end of the nineteenth century, and continues to lead an underground existence today in psychoanalysis. The moment of zoe, or indestructible life, latent in all memory, here seen as reparative in the presence of traumatic memories, of bios, or particular life, is illustrated for me by my experience with an ex-prisoner of war who suffered from involuntary recurrence of painful memories thirty years after the event. After months of working through his nightmares and involuntary waking memories, he finally said one day that whereas formerly he was willing to undergo anything to secure oblivion, he now considered his experience during imprisonment as an inseparable part of his life of which he no longer wished to be rid. I believe that he had eventually come to understand his past recurrent sufferings as a symbolic repetition of the loss in birth of prenatality. Its unapproachable blankness, its vital openness, now also provided the analgesic for the pain experienced in the loss, and repeated in his imprisonment. Here the regeneration through zoe occured through rendering transparent the memories of bios, opaque to the still present, and underlying, prenatality.

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His depression represented the loss of his prenatality to his experiences as bios. Prenatality has the power to render all the world metaphorical of its primal fullness, making the world accessible to the possibility of human understanding and creation. In my work with this man it was possible to understand how for Freud paranoia and homosexuality were to be seen together. The world experienced as bad, or evil, as the souvenir of a hidden loss or deprivation, is but the obverse of that prenatality represented by homosexuality understood as a symbol of prenatality, a state antecedent to sexual differentiation, when viewed as a sign of fall, and as a source of the world’s ills. Hence too Freud’s distrust of systematic thinking. To Andreas-Salome he wrote: “You know that I take pains with particulars, and patiently wait until what is more general emerges out of it of its own accord. (letter to Andreas-Salome 1.4.15). Elsewhere he was even more explicit: “I often sense so little synthetic need. The unity of this world seems to me something obvious, not worthy of being developed. What interests me is the separation and articulation of what otherwise would flow together into a primordial porridge.” (letter to Lou Andreas-Salome 7/30/15). Human incapacity derives, out of its jeopardy, a still more fundamental kind of safety, however fragile it remains. From regeneration as a spiritual idea in Christianity it has come to be understood as intrinsic to nature as understood by man in and through his own experience. Now wounds themselves can mask accesses to the deeper resources of our nature; insults become occasions of personal evolution, not only of involution. Finally a few words about “research” in the perspective I have been developing here. Research here means exactly that: re-search. Search here becomes a recovery of that which persists throughout the discovered inadequacies of the earlier search. In this perspective maintenance of the sense of birth depends on realizing the sense of mourning more in an everyday rather than an exceptional sense. The practicality of this psychology is to be found in the way it draws our attention to the problem of living through our history, with all its unanticipated, and unintended consequences. It is that which I would term the everyday work of mourning. Because such mourning work seems to constitute more naturally a part of the latter half of life, I should expect the issues of pre- and peri-natal psychology to receive their most meaningful discoveries from there. Moreover, because of the way in which unreflected consequences of the past are carried along in culture and society, their failures and success in the work of that collective mourning required to lay bare the possibilities of fresh beginnings must also be studied. This too must be a theme of our concern with pre- and peri-natality.

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Nor will it have escaped some of you that such a history as I have sketched in outline here is also a part of the research itself, and that, given the retrospective character of such an account, it is also necessarily a fragmentary account. This illustrates the problem of living our history. University of Kentucky

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M E M O RY A N D A C T I O N : T H E C O N S C I E N C E O F T I M E I N P E R S O NA L B E C O M I N G I N B E R G S O N AND BLONDEL

ABSTRACT

The aim of the article is to highlight the role of memory in subjective practical human becoming, in its particular relation given by action. Bergson and Blondel have both paid particular attention to action, conceived as a sphere of emerging of the conscience of the passing of time. Nonetheless, their analyses differ in the meaning attributed to action: while Bergson considers it as a limited part of human life, requiring a homogeneous and “spatial” approach to reality, Blondel enlarges the meaning of the term “action” to reach what, even in cosmic becoming, represents the radical spring of ontological novelty and tendency to fulfilment. According to a different evaluation of action in the context of human life, their works also offer a different conceptualisation of becoming and of the role of memory, as a deeper concept than a simple collection of memories. The article then delineates the nuances of the role – in living active becoming – of memory, in relation to the different meanings of human becoming and of a lasting conscience. To this purpose, the article is structured in two main steps. Firstly, an examination of the correlation between the unity of the self and the plurality of temporal dimensions will highlight one of the main aspects of memory, which makes action and experience possible, being the faculty which certifies and registers the subjective passing through the changing of images, perceptions and materiality. Secondly, the limitations of such a practical concept of memory and of subjective temporality will be examined in order to show a deeper sense of memory, which consists in its being capable to reflect and affect the creativity and the originality of human life, according to the very essence of freedom. In this way, memory will appear to be not only a basis of the efficiency of human action and of instrumental rationality, but also a constitutive factor in configuring a historical and communicative link with the self and the world. 25 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 25–49. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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Memory, as a theme of a philosophical reflection, does not imply clear, definite conceptual alternatives;1 rather it opens a range of different levels of reflection, that go from a “superficial” to a deeper sense of memory. This theme presents to the mind some problems, the most difficult of which is probably is the necessity to grasp and understand at one time all its characteristics.2 In fact, memory can be interpreted both as a collection of memories and a faculty: it can be considered a spiritual receptive passive virtuality, a voluntary faculty or a physiological “objective” production of some given psychic contents (i.e. the images). Above all, we can notice that an essential character of memory, constantly implied in the analyses of it, is the capacity – or just the interior phenomenon or activity (only a further analysis could eventually specify it) – which makes possible any subjective relation to time. Recalling Husserl’s words, we could say that in any intuition of time there is a conscience of a having been, not coincident with the conscience of a “now” of something that seems to last.3 As he wrote, “this having been is understood in its right continuity as a determined mode of apparition, with the distinctions of ‘content’ and ‘apprehension’, in each one of its phases”.4 The conscience of passing time is connected to the relation between a more or less intentional work of apprehension and of its articulation in determined contents, that could be also called images. We can recall, after Ricoeur, the distinction, in the subjective temporal conscience, between a primary memory, that is retention, and a secondary memory, that puts into effect a reproduction,5 in order to focus the pluridimensionality laying under an effective ambiguity of the nature of memory. The aim of this brief study is to consider the relation between memory and action, in order to highlight, among their nuances, a variety of meanings of memory, and a temporal interpretation of action and life. In order to do this, the article will examine the analysis of Henri Bergson, and outline the possible contribution given by Blondel,6 as both these philosophers seem to offer some deep intuitions on the nature of memory and its role in action. T H E E M E R G I N G O F M E M O RY I N AC T I O N

“I experience, above all, that I pass from one condition to another [. . .]. I am always changing”.7 The reflection on memory is centrally related to the issue of time: in this link we find our starting point, and the orientation of our study on the practical aspect of conscience and memory. In French philosophy of the last century there are some deep and refined analyses of time8 and of its link to

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the sphere of action and will. Already Montaigne affirmed: “La force de toute décision gît au temps: les occasions et les matières roulent et changent sans cesse (=the force of all decision abides time: occasions and matters roll and change unceasingly)”.9 Montaigne shows us an important element for reflection: decision, as the first moment of the taking place of an action, is in the time. On the one hand, decision relates to determined occasions, that always change; but, on the other hand, decision is also an intrinsically temporal being. Here we find the first suggestion of an important relation to the conscience of time and the practical sphere of life. In order to analyse this link in depth, we can consider Bergson’s work. He writes that “there is at least one reality that we all grasp from the interior, for intuition, and not for simple analysis: our person in its flowing through time, our ‘I’ that lasts”.10 The French philosopher shows us that the temporality of conscience is twofold: on one hand, it is due to the fact that man relates to things and external events of the world first of all in a practical attitude (which does not mean necessarily in a productive attitude), but on the other hand it is due to “pure memories”. There could be a twofold kind of recognition of an object:11 one proceeding from the external world, from the solicitations of the objects (in the forms of images, perceptions, emotions), and another one proceeding independently from the internal world of the subject.12 If we focus our attention on the “external” genesis of recognition, and in particular on the nature of intelligence, conceived as the faculty by which the subject relates to the external world, we see that intelligence is what enables man to “read” into life (intus-legere); however, it is not capable of grasping the intimate and whole reality of life itself: “Intelligence is characterised by a natural incomprehension of life”.13 “The aspect of life that is accessible to our intelligence, and to the senses that intelligence prolongs, is to offer a hold to our action”.14 In effect, what is primary in human intelligence is its capacity to take a “hold” in life reducing its complexity to useful schemes for action and to means suitable for fabrication. This “hold”, thus, does not allow a comprehensive view on things, on their essential characteristics and nature, on the totality of what life is, of its unforeseeable unfolding. On the contrary, in Bergson’s point of view, intelligence is just the expression of an unavoidable human necessity to make, to intervene in the exterior world by means of his action. He thinks of “intelligence as related to the necessities of action: one can deduce the form of intelligence from a given action”.15 In this limited movement of intelligence, and consequently of knowledge, there hides an arbitrary reduction of the complexity of reality: the exigencies of action, in fact, require that only few characteristics of things are caught by the active mind, particularly those which allow the subject to accomplish an

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active affirmation on them. For Bergson this is the actual condition of every kind of experience and action: however, it represents a danger in the search for a comprehensive knowledge, even for philosophers, who should be the most careful to grasp the complexity of reality: they are accused by Bergson of often transposing, into the speculative domain, a thinking attitude which is made just for the necessities of action. This reductive intellectual operation is clear in the instrumental attitude of intelligence towards the change: it cannot reconstruct movement and becoming as they are, on the contrary it modifies it, substituting to the real continuous movement a simple “practical equivalent”, impoverished of its complexity and continuity.16 Il y a un espace, c’est-à-dire un milieu homogène et vide [. . .]. Cet espace est, avant tout, le schéma de notre action possible sur les choses, encore que les choses aient une tendance naturelle [. . .] à entrer dans un schéma de ce genre: c’est une vue de l’esprit (=This indifferent, empty and homogenous space is, above all, the scheme of our possible action on things, even if things have a natural tendency [. . .] to enter in a scheme of such a kind: it is a way for the mind to see).17 L’action, et en particulier la fabrication, exige [. . .] que nous considérions toute forme actuelle des choses, même naturelles, comme artificielle et provisoire, que notre pensée efface l’objet aperçu, fût-il organisé et vivant, les lignes qui en marquent au dehors la structure interne, enfin que nous tenions sa matière pour indifférente à sa forme (=The action, and in particular the fabrication, demand that we consider every real form of the things as artificial and temporary; that our thought cancel from the perceived object, even from a living organism, those lines that draw its external structure: in a word, that we consider matter as indifferent to the form).18

Looking for a “practically useful aim”,19 intelligence, in its true condition, simplifies, decomposes, makes separated what, in life, is naturally a continuous process, a whole movement.20 But at the same time, action needs to see a homogeneity in the differences; in other words, the human attitude of action alters reality by putting into effect a separation of the whole (a) and, secondly, an homogenisation of the differences (b). This process implies also a confusion between matter and form. Cet espace [. . .] est une représentation qui symbolise la tendance fabricatrice de l’intelligence humaine [. . .]. L’intelligence est caractérisée par la puissance indéfinie de décomposer selon n’importe quelle loi et de recomposer en n’importe quel système (=Space is a representation that symbolises the tendency of human intelligence to fabricate [. . .]. Intelligence is characterised by the indefinite capacity to decompose something according to any law, and to compose again it in any system).21 Tout est obscurité, tout est contradiction quand on prétend, avec des états, fabriquer une transition. L’obscurité se dissipe, la contradiction tombe dès qu’on se place le long de la transition, pour y distinguer des états en y pratiquant par la pensée des coupes transversales (=Everything is obscurity, everything is contradiction when we try, with states of being, to construct a transition. But obscurity disappears, contradiction falls, as soon as we place ourselves into transition, in order to distinguish in it states of being, making in it, through thought, some transversal cuts).22

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Intelligence makes such a “cut” (coupe) in order to be able to realise an operation: in reality, this operation is performed not only on things, but also on time. This form of “cut on time” is what we could here, after Bergson, call the definition of a memory, a necessary condition that lets the subject have an experience, connecting the singularity of a real situation to the homogeneity of a mental scheme. Going into greater depth in the study of this capacity to have experience, Bergson discovers the role of the brain, and defines it as an “apparatus of choice”.23 The brain is above all an instrument of action and not of knowledge, of which spirit is the only real maker.24 However, the definition of intelligence seems to be referred in Bergson more to the notion of “operation” than to that of “action”, which is much wider than pure practical intervention on things, finalised to a subjective utility. The Bergsonian idea of action, compared to that elaborated by Blondel, appears as limited to the working and operative moment of praxis. In the domain of action and practical intelligence Bergson sees at work the first aspect of memory. “Memory, letting suitable memories arrive at the conscience, lets the practical action develop in the most advantageous way”;25 memory seems to be the condition for any possible experience. In this sense, it seems to be the instance which relates intelligence, action and – through recognition26 – the interior side of intelligence, that is the past lived content. “The union between perception and memory gives birth to conscience”.27 We should verify the hypothesis that memory is the interior means of the configuration of some contents of conscience, being the basic principle of an intermediation between interiority and exteriority in human experience. On définirait la conscience de l’être vivant une différence arithmétique entre l’activité virtuelle et l’activité réelle. Elle mesure l’écart entre la représentation et l’action28 (=We can define the conscience of the living being as the arithmetical difference between the virtual activity and the real activity. It measures the gap between representation and action).

“Memory intervenes in perception not only by providing the effectively perceived image with the memories taken from earlier experiences, but also with a function of its own, determinant and individualising”.29 In this way, Mathieu underlines that each of our perceptions is determined by the memories we have.30 “Without memory – Ruggiu writes – the capacity to get experience would be lacking. It is from experience and memory that, in men, knowledge, in its most elevated sense, can be progressively constituted. Time does not produce only oblivion and progressive decay, but also a collection of experience and knowledge”.31 In experience, a main characteristic of conscious representation appears, that is its practical function: representation in man arises from the “obscuring” of those images and facts that do not immediately interest him and his action.32 This would be the same destiny of memory, if it limited itself

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to being a collection of memories and images, already selected by the needs of action. However, as an expression of a free living being, memory can be affected by a peculiar capacity of man to detach himself from his own immediate needs: in this way, memory, and the representative capacity assumes an indefinite extension, even maintaining – at a different level – their practical function.33 Memory, on one hand, in its practical link with intelligence, appears eminently to be the production of image-memories, whose function is to select the useful characteristics of life and beings and lead them to recognition. On the other hand, memory is also a spontaneous faculty, not totally reduced to those practical outlines. Here a further and deeper level of memory arises: the “pure memory”, free from any instrumental end. Pure and spontaneous memory has no practical function, it is not “useful” to life, neither is it, as an imagememory, eminently selective. It manifests itself in the human realisation of a contemplative and imaginative activity that, as a primary condition, requires freedom as “the possibility of a liberation from the predetermined reaction of the environment: man can detach himself from the exigencies of the present and recollect the image of reality that he has spontaneously registered”.34 We will return to the link between memory and freedom in the following pages. This second kind of memory is the modality of a comprehensive retention of time: not reduced by any limitative instance of instrumental praxis or material mechanism, memory is interpreted as a pure and total reflex of human duration. In this sense memory becomes, in the Bergsonian view, the source of conscience, deeper and wider than conscience, more comprehensive than perception or affection35 and more complete than intelligence. Pure memory, in fact, is affirmed as an automatic and integral conservation of the past; hence, through memory the “lived time” and its relations to space and world can find a definite domain of reflection.36 Through the qualification of memory as a complete conservation of time, we are able to understand the “transcendental” element that prolongs the distance of conscience from action. In this regard, Millet writes that : “action, in the present, is submitted to the laws of matter, since it is a material movement. But the idea has no relation to matter; this is why a memory is not submitted to the law of determinism, which governs the images reduced to their present [. . .]. The world of images is not a heaping [entassement] of images, because memories are not images: the continuity of time is saved by its coexistence. Without coexistence, continuity dissolves itself in exteriority (partes extra partes) and time becomes space [. . .]. Coexistence means not exteriority of parts, but interpenetration [compénétration] [. . .]. We could say, in a metaphor, that all our past is there. Nothing is lost”.37

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Memory does not reproduce duration as a form of succession, on the contrary it is the explication of the contemporaneous presence of the past in duration itself.38 Since memory registers the passed experience in its totality, conscience, in turn, as the result of the meeting between the deep memories and the limitation work due to practical instances, “stores up its past by the act of its present progression”.39 The total amount of the past, expression of the intrinsic human dimension of duration, collected in the dimension of pure memory, flows into the level of the secondary memory (the set of conscious memories) for the selective dynamics implied in the active peculiarity of human life. Gilson notes: “Spirit acts and, acting, it introduces enough spirituality into the matter in order to make it perceptible. In turn, memory conserves past separated from present, thus performing a division: the spirit which remembers is passed, the spirit which lives loses itself in the world to act into it”.40 At a first glance, action seems to be the process that requires a necessary mediation between spirit and matter, duration and exterior world, by an instrumental reduction of life to intellectual categories, or of the temporal continuous flux to a discontinuous “cinematographic” series of images, easy to connect to mental schemes. For this exigency of a “mediation”, action could be seen as the vital sphere in which the two extreme profiles of memory are mixed, giving life to a peculiar form of the conscience of time,41 capable of being opened, at the same time, to interiority and exteriority of subjectivity. However, in this respect, Blondel better conceptualised such a “double openness” of man in action. He interprets human practical life as a synthesis of the man through the unity of mind and body, of the singular tendencies and the exterior energies of the self. In this sense, memory means the “presentification” of the past components of the self in the sphere of subjective determination, due to the inclusion of temporal extension in the present decision, which synthesizes the plurality of subject’s tendencies. In order to better understand the mediate nature of action and memory we have to take into consideration the key concept of conscience as it refers to memory: it expresses in the conscious mind the coexistence of past and present through the activity of the particular principle of selection, which is also at work in the formation of a habitude,42 like in the realisation of an aim (that is the case of action and, even more, of fabrication and work). There is a connection, through conscience, between the lasting dimension in man (duration) and the recognition of the possible actions and reactions to situations.43 While unconscious duration brings with itself a complexity of possible paths of life, only through conscience the living possibilities, in man, can be considered as relevant and capable of realisation. Conscience here works as recognition, through which memory itself is deeply involved in the active dynamics: the

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possibility of relation to world, of a personal intervention in it, is made possible by the laws of recognition and re-presentation. In effect, something can be seen as possible – future – just for its being taken from the whole amount of the past, in the way of a conscious content of reflection, that can be subdued to decisional processes and operational works. We have a representation of an object only when memory, starting from itself, from one of its inner tendencies, creates the image of the object and then projects onto it the memories suitable to the present situation.44

The utility criterion already works at the level between memory and consciousness, because it is the spring that makes a temporal – that is interior – content appear in the mind, be recognised and, afterwards, be weighed up as a plausible way to act. In the negative side of this dynamic, as Mathieu notes, “the impotence, or unconsciousness, of memory is nothing but the impossibility, for the memories, to be presented all together to the conscience: this impotence is not far from that reciprocal neutralisation which produces the unconsciousness of material images; this selection that brings to conscience some memories is led by a criterion of utility”.45 But this dynamic of inner selection of possibilities is “counterbalanced” by the irreducibility of the whole possible to the present elaborated by action: spirit is the kernel of transcendence in personality. Every moment, for the spirit, is twofold: present goes towards future, since action is a mover instance, while spirit detaches itself from what has been done. Thus, spirit is just because it is to be.46 Spirit differs both from memory, that is all in the past, and from action, that is always “going-to-be”. Spirit, then, is something that lays between and around the two dimensions of conscience – future and past –, and of existence – action and repetition: this has to be intended not as the smallest region of the being, but as a deeper one, that apparently is between past and future, being at their grounding level. Bergson writes : Toute conscience est anticipation de l’avenir. Considérez la direction de votre esprit à n’importe quel moment: vous trouverez qu’il s’occupe de ce qui est, mais en vue surtout de ce qui va être. L’attention est une attente, et il n’y a pas de conscience sans une certaine attention à la vie. L’avenir est là; il nous appelle, ou plutôt il nous tire à lui: cette traction ininterrompue, qui nous fait avancer sur la route du temps, est cause aussi que nous agissons continuellement. Toute action est un empiètement sur l’avenir (=Each conscience is an anticipation of the future. Consider the direction of your spirit in whatever moment: you will find that it attends to what is, but above all for what is going to be. Attention is an expectation, and there is no conscience without a certain attention to life. The future is over there: it calls us, or better it drags us towards itself: this unstoppable traction, that makes us advance on the road of time, also implies that we act unceasingly. Every action is a crossing of the future).47

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T H E L AY E R S O F M E M O R Y T H R O U G H T H E C O N S C I E N C E

We have tried to highlight the two aspects which configure the conscience, temporal and provided with memories, besides its images and perceptions. In order to do this, we have been led, following the analysis of Bergson, to take into consideration the role of action in establishing the form of intelligence and conscience. Hence we have noticed that this relation between the conceptions of conscience and action is real, but it expresses the reductive work correlated to the dynamics of action. “Une vraie mens ne peut manquer de recordatio (= A true mens cannot lack in recordatio)”.48 By this expression, Millet wanted to show the intrinsic link between memory and spirit. Underlining, at the same time, that action requires a selective attitude (the intelligence) and that pure memory is integral conservation of the past, we have followed Bergson in delineating the two sides of the problem of the “conscience”: in this regard, he wrote in Matter and Memory that “what is not acting can belong to the internal conscience without stopping existing. In other words, in the psychological field, conscience would not be a synonym of existence, but only of real action or of immediate efficacy”.49 On one hand, conscience is open to the future in the way of action and intelligence. In this sense, we could qualify action, as Bergson does, as a primary modality of existence of the human living being, as “attention”, as a “tension to” what, in the surrounding world, offers a “hold” to praxis, in both its meanings of action and work (fabrication). The living human being exists in and through the dimension of the future and the present, since his activity realises a selection among all the “information” that the world contains. This process, according to Bergson, is similar to a selection of a simplified form of a whole, which has lots of other characteristics. This selective attitude, as we have seen, implies both an intellectual process of homogenisation (making similar what is different in reality) and another one of arbitrary differentiation and separation (where there is something continuous, the mind institutes discontinuity and differences). The conscience of the present is determined principally by what is suitable to the configuration of a useful work. On the contrary, what does not help to prepare an efficient action is pushed under the level of the conscience: this is the case of the greatest part of the past, in a word, of the “pure” side of memory.50 This duplicity of mnemonic contents betrays the idea of a plurality of levels or layers of consciousness and existence.51 Nonetheless, action is not only a dimension of emergence of the future, but, through the dimension of memory, it is also the utilisation of the residues of the richness of the past. In fact, remembering that memory is the complete and integral conservation of the past, conscience, not reducible to praxis-oriented intelligence, receives the “heritage” of the past in the form of a defined form

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of memory (of some determined conscious memories). As Bergson seems to point out, memory is not a faculty hidden only in the most intimate regions of the self, covered in all its extension by the curtain of unconsciousness: it is a widespread capacity of the human living being, spread through the totality of conscious and unconscious subjective life, “active” in all the forms of spirituality, and therefore present, even in differentiated manners, in all personal living modalities. Then, even in action, as a human explication, memory acts an essential role. As also Ricoeur notes, “we start doing and we stop doing. Action has its own knots and bowels, its ruptures and its impetuses; action is undulatory. And in the plainest succession of perception, the distinction between beginning, continuing and stopping makes perfect sense. ‘Now’ has a sense just like a starting point, and duration has the same meaning as modification”.52 Therefore, if memory did not work in the deep essence of the human being, there would not be any human dimension of life lacking a temporal and remembering dimension; Lisciani is then right in affirming that “reality, as it is met by men, always has a mnemonic tissue”.53 The conscience of time, in as much as it is reduced to the selective attitude of action, is the conscience of the simple present; on the contrary, “in order to evoke the past as an image, it is necessary to abstract from the present action, to know how to give a value to the useless, to wish to dream. Maybe only man is capable of such an effort”.54 Since the past lives on, it is impossible for the conscience to live the same condition twice.55 Hence, there is no state of conscience which could not finish changing and becoming; otherwise, conscience would not have any duration.56 The ontological statute of conscience then, as its primary roots are affected by memory, undergoes, after Bergson’s work, a reformulation, according to the radical criticism of the idea of a “punctual” nature of human spirituality.57 Conscience (and in conscience, humanity itself) cannot be understood as the expression of an instantaneous reaction to world; rather, it is the expression of a mnemonic (in the deep sense of the word) mediation between exteriority and interiority, like Augustine had already found.58 But, at the same time, this idea of a mnemonic conscience also means, for Bergson, the non-existence of a pure exteriority in any conscious temporal experience.59 For this same reason, there will not be any true action in a purely instantaneous relation to things: action is in itself temporal, showing the mark of memory and transposing it in the objective world. Human subjective life, even in its – pervasive – active approach to reality, cannot be absolutely present-oriented, but open, from its interior, to what is not, being non actual. Even in the dialectic relation between conscience and matter the heritage of a history emerges: the world itself, through the eyes and hands of men, becomes historical. Through the works, representations, expectations, hopes and affections of a remembering conscience, the world of things reflects the

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openness to the past, given by memory, and the will for a future, expressed in human action. Bergson writes: La conscience nous apparaît comme une force qui s’insérait dans la matière pour s’emparer d’elle et la tourner à son profit. Elle opère par deux méthodes complémentaires: d’un côté par une action explosive qui libère en un instant, dans la direction choisie, une énergie que la matière a accumulée pendant longtemps; de l’autre, par un travail de contraction qui ramasse en cet instant unique le nombre incalculable de petits événements que la matière accomplit, et qui résume d’un mot l’immensité d’une histoire (=Conscience seems to us a force that gets into the matter in order to take possession of it and turn it to its profit. It works through two complementary methods: on one hand through an explosive action that rids itself in a moment, in the chosen direction, of an energy that matter has been storing up for a long time; on the other hand, through a work of contraction that piles up, in that unique instant, the incalculable number of the small events that matter accomplishes, and that sums up the immensity of history).60 Conscience signifie d’abord mémoire. La conscience peut manquer d’ampleur; elle peut ne retenir que ce qui vient d’arriver; mais la mémoire est là, ou bien alors la conscience n’est y pas. Une conscience qui ne conserverait rien de son passé, qui s’oublierait sans cesse elle-même, périrait et renaîtrait à chaque instant: comment définir autrement l’inconscience? (=Conscience means above all memory. Conscience can lack in wideness; it cannot retain what is going to happen; but memory is there, otherwise there would not be any conscience. A conscience which does not conserve anything of its past, which unceasingly forgets itself, would die and spring up again at every moment: how could we otherwise define the unconscious?).61

“Conscience – Gilson writes – is, above all, memory, in which the images arisen from the contact with the exterior world disappear and conserve themselves at the same time, thanks to the continuity, of spiritual nature, of the interior movement which is life”.62 Conscience is situated at a crossing point between pure memory – as a recall of the past – and exteriority – as call for images. Since this second act of conscience is based on the first, every relation to the world – in the form of life (and through life, in the forms of action, perception and imagination)63 – acquires its possibility because of its being passed; and the past, in turn, is made possible by memory.64 Every “now” can be perceived as “now” only because it already embraces a past. Thus action, even in a reduced form, needs memory as a condition of its transformative power. The discontinuity of conscience and action does not confute duration and memory; on the contrary it is intrinsically connected to them, since it is the mark of the freedom of the spirit. Focusing our attention on the distinction between, on one hand, the continuous flux of the conscience and, on the other, the discontinuous series of its acts and actions, it becomes clear that the distinction is not really an opposition, but a difference of degrees. The interior duration of a subject is characterised by the continuity peculiar to a flux, but also by the discontinuity of the acts of the conscience. In fact in every conscious act, that is also an act of consciousness and of spirit, there is a radical

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originality, incomparable to any other natural event, that cannot be understood except by a qualitative and intuitional consideration. In this radical and undetermined originality there is the unquestionable evidence of the identity of the subject, but also of its duration, since it expresses the subjective existential openness to the dimension of possibility. As the ultimate consequence, the pole of such a discontinuity of conscience is freedom itself. Bergson also prefigures a relation between memory and freedom: in fact, he affirms the equivalence between freedom in actions and the degree of “mnemonic” deepness of the origin of actions: “free actions are rare, in as much as they are the only ones that express the whole ‘self’ ”.65 That the whole conscience is memory, as Vieillard-Baron affirms, does not mean that conscience is all memory, rather that conscience in its totality is memory. This means that it is possible, as it happens in the various manifestations of life, on one hand, to give to conscience, in its entirety, a total explication (that is, in effect, a conscious search for one’s own “pure” memory and “lost time”), and, on the other, to use it in a partial form (that is its efficient utilisation, intelligence). But what is the real sense of this distinction, which lets us go on seeing the connection between the remembering and the practical aspect of life? The hypothesis, that we are going to verify in the following pages, is that freedom is the conceptual instance that grounds the connection between memory as a temporal dimension of human life and the transcendental value of action, as the main way to look for a realisation of the fullness of life. The importance of the aforementioned equivalence between conscience in its totality, memory and freedom is, in our point of view, the connection point with the philosophy of Maurice Blondel, who was contemporary to Bergson. In particular, he gives a further ontological sense to action, stressing its spiritual and creative value – also in the genesis of the universe – showing how in human active dynamics, as if in a “contracted” expression, there is the work of all temporal components of the self, of all his spiritual instances, of a decision which involves the wholeness of a man, even its unconscious interior tensions. Moreover, Blondel interprets action as the culminating vertex of all organic processes and virtualities, realised by the ethical spirituality and conscious creativity emerging in subjectivity. F R E E D O M B E T W E E N M E M O RY A N D AC T I O N

In order to understand the condition of the interior process of selection, of the “degradation” (in the sense of the existence of many different layers of consciousness and memory), we have met the necessity to individuate the active condition of this selection of the conscience:

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En réalité le passé se conserve de lui-même, automatiquement. Tout entier, sans doute, il nous suit à tout instant: ce que nous avons senti, pensé, voulu depuis notre première enfance est là, penché sur le présent qui va s’y joindre, pressant contre la porte de la conscience qui voudrait le laisser dehors (=The past preserves itself on its own, automatically. There is no doubt that, as a whole, it follows us at every moment: everything that we have felt, thought, wanted, since our early childhood, continually looks forward to the present that is going to join it, and presses on the door of the conscience that would like to leave it outside).66

Here, at the “intersection” between conscience and pure memory, like between conscience and exterior environment, we meet freedom: memory is, for Bergson, the most unwilling activity of man (it is rather a passivity), being not able to select what to remember or not, what to preserve and what to collect as a pure memory. Memory, which is not a faculty, cannot decide whether to conserve the past or not: it can only store it up. Notre durée n’est pas un instant qui remplace un instant: il n’y aurait alors jamais que du présent, pas de prolongement du passé dans l’actuel, pas d’évolution, pas de durée concrète. La durée est le progrès continu du passé qui ronge l’avenir et qui gonfle en avançant. Du moment que le passé s’accroît sans cesse, indéfiniment aussi il se conserve. La mémoire, comme nous avons essayé de le prouver, n’est pas une faculté de classer des souvenirs dans un tiroir ou de les inscrire sur un registre. Il n’y a pas de registre, pas de tiroir, il n’y a même pas ici, à proprement parler, une faculté, car une faculté s’exerce par intermittence, quand elle veut ou quand elle peut, tandis que l’amoncellement du passé se conserve lui-même, automatiquement (=Our duration – Bergson writes – is not an instant that substitutes another one: in this case there would not be anything other than the current, the past would not reside in the present, there would be neither evolution nor concrete duration. On the contrary, duration is the continuous process of the past swallowing up the future and swelling while it goes on. The past, increasing without stops, preserves itself indefinitely. Memory, as we have tried to show, is not the capacity to put memories in squares, or to write on a register. There is neither register nor boxes. There is not, to speak properly, a faculty: since a faculty can exercise itself in an intermittent way, when it wants or when it can, while the piling up of the past on the past continues unceasingly).67

The principle of the limitation of the number of memories that “invade”, from the deep, the region of the conscience, has to be found not in memory itself, even if memory is usually called the sum of the memories, nor in the duration, its manifestation in the modality of lived experience, but in a different instance of choice. This principle that realises a choice through consciousness, that works among the layers of the self as a selective principle, recalling some memories and pushing some others back to the interiority of the past, is freedom. This has to be intended not as a faculty subordinated to conscience, but as a principle of the real instauration of conscience itself. But through freedom we are led to recognise, once more, the centrality of the active dimension of life. Bergson lets us find the way: “Freedom is the relation between the concrete self and the act that it accomplishes. This relation cannot be defined, precisely

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because we are free. In fact one can analyse a thing, but not a progress; one can decompose the extension, but not the duration”.68 The definition of freedom is to be found in a relation between the agent and the act: a man is free if he is able to put into action the greatest part of his person, that includes, as we have seen, the integral amount of the past, piled up by memory, and feelings, capacities, thoughts. This conception of freedom is present also in Blondel and can be individuated, in particular, in his analysis of the psychical and spiritual complexity of decision, that highlights the constant presence, in human deeds, of an instance of transcendence, understood as the human subjective irreducibility to any determined previous conditions. Blondel thinks that this element of transcendence is a condition of a human participation in the universal process of active genesis of beings, the human spiritual contribution to whole life. Freedom means eminently the most complete expression of human nature: but, considering the temporal and mnemonic tissue of the self, it can be rightly understood only as an integrative relation between duration and conscience, both at an epistemic (intuition) and practical (intelligence) level.69 The “nuances” of the psychic life that imply memory are marked by reflected self-consciousness, which is possible, in turn, only by freedom.70 But the freedom that constitutes the identity of a man, through its mnemonic characterisation, develops itself in terms of temporality:71 freedom, at its first level, denotes the temporal continuity that is guaranteed by memory, as an integral interior relation to the history of the self. This region of memory, connected to freedom, is not conceived as mere repetition of contents; for the same reason, in effect, man’s action is not reducible to habitude,72 but it is able to inaugurate radical novelty in the form of its own life. Nonetheless, even in a free expression of life, man has to relate to the contingent temporal contents represented by practical needs and relations to the world. The intellectual attitude that grounds the possibility of such a research of interior dimensions of the self, is, for Bergson and Blondel, the reflection; moreover, reflection is precisely the mode of thought correlative to freedom. Reflection consists, in fact, in realising a “conversion”73 to one’s own interiority, thus inaugurating the process of the “interiorisation” of knowledge (whose essential correlative figure is intuition). Therefore freedom is alive where consciousness, given by reflection and introspection, joins memory.74 Freedom then is the conscious renewal of personal history, realised in the concrete actions of a man: this represents the “expression of the belonging of the act to the ‘I’ that accomplishes it. Differently from the voluntary but not free acts, the choice, enrooted in the memory of the self, qualifies the act as a human act (not simply of a man, using a classical distinction) and colours the same act of the richness of the concrete man”.75

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Through the emerging of freedom as a connective principle in psychic and conscious life, a peculiar depth of action then arises: but now not as the “place” of the appearing of memory and conscience, but as the first radical explication of that same freedom which constitutes, in the human form of life, the link between conscience and memory. This issue makes us critically reflect on the Bergsonian consideration of action. In fact we could ask: did Bergson think of action as an important crossing point of his theories? Could his analysis of action connect the definition of memory and conscience through freedom? This question forbids us to postpone the issue of the essence of life, as it is posed by the authors. Gilson wrote: Tout organisme est un début de personnalité, mais la personne humaine est animée par un esprit qui se libère (= Every organism is a beginning of personality, but the human person is animated by a spirit which frees itself).76

The intrinsic link between the essence of freedom and the peculiarity of human existence emerges also in the statute of memory: by means of its conservation of the past, memory allows a “gap”, inside the interiority, between the present being (the exterior world, the practical exigencies that configure a present) and its nullification (its passing into non-existence).77 In freedom also the possibility of oblivion arises – not as a deficit of memory, but as an original expression of its free ontological relation to being.

M E M O RY A N D L I F E : F RO M B E R G S O N T O B L O N D E L Faut-il donc renoncer à approfondir la nature de la vie? Faut-il s’en tenir à la représentation mécanistique que l’entendement nous en donnera toujours, représentation nécessairement artificielle et symbolique, puisqu’elle rétrécit l’activité totale de la vie à la forme d’une certaine activité humaine, laquelle n’est qu’une manifestation partielle et locale de la vie, un effet ou un résidu de l’opération vitale? (=Should we give up trying to probe the nature of life? Should we limit ourselves to the mechanistic representation that the intellect will always give us, a necessarily artificial and symbolic representation, since it restricts the total activity of life to the form of a certain human activity, which is only a partial and local manifestation of my life, an effect or a residue of the total operation?).78

In these words, the import of Bergson’s original questioning is clear: the irreducibility of life to any form of human activity oriented to utility, and to any intellectual schemes based on the action approach. Until now we have followed some elements of Bergsonian reflection, stressing the role of memories in the formation of some possible paths for activity. Doing this, freedom emerged not only as the principle of a spiritual subjectivity, but also as the original instance of a fulfilment of the virtualities of humanity, expressed in the silent horizon of the vital kernel of creation.79 The mentioned extract shows the awareness, in

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Bergson, of the necessity of a radical investigation on the “nature of life”, problematically presented from the point of view of human analytic and abstract intellectual means. La matière est inertie, géométrie, nécessité. Mais avec la vie apparaît le mouvement imprévisible et libre. L’être vivant choisit ou tend à choisir. Son rôle est de créer. Dans un monde où tout le reste est déterminé, une zone d’indétermination l’environne. Comme, pour créer l’avenir, il faut en préparer quelque chose dans le présent, comme la préparation de ce qui sera ne peut se faire que par l’utilisation de ce qui a été, la vie s’emploie dès le début à conserver le passé et à anticiper sur l’avenir dans une durée où passé, présent et avenir empiètent l’un sur l’autre et forment une continuité indivisée: cette mémoire et cette anticipation sont, comme nous l’avons vu, la conscience même (= Matter is inertness, geometry, necessity. But with life also the unforeseeable and free movement appears. The living being chooses or it tends to choose. Its role is to create. In a world where everything else is determined, a zone of indetermination surrounds it. As in order to create the future it is necessary to prepare something in the present, as the preparation of what is going to be cannot be done without the utilisation of what has been, life has engaged itself since the beginning in conserving the past and in anticipating on the future a duration in which past, present and future exceed each other’s limits and form an undivided continuity: this memory and this anticipation are, as we have seen, conscience itself).80

“Existing consists in becoming, becoming in maturing, maturing in creating indefinitely one’s own self. Could we say the same of existence in general?”.81 For Bergson, the living being can be recognised by its capacity to create: this is the real essence of life, realised by the possibility, in duration and memory, to sum up – in the present – the deepness of the past and the width of the future. This openness of life through temporal dimensions (what Heidegger would call the ek-stasis of Dasein) is the condition of possibility of its creative capacity, which is in effect at work in every phase of explication of the living being. In the human, life acquires, moreover, the consciousness, that is the condition of choice in the mnemonic web of life itself. Deleuze writes: “Time is not a whole, for the simple reason that it is the instance that obstructs the whole”.82 Bergson writes: “Wherever there is something that lives, anywhere, there is a register where time is recorded”;83 in there is a particular analogy between the transition process of life and the mnemonic quality of conscience. “How can we not realise that life goes on, here, as conscience in general, like memory?”.84 “We bring with us, without being aware, the totality of our past: but memory does not shed in the present anything but two or three memories that complete, in some respect, the current situation”.85 Then, obstructing the whole is the element that founds the transcendence of life. In fact, being subdued to time – through memory – life is open to the becoming and even to the possibility of its non-existence. This essential conception of an intrinsic temporal and “mnemonic” openness of life, conceived as the most essential characteristic of life (peculiar

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to human existence), brings with itself, as we have seen, the dimension of freedom: according to Bergson, memory is the peculiar connection between duration and conscience. By this idea, reflected on the conception of the action, as the practical and intelligent sphere of life, an “enlargement” of the anthropological import of spirituality appears in action. This idea, however, brings us much farther than Bergsonian philosophy, and makes us look directly at the work of Maurice Blondel. Also for Blondel, the becoming of a living organism is possible only for the fact that it is never definitely completed. This is the same situation of our lasting in time, while we experience a real increase in being by means of an interpenetration of different qualitative elements: in this way, “the living organism exists through its duration, since its present is more and more in its past”.86 This is the reason why, as Vieillard-Baron observes, in Bergson’s point of view the duration is the principle of life and its evolution, not life of duration.87 This continuously unfinished statute of life, in which Bergson finds the radical sense of memory and conscience, is twofold: “The unrolling of our duration, in some respects, looks like the unity of a movement that progresses; in other respects it looks like a multiplicity of states that unfold themselves, and there is no metaphor that could rend one of these aspects without sacrificing the other [. . .]. Duration is always going to make itself”.88 “Interior life is all these things at the same time, variety of qualities, continuity of progress, unity of direction”.89 In the Bergsonian conception of life we can find many points of contact – some “analogue epiphanies”90 – with the philosophy of Blondel. In fact, the idea of life as a whole movement that maintains itself through a multiplicity of states and conditions, is similar to the Blondelian notion of action, which was elaborated in the same years. As a matter of fact, when Bergson intended action as a reduced modality of manifestation of the self – since it needs an instrumental approach on things (that intelligence realises at the detriment of a preservation, in contingent conditions, of the richness and deepness of memory and intuition) – he looked for an ideal of life and conscience wider than action itself. Thus, he underlined the main fact that life always surpasses action and conscience, being the true source of them. Gilson has perfectly expressed this element of Bergsonian thought: Bergson envisage [. . .] la volonté comme une dégradation de la représentation. Agir serait, pour l’esprit, devenir matière loin de l’unité parfaite, dans les régions de la pauvreté ontologique. L’action serait une déchéance permanente. Une telle interprétation, cependant, s’accorderait mal avec l’idée selon laquelle, dans la nature humaine, le changement appartient à l’esprit. La matière transpose le changement en action, mais l’impulsion est spirituelle (= Bergson understands the will as a degradation of representation. Acting would be, for the spirit, becoming matter, far from the perfect unity, in the regions of the ontological poverty. Action would be a permanent

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falling. Such an interpretation, however, does not agree with the idea according to which, in human nature, change belongs to the spirit. Matter transposes the change into action, but its impulse is spiritual).91

When Bergson writes that “the intelligence does not admit the unforeseeable and rejects every creation”92 and “that the ideal of our intelligence is precisely that some antecedent data bring a determined consequent, which can be calculated as a function of them”,93 he points out an opposition between the sphere of intelligence (in which he includes action and fabrication) and the sphere of creation, that he identifies with life. This alternative way of knowledge and relation to reality and being, as we have seen, is related to a dualism between pure memory and the selection of memories according to the needs of praxis. Here a characterisation of the essence of life as creation emerges: “that every instant gives a new contribution, that something unforeseeable springs up continuously, and forms what, in the end of its becoming, can clearly be seen to have been absolutely determined by its causes, but none could foresee what it would have become: here there is something that we can feel inside us, and imagine outside of us, but that we cannot express in purely conceptual terms, nor, in the strong sense of the word, think of”.94 This unforeseeable principle of becoming, present both in our being and in the exterior world, is life, élan vital, impetus of a continuous genesis, research of an increase in being, consciousness, power. However, Bergson thinks that the practical approach to reality, in man’s actions and cognitive conscious instruments, is not able to grasp the authentic matrix of life. But in this way, at the same time, he presents a divided life: life is a unique movement (not grasped in its entirety and radical creativity by intelligence), but it is also segmented when it becomes action (and intellectual approach). It is precisely here that Blondel offers us a resolutive view: action is not simply a degraded (even if unavoidable) approach to reality, but it is the peculiar human expression of life itself. According to Blondel, action means not only the conscious activity of realisation of a useful aim, in which decisions, operations and habitudes are effectuated, but also the complexity of what, in and of the whole living universe, acquires in man the totally new and peculiar element of subjectivity, that is – in other words – freedom and spirituality. Action represents for Blondel the modality in which all human faculties, even the unconscious tendencies and forces, become a whole movement, decided by freedom. In this whole and undivided movement, a principle of conscious determination is required, but not – like in Bergson’s conception – as a selecting instance, but as an including unity of integration. The Blondelian project was to find the true sense of logos in a “logics” of life. Blondel’s interpretation of action offers us the advantage of connecting, through the mediation and the

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peculiarity of freedom, the dimensions of the unconscious, of the width of time (possible for memory), of efficient decision, without establishing, like in Bergson, the opposition between the dimension of coexistence of the past and the separated dimension of the present. On the contrary, Blondel puts into action the power of all eternity, writing that: L’x à déterminer n’est donc pas un objet hypothétique, une fiction idéale; c’est la réalité immanente qui enveloppe l’origine et le terme dont notre pensée actuelle est l’effort et le moyen. Et pour désigner ce mélange de virtualités obscures, de tendances conscientes, d’anticipations implicites, le mot action semble bien choisi; le pressentiment confus de tout ce qui, en nous, produit, éclaire et aimante le mouvement de la vie (= The “x” to determine is not a hypothetical object, an ideal fiction; it is the immanent reality which envelops the origin and the term of which our present thought is the effort and the means. And in order to design this mix of obscure virtualities, of conscious tendencies, of implicit anticipations, the word “action” seems to be well chosen; the confused foreboding of all what, inside us, produces, highlights and magnetises the movement of life).95 In the one and indivisible instant that has produced our human actions, there is much more than what is necessary to justify their consequences in duration, and even in eternity. We have only an incomplete image of their invisible extension, while these acts, thrown by a sudden decision into the gigantic mechanism of the universal determinism, prolong in it their echo, while they are not limited to the point – in space and time – where they are born.96

In this sense, the Blondelian ideas of a “coexistence” of eternity in every single action can be put into contact with the Bergsonian notion of memory as the coexistence of temporal dimensions in duration. For Bergson memory is not only the useful device for realising efficient processes in the exterior world through the persistence of memories in the mind, for collecting experience of things and, hence, for working efficaciously on them. In a more essential way, Bergson points out, in memory, the factor that represents the wholeness of personality and duration, and the way in which it configures the self as a temporal – and historical – existence. “Existence seems to imply two different related conditions: the presentation to the conscience and the logical or causal connection between what is presented in this way and what precedes or follows it”.97 Thus, we have taken into consideration the mediation operated by the conscience and, at the same time, the way in which it is situated in the middle region between exteriority (matter) and interiority (memory). While Bergson means, by the word “action,” the practical instrumental attitude towards things, Blondel includes in action the sense of the whole “movement of life”. In these different meanings of the term, we can find the mark of an important issue: although the two authors differ in attributing to action and to practical life the wideness of sense of existence, they agree in attributing to life the essence of the constitution of conscience and memory. But then, we can overcome this gap in meanings in order to catch what, in

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their point of view, is essential: life does not limit itself to the dimension of the present (“I call my present my attitude towards the immediate future, my imminent action”),98 while it is intrinsically opened – through freedom – to past. Then in the Bergsonian memory (and life), as in the Blondelian action there is the sense of a spiritual,99 free, “creative matrix” of existence. In fact, in all Blondelian work, there is not such an equation between action and reduction of reality to present and instrumental instances. This conceptual kernel of sense brings us nearer to the concept of ontopoiesis. The possibility of an enlargement of the Bergsonian notion of action is well highlighted by Millet: “Bergson, with all philosophy, shows that there are two modes of action of the past: – the force of determinism, which produces passivity in the subject; this is what he calls matter, not a thing or the tissue of things, but the principle of exterior repetition, contrary to the impetus; – the spiritual action (or, according to the title, ‘l’énergie spirituelle’) which takes and contracts what has been spread over time, what seemed to be lost since it was dispersed and exteriorised. The highest point of this action is reached when, inside the finite determinations, through the link methodically found in Nature, the finite and limited spirit grasps and sees itself as replaced in the system of the All”.100 Università degli Studi di Macerata

NOTES 1 Fondazione Centro Studi Filosofici di Gallarate, Enciclopedia Filosofica (2nd ed., Milan: Bompiani, 2006), pp. 7236–7250. 2 Even if a certain capacity of memory can be attributed to natural unconscious entities (for example in the genetics), we reduce our brief reflection to the peculiar human and subjective memory, excluding, in fact, also the dimension of collective memory, which plays an essential role in the formation and cohesion of society. 3 Edmund Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie des Inneren Zeitbewusstseins: 1893–1917, ed. Boehm (Den Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), p. 32. 4 Ibid. 5 Paul Ricoeur, La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2000). 6 For a presentation of Bergson’s thought, especially in relation to the main expressions of his contemporary French philosophy, see J. Wahl, Tableau de la philosophie française (Paris: Gallimard, 1946), it. tr. Il pensiero moderno in Francia (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1965), pp. 110–132. 7 Henri Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice (Paris: Alcan, 1923), p. 1: “Je constat d’abord que je passe d’état en état. Je change donc sans cesse”. 8 B. Saint-Sernin, “L’école française de l’action,” in Philosopher en français, ed. Jean-François Mattéi (Paris: PUF, 2001), p. 31. 9 Montaigne, Essais, III, 2, IV.

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10 Henri Bergson, Introduction à la métaphysique, “Revue de métaphysique et de morale” 1903, it. tr. Introduzione alla metafisica (Bari: Laterza, 1963), p. 44. 11 Henri Bergson, Matière et mémoire. Essai sur la relation du corps à l’esprit (Paris: Alcan, 1896), pp. 73–141. 12 Adriano Pessina, Bergson (Bari: Laterza, 1994), p. 22. 13 Henri Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice, op. cit., p. 179 (my italics): “L’intelligence est caractérisée par une incompréhension naturelle de la vie”. 14 Ivi, p. 163: “La fonction essentielle de l’intelligence est et sera donc de démêler, dans des circonstances quelconques, le moyen de se tirer d’affaire [. . .]. Elle portera essentiellement sur les relations entre la situation donnée et les moyens de l’utiliser”; p. 164: “Un être intelligent porte en lui de quoi se dépasser lui-même”. 15 Ivi, p. 165: “Nous tenons l’intelligence humaine pour relative aux nécessités de l’action. Posez l’action, la forme même de l’intelligence s’en déduit. Cette forme n’est donc ni irréductible ni inexplicable”. 16 Ivi, p. 167: “Il nous est avant tout nécessaire, pour la manipulation présente, de tenir l’objet réel auquel nous avons affaire, ou les éléments réels en lesquels nous l’avons résolu, pour provisoirement définitifs et de les traiter comme autant d’unités. À la possibilité de décomposer la matière autant qu’il nous plaît, et comme il nous plaît, nous faisons allusion quand nous parlons de la continuité de l’étendue matérielle; mais cette continuité, comme on le voit, se réduit pour nous à la faculté que la matière nous laisse de choisir le mode de discontinuité que nous lui trouverons: c’est toujours, en somme, le mode de discontinuité une fois choisi qui nous apparaît comme effectivement réel et qui fixe notre attention, parce que c’est sur lui que se règle notre action présente”. 17 Ivi, p. 170. 18 Ivi, pp. 170–171(my italics). 19 Ivi, pp. 168–169: “De la mobilité même notre intelligence se détourne, parce qu’elle n’a aucun intérêt à s’en occuper. Si elle était déstinée à la théorie pure, c’est dans le movement qu’elle s’installerait, car le mouvement est sans doute la réalité même, et l’immobilité n’est jamais apparente ou relative. Mais l’intelligence est déstinée à tout autre chose. À moins de se faire violence à elle-même, elle suit la marche inverse: c’est de l’immobilité qu’elle part toujours, comme si c’était la réalité ultime ou l’élément; quand elle veut se représenter le mouvement, elle le reconstruit avec des immobilités qu’elle juxtapose. Cette opération, dont nous montrerons l’illégitimité et le danger dans l’ordre spéculatif, (elle conduit à des impasses et crée artificiellement des problèmes philosophiques insolubles), se justifie sans peine quand on se reporte à sa destination. L’intelligence, à l’état naturel, vise un but pratiquement utile. Quand elle substitue au mouvement des immobilités juxtaposées, elle ne prétend pas reconstituer le mouvement tel qu’il est; elle le remplace simplement par un équivalent pratique”. 20 On the practical function of human intelligence, see Adriano Pessina, Bergson op. cit., p. 42. 21 H. Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice, op. cit., p. 170. 22 Ivi, p. 339. 23 H. Bergson, L’Energie spirituelle. Essais et conférences (Paris: Alcan, 1919), p. 9. 24 On the role of the brain and its relations and differences to spirit and conscience, see A. Pessina, Bergson, op. cit., pp. 15, 21. 25 E. Lisciani-Petrini, Memoria e poesia. Bergson, Jankélévitch, Heidegger (Naples: Esi, 1983), p. 34. 26 On the role of recognition and its link to action see A. Pessina, Bergson, op. cit., p. 24 (my italics).

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Vittorio Mathieu, “Prefazione,” in Henri Bergson, Introduzione alla metafisica (Bari: Laterza, 1963), p. 14. 28 H. Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice, op. cit., p. 157. 29 Vittorio Mathieu, Bergson. Il profondo e la sua espressione (Turin: Edizioni di Filosofia, 1954), p. 88. 30 Ibid. 31 Luigi Ruggiu “Memoria oblio reminescenza. Tempo e passato in Aristotele,” in Anima tempo memoria, ed. Giulio Severino (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2000), p. 24. 32 A. Pessina, Bergson, op. cit., p. 21. 33 Ibid. 34 Ivi, p. 25. 35 V. Mathieu, Bergson. Il profondo e la sua espressione, op. cit., p. 83. 36 On the dynamics of space and its relation to lived time, especially through the point of view of Eugène Minkowski, see Jean Wahl, Tableau de la philosophie française, op. cit., it. tr., pp. 185–186. 37 L. Millet, Perception, imagination, mémoire (Paris: Masson et Cie, 1972), p. 112. 38 Gilles Deleuze, Marcel Proust et les signes (Paris: PUF, 1964), it. tr. (Turin: Einaudi, 2001), p. 50. 39 B. Gilson, L’individualité dans la philosophie de Bergson (Paris: Vrin, 1978), p. 21. 40 Ivi, p. 22. 41 L. Millet, Perception, imagination, mémoire, op. cit., p. 112: “L’homme dispose, pour agir, de mille plans de conscience, depuis la précipitation jusqu’au rêve, en passant par le discernement. C’est en cela que se fait l’acte libre: le passé n’est pas joué; il coexiste au présent, se contracte plus ou moins; les souvenirs s’appellent, se matérialisent dans telle direction, et s’appliquent alors à la situation; l’esprit imagine son passé, et, dans la mesure où le mouvement part des idées, il voit ce qu’il faut faire. Il crée”. 42 On the strong link between memory (especially the principle of its formation) and habitude, see R. Bordoli, Memoria e abitudine. Descartes, La Forge, Spinoza (Milan: Guerini e Associati, 1994) and Millet, Perception, imagination, mémoire, op. cit., p. 101: “L’habitude est une altération fixée, qui s’ignore elle-même; l’habitude au sens exact du terme ne connaît pas le passé: elle résulte des altérations si bien acquises qu’à peine peut-on les modifier. Dans l’empire de l’habitude le vivant est privé de conscience de soi; c’est un embryon d’homme. Si l’on veut ici parler de mémoire, il s’agit d’une mémoire primitive et aveugle, à laquelle convient par conséquent la théorie psychologique des empreintes”; p. 12: “Altéré, le vivant anticipe; il sent à distance: ‘dès le premier de la vie, il semble que la continuité ou la répétition d’un changement modifie, à l’égard de ce changement même, la disposition de l’être. . .’ (Ravaisson, De l’habitude, p. 7). Le vivant subit, c’est-à-dire qu’il réagit à ce qu’il touche: il est réceptif parce qu’il possède la spontanéité. En cela réside l’altération. C’est pourquoi la régularité physique cède la place à la périodicité interne, qui est toujours en évolution – et cela même déjà dans la cellule. En termes bergsoniens: partout où quelque chose vit est un registre où le temps s’inscrit”. The link between memory and habitude, which is largely implied also in the reflection of Blondel and Bergson, is strictly linked to the notion of effort, conceived as the condition of the formation of a habit and as the expression of the “recalling” work of memory, in the remembering of a memory. This aspect has been put by Ricoeur into contact with the aspect of mnemo-techniques. About the relation between memory and habitude in Bergson, see Paul Ricoeur, La memoria, l’oblio, la storia (Milano: Raffello Cortina Editore, 2003), pp. 41–44; p. 48. 43 The recognition of the possibility, as the condition of possibility of logics (since the condition of a distinction between true and false is based on the capacity to conceive a different state of things than the factual one), for Blondel is due essentially to the practical essence of human life (not opposed to the contemplative attitude).

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E. Lisciani-Petrini, Memoria e poesia. Bergson, Jankélévitch, Heidegger op. cit., p. 38. V. Mathieu, Bergson. Il profondo e la sua espressione, op. cit., p. 93 (my italics). 46 G. Deleuze, Marcel Proust et les signes, op. cit., it. tr., p. 45; L. Millet, Perception, imagination, mémoire, op. cit., p. 111. 47 H. Bergson, L’Energie spirituelle. Essais et conférences, op. cit., p. 5. 48 L. Millet, Perception, imagination, mémoire, op. cit., p. 111. 49 H. Bergson, “Matière et mémoire,” Œuvres, ed. A. Robinet (Paris: PUF, 1970), p. 283. 50 H. Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice, op. cit., p. 5. 51 Henri Bergson, Introduzione alla metafisica, op. cit., p. 45; G. Deleuze, Marcel Proust et les signes, op. cit., it. tr., p. 55. 52 P. Ricoeur, La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, op. cit., it. tr., p. 53 (my italics). 53 E. Lisciani-Petrini, Memoria e poesia. Bergson, Jankélévitch, Heidegger, op. cit., p. 43. 54 H. Bergson, Matière et mémoire, op. cit., pp. 79–80: “Pour évoquer le passé sous forme d’image, il faut pouvoir s’abstraire de l’action présente, il faut savoir attacher du prix à l’inutile, il faut vouloir rêver. L’homme seul est peut-être capable d’un effort de ce genre”. Paul Ricoeur, La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, op. cit., it. tr., p. 43. 55 H. Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice, op. cit., p. 6. 56 Ibid.: “Notre passé se manifeste donc intégralement à nous par sa poussée et sous forme de tendance, quoiqu’une faible part seulement en devienne représentation. De cette survivance du passé résulte l’impossibilité, pour une conscience, de traverser deux fois le même état. Les circonstances ont beau être les mêmes, ce n’est plus sur la même personne qu’elles agissent, puisqu’elles la prennent à un nouveau moment de son histoire. Notre personnalité, qui se bâtit à chaque instant avec de l’expérience accumulée, change sans cesse. En changeant, elle empêche un état, fût-il identique à lui-même en surface, de se répéter jamais en profondeur. C’est pourquoi notre durée est irréversible. Nous ne saurions en revivre une parcelle, car il faudrait commencer par effacer le souvenir de tout ce qui a suivi. Nous pourrions, à la rigueur, rayer ce souvenir de notre intelligence, mais non pas de notre volonté”. See also Vittorio Mathieu, “Prefazione,” in H. Bergson, Introduzione alla metafisica, op. cit., p. 9. 57 Adriano Pessina, Il tempo della coscienza. Bergson e il problema della libertà (Milano: Vita Pensiero, 1988), p. 215. 58 On the Bergsonian equation between interiority and heterogeneity on one hand, and exteriority and homogeneity on the other, see B. Gilson, L’individualité dans la philosophie de Bergson, op. cit., p. 16. 59 A. Pessina, Il tempo della coscienza. Bergson e il problema della libertà, op. cit., pp. 212–213. 60 H. Bergson, L’Energie spirituelle. Essais et conférences, op. cit., p. 17 (my italics). 61 Ivi, p. 5. There is an essential link between memory and conscience: as Millet notes, in fact, the past, as a dimension of existence, is real only because it is recognised as passed, then, only because memory has a door open to consciousness: “Le passé est tout autre. Aucun phénomène corporel ne l’explique. Le passé n’est pas habitude inconsciente: il est reconnu comme passé; il est idée”, L. Millet, Perception, imagination, mémoire, op. cit., p. 14 (my italics). 62 B. Gilson, L’individualité dans la philosophie de Bergson, op. cit., p. 21. For Bergson duration – through memory – is the very essence of life and, hence, of what we perceive as the movement of reality; and only referring to a flux, that is searching the expression of life – which is similar to an active becoming – philosophy can go closer to its object: “Dès qu’on se retrouve en presence de la durée vraie, on voit qu’elle signifie création, et que, si ce qui se défait dure, ce ne peut être que par sa solidarité avec ce qui se fait. Ainsi, la nécessité d’un accroissement continu de l’univers apparaît, je veux dire d’une vie du réel” (H. Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice, op. cit., p. 371, my italics); “La durée de l’univers ne doit donc faire qu’un avec la latitude de création qui y peut trouver place” (Ivi, p. 367). 45

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E. Lisciani-Petrini, Memoria e poesia. Bergson, Jankélévitch, Heidegger, op. cit., p. 35. L. Millet, Perception, imagination, mémoire, op. cit., p. 113. 65 J.-L. Vieillard-Baron, “L’Ego chez Bergson et chez Husserl,” in Philosopher en français, ed. J.-Fr. Mattéi (Paris: PUF, 2001), p. 333 (my italics). 66 H. Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice, op. cit., p. 5. 67 Ivi, pp. 4–5. 68 Henri Bergson, “Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience,” Œuvres, ed. A. Robinet (Paris: PUF, 1970), pp. 144–145, (my italics). 69 A. Pessina, Il tempo della coscienza. Bergson e il problema della libertà, op. cit., p. 293. 70 Ivi, pp. 290–291. 71 Ivi, p. 292. 72 Ivi, pp. 56–57. 73 J.-L. Vieillard-Baron, “L’Ego chez Bergson et chez Husserl,” in Philosopher en français, ed. J.-Fr. Mattéi, op. cit., pp. 329–330: “Constamment, Bergson nous demande de regarder ce qui se passe en nous-même, sans nous attacher aux contenus affectifs. Quand il précise ce qu’il entend par intuition, au sens technique qu’il lui donne, il souligne que l’effort pour connaître la réalité telle qu’elle est s’oppose à la construction et à la déduction des concepts. Du même coup l’intuition présuppose la conscience et la réflexion. L’intériorisation de la connaissance nous élève au degré supérieur de la réflexion, à savoir l’intuition. Pour Bergson, comme pour Husserl, il n’y a pas philosophie tant qu’il n’y a pas cette conversion à l’intériorité, cette conversion réflexive”. 74 A. Pessina, Il tempo della coscienza. Bergson e il problema della libertà, op. cit., p. 244. 75 Ibid. 76 B. Gilson, L’individualité dans la philosophie de Bergson, op. cit., p. 5. 77 Adriano Pessina, Bergson, op. cit., p. 57. 78 H. Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice, op. cit., pp. IV–V; this passage can be put in relation with the following one: “Se représenter l’ensemble de la vie ne peut pas consister à combiner entre elles des idées simples déposées en nous par la vie elle-même au cours de son évolution: comment la partie équivaudrait-elle au tout, le contenu au contentant, un résidu de l’opération vitale à l’opération elle-même? Telle est pourtant notre illusion quand nous définissons l’évolution de la vie par ‘le passage de l’homogène à l’hétérogène’ ou par tout autre concept obtenu en composant entre eux des fragments d’intelligence [. . .]. Il faudrait considérer ces éléments divers et divergents comme autant d’extraits qui sont ou du moins qui furent, sous leur forme la plus humble, complémentaires les uns des autres. Alors seulement nous pressentirions la nature réelle du mouvement évolutif; – encore ne ferions-nous que la pressentir, car nous n’aurions toujours affaire qu’à l’évolué, qui est un résultat, et non pas à l’évolution elle-même, c’est-à-dire à l’acte par lequel le résultat s’obtient. Telle est la philosophie de la vie où nous nous acheminons” (Ivi, pp. 53–54). 79 Ivi p. 25: “Continuité de changement, conservation du passé dans le présent, durée vraie, l’être vivant semble donc bien partager ces attributs avec la conscience. Peut-on aller plus loin, et dire que la vie est invention comme l’activité consciente, création incessante comme elle?”. 80 H. Bergson, L’Energie spirituelle. Essais et conférences, op. cit., pp. 12–13 (my italics). 81 H. Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice, op. cit., p. 8: “Pour un être conscient, exister consiste à changer, changer à se mûrir, se mûrir à se créer indéfiniment soi-même. En dirait-on autant de l’existence en général?”. 82 G. Deleuze, Marcel Proust et les signes, op. cit., it. tr., p. 149. 83 H. Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice, op. cit., p. 17: “Partout où quelque chose vit, il y a, ouvert quelque part, un registre où le temps s’inscrit” (my italics). 84 Ivi, p. 181: “Comment ne pas voir que la vie procède ici comme la conscience en général, comme la mémoire?”. 64

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85 Ibid.: “Nous traînons derrière nous, sans nous en apercevoir, la totalité de notre passé; mais notre mémoire ne verse dans le présent que les deux ou trois souvenirs qui complèteront par quelque côté notre situation actuelle”. 86 A. Pessina, Bergson, op. cit., p. 46 (my italics). 87 J.-L. Vieillard-Baron, “L’Ego chez Bergson et chez Husserl,” in Philosopher en français, ed. J.-Fr. Mattéi, op. cit., pp. 332–333: “La conscience est susceptible de niveaux de profondeur ou de superficialité infinis. La voie de la superficialisation est en même temps la voie de la dépersonnalisation, et l’universalité logique, totalement impersonnelle, relève du superficiel du égard au moi. Le moi profonde est au contraire celui où se condense, grâce à la mémoire, toute la personnalité individuelle. Or ce moi est caractérisé, non par l’intentionnalité, mais par l’intériorité et par la durée. Alors que le facteur temps se réduit chez Husserl au flux de conscience comme forme de la connexion des vécus entre eux, au contraire chez Bergson, la conscience et la durée sont identifiées, en ce sens que la durée est l’essence même du moi. La durée n’est pas la condition transcendantale de tous les moi, car elle n’est pas a priori. En effet il n’y a de durée que d’une conscience, et seule une conscience individuelle peut durer, tel est le principe de l’Essai. Il sera révisé dans l’Évolution créatrice, lorsque Bergson admettra que les choses durent elles aussi. Mais ne change pas le fait que la durée ne peut être saisie que dans le moi, et comprise qu’à partir de lui. C’est la durée qui fonde la vie en son évolution, et non l’inverse. La durée est la donnée immédiate de la conscience et elle n’a rien d’objectivable” (my italics). 88 H. Bergson, Introduzione alla metafisica, op. cit., p. 48 (my italics). 89 Ibid. 90 See. M. Jouhaud “Bergson et Blondel: cosmologie et philosophie de la destinée”, in Journée d’étude 9–10 novembre 1974. Bergson-Bergson-Maritain-Loisy (Louvain: Peeters, 1977), p. 29); J. Wahl, Tableau de la philosophie française, op. cit., p. 131. 91 B. Gilson, L’individualité dans la philosophie de Bergson, op. cit., p. 23. 92 H. Bergson, L’Évolution créatrice, op. cit., p. 177: “Justement parce qu’elle cherche toujours à reconstituer, et à reconstituer avec du donné, l’intelligence laisse échapper ce qu’il y a de nouveau à chaque moment d’une histoire. Elle n’admet pas l’imprévisible. Elle rejette toute création. Que des antécédents déterminés amènent un conséquent déterminé, calculable en fonction d’eux, voilà qui satisfait notre intelligence. Qu’une fin déterminée suscite des moyens déterminés pour l’atteindre, nous le comprenons encore [. . .]. Notre intelligence est là à son aise”. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. 95 Maurice Blondel, “Le point de départ de la recherche philosophique,” in Œuvres complétes, ed. R. Virgoulay- Cl. Troisfontaines (Louvain: Peeters 1997), vol. II, p. 556. 96 Maurice Blondel, “L’Action”’ in Œuvres, op. cit., vol. I, p. 367. 97 H. Bergson, Matière et mémoire, op. cit., it. tr. Materia e memoria (Bari: Laterza, 1996), p. 125 (my italics). 98 Ivi, p. 119. 99 A. Pessina, Bergson, op. cit., pp. 15–16. 100 L. Millet, Perception, imagination, mémoire, op. cit., p. 112.

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P H E N O M E N O L O G Y O F L I F E O N M E M O RY: R E V E A L I N G T H E C R E AT I V E H U M A N C O N D I T I O N I N T H E M U S I C A RT U N I V E R S E

ABSTRACT

A novelty brought by the Phenomenology of Life is the approach of memory as a specific function in the creative process making the human “selfindividualizing-in-existence”. Together with intellect, will, and imagination, the memory operates in the complex schema of the “logos of life” expanding; it decisively contributes to the “creative orchestration” of the transition from the vital stage to that of the Human Condition within the “ontopoietical design of life”. Considering the peculiar creative situation of human being as “self-interpretation-in-life”, the thesis of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka concerning memory finds a pivot in the area of the music art’s experience by man. In this essay, we try to bring out part of the primacy significance of the original view on memory introduced by the phenomenologist of life, as a fruitful one to encompassing the hermeneutical effort to catch the meaningfulness in the living universe by man-listener-to-music art, as being able to enjoy a sublime experience of self-creation in life. It is one of the merits of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka to newly discover the role of memory in the creative act and process, by stating that this faculty of human “is present in the work of the ontopoiesis of life from the start”, essentially contributing to it in correlation with imagination, will, and intellect, in that she calls to be “much more than a conscious apparatus”.1 Admitting the usual functions attributed to memory: ‘recording / depositing’, ‘preserving’ and ‘retrieving’, Tymieniecka enlarges the conception, launching a “new perspective” that offers much more in exploring the opportunities to be disclosed in this “crucial life function” within the “ontopoietical design” of the entire existence. According to our phenomenologist, memory “saves significant accomplishments from being haphazardly dismembered and annihilated in the rushing, recklessly advancing currents of life”.2 Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka underlines the indispensable role of the “prototypic memory” that provides for the “constructive routes promoting life’s unfolding and progress”.3 Without memory, the creative energies that are 53 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 53–59. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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prompted, articulated, ordered, structured, etc. by imagination, will, and intellect, would not be captured and maintained, vividly kept. Memory is that can make the fragments of life to not be vanished; moreover, it makes them to be activated as relevant “at some future moment”. According to the creator of Phenomenology of Life, “It is the role of memory . . . to not only maintain sequence in its inventory of past events, but also to revive them when the proper moment comes”.4 Starting from such a vision, we are challenged to put in relief one of its best application, by reference to the universe of music art. Revealing the character of life, as phenomenal and temporality, with its spontaneity and vagueness, continuously swinging between ‘real and ideal’, ‘continuity and discontinuity’, “passage and persistence”, “restlessness and calm”, “light and darkness”, ‘bursts and withdrawals’, balancing ‘contradictory tension and conciliation’ into the necessary harmony of becoming with the call for meaning, music represents, maybe, the most eloquent modality of man to ‘speak’ about the All – potentialization and actualization of the “ontopoiesis of life”; and to institute the human creativity in existence, in the endeavor to transcend an eternal unsatisfactory reality. The meeting of man with the great art of music – by priority, the ‘absolute music’, respectively the instrumental creation free of any association with word, dance, visual image – represents, in our view, the most significant manner in which the ‘art of the harmonious sounds’ contributes, fundamentally, to the challenge and the cultivation of an aesthetical-ethical living. We take this concept in a phenomenological perspective, as “concentrating”, “intensifying”, and “lasting” the mystery of life “in its full expansion and force”, “in continuity”, like the “unity of meaning totality”. We can better understand the artistic-musical work like “the achievement of life’s symbolic representation”, becoming “the aesthetical living” which is “the essential type of living, generally”.5 Focusing on the memory, we allow observing that it operates in any type of situation in which man establishes a relationship with music: as composer / the author of musical works; as performer / the interpreter-agent of a (musical) score; as listener / the subject experimenting the musical audition. If the first and second hypostases refer to a little part of humans, the professionals, the last one regards the majority of people who just demonstrates the capacity to be opened to the music art. As a general note for each of the mentioned hypostases, we merely say that memory intimately interrelates with the imagination, in the achievement of the ineffable of music; it is imagination, the “particular faculty that has a unique role between cognitive, objectivating reason and the affective, valuing sphere

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of emotion and volition – the role of filling in, from within, the emptied life of consciousness”.6 Especially, beside the imagination, in music, memory is very important, like a constitutive element of the ‘aesthetic life experience’ – “the essential type of life experience in general”, according to Hans-Georg Gadamer – in which we decipher meaningfulness of life, eventually. “It seems to be even the mission of artwork to become aesthetical life experience that implies the escape at once of the living subject from the life’s concatenation by the force of artwork, but also his reconnection to the totality of his existence”.7 We do not enter the particularities of professional musicians, resuming just to note the fact that without memory none performance could be attained neither by the composer, nor by the player. Here, we approach only the situation of the listener to music, trying to disclose part of the “decisive role” of memory – together with imagination, will, and intellect – within “the system of the creative orchestration . . . of the emerging human type of self-individualized being (or self-interpretation-in-existence)”8 – speaking in terms of Phenomenology of Life. The thesis of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka about memory as establishing itself “within the context of individualizing life, from the first manifestation of the Logos of Life and through its entire progress”9 is fully applicable to music, matching to the defining “discrete continuity” of the sonorous-artistic universe, finding an exemplary illustration in the relation of man with it. So, tackling the situation of the listener to music, we wonder: What is happening to him during and especially after a musical audition? Where is the place of memory in this entire context? Is not somehow memory the main factor that makes alive a spiritual content that has already past, and yet that persists, further on, reviving over times, and filling up the human soul, giving it a plus of life experience? Basing on a vast own experience as listener to music art – beyond that of a player for many years – we dare to appreciate that for the man opened to the musical listening, memory reveals itself like a fundamental factor of the emotional sensibility, at two stages, at least: – that of recording, keeping and, ulterior, reproduction of the ‘musical information’ received through the audition of an artwork. That supposes a sort of re-experience of the artistic sequence that has entered his soul; and no less, a sort of participation to the creative accomplishment of the artwork, by his own interpretation; – and that of valuating this peculiar ‘information’, even within the complex process of his education, of his personality’s molding, up to the most elevated self-creative realization in the horizon of the supreme ideals and values of an authentic human life.

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The contact with music entails a movement from the sensory-emotional stage, to the contemplation and meditation about what has pervaded the interiority of man and has been kept by memory; no less, something that is renewed and enriched. Considering the position of the listener to music, we can easily ascertain the role of memory in which is recognized to be the ‘musical perception’, at all its levels: physiological, psychological, and spiritual. Actually, memory is claimed by all the elements of music, from the sounds’ concatenation, tune, harmony, rhythm, tempo, measure, etc. to the ‘musical image’ (the ‘content’ of music), meaning by priority not configuration, but duration, flowing, living with sense-bestowed. Perceiving a music, that means: “hearing, feeling, living, understanding, appropriating, and giving a sense to it”.10 ‘Subjective-objective’, ‘emotional-rational’, ‘technical-artistic’, ‘synchronic-diachronic’, ‘detail-ensemble’, ‘gone away-amplifying’ dyads intertwine in the integrality of musical perception, making the listener’s soul to vibrate in the existential unity of cosmos-nature-life-spirit, that is carried by the artistic-musical flux, running to a high state of meditation and comprehension. By music art, man gives himself a unique chance to enter and to invest with significance the eternal essence of existence to which he has access. Pure intuition, contemplation and reflection, touching the whole sensitivity, but also the rationality of person, music carries an ethos, giving man a royal path to find himself as an active interpret of and a participant to the progress of life, enlightening the possibilities to surpass the cultural-moral crisis that he is traversing in nowadays. By listening to the musical works – from small instrumental pieces up to orchestral symphonic creations – man has a chance to enter the paideutical télos of his becoming, discovering the joy of being in this world, so fallen down in superficiality, rout, wasting of the spiritual coordinate of life. Herein, we find the great power of music owing to its ethos, offering to man a complex and unique ‘aesthetic living’ as listener to music; and, at this stage, as participant to the re-creation of beingness within the affirmation of life by grasping and deciphering a major humanitarian message. Emanation of human spirit, music has a great potential to substantially mark the human becoming, ordering it in accord with the “logos of life” workings. Eventually, music marks the Human Condition in its plenary manifestation, in the framework of the “ontopoietical course of life”; and which is the musical memory, that can be followed acting “in the great game of selfindividualization or self-interpretation-in-existence” of human being, as a faculty of progress, “by more modes than those of lucid human consciousness”.11 Under the sign of temporality – that characterizes the musical ‘content’ – memory clearly appears “in its prototypical nature”, like “the primogenital

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guarantee for the continuity of life’s unfolding, for the constructive progress of life as such”.12 The musical memory intervenes in the entire process of emission, conveyance, and reception of the artwork’s message, setting in the order of human self-creation under the ideal transfiguration’s purpose in existence. Memory really acts in maintaining the sonorous flux that makes itself only in temporality, penetrating the deepest layers of the human soul. Thanks to memory, very different experiences are kept, in a large area, emerging from the restlessness and conflicting tensions, to the equilibrium and peace. Memory not only maintains, but it brings back the musical beauty, satisfying the necessity of man to find the well-being state on the ground of the spiritual creativity that he inscribes in existence. By music, human being acquires an integrator comprehension of life. Fragments of living temporality can be unveiled in their load of significance – often, difficult or even impossible to be translated in the verbal language – transforming the subject able to hear the music, enriching and impelling him into a constructive, creative direction, projecting an “uniquely personal significant script”13 in the world. There is the certain function of musical memory, because the listener can reach the fullness of life experience, at the highest temperatures; he effectively lives the profoundness of thoughts, sentiments, beliefs, aspirations, passions, emotions, longings, etc.; and he moves under the benefic-stimulating action of the ideal making life to be worthy in its goodness and beauty. The listener finds himself in a singular status of participation to the achievement of the artwork, in which memory intervenes by making past sequences to re-appear in the lived present. In such posture, the agent experiences a particular mode of living at the individual, but at the same time at the universal level of existence. He reaches to live a kind of communion, placing himself in the “absolute moment” within the sphere of meaning continuity. As Hans-Georg Gadamer features, by assisting to the play of art, the subject experiments a “self-denial”, abandoning him to art, realizing a positive performance finally. This “self-denial” determines the “spectator” to grasp the continuity with himself in his own truth, rising up to the “absolute moment” that means “self-denial and mediation with himself concomitantly”; “the elevation and the shake getting the spectator enhance his continuity with himself”.14 In the relationship with the musical universe, the subject/the listener lives this “continuity” owing to the memory functioning. It is the faculty that sustains the process of revitalizing the vividness of all significant data for life stream, for enjoyment of living, for involving himself with the process of human selfcreation in the life-world.

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Art of deep vibration, complexity and refinement, music represents, as a particular logos manifestation, the whole in becoming, carrying through dispersions and thematically unifying, intensively and extensively development, creative of passionate character, harmonizing “impetus and equipoise” of life – settled by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka as “the first principles of the primeval logos”.15 Considering this artistic space, in a phenomenological analysis, we find memory’s role in each of the “three movements of the soul toward transcendence”; memory operates in: “radical examination; exalted existence; and transcending movement”.16 Actually, it marks the Logos’ “ontopoietic design” in the balance of inner-outer manifestations, ordering the capacity of human being to realize “intrinsic virtualities in reality”,17 leading to the télos of creativity – the climax of Human Condition; and this is occurring by music – perhaps, the most impressive ‘materialization’ of creative artistic spirit tempting to reveal some of the enigma of life in its totality and dynamism. Undoubtedly, music art constitutes a supreme manifestation of human spirit with the own powers to create “new forms of experience of life as the cultivation of the logos”.18 Resorting to the original perspective of Phenomenology of Life as regards the creative process at large, musical memory appears like an inextricable component for the conceptualization of the ‘life experience’ through art, enlightening much more the human potential of interrogation, reflection, explanation, interpretation, and understanding of life on its whole. Actually, memory plays a great role concerning the artistic-musical experience of man-listener-to-music, raising him in the horizon of making and re-making the Human Condition, within the intended effort of self-creation in a life that is worth to be lived. “Al.I.Cuza” University of Jassy, Romania

NOTES 1 Cf. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 1: Creative Experience and the Critique of Reason, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1988. 2 Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 4: Impetus and Equipoise in the LifeStrategies of Reason, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht/Boston/London, 2000, p.397. 3 Ibidem. 4 Idem, p.401. 5 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, Romanian translation, Editura Teora, Bucharest, 2001, pp.61, 63. 6 Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 4: Impetus and Equipoise in the LifeStrategies of Reason, op.cit., p.451. 7 Hans-Georg Gadamer, op.cit., p.63.

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8 Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 4: Impetus and Equipoise in the LifeStrategies of Reason, op.cit., p.399. 9 Idem, p.398. 10 Ion Gagim, Dimensiunea psihologic˘a a muzicii / The Psychological Dimension of Music, Editura Timpul, Jassy, 2003, p.162. 11 Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 4: Impetus and Equipoise in the LifeStrategies of Reason, op.cit., pp.391, 396. 12 Idem, p.397. 13 Idem, p.398. 14 Hans-Georg Gadamer, op.cit., pp.104, 106, 109. 15 Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 4: Impetus and Equipoise in the LifeStrategies of Reason, op.cit., p.xxxvi. 16 Cf. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 2: The Three Movements of the Soul, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1988. 17 Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 4: Impetus and Equipoise in the LifeStrategies of Reason, op.cit., p.112. 18 Idem, p.16.

S E C T I O N II H U M A N I Z I N G N AT U R E

LESZEK PYRA

T H E A N T H RO P O C E N T R I C V E R S U S B I O C E N T R I C O U T L O O K O N N AT U R E

ABSTRACT

The paper is of a comparative character. Within it I try to oppose the two different theories concerning the relation man-nature, the theories which in different versions appear within the contemporary philosophy of environment. In the first part I try to examine some ecological (environmental) problems viewed from the anthropological point of view: pollution, preservation, conservation, population. Such problems are caused by humans and are ultimately humans’ responsibility. In the second part I present and discuss the biocentric, egalitarian outlook on nature, which refers mainly to wild nature as such and which proposes some very interesting solutions of the problems caused by humans. In the third part I point out the similarities and differences between the two kinds of theories presented and try to evaluate them in respect of their usefulness to the practical activity of man.

T H E A N T H R O P O C E N T R I C V I E W S O F J O H N PA S S M O R E

The study is an attempt to analyse the man-nature relation, especially in its ethical dimension. I try to show how very different, divergent views concerning this subject there appear in contemporary philosophy. In result my work is of a comparative character. I try to compare two different environmental theories and I do this on the example of anthropocentric (man-centered) views of John Passmore, the philosopher from Australia, and the biocentric (nature-centered) views of the American philosopher, Paul Taylor. John Passmore, the philosopher from Australia, notices that he writes out of a sense of alarm, that men cannot go on living as predators on the biosphere. If contemporary civilization is to survive, it must, in important respects, change its ways. The Western tradition is generally man-centered and nature is treated mainly as a system of resources, therefore it tends to encourage man’s ecological destructiveness. Within the Western philosophy prevails a metaphysics in which man is the sole finite agent and therefore he can treat nature as he 63 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 63–72. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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pleases. This metaphysics cannot be accepted by ecologists, notices Passmore. The Australian philosopher calls such tradition “Man as Despot” tradition and points to it sources, limitations and weaknesses.1 He thinks that this trend prevails, so far at least, in the West, but it will have to be changed soon, the sooner the better. But there is also Western mystical tradition which insists on the unifying links between human life and the life of nature. The author calls it “Stewardship and Co-operation with Nature” tradition and notices that it is weaker than the previous tradition, but there are “seeds” of reform in it which “the reformer can hope to bring into full flower.”2 Such trend has been represented by numerous thinkers, e.g. Wordsworth, Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, who insisted on dependencies between men and nature, and pointed to the latter as the source of human life.3 In this context the author doubts whether it is possible to construct a new ethic without reference to the Western philosophical tradition. Therefore he writes: “A ‘new ethic’ will arise out of existing attitudes, or not at all.”4 It seems very difficult to disagree with such an opinion. Passmore wonders, whether Western civilization can solve its ecological problems within its own assumptions. He distinguishes between ecological problems and problems in ecology. A problem in ecology is a strictly scientific problem (for example: finding the answer to the question how DDT finds its way into the fat of Antarctic birds). An ecological problem is a kind of social problem (like alkoholism, crime, road accidents), a problem without which a society would be better off. Personally, I think, the suggested distinction seems misleading, perhaps Passmore should use the notion “environmental problems” in such a context. Pollution is the first problem analysed by Passmore. The Australian thinker, defining pollution, uses a rather trite idea, I think. He writes: “pollution is simply the process of putting matter in the wrong place in quantities that are too large”5 (it is worthy of notice that nowadays radiation and noise are also pollutants). A place may be “wrong” in one of the following meanings: (a) aesthetically (oil in an estuary; plastic bottles, bags or beer cans in a park); (b) dangerous to human health; (c) destroying wildlife, plants and/or animals. Some people claim that pollution is a price which has to be paid for the maintenance of a high standard of life; there are however limits to such attitude. Solving the problem of pollution means reducing the flow of substances or processes into places which are “wrong” in one of the above mentioned meanings. Inter-disciplinary investigations are necessary in this respect. Technologists alone cannot solve the problem, because they only introduce new devices, and so Passmore writes: “calling upon the technologist to save us is so often equated with calling in the devil as an exorcist”.6 In this context the author of Responsibility for Nature points to the perverted Western attitude

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to life, expressing itself in overemphasis on quantity rather than quality (the size of a bridge, the magnitude of a city), whereas qualitative factors are, unfortunately, often ignored.7 As it has already been mentioned, according to the Australian thinker ecological problems are social problems, therefore to solve them one should solve a subset of problems: technological, scientific, economic, moral, political, administrative. The author reminds that political action against pollution has sometimes been surprisingly successful, notice: the return of clear skies to London and the fish to the Thames. John Pasmore writes that the main obstacles to reform derive from established habits and expectations. They are as follows: (1) the belief prevails that air and water are practically infinite and self-repairing; (2) no additional costs connected with pollution are considered; (3) there is a constant flow of “improved” commodities, replacing the “old-fashioned” ones. The next ecological problem, conservation, in Passmore’s understanding means the saving of natural resources for later consumption. In this context conservation seems to be identified with “careful husbandary”.8 (74) But, quite reasonably, one can ask the question in this context, whether one should really pay any attention to the needs of posterity? There are usually two kinds of different, in fact divergent answers offered by the representatives of different sciences. Economists and nuclear physicists are optimists, according to them in future man, thanks especially to nuclear fusion, will get acces to virtually unlimited source of industrial power, with the oceans serving as a boundless reservoir of fuel. But especially biologists take the opposite view, estimating when particular resources will be exhausted. Some claim that we should spare resources because of love of future generation. But love, writes the author: “. . . extends only for a limited distance in time. Men do not love their grand-children’s grand-children. They cannot love what they do not know.”9 Summing up the problem of obligations to posterity Passmore writes: “our obligations are to immediate posterity, we ought to try to improve the world so that we shall be able to hand it over to our immediate successors in a better condition, and that is all.”10 The author seems to be too optimistic, however. Looking at what man has been doing to nature up till now,11 I am convinced that the formulation “not in a worse condition than it is” is more realistic (but it still remains optimistic!) than Passmore’s formulation. In addition to what has been written so far, one should notice that conservation, as compared with pollution, has not the same popular appeal, because it involves genuine sacrifice. One is usually unwilling to reduce the level of winter heating below the level he is accustomed to. Afforestation and the control of soil erosion have been sometimes successfully implemented as conservationist programs, but they involve much less sacrifice.

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Preservation, according to Passmore, means “the attempt to maintain in their present condition such areas of the earth’s surface as do not yet bear the obvious marks of man’s handiwork and to protect from the risk of extinction those species of living beings which man has not yet destroyed.”12 The author excludes therefore artifacts from his considerations. One can think of wilderness and species as either having instrumental value or intrinsic value. On the first view they should be preserved because of their usefulness, factual or potential only, to humans. On the second view they should be preserved even if they are harmful to human interests. The notion “usefulness” should not be too narrowly interpreted in the first case. Something may be useful because it allows the pursuit of science, is good for recreation and retreat, constitutes a source of moral renewal and aesthetic delight.13 Population (multiplication) is the fourth problem. Some arrogant ecologists say that “people are pollution”. Paul Ehrlich compares humans to cancer cells, because they reproduce in too great numbers.14 In this context it is worthy to notice that Barry Commoner argues that the switch to synthetics, rather than population growth as such, is responsible for the radical post-war increase of pollution.15 The concept of the optimum population is quite different from maximum population idea. It is obvious that world population cannot increase ad infinitum, as it is doing all the time, because we will be overcrowded, we would have neither room nor resources. As much should be done as possible not to increase largely the population of the world, but certainly only within the democratic society’s limits. Concluding Passmore writes: “To surrender our freedom, to abandon all respects for persons, in the name of control over population growth is to make sacrifaces which our proper concern for posterity cannot justify.”16 Referring to the European philosophical tradition of the past the author seems to agree with the Stoics: “if men were ever to decide that they ought to treat plants, animals, landscapes precisely as if they were persons, if they were to think of them as forming with man a moral community in a strict sense, that would make it impossible to civilise the world – or, one might add, to act at all or even to continue living.”17 Despite of the above opinion we shall see that there are contemporary philosophers who think otherwise and construct theories propagating a moral community with nature precisely in a strict sense. One of them is Paul Taylor. T H E B I O C E N T R I C E G A L I TA R I A N I N D Y W I D U A L I S T I C E T H I C S O F PA U L TAY L O R

The American philosopher, Paul Taylor, in his most known book Respect for Nature, proposes the following definition of environmental ethics: “Environmental ethics is concerned with the moral relations that hold between

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humans and the natural world. The ethical principles governing those relations determine our duties, obligations, and responsibilities with regard to the Earth’s natural environment and all animals and plants that inhabit it.”18 The author distinguishes two types of natural ecosystems: those that have never been exploited by humans (free of human intervention) and those influenced by human labor.19 He argues that human beings are obligated to work out a suitable environmental ethics, which is independent from the ethics obligating within individual and social life of human beings. The author points to the difference between a human-centered theory of environmental ethics and life-centered (biocentric) ethics, of which he himself is an adherent. Analysing human centered and life-centered theories Taylor introduces two notions closely connected with them: of a moral agent and a moral subject. He writes: “A moral agent, for both types of ethics, is any being that possesses those capacities by virtue of which it can act morally or immorally, can have duties and responsibilities, and can be held accountable for what it does.”20 Defining moral subjects he writes: “Moral subjects must be entities that can be harmed or benefited.”21 Constructing his theory the author begins with the distinction between material and formal conditions which obligate both in traditional human ethics and environmental, biocentric ethics. The material condition for anthropocentric ethics is “respect for persons”, whereas the environmental, biocentric ethics begins with the notion of “respect for nature”. Of course one can notice at first sight that the material conditions differ in the two kinds of ethics. Contrary to this the formal conditions are the same for both kinds of ethics. The rules and standards constituting a valid normative ethical system must be: (1) general in form; (2) universally applicable to all moral agents; (3) intended to be applied disinterestedly; (4) advocated as normative principles for all to adopt; (5) be taken as overriding all nonmoral norms. Both human ethics and environmental ethics are governed by rules and standards that satisfy the five formal conditions. But in spite of the similarity between them in this respect there is of course the difference between the two, which lies in the content of their respective system of norms. Taylor repeats again and again that from the biological point of view human beings are animals and, like all other species, they have evolved from earlier forms of life. He writes: “It is a basic fact of the human condition that we are biologically dependent upon a sound, stable order in the Earth’s natural ecosystems. We share this aspect of reality with all nonhuman species.”22 In connection with this the author notices that similarly to other species humans face the possibility of total extinction. In this context he expresses the following opinion: “It seems quite clear that in the contemporary world the extinction of the species Homo Sapiens would be beneficial to the Earth’s Community of Life as a whole.”23 Unfortunately, Taylor’s supposition that the world without

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humans would be a better place may seem to be odd and repellent to many of the readers. The American author analyses very deeply the moral attitude of respect for nature considered as an ultimate moral attitude. In order to understand it fully one must first understand the concept of good of a being. In this context the author notices that the idea of furthering the good of a child is an intelligible notion, whereas the pile of sand has no good of its own. Taylor claims that it is possible for a human being to take an animal’s standpoint without the slightest trace of anthropomorfizm. I cannot agree with such an opinion; although it is possible for man to make rather informed, objective judgements what is desirable and undesirable for a nonhuman living being, the problem is that a human being can only vaguely, I think, approach the animal’s standpoint.24 The author, unfortunately, goes even further when he claims the same to be true about plants. Here also appears the problem of the good of species. Unlike the representatives of holism, however, Taylor notices that a man has no direct duties as regards species as such.25 The concept of the being’s good refers directly to individual organisms, and only statistically to populations, claims the author. When environmental ethics is considered one should regard all wild animals and plants as having inherent worth due to the fact that they are members of the biotic community of a natural ecosystem, and therefore they are moral subjects to which duties are owed by moral agents. At this point Taylor expresses a somewhat controversial opinion: “Whatever its species may be, none is thought to be superior to another and all are held to be deserving of equal consideration”.26 Such egalitarian, biocentric position should be generally accepted, insists the author. According to Taylor respect for nature attitude is an ultimate attitude, it is the most fundamental kind of moral commitment that one can take. Apart from respect for nature a man may take some other kinds of attitudes, e.g. aesthetic, hedonistic, scientific. Sometimes they are compatible, and sometimes incompatible with respect for nature. There is one attitude that is always incompatible with respect for nature attitude, namely exploitative attitude. The author writes: “Thus the conception of wild creatures as possessors of inherent worth, which is at the heart of the attitude of respect, is in its very essence contrary to the exploitative attitude.”27 Then Taylor presents the biocentric outlook on nature, which is the basis of the attitude of respect for nature. He is certainly right to notice that we, humans, tend to treat morally the natural world depending on the way we look at the whole system of nature and humans’ role in it. The author distinguishes four beliefs that constitute the biocentric outlook. They are as follows: (1) humans are members of the Earth’s Community of Life on the same terms as other

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living things; (2) the human species, together with numerous other species, are integral elements in a system of interdependence guaranting their survival; (3) all organisms are teleological centers of life; (4) men are not superior to other living beings. One should notice that it is definitely the last condition which seems to be most questionable. The author also claims that as a species humans are a recent arrival on Earth, an addition to the order of life that had been established for hundreds of millions of years and, in addition to this, while humans cannot do without other species, they can easily do without humans. People often think that their appearance on Earth was the final goal of the evolutionary process. Such opinion, claims the philosopher, is the expression of human hybris, human arrogance.28 Next the American author defines the rules obligating within his environmental ethics. These are the rules of: (1) nonmalaficence, which expresses the duty not to do any harm to any entity in the natural environment that has a good of its own; (2) noninterference, which consists of two sorts of negative duties: one requires us to refrain from placing restrictions on the freedom of an individual, whereas the other requires a general “hands off” policy with regards to whole ecosystems and biotic communities; (3) fidelity, which is the duty not to break the trust that a wild animal places in us (as often done in hunting, trapping and fishing); (4) restitutive justice, which means the duty to restore the balance of justice between a moral agent and a moral subject when the subject has been wronged. Sometimes there arise moral dilemmas when human rights and values conflict with the good of nonhumans. Therefore Taylor proposes a set of priority principles that cut across both the domain of environmental ethics and of human ethics. Fairness is their material condition (all parties to the conflict are treated fairly). There are five such principles: (1) The principle of self defence states that it is permissible for moral agents to protect themselves against dangerous or harmful organisms by destroing them (if there is no other way of avoiding danger!); (2) The principle of proportionality means that greater weight is to be given to basic than to nonbasic interests, no matter what species, human or other, the competing claims arise from; (3) The principle of minimum wrong means that when humans feel they must violate nonhuman interests, they should act in the way which causes least harm; (4) The principle of distributive justice requires that when the interests of the parties are all basic ones and there exists a natural source of good, each party must be alloted an equal share; (5) The principle of restitutive justice means that some form of reparation and/or compensation is called for. The general practice of wilderness preservation is a matter of fairness to wild animals and plants.

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When the principles are observed we can achieve the ethical ideal of harmony between human civilization and nature. We can achieve “the best possible world” preserving a balance between human values and the well-being of animals and plants in natural ecosystems. A thoroughly anthropocentric culture in which the inherent superiority of humans over other species has been taken for granted should be changed in such way as to allow us to look in a new way at nonhuman animals and plants. Such change, although not an easy matter, is within the realm of human possibility, claims Taylor. CONCLUSIONS

The basic difference between the two ethics is such that within anthropocentric ethics all human duties with respect to the natural world are ultimately derived from the duties humans owe to one another as human beings, whereas within a biocentric ethics the duties obligate humans straightly in regard to wild living beings. It should be strongly underlined that, according to Taylor, environmental ethics is not a subdivision of human ethics. It is an independent ethics within which wild communities of life deserve moral concern and consideration because they have a kind of value that belongs to them inherently. Unlike Taylor, the Australian thinker notices that a “new ethic” is not required, meaning, most obviously, a new environmental ethic.29 Taylor repeats again and again that human ethics embodies the attitude of respect for persons, whereas environmental ethics embodies the attitude of respect for nature; in result the material conditions are quite different in both kinds of ethics. Passmore developes his theory within traditional ethics (a kind of extensionism), whereas Taylor constructs quite new environmental ethics; as it has already been mentioned the formal conditions are the same in both kinds of ethics. All ecological problems in Passmore’s philosophy flow partly from the metaphysical beliefs, that nature exists to serve humans: such position expresses the essence of the anthropocentric attitude to nature. There is no such attitude in the strictly biocentric philosophy, nevertheless it may seem odd to some people, at least at first sight. Such views include in the class of moral subjects all animals and plants, therefore one may wonder whether it is meaningful to treat trees or daffodils rightly or wrongly . . . The biocentric hierarchical philosophy, as developed for example by the Polish philosopher, Henryk Skolimowski, is much more easy to accept in this respect.30 Constructing his environmental theory Taylor expresses his opinion on the ethics of the bioculture, which is concerned with the human treatment of animals and plants in artificially created environments totally controlled by human beings. A man using hybridization, different breeding programs, etc., is able

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to produce the kinds of animals and plants that best serve his human needs. Although Taylor does not pay attention within his theory to such living beings he is inclined to treat them well. Contrary to this Passmore does not seem to pay attention to animals and plants living in such conditions. Both authors agree that if nothing is done as regards the relation mannature, if man continues destroying biosphere as he has been doing for the last centuries, human species may face the possibility of total extinction. And, last but not least, it should be underlined that Passmore’s environmental problem of preservation generally overlaps with Taylor’s views concerning wildlife. The Pedagogical University of Cracow NOTES 1

Compare the chapter entitled just like this, in: John Passmore, Man’s Responsibility for Nature. Ecological Problems and Western Traditions, Gerald Duckworth and Co., Ltd., London 1974, pp. 3–27. 2 Ibid., p. 40. 3 Compare my book: Leszek S. Pyra, Environment and Values. Holmes Rolston III’s Environmental Philosophy, Wydawnictwo Akademii Rolniczej, Kraków 2003, pp. 38–48. 4 John Passmore, Man’s Responsibility for . . . , p. 56. 5 Ibid., p. 45. 6 Ibid., p. 49. 7 Compare a very interesting book on this: Schumacher Ernst Friedrich, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, Harper and Row, New York 1973. 8 John Passmore, Man’s Responsibility for . . . , p. 74. 9 Ibid., p. 88. 10 Ibid., p. 91. 11 This text is written in the year 2007. 12 John Passmore, Man’s Responsibility for . . . , p. 101. 13 It is certainly worthy of notice that the first national parks were founded for the benefit and enjoyment of the people. The Yosemite National Park, founded in the year 1890, was the first American preserve designed, first of all, to protect wilderness as such. 14 Paul R. Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, Ballantine, New York 1968, p. 166. 15 Barry D. Commoner, The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology, Alfred. A. Knopf, New York 1971. 16 John Passmore, Man’s Responsibility for . . . , p. 170. 17 Quoted in: John Passmore, op. cit., p. 126. Compare also on this: R. D. Guthrie: “Ethics and Non-human Organisms”, in: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, (Autumn, 1967), pp. 52–62. 18 Paul Taylor, Respect for Nature. A Theory of Environmental Ethics, Princeton University Press, New York 1986, p. 3. 19 Some theoreticians claim that there is no wild nature as such any more. Compare for example: Bill McKibben, The End of Nature, Random House, New York 1989. 20 Paul Taylor, Respect for . . . , p. 14. 21 Ibid., p. 17.

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Ibid., p. 48. Ibid., p. 114. 24 The Polish philosopher, Zdzisława Piatek, ˛ seems to accept, partly at least, Taylor’s views in this respect. Compare: Zdzisława Piatek, ˛ Etyka s´rodowiskowa. Nowe spojrzenie na miejsce człowieka w przyrodzie, Wydawnictwo UJ, Kraków 1998, p. 104. 25 The representatives of holism, e.g. Holmes Rolston III, think otherwise and propagate the theory according to which species are definitely more important than individual organisms. Compare: Holmes Rolston III, Environmental Ethics. Duties to and Values in the Natural World, Temple University Press, Philadelphia 1988. 26 Paul Taylor, Respect for . . . , p. 79. 27 Ibid., p. 95. 28 The Christian tradition, as represented for example by Reinhold Niebuhr, thinks egoism, and hybris in particular, to be the greatest evil. See my book: Leszek Pyra, Antropologicznoetyczna teoria Reinholda Niebuhra, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiello´nskiego, Kraków 1999, pp. 56–57. 29 John Passmore, Man’s Responsibility for . . . , pp. 56, 187. 30 Henryk Skolimowski, Eco-Philosophy. Designing New Tactics for Living, Marion Boyars, New York 1981. 23

H A N D E G Ü LT E K ˙I N

ECOLOGICAL DESIGN AND RETRIEVING T H E E N V I RO N M E N TA L M E A N I N G

ABSTRACT

Ecological design can be defined as any form of design that minimizes the environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes, nature’s own flows, cycles, and patterns. Ecological wisdom or patterns of awareness pertaining to nature is inherent in the traditional settlement forms, which are the practices of traditional cultures and indigenous knowledge systems. In contemporary setting, engineering, architecture, and other design disciplines are split from the local knowledge systems. As knowledge of place or local knowledge is the starting point for ecological design, it requires an activity of searching for patterns of awareness and retrieving the meaning of traditional settlement forms. INTRODUCTION

As a result of the ecological crisis, which is linked to the need to provide growing human populations a reasonable quality of life, an integrated understanding of human societies and ecosystems is required. Human cultures and ecosystems exist in a reciprocal relationship and new understanding of both nature and culture affects the theory and practice of design. Accordingly, the efforts of ecologists and designers are rapidly becoming important as to integration of fragmented understanding of how landscapes – settlements, buildings, rivers, fields, forests, etc. function as both ecological (natural) and cultural (artificial) places. Integrated understanding is a deep and meaningful understanding of places, including how each space is full of interdependent ecological and cultural attributes (Johnson and Hill, 2002, p.7). Here, we have two accounts – one coming from ecological or biological science, the other from indigenous people. Scientific knowledge,the knowledge of the objects or features of the physical world – plants, fungi, waterholes, hills, etc. – is transmitted by cultural or indigenous knowledge as well. Either in scientific activity or in design activity, phenomenological approach involves an intuitive understanding of the things, objects or environment. This understanding develops through the processes of thinking, perceiving, learning, remembering within contexts of 73 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 73–79. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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people’s interrelations with their environment. Not only studies of indigenous cultures or retrieval of the personal memory of natural and built environment, but also encounters with sientific works like the Goethe’s can be – as David Seamon phrases (Seamon and Zajonc, 1988, p.9) – a rewarding and revelatory pathway for seeing more sensitively and for feeling a stronger kinship with the natural world. Studies related to place and environment suggest that mutual collaboration of nature and vernacular culture does not currently exist. However there are places where nature and culture coexist in positive and distinctive ways (Forman, 2002, p.102). With a parallel view, hermeneutics claims that meaningful environments have existed and still exist. They can be described and interpreted through their meaningful patterns they manifest. If appropriately retrieved, these patterns relating to natural and built environment can be instructive in preserving old places and building new ones. Meaning and reality can be found in these sort of environments which are distinct from the environments associated with excessive nostalgia or techno-fetishism. For Heidegger, to let the concealed, unthought and historical unfolding reach us, we need a deep thought which is called “originary thinking”. He also names his approach memorializing or “recollective thinking” (Mugerauer, 1994, p. 77). The task of interpretation in order to help reveal reality and retrieve essential meanings can only be achieved by this approach. Considering the issues of meaning and value along with the notions of Dasein and Being, Heidegger’s thinking appears as a crucial notion for design/planning disciplines which face the environmental and social problems of contemporary world. What I put forward in this paper is that ecological design, with its concerns relating to nature and culture requires careful, meditative, recollective thinking and a phenomenological description of both natural and made things. In this way, ecological design reaches the level of originary/retrieving interpretation of environment and recovers livable places for people. M E M O RY A N D M E A N I N G

Empiricist epistemology presupposes that objects are first perceived with their particular properties. For Heidegger, this type of perception is not primary. In fact, seeing is the interpretation of something as something in its context. This context also makes up the background for understanding. Thus, Heidegger prefers the term “circumspection” to the term “perception”. Circumspection refers to the sort of looking that is always guided by our practical concerns. But in traditional ontology, objects are just stared at and figure in perception or observation (Hall, 1993, pp.128–129). The traditional account does not explain

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how things have value. Thus, representations are the source of the traditional problem of knowledge. On Husserl’s account, the concept of value also goes way beyond the description of objects as simply perceived or observed. His primary interest is about the relationship among conscious experience (e.g., perceiving or remembering), meaning and knowledge. Heidegger, like Husserl, believes that careful attention is needed to be paid to actual experience of the world and ourselves. I suggest that their understanding is essential in appreciation of the value of natural and made things and in retrieving the original meanings. DEEP THINKING AND RETRIEVING THE MEANING

Heidegger’s deep, meditative and originary mode of thinking has prominence in phenomenology (description) and in hermeneutics (interpretation). While thinking according to Heidegger is interpretive, he also talks about phenomenological reflection towards a point (clearing) where something is clarified as to its essential nature (Van Manen, 1990, p. 29). This essential nature is very much related to meaning, a value that has been genuine historically and by tradition. Retrieving meaning and value and disclosing or recovering reality can be achieved by originary thinking (Mugeraurer, 1994, p. 77). Repeating the heritage through experiences to retrieve the original meanings and possibilities allows us to see the historically existential, ontological dimensions, which are aspects of the still occurring and unfolding. Thus, Heidegger claims that such a retrieval is adequate to avoid nostalgic or historicist preoccupation with the past. In “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” he argues that “Our reference to the Black Forest farm in no way means we should or could go back to building such houses; rather it illustrates by a dwelling that has been how it was able to build” (Woessner, 2003). As authentic Dasein chooses to choose, it resolves to keep repeating itself, keeps renewing its commitments knowing that it might have to change its course (Guignon, 1993, p. 233). I suggest that possibility of changing course is connected to dwelling, place-making and rootedness. N AT U R E A N D E N V I R O N M E N TA L M E A N I N G : N AT U R E AS LIFE – WORLD

Heidegger’s approach is not limited to retrieving the meanings of settlement forms as part of heritage and cultural memory. I argue that it is also useful to retrieve the meaning of any life-world like nature which is usually the subject of representational science. But, there is a phenomenology of the natural world

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of which Goethe’s way of science is one early example. Although Husserl described the life-world as the world of immediate experience, the world as experienced in the natural, primordial attitude, without conceptualizing, taxonomizing, classifying, categorizing, or abstracting it (Van Manen, 1990, p. 182), existential phenomenologists like Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty feel more comfortable with Gothean science, which is argued that it preceded Husserl’s work. They base their sense of reality on actual human experience taking place within the world of everyday life. Goethe’s aim was to begin from and stay with experience, which becomes the descriptive basis for generalization and interpretation (Seamon, 1988, pp.2–9). His method reveals affective, qualitative meanings as well as empirical, sensual content. Goethe used to describe his method as “delicate empiricism” – the effort to understand a thing’s meaning through prolonged empathetic looking and seeing grounded in direct experience. “Natural objects should be sought and investigated as they are and not to suit observers, but respectfully as if they were divine beings.” (Seamon, 1988) he wrote. To understand is to see the authentic wholes – the way things belong together and why they are together as they are within the local context. There are four fundamental life-world themes that may prove helpful in the phenomenological research process. These are lived space (spatiality), lived body (corporeality), lived time (temporality), and lived human relation (relationality and communality). Lived space is felt space. Experience of lived space is very much difficult to put into words. But, we know that the space, be it the huge space of a modern building or the wide-open space of a landscape, affects the way we feel. In “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” Heidegger makes a distinction between “space” and “place”. Place is more reminiscent of tradition and community, of lived experience, and space connotes an abstract emptiness (Woessner, 2003, pp.23–44). As one of the domains of place, “places of region” is complexly interwoven with places of geography, or places of topography. They speak to designers in a language of tradition and ecology. They have identities and memories which are often tied to a larger network of connections to the land and to the townscape (Downing, 2003, p. 224). Understanding the relationships of people to the land over time is critical to understanding both cultures and ecosystems. Most landscapes have been strongly shaped by human activities. Past events, including human activities, land use and management not only help explain current landscape conditions, but also encompass how they may influence the future (Johnson et al., 2002, p. 319). Within the context of the landscape, built environment appears as part of a larger system. Ecological science also considers ecosystems at much larger (and also smaller) scales. On the other hand, from the viewpoint of phenomenology, both natural and cultural contexts are local. Since, within the

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scope of the phenomenological research, the life-world covers a relatively small area where the nuances of natural features, climate, and character are subtle, I suggest that these nuances can only be seen and understood by phenomenological approach. R E T R I E V I N G T H E M E A N I N G O F N AT U R A L E L E M E N T S

Technological epoch changes what things are, or what they have been. For instance, plants no longer have features and uses determined by local environment. They are seen to be easily manipulated to grow anywhere in the world. Due to the system of food production, distribution and consumption, the texture, color and taste of the earlier or indigenous local products are replaced by uniform, perfectly shaped, made products (Mugerauer, 1994, p. 115). In modernity’s grand scheme, landscape no longer has a place. Nature/localized culture and memory threaten reviving a landscape against the efficient order of things and straight lines as shortest possible paths between the points (Smith, 2001, p. 32). Technologically, we consider the earth a material source under our control. Earth is where the distribution of materials and services provided by built things occurs. But, in originary thought, earth is the place for human lives within its complexity. Earth is not homogeneous. In its diversity and emerging aspects, it keeps on unfolding as a place for life. We learn about this complexity, participating in growth, preservation, transformation, harmony and strife (Mugerauer, 1994, pp. 73–74). Modern buidings have separated people from the climatic processes and made the biological and chemical processes of nature irrelevant for them (Kibert, et al., 2000, p. 909). Re-inhabiting the place involves re-establishing elemental contact and observing, for instance, direction of water, climate and weather patterns, carrying capacities of bearing earth, and so on. Re-inhabitation means becoming native to a place through awareness of ecological dynamics and requires ecological habits, particularly for the injured habitat (Macauley, 2006, p. 199). M E M O R Y A N D D E S I G N , R E L AT I N G T O E C O L O G I C A L U N D E R S TA N D I N G

The built environment interacts with the natural environment on a variety of scales, from individual structures affecting their local environment, to cities impacting on the regional development. Concentrations of buildings change the earth’s albedo, create microclimates (heat islands), change surface characteristics, affect hydrology, alter natural hydrological cycles (Kibert, et al., 2000, pp. 909–910).

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Ecological design can be defined as any form of design that minimizes the environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes, nature’s own flows, cycles, and patterns. The task of ecological design is to re-create design solutions deeply adapted to place. Both the lessons of indigenous design and sophisticated new ecological technologies are critical to this task. Ecological design begins with the particularities of place – the climate, topography, soils, water, plants and animals, flows of energy and materials through ecosystems, and other factors (Van der Ryn and Cowan, 1996, pp. 69, 72). It is based on the co-evolution of nature and culture. The design works when it articulates new relationships within a context that preserves the relevant ecological structure. Designers usually start abstractly, but whether conscious of it or not, eventually an atmosphere of memory surrounds the task (Downing, 2003, pp. 230–231). They refer to places, events or actions either from precedents that can be built places, natural forms, objects and abstracted social situations or from designer’s own memory. As no experience is repeated exactly, experience derived from the past demands abstraction, adjustment and evolution to frame present or future situations. CONCLUSION

Phenomenology aims at gaining a deeper understanding of the meaning of our everyday experiences. Phenomenological studies on built environment have the main focus on the discovery of meaning through historical, indigenous solutions. These solutions reveal much about the natural place, features, and symbols (Seamon, 1993, pp. 2–9). The mere reproduction of past landscapes does not help toward ecological and responsible design. On the contrary, retrieval of the inner logic of historical landscapes continually manifests the world’s potential to sustain itself ecologically. Whether design elaborates the natural forms and patterns of living in the environment or not, it is crucial to preserve nature while achieving a transforming combination of innovation and retrieval of tradition. Istanbul Technical University REFERENCES Downing, F., “Transcending Memory: Remembrance and the Design of Place,” Design Studies, 24:3 (May 2003), pp. 213–235. Forman, R., Ecology and Design: Frameworks for Learning, ed. Bart R. Johnson, (1st ed., Washington: Island Press, 2002).

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Guignon, C., The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, ed. Charles Guignon, (1st ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Hall, H., The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, ed. Charles Guignon, (1st ed.,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Johnson, B.R. et al., Ecology and Design: Frameworks for Learning, ed. Bart R. Johnson, (1st ed., Washington: Island Press, 2002). Johnson, B.R. and Hill, K., Ecology and Design: Frameworks for Learning, ed. Bart R. Johnson, (1st ed., Washington: Island Press, 2002). Macauley, D., “The Place of Elements and Elements of Place: Aristotelian Contributions to Environmental Thought,” Ethics, Place and Environment, 9:2 (June 2006), pp. 187–206. Mugerauer, R., Interpretations on Behalf of Place, (1st ed., New York: State University of New York Press, 1994). Seamon, D., Goethe’s Way of Science, ed. D. Seamon and A. Zajonc, (1st ed., New York: State Universiy of New York Press, 1988). Seamon, D., Dwelling, Seeing, and Designing: Toward a Phenomenological Ecology, ed. David Seamon, (1st ed., New York: State Universiy of New York Press, 1993). Smith, M., “Repetition and Difference: Lefebvre, Le Corbusier and Modernitiy’s (Im)moral Landscape,” Ethics, Place and Environment, 4:1 (2001), pp. 31–44. Van Der Ryn, S., Stuart, C., Ecological Design, (1st ed., Washington DC: Island Press, 1996). Van Manen, M., Researching Lived Experience, (1st ed., New York: State University of New York Press, 1990). Woessner, M., “Ethics, Architecture and Heidegger: “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” in an American Context,” City, 7:1 (April 2003), pp.23–44.

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PHILOSOPHICAL-HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF LAND R E L AT I O N S ( O N E X A M P L E O F R U S S I A N N O RT H N AT I O N S )

. . . the passions of the earth are as multiple as the threads that run through the innermost vital existential processes of life and come to be transformed by human creative consciousness into comparably forceful vehicles for the specific orchestration of the human vision . . . The passions of the earth play an integral role in human striving. A.-T. Tymieniecka. The Passions of the Earth. Analecta Husserliana, LXXI,P.3 ABSTRACT

Among the entire material conditions necessary for existence and activity of people, special position is occupied by Land with its soil mantle, subsurface resources, forestry and waters; this is the first prerequisite and natural basis of any production. Without land neither production nor existence of human being is possible. According to the outstanding modern philosopher A.-T. Tymieniecka “Earth in its otherwise mute interplay with our faculties and their employment brings our entire existence to the scene of life. We in all our vital moves establish ties with the soil, climatic conditions, the magnetic field, etc. of our mother earth, that is, with the entire earth system”. Among the entire material conditions necessary for existence and activity of people, special position is occupied by Land with its soil mantle, subsurface resources, forestry and waters; this is the first prerequisite and natural basis of any production. Without land neither production nor existence of human being is possible. According to the outstanding modern philosopher A.-T. Tymieniecka “Earth in its otherwise mute interplay with our faculties and their employment brings our entire existence to the scene of life. It resounds through our side of the interplay, through our deeply felt and vocal coming to awareness, our sufferings, pains, incommodities . . . Our vital passions of the earth are, on our experiential side, most deeply rooted within our interplay with the earthly existential conditions. They constitute the existential gist of our being” (Tymieniecka). Outlining the significance of land, classicists of economic and philosophical science V. Petty, A. Smith, D. Ricardo, and thereafter K. Marx, F. Engels 81 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 81–91. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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and other prominent thinkers have proved that historically social production was formed through interaction between human labor, land and other natural resources. Labor is the basis of any production process – purposeful activity of people aimed at production of goods they need. As far back as the XVII century V. Petty wrote: “. . . labor is not the only source of use values or material wealth so produced . . . Labor means Father and active principle of wealth, while the Land means his Mother” (Petty, 1940). Land and water came into existence and do exist as natural and historical features, as universal terms and subjects of labor apart from the will and consciousness of human beings, without any contribution on the part of society. Being involved in production, in the process of which they are adjoined by live and materialized labor, both land and water become means of production. Land is an invaluable and indispensable national wealth of any society. As commonly defined in land use planning and control science and practice – “Land is the Earth’s surface, a natural resource characterized by space, orography, soil mantle, vegetation, subsurface resources and waters, as well as the subject matter of social-economic relations being an essential means of production in agriculture and a spatial basis for deployment and development of any sector of national economy” (Troitskiy, 1997). The role of land in various sectors of national economy is far from being identical. In processing industry it serves as foundation only, as a place for labor processes, as a spatial operational basis. In mining industry the role of land is far more important. Here it is performing both the role of spatial operational basis and the object of labor, as a peculiar pantry that brings the wealth required to society. However, even here the process of production is neither connected with nor depends on the quality of soil. The land has a distinctly different significance for agriculture, where it is both a material condition for existence of this sector of economy and an active factor of production. The process of production here is directly connected with land, soil fertility and natural biological processes. In agriculture the land, in addition to universal condition and spatial operational basis, acts as an object of labor and as a tool of production that allows people making impacts on growing agricultural crops. Therefore, in agriculture the land performs a function of the basic means of production. Land is the principal means of production in forestry too, though (as distinguished from agriculture) the primary objective here is never related to production development, but replenishment or preservation of natural complexes and maintenance of the same. As distinct from other means of production, Academician S.A. Oudachin noted peculiarities of land “as bounty of nature” being a result of labor,

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bounded by the limits of terrestrial parts of the globe and indispensability, immovability and spatial continuity, capacity for increasing fertility and productivity through its rational use. Having created such an invaluable gift during millions of years, the nature contributed it to human being for use. The genesis, development and existence of mankind is owed to land, which serves as spatial basis for habitation and activity of human being, and a pantry of untold wealth, and accumulator of unmeasured energy, which furnishes food stuff. The distinctive features of land as means of production include obligingness of its interaction when used with other natural resources, objectivity of comprehensive protection of elements of natural and economic environment. The use and protection of land in specific organizational-territorial frameworks serve as an essential condition for any social or production activity. Irreplaceability and finiteness of land assets in most of the cases places the issues of land use and control as top priority for national policy. Serving as multifunctional basis of social sustenance and as fundamental factor of reproduction process, the land exists in the focus of individual and collective interests of all members of society without exception. Rational use and protection of land is one of the major objectives in any society. Rational land use means: – Most accurate accounting for environmental and economic conditions and features of specific lands; – Securing key social-economic interests of society; – Achieving high efficiency in production and other types of activity; – Protection and reproduction of fertile and other useful features of land; – Ensuring optimal combination of social, collective and individual interests in the land use. Rational land use means its use in the best interests of society, owners and users of land, which ensures the most efficient and economically feasible utilization of land’s useful features in the process of production, optimal interaction with natural environment, protection and reproduction of land assets. The significance of land as a basis for life and activity of human being if founded on the perception of land as natural object protected as the most important element of nature, as natural resource used as means of production in agriculture and forestry and as a basis for exercising business and other activity on specific territory, and at the same time as immovable property, as subject matter of ownership and other rights to land. There is a priority in protection of land as the most important component of natural environment and means of production prior to the land use as immovable property, under which possession, use and disposal of land is

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freely performed by the owners of land, provided that it does not affect natural environment. When implementing any activities related to the use or protection of lands one should adopt decisions ensuring safety and security of human being or preventing negative (harmful) impact to health of people, even if it would lead to higher costs. Mankind should try to preserve the most valuable lands including national parks and historical heritage areas. In parallel with the growth of scientifictechnological potential of society and more intensive use of natural resources, there is a growing necessity in protection of lands and other natural resources. Land protection, as commonly defined in land use planning and control science and practice, means a complex of organizational-economic, agronomic, technical, ameliorative, economic, legal and other measures aimed at prevention and elimination of processes affecting the status of lands, as well as their unjustified withdrawal from agricultural and other use. Protection of lands shall be performed on the basis of comprehensive approach to land assets as to sophisticated natural formations (ecosystems) taking into consideration zonal and regional peculiarities. In the extreme conditions of the North the role and significance of land assets as well as the need for their protection increase tremendously. As a rule, land assets and other biological environment are the only sources of sustenance for native minorities. Problems of native minorities related to the land use persist in any countries of their presence. They are specifically complicated when solving issues of land relations on the background of Russian Far North, where their resolution in general predefines the very survival of native minorities, because for most of them the land and water bodies stay either the only one or, at least, always decisive means of their preservation as ethnos. The problem exists and will persist unless the rights of native minorities for possession and use of land as fundamental source of their sustenance are effectively protected and guaranteed. For the purpose of revival of their ethnos, the indigenous minorities need sufficient acreage of land in order to: – have Motherland – not only physical, but spiritual space; – lead on traditional economy; – be economically independent. Applicable legislation envisages legal basis and guarantees for original social-economic and cultural development of native minorities, protection of their native habitation environment and traditional way of life, husbandry and trades based on principles of self-sufficiency.

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However, the recent years’ tendency for establishing economic grounds for sustaining traditional types of husbandry by native minorities and preservation of natural environment is unstable yet, while industrial expansion to the traditional territory of native minorities still continues. The way of life of native minorities does not distort the ecological equilibrium. Native minorities anciently applied sustainable and environment-friendly methods of husbandry, hunting and fishery, which contributed to preservation of the most valuable natural ecosystems and, accordingly, allowed indigenous minorities to survive. On the background of active exploration of subsurface resources, multiple unsolved issues of state control over the activities of mining corporations, the problem of preservation and development of territories inhabited by native minorities become more and more essential. For these people the protection of nature is not just a successive type of activity of human being, but the only chance to survive. In these circumstances scientifically justified organization of rational lands’ use and their protection is the basis for systematic measures aimed at rehabilitation of ecological situation by way of perfecting rational territorial deployment of industrial enterprises, which affect natural environment, conservation of lands in case of their expropriation or turning into concession zones for mining and processing of minerals and fuels, establishing optimal correlation between intensively utilized and untouched land assets. The existing ecological situation requires first of all organizational and technical rearrangement of existing land use system. At present, the available methods of rational use and protection of lands in arctic territories do not correspond to ecological, economic and social requirements. On the background of growing ecological inconsistencies there might be unpredictable consequences, which may lead to unprecedented adversity and totally uncontrolled use of natural resources including land assets. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a new approach to present problems in ecologization of all decisions adopted on perfecting the arrangement of rational land use. Ecological constituent shall be intrinsic to all measures related to the use and protection of lands. In the Far North regions, where the use of land as a source of biological products is traditionally oriented to satisfaction of essential needs of indigenous minorities, we may observe a historically formed correlation between reindeer breeding, other productive activities and availability of labor resources. The state must be interested in the strictest control over the use and protection of lands in the regions of industrial exploration due to application of ecologically dangerous technologies, which may cause disturbance and contamination of land and water resources.

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The right of indigenous population to the land use has decisive backbone significance and is not only a necessary constituent of their survival as independent ethnos, development of the native tongue, preservation of culture, solving urgent social problems. “It is essential not only for these peoples as ethnos. In the long run, the right of indigenous population to the land use is a method of rational use of natural wealth and protection of ecological system in general. The United Nations Organization acknowledged that 20% of the richest (in terms biological diversity) lands of the Earth were saved intact thanks to traditional use of natural resources by native minorities” (Kharyuchi, 2004). In this context we may quote the Oration of the great Indian Chief Seattle presented back in 1854: “- Good, White Chief sends us word that he wishes to buy our land but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably. The idea is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. . . So could that be bought at all? Water sparkling in small creeks or in big rivers, is not just water. This is blood of our ancestors. If we would wish to sell our land then you must remember that every part of this earth is sacred to my people. We know that the White Men will never understand our thoughts. The Land for them is no brother, it is their enemy, and, having defeated the enemy the pale faces will follow their paths. They would leave behind the graves of their fathers, but it would never bother them. We know: the land does not belong to men; men belong to the land. The man never wove canvas of life; the man is just a thread of that canvas. Everything he does to the canvas, he does it to himself. When the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the white man, not more than a shadow of a cloud flying over the prairie, these shores and these forests will preserve the souls of my people. Because they love this land as a newly born baby loves the heartbeat of his mother. And if we would sell our land to you people – love it as we did. Take care about it as we did. We know that our God is your God. The God loves this land. Perhaps we would become brothers. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless – Dead – I say? There is no death. Only a change of worlds.”(Klokov, 1998)

The Oration of Seattle is not only a piece literature, but an illustrious historical document, a kind of “Ecological Testament” of love to the Earth and the Nature. In the name of a “red man” Seattle “despite anything” transfers the world (traditional universe) to the “white man” (contemporary civilization), because the white man became the owner of the earth and thus he must be solely liable for it. Our task is to accept that testimony, while the task of native minorities is to transfer it to us. Many national and foreign sophists devoted their works to substantiation of the role of land and other natural resources and to arrangement of their rational use and protection. Noteworthy are the researches of S.A. Oudachin, S.N. Volkov, A.A. Varlamov, N.V. Komov, P.F. Loyko, N.F. Reimers, V.P. Troitskiy, V.N. Khlystun, P.N. Pershin, A.D. Shuleikin.

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Peculiarities of land as unique means of production, essentially distinct from any others, were formulated by S.A. Oudachin. The essence of his extrapolations is as follows: 1. All means of production, except for land, are the results of antecedent human labor, while the land is the product of nature. 2. Land is an indispensable means of production, being spatially confined. 3. The land use is related to continuity of the place. 4. Land as means of production is used in a close interaction with other natural resources – water, solar energy, air etc. 5. Land to a lesser extent is subject to moral or physical depreciation if compared with other means of production. 6. Land is the basis of preservation of all flesh on Earth. Formerly, the land use planning and control science perceived the land mainly as means of production. However, the “initial role of land in the value system of society as natural complex (with growing complexity of interaction between the human being and the nature) gradually lead to its understanding as a natural resource” (Volkov, 2001). The works of scientists on land use planning and control describe the diverse roles of land, its comprehensiveness in relation to society and dependence of living conditions on the quality of natural resources, the necessity of enhanced ecological imperative for functioning of land as means of production and as the subject matter of social-economic relations. As for northern territories, such approach requires clarification, because traditional use of natural resources is typical for native minorities living in places, where land assets and other natural resources are the essential source for their sustenance and preservation as an ethnos. In order to understand the essence of ongoing processes in land transformations and in arrangement of rational use and protection of lands in the northern territories, one needs to consider these issues against the background of their evolution. At present, such analysis will allow us defining the objective specificity of arranging rational use and protection of lands in northern territories, the role and structure of land use planning and control, which ensures rational organization of land planning, control and protection. Agrarian transformations occupy special position in social-economic development of native minorities in Russian Federation as well as in recreation of traditional way of their lives. The demand for historical knowledge on land transformations in northern territories is also justified by the fact, that at present the use of land and other resources in these territories is a fundamental priority of state policy alongside with industrial exploration of these territories, which presumes creation of conditions for sustained development of native minorities based on principles of

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self-sufficiency and on the basis of comprehensive development of traditional sectors of economy such as reindeer breeding, hunting, fishery, gathering etc., as well as traditional crafts. In the context of contemporary problems facing the nation in general, important are both positive and negative experience of land transformations in northern territories, because today we need to find an answer, on the background of the most vulnerable and extreme environment, how to ensure territorial development of two diametrically opposite types of economy, namely traditional use of natural resources by indigenous minorities and modern industrial exploration generally aimed at extraction of subsurface resources, which implies for occupation of vast territories for industrial production purposes, which in its turn affects the unique ecological, poly-ethnic and cultural environment. Traditional use of natural resources, as well as traditional culture and habits of northern nations are of imperishable panhuman value as the culture of people, who elaborated unique ways of survival is severe environment. Northern culture is one of the most ancient in the world and counts for thousands of years. The origination and development of reindeer breeding encompass a huge period of historical development of northern nations, which lead to reindeer breeding’ becoming the basis of economic, cultural and spiritual development, the entire walk of life for native minorities of the North. In the remote past the reindeer helped human being to conquer the North. Following reindeer the people went on further to the north. Even today, the reindeer, which gives maximum wholesome biomass and products, remains vital and almost the only means for utilization of scanty, but widely spread vegetation on a huge territory of Arctic tundra, forest tundra and northern taiga. Reindeer is the most important component of high-latitude ecosystems of the Old and New World. Reindeers consume significant amounts of various wild plants growing within the area of their habitation. The ability to raven on lichen allows using that rich fodder resource of Arctic tundra and northern taiga. The close relation with lichen allowed the reindeer occupying vacant ecological niche and expanding through vast deserts of severe Polar Regions. On the greater part of this area (60–70%) in Russia and some other countries of Northern Europe wild reindeers live together with domestic ones. Both forms of reindeers use the same land assets (pastures) and occupy almost the same ecological niche in ecosystems of Arctic tundra and taiga. There is no agreement of opinion about the place and time of domestication of reindeers. Archaeological evidences testify to the fact that already

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8000 years b.c. the reindeers were used as draft animals, therefore, domestication of reindeers took place much earlier. The first documented mentioning of reindeer breeding in Europe is in Karelian epos “Kalevala”. During late-glacial period the reindeer was a hunting object for primitive man, which is evidenced by Scandinavian sagas, cave painting in Karelia and ancient encampments on the territory of France. Archaeological diggings in the Basin of Yenisei River, cave painting and “deer’s” stones in Transbaikalia, Altai and northern part of Mongolia, support the idea that reindeer breeding was widely spread in Central Asia. There is a belief that reindeer was one of the first animals, second to dog, which were domesticated by human being. Reindeers are pack animals that migrate immanently. It took many generations for people to start controlling the herd, making it obedient. However, reindeer-breeders were not yet the owners of pastures, which were used exclusively on as needed basis in the easiest direction, i.e. without specific routes. That was a period of vagrant reindeer breeding. After accession of northern territories and native minorities to Russia, the Tsar government endowed the nobility and rich deer-owners with special administrative powers, which entitled them to the right of perpetual use of the best pastures. The chiefs and the elders of tribes were issued with special Tsar muniments for possession of lands and the right for collection of tributes, which defined the territorial borders of their lands in use. By the end of XVII yurt communities and ancestries became principal in the system of land use. In fact, the rights of ownership and use of land and natural resources were transferred to ancestries. Within the limits of ancestral territory the land assets were divided by separate family hides, the title for which passed by inheritance. After introduction of ownership rights to pastures, reindeer-breeders were allowed to herd reindeers only on the owned land assets. That was the beginning of nomadic reindeer breeding, which was characterized by reindeer-breeders moving with their family members and herding their reindeers only along the allocated pastures depending on the season. Natural-climatic factor became a fundamental element that determined the origins of nomadic breeding. Scarcity and low productivity of phytocoenosis in tundra predefined the nomadic character of large herd reindeer breeding as the most adaptive form for vital activity of human being in the Far North. In the end of XVIII the beginning of large herd nomadic reindeer breeding century in tundra of Eurasia became a quantum leap in exploration of living space in the Far North, which lead to considerable changes in the way of life of the northern nations. New type of economy and way of life appeared to be a serious progress if compared with foot or even sleigh hunting (with the use of traditional reindeer

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breeding), because it ensured more efficient use of biological capacity of tundra landscapes. In XIX century domestication of reindeers grew faster, which resulted in the increase of domestic reindeers livestock, which triggered the growth in population of nomadic nations. Traditional ancestral possession of land and relevant practice of land use and exploration of resources in Russian Empire were regulated by the “Charter on administration of heathens in Siberia”, which was drafted by M.M. Speranskiy and enacted by Tsar Alexander I on 22 June 1822. The Charter prohibited Russians from squatting on the lands occupied by the “heathens”, and allotted the latter with economic autonomy and self-administration to the extent they needed, in order to continue their living according to their traditions. The provisions of first section of the Charter contained rules for subdividing heathens by grades and specified regulations for each of them. The second section legalized the uniform system of administration for all nomadic and vagrant heathens. The third section contained relevant instructions for police, court and governing authorities. The fourth section defined the procedure for levying and collection of tributes and exceptions from compulsory service. For instance, the Yakuts were awarded grade two as “Nomadic northern breeders and promyshlenniks”, while the grade three was given to “vagrant lower idolaters of Yakut Region”. Land use planning and control in the northern territories followed the particular development trends of the rest of Russian territories. The initial measures, aimed at land use planning and control, were related to mapping of the territory in the interests of regional management and requirements of the defense department. The implementation started in the southern agricultural regions of the country. In accordance with the “Manifest on General Frontier Surveying”, enacted by the Empress Catherine II on 19 September 1765, the Special Committee on State Land Surveying was established. The analogous commission was set for Siberian Guberniya, which was called “Siberian Yasak Commission”. The Commission was regulated by the Instruction dated 4 July 1763 “On Yasak Reform in Siberia”. Before the October Revolution in 1917 the nations of the North mainly maintained patriarchal-feudalistic relations with natural nomadic lifestyle pattern. Fundamental forms of business activity included hunting, fishery and reindeer breeding, which despite of its profitability were characterized by low level of productivity. Gradually, the society acknowledged the self-value of nomadic tenor in severe conditions of Far North and paid more attention to their economic and cultural development. Based on scientific researches, in 1970s and 1990s there were large scale land use planning and control projects in northern regions of Russia. Geo-botanical and zoo-cultural investigations were performed annually on the

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territory of 10–15% of reindeer pastures. The so-called “ancestral land assets” were transferred to ancestral-family businesses, the borders of which were defined as declared by the descendants of former owners of tribal lands. One of the peculiar features of use of lands constituting territories with traditional use of natural resources is the fact that, the very legal status of their use was changed. Thus, formerly reindeer pastures and hunting lands were given to land users for long-term lease for 25 years, but now in accordance with the Federal Law “On the territories with traditional use of natural resources by native minorities” the lands within the territories of traditional use of natural resources are allocated to native minorities and ancestries of indigenous population for free use. In conclusion, according to A.-T. Tymieniecka “. . . we in all our vital moves establish ties with the soil, climatic conditions, the magnetic field, etc. of our mother earth, that is, with the entire earth system” (Tymieniecka). The State University of Land Use Planning and Control, Moscow, Russia REFERENCES S.N. Kharyuchi. Native Minorities: Legislative Issues. – Tomsk: Tomsk University Publishing House, 2004 – page 360. K.B. Klokov. Traditional Land Use of Native Minorities of the North: Author’s summary on Dissertation of the Doctor of Geography. M. 1998 – page 48. W. Petty. Works on Economy and Statistics. - M.: Sotsekgiz, 1940 – page 55. V.P. Troitskiy. Land Planning, Use and Protection of Land Resources (Dictionary and Reference Book, V.P. Troitskiy et al. – M.: GUZ, 1997 – page 65. A.-T. Tymieniecka. The Passions of the Earth. – LXXI – page.4. A.-T. Tymieniecka. The Passions of the Earth. – LXXI – page 5. S.N. Volkov. Land Planning in 6 Vol.: Vol. 1 Theoretical Fundamentals of Land Planning. M. Publishing House “Kolos”. 2001 – page 496.

E L D O N C . WA I T

THE PHENOMENON OF THE GAZE

ABSTRACT

In this paper I aim to offer an ‘existential analysis’ of simultanagnosia similar to those analyses of visual agnosias offered by Merleau-Ponty in the Phenomenology of Perception. Simultanagnosia is an intruiging form of visual agnosia which restricts the vision of the patient to one object at a time, producing a kind of ‘tunnel’ or ‘tubular’ vision’. The agnosia is accompanied by an optic ataxia, which disrupts the saccadic movements or the small scanning movements of the eye. Through a critique of the traditional explanations which have been offered I will try to show that the agnosia calls for an ‘existential analysis’, one which locates the seat of the syndrome in the patient’s ‘beingin-the-world’, and in this case, in the ‘gaze’. This analysis should corroborate some of Merleau-Ponty’s more enigmatic descriptions of the gaze, particularly those we find in the Visible and the Invisible.

I S T H E S I M U LTA N A G N O S I A T H E E F F E C T O F A R E S T R I C T I O N OF THE VISUAL FIELD?

Simultanagnosia is a perceptual disorder arising from occipital-parietal brain injury. Through perimetric measurement it is possible to map areas of the retina which have lost their sensitivity. Contrary to the constancy hypothesis however, there is no one to one mapping of retinal degeneration and restrictions of the visual field. The patient can see only one object at a time irrespective of its size, or distance i.e. irrespective of the size of its retinal image. Furthermore patients are unable to perceive two drawings simultaneously, even when one is superimposed on the other. In his research Luria used drawings of stars and triangles. Even though the star was itself made up of two triangles, patients who had shown no difficulty in perceiving the star, were unable to perceive two superimposed triangles when they were drawn in different colours. Only if the triangles were drawn in the same colour did patients perceive both triangles, but as a star. (Luria, 1959:443)1 2 95 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 95–102. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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Some authors have argued that simultanagnosia is due to a form of attention deficit (Holmes, 1919; Holmes and Horrax, 1919), that while the patient sees both triangles he is only able to attend to one at a time. The two drawings of triangles, one imposed on the other, and the drawing of the star are not significantly different as images. In order to attend to the star the patient needs to attend to the two triangles which make up the star. Why would it be any easier to attend to a drawing of two triangles which make up a star than to attend to two drawings of triangles which do not make up a star, but which are still superimposed one on the other, producing what could be taken as the image of a star? What appears to count in distinguishing what the patient can or cannot attend to, does not exist on the level of images. We can account for the syndrome in terms of an attention deficit only if we can think of attention as a power directed, not at images but at things in the surrounding world, such that the agnosia can be characterised in terms of a restriction in the number of objects in the world he is able to attend to at any one time. An account of simultanagnosia in terms of an attention deficit would seem to require a non empiricist account of perception and corroborate that naïve pre-scientific experience of perception which we have as we share the world with a fellow subject. If I am looking at something like a mountain with a friend, and, instead of scrutinizing her eyeballs, I allow myself to become aware of her ‘look’ or her ‘gaze’, I have the unshakable impression that she sees the mountain itself, that she is not confined to images or private representations, in fact I experience the ‘riveting of her gaze’ on its object as the focussing of her attention. This does not appear to be an interpretation I have made of patterns of physical movements of her eyes, because it is easier for me to recognise in the ‘riveting of her gaze’ the focussing of her attention, than it is for me to recognise any patterns in her eye movements. When she scans the mountain from left to right nothing leads me to imagine that she sees an image of the mountain sliding from right to left, because I recognise in the structure of these scanning movements, the ‘palpation’ by her gaze of the mountain itself, such that I cannot escape the conviction that she sees ‘a-static-mountain-from-left-to-right’3 4 Simultanganosia suggests that normal perceptual consciousness grasps things in a way analogous to the way a hand grasps objects, rather than being a private power of intuiting representations of the world. The eye is a certain power of making contact with things, says Merleau-Ponty, ‘and not a screen on which they are projected.’(Merleau-Ponty, 1962:279) Simultanagnosia then, is

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a restriction of the number of objects in this surrounding visible world of things to which the patient can direct his gaze at any one time.5 As we have seen, Luria has shown that these patients are able to see a star made up of two overlapping triangles only if both triangles are the same colour. If they are different colours the patient sees only one of the triangles (Luria, 1959:443). Nevertheless there is no evidence to suggest that patients suffering from simultanagnosia are limited to seeing one colour at a time. On all accounts their colour vision appears to be normal. (Luria, 1959:440). Could we then argue that the triangles’ being the same colour acts as a ‘cue’ to interpret the drawings as a single drawing of a star, and that being different colours acts as a cue to interpret the two drawings as two drawings of triangles, one on top of the other, allowing the patient to attend to the one and ignore the other. But such an explanation would imply, not that there is any attention deficit, but rather that the patient deliberately restricts his attention to one triangle once he has taken the figure to be two drawings of triangles. At some stage in the perceptual process, the patient would have to perceive and attend to both triangles, in order to decide whether he should take the image as an image of one drawing of a star, or as an image of two drawings of triangles, and once he has resolved to take the image as an image of two drawings of triangles he is able to ignore the second triangle and forget that he has ever seen it. Such an account of simultanagnosia would present the syndrome not as an attention deficit but as a personality disorder due to an unconscious obsessive decision to limit attention to one object in the visual field. The patient however exibits no other evidence for such a personality disorder. Nor could we argue that the difference between the colours of the two triangles, could be the cause of seeing only one triangle. From the way in which Luria carried out his tests, it is clear that it was perceived colour and not actual incident light falling on the retina which was decisive. There is no one to one relationship between perceived colour and light falling on the retina. Areas of colour are perceived as uniform even when, due to variations in incident light, the actual light falling on the retina may vary dramatically. Variations in lighting would cause the patient to see only a fraction of the triangle. This however never seems to happen. It is not the physical colour defined in terms of light frequencies which plays a role in how the figures are perceived, it is the perceived colours.6 But how can perceived colour play a role? What plays a role in what the patient sees can only be described on the level of the visible, nevertheless this visible cannot be equated with what he actually perceives, for if it is the perceived blue of the triangle, which makes it a second drawing, he would have to see the blue triangle in order interpret the figure as two drawings, and then to neglect it and simultanagnosia would once again be a personality

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disorder. It is the perceived colour of the blue triangle which makes the difference between whether the figure will be seen as two triangles or one star, but not perceived by the patient. I am looking at a mountain with Paula, and although I know that the world revealed by physical science is not make up of colours, yet I experience her as seeing numerically the same mountain I do and consequently numerically the same blue. There is nothing in my experience of sharing the moutain with her to suggest that she is confined to her private world of images and that blue is a private sensation rather than an attribute of the mountain accessible to both of us. The world we share is coloured, already structured into meaningful wholes, detached from the clouds and sky which surround it, etc. The world we share is a world for sight, not a world for thought, but it is neither her sight nor mine. ‘When I find again the actual world such as it is’, says Merleau-Ponty, ‘ . . . I find . . . a visibility older than my operations or my acts.’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1968:123) What determines whether the figure we see will be seen as two drawings of triangles or one drawing of a star is a visibility older than our perceptual acts. It is this visibility which has been disrupted in simultangnosia. Could there be a neurological explanation like the one offered by Luria, after all the simultanagnosia was caused by a brain injury? His explanation is in terms of a loss of ‘tonus of excitation of the visual cortex’. He argues that due to the abnormal state of the visual cortex, each focus of excitation inhibits the remainder of the cortex by way of negative induction. He has demonstrated his thesis by injecting the patient with chemicals which raise the excitability of the visual cortex, such as caffeine and galentamine (Luria, 1959: 447; 1963: 225) In both instances there was a marked improvement in the patients vision, and the simultanagnosic symptoms disappeared almost entirely. What needs to be understood is why the perception of one star would require a lower level of visual cortex excitability than the perception of two superimposed triangles, when, as we have argued, the difference between the two figures cannot be described on the level of images? His explanation would imply that the visual cortex is not responsible for the production of images or representations as the screen card in a computer is responsible for the formation of images on the computer monitor, but that it makes possible the grip of the gaze on its objects, and that the loss of tonus of exitation results in a restriction in the scope of the gaze. Damage to the visual cortex does not affect the visual field as damage to the screen card may affect the image on the monitor, it disrupts perception in the ‘figurative sense’, making impossible a certain amplitude of the grip of the gaze. Increasing the excitability of the visual cortex increases the scope of the gaze,7 or increases the complexity of the world within which the patient is ‘situated’, the world which calls on his gaze.

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Certainly there can be no ‘gaze’ and no ‘being-in-the-world’ without retinas, optic nerves and saccadic movements. But these ‘parts’ seemed to behave as if they have been synthsized into a whole which is more than the sum of its parts, a whole which exibits properties which are not explicable in terms of the properties of the parts. Once synthesized in this way a constituent part when considered outside of its context appears to be an abstract representation of the whole. Even when a ‘part’ is damaged, such as the visual cortex, the symptoms could be on the level of the gaze, on the level of the patient’s being in the world. The reason why the patient can see only one object at a time irrespective of the size of its retinal image, is because, the restriction of the visual field is an abstract representation of the restriction of a gaze limited to grasping only one object at a time. T H E O P T I C ATA X I A

I S S I M U L TA N A G N O S I A T H E E F F E C T O F T H E O P T I C A TA X I A O R I S T H E O P T I C A TA X I A T H E E F F E C T O F T H E AG N O S I A ? Luria and others have been able to record the small saccadic movements made by the eyes as a perceiver inspects an object or a drawing. This has been made possible by fixing a rubber bulb carrying a small mirror to the surface of the cornea. A thin pencil of light is reflected off the mirror onto a sheet of photographic paper. As the eye moves, the reflected light beam traces out patterns on the paper. What he has shown is that the scanning patterns of normal perceivers and simultanagnosic patients are significantly different. This has lead some authors to argue that the primary defect is an ocular motor one.8 Their argument is, firstly, that the restriction of perception to one object at a time has been reported in cases where there has been no significant visual field restrictions, (Luria, 1959:437) And secondly, that not all syndromes resulting in visual field restrictions are accompanied by simultanagnosia. Patients with optic nerve lesions, for example, whose visual fields are actually restricted, are able to overcome their ‘tubular vision’ by active tracking and saccadic movements of the eyes, such that they experience their visual fields as normal (Luria, 1963:220). This suggests that the inability of the simultanagnosic, to see more than one object at a time is due, not merely to visual field defects, but to the disruption of the scanning movements which would normally enable patients, to compensate for these defects. However it is generally accepted by authors, that for as long as these patients do not attempt to see objects in the world, their eye movements are normal (Paterson, 1944:354). It has been shown that while fixating a single light

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source, or tracking a moving light source in an otherwise dark field, patients exhibit no optic ataxia (Luria, 1963:222), which suggests that the optic ataxia cannot be the effect of a general ocular motor disorder. This has lead certain authors to argue that the ataxia is the effect of the agnosia, in other words, it appears as if the patient’s scanning does not allow for the second triangle because he does not see it. (Luria, 1959:446) So the question we are faced with now is why patients suffering from optic nerve lesions are sufficiently aware of objects which fall outside the boundaries of their intact vision so that they are able to compensate for their deficiency through ‘active tacking’, while simultanagnosics are not? Wherein lies the characteristic deficiency of the simultanagnosic? Has the simultanagnosic lost certain reflex scanning reactions which would normally enable perceivers to overcome their visual field defects? This would imply that all perceivers are endowed with an almost infinit set of automatisms which under normal conditions are suppressed, and which are released in the event of brain damage or optic lesions. Are we then to argue that the compensatory movements are voluntary, and that the perceiver always scans in such a way so as to get the best retinal image of the object and that his scanning is guided by an ‘idea’ or some representation of the surrounding world. This would mean that the primary weakness of the simultanagnosic would be an inability to imagine or represent to himself the second object and therfor to make no effort to scan in such a way that he sees it. But there is no evidence to suggest that simultanagnosics believe that there is only one object in front of them. Luria has shown how these patients through a laborious process, make up a verbal inventory of objects and their positions in a room, and in this way attempt to reconstruct intellectually the scene around them. What characterises the simultanagnosic is that the only way he has of getting around in his house and of avoiding and finding objects is by using language and by consciously building up a representation of the world around himself. By contrast non simultanagnosics, patients who are able to compensate for the restrictions of the visual fields and normal non agnosic perceivers, appear to be aware of their surrounding world and what there is to see without creating any such representations of the external world. They appear to have an unmediated contact with the world which they exploit in their perceptual behaviour, a world within which they are ‘situated’, a world towards which they can direct their gaze and which their gaze will reveal, and simultanagnosia appears to be due to a resriction of this surrounding world and hence in the scope of the gaze9 (Merleau-Ponty, 1962:136).10 For as long as they are confined to having to choose between the view from within and from without, authors must choose between two options, neither of which accords with the facts. Is the optic ataxia the effect of a restriction of the visual field, or is the restriction in the visual field the effect of the optic

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ataxia? Is the patient unable to scan correctly because of the lack of objects in his visual field, or is there a lack of objects in his visual field because he is unable to scan correctly11 (Luria, 1963:227). Each disorder appears secondary, and suggests the other as the primary disorder. The syndrome ceases to be paradoxical when we overcome the dichotomy of a description from within and a description from without,12 and accept that the visual agnosia and the optic ataxia are abstract ways of describing one indivisible syndrome, namely, the disruption of the gaze, that the gaze is the concrete, and the perspective of the engaged subject, the so-called second person point of view is the concrete perspective. University of Zululand NOTES 1

In The Structure of Behaviour he refers to experiments reported by Koffka in Principles of Gestalt Psychology, which demonstrate that the visual field has no determinate size and that the quantity of space encompassed at any particular moment is related to the object in the world. If a subject fixates a spot marked on the side of a screen upon which letters are projected, the objective distance from the fixation point to the letter which appears the clearest varies only slightly whether the subject is placed at one or two meters from the screen . . . If the size of the letters on the screen is varied, it is observed that the objective distance from the fixation point to the point of clearest vision, and consequently the objective size of the field encompassed by our perception increases with the dimension of the projected letters . . . It seems then that the quantity of space encompassed by our perception and the place of the zone of clear vision in the phenomenal field express certain modes of organisation of the sensory field related to the characteristics of the objects presented to the eye much more than the geometrical projection of objects on the retina . . . (Koffka, 1935:202–208). (Quoted by Merleau-Ponty, 1967:41–42) 2 If we think of perception in empiricist terms as the intuition of representations or images of the world, the syndrome would indeed be paradoxical. How are we to imagine a screen which was restricted in such a manner that onto it could be projected images provided that the images were of only one object at any particular moment, irrespective of the size or complexity of the image and irrespective of whether or not the object was superimposed on other objects? 3 On the contrary there is substantial evidence showing that infants are acutely aware of what adults are looking at, before they are able to examine in a mirror the movements of their own eyes in order to establish a relationship between eye movements and line of sight, i.e. before they are in a position to be able to infer from patterns of eye movements, what the other is looking at. (Butterworth and Cochran, 1980). Quoting Piaget, Merleau-Ponty points out that children are so keenly aware of the gaze or the look of other perceivers, as something which reaches or grasps things in the world, that they are amazed that these gazes do not break against each other. 4 ‘The mental we have said is reducible to the structure of behaviour. Since this structure is visible from the outside and for the spectator at the same time as from within and for the actor, another person is in principle accessible to me as I am to myself.’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1967:221) 5 ‘Through phenomenological reflection I discover vision, not as a “thinking about seeing”, to use Descartes’s expression, but as a gaze at grips with a visible world and that is why for me there can be another’s gaze; that expressive instrument called a face can carry an existence, as

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my own existence is carried by my body that knowledge – acquiring apparatus.’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1962:351). 6 If it were the actual incident light which was decisive, patients would see partial objects whenever the light falling on the object is not uniform. 7 In attacking the visual sphere, illness is not limited to destroying certain contents of consciousness, visual representations or sight literally speaking; it affects sight in the figurative sense . . .the power of looking down upon’ (uberschauen) simultaneous multiplicities . . . (Merleau-Ponty, 1962:136). 8 The situation reminds us of Merleau-Ponty’s reference to patients who have had a cattarct removed. It is impossible to say whether the patient is unable to focus because there is nothing in his visual field to focus onto or whether there is nothing in his visual field because he is unable to focus. 9 This is why patients suffering only from optic lesions are able to make up for their visual field defects by active tracking, to the point that they are often not aware of these defects, and why on the other hand simultanagnosia can be found in cases where there are no significant visual field defects, and why, even though there is no general motor disruption such that the simultanagnosic shows no optic ataxia when tracing a moving light source, the ataxia appears only when the patient attempts to see something in the world. This is why the patient appears to scan in such a way so that he will see only one object at a time. 10 ‘We do not have to choose . . . between a philosophy that takes our experience “from within” and a philosophy . . . that would judge it from without’ . . . (Merleau-Ponty, 1968:160). 11 This reminds us of what Merleau-Ponty said about focussing. In the case of people born blind and operated on for cataract, it is impossible to say, during the period following the operation, whether it is non-co-ordination of the eyes which hampers vision, or whether it is the confusion in the visual field which favours non-co-ordination – whether they fail to see through failure to focus, or whether they fail to focus through not having anything to see. (Merleau-Ponty, 1962:231). 12 ‘We do not have to choose between a philosophy that installs itself in the world itself or in the other and a philosophy which installs itself “in us”, between a philosophy that takes our experience “from within” and a philosophy . . . that would judge it from without . . . ’(MerleauPonty, 1968:160).

S E C T I O N III CIPHERING HUMAN EXISTENCE

I S¸ I L Ö Z C A N

KIERKEGAARD AND THE PHENOMENOLOGY O F R E P E T I T I O N I N T H E N O U V E AU R O M A N

ABSTRACT

This paper will focus on Alain Robbe-Grillet’s literary practices to the extent they seem to traverse the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard. Taking Kierkegaard’s theories of self-consciousness, historicality, temporality, repetition, and existence, this paper will argue that these theories of Kierkegaard pervade Robbe-Grillet’s novels. A Kierkegaardian analysis of Robbe-Grillet’s nouveau romans hopes to demonstrate that repetition, as difference, as beginning, as the Kierkegaardian instant, and as Robbe-Grillet-like indeterminacy, is nothing but a radical openness toward the future, toward the Other. The novels of the French nouveau-romancier Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922– 1998) seem to be philosophically grounded. Although his innovative literary performance is certainly impressive in its own right, this paper will focus on his literary practices to the extent that they curiously seem to traverse the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard. This paper will argue that Kierkegaard’s theories of self-consciousness, historicality, temporality, repetition, and existence pervade Robbe-Grillet’s novels. Alain Robbe-Grillet is considered the leading practitioner of the French nouveau roman which marks a radical departure from the aesthetic conventions of classical realism (Stoltzfus 13). In 1953, Robbe-Grillet published The Erasers and for the following three decades, his name has been synonymous with experimental and avant-garde writing. In almost all of his novels, RobbeGrillet undermines literary clichés: he presents frequent repetitions that make plots seem fragmented; he offers meticulously detailed, precise descriptions that challenge the perceptual clichés that are frequently used in the so-called objective representation of reality; rather than give us characters with family names, personal histories, recognizable identities, such as those given in traditional fiction, he reduces characters to first names, to initials, letting them occasionally appear out of a general indeterminacy, under the constant threat of dissolution or absence (Morrisette 48). He calls into question the ordinary perception of time, space, perspective, and narration. Central to our analysis is Robbe-Grillet’s use of repetition. His novels abound with intertextual and intratextual patterns of repetition. A high-heeled 105 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 105–118. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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blue shoe with a bloodstain, certain proper names like Dr. Morgan, Henri, Boris, W., and M. appear intertextually in many of his novels. Almost all his novels have repetitive structures. In a typical Robbe-Grillet novel, scenes and characters multiply until the narrative becomes a repetition of itself. These intratextual patterns of repetition can be seen as structural examples of repetition-as-beginning and repetition-as-difference in a Kierkegaardian sense. It is my contention that Kierkegaard’s approach to repetition can be used as a way of mapping out a territory and raising questions regarding repetition in Robbe-Grillet. However, it is not my intention to give a philosophical analysis of Kierkegaard. Rather, following the framework Kierkegaard presents, I hope to provide a context for the discussion of the function of repetition as manifested in the works of the novelist. Kierkegaard published Repetition: A Venture in Experimenting Psychology under the pseudonym Constantin Constantius in 1843. In Repetition, Kierkegaard questions the possibility of repetition and its relation to recollection in two narratives. In the narrative of a Young Man’s failed love affair and his attempts at reliving the affair through recollection, Kierkegaard asks whether recollection can possibly fulfill desire. Secondly, seeing that recollection fails, the narrator’s, Constantin Constantius’s, account of his return trip to Berlin is given. With this trip, the narrator decides to carry out an experiment in order to determine “whether a repetition in the form of a concrete realization of an abstract desire is possible at all” (Mazur 1). In the case of both recollection and repetition, the reconstitution of happiness is the goal, but both projects fail. For Kierkegaard, recollection is a kind of repetition in the form of repeating the ideal in actuality, and according to him, the Young Man has failed to repeat the ideal (his love) in the form of the actual (relationship). Upon the Young Man’s failure at recollection, the narrator, Constantin Constantius, decides to go to Berlin and try to repeat his previous visit which had given him immense pleasure. Although Constantin repeats everything he had done in his previous visit, his repetition fails to duplicate the original. Each of his various repetitions produces “an entirely new significance to the event” (3). Now Constantin has in his hands a series of unwanted repetitions, tending toward, but not ever reaching, a series of meanings. The search for the repetition of an original experience and meaning has unwittingly led Constantin, not to that meaning, not to a plethora of other meanings, but to a disturbing pattern of blockage, or disruption, of such polysemy. Thus, “The trip to Berlin ends in a moment of dissemination rather than self-gathering” (Kangas 111). In attending to his own experience, Constantin discovers that repetition entails difference. Or rather, he discovers that repetition is repetition-asdifference. Kierkegaard writes, “That which is repeated has been—otherwise

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it could not be repeated—but the very fact that it has been makes the repetition into something new” (Repetition 149). In John Caputo’s explanation, “Even to repeat ‘exactly the same thing’ is to repeat it in a new context which gives it a new sense” (qtd. in Mazur 6). As a result, the Kierkegaardian repetition becomes a creation as well as a repetition with a difference. In Repetition, Kierkegaard announces that the category of repetition will constitute “the basis of a new philosophy” (Repetition 1). Constantin Constantius explains, “If one does not have the category of recollection or of repetition, all life dissolves into an empty, meaningless noise. Recollection is the ethnical view on life, repetition the modern” (149). Here, Kierkegaard distinguishes traditional, Greek (“ethnical”) recollection from modern repetition. He adds, “When the Greeks said that all knowing is recollecting [Plato’s anamnesis], they said that all existence, which is, has been; when one says that life is a repetition, one says: actuality, which has been, now comes into existence” (150). For Kierkegaard, the difference between recollection and repetition points to the “shift from ancient to modern philosophy” (Mazur 5). Kierkegaard writes: Repetition is a crucial expression for what ‘recollection’ was to the Greeks. Just as they taught that all knowing is a recollecting, modern philosophy will teach that all life is a repetition . . . Repetition and recollection are the same movement, except in opposite directions, for what is recollected has been, is repeated backward, whereas genuine repetition is recollected forward (131).

In the Greek model, Kierkegaard argues, recollection is presented to posit all knowledge “because knowledge relies on rediscovering the original truth” (Mazur 5). In Platonic “recollection”, there is a temporal succession of presence, loss, and recovery. What is recovered is assumed identical to what was present in the first place. Kierkegaard writes, “recollection has the great advantage that it begins with the loss; the reason it is safe and secure is that it has nothing to lose” (136). In other words, for Kierkegaard, the self-assurance of recollection is somewhat cynical, in that it starts from the memory of the original rather than from the original itself, whose loss has already been covertly accepted by recollection. Therefore, recollection is the backward movement of memory and it has nothing to lose, because there is, strictly speaking, nothing to be lost there. Here, Kierkegaard seems to be exposing the ironic manoeuvre underlying recollection. Constantin Constantius makes three claims about repetition which also mark the category’s distinction from recollection. First, repetition is related to historicality; second, it signifies historicality’s relation to the Other; third, it offers a solution to the conflict between being and becoming (Eriksen 11). Historicality suggests a twofold determination where “a human being is, on the one hand, determined by his past and, on the other hand, is continually transcending this determination by relating to it and by projecting himself into the future” (11).

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For Kierkegaard, historicality results in a conflict between understanding life through recollection—looking backward, and living life through repetition— looking forward. In this way, Kierkegaard points out a dilemma in historicality which might be solved by the category of repetition since it might “solve the conflict between a person’s past and his relation to the future, between understanding and ‘living’ ” (13). The second claim of Constantin Constantius concerns the openness repetition might grant towards the future, to the Other. Rather than being absorbed by the past through recollection, an individual may achieve “genuine newness and otherness” in the future through repetition (13). The Young Man in Repetition exemplifies this case. He fails in his relationship with the woman he loves. He believes in recollection and he decides to preserve the memories of the relationship in order to relive them. Yet, his immersion in the memories brings him unhappiness since he cannot interact with his beloved in his memories. The third claim of Constantin Constantius regards the question of becoming. The motion of becoming in repetition does not accept fixity. Yet, rather than suggesting flux, repetition suggests “the occurrence of identical cases in temporal succession” and hopes to offer an answer for the problematical combination of being and becoming (15). David J. Kangas looks at what Kierkegaard was influenced by, and responded to, in his theories regarding the concept of repetition by focusing on Kierkegaard’s philosophy of time and temporality. Key to Kangas’s study is the working of the Kierkegaardian instant which always marks an “eternal” beginning. For Kangas, Kierkegaard sees repetition “as the event of cominginto-existence”, which happens at the instant, the eternal beginning (ix). In 1963, Paul Ricoeur wrote, “A new approach to Kierkegaard must also be a new approach to German idealism” (qtd. in Kangas 1). This, Kangas explains, is the lead he follows as he examines certain idealist texts that Kierkegaard knew well, like Hegel’s Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, J.G. Fichte’s Vocation of Man, and Friedrich Schelling’s Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom. For Kangas, Kierkegaard reads these texts backwards by deconstructing them to discuss the question of beginning which these German idealists’ texts occlude in their discussions of subjectivity (1). Kangas explains that through problematizing beginning (and presenting it as anarchic), Kierkegaard also problematizes the egological interpretation of subjectivity, or interiority, which explains the ego’s self-intimacy, self-possession, and self-positing. For Kierkegaard, interiority is a paradoxical concept because he believes that the interior is constituted precisely as what self-consciousness cannot interiorize. The failure to interiorize is a result of the consciousness being exposed to temporality. For Kierkegaard, temporality cannot be recollected, anticipated, or brought to presence (196). Rather, the interior is the

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incessant opening of self-consciousness to its outside. By means of its interiority, “self-consciousness is never finished and is never in full possession of itself” (196). The comprehensive account Kangas gives regarding Kierkegaard’s critique of idealism begins with the philosopher’s dissertation entitled The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (1841). In Socrates, Kierkegaard finds the birth of interiority, and discusses the “infinite beginning” of Socrates which comes to the fore in irony and “to which thought cannot coincide” (14). By referring first to the infinite beginning of Socrates as “the placeless place of existence itself”, and second to the Socratic absolute as the “ab-solute” that is “absolvent from determinations of being”, Kierkegaard opposes the absolute beginning of Hegel with a term he also borrows from Hegel: infinite absolute negativity (21). As Kangas puts it, “if for Hegel infinite absolute negativity names the condition for the phenomenology of the absolute, and ultimately for the absolute knowledge, for Kierkegaard it will name the condition in which a phenomenology of the absolute becomes precisely impossible” (28). Kierkegaard carries out a related argument in his Either/Or, A Fragment of Life (1843), written by an A. A’s remarks undermine what idealism considers essential: “self-consciousness as a power to keep itself present to itself, to represent, to coincide with itself” (41). Here, Kierkegaard displaces the selfpositing ego through the presence of “a prior beginning” (41). For Kierkegaard, the temporal instant is “the opening that first allows an ego” rather than being an “effect of the activity of the ego” (42). The temporal instant shows that consciousness cannot begin at an absolute origin because there is always a fracture in the idea of beginning. Kierkegaard develops the notion of the absolute or anarchic beginning which is “a beginning without a beginning” since the subject cannot posit a beginning (45). In Johannes Climacus (1843) Kierkegaard reformulates his argument—on the possibility of consciousness achieving absolute knowledge or making an absolute beginning—by defining absolute beginning as “a severance, a tearing, a leap” which has “the power to sever, to begin all over again from the beginning—but never to get beyond the beginning, never to make a beginning (i.e., one that is determinate or founding)” (76–77). Thus, in Johannes Climacus, Kierkegaard establishes that reality becomes determinate only if it is re-presented, if consciousness takes it up again. Put differently, the present is no more than its re-presentation. Kangas explains, “As repetition, consciousness is not a domain of certainty and identity, but rather a duplicity”, because “to be means to be repeated” (83). Kangas considers Kierkegaard’s critique of idealism to be informed not only philosophically but also religiously. Although this paper proposes a secular reading of Kierkegaard’s category of repetition, some religious openings of

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Kierkegaard’s theories will be noted briefly. According to Kangas, an abyssal ground, or Afgrund constitutes Kierkegaard’s approach to religion. In this way, religious existence in Kierkegaard remains “open to nonbeing” by “letting go of the need for grounding” (8–9). For Kangas, “the sense of groundlessness”, “the indeterminate, nonbeing, an irrecollectable past, an unanticipatible future” that Kierkegaard finds in boredom, despair, melancholy, anxiety, and irony are the means that give religion and existence their meaning (7). For example, in The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard discusses the relation between the concept of anxiety and faith and declares anxiety “a relation to the nothing of possibility” and faith “an ‘absolute sinking’ into the abyss of possibility” (8). In Kierkegaard’s understanding, “Faith is a sinking into nonbeing, to what absolves itself from being, a relation to what cannot be gathered into presence, to what cannot be posited, to what cannot become a project of the subject” (8). As the self accepts Afgrund as the principle of religious existence, for Kangas, it “finds itself precisely liberated toward its temporality and finitude” (10). “This movement”, adds Kangas, “into time and into finitude, becomes essential to Kierkegaard’s notion of ‘faith’ ” (10). Northrop Frye comments on the religious meaning of Kierkegaard’s category of repetition: Kierkegaard’s very brief but extraordinary book Repetition is the only study I know of the psychological contrast between a past-directed causality and a future-oriented typology. The mere attempt to repeat a past experience will lead only to disillusionment, but here is another type of repetition which is the Christian antithesis (or complement) of Platonic recollection, and which finds its focus in the biblical promise “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5). Kierkegaard’s ‘repetition’ is certainly derived from, and to my mind is identifiable with, the forward-moving typological thinking of the Bible. (qtd. in Perkins 196)

Indeed, Kierkegaard writes, “. . . what would life be if there were no repetition?. . . If God had not willed repetition, the world would not have come into existence . . . The world continues because it is repetition” (Repetition 132–3). Also, according to John Caputo, when St.Paul says “Behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5: 17) he hints at how “the individual can be made new again in faith” (qtd. in Perkins 222). In Repetition, Kierkegaard employs Job as a figure who exemplifies the meaning of repetition. After acknowledging the failure of recollection, the Young Man turns to repetition and compares himself to Job while expecting repetition. Job, who takes his life back after suffering and loss, embodies the promise of redemption that comes with repetition. The reason he gains his life back is his faith, because, as Andrew A. Burgess explains, “The Lord did not take away everything: He did not take away Job’s praise and confidence in the Lord” (qtd. in Perkins 256). Repetition signifies the birth of presence: not only the temporal present as the “now” of self-consciousness in

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its distinction from past and future, but presence also as parousia, presence as salvation (Kangas 161). Through repentance, expectancy, and openness towards the future, Job also reveals the problem of historicality. In recollection, or in the “backwards living” and understanding of life, the individual tries to construct a present, and a present self, by integrating the past, and the past self, into the present. In repetition, or in “forwards living”, the goal is “an openness towards the future in which the meaning of the self depends upon a relationship that transcends the immanence of the past” (63). Vincent A. McCarthy writes: “Repetition is understood as a restoration of oneself, most perfectly in a religious sense and therefore in eternity, where all Christian concepts of salvation are fulfilled” (qtd. in Perkins 279). Kierkegaard’s concept of leap-of-faith can be explained by his concept of repetition. In Repetition, Kierkegaard writes that atonement “is the most profound expression of repetition” (313). For Caputo, the individual’s “transition from sin to atonement” his emerging as a new person, his allowing himself to be forged by God are results of faith, i.e., the leap-of-faith (qtd. in Perkins 212). Consequently, both religious and secular readings of Kierkegaard’s category of repetition point to “a kind of becoming in which the end point coincides with the starting point, and yet remains distinct from it as an end point” (Eriksen 9). The Kierkegaardian instant, either as repetition-as-beginning or as repetitionas-difference, is “a moment in which nothing new is added to the old, but the old has become new” (9). In The Concept of Anxiety (1844), Kierkegaard reveals the origin of the temporality of existence to be in the moment, or the instant: “Only in the moment of vision [the instant] does history begin” (qtd in Eriksen 64). The pseudonymous author of The Concept of Anxiety, Vigilius Haufniensis discusses the instant as the moment when the temporal and eternity coincide, or synthesize. Haufniensis explains: The moment of vision [or the instant] is that ambiguity in which time and eternity touch each other, and with this the concept of temporality is posited, whereby time constantly intersects eternity and eternity constantly pervades time. As a result, the above mentioned division acquires its significance: the present time, the past time, the future time. (qtd. in Eriksen 76)

Thus, for Kierkegaard, the relationship of time with the eternal is the basis of apprehending the parts of time (past, present, future). This relationship which happens in the moment, in the instant, becomes our key to understanding temporality and repetition. In Eriksen’s words, “in repetition, the eternal is understood on the basis of the temporal” (154). Or, as the Young Man says in his letter to Constantius, “eternity . . . is the true repetition” (Repetition 221). Rather than turning back and becoming fixated on the past, repetition moves

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forward by employing the infinite beginning, which Kierkegaard names the instant. In the instant, temporality begins and it is the name for a beginning that cannot be interiorized, appropriated, recollected, represented, or possessed (Kangas 4). The rest of the paper will examine how Kierkegaard’s theories pervade Robbe-Grillet’s novels. The Erasers is Alain Robbe-Grillet’s first published novel. It is the archetypal Robbe-Grillet novel with its circularity, puzzle-like plot, and detailed descriptions of objects. The circularity of the plot takes the form of a repetitionas-beginning and repetition-as-difference. The isolated protagonist, Wallas, enters a vicious circle of events and descriptions that gradually takes him to the beginning of the novel, to his point of departure. The return to the beginning not only re-presents the protagonist’s destiny, albeit with a difference, but also offers a new beginning for the novel as it ends. The Erasers employs multiple modes of narration: the omniscient observer, interior monologues, stream of consciousness, free indirect discourse, reversed chronology, rearranged chronology, flashbacks, pseudo flashbacks, “false” scenes presented literally. The narrative curls inward, repeats itself, returns to the beginning. With nothing determined or closed, the plot always offers new openings through its repetitions and labyrinthine turns. (Morrisette 52). Put differently, in The Erasers, Robbe-Grillet replaces linear time with retreats into the past, repetitions, imaginings, revisions, and replaces the notion of “event” with a series of differing aspects linked to multiple points of view. The Erasers is a modern version of the Oedipus story. The epigraph, taken from Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, reads, “Time that sees all has found you out against your will.” This statement could be paraphrased as: the happening of temporality as repetition is independent of will, or any determination. Both the form and the content of The Erasers resembles the ancient story: the protagonist swears to uncover a murder but the outcome is both guaranteed and doomed from the beginning because the protagonist is himself the murderer he seeks to detect. In running away from becoming a murderer, he becomes the murderer whom he will look for. In other words, “like Oedipus, Wallas ends up being the murderer he seeks” (Smith 26). Robbe-Grillet’s last novel, Repetition (2001), deliberately repeats aspects of The Erasers. The oedipal outline, the unconscious re-enactment of past events, frequent switches between multiple narratives, flashbacks, playfully unreliable chronologies are among the many common points between the two novels. In his last novel, Robbe-Grillet explores once more the uncanny force of repetition, the complications of the reinvention of the past with a futural opening. In Repetition, Robbe-Grillet writes, “The old words already spoken repeat themselves, always telling the old story from age to age, repeated once again, and always new” (71). Not only is each story capable of being repeated with a

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difference, but each story is constituted through internal repetition. The story comes into being by precariously and obsessively repeating fragments and their variants, proceeding toward a looming closure, even as it keeps disrupting, distracting, dispersing itself. In the prologue of Repetition, we read: Here, then, I repeat, and I sum up. During the endless train journey which took me from Eisenach to Berlin across a Thuringia and Saxony in ruins, I noticed, for the first time in I don’t know how long, that man whom I call my double, to simplify matters, or else my twin, or again and less theatrically, the traveler. (1)

Near the end of the prologue, the narrator takes a white sheet of paper, and “in tiny script without making any mistakes, [begins] to write [his] narrative without a single hesitation” (19). What he begins to write is the beginning of the prologue quoted above. Such an obvious repetition locates the compulsion of presenting and re-presenting at the heart of the novel. What propels the incessant re-invention of the story could justly be called the textual unconscious. In Robbe-Grillet’s work, the text itself seems to dream, fantasize, revise, and forget endlessly. Recollection, or the verifiable representation of memories, is rendered pointless in a narrative made up of ever-changing accounts of past events. Like The Erasers, Repetition has many allusions to Oedipus. When the protagonist, Henri Robin, enters the ruined post-war Berlin, his flashbacks begin and he vaguely remembers visiting the city in his childhood with his mother. The ruins of the city remind him of “some now vanished ancient city, Hierapolis, Thebes, or Corinth” (14). It is hinted that the protagonist probably killed his father and was seduced by his mother. The novel explicitly alludes to the myth by calling the victim’s second wife Jöelle Kast, and thus echoes the name of Oedipus’ mother: Jocasta. Later in the novel, Henri Robin becomes sexually engaged with Jöelle Kast. At the end, when he kills his father, Dany von Brücke, Henri Robin is suffering from bad eyesight and this is a reference to Oedipus who blinds himself after he recognizes himself as a patricide. As Ben Stoltzfus notes, Robbe-Grillet sees myth as a way of endlessly recreating texts (130). By drawing attention to the usage of time, he compares myth to Robbe-Grillet’s novels. He writes, Time in myth, as well as in Robbe-Grillet’s works, is irreversible, nonlinear, and nonsequential. Myth, like Robbe-Grillet’s narratives, is essentially repetitive, returning again and again to the same points instead of getting on with the story. Thus, myth and narrative resist linear reading, both exhibiting a timeless structure, impressing it on the minds of the audience by repeating elements of that structure. The timeless, circular pattern of Robbe-Grillet’s fiction is thus mythical, imposing levels of meaning that are always more than purely verbal or linguistic. (130)

It is as if the narration, the characterization, and the plot are systems that are under the threat of a closure that, through repetition, Robbe-Grillet wishes to

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eliminate. In this way, nothing ends, everything begins afresh. In a lecture, Robbe-Grillet says: “The stories we tell, from civilization to civilization, are the same. Only their forms change . . . Writing is re-writing” (Ramsay 244). Robbe-Grillet himself says that the concept of repetition he employs in his works may have been inspired by the work of Kierkegaard. In an interview with Thomas McGonigle (http://www.bookforum.com/archive/ spr_03/interview_gril.html), Robbe-Grillet explains: If you are going to read Repetition, you have to have philosophical training, and it would help to know Kierkegaard. And I’m perfectly aware of the fact that readers without that education can also read it on another level, but my books are especially approachable by people who have some philosophical background.

Another reference appears in the epigraph to the novel Repetition. Robbe-Grillet quotes from Kierkegaard’s book, Repetition: “Repetition and recollection are the same movement, only in opposite directions, for what is recollected has been: it is repeated backward, whereas repetition properly so-called is recollected forward.” Robbe-Grillet’s frequent usage of repetition in terms of the problem it poses for historicality, or the definition of the self either through its relation to the past or to the future, seems to be a philosophical inquiry into the meaning of repetition for the individual, his life, and his self. The question Eriksen asks regarding Kierkegaard’s category of repetition may also be asked for Robbe-Grillet: “What aspect of human existence is brought into light when we consider our relation to repetition?” (22). According to Eriksen, in an initial stage of the understanding of the meaning of Kierkegaardian repetition, “the present self is confronted with the past self, and the individual must recognize himself” (22). Robbe-Grillet’s approach to repetition and recollection subscribes to a Kierkegaardian agenda: that of problematizing temporality and historicality as the most important aspects of human existence. Robbe-Grillet’s characters often suffer not due to their vague memories and their futile attempts at recovering these memories but rather because of their failure to define themselves in their futurality. For instance, Djinn is a novel that examines historicality and the sense of self in relation to the past. Repetitions of past events confuse characters as they sense an undefined connection to the past; they are at a loss since proper recollection is systematically interrupted by repetition. The lack of openness to the future, or the haste to understand oneself in relation to the past rather than the future, becomes a problem. Alain Robbe-Grillet’s second published novel, The Voyeur (1955), is widely accepted to be the best work of the nouveau-romancier. In The Voyeur, the obsessively repetitive narrative reveals the schizophrenia of the protagonist,

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Mathias, and displays how he is haunted by the memories of his crime. With every piece of memory Matthias remembers regarding the crime, the present becomes an atemporal opening between the past, the present, and the future. When Mathias either literally or hypothetically re-enacts his memories, these repetitions turn the present into a replica of the past as well as becoming an anticipation of, perhaps a model for, future repetitions. In the process of this remembering and repeating, the narrative portrays Mathias, “shift[ing] between reality and phantasm” (Morrissey 89). In The Voyeur, the repetitive accounts of young girls in vulnerable positions reflect Mathias’s obsession with the image of a young girl who seems to be a captive, bound to a pillar with legs apart and hands tied. Halfway through the novel, when the naked and tortured body of a young girl is found drowned in the sea, Mathias, and the text, have already rehearsed various versions of such an event. “Fragments of this event [the murder] are relived indistinguishably in memory, delirium, and imagination in the text” (Ramsay 9). Yet, each reliving of the crime or each re-presentation of the vulnerable victim have “multiple and contradictory versions [and] there is no way of knowing, or differentiating between unconscious phantasy, daydream, and reality” (10). In The Voyeur, The Erasers, and Repetition, protagonists go on “an inner journey through obsession and memory” (Chadwick 3). This journey becomes circular with the past the protagonists unconsciously repeat. Stoltzfus’s words support the repetition-as-beginning quality of such Robbe-Grilletian repetition: “[His] need to repeat rather than simply remember . . . illustrates the need to reproduce and work through events from the past as if they were present” (qtd. in Chadwick 27). This argument can be seen as a variation of the distinction Kierkegaard makes between recollection and repetition in his Repetition. Recollecting memories entails living in the past, as in the case of the Young Man’s recollection of his memories of his lover. Repetition, however, as Constantin Constantius tries to achieve, offers the possibility of re-living the future in the present. Djinn (1981) the tenth novel of Robbe-Grillet, questions the possibility of a “for the first time” (Djinn 104) in a maze of recollections and repetitions. The novel has eight chapters, a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue informs us that the ensuing chapters are written by Simon Lecoeur and the manuscript of ninety-nine pages was found at his house after he disappeared. Beginning with chapter one until halfway through chapter six, a narrator who calls himself Boris (revealed as an alias of Simon Lecoeur in the prologue) tells his story. Responding to an ad, he goes to a hangar for an interview with a Monsieur Djinn. Djinn turns out to be an androgynous American woman who, in passing, instructs Boris that her name, Jean, is pronounced as Djinn. She informs Boris of the mission he will be assigned in the political organization he has now

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joined. He is assigned to spot a traveler due to arrive from Amsterdam by train at 7.12 p.m. Yet, he fails his first mission because on his way to the train station, he helps a child who has fainted in the street. The child, a boy named Jean, has a sister, Marie. Boris receives a letter from Marie about his next mission. Both Marie and the letter address Boris as Simon Lecoeur and Boris understands that his alias is known by the organization. Boris reads the letter, which is “signed by ‘Jean’, that is to say Djinn, without any possible error” and learns that his assignments will be passed on to him by the children (38). They go a restaurant together where Boris sees for the first time the photograph of a dead sailor, which will be viewed and talked about throughout the novel. Marie informs Boris that the photograph belongs to a waiter who has served them and that the waiter is the ghost of the sailor, long dead, returning to the café where he used to work between jobs. At the end of the chapter, Boris faints and the next chapter describes him waking up next morning with partial amnesia. In chapter six, a third person narrator talks about Simon Lecoeur (Boris) and the first mission given to him. The narrator describes Simon’s disordered memory and the novel, from this point on, begins to repeat the events that have taken place until then. About the mission to catch the traveler in the Amsterdam train, the narrator explains: “Simon Lecoeur felt, in some confused way, that all this business of the railroad station, a traveler he was supposed not to miss, was out of date: this future already belonged to the past. Something was scrambling space and time” (73). As the novel repeats, it also problematizes recollection. The narrator reports that Simon remembers noticing the unconscious boy he helped on the street and attending a meeting with the boy, but adds that Simon cannot locate his memories in time and space. About these memories of Simon, the narrator says, “Simon did not know whether he should grant them the status of recollections” (74). He soon begins to repeat everything he had done until chapter six. These repetitions act as repetition-as-beginning both for Simon and the reader. In the last three pages of this chapter, Simon takes over the narrative once more. In chapter seven, Simon repeats the events of chapter one. He reveals the self-reflexivity of the narrative while remaining unconscious of it: like . . . in a dream, repetitive and full of anguish, with convolutions from which I could not manage to free myself . . . The long, deserted street, stretching in front of me, reminds me of something, the origin of which I could not determine: I only have the feeling of a place where I would already have come, recently, once at least, several times perhaps . . . (91)

Simon’s meditation on memory turns into a Kierkegaardian inquiry: All of this then would have taken place already, previously, once at least. This situation, however exceptional, that I confront here, would only be the reproduction of a previous adventure, exactly identical, one of whose events I myself would have lived, and in which I play the same part . . . But when? And where? (92)

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Simon concludes that he is experiencing the “memory of the future”. He goes on, changing his mind, hinting at a Kierkegaardian instant: It might instead be, in fact, an instantaneous memory: we believe that what is happening to us has already happened before, as though the present time were splitting into two, breaking in its own midst into two parts: an immediate reality, plus a ghost of that reality. (92)

The rest of the novel continues to repeat previous events, followed by Simon’s attempts at finding the origin of the memories he feels he is repeating. However, the narrative turns backward once more, in an even more puzzling repetition, in chapter eight. This time, the narrator is a woman, most probably Djinn. She tells the same story Simon has told from her own point of view. Her application for the ad, going to a hangar, meeting Simon Lecoeur are details that match Simon’s narrative. But most importantly, she suffers from the same memory problem Simon does after fainting and waking the next morning. In her attempts to remember, she begins to re-tell what she told at the beginning of her account as the last chapter closes. The epilogue comments on the shifts of narrative points of view, the repetitions, and claims that the book so far (except the prologue and the epilogue) has been written by Simon, or Ján—the alias given to him by the agent(s) of the secret organization who seem(s) to have written the epilogue and the prologue. In Djinn, Robbe-Grillet’s raising of the question of the possibility of Kierkegaardian repetition is a variation of Constantius’s description of the failure to repeat. Both texts open up a space where repetition could take place, but does not. Repeating a beginning is not repetition-as-beginning, since it is not a beginning in the first place. Vincent A. McCarthy challenges the logic of such impossibility: “One can only do something for the first time once. To do it again may repeat the externals of the fact, but its newness cannot be repeated. Doing the same thing for the second time is, paradoxically, its own first time and so on, ad infinitum.” (qtd. in Perkins 271). Rather than argue the inevitability of the Kierkegaardian repetition-as-beginning, this quote indicates the splitting of repetition into failure-to-begin and new-beginningas-repetition. Repetition, therefore, in Kierkegaard and Robbe-Grillet, always means repetition-as-beginning and repetition-as-difference, and as such, keeps open the possibility of failed repetition. In other words, in Kierkegaard and Robbe-Grillet, the singularity of repetition-as-beginning is not bound by any protocol regarding firstness and secondness. It is un(ac)countable. In the Kierkegaardian instant, as it is deployed in Robbe-Grillet, the repetition of past events is not so much recollection as it is re-enactment. What makes such re-enactment repetition and not recollection is that in Robbe-Grillet, the events, although they have a prior, a “before”, are experienced and presented as beginning. The instant is the rupture or the event through which presence opens

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in repetition. In repetition, consciousness “undergoes itself or finds itself passively related to itself” (89). In other words, in repetition, consciousness allows itself to become anew, lets itself absorb, or embody that otherness called repetition. If repetition succeeds, consciousness will have begun again, or will have restarted. What repetition signifies in both Kierkegaard and Robbe-Grillet is thus that “if there is repetition, it would not, in all strictness, be a matter of return, but rather departure” (44), a boundary-seeking, boundary-crossing operation, in search of an identity to come, and an impossible closure. Repetition, as difference, as beginning, as the Kierkegaardian instant, and as Robbe-Grillet-like indeterminacy, is nothing but a radical openness toward the future, toward the Other. Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkey BIBLIOGRAPHY Chadwick, T. and V. Harger-Grinling eds. Robbe-Grillet and the Fantastic London: Greenwood, 1994. Eriksen, N.N. Kierkegaard’s Category of Repetition Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000. Kangas, D.J. Kierkegaard’s Instant Indianapolis: Indiana, 2007. Kierkegaard, S. Trans. H.V. Hong and E.V. Hong. Fear and Trembling and Repetition Princetown: Princetown UP, 1983. Mazur, K. Poetry and Repetition: Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, John Ashberry New York: Routledge, 2005. Morrisette, B. The Novels of Robbe-Grillet New York: Cornell UP, 1963. Perkins, R.L. ed. International Kierkegaard Commentary, “Fear and Trembling” and “Repetition” Georgia: Mercer UP, 1993. Ramsay, R. Robbe-Grillet and Modernity: Science, Sexuality & Modernity Florida: U of Florida P, 1992. Robbe-Grillet, A. The Voyeur New York: Grove, 1958. Robbe-Grillet, A. The Erasers New York: Grove, 1964. Robbe-Grillet, A. Djinn New York: Grove, 1982. Robbe-Grillet, A. Repetition New York: Grove, 2001. Smith, R.C. Understanding Alain Robbe-Grillet South Carolina: U South Carolina P, 2000. Stoltzfus, B. Alain Robbe-Grillet: The Body of the Text Toronto: Associated University Press, 1985.

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N OT I O N O F F O R G E T T I N G A N D R E M E M B E R I N G I N P I R A N E S I : F I R E P L AC E A S T H E S E T T I N G O F A D I O N Y S I A N P L AY

Authors and persons mentioned; Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Joseph Rykwert Thus only through the power of employing the past for the purposes of life and of again introducing into history that which has been done and gone, did man become man; but with an excess of history man again ceases to exist and without that envelope of the unhistorical he would never have begun or dared to begin. Nietzsche1

ABSTRACT

“Continuing dreaming knowing that you are dreaming” while holding on to the “weak thought” in order not to lose the horizon for a meaningful human action; maybe this is the only path we can follow to find Giovanni Battista Piranesi staring at us from his imaginary world. In the threshold of the epistemological split, the mysterious dimension of the world became the only space, where an architect could act poetically. At this point, “how did the true world finally became a fable?” How did Piranesi create his “fictionalized experience of reality”2 to open a way for aletheia by opposing the ideal of an objectified truth? How did he communicate with the ancient times within an excess of history? These questions become crucial when we place Piranesi on the edge of an era whose grounds are shifting towards the age of reason. In order to be able to understand Piranesi, we have to interpret, which ideas constituted his reactionary and avant-garde position in his time. Piranesi stands as a dreamer, who was not naïve about the realities of the world. He engaged himself with the “disclosedness of beings”, not to lose himself in them, but rather as Heidegger denotes “such engagement withdraws in the face of beings in order that they might reveal themselves with respect to what and how they are, and in order that presentative correspondence might take its standard from them.”3 119 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 119–132. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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Piranesi, who was aware in his time that geometric perspective could not reveal and capture human reality, which also exists at a symbolic level, created his own fantastic architecture. In Prima Parte, he emphasized how perspective had contributed to all of his drawings, as he wanted some parts seen before others. For Piranesi, following the footsteps of the great master of architecture Vitruvius, “perspective was necessary to the architect.”4 Anyone, who did not see the use and value of it in architecture did not know the source of the greatest and the most important beauty. Sergei Eisenstein in his article entitled “Piranesi or the Fluidity of Forms”5 associated Piranesi’s drawings with the montage in film. As Alberto Pérez-Gómez emphasizes “the concept of theatrical space as the space of architecture coincided with architects’ growing realization that meaning itself might be a matter of convention, rather than being guaranteed by nature . . . During the eighteenth century this emerging consciousness resulted in deliberate application of montage in works by Piranesi . . . prophetic of surrealist juxtapositions and cubist deconstructions of Euclidean space”6 Changing viewpoints assembled as if in a filmic montage while the narrative of wandering figures becomes the hinge that holds them together. The joints between stories of diverse times and manners create a fragmented yet poetically articulated view. The beauty that he defined was the source of pleasure and imagination. However, pleasure does not derive from the prettiness of the object, but from the wonder and the terror that it arouses. The horizon that he created in his Views of Rome(Vedute di Roma), opens up, pauses, stops and reopens again in a nonlinear time and space like in a surrealist poem. As the eye wanders, different thresholds appear, but they disappear at the same time by becoming inaccessible. The changing perspectives and hidden dimensions had the potential to create the heterogeneous space of participation. The only way to enter the enigmatic depth is through imagination, that turns the experience into an ongoing event. During the visual experience of the work that evokes a tactility, one finds associations between what seems to belong to distant times and what is out there in the realm of lived experience in a given historical time and space. Piranesi believed that imaginative drawings are also architecture, which has the potential to bring forth a poetic dimension that cannot be represented by rational systems. It was a critical stance against built projects and systematized drawings. Still, his drawings are strongly connected with the life that they stem from. Neither were they the dead domains of idols that are copied from ancient monuments. It was never the abstract space of a frozen time for Piranesi. Nevertheless, his world was historically constructed. The intention was never an issue of polarization between reality and dreams, the past and the

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present or death and life. The past is recreated by attempting to evoke a bodily memory for participation; a disturbance felt through the unknown resulting from the weakening of the absolute and a wonder resulting from the merging of the past with the present by blurring the boundaries. “Forgetting and remembering” during the creative act opened the ground for human action to emerge. The excess of artifacts were interpreted in his mind’s eye by transforming into poetic elements of his works. His interpretation of ancient eras stemmed from the enigmatic gap sustaining between the past, what cannot be fully known and the present, what is experienced but cannot be represented exactly, as it is also absent at the same time. As Alberto Pérez-Gómez emphasizes “The fragment, a symbolon, evokes a missing whole and an object of desire that is both present and absent.”7

P I R A N E S I ’ S H I S T O R I C A L PAT H

The oscillation between the past and the present, in other terms within history is an ongoing event that establishes the foundation for a meaningful human action and understanding of the world. The in-between space between diverse times is also the invisible hinge binding stories within a dialogue, in which human meaning settles. Consequently, the void caught between forgetting and remembering was where the imagination grew. It is in this depth of darkness, mystery that Piranesi placed his imaginary world, which is also the ground for the future to emerge. As Vattimo argues, “Modernization does not come about as tradition is abandoned, but as it is interpreted almost ironically distorted in such a way that it is conserved, but also in part emptied.”8 The inquiries of human existence within recreated historical narratives in etchings were never fulfilled, but always preserved the enigma of meaning in life. At this instance of impenetrability, forgetting becomes a way of accepting human mortality. It is an end that freezes the time by erasing the remembrances, but at the same time a new beginning emerges by a counter attack against this frozen time through remembering and creativity. Accepting history as the eternal and ideal is weakened by the awareness of human temporality and one’s historical position in life. History was never a mere collection of ancient times for Piranesi. Narratives deriving from his encounter with antiquity in archeological sites established the historical paths that he followed for his fictitious architecture. It had never been a polemic of whether Greek or Roman architecture is superior while comparing their diverse manners. He criticized the approaches to Greek architecture in a period, when instrumental tendencies started to become a dominant issue in architectural theory. Theories that put forward Greek orders as rational,

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unchanging facts by taking them out of their contexts and symbolic dimensions through clarified and homogenized drawings were his main target. Rykwert denotes that “Piranesi’s view of the Magnificence of the Romans, although concerned primarily with architecture, does not profess to give the reader any normative guidance: on the contrary, from the outset, it concentrates on the particular example, on the eccentric capital, on the extravagant molding. But throughout his work, it is the tangible object, the antiquity-object as against the antiquity-idea, which dominates the author’s and the reader’s vision.”9 However, considering his understanding that the architectural elements that were categorized later in modern times under titles were never perceived so by Romans, an antique object is also an antique idea for Piranesi. A capital existed within its symbolic significance in relation to the whole, not merely as a functional element. What it symbolized is radically transformed, but not as a formal game of objects. On the contrary, the creative act of assembling historical artifacts in a modern context is Piranesi’s way of expressing his desire for a new human order. On the one hand, artifacts reappear in a different formation as the outcome of the search for a new meaning, while on the other hand they become the framework for other possible interpretations. POLEMICAL WORKS

Piranesi’s first polemical work, Magnificence of the Romans (Della Magnificenza ed Archittetura de’ Romani) appeared in 1761. In his text, Piranesi defended Rome on the basis of Etruscan originality. He attacked Le Roy and Laugier due to their rationalized theories on Greek architecture. For Piranesi, the mysterious realms that Roman architecture opens in front of him was the proof of its originality and imaginative power. The collector, PierreJean Mariette criticized the arguments in Magnificence of the Romans in 1764 through a letter. In his text, Observations on the Letter of Monsieur Mariette (The Osservazioni de Gio. Battista Piranesi sopra la Lettre de M. Mariette) of 1765, Piranesi argued Mariette’s accusations by quoting his words and answering them simultaneously. At a time when cultural originality was a leading debate, it was the writings of Giambattista Vico, who was already familiar to Piranesi from Lodoli’s circle that made the argument for the indigenous roots of Roman civilization, as derived from the Etruscans. The Roman, Etruscan and Egyptian link was established by Carlo Lodoli, of whom he was once a student. Rykwert denotes that his professional training began in the studio of his mother’s brother, Matteo Lucchesi, an independent architect in Venice and in the Veneto. Through his uncle’s intellectual circle he was introduced to the debate regarding the Etruscan roots of Italic culture as well as to the achievements of ancient

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Roman technology. He was accepted as “Lodoli’s most brilliant and influential disciple.”10 The title page of his Observations involved a motto, aut cum hoc aut in hoc (either with this or on this), which also appears in Giambattista Vico’s New Science. As Perez-Gomez argues Vico, a fundamental figure of his time, thought that “scientific reason was helping to purge the world out of a poetic dimension.”11 He called for “a historical rationality that could account for the disclosure of truths in the myths, art and poetry of world cultures.”12 As has been noted by architectural historians like Rykwert, it is likely that Piranesi was influenced by his ideas on history. However, Piranesi developed his ideas thoroughly in Opinions on Architecture; A Dialogue (Parere su L’architettura). The text focused on the tyranny of theory over the speculative processes of imagination. He, in the character of Didascalo, answers Protopiro, who directs him accusations about his works. F I R E P L A C E A S T H E D I O N Y S I A N S TA G E

This essay aims at interpreting Piranesi’s theory of fireplaces from a Nietzschean perspective. Piranesi’s final publication, Divers Manners of Ornamenting Chimneys and All Other Parts of Houses was published in 1769. His interpretation of fireplaces read closely by referring to his other writings may open a new way to enter his imaginary world and the polemics of his time. I will firstly evaluate his text in relation to his understanding of history that resonates Nietzsche’s concepts of forgetting and remembering, being historical and unhistorical at the same time for a new beginning to emerge. Piranesi places himself vis-à-vis history through the oscillation between forgetting and remembering. He intentionally dislocates himself and loses the ground within the excess of historical artifacts and spontaneously searches for his new horizon. It has been commonly emphasized that his texts aim at a polemic against Greek architecture. However, such an attitude can be seen as an attempt to create a dialogue between diverse manners by destroying one’s dominance over the other, in other terms, by weakening the generally accepted rational basis. In his On the Introduction and Progress of the Fine Arts, he puts forward his main purpose as, “to disabuse those in authority in arts, as well as the students whom they have started to lead astray, of their argument for believing that the Greeks were the inventors of everything.”13 For Piranesi, when every nation could gain its own authentic place in history, there would be no superior power to dominate the norms. The remains of Italy would be saved from being judged according to Greek architecture by obtaining its own value. Nevertheless, destroying the commonly accepted norms did not mean to act on a ground

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without any measure. He searched for a poetical order within excess without defining fixed norms that reduce the debates to the superiority of any nation. Such is an endeavor to set the measure for architecture poetically by allowing an open interpretation of history. Concurrently, while entering Piranesi’s world through inquiries on the spectator’s participation in the art work as play, my attempt will be to interpret his narrative underscoring the fireplace designs. His intention for creating chimney designs may be bound to the theatrical aspect of his settings that becomes obvious in his Views of Rome. The human figures in his etchings hint at his intention to merge the lived space with the historical artifacts. It may be seen as an attempt to establish associations between the seemingly remote times, with the hope of opening a new way for humanity within history. However, we must always keep in mind his “weak thought”, his awareness of the difficulty of making poetic meaning in an era, obsessed to define its origins and rules through scientific facts. It was an attempt, deriving not from empirical observations, but from an engagement with his surroundings through a political consciousness. HAPTIC EXPERIENCE

Piranesi’s imagination transformed what he experienced within his archeological milieu into stories envisioned in his mind’s eye. Mere appearances became the gates of perception for another world that is distant but still close through his corporeal memory. In Prima Parte, he wrote about emotions awakened in the archeological sites of Rome, “I will tell you only that these speaking ruins have filled my spirit with images that accurate drawings, even such as those of the immortal Palladio, could never have succeeded in conveying . . . Therefore, having the idea of presenting to the world some of these images, but hoping for an architect of these times who could effectively execute some of them . . . there seems to be no recourse than for me or some other modern architect to explain his ideas through his drawings . . . and so to take . . . architecture away from the abuse of those with the money, who make us believe that they themselves are able to control the execution of architecture.”14 Bodily engagement led Piranesi to see things within the framework of their own contexts. Each material talked to him through his tactile experience. This tactility becomes evident in his drawings of architectural elements. They are not geometrized by using strict drawing systems, but evoke the feeling of touch. His memory acts like a mnemonic by associating fragmented vestiges and reconstituting them. However, while he was imagining himself in the ancient times to get into their world, he did not envision himself as a heroic character in a heroic, idealized city. Furthermore, what he intended was neither

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a feeling of lost in ecstasy that paralyzed any participation in the creation of meaning or an escape to an idealized past. The present was always there. He was suspending his self-image, as a sacrifice to become the hermit, the messenger between the darkness and the light. V O I D F O R I M A G I N AT I O N

In the opening paragraph of his text on chimneys, Piranesi states that whether the ancients had chimneys or not might remain as an enigma although during his own experiences within ruins, he had not encountered any traces of chimneys in the manner of his own era. He continues by emphasizing his aim in his work; “I am ignorant whether others . . . have been more happy in this, but be it as it will . . . What I pretend by present designs is to show what use an able architect may make of the ancient monuments by properly adapting them to our manners and customs.”15 However, as his designs demonstrate, his endeavor was not functional by any means. He interpreted and transformed the historical artifacts, not to gain a practical use in the house, but to establish a ground for a theatrical play that mingles the ancient stories with the lived experiences of humans. The theatrical setting would also define the character of the house, its essence and place. His ignorance of whether chimneys could be found in the ancient architecture reveals his opposition for an absolute historical truth that should be copied. The sources might stay as an enigma, but this is not an obstacle for him to use the medals, cameos, intaglios, statues, paintings and such like remains of antiquity on chimneys. On the contrary, the void due to the absence of symbolic meaning, not knowing exactly what it was, how it existed by preserving the mystery could found the basis to create something new by harmonizing them in an “artful and masterly manner”. The impulse to play within the excess of historical vestiges bring forth other potential worlds into view. The rhythm captured in the instant of creation would open the way for new stories to emerge. It will start the chain of relations. The suspension of the historical awareness within excess, the moment of forgetting, led Piranesi to find his critical position in relation to history. EGYPTIAN CHARACTER

Piranesi denotes that it is hard to have a just idea about Egyptian architecture, as most of the vestiges were divinities or symbols. However, from what he saw through ornaments, they were never mere imitations of nature, but its modifications. They were reduced to artificial beauties to adapt to architecture.

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The lack of elasticity in statues was due to the gravity as the characteristic of Egyptian architecture rather than negligence. Piranesi saw the imitation of nature in Greek art as a deficiency. On the contrary, Egyptians modified and transformed what nature served as beautiful to them. But, why did Piranesi try to prove that the Egyptians also brought the statuary art to perfection and that they we are acquainted with an infinite number of ornaments proper to embellish architecture? How did he establish his narrative in reference to Egyptian artifacts? Within the excess of historical ruins and monuments, Piranesi followed his mind’s eye to identify a new tradition and give character to his works. One could place a fish on a chimney, but should not let it to cover the chimney as entirely to hide it or take away its character. For Piranesi “an architect might be as extravagant as he pleases, so he destroyed not architecture but give to every member its proper character.”16 The main concern for him was to make it appear like “a human body and not a block covered with drapery.” The architecture should frame the life situations without turning into a mask made of ornaments. It should mediate to reveal a deeper meaning, rather than veiling the emptiness by its embellishments. According to Piranesi, there was no reason to not suppose that ornaments were used on walls and vases. For him, whether the Egyptians had ornaments in their architecture was a mystery, as most of their buildings were damaged and destroyed. Only hieroglyphics and statues leaning against walls and columns could be seen in their architecture. One had to go to the primitive state to know the taste of that nation. Still, the capitals, obelisks, bases, lions, brought from Egypt to Rome survive as the proof of their rich ornaments. He questined, whether ornaments derived from the artists’ intention of representing a mystery, or from a desire to delight the eyes. Yet, his understanding of delight stems from what is fantastic, grotesque that becomes the source of fear. The poetic potential of harmonizing them would be shared by every human being, as long as they participate in the playful making. He explains why he used the Egyptian ornaments in his chimneys by stating that, “even the grotesk has its beauty, and gives pleasure . . . mankind is too fond of variety to be always pleased with the same decorations; we are alternately pleased with the gay and serious, and even with the pathetic, nay the horror of a battle has its beauty, and out of fear springs pleasure.”17 His words can assist us to understand the terror, the dark side in his drawings. His search within the territory of the unknown, his encounter with vague vestiges led him into an imaginary zone. Within this zone that preserved the hidden memories of the past and the mysteries of humanity, he encountered the deepest fears and hopes. The terror, which as Nietzsche writes, “seizes man when

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he is suddenly dumfounded by the cognitive phenomena because the principle of sufficient reason . . . seems to suffer an exception” is accompanied by the “blissful ecstasy that wells from the innermost depths of man . . . at this collapse of the principium individuationis, we steal a glimpse into the nature of Dionysian, which is brought home to us most intimately by the analogy of intoxication.”18 SEARCH FOR ORIGINS

Piranesi emphasized in all of his writings that his attempt was not to compare one manner to the other, Greek architecture to Roman Architecture or Etruscan Architecture, as each nation had its own customs and laws. However, he tried to find the origins of Roman architecture out of the Greek impact. Poetic creation was where they all met. The ornaments that needed “no good reason or law” was the melting point for diverse manners. Each nation was influenced from the other, but it was not through rational facts, which he saw as alien to architecture. While arguing ironically with Protopiro, who suggested to send all decoration, fillets, masks, heads of stags, oxen, labyrinth frets, the arabesques, the hippogriffs, the sphinxes, back to the realm of poetry, he stressed that “this would make all humans live in rational huts.”19 NOTION OF NEW FOR PIRANESI

For Piranesi, new forms could not be created by changing proportions of building parts or by changing their orders. Neither could a new order be created by putting new ornaments on the capitals and on the other parts of the building. There were only three manners in architecture; one composed of columns, one composed of pilasters and one composed of walls. The variations in proportions were imperceptible by the eyes. The only way to create something new was through ornaments by reconciling them with architecture in a rhythm. Although he denotes that who invented the orders is impossible to determine, Piranesi shares Villalpando’s ideas on the source of composite order as the Temple of Solomon. He also asserts that “besides Corinthian order, Doric and Ionic orders were also taken from the temple, which had capitals resembling what Greeks called Corinthian, two hundred years before the foundation of Rome.”20 Greeks took those orders from them and communicated them to other nations. Piranesi’s political stance in his milieu, can be grasped from his sentences profoundly. For Piranesi, the Romans and Tuscan were at first one and the same, however the Romans learned architecture from the Tuscans. They afterwards adopted the Grecian but it was not because the Tuscan was deficient

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either in parts, ornaments, or beauty. “Novelty and merit rendered agreeable certain elegances and graces peculiar to the Greeks as each nation has its own. The Tuscan and Grecian were mixed together, the graces and the beauties of the one became common to the other, and the Romans found the means to unite them both in one and the same work.”21 This attitude was what he intended to do in his chimneys. They represented no specific manner, but harmonized the ornaments with diverse manners, to create a new opening for imagination within the space of house, the new realm of lived experience.

VESTIGES REVISITED IN CHIMNEYS

Piranesi argued that multiplicity of ornament was never an enigma to the eyes as Montesquieu claimed, but it was a pleasing disposition of things, like in music, when artfully used. In Opinions on Architecture, Piranesi asked, “Why has no one ever thought to blame poets for the imaginary buildings that they enrich with ornaments far more irrational and eccentric than those employed by architects? . . . Is it perhaps because imagination does not cause us to see as much as the eye reveals to us?”22 His answer may lead us to his understanding of architecture as poetry and his attempt to visualize the poem in his mind’s eye, through his drawings. All the “productions of poetic imagination” like griffins, centaurs, Hippogryfs, Syrens, chimeras are adapted by the artist as ornaments that intensify the gravity of architecture. They create a different poetic dimension, that in no way fit to any reason. In his argument with Protopiro, Piranesi in the character of Didascalo says, “You are the sophist, you who impose on architecture rules that it has never possessed. What will you say, if I prove to you that austerity, reason and imitation of huts are all incompatible with architecture; that architecture far from requiring decorative features derived from the parts necessary for constructing and holding up a building, consists of ornaments that are all extraneous?”23 Variety of degrees come together so that some parts appear principal and others serve to accompany the first. According to Piranesi determining the bounds that the variety of ornaments ought to be confined was a more difficult task than the critics thought. What offended the eye was not the variety of ornaments but the bad disposition of them in the artwork. One could never determine limits according to the quantity and number. Quality of a work was what mattered when an artist had to decide for its use. He calls the artist a “creating Genius”, who never copies, but transforms the historical artifacts. Decorations should be graded as things in nature; some being more imposing and dignified than others. In such art, as in nature, the eyes will not see

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confusion but a beautiful and pleasing arrangement of things; “. . . if the ornaments used in architecture are beautiful in themselves, then the architecture also be beautiful.”24 As Vattimo denotes, art represents the play of excess as “the excess of play surpasses all necessity and utility.”25 Piranesi returns to the history by arguing, how the uniformity of character and style was demolished by the bad “taste” through losing the sight of the ancients. The sameness in doors, windows and chimneys, the separation between the external and internal design resulted in architecture that could hardly reach the level of the ancients. Imitation was never understood as copying what was achieved in the past. He searched to invent something new, without copying the “magnificence of the ancients”, but by following their approaches in the “admiration of the universe”. T H E H O U S E A S T H E S PA C E O F D W E L L I N G

Interpreting the chimneys that resembled the doors and porticos in houses, Piranesi stated that chimneys form a particular class in architecture alone with their own particular laws, proprieties, and embellishments suitable for small architecture. He uses the world small architecture for the inside of the house. Here, the idea of house never indicates a functional purpose. The theatrical setting of the house emerges as the mediator between the character of space and inhabitants. The link founded during the life situations taking place in a particular setting is the essential basis for human dwelling. The associative links that bind the present and the past make the place recognizable, yet it remains at the same time unconquerable by preserving the critical distance. The setting of chimneys represent a time out of the linear time by giving the illusion of framing a play in which diverse periods of history are juxtaposed without any apparent order. Piranesi writes, “. . . since Varro speaking of the buildings and furniture in general says that in them we not only seek to provide for our necessities, but also to find in them pleasure and enjoyment; Hence it is that in dress we not only seek, to be defended from cold, but also to make a decent appearance, and we will not only have houses for our security and to cover us, but likewise to dwell in with pleasure . . .”26 PHENOMENOLOGY OF STONE AND FIRE

In his writings, Piranesi argued about the stone basis of Etruscan architecture in relation to Greek and Roman architecture and stressed that Romans leant to use stone from Etruscans. Although Piranesi does not refer much to the material aspects of architecture, it is an idea that is underlining all of his drawings and

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writings in a poetical sense. He was most likely aware of Lodoli’s notion on the phenomenological essence of materials. Lodoli’s ideas on the indole of the material can be sensed in his drawings, which are engraved in the same way as stone, by recalling a bodily memory, intensified with tactility. Each material had its essence related with the feelings that it evokes. In Piranesi’s drawings the materials become alive. They carry the traces of time and decadence. Nature fusing with vestiges becomes timeless at a point. The suspended moment waits in a tension deriving from the impact of the highly carved stones. The fragmented views touch each other at the edges by dissolving into one another. In chimney designs, the ornaments are treated like living figures, given life through the tactility of material. They fuse into each other, by arousing curiosity for their stories. Although the chimneys seem horizontally symmetrical, Piranesi played with the expressions of figures and their positions to intensify the theatrical impact of framing a ritual; the ritual of fire as the symbol of “alchemical process”. Fire transforms the being through its warmth, light and movement. It leads to a trance-like state that awakens the imagination. The darkness deepening behind, conceals the myths that it accompanied within history. The abyss-like space becomes an opening to the underworld of death. R I T U A L O F F I R E I N T H E S PA C E O F H O M E

Since the ancient times, fire has been associated with rituals. While festivals and ceremonies were social events that founded the collective memory of a culture, the newly emerging idea of house as the realm of pleasure led to a different relation with space. Fireplaces can be associated with the hearth of the house that conceals and reveals hidden memories and dreams. It is only accessible to imagination. It demands an active participation, even a sacrifice of self-consciousness to share its mystery. The long hours of sitting or dancing in front of fire within different settings in history hint at shared human experience. Vico’s notion indicating that “humans know what they make by hand”, becomes explicit as the basis of the feeling of touch. “The eye of the skin” mediates between human beings and the lived world of artifacts. Piranesi was self-conscious in his time that what is perceived within life could never be reduced to a Cartesian time and space through representations. His drawings resist the abstract realms of cities, houses that are detached from their context. His ideas should be understood in relation to the history of representation that witnessed a fundamental transformation in the eighteenth century by the emergence of scientifically systematized drawings. At the threshold of the eighteenth century, the loss of the symbolic meaning in the world transformed

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radically the means that architects used for representation. Piranesi can be seen as one of the first modern architects who was aware of this transformation and who acted critically by creating his own radical discourse through etchings. He understood the subject and object relation not as a fixed condition but as an ever changing situation. The ornaments of the ancient times were interpreted in his drawings by engendering a new relation between the spectator and the artwork. In his Opinions on Architecture, Piranesi writes, “. . . a confused poem achieves nothing but mental confusion, whereas a building laden with ornament is a thing that has been popular for centuries . . . believe me, buildings are made to please the public, not the critics . . . a work rich in ornament has given delight and still gives delight to the greater part of humanity . . . follow this old one, Lúso fa legge (use makes law).”27 The use, in poetic terms, is what a work of art evokes in the spectator, how it opens the world and discloses its becoming through encounters. Through this engagement only could art become significant for human beings.

T H E PA S S E N G E R , T H E N T H E M E S S E N G E R ; O N C E T H E H E R M I T

Following the unmediated experience of ruins within an excess of history, embracing the undiscovered territories, our path arrives at the point, where we face Piranesi as the traveler on the road. The endless odyssey dislocates him restlessly. The delayed moment of remembering, suspends with the hope of releasing from the pressure of history. The excess intoxicates, while leading to forgetting. Vestiges turn into dancing figures of a tragedy. The eye of the skin follows traces. Body meets the mind. We encounter a dream within a dream. Hermit gives the light back to the underworld, and then leaves the world in darkness. The story starts again, with a new hope. The passion of creativity, the desire to represent an alternative world meet by engendering works that attempt to reconstitute the lost horizon in history, while the passenger continues dreaming knowing that one is dreaming. McGill University, QC, Canada NOTES 1 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, On the advantage and disadvantage of history for life, translated, with an introd., by Peter Preuss (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 1980.), p. 57. 2 Gianni Vattimo, The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Post-modern Culture, trans. Jon R. Snyder (Cambridge: Polity, 1988). 3 Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 125.

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4 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “Prima Parte”, in Giovanni Battista Piranesi drawings and etchings at Columbia University; an exhibition at Low Memorial Library, (New York: Avery Library, 1972), p. 118. 5 Sergei Eisenstein, “Piranesi or the Fluidity of Forms” in, The sphere and the Labyrinth: AvantGardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s., ed. Manfredo Tafuri (Massachuetts: MIT Press, 1987) 6 Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Louise Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge (Massachusetts: The MIT Press,1997), pp. 76–77. 7 Alberto Pérez Gómez, Built upon love: architectural longing after ethics and aesthetics (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, c2006), p.88. 8 Gianni Vattimo, The transparent society (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 41. 9 Joseph Rykwert, The First Moderns; The Architects of the Eighteenth Century, (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1980), p. 364. 10 Joseph Rykwert, ibid., pp. 315–317. 11 Pérez Gomez, ibid., pp. 88–89 12 Ibid. 13 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “Prima Parte”, ibid., p. 118. 14 Ibid. 15 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “Diverse Manners of Ornamenting Chimneys”, in The Polemical Works, ed. John Wilton-Ely, (England: Gregg International Publishers Limited, 1972), pp. 1–2. 16 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “Diverse Manners of Ornamenting Chimneys”, ibid., pp. 2–3. 17 Ibid., p. 10. 18 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, and The Case of Wagner, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1967), p. 36. 19 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Observations on the Letter of Monsieur Mariette with Opinions on Architecture, and a Preface to a New Treatise on the Introduction and Progress of the Fine Arts in Europe in Ancient Times, trans. Cc. Beamish and D. Britt(Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute Publications, 2002), p. 103. 20 , Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “Diverse Manners of Ornamenting Chimneys”, ibid., p. 28. 21 Ibid., p. 15. 22 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Observations on the Letter of Monsieur Mariette with Opinions on Architecture, and a Preface to a New Treatise on the Introduction and Progress of the Fine Arts in Europe in Ancient Times, ibid., pp. 111–112. 23 Ibid., p. 104. 24 Ibid., p. 113. 25 Gianni Vattimo, Dialogue with Nietzsche (New York: Columbia University Press, c2006). 26 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “Diverse Manners of Ornamenting Chimneys”, ibid., p. 6. 27 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Observations on the Letter of Monsieur Mariette with Opinions on Architecture, and a Preface to a New Treatise on the Introduction and Progress of the Fine Arts in Europe in Ancient Times, ibid., p. 102.

C E Z A RY J Ó Z E F O L B RO M S K I

T H E C AT E G O RY O F T H E “ N O W ” I N H U S S E R L I A N P H E N O M E N O L O G Y O F T I M E — P O L E M I C AG A I N S T DERRIDEAN ANTI-PRESENTIALISM

The concept of time, in all its aspects, belongs to metaphysics, and it names the domination of presence. Therefore we can only conclude that the entire system of the metaphysical concepts, throughout its history, develops so-called ‘vulgarity’ of the concept of time [. . .], but also that an other concept of time cannot be opposed to it, since time in general belongs to metaphysics’ conceptuality. (Derrida 1982: 63)

I

In the introduction of The Problem of Genesis in Husserl’s Philosophy Derrida considers this very problem: Without recourse to an already constituted logic, how will the temporality and subjectivity of transcendental lieved experience engender and found objective and universal eidetic structures? (Derrida 2003: 2).

Eidetic reduction and transcendental reduction lead us to suspension of our knowledge about facts. This suspension leads us to define internal consciousness of time on eidetic level. Thus, the temporality is a point of the phenomenological arrival. There are phenomenological rudiments. Derrida argues that phenomenology of time ought to stay on non-temporal level in its attempts of taking up temporality—probably against Husserl’s intentions for whom phenomenology is the dialectics of temporal “moments” between phenomenology and ontology. According to Derrida, the Husserlian phenomenology is reduced to dialectical depiction of temporal “points” in its relation to phenomenological and ontological background. Husserl’s origin temporality a priori synthesises existence of time with constituted sense of time. In spate of calling to not very clearly given temporal considerations Husserl closes the problem of temporality because he reduces it to eidetic structuralization, he closes it because he points at non-temporality of this problem. In other words, one may call at the moment emblematical opinion of Derrida: Husserl is still a 133 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 133–139. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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prisoner of the classic tradition. This tradition reduces individual to isolated cases of the universal history of the universal conception of man. In this configuration temporality seems to be opposed as possible or actual eternity within periechon—in such container is included internal consciousness of time. II

We can consider the problem of actual phenomena (a subjective aspect) and a priori nature of consciousness (an objective aspect). In the first place Husserl tries to define general and preceding an experienceable—but not yet pre-predicative—way of Zeitigung: it can be called as temporality independent from consciousness. In inspired by Husserl’s phenomenology of time The Problem of Genesi . . . Derrida searches atemporal a priori founding phenomenology. But it does not mean a returning to substantial originality of subject in relation to consciousness. In other words, Derrida claims what is an origin is not substantial. Derrida’s pre-predicative absence—analysed in temporal context—becomes complicated in retentional-protentional context of category of the “now” and becomes complicated in atemporal infinity in Husserlian understanding. Prepredicative origin of Derrida’s philosophy differs from atemporal and limited to lebendige Gegenwart origin of Husserl’s phenomenology of time. Derrida’s temporality of origin discloses in simultaneousness of objective ontology and objective consciousness. Dialectics of conversion of subjectivity into temporality, which is present in Derridean philosophy, requires direct and original insight in difference. Dialectics of being and sense goes hand in hand with dialectics of being and time. The thing is that primary temporality of passive pre-constituted being is more important than immanent temporality of consciousness. That is, primary temporality of passive pre-constituded being is mixed with being and this temporality precedes every phenomenological temporality, which is a background of this pre-constituded being. III

Let’s consider the following question. Is ideal sphere—which is meaningly given by genetic interpretation we recognise as sphere of objective validity— temporal or atemporal? If it is temporal and original sphere, subjectivity can not be simultaneously constituted in the present. If it is temporal it is historical and psychological. In that case the constitution is reduced to formal norms. This kind of temporality in original sphere in Husserl’s Logische Untersuchungen and in Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft is more clearly showed than in Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins, in reply to this question appears uncontinuousness. It is a difference

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between objective and subjective temporality. Objective temporality depends on temporal constitution having place in individual (constitution) of time. This objective temporality can be accomplished when consciousness constitutes his/her beginning in temporal sense. An attempt at finding the beginning in opposite direction in relation to becoming in ontological sense out of necessity comes to grief. In other words, Husserlian lebendige Gegenwart—in contrast to Derrida’s dialectics of difference—is given originally and it is constitutive. From the beginning of his consideration on time, from Philosophie der Arithmetik, phenomenology of Husserl is testimony to search of non-secondary basis transcendental philosophy. Derrida changes this, Platonic in fact, method of philosophical investigation and he finds in dialectics of genesis. The “ineradicable” aporias of the transcendental Schein, which Derrida radicalises, shows that evidence is always given in person as something (cf. Lawlor 2002: 21). The opposition between transcendental and mundane, non-presence and presence is the non-arche and non-thelos origin. According to Lawlor, “the metaphysic of presence is a discourse that presupposes a sense of being, the sense as presence” (ibidem). This unfortunate anticipation in sphere of dialectics gives as the beginning without beginning; in other words it is a dogmatism of presence. A change of Husserlian ontic presence for the presence as origin is, in fact, only verbal transubstantiation. Derrida not only have to fall into temporal presence, but also he loses sight of self-evidence in time. Husserl transcendental method leads to language difficulties with expressing of self-evidence. Derrida being convinced of impossibility of self-evidence accepts method of dialectical and recurrent approach the self-evidence—in a sense ex definitione—walls selfevidence off, in other words Derrida, combines metaphysic of presence with the self-evidence by means of infinitely chain. One end of this chain spreads out in subjective evidence, the other one vanishes in quasi-sensitive and unfeasible self-evidence. Certainly, a difference between radical uncontinuity (and subjective retention) and objective time, which exists without any intervention of subject does not matter. Husserl distinguish between psychological as objective (sic!) and phenomenological understanding of time. This rudimentary, in fact, statement in the context of consideration about non-conditioned foundation of phenomenology can be surprised. But calling socially conditioned Waldenfels’ concept of Zwischenreich this statement is entirely clear (cf. Waldenfels 1971: passim). Is seems that the most important accusation towards Derridean metaphysic of presence is Derrida assumes the contamination of origin by empiricalness in dialectics mixing ontic continuity with temporal un-continuity. If Derrida treats the temporality as—activeness—derivative of intentionality and, at the same time, as—passiveness—subject of sensual perception, it falls in aporia. Every experience of the external world processes in internal stream of time consciousness, which has not beginning and the end. Derrida gets bogged

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down in details of time, it means that he loses the beginning and the end of retentional-protentional time. But to get bogged down in details and to know that there is no beginning and the end, these are two different matters. The same starting point—Husserl and Derrida consider in what way individual act of consciousness, so to say specificaling and limiting temporality, can be a grounds of depiction of infinity of time—leads to so much different results. Husserl in point of view of individual consciousness (late Husserl extends this schema to temporal horizon of the participation of latent monads, while Derrida writes: What does this flux of lived experience mean, taken in its infinite totality and nevertheless distinct from every piece of lived experience in particular? It cannot be lived as infinite. On the other hand, its infinity cannot be constituted from finite lived experience as such. (Derrida 2003: 95)

IV

Let’s watch the Husserlian senses of infinity. Husserlian phenomenology of internal time uses the term of infinity in at least threefold meaning. (1) According to Husserl infinity is an extension of the protentionality of the “now”. In this meaning infinity is a synonym of lack of knowledge about future events. Homogeneous tone or ticking of grandfather clock if finished, that is it can be separated in the retentional-protentional “now”, and simultaneously—this is why that it can be separated—this tone emphasises infinity which does not exits because on the basis of the tone, dependably, it can not be known what will be continued. This part of consideration can be characterised by term atemporal and unmeasurable infinity. (2) According to Husserl infinity is a fulfilment of the retentionality of the “now”. Constituted time is not an interval time. Retentionality is a total reflection about occurred in the finished past—because entirely in retentionality included. The things is not that the perspective of the past is described in term of remembering—remembering specifying the past does not possess characteristic of infinity. According to Husserl, latent monad becomes active monad. It can be interpreted in this way that he fixes temporal caesura, a “moment” adequate to (and in) time, in which accured this “transition” but—for the sake of the actual state of the monad (its having a gift for acts in the “now”)—it is necessary to the past. Similarly with infinity of the “past”, which has a border called the “now”. Consciousness in the “now” of the act is a non-thematic consciousness of infinity of monads. (3) According to Husserl infinity is (in) the “now”. The “now” is not a moment but a lack of time. In that sense the “now” is infinitive as atemporal. Like

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phenomenological time does not have a temporal value, which can be used in physical calculations infinity is not temporal infinity. What is in time is subjected to time, what is equipped with the change and aftermath being a basis of constitution of immanent time. The misunderstanding depends on Derridean accusation. He claims that by means of temporal categories Husserl tries to define phenomenology of time. Derrida leads his own argument in the same way and he treats infinity as temporal. “The ‘now’ ”—“no longer the ‘now’ ”—“not yet the ‘now’ ”, there are three fundamental modi of phenomenological time. The “now” is the punctually inexpressible modi of time; the “now” is additionally specified in retentionalprotentional context. According to Husserl retention and protention have not any temporal extension recognition of cardinal importance of the “now” seems obvious. Thereby self-identification of the consciousness is origin experience of the flow, in which takes place retentional fall into the past, well, the category of the “now” is not only the praimpresion but includes individual and actual interests of subject—narrowed horizon of experiences down by lebendige Gegenwart (cf. Husserl 1973: 174; Waldenfels 1971: 149–151, 204–205). In this context lebendige Gegenwart is the temporal present of the “now”— lebendige Gegenwart expressed as invariability. The “now” as non-refletive given is anonymous. Anonymity of the “now” is identical with impossibility associating with specific temporal “place” of the “now” in time. The “now” is universal, the “now” is always. Derrida in opposition to Husserl makes his problem: the constitution of time can not be limited only to passive synthesis, which derives its own temporality from retentional guiding of the “now”. He asks: What radical discontinuity is there between this already constituted past and objective time that imposes itself on me, constituted without any active intervention on my past? Husserl will not pose this fundamental question in the Vorlesungen. (Derrida 2003: 56).

In what way multiplicity of the experience of time can be reconciled with its immanent coherence? (Derrida 2003: 95). If it is only unity as a resulting from multiplicity experience of time of individual consciousness is seems quite difficult to explication in what manner internal consciousness of time fulfils condition of original including in infinity flow of time. Internal consciousness of time is finished and limited (ibidem). According to Derrida, infinity of time is neither universal nor noematic time of internal experience. The question is, the pure time of pre-predicative experience in form of completely non-determinated the “now” and the future. “I”—as transcendence in lived immanence—can not appear in pure monadic ego. “I” is between retention and protention, “I” is in infinity reference with the past and the future, as noetic and noematic ontic ground (cf. Derrida 2003: 96). According to Derrida, Husserl

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remains in noematic temporality, which importance is constituted. Time of lived immanence is the time reaching much deeper, because it is a time of individual consciousness. This time is a time for me. This time is not contaminated by empirical character of retentionality. In Husserlian phenomenology of time “I” has got only access to updated and non-original experience of history in retentionality of act of constitution. The freedom, in Derrida’s criticism of phenomenology, as basis of temporalisation is not an abstractive and formal freedom, but it is a freedom essentially temporal by direct reference to retentionality of time (cf. Derrida 2003: 65). Husserl claims that flow of time has hot a feature of absolute subjectivity, but it does not mean that he connects absolute subjectivity with absolute temporality. Derrida is not capable of to confine his consideration to this statement. He claims: Freedom and absolute subjectivity are thus neither in time nor out of time. The dialectical clash of opposites is absolutely ‘fundamental’ and is situated at the origin of all meaning; thus, it must be reproduced at every level of transcendental activity and of the empirical activity founded thereon. (Derrida 2003: 65).

Conclusion, Derridean criticism of Husserlian phenomenology of time concerns falsely interpretation of Husserlian dislocation of epistemological sense of immanent time. In the early phenomenology of Husserl internal consciousness of time is described as retentional (in the past of the concrete “now”) time. The retentional “now”, in temporal life of “I”, makes possible reflective incorporation of intentional acts. Derridean anti-presentialism is based on recognition that the origins of time are non-present well, are temporal. Husserl claimed that the core of time is non-temporality identical with the “now”. Derridean proposal, contaminated by untranslatability of terms, as well as Husserlian lebendige (and stehende) Gegenwart remains within the limits of classic philosophical tradition There not solve the fundamental problem of time in the “now”. At the beginning of thirties of the last century Husserl considered the term of lebendige Gegenwart. This term—seemingly ignoring, as claims Derrida, retentional-protentional context of the “punctual” “now”—is final solution of the problem of the constitution of time. The procedure of uncovering of the life of transcendental “I” lies to the lebendige Gegenwart. Betrachten wir dieses transcendentale Leben selbst, dieses transcendentale Ego, oder betrachte ich mich, als wie ich allen meinen Vorurteilen, allem für-mich-Seienden, voranzusetzen bin, eben als Urbedingung für ihren Seinsinn, so finde ich mich als strömende Gegenwart. (Husserl, Ms. C 3 III: 10 [1931]) Ich bin als strömende Gegenwart, aber mein Für-mich-Sein is selbst in diesier strömenden Gegenwart konstituiert. (Husserl, Ms. C 3 III: 33 [1931])

The John Paul II Catholic University in Lublin, Poland

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

SOURCES Derrida, Jacques (1982), Ousia and Gramm¯e: Note on a Note from Being and Time [in:] Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, translated by Allan Bass, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 29–67. Derrida, Jacques (2003), The Problem of Genesis in Husserl’s Philosophy, transl. by Marian Hobson, Chicago / London: The University of Chicago Press. Husserl, Edmund (1973), Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität, Texte aus dem Nachlass, Dritter Teil: 1929–1935, hrsg. von Iso Kern, Husserliana, Vol. 15, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Husserl, Edmund (2001), Die Bernauer Manuskripte über das Zeitbewusstsein (1917–1918), hrsg. von Rudolf Bernet und Dieter Lohmar, Dordrecht / Boston / London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, Edmund [2006], Späte Texte über Zeitkonstitution (1929–1934) Die C-Manuskripte, hrsg. von Dieter Lohmar, Dordrecht: Springer.

RESOURCES Held, Klaus [1966], Lebendige Gegenwart. Die Frage nach der Seinsweise des transzendentalen Ich bei Edmund Husserl, entwickelt am Leitfaden der Zeitproblematik, Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. Lawlor, Leonard [2002], Derrida and Husserl, The Basic Problem of Phenomenology, Bloomington / Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Waldenfels, Bernhard [1971], Das Zwischenreich des Dialogs, Sozialphilosophische Untersuchungen in Anschluss an Edmund Husserl, Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.

S I TA N S U R AY

“S M R I T I R B H U M I K A” ( T H E RO L E O F M E M O RY ) : S O M E M E M O RY- R E L AT E D P O E M S A N D S O N G S O F R A B I N D R A N AT H

ABSTRACT

Memory is the catalytic agent between the past days and the present. “Smritir Bhumika”, in this respect, is an excellent poem of Tagore. It is in his poetical work “Sanai”. Poetry aims at configuration of memory by virtue of encoding a feeling in words. We are bound in the trap of temporary existence. But, our memory, combined with our imagination is spread throughout time and space of the world of our consciousness. This paper aims at correlating some such memory related poems and songs of Tagore from the perspective of phenomenology. We are bound and sometimes bonded in the trap of temporary worldly existence. But out memory combined with our imagination is spread throughout time and the internal space of our consciousness. Memory is the catalytic agent between our past days and the present. You know that “Smritir Bhumika”1 is an excellent memory-related poem of Rabindranath. From the phenomenological point of view it is more important since in it we can see how very casual and stray events come into the store-house of poetic introspection not only for the poet himself but also for his readers of distant future. Here we can experience that memory becomes the catalytic agent between the present and the future. The theme of this poem is neither magnanimous nor highly romantic but invaluably precious for observing the role of memory as the title “Smritir Bhumika” suggests. Let me narrate the theme in present tense not only grammatically but also from the standpoint of phenomenology in the realm of which the past seems to be vividly present not only to me but also to my audience and readers. Furthermore, the poet’s dynamic and vital store-house of memory becomes that of ours as well in our creative and eager-to-express imagination. The poet is in Mongpu, a small hill station on the Himalayas. The date is the 8th June 1939. The time is morning. The sky is clear, free from cloud. The poet enjoys the front view of hilly natural terrain as far and as wide as visible. The sun combined with picturesque network of shades of trees is spread 141 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 141–146. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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throughout the vast hilly surface. The surrounding is reverberated with tuneful bird’s song all the while. All on a sudden an unforeseen phenomenon takes place. A golden butterfly moves around the poet’s head and then sits on his silvery hair mistaking it to be a tree or flower, or a fruit perhaps. The pebbleful course of a dry river goes down afar. The sight of the wavy mountain range vanishes in the horizon. The poet’s rhythm is mingled together with the sweet fragrance of geranium and other strange blossoms arranged in rows of tubs in front of the house. Combining all these sensuous elements the poet composes “Smritir Bhumika” which, he hopes, has at least some access in the carrier of virtual time akin to the role of memory. The poem is included in the poetical work “Sanai”. Sanai includes several poems related to memory as a theme. “Ganer Smriti”2 (Memory of Music) is also such a poem. It is written on the 5th of Kartik in 1345 (Bengali Era) (i.e., on some date of the second fortnight of October 1938). The day is that of new moon too for observing Deyali or Dipavali or illumination ceremony. A person sensitive to music reacts in various ways. Rabindranath’s reaction, as depicted in this poem, surpasses the temporal situation. While listening to someone’s song, he is instantly affected with some sort of nostalgia, by virtue of which his consciousness becomes one with the time and space including the whole creation. The tonal sensuousness of the song as if brings into perfect synchronization the vibration of his nerves and veins with that of the whole universe. The tune seems to him the sympathetic message of the earth spreading throughout the whole celestial world of luminaries. His imagination goes back beyond the edges of time through the path of tune and rhythm. Memory needs some cozy association for proper activation and functioning. Musical tune plays the role of this kind of association as we see in this poem. Now let me come to the very introductory poem “Smritire akar diye anka”3 (Drawing And Painting The Memory To Enfigure It) of the poetical work “Akash-Pradip” (The Sky-Lamp). Life is transitory. Death will obviously snatch us away. We endeavor to win over death by creating a second self in the forms of poetry, music and art etc. Poetry aims at the configuration of the precious wealth of our memory-world by encoding our feelings into words. In practical sense this kind of second self is just a pretension for survival, just self-deception. Yet, if some other sensitive heart finds meaning in it in future, that will be prolongation of our life. So, from the phenomenological point of view our creative memory plays very significant role in the ontopoieses of our life. “Smriti” (Memory) and “Smriti-Patheya” (Memory as a means of the way of life) are two excellent poems of the poetical works “Punascha” (Post-Script) and “Sesh Saptak” (The Terminating Octave) respectively.

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“Smriti”4 starts with a vivid description of the outskirts of a small town beside the river Ganges in the west (here, the west means the state of Bihar, situated to the west of Bengal. The aristocrat Bengali families had casual resorts in the west for environmental and climatic change). There is an old house, not very much taken care of. The rooms are shady and not very clean. Yet the floors are covered with yellow carpet, the borders of which are decorated with figures of tiger-hunters having guns in their hands and shoulders. Under the rows of sisu trees goes an unmetalled road. Sometimes the air is veiled with white dust rising from that earthen road. The sandy land rising from the bed of the Ganges is full of various crops and fruits. The stream of the Ganges is glittering in sun. The small boats floating on it seem like ink-drawn picture. Bhajua is grinding wheat with the round grindstone and singing a monotonous song in his dialect. The gate-keeper Girdhari is giving him company, perhaps with some intention not known to us. There is a big well under an old nim tree. Its ox-drawn water is sprinkled by the gardener in the maize-field. The creaky sound of the pulley wheel is resonating the sultry noon all the while. The hot wind is surcharged with mild fragrance of mango-shoots. Honey-bees are flocking together over the twigs of the mahanim tree. In the afternoon, comes a foreign tutress. She seems slim and fatigued in such a hot summer. The room is made a bit cooler with moist window-drapers. However, with her soft voice she recites and explains the poems of European poets. An air of romantic poesy from the country beyond the ocean enters into this room with her diction and intonation. Rabindranath’s mind becomes filled with nostalgic memory since in his early youth he could find his own muse in the foreign literature too just as the butterfly moves over the multi-coloured foreign flowers in our well decorated garden. In his own words: Amar pratham yauban khuonje beray Bideshi bhashar madhye apan bhasha Prajapati yeman ghure beray Biliti mausumi phuler keyarite Nana barner bhire.5

The flavour of some piece of memory, even if very negligible and insignificant, may serve as a precious requisite for traveling along the path of life. This is the central theme of the poem “Smriti-Patheya”.6 A casual conversation with someone, her pleasing smile, the momentary but picturesque expression of her countenance may put a permanent impression in some soft corner of our heart. This memory from a long past may peep into our recollections at any time whether during rains or at a leisurely winter noon or in a lonely dusk akin to the touching tune of Purabi or associated with the mild fragrance of

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evening-bloomed Yuthika. The poet cherishes such a kind of memory for any length of time. The poem is compiled in the “addendum” of the poetical work “Sesh Saptak” (The Terminating Octave). The poetical work “Kadi O Kamal” (The Augmented and the Diminished, the Keen and the Soft, the Sharp and the Flat; i.e., the title denoting the tones of an Octave and connoting their references to our intense and mild feelings) includes a fourteen-line poem under the title “Smriti”.7 There are several poems under the same title in several works of Rabindranath. “Smriti” of “Kadi O Komal” is a beautiful love poem too, a Bengali sonnet of exquisite appeal. The beauty of the sweetheart raises our imagination to a lofty plain and reminds us of various other delicate imageries stirring up our memory of bygone and forgotten days full of pains and pleasure. Face to face closeness leads our existence towards the timeless absolute. Another sonnet of the same title “Smriti”,8 but rather of a pathetic tone, is there in the poetical work “Chaitali”. The poet does not mention any factual character or event. That is, the poetical theme transcends the worldly affair and becomes a universal wealth in the world of abstraction. The preceding and the following poems of “Smriti”, all written on the same date, i.e., the 7th Sraban 1303 (July 1896), “Mrityu-Maduri”9 (Sublimity of the Deceased) “Bilay”10 (Extinction) respectively, are of the same pathetic tone. The biographer of the poet refers to the untimely death of Abhijna, the poet’s affectionate niece.11 But, even without knowing this fact, the reader is touched by these memoryrelated sonnets for their phenomenological expansion. Aji se ananta Bishwe achhe kon khane Tai bhabitechhi bose sajal nayane.12 [I wonder in tearful eyes where is she in this infinite world !] Ananta jagatmajhe giyechhe haraye.13 [She is extinguished in this eternal world !]

The lines also imply that nothing is lost in this wonderful world of creation, endless, eternal and infinite. When everything seems to be lost, it is memory alone which reverberates in the ontopoiesis of human life. The bygone ones, the bygone days, the past phenomena find their dwelling place in the indepth and vast expansion of the world of our reflective and re-collective memory. Mental idols (pratima) also are enfigured and cherished therein. This is evident in the poem “Smriti-Pratima”14 of the poetical work “Chhabi O Gan”. Childhood memory plays a vital role throughout the ontopoiesis of our life. The faded past arrives anew in the vibrant world of brain-cells of a reflective person. The beautiful love-song “Ogo swapna-swarupini, tabo abhisarer pathe pathe smritir dip jwala. . . . . .”15 (O my dream incarnate! the way for my tryst with

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you is illumined with row of lamps of memory) in raga Paraj-Basanta set to serene movement of six-beat Dadra rhythm is a rare example of exotic upsurge of reminiscence. This song is very much significant in the field of phenomenological research. The exquisite rain-song: Aji barishana mukharita srabana rati Smriti bedanar mala ekela ganthi. . . . .16

[I am stringing the garland of sensitive reminiscences alone at this srabannight of torrential rains.] exemplifies a different kind of upsure in a different atmospheric setting. The pensive awaiting itself is an art whether the advent of muse occurs or not. Among so many romantic compositions let me cite the song “Dhusara jibanera godhulite, klanta aloy mlana smriti . . . . . .”17 (the faded memory in the dusky twilight of life) in which the poet’s dream-mate is akin a tonal trance resonating in the spring flora, in the tune of Behag (a nocturnal melody), in the moonlit night, in the song of cuckoo. The contemplative human life is not bracketed by birth and death. By virtue of voracious reading of epics and classics, and other means of inheritance of the past in memory, Rabindranath cherishes very powerful creative nostalgia in his consciousness. The Vedic age of forest colonies, Valmiki’s age, Vyasadeva’s age, Kalidasa’s golden age, Jayadeva’s lyrical age etc. are restored in Rabindranath’s memory, prone to express them in newer and newer forms of creativity. The idea of Nataraja18 gains on exo-aesthetical cosmic expansion in Rabindranath’s creativity. The mythological figure of bucolic flute-player19 also gains cosmic vibrancy in the Tagorean corpus. Buddhadeva, along with human values connected with his noble message, gains lustrous aura in quite a number of Rabindranath’s ballads, e.g. “Abhisar”, “Pujarini”, “Mulyaprapti”, “Srestha Bhiksha” etc., some songs like “He Mahajiban, He Mahamaran” (O the great life, o the auspicious death), “Sakala Kalusha Tamasahara” (O the eradicator of all evil and darkness), “Himsay Unmatta Prithwi” (when the world is malevolent) etc., some dramas like “Natir Puja” (The Worshipper Dancing-Girl), “Chandalika” (The girl outcaste), “Malini” (Malini, the Princess) etc., the dance-dramas including “Shyama” (Shyama, the courtballerina), and none the less, in his prose-writings out of historical-cultural memory of Buddhadeva. The Tagorean interpretation of the Buddhist nirbana is extinction of selfishness, not of self; joyful life, not a life of austerity, fullness, not nihilism.20 In the memory of Jesus Christ, Rabindranath conducts congregation. Since then (1910) Visva-Bharati Santiniketan has been observing this ceremony on

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the 25th December every year. Rabindranath’s song on Christ21 is sung on this occasion. Not human entity only, “man-in-the-Universe”22 is Rabindranath’s greater concept of insight and introspection than any other concept. His transmemory not only absorbs the updated wisdom of ontological findings but also contributes to and enriches human consciousness. Tagore – Music of Visva – Bharati University, Santiniketan, India NOTES 1

Rabindranath Tagore, “Smritir Bhumika”, Sanai, Rabindra-Rachanabali (Rabindranath’s Works), Birth-centenary edition, Government of West Bengal, Calcutta (Henceforth abbreviated as R R, followed by volume number), 1961. Vol. 3, pp. 740–1. 2 Ibid., p. 760. 3 Akash-Pradip, R R-3, p. 638. 4 Punascha, R R-3, p. 28–29. 5 Ibid., p. 29. 6 Sesh Saptak, R R-3, p. 227. 7 Kadi O Komal, R R-1, p. 187. 8 Chaitali R R-1, p. 573. 9 Ibid., p. 573. 10 Ibid., p. 574. 11 Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay, Rabindra-Jibani (Rabindranath’s biography), Visva-Bharati Publishing Department, Calcutta, Vol.1, 4th edition, 1377, p. 446. 12 “Smriti”, Chaitali, op. cit., R R-1, p.573. 13 “Bilay”, Chaitali, R R-1, p. 574. 14 “Smriti-Pratima”, Chhabi O Gan, R R-1, pp. 102–4. 15 Rabindranath Tagore, Gita-Bitan (Collection of songs), “Poem” (Love) song number 233, Paush 1404 edition, Visva-Bharati, p. 364. 16 “Prakriti” (Nature), “The Rains”, song number 118, Ibid., p. 472 17 “Prem”, Ibid., song number 236, p. 365. 18 Sitansu Ray, “Orchestration of the Universe”, Analecta Hussirliana vol. LXIII, 2000, pp. 104–5. 19 Ibid., pp. 105–6. 20 Sitansu Ray, “The Buddhistic Aura in Rabindranath’s Creativity”, Suvarna Jayanti Smaranika, Department of Indo-Tibetan Studies, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, 2003, p. 71. 21 “Ek din yara merechhilo tanre” (Those who killed him the other day), Gita-Bitan, op. cit., p. 866. 22 Sitansu Ray, “The Culmination of Reality: Man in the Universe”, Analecta Hussirliana, vol. LXXVI, 2002, pp. 19–46.

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M E M O RY A S A C H A L L A N G E T O H U M A N EXISTENCE – ASPECTS OF TEMPORALITY AND THE R O L E O F M E M O RY I N R E F E R E N C E T O G U I T T O N ’ S CONCEPT OF TIME

ABSTRACT

The article describes the attitude of Jean Guitton towards the category of time, concentrating on two essential notions: dissociation and contamination. The author presents the phenomenon of memory in different philosophical, cultural and psychological backgrounds. Memory is presented in its connection with cultural symbols, language and individual aspects of man, as well as psychological explorations of the way it is developed from early stages of child’s experience. Going further these examples are analyzed according to Guitton’s proposition of perceiving the role of memory, with two different solutions of its function: either moving it away from the present condition of man or, on the contrary, making it an essential factor of man’s present choices. Answering the question of the importance of memory for phenomenological analysis, the categories of dissociation and contamination are used as a tool to determine not only the individual approach towards memory of the individual, but also in a broader sense, taking into consideration the cultural and linguistic aspects of man. Let us consider the first metaphor of time taught on history lessons – that of a line. The present is just a point, a short, specified element of infinity. In this geometrical interpretation, is a consequence of the past. The future is a prolongation of the line towards infinity symbolized with an arrowhead, allowing only one course of events to take place. This interpretation of time, analyzed as early as in classical Greek philosophy had a very important aspect – the relation of time to infinity or eternity, attributed to being or Absolute. Philosophy throughout the ages made multiple attempts to understand the relation between the ideal, atemporal and unalterable being and the experienced world of constant change. On existential level this research is related to the problem of life’s finitude – the search for eternity and the ideal is a way of answering the question about the meaning of limited life. On social level, the concept of time helps the man to understand 147 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 147–152. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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change, development, the civilizational motion. The human thought traveled in many directions in search for the satisfying structure of time, answering both, existential and social needs of humanity, concentrating especially on two developed forms of its symbolic representation – the mentioned line and the circle. To understand time would thereby mean, to connect its structure with an ideal model, explaining the direction of change in relation to the notion of the end, as in the linear model, or an infinite cycle of events, with periods of development, followed by periods of collapse. Every cultural concept of time emphasizes one specific aspect of temporality, as crucial for development of the whole system, thus influencing individual consciousness in attitude towards existential and social aspects of life. The individual and general memory, related to the interpretation of the past, are very often considered crucial, if not fundamental for the development of the consciousness of time. Before concluding to the main course of my analysis of the role of memory in Guitton’s thought, I would like to point several aspects of anthropological attitude towards the problem of human temporality. Cultural analysis of concepts of time shows several layers of the problem, crucial for the proper understanding of the mechanisms responsible for our attitude towards memory. A very important, yet obvious supplement to philosophical understanding of time is that its consciousness is performed not only on psychological or perceptive basis, but is also linked with the cultural background of the individual. As in the mentioned example of a symbolic representation of time, we are determined to see temporality through the prism of culture, religion, social and historical events. As stated by Leach, Flis, a person living in a homogeneous society does not pay much attention to close past and future. He oscillates between the everrepeating present and the past, taking responsibility of re-living events from the myths. Leach describes this attitude as the pendulum concept of time. In this structure, events taking place in time would mean nothing, without the possibility of reaching out towards the myth, allowing the man to participate shortly in divine events. In this concept, memory about the eternalized myth, existing outside the human world is crucial for supporting the reality as it is. History of the generations, future and development would mean nothing without remembering the original stem, from which they derived. As Leach states, the past has no depth in this mode – all events that had happened are almost in opposition to the present experience, disallowing a continuum to appear, neglecting the possibility of development. Similar negative attitude towards future is exemplified in homeostatic cultures, often linked with the circular concept of time. The difference though is that, due to visible social development, these cultures are more interested in relation between the past and the present. A well known concept of this structure of time is the Golden Age theory, developed both

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in western and eastern civilizations. The role of social memory in this model has different significance than in homogeneous cultures. It is primarily used to remember the idealized past of the gone generations, contaminate the present with the past, not restorable but desired public order and individual happiness. The Judeo-Christian concept of time, related with the linear structure and heterogeneous social system is very complex and its development changed its essence considerably. As the linear concept of time is currently fundamental for majority of civilizations it is also diversified by religious, social and even economical elements. For the purpose of this article I will mention only basic characteristics important for our subject. The linear time is the structure which can be very future – oriented. It is also a model very suitable for explanation of dynamic social change. On the other hand as repeatedly mentioned (Flis, Toynbee) the influence of the linear structure of time on analysis of individual’s life changes the existential confidence considerably, leading to anxiety connected with the uncertainty of the future. The memory of the past seems at first less important in this model. However, as it will be shown further on, it is the linear concept of time that actually allows the individual to choose an existential attitude towards the conceptualized past, allowing simultaneously to change attitude towards the future. No matter how strongly we argue for or against the influence of culture on philosophical interpretation of temporality, not before the appearance of the linear structure of time could the emphasis on the future have been so great. The development of this model would be impossible, without its relation to the phenomenon of memory. Having mentioned the necessary background of social interpretations of time and memory, I would like to concentrate on the existential aspect of the linear structure, and its development in western philosophy. Although the role of time has been an important factor of many philosophical inquires, as Jean Guitton accurately shows, the essence of rational analysis of time and memory has always been in correspondence with cognition and attempts of establishing the relation between the present, the past, the future and eternity. Every reach of consciousness towards the past or future can only happen in epistemological sense. The men, ontologically belonging only to the present, can acquire knowledge about the past, or project himself into the future. From epistemological point of view, a major part of knowledge is linked with the non-existent future and past, memorized or planned events. The cognitive act, creating the foundation of temporal consciousness of the world depends on memory, partly individual, partly cultural and symbolical. What I find crucial for my analysis of memory are the two notions, proposed by Guitton, contamination and dissociation. By dissociation Guitton means a process of human consciousness, searching for a relation between the time and desired eternity, understood in philosophy on different basis. In relation to he mentioned

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concepts of time, dissociation closes eternity in the myth, speaking about the pendulum concept of time, in the possibility of transcending the repetitiveness in circular model or in the Absolute, the being at the beginning and the end of time. The described operation on existential level can be understood as the human attempt to overcome mortality by setting possibility of reaching the non temporal, absolute and unchangeable ideal. As the French philosopher states, the philosophical goal of humanity, is to obtain knowledge of the existence through the rediscovery of the identity of temporal being and eternity. Similarly to the goal of ontology, its aim is to uncover the nature of being, but in relation to and through the concept of time. Process of development of human consciousness can be understood on this ground as a metaphysical project. Contamination, on the other hand, has a contradictory function. It is related to a project of either influencing the present with the achievements from the past, or setting a desirable goal in the future, occupying the man with the existential project. We can instantly see here, that such interpretation of the role of the past reminds Sartrean analysis of the existential project of pour soi. Memory in the contamination theory brings an interpretation of the past events, but, what is lost in this process, according to Guitton is the element of risk in the cognitive leap towards the past. What is obtained is a phenomenon of the past, devoid of the essence of every existential choice performed by the man. We can see our actions, or symbols from the cultural memory of our society through the prism of success and failure, but as Guitton states, it is impossible to see anxiety, the fear of engaging in a project with vague outcome. On social level, what we receive is an interpretation of historical events, of great or dreadful deeds from the past, but with their dynamic aspect hidden. Freedom of the past choices is impossible to be communicated by means of the two aspects of memory – social (cultural) and individual. This part of Guitton’s theory reminds the description of a failure of existential project from Sartre’s Nausee. Roquentin, the hero of Sartre’s book is making an attempt of creating a vision of a historical character. What is given, by means of letters, documents, memories of people who knew the character, does not allow the historian to see the background of choices, the true existential aspect of the man, responsible for his actions. The failure of Sartre’s literary hero is a metaphor, which can be used to conceptualize the contamination theory. What is reproduced by our act of referring to the past by means of memory is just a shell, with the living content, responsible for prompting the consciousness to act, irreversibly lost. Another aspect of the past, interesting for Guitton is its inability to be changed. To emphasize the importance of this characteristic we can refer here to the theory of repetition, created by the father of existentialism, Soren Kierkegaard. The inability to change the outcome of the past decisions, forces the alter ego of the philosopher to theorize on the possibility of

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re-living the past by means of imagination. What, we might argue, contaminates the consciousness of the Young Man from Kierkegaard’s theory, should be dissociated from the repetitive act of mind, recollecting the past events as unchangeable. The outcome of this struggle with the past is a theory of imaginative relation to the former events. The lost love of the Young Man can be brought back by the consciousness; the feeling can be re-lived again in a imaginary act. What we can see here, is the attempt of human consciousness, torn by irreversible decisions to create an abstract, yet secure and conforming vision of oneself. As Sartre would say, (although referring to Faulkner’s literary heroes), we receive a concept of time with its head chopped off. What the French philosopher perceives as essential to this problem is memory’s tendency to come to us in contaminative, using Guitton’s notion, waves of recollections. What Faulkner and Proust show us in reference to this problem, is, according to Sartre, not only the fact, that freedom is hidden in our acts of referring to the past; memory also affects our attitude towards the future acts, disallowing us to see the possibility of changing the present into something completely new. Referring to the fact, that the “waves” of memories come to us involuntarily, Sartre attributes them rather to the emotional order, stating that we not only do not choose, when the memory manifests before us the interpretation of the past, it also affects our rational ability of deciding what should we do in future by reference to the “completed”, “finished” events of our life. The conclusion of the contamination theory in regard to mentioned existential examples would suggest, that memory of the past can be considered helpful on a rational level, when the consciousness reaches to the gained experience in order to solve present dilemmas; having a strong effect on our emotions, it can become a menace to our consciousness, especially when the proposed existential openness of the man becomes crippled by the memorized failures or, what seems equally discouraging – successes. Contamination of the present by the past might be interpreted here as an attempt to put the essence of life into irreversible past, thus eternalizing the outcome of individual decisions as essentials of existence, disallowing new choices to take their place. Similarly, on cultural level we can perceive such attitude as a modus of Golden Age theory. The possibility of referring to the future seems to open a sphere, in which the being can freely continue the realization of any existential project if the weight of the past doesn’t stop our ability to develop. Nevertheless, as Guitton argues, the future can also bring the danger of contamination on both social and individual levels. The menace appears when we perceive the end of a started project as having a relation to eternity. The notion of Utopia on social level, and an individual certainty that the finished goal will be the most essential to our existence has the same closed status as the memorized

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past, yet transcended onto the future. In this way, the theory of development, concentrated on achieving a certain state, that needs to be prolonged for ever, a project, whose outcome does not imply any further change in existential situation, becomes a reflection of the past, cast into the sphere of uncertainty and possible change. Such theory enforces our actions by a belief that eventually, a state of certainty will be achieved, and the anxiety brought by the inability to see through the future will be overcome. Stating briefly, a theory of contamination, referring to the future, bearing very strong cultural features of Western Civilization has timelessly shown the biggest danger, a theory can bring into the human world – that the outcome is more important than the means. Guitton’s analysis of time add a new dimension to our understanding of time, as I presume, very important in any study of temporality. On phenomenological level, the role of this theory is to show us the theoretical boundaries of conceptualized notion of time in reference to the philosophical idea of eternity. A careful study of contamination theory would be even more interesting to a phenomenologist, as well as an interpreter of existentialism, as it connects aspects of individual, psychological attitude towards memory of the past and anticipation of the future, searching for explanatory acts of past events and future changes with the philosophical interpretation of human condition, in which such pursuit is explained in reference to the man’s need of finding the essential structure of every aspect of reality in the experienced phenomena. I also find Guitton’s notions helpful in explaining social structures of time, adding to the essential value of explaining the social change by means of a general theory of the concept of time, created by a civilization, a condition of the reference of all temporal structures with the non reducible need of setting an eternal element as explanatory for the genesis or the end of civilization motion. Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland BIBLIOGRAPHY Guitton, Jean, Sens Czasu ludzkiego, (Warszawa 1999) Sartre, Jean-Paul, Czym jest literatura? (Warszawa 1968) Whitrow, G.J, Czas w dziejach (Prószy´nski i spółka 2004) Flis, Andrzej, Chrze´scija´nstwo i Europa (Kraków 2004) Leach, Edmund, Two Essays concerning the symbolic representation of time (New York 1961) Kierkegaard, Soren, Fear and trembling/Repetition (Prineton 1983)

KIVILCIM YILDIZ SENURKMEZ

T I M E , M E M O RY A N D T H E M U S I C A L P E R C E P T I O N

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to discuss certain issues, concerning musical perception, in relation to Edmund Husserl’s (1859–1938) phenomenology of time-consciousness. Starting with the basic concepts of Husserl’s analysis of time-consciousness, I will try to focus on examining the subject, specifically from the point of view of a musicologist. The discussions on time in music do not generally explain the specific characteristics of the temporal order of sound directly. However, rare discussions come up on the basis of this issue too. Among those, the phenomenological approach offers a comprehensive view. The basic assumption in this paper is that the phenomenological view which is developed on time-consciousness provides us a detailed view for the perception of the temporal and spatial natures of music.

H U S S E R L’ S A N A LY S I S O F T I M E - C O N S C I O U S N E S S

Subjects concerning perception and time in music bring out one of the most important and difficult phenomenological problems which is referred to as time-consciousness. Moreover, the phenomenology of time-consciousness presents many keywords in relation to Husserl’s phenomenology. It is not possible to register the important connection between the perception and the memory, unless we carry out an examination on his reflections on the time-consciousness. Before attempting to examine certain issues, regarding time and perception in music, it is necessary to mention Husserl’s analysis of time-consciousness. In this section of the paper, the discussion on timeconsciousness will be limited to the musical objects, or in other words limited to the concept of temporally extended objects. According to Husserl, there is no single explanation of time. Thus the phenomenological approach to time focuses on the fundamental structures of consciousness where these structures should be referred to as intentional. His model of time-consciousness introduces the “intentional-level” of consciousness which carries out constitution and reflection. In other words, all consciousness procedures can be called as “intentional”. Husserl sees time everywhere in the intentional life of consciousness and time has an objective 153 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 153–163. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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status for him. However, he suggests to suspend our beliefs about the objective time and to turn to the time we experience that we are directly familiar with. Before concentrating on the structure of temporal objects, it is necessary to mention how Husserl conceived “objects” in general terms. Husserl defines all types of intuitions and the processes of meanings as objects. Furthermore, every object is a fundamental part of a possible apprehensive process, such as the processes of experiencing. But apprehension can only be possible with the “appearance” of these objects in consciousness. Husserl considers the actual objects or in other words physical things which are external to us. According to him, the physical objects can be seen differently at each approach, but in the series of perceptions, consciousness remains the same. With respect to this, all physical objects are objects external to consciousness. Consciousness objectifies them and makes them actual or as Husserl puts it, it is “the consciousness that experiences them and take cognizance of them”.1 Husserl attempts to explore how the material world stands in contrast to all consciousness and where it is so, how consciousness can be involved with the material world, as he states: I consciously find a factually existing world of physical things confronting me and that I ascribe to myself a body in that world and now am able to assign myself a place there.2

It is possible to state that every experience has its own physical time objectively and has its position in objective time. However, objective time, as a linear progression does not take into account the apprehension or “appearances” in the mental process. The difference between mental processes and physical things is related to their perceptibility. At this point, it is vital to consider the structure of temporal objects which is necessary to mention, in order to define the constitution of time. According to Husserl, the act of perception is a temporal object as well. In other words, every mental process is a temporal being and in the flow of consciousness everything is temporally ordered. He stresses this characteristic very often, as he states, “temporality expresses for any mental process designates a necessary form combining mental processes with mental process”.3 It is possible to perceive continuing objects and object in succession as well. Thus the comprehensive apprehension of the object presents two different procedures: one of them has atemporal qualities and the other has the temporal position. However Husserl is not concerned with the atemporal features of objects, but rather interested in the temporal characteristics that temporal objects have in common: We distinguish the enduring, immanent object and the object in its way of appearing, the object intended as actually present or as past. Every temporal being “appears” in some running-off mode that changes continuously and in this change the “object” in its mode of running-off is always and ever a different object . . .4

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Husserl focuses on how these temporal objects can be experienced and he begins his statement with describing these objects. In addition to this, it is also important to distinguish the “perception of something temporal and the perception of temporality itself”.5 Temporal objects have temporal extensions and different aspects of them cannot exist simultaneously, but only appear across the time. These temporally extended objects are related to the time in music. In other words, music is a temporal form that is structured in a temporal manner within itself. Before analyzing the temporal structure of music, it might be critical to understand how temporal objects could be experienced with Husserl’s terms: The temporal form is only a form of appearances; that is, only a form of individual objects. The consciousness of time is therefore an objectivating consciousness. Without the positing of now, the positing of the past etc. [there would be] no continuing, no resting, no changing, no being in succession and so on. Without all of this, the absolute content remains blind, does not signify objective being, duration etc. Something exists in objective time that depends on objective apprehension.6

The perceptual act of temporal objects is also temporally constituted and occupies the temporal location. In other words it appears as a temporal process, in the form of the past, the present and the future. Among the processes of temporal appearance “now-point” has a certain special status as well. Nowpoint is one of the processes of appearance for an object, not the object itself. It always occurs with the modes of past and future which are unified with the now to constitute the temporal horizon. Consequently it can be understood that Husserl sees the now as an ongoing process, rather than a progress made up of successive points in time. Also, the length of the now depends on the duration of the process that fills it in. Husserl claims that if our consciousness is constituted only in a punctually isolated now-points, our experience of a temporal objects would not have been possible. According to this assertation, our consciousness can manage to experience beyond the “now” instance. In this sense, time is a continuity of these time-points. Each now-point produces a new time-point because it produces a new object point. This versatile perception of the consciousness does not imply that there are multiple times. Husserl definitely claims that there is only one time, although he stresses on inner time-consciousness as well. As we understand from Husserl’s point of view that the present (now) is not the only reality of time between the past and the future, rather it is just the opposite. The present is nothing itself; it is a feature that passes as it occurs. Husserl discusses this process in relation to the temporal phases of object as follows: Now . . . a new and continually new follows upon this Now and, of essential necessity, upon every in necessary continuity, of the fact that in unity therewith every actual present Now is changed into a Just Now, the Just Now once more and continuously into an always new Just Now of the Just Now; and so forth. This holds for every new ensuing Now.7

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Experiencing a temporal extension goes beyond merely perceiving the nowphase of objects. In order to perceive the intended temporal object and its time, our consciousness grasps its past and future stages as well. As a result, timeconsciousness appears as a triple phase within itself which are the present time, the past time and the future time of the object. At this point, Husserl presents a model of time-consciousness and explains the temporally perceptual act in three levels (moments): 1. Primal Impression: This level cannot provide us a perception of temporal object; rather it is the conceptual dimension of the perception. Besides, this perception also includes a stage of pre-temporal, referred to as primal stream which predefines certain units. But it is not clear that this primal stream is preceding. If this primal stream is a priority for the consciousness, then it also becomes a priority for the time in which the consciousness is formed. Therefore, the primal stream implies a rather complex status. 2. Primary Memory (Retention): It brings us a consciousness of the temporal object that has just occurred. It is also called “perception of the past”. Only in this phase it is possible to perceive what was in the past. 3. Primal Expectation: This is the third moment of the perceptual phase which is called “protention” and this is the opposite of retention. The retention and the protention are not really past or future aspects, in relation to primal impression, but rather these happen simultaneously. In relation to these, there are also other aspects distinguished from retention and protention. Retention (called primary memory or fresh memory) is one of the moments of the perceptional phase of the past, but it is somehow different from “recollection”: We characterized primary memory or retention as a comet’s tail that attaches itself to the perception of the moment. Secondary memory, recollection must be distinguished absolutely from primary memory or retention.8

Similarly, protention (primal expectation) is different from “expectation”. It will be relevant to look into briefly on the concept of memory within this context. It is also important to realise the difference between the memory (referred to as the secondary memory or recollection) and the primary memory. Primary memory is not an independent act in the real sense, but rather belongs to one of the three levels of the perception. Primary memory reflects the past, but memory with its own successive phases, represents the past. In other words, primary memory can look at what is past, on the other hand memory represents the past as now. Husserl gives us a detailed examination of memory and we can consider with his writings about memory in relation to music:

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During the time we hear the tone, “it is dying away,” and time-consciousness confers on it its sinking position in relation to the now of the actual perception. In focusing our attention . . . on the enduring tone that is changing in such and such a way, we live in memories. But we can also focus our attention on the memories themselves as objects, we can perceive them.9

Inner time-consciousness is somehow the final step in reflecting experience. In the natural reflection of life, we see ourselves standing in the world, already given the existing but the transcendental reflection; we liberalize ourselves from this standing point. Our experience, therefore, is changed through the transcendental experience. This is the next step of intentional process, in which the experienced knowledge and the state of awareness become possible.

TEMPORAL STRUCTURE OF MUSIC

The time of music can be called heard time or auditory time. In this way, it is not perceived with the aid of visual sense as in objective time. This issue has been discussed in several ways in the literature of musical time. In these discussions, it was asserted that music has “musical time” which is in this sense to be ontologically differentiated from other kinds of time/from objective-ordinary time. However, the arguments refer to the various meanings of time in music, such as the repeatable or unrepeatable aspects of music, its production in time, its presentation in time or its performance in time. Generally the discussions about time in music are not directly concerned to explain the certain characteristics of the temporal ordering of sound. However, rare discussions come up on the basis of this issue too. Among those, the phenomenological approach offers a comprehensive view. The phenomenological view on time-consciousness provides us a detailed view for the perception of the temporal and spatial nature of music. Husserl himself has done this the most of the time. The object not only has the form of time but it is in the form of time. Similarly, we can consider the fact whether music itself is located in time or does it have its own time within itself. However, one can say that music has a temporal structure and it is not a structure in time. The issue of music as a temporal structure has been discussed thoroughly. The phenomenological inquiry of musical time has been a tackle from many different aesthetic perspectives. Before going further, it may be essential to look into Kant’s intuitive time theory. Kant defines music as the “art of time”, although he does not give a specific explanation of the function of time in music. Many aestheticians and music critics have adopted Kant’s perspective of time. Among those, Susan Langer attempts to describe the musical duration in relation to Kant’s theory:

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Musical duration is an image of what might be termed “lived” or “experienced” time – the passage of life that we feel as expectations become “now” and “now” turns into unalterable fact. Such passage is measurable only in terms of sensibilities, tensions, and emotions; it has not merely a different measure, but an altogether different structure from practical of scientific time.10

Husserl claims that we cannot perceive object or experience anything with temporal extension, if our consciousness would not have been consequently consisted of a series of isolated “now-points”. Thus, we perceive not only the now-points of these temporal objects, but rather their past and future phases as well. He identifies a tone as a specific now point and explains its journey into the past. In relation to this, he interprets how the tones are comprehended as temporal objects as such: When a tone sounds, my objectivicating apprehension can make the tone itself, which endures and fades away, into an object and yet not make the duration of the tone . . . The latter –the tone in its duration- is a temporal object . . . Let us take the example of a melody or of a cohesive part of a melody. The matter seems very simple at first: we hear the melody, that is we perceive it, for hearing is indeed perceiving. However, the first tone sounds, then comes the second tone, then the third and so on . . .11

With this examination of the apprehension of temporal object, Husserl stresses the objectification process of consciousness in which the appearance of a sound becomes the object itself. He continues his explanation of temporal features of musical perception as: Each tone has a temporal extension itself. When it begins to sound, I hear it as now, and the now that immediately procedes it changes into past. Therefore at any given time I hear only the actually present phase of the tone, and the objectivity of the whole enduring tone is constituted in an act-continuum that is in part memory, in smallest punctual part perception, and in further part perception.12

Musical perception that extends beyond the comprehension of separated acoustical details (data) would not be constituted, if the related data which is exactly the past would not have been preserved. This preservation is called “retention” by Husserl, as we have mentioned before. When Husserl analyses time-consciousness, he frequently makes use of time as an analogy between the temporally extended objects and the musical terms, such as the melody: After the melody has died away, we no longer have it perceived as present, but we do still have it in consciousness . . . In opposition to this, the temporal present in recollection is a remembered, re-presented present . . . but not an actually present past, not a perceived past.13

Husserl uses the word “melody” in the tonal sense but never defines it concisely. The term of melodic line is much closer to the “tonality” which defines a highly structured musical space or in other words “tonal space”. Tonality provides us a space of relationships whose fundamental characteristics are defined

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by the tonal system. In the tonal system, the beginning of the melody is no longer physically heard at the end of the melodic line, but still it is possible to register its beginning. In terms of retention, the beginning of the melody extends to present. Our perception that the beginning point extends to the present, is also closely related to the perceptional mechanism that the tonal system conditions us. What Husserl attempts to explain with the concept of melody is rather a musical line or a unit defined as a figure. In music, a melodic line has certain kinds of motives (units), phrases and periods. In this sense, melody does not seem to be appropriate for his discussion. “Melodic phrases” seem more relevant to his discussion instead of melody or motives. He also claims that the entire melody seems present, as long as its tones continue their sounding, because the entire melody is intended to be registered in only one perception instance. In relation to this, it can be inferred that Husserl constitutes the discussion on the melodic structure of music, limited to the tonality or any other similarly configured system. As temporal units, parts of the melodic line extend beyond now and then preserved in retention (fresh memory or primary memory) as it has been mentioned before. Thus these parts are gradually presented to the listener but while they perceive, these parts can come simultaneously in a continuum: . . . musical imagination must operate on several planes, a process which involves not only a juxtaposition of the current with the played out phases but with the sonic structures embeded in his musical memory, as well. Even more the listener is simultaneously getting ready for the appearance of the forthcoming sonic formations which are determined by the sonic structures he has just heard.14

The memory (secondary memory or recollection) helps to relate a motive, rather far in the past as well. These parts do not create any discontinuity or confusion in the act of perception. Consequently, previous parts of the melodic line is preserved by retention and also preserved deep in the past (memory), but its recurrences evoke their musical background in memory, on each recurrence. A musical work or a musical line presents a completed unit or completed form in a broader sense. Listeners expect to perceive this entire unit. The organization of a musical flow can be perceived by listener because with this organizing ability the flow is put into order.15 Tonal space, as it is stated before, plays an important role in the configuration of a musical flow. There are many accepted sets of musical relationships, not just in the tonal system, but rather within all musical cultures. But these accepted musical spaces (one of them is tonal space) is timeless in nature. In this sense, temporal and spatial aspects of musical composition cause confusion in the discussion, concerning time and music. These two aspects

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of music are referred to as they are completely apart and different aspects of music. Moreover, there is such a perception that the temporal aspects are closer to the phenomenology, whereas the spatial aspects are closely related to the technical matters. However, the complete analysis of music must cover both of the sides (temporal and spatial aspects) of the musical composition. There are many analytical studies related to this issue, but the most important of them is the theorist Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935). He developed an analytical method which we would not be correct to evaluate exactly as a phenomenological analysis. But his method is directed towards the tonal system and it focuses on the structural abstraction of a musical work. He classifies the structural levels of composition as background, middleground and the foreground.16 Schenker’s method of analysis limits itself completely to the tonal system, evaluating many issues on space and time analytically: Schenker’s theory . . . defines [musical] space in terms of a conventionalized, unchanging vertical background that is rendered linear through a set of equally fixed operations . . . Viewed from the perspective of the finished composition, it provides a way of understanding the relationship of the temporal sequence of a work to the synchronic conventions upon which it is based . . . offers a theoretical model for the way a tonal composition moves through, and thereby defines, its own musical space.17

Schenkerian analysis is concerned on the techniques of musical reduction. These reduction techniques help to remove the surface details and find out the underlying structure of musical composition. It is important to define the Schenkerian analyses in music as the experience of listening in the context of phenomenology; however, it is presented only in limited content here. The issues concerning time in music relate especially much more to 20th century music. Composers became particularly attracted with the forms which explored the potential of time in music. At the turn of the century, each musical work attempts to accommodate itself into a completely new and different kind of framework in which each work presents its own system: With the loss, shortly after the turn of the century, of a structural framework provided by a widely accepted set of compositional convensions . . . each work had to define its own, as it were, and consequently the system had to be relocated closer to the compositional surface . . . From the listener’s point of view, this means that it is extremely difficult to grasp the relationship of the surface to the silent background that could lend it spatial depth.18

Many composers have tried to produce spatial effects in their work and placed those auditory results in the foreground with their effects. Among these composers, John Cage (1912–1992) left the sound and the time within their own processes, in a way, isolated any kind of extrinsic effect and liberalized

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the sound and the time. He also defined the distinction between the tonal music and the new music: . . . that old music you speak of which has to do with dealing with conceptions and their communication, and this new music which has nothing to do with communication of concepts, only to do with perception . . . because perception is the basis of the work.19

Another important figure, composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (b.1928) with his “moment form” created a formal framework which represents “moments”, each of them containing a self-generating idea, in contrast to the resolution process. According to Stockhausen, “either every moment is important or nothing is important. It is a centered entity with its own existence. A moment is not a fraction of a time-line, not a particle lasting a measured lenght of time”.20 It is possible to add more instances. Instead of presenting an analysis, it is emphasized that the time-consciousness concept of Husserl will add an important perspective to many subjects, related to the time concept in the contemporary music. The perception of music (or the auditory experience of listener) is not usually the direct objective of the studies of musicologists or theorists. However, phenomenological approach is concerned with the representative characteristics of music (temporality, movement, form, duration, succession etc.), rather than the constitutive features (tonality or any other compositional system, technique). In relation to time-consciousness, certain types of processes such as beginning, contrasts, ending, etc. can be examined in detail from this point of view. In other words, it is much more important to describe the aurally perceived relationships and connections. In this respect, phenomenological perspective provides certain advantages to the analysis of music as a perceived object. Moreover, considering the relationship of the contemporary compositions with the time and the views aiming at perception, it may well be better understood the contribution of the phenomenological method in musical analyses. REFERENCES

BOOKS Dan Zahavi, Husserl’s Phenomenology (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003). Edmund Husserl, Husserl:Shorter Works, ed. Peter McCormick and Frederick A. Elliston, and trans. Robert Welsh Jordan (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981). Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book, ed. Rudolf Bernet, trans. F. Kersten, (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1983). Edmund Husserl, On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893–1917), ed. Rudolf Bernet, trans.John Barnet Brough (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990).

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Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditation – An Introduction to Phenomenology, trans.Dorion Cairns (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999). Susan Langer, Feeling and Form (New York: Scribners, 1957). Wim Mertens, American Minimal Music, trans. J. Hautekiet (London: Kahn and Averill, 1983).

ARTICLES Candace Brower, “Memory and the Perception of Rhythm”, Music Theory Spectrum, 15:1 (Spring, 1993), pp. 19–35 Joan Stambaugh, “Music as a Temporal Form”, Journal of Philosophy, 61:9 (Apr.23, 1964), pp. 265–280. Lawrence Ferrara, “Phenomenology as a Tool for Musical Analysis”, Musical Quarterly, 70:3 (Summer, 1984), pp. 355–373. Philip Alperson, “Musical Time and Music as an Art of Time”, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 38:4 (Summer, 1980), pp. 407–417. Philip Batstone, “Musical Analysis as Phenomenology”, Perspectives of New Music, 7:2 (Spring–Summer, 1969), pp. 94–110. Robert P. Morgan, “Musical Time/Musical Space”, Critical Inquiry, 6:3 (Spring, 1980), pp. 527–538. Zofia Lissa, “The Temporal Nature of a Musical Work”, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 26:4 (Summer, 1968), pp. 529–538.

Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul, Turkey

NOTES 1

Edmund Husserl, Husserl:Shorter Works, ed. Peter McCormick and Frederick A. Elliston, and trans. Robert Welsh Jordan (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981) 2 Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book, ed. Rudolf Bernet, trans. F. Kersten (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1983) p. 82 3 Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, p. 193 4 Edmund Husserl, On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893–1917), Vol. IV, ed. Rudolf Bernet, trans. John Barnet Brough (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990) p. 28 5 Husserl, On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time, p. 175 6 Ibid., p. 308 7 Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, pp. 194–195 8 Husserl, On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time, p. 37 9 Ibid., p. 329 10 Susan Langer, Feeling and Form (New York: Scribners, 1957) p. 109 11 Husserl, On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time, pp. 24–25 12 Ibid., pp. 24–25 13 Ibid., p. 38

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14 Zofia Lissa, “The Temporal Nature of a Musical Work”, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 26:4, p. 532 15 Hegel occupies himself with the temporal nature of a musical work and he examines how the musical flow become integrated form. 16 The background presents the timeless, underlying triad of tonality. The surface relationships are presented in the foreground and using reduction techniques, the middleground presents the other reductions of the surface. This analytical approach is in close relationships with the tonal perception however, it does not intend to be a theory of perception. After Schenker there are many music theorists, for example Felix Salzer and Carl Schachter, disseminated Schenker’s ideas. 17 Robert P. Morgan, “Musical Time/Musical Space”, Critical Inquiry, 6:3, p. 532 18 Ibid., pp. 534, 536 19 Wim Mertens, American Minimal Music, trans. J. Hautekiet (London: Kahn and Averill, 1983) pp. 108–109 20 Ibid., pp. 101–102

S E C T I O N IV P L AY O F M E M O RY I N S E L F - I D E N T I T Y O T H E R N E S S

AY H A N S O L A N D G Ö K H A N A K B AY

M E M O RY, P E R S O N A L I D E N T I T Y, A N D M O R A L RESPONSIBILITY

ABSTRACT

In this essay, we investigate the relevance of memory to personal identity and moral responsibility. In so doing, we make a distinction between personal identity characterized by the continuity of memory and narrative self-identity characterized by bio-physical continuity and connectedness which allows us to examine moral responsibility in the presence and absence of memory. We argue that memory provides direct access to our past experiences which one immediately appropriates, in contrast to imputing our unremembered acts to ourselves from the third-person perspective. We also maintain that we would be morally responsible for those acts that we remember and those that we don’t, since these acts become either part of our personal identity or narrative self-identity.

INTRODUCTION

The metaphysics of personal identity seems to be relevant to “practical concerns” since such concerns are said to require personal identity. David W. Shoemaker cites several examples about these practical concerns. “. . . (4) What justifies someone’s being legitimately held morally responsible only for her own actions? (5) What justifies someone’s being legitimately compensated only for sacrifices she herself has undergone? . . . (7) What justifies (and is the appropriate target and range of) various of my sentiments, for example, embarrassment, pride, and regret?”.1 According to him, there is a “fairly straightforward” answer to each question that employs personal identity. “. . . (4) moral responsibility conceptually requires personal identity, as does (5) compensation (so it seems); . . . (7) I can be embarrassed, proud, and regretful only for my own actions (so it seems)”.2 He also states that “if a physical criterion of identity were correct, it would be the case that my special anticipation and concern, for example, would justifiably track my physical continuers, whereas on a psychological criterion, those patterns of concern would justifiably track my psychological continuers”.3 167 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 167–179. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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He also says, “[p]eople are typically drawn into exploration of the metaphysics of personal identity in one of two ways. On the one hand, they might be interested in the identity of objects generally, and then come to explore the identity of persons specifically, as just another species of object. On the other hand, they might be drawn to the metaphysics of personal identity because of its presumed relation to significant prudential and ethical practices and concerns”.4 In this paper, we focus on the latter, that is, the relation of personal identity and memory to moral responsibility. In the first section, we first present Locke’s views on personal identity and some of the critical views of his contemporaries about his account, and then discuss the significance of memory for personal identity. We also emphasize the importance of personal identity and memory for moral responsibility. Finally, in the second section we present a brief summary of the story of a recent movie, Memento (2000) and some real cases of Korsakoff’s syndrome that are important for discussing moral responsibility in the absence of memory. We think these cases offer good grounds for examining self-identity and moral responsibility in the absence of memory of past events. In the second section, we make a distinction between personal identity and narrative self-identity. We argue that although one’s memory of one’s own past is not a necessary condition of both kinds of identity through time the function of memory is so unique that it cannot be disregarded or substituted by any other criteria in the case of personal identity, for only memory can provide a direct access to our earlier conscious experiences, thus to our earlier “selves.” We then examine the relevance of personal identity and narrative self-identity to moral responsibility and argue that moral responsibility arises even in the absence of memory. We use the movie Memento and the patients suffering from Korsakoff’s syndrome as examples. In this section, we also allege that since memory gives direct access to our past conscious experiences we immediately appropriate these acts in contrast to the appropriation of past acts in the case of narrative self-identity that is constructed by bio-physical criteria. In the latter case, since narrative self-identity is inferred from evidence on the basis of such “external” criteria, appropriation, if possible at all, is the result of this inference, thus it is not immediate as in the case of the appropriation provided by memory. P E R S O N A L I D E N T I T Y, M E M O R Y, A N D M O R A L R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y

The problem of personal identity can be stated in many forms in which the grounds for ascribing ourselves identity over time is the most enduring and relevant theme. One of the persistent disputes around this version of the problem is the search for some criteria of personal identity. It is usually agreed

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that a criterion should provide “direct and noninductive evidence in favor of the truth of”5 our identity statement. In other words, we can confidently make identity judgments only if we have certain criteria and some evidence at hand that satisfies these criteria. Locke was the first philosopher to state the problem of personal identity through time, in his An Essay concerning Human Understanding, where he discusses the problem of identity for different types of objects. After clarifying the notions of identity and diversity, Locke defines ‘person’ as “a thinking intelligent being” that has consciousness.6 He then endeavors to give an account of personal identity in terms of this notion. Since consciousness always accompanies thinking, and it is that which makes every one to be that he calls self, and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things, in this alone consists personal identity, i.e. the sameness of a rational being: and as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person; it is the same self now it was then; and it is by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that action was done.7

He emphasizes the continuity of consciousness through time (i.e. memory) as the essence of personal identity. According to Henry E. Allison, Locke rejects grounding personal identity on substantial identity (i.e. material or immaterial substance) because he renders substance as an unintelligible notion.8 Furthermore “if personal identity were linked with substantial identity, we would, on Lockean grounds, have no clear means of determining the limits of moral responsibility.”9 For if the soul is separated from consciousness, moral responsibility cannot arise because only conscious acts can be objects of moral consideration. Locke also considers bodily criteria as inadequate for justifying identity statements because he thinks even if one’s body remains the same, one is not identical with the bodily agent doing certain deeds if one does not have the memory of doing them.10 All the critics of Locke considered memory as too a narrow criterion for personal identity. This point of his theory leads to so many contradictions that his critics could easily turn his theory into a mere absurdity. Thomas Reid’s story of the General is a case in point. Suppose a brave officer to have been flogged when a boy at school, for robbing an orchard, to have taken a standard from the enemy in his first campaign, and to have been made a general in advanced life: Suppose also, which must be admitted to be possible, that, when he took the standard, he was conscious of his having been flogged at school, and that when made a general he was conscious of his taking the standard, but had absolutely lost the consciousness of his flogging.11

Reid interprets this example as demonstrating an explicit contradiction following Locke’s doctrine. According to him, if we accept Locke’s doctrine, then we must accept that “he who was flogged at the school is the same person who

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took the standard, and that he who took the standard is the same person who was made a general.”12 However, the General cannot be identical with the child because he cannot remember him. This is an obvious contradiction. Leibniz presents another objection that, in a state of retrograde amnesia, one could still maintain one’s moral identity if the unremembered period and the present can be connected even by the testimony of others. [I]f an illness had interrupted the continuity of my bond of consciousness, so that I did not know how I had arrived at my present state even though I could remember things further back, the testimony of others could fill in the gap in my recollection. I could even be punished on this testimony if I had done some deliberate wrong during an interval which this illness had made me forget a short time later. And if I forgot my whole past, and needed to have myself taught all over again, even my name and how to read and write, I could still learn from others about my life during my preceding state; and, similarly, I would have retained my rights without having to be divided into two persons and made to inherit from myself. All this is enough to maintain the moral identity which makes the same person. It is true that if the others conspired to deceive me (just as I might deceive myself by some vision or dream or illness, thinking that what I had dreamed had really happened to me), then the appearance would be false; but sometimes we can be morally certain of the truth on the credit of others’ reports.13

These historical objections show the inadequacy of memory as a criterion for personal identity, but not the irrelevance of the first person self-knowledge to the problem of personal identity and moral responsibility. Although we are material things, our identity seems not to depend merely on body size, intactness of limbs, etc. We make statements about ourselves, and this is a unique feature in the natural world. Selves, or persons, seem to be such unique entities that make first person identity claims the truth of which is known immediately. Sydney Shoemaker states that “it is primarily the way in which first-person statements are made and known, not the way in which third-person statements are made and known, that gives rise to a special problem about the nature of persons and personal identity.”14 The fact that memory statements are first-person statements suggests that we can use memory as a first-person psychological criterion of identity. This fact also seems to weaken the validity of physical criteria of identity because, in memory statements of this sort, we do not assert our identity through time with reference to our bodily identity. According to Shoemaker, however, this independence from physical criteria does not entail the presence of privileged psychological criteria. He goes on to a more radical claim that in those memory statements “one uses no criteria of identity at all; the criteria are not physical, not because they are nonphysical, but because there are none.”15 S. Shoemaker does not deny that one can assert identity statements about one’s past solely on the basis of one’s memory “without knowing anything about the present state of one’s body.”16 However, he denies that in so doing one

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uses a psychological criterion of identity. According to him, when one makes identity statements about one’s own past such statements are in fact inferences from propositions about certain past facts on the basis of some physical criteria of identity. This is not different from inferring an identity statement about someone else from some propositions about certain facts about that person. Of course, Shoemaker admits that memory has some significance for determining the identity of two things in two different times, but he insists that memory of past events is one of those facts that can be used to infer the identity of two things in different times on the basis of some criterion of identity which is physical, not psychological. In short, although memory is not a first-person criterion of personal identity this does not mean that it is not a criterion at all. Like bodily criteria (such as physical continuity and similarity), one can use memory statements of others as criterial evidence for personal identity because we have a noninductive ground for believing in memory statements of others.17 Consequently: Since it is a conceptual truth that memory statements are generally true, it is a conceptual truth that persons are capable of knowing their own pasts in a special way, a way that does not involve the use of criteria of personal identity, and it is a conceptual truth (or a logical fact) that the memory claims that a person makes can be used by others as grounds for statements about the past history of that person.18

The necessity of memory for personal identity is also questioned on empirical grounds. Leibniz’s example of the man who does not remember a certain portion of his life can give much more inspiration than Shoemaker’s rejection of the primacy of first-person criteria on conceptual grounds. A recent movie Memento (2000) gives a lively picture of what would happen to one’s personal identity for lack of memory. In the movie, the protagonist Leonard suffers from anterograde amnesia in which he loses the ability to form new memories. He fills the gaps in his consciousness by creating an “external” memory by means of tattoos (on his body), Polaroid pictures, short notes and the testimony of others. He tries to preserve his selfhood in the absence of new memories and can be considered successful. He remembers the rape and murder of his wife; he plans to take his revenge and uses whatever sources he has to achieve that mission. Even if he cannot remember where he is and why he is there, he can remember his mission, and he can remember who he is. He preserves and even projects his selfhood into the future by following the mission. There are, in fact, more realistic examples about the preservation of selfhood in the absence of memory. Korsakoff’s syndrome is such a memory deficit in which the patient forgets the “several years immediately prior to the onset of the disease” and develops anterograde amnesia.19 The first phase of the syndrome is termed Wernicke’s encephalopathy. In this period, the patient

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demonstrates severe confusion and visual and motor deficits. After this phase, the chronic Korsakoff phase follows. In this phase, patients develop both retrograde and anterograde amnesia. There is a reduction in initiative and desire for “reinforcers” like alcohol and sex.20 Korsakoff patients preserve their selfhood in the absence of new memories. Most of us construct a “metaphor” of ourselves which includes “goals, means of achieving them, problems, pleasures, defenses, aspirations, etc.”21 even if the Korsakoff patient does not perform as well as we do, he can preserve-produce an image of himself on whatever knowledge he can reach in addition to one’s memory of the distant past (which is intact in Korsakoff patients). Most Korsakoff patients have an intact memory of a past so that they can preserve their selfhood, but they are not aware of changes in their lives. They seem to be continuing their pre-disease life during every short interval and then losing the trace of whatever has happened in the meantime. So some such patients do not even know their age. For example, a Korsakoff patient whose name was John O’Donnell, when questioned about his age, replied: “Oh I must be thirty four, thirty five, what’s the difference. . .” when he was 45 years old.22 Another patient, who suffered from anterograde amnesia due to a surgical operation, was H.M who had a brain surgery for the treatment of his epilepsy which damaged his hippocampus and medial frontal lobes. He was not even able to learn the way to the bathroom.23 His memory deficit occurred at the age of 27 and he was “aware that he is now much older. When he looks in the mirror in the morning, he doesn’t think, ‘Who the hell are you?’ ”24 In addition, he was aware of his deficit, and felt embarrassment for it.25 He used to invite strangers to his house, “thinking they must be friends of the family whom he had failed to recognize.”26

E X A M I N AT I O N O F T H E R E L AT I O N S H I P B E T W E E N P E R S O N A L I D E N T I T Y, M E M O R Y, A N D M O R A L R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y

Our investigation of the relationship between memory, personal identity, and moral responsibility is motivated by Locke’s distinction between person and man. We think, because of the complexity of the problem of personal identity, this whole problem should be examined on the basis of two interrelated levels of identity, namely personal identity characterized by the continuity of consciousness (i.e. memory) and narrative self-identity characterized by biophysical continuity and connectedness. Although we distinguish these two levels this distinction is only instrumental for our inquiry. In fact, they are probably two modes of the same thing. Furthermore we examine moral responsibility as it is imputed to other people and to ourselves from the third-person and the first-person perspectives.

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It is obvious that moral responsibility can be and, in fact, is imputed to someone from a third-person perspective. In order to impute moral responsibility for a past act to a present individual one should also be able to impute that act to that individual. In other words, imputing a past act committed by an individual in the past to someone in the present requires the identity of these individuals in question. Since such an attribution is from outside, so to speak, the criteria of identity to which one appeals would usually be physical criteria, such as physical similarity, continuity, and so on. Thus once it is agreed that a present individual is identical with the individual who committed a certain act in the past we judge that the present individual in question is morally responsible for this act (assuming of course that other conditions for moral responsibility, such as being a moral agent, are also satisfied). We can now examine imputing moral responsibility to one’s own self and how it differs from imputing moral responsibility to other people. It is obvious that one can impute an act to oneself from a third-person perspective and can also make moral judgments about oneself from such a perspective as if he were judging another individual: “the individual who deliberately broke the instructor’s glasses yesterday is the individual who earned the highest grade in the ethics class, therefore the individual who earned the highest grade in the ethics class is morally responsible for breaking the instructor’s glasses.” (And then establishing the fact that “the individual who earned the highest grade in the ethics class” is one’s own.) However, moral responsibility regarding one’s own seems to be a lot more personal than this impersonal statement suggests. We would rather say “I deliberately broke the instructor’s glasses and I am responsible for it” because when we impute an act to ourselves we do not usually do so by some physical criteria, but by memory. In fact, when we remember an act, we do not merely impute that act to ourselves but we immediately appropriate it as our experience (even though the remembered experience is mediated, i.e. brought up, by memory). For remembering has a peculiar feature that it shares with all conscious experience: when we have conscious experience we become immediately aware of ourselves as experiencing it. Dan Zahavi, for instance, asserts that “the self . . . possesses experiential reality [and] is . . . closely linked to the first-person perspective, and is, in fact, identified with the very firstpersonal givenness of the experiential phenomena.”27 He also maintains that “[t]o be conscious of one self . . . is not to capture a pure self that exists in separation from the stream of consciousness, but rather entails just being conscious of an experience in its first-personal mode of givenness; it is a question of having first-personal access to one’s own experiential life”28 Accordingly, we think memory also gives us direct access to our earlier conscious experiences (we also have direct access to our unconscious experiences, namely

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dreams, by memory) and does not require a mediation from any other faculty. Remembering, however blurred the memory of a past experience may be, provides a first-person access to our past experiences. In fact, what makes them our experiences is this unique capacity of memory. Of course this unique capacity and direct access provided by memory is not infallible since there may be things that we do not remember or we may have distorted, false, or even “implanted” memories.29 We admit that remembering a past experience is not as immediate as being aware of an experience as my experience, because it is mediated by memory, but it is still immediate in the sense of being “not inferred” or “not derived.” Accordingly, “when you remember having had the experience, say, of being anxious, you are aware that it is you who, in the present, is having the experiences of remembering and also that it was you who, in the past, had the experience of being anxious.”30 In other words, “you appropriate (claim ownership of) the having of the experience”31 as yours. This mineness is a common characteristic of first-person experiences including remembering. That is why in the case of remembering one does not impute an act to oneself, but appropriates it immediately as his act. Responsibility for this act can also be appropriated: it becomes my responsibility.32 After these considerations we should now ask whether one can appropriate and is responsible only for those acts that one remembers. As we saw in the previous section, Locke’s answer was affirmative. However, although we think Locke is right in his insight about the significance of memory for personal identity and moral responsibility we believe this problem is a lot more complicated than Locke realized. We think responsibility for unremembered acts requires an analysis on the level of narrative self-identity that is characterized by bio-physical continuity and connectedness. It is obvious that from a third-person perspective, one can impute an act to oneself (when there is no memory of the act). But can one also appropriate this act? Since in such cases one can merely infer identity by some physical criteria, such an appropriation, if possible at all, must also be “inferred” in contrast to the immediate appropriation provided by memory. Nevertheless, even if we cannot appropriate our unremembered acts we can endorse them as ours and can make them part of our narrative self-identity. But, since our identity criteria would be physical, we would not be able to personally identify with these acts, that is, we could not make such acts part of our personal identity. “[W]e are acquainted with our own subjectivity in a way that differs radically from the way in which we are acquainted with objects.”33 It may be said that while remembered acts are “autochthonous” in the consciousness, unremembered acts are “allochthonous”. Thus even if one

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can appropriate moral responsibility for an unremembered act, such appropriation might be weaker because of the absence of immediate appropriation of the act in question. Nonetheless feelings of guilt, shame, pride, and so on for our acts that we do not remember may be considered as evidence for the appropriation of the responsibility for unremembered acts. (As for the ascription of moral responsibility to someone for his unremembered acts which we discuss below, we can say in advance that, except for some special cases, such ascription of responsibility is quite plausible so long as the acts can be imputed to this person by physical criteria.) We think those periods of our lives of which we have no memories at all but only have evidence (bio-physical continuity and/or connectedness) should be part of our narrative history, and thus should constitute our narrative self-identity. This is, however, derived rather than immediate, because we reconstruct this identity from evidence we have. As a result, these unremembered periods may not feel so strongly like ours, even if we tried, for instance, on the testimony of other people (as in the case of Leibniz’s example). In other words, we may not be able to appropriate these stages of narrative self-identity as strongly as we appropriate our person stages that are the result of recollection. Hence it is plausible to state that the unremembered periods cannot be assimilated into our feeling of identity as long as they remain directly inaccessible. In contrast, especially vivid memories make such a strong impression upon us that we feel identity with the person of those experiences. We feel that it is we who had those experiences, for “we have an innate and noninferential access to our own experiential life.”34 (That is perhaps why Locke was arguing so stubbornly for his rather implausible—though quite important—theory of identity, despite the many objections he himself and others thought.)35 As memories lose their vividness, it becomes more difficult to identify with past selves. In the case of complete lack of memory, we can still identify with those stages in virtue of bio-physical facts, but we can only infer our identity from facts that are accessible to us “externally”. That is why we call this identity “derived” in contrast to the immediate identity provided by memory. It seems then that the first-person experiences and their recollection have a strong bearing on our sense of personal identity, even if memory may not be the sole criterion of personal identity. Let us examine some cases in order to see how appropriation of acts and moral responsibility differ with respect to the absence and presence of memory of acts. As we mentioned in the previous section, Leibniz argued that one should be morally responsible even if one does not remember one’s name and how to read and write. In light of the above considerations, it seems obvious that unremembered acts can be imputed to this man, and that he can be held morally responsible by other people on the basis, for instance, of biological

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continuity. However, we think he should not be held responsible for such unremembered acts because he cannot appropriate them as his, even in the derived sense and even if he had consciousness and reason. He is neither a person nor a narrative self. What happens if he is taught language and all sciences including moral laws together with his life story? He then acquires a narrative self by reconstructing his identity through the evidence available on the basis of some bio-physical criteria of identity and he may also appropriate these unremembered acts only in the derived sense. We think narrative self-identity is sufficient for moral responsibility, for as we can impute acts to people from the third person perspective and hold them responsible, so can we impute our unremembered act to ourselves by some identity criteria, thus making ourselves morally responsible. Nevertheless, in this borderline case, one should not be responsible for his past deeds, because as long as he lacks memory of any moral experiences he would be morally immature, like a child. People become moral agents as they learn moral norms and practice them in different circumstances. This example should also prompt us to emphasize the significance of first-person experiences. As in this example, someone who lacks first-person experiences but is in possession of propositional knowledge cannot be a moral agent because he would not grow into moral maturity that can be developed only by experience, not by mere propositional knowledge. We have so far examined the moral responsibility of unremembered acts generally and of the borderline case above. We have concluded that one should be held morally responsible for one’s unremembered acts because these acts can be imputed to one by others and one can also appropriate these acts and responsibility in a derived sense. But we have seen that someone should not be held morally responsible for his acts if he loses all his memory. There are some real cases of people who do not merely have small gaps in their memory, as we all do, but they, in fact, lose a great portion of their past experiences as a result of Korsakoff’s syndrome. Now the question is whether these people should be held morally responsible for the acts that they perform but do not remember due to their inability to form new memories. Turning to the movie Memento, which is more colorful than many real cases, the protagonist in the movie seems to suffer from an amnesia similar to that of Korsakoff patients. The significance of the protagonist’s plight is that, although he cannot form new memories he seems to keep his identity (or some of it) so that he can make plans to take revenge, i.e. catching and killing the murderer of his wife. Although he cannot form new memories, he can keep track of his identity by “consciously” leaving some traces, such as notes, Polaroid pictures, and tattoos on his body. It seems that, since he is focused on one mission alone, he can sustain this “game” as long as traces are not lost. Usually people suffering

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from Korsakoff’s syndrome cannot play games that require extensive planning taking longer than 10-15 minutes. (For instance they cannot play strategy games or apparently simply games like, the Tower of Hanoi that requires recollection of earlier moves that are not “recorded” in the game. They might play checkers and chess as long as they do not have to think for too long.) Although it may be argued that the character in the movie has a distorted identity, due to the lack of short-term memory it should not be an excuse for moral irresponsibility. For even if he cannot keep his personal identity, he still can construct his narrative self-identity. He can, from a third-person perspective, impute his unremembered acts to himself and can even appropriate them. In contrast to the extreme case discussion above, he has a certain remembered period available to him (the period before the murder of his wife). What may be the significance of his lack of first-person memory experiences for the later period? Although all his memory experiences are about the events before the terrible incident but not after, he seems to have changed into a new person as he searches for the murderer. In other words, even if he does not remember his experiences, they still influence him. But, since his personal (moral) identity is determined by his life before the incident and his memory of the incident never weakens (because he “re-lives” that particular event as vividly as he first experienced it), he never has the chance to reconsider the murder in a calm state of mind. He is always motivated by the same strong feeling of revenge. Then, even when he finds and kills the murderer, he should not be legally or morally responsible for committing a deliberate offense (i.e. murder), for he commits the crime as if he were acting out of fury. Thus he should be held responsible for the act as much as anyone who commits a crime out of anger, because all he remembers when he commits the crime is the murder of his wife just a few minutes ago. On the other hand, he can also follow his vicious mission over a long term while being aware of his memory deficit. He seems to “record” selectively, i.e. consciously, only those events that are related with the murderer. But, in fact, since he re-lives the terrible event over and over again during his conscious moments, he can never get over with the feeling of rage. Paradoxically, the function of memory seems not only to be the recollection of past events, but also the forgetting of them. Is he then the person committing an undeliberate offense out of anger or the “man” with narrative self-identity who commits a vicious murder deliberately? As a person (as we define it above), he should not be morally or legally responsible for his acts. But, since he can keep his narrative self-identity (i.e. he can impute his acts to himself from the third person perspective), he should be held responsible for his crime. However, since his narrative self-identity is also constructed out of such selective information that leads him inevitably to commit a horrible crime, he should not perhaps be responsible for the act. This conclusion, that

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someone who commits a crime in his conscious state of mind should not be morally and legally responsible for his crime, seems counter-intuitive. Is this the result of the peculiar story of the movie or does it have some general significance for identity, memory, and moral responsibility? We think the movie should draw our attention to diverse and indispensable functions of memory, namely healing our wounds by distancing us from the past, as well as allowing us to appropriate our past deeds by connecting us to the past. In conclusion, no one seems to agree with John Locke that memory alone is sufficient for personal identity and moral responsibility. The intuition behind this conviction is that as long as personal identity can be established without appeal to memory, and the person performs his acts in a conscious state of mind, he should be responsible for these acts. We also argued that, if a person can have a reconstructed identity (i.e. narrative self-identity) and, as a result, can appropriate unremembered acts as his own, he should be morally responsible, not as a person but as a narrative self. But we also argued that in certain cases where there is complete memory loss one should not be morally responsible, since one cannot be considered a moral agent. Furthermore, we maintained, on the basis of such memory losses as in the case of Korsakoff patients, that the lack of memory may lead to peculiar cases making it difficult to ascribe moral responsibility. The reason for this strange conclusion is that memory not only contributes to one’s moral enhancement (moral maturity), it also weakens the power of past experiences by enabling one to pass beyond them so that those experiences do not dominate one’s later consciousness, as in the case of the character in Memento. Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

NOTES 1

David W. Shoemaker, “Personal Identity and Practical Concerns,” Mind 116 (2007), p. 318. Ibid. 3 Ibid., p. 319. 4 Ibid., p. 317. 5 Sydney Shoemaker, Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963), p. 3. 6 John Locke, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), II, p. 335. 7 Ibid. 8 Henry E. Allison, “Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity: A Re-Examination,” Journal of the History of Ideas 27/1 (1966), p. 42. 9 Ibid., p. 43. 10 Locke, op. cit., p. 344. 2

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11 Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, in The Works of Thomas Reid, ed. Sir William Hamilton (7th ed., Edinburgh: MacLachlan and Stewart, 1872) I, p. 351. 12 Ibid. 13 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, eds. Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 236–237. 14 S. Shoemaker, op. cit., p. 9. 15 Ibid., p. 125. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., p. 245. 18 Sydney Shoemaker, “Personal Identity and Memory,” Journal of Philosophy 56/22 (1959), pp. 881–82. 19 Howard Gardner, The Shattered Mind (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975), p. 187. 20 Ibid., p. 188. 21 Ibid., p. 206. 22 Ibid., p. 178. 23 Ibid., p. 196. 24 Hilts (1995) and Ogden and Corkin (1991), cited in John F. Kihlstrom, Jennifer S. Beer, and Stanley B. KLein, “Self and Identity as Memory,” in Handbook of Self and Identity, eds. Mark R. Leary and June Price Tangney (London: The Guilford Press, 2003), p. 82. 25 Gardner, op. cit., p. 197. 26 Ibid., p. 196. 27 Dan Zahavi, Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person Perspective (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), p. 106. 28 Zahavi, op. cit., p. 106. 29 Marya Schechtman (1990) Argues that implanted memories may feel artificial because of their incoherence with other memories—“Personhood and Personal Identity,” Journal of Philosophy 87/2. 30 Raymond Martin and John Barresi, Naturalization of the Soul: Self and personal identity in the eighteenth century (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 7. 31 Ibid. 32 Although remembered act is appropriated directly/immediately, appropriating the responsibility for the act is evidently the consequence of an inference. 33 Zahavi, op. cit., p. 17. 34 Ibid., p. 197. 35 For instance, William Molyneux, Joseph Butler, Thomas Reid had serious objections. Allison also draws attention to a passage from Locke himself that, according to Allison (op. cit., p. 55) “contains the reductio ad absurdum of Locke’s theory.” Locke’s passage is the following: “But that which we call the same consciousness, not being the same individual act, why one intellectual substance may not have represented to it, as done by itself, what it never did, and was perhaps done by some other agent—why, I say, such a representation may not possibly be without reality of matter of fact, as well as several representations in dreams are, which yet whilst dreaming we take for true—will be difficult to conclude from the nature of things” (op. cit., p. 338).

L U D M I L A N I K O L AY E V N A P O S E L S K AYA

M E M O RY A S A P O S I T I V E A N D N E G AT I V E M O T I VAT I O N C O M P O N E N T I N A P E R S O N ’ S AC T I V I T Y

W H AT G I V E S B I R T H A N D D I R E C T S A S U B J E C T ’ S A C T U A L ACTIVITY?

To understand and characterize a person’s activity it’s necessary to have a look at the “depths” of his consciousness because it’ll help find out the sources, existing at the genetic level in the form of the generations’ memory. This will also give a clear idea of the determinants of a person’s selfindividualisation as an integral part of the whole onthopoethical process of developing a vital creative phenomenon. The formation of person’s consciousness is stipulated by a transmission of an experience accumulated by a previous generation to the coming one by means of speech, writing, and a constructive, creative activity. Every person is genetically unique and this feature exposes itself in his individual biological nature, thus creating further necessary prerequisites for the formation of a personality and his consciousness. Consciousness ensures the highest stage of a person’s interaction with the outer world, i.e. it gives its reflection in a number of subjective images; their memorizing and further usage in mental processes; a choice, a construction and a direction of his conscientious well-considered activity. The activity problem is a subject of hot discussions in philosophy and psychology. That’s why one should speak about an activity in the wide sense of the word – about a person’s vital activity (vitality) and about an activity of communication, creation, and construction and at last destruction. All the above mentioned types of person’s actions are united by a general notion, i.e. an activity. They all have one very important thing in common – all these types of a person’s activity fulfil a reproductive function, influence his nature, make him a personality within the integral onthopoethical process and reflect peculiarities of his existence in the world. An activity is constantly connected with complex psychical (mental) processes and their highest form of expression, namely, consciousness. From the general point of view an activity includes both a subject and an object and should be looked at as a process which is anticipated by consciousness; it can 181 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 181–190. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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always be observed. Gusserl’s subject of knowledge is empiric, not transcendental, the same as the world of generally valid truths, which is above the empiric psychological consciousness and determines it. An activity’s subjectivity is marked by a person’s actual, vivid behaviour in the outer world, i.e. it depends on the subject himself and is performed by him. The core of this thesis is the idea that the role of an individual and collective subject in the action process is inseparable from a materialistic vision of a person, his ability to form his behaviour in the society and the surrounding world on the basis of the experience acquired from previous generations and other people. It helps create a set of his interests and needs, adhere to them and defend them. The objective peculiarity of the activity is inseparable from the direction of a person’s activity which possesses two forms of expression, either a remaking (transformation), an adaptation of the material world’s realities (things, objects, etc.) to his real needs or a realisation of an individual subject’s potential in future. The activity is supposed to have both subject-object subject-subject relations. This category of a person’s activity should be viewed apart, separately, from a definite thing because any person’s possibility to get something (e.g. master classes, some practical skills, knowledge in art / music) corresponds to the activity of some other individual (teachers, tutors, experts, artists, musicians etc.). Thus, an activity may be connected with any other person. It means that it lays subject-subject relations and is preceded by consciousness. One should answer the question: which takes precedence? May be consciousness is a derivative from a person’s senses-existence life practice contacts with the outer world or vise versa: may be it’s consciousness that directs an activity and leads to a person’s selfindividualisation in this activity aimed at a definite result (positive or negative). One should agree that a person’s activity (especially in its early genetic manifestations) lays the basis of any forms of psychic reflection of the world’s image. At first it may be connected with things/objects and regulated by ready psychic contents; later it may reflect a derivativeness of consciousness from practical sensitive contacts with objects and relations of the outer world. One should clarify the alignment of the two notions: an activity and a work. The phenomenon of a person’s activity is determined by the past memory and a possibility to use this memory’s manifestations in his future life practice. Thus, an activity is determined by the character of the changes brought by a subject into his interrelations with the environment, it also measures a subject’s possibility to act. An activity demonstrates itself as a dynamic side of a work; an activity enables a transition from one form of work (less efficient, as a rule) to another one (either more efficient or the most perfect). Work should be viewed as an activity which possesses a certain goal and is aimed at this goal. A choice of a goal depends upon a person’s psychic

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condition but this goal should be understood as a conscientious (realized) reference point of person’s future actions, i.e. as a long-term plan (a perspective) of actions. But it’ll always be a new one compared with the previously performed work. A possession of a goal actually means a construction of a starting stage of the future activity. Its initial and important ground is formed by information acquired from variants and opportunities of previous experience, its analysis and consequences firmly kept in memory. Moreover, a person doesn’t have information only about his own past experience; his consciousness is stipulated by a transmission of historical heritage of mankind. Here we can distinguish two processes: the first one comprises a transmission of the past experience by means of writing, speaking and some specific variants of material work; the second one is a genetic memory of generations which influences a person’s behaviour and responsibility to the society, a choice and direction of his work. The fact that each person is genetically unique determines a specifity of his consciousness which is formed in the society, in his social environment and is itself determined by a person’s individual vision of things and other people’s work. Is a creative component of a person’s work genetically determined? No, it isn’t. Consciousness can be genetically determined; it provides the highest form of a person’s interaction with the environment, reflects it in the form of subjective images, it memorizes, processes and ensures the building up of conscientious actions. Hence, the growth of a creative source is determined both by a genetic memory and a person’s psychic activity. An important feature of the psychic activity process is its creative character, it is improving in new forms of activity. So, it’s necessary to distinguish the following kinds of an individual’s functioning – vital, objective, communicative and the activity of his consciousness. The vital and communicative activities are fixed in their perception. One can observe the process of doing the activity and its results. One can have an inner feeling of the consciousness of a person’s or a collective subject’s work. But here it’s worth speaking about two kinds of perception – interested and competent. In some cases perception reflects only separate, single elements of the activity. That’s why it can lead to a wrong understanding of its essence. So, a person painting a picture may be thought of as a creative personality, although he is actually pursues an unlawful aim, i.e. he is busy making fake art pictures. The above mentioned ideas about the activity may arouse some critical remarks. There is a quite admissible opinion of its being beyond an individual, i.e. a person’s activity may refer not to a single person but to a certain starting universal integrity. This may mean only one thing, i.e. it’s not the activity that belongs to a human community but vise versa, it’s human beings who belong to this activity, i.e. it “captivates” them and makes them behave this or that way although it is expressed by individuals through

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corresponding acts of activity. But a person doesn’t always get a desired result during the performance of this or that type of work. PHENOMENOLOGY OF A PERSON’S INA DAPTIVITY

According to the new theses of phenomenology, developed by Gusserl, “the I” of a person and all the objects around are phenomena. A discrepancy, a lack of coincidence between the aim and the result, between the incentive for actions and the consequences of these actions are thought to be a motive power of any person’s activity (both positive and negative). Despite any result this contradiction always serves as a determinant of the activity’s development in its progressive meaning. A genesis of inadaptivity reflects a genetic, psychological and lawful nature of activity both from the point of view of its own movement and the realisation of the existing motives of purposes and tasks of the work. Both constructive and destructive tendencies may prevail here. Constructive and destructive trends in the choice of motivation may prevail. Motivation is fully dependent on the subject, but numerous variants of his activity’s consequences don’t always depend on his motivation, goals and aspirations, as we have already mentioned. A person’s vital activity and other results of his actions, such as objective, communicative and cognitive generally have inadaptive character. Our research mainly refers to the problems of vital and objective activity of a person, with antisocial attitudes, a person who is prone (disposed) to committing unlawful offences. A person of this kind may have a specific type of motivation – the crux, the essence of which lies in the very attraction of actions with indefinite results. A person may understand that the actions which he is going to do are likely to bring unexpected results or undesirable consequences. Nevertheless he doesn’t consider them repulsive. He still makes a choice in favour of such an activity and tries to motivate his choice. Here motivation can be absolutely various and highly specific for everybody. Will the unification of various motives be sufficient for the inadaptivity motivation? Here is an example. A criminal motivates his criminal offences by profit, and any positive result of his doings matters much to him, no matter how little it is let it be even slight. Here only one main aim is pursued – to receive much criminal profit. This is one motivation. Let’s suppose that a criminal is a professional in his field, besides the main motivation he may have one more, i.e. he likes overcoming obstacles and unforeseen possible consequences. This is a somewhat specific motivation, i.e. he wants to strengthen himself, to further cultivate his criminal talent. In this case one can see one more (inner, latent) motivation, i.e. excitement, something like a game “a difficult – to catch-criminal – a policeman”. Inadaptive motivation can be determined by person’s quite positive aspirations, like a well-known phrase

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“the goal justifies the means of its attainment”. A person may realize that he violates the law committing unlawful actions, but he may find noble purposes for them. For example, he may break a locking device. He may break into a drug-store and steal some medicines. Being assured that he can hardly be caught by the police he isn’t going to tell them about his offence. Instead, he tries to calm himself telling himself that he has done the right thing, because he was driven by the desire to help a sick or a hurt person. In these examples we see a complex set of motivations, all of them can be explained by his vital attitude to the world, his objective activity and his self- consciousness, i.e. the way he associates, individualizes himself with the integral onthopoethical environment. This should be referred to the phenomenon of a person’s active inadaptivity. One should note that this thesis can’t be associated with uncontrolled consequences of his own action. Quite on the contrary, peculiarities of subject’s psychic sufferings and emotions are clearly seen here. In situations implying a danger for a person a criminal in most cases prefers, according to our research, to choose the most dangerous variant. This phenomenon of a subject’s activity hasn’t appeared in our time. Works of classic literature show that in different periods of the society’s development a man’s activity especially of that one who found himself in extreme conditions (from his viewpoint) is connected with his desire to overcome all the obstacles and difficulties. And he starts with finding them in his own inner world. The classic of Russian Literature, a master of psychological writing Fedor Dostoyevsky in his novel “Crime and Punishment” describes inner sufferings of a well-educated young man him good inclinations which made him commit a capital crime, i.e. a murder of an old woman-usurer. Raskolnikov, the murderer, didn’t possess mercenary motives; he was an absolutely unselfish man; but he became preoccupied by the idea of killing. The essence of his motivation was to solve the problem. Was Raskolnikov conscious of other results of his criminal act? Perhaps, he was. But he chose the most risky variant, which was the most adaptive from his viewpoint. According to the V. Frankl’s concept, a men is constantly in the search of the purport, meaning of his existence, accommodating this thesis to the conditions of the present life; the purport which would allow a human being to remain a human being in all spheres of his life. He proclaimed that “a human being is more than psychics: a human being is a spirit”. In this case a person can be characterized, according D. A. Leontiyev, by the two fundamental ontological peculiarities: by his self-transtendency and the ability to keep aloof from the reality. This means that a man is able to leave the frames of his beliefs and direct his actions to something existing outside him. The situation when such a man keeps aside from the reality enables him to watch his ego as if from aside. The psychic nature of a person is not exempt from the

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past, i.e. from the accumulated experience of the past and its implementation in the process of his present existence; it’s also based on the language realities. Gusserl introduces such concept as institutionalization, the form of which is unity of the past, present and future in one intentional consciousness action. According to Gusserl, there are different layers in phenomena, they include linguistic integuments; meaning-invariant structure and the content of language expressions; object, thought in one’s consciousness; psychical experience. The formation of a person’s ego and psychic realities are the two sides of one and the same process but their functions differ. Psychic realities characterize and reflect only the world which is familiar to the subject’s activity and behavior. As stated in Gusserl’s main phenomenology theses, object existence is immanent to the consciousness and obtains its objective sense due to its relation to consciousness. One can say that psychic realities are actually projections of his individual behavior onto the outer and inner world, whereas his ego is an apprehension of his individual behavior as a subject. A psychic reality is formed under the influence of socio-cultural, semiotic, religious factors and should be viewed as various areas of human consciousness which he lives through while performing some of activity. A psychic reality in practice builds up for a man those events which should happen and be realized on the basis of quite definite motives. A motivation of a purpose of any action is a motive force of the progressive development of activity from its simple forms to the more complex ones. As we have already said the chosen aim is not always achieved. An absolutely unexpected result may ensue. It may appear even better than the planned one; but it’s another. That’s why the activity’s motives come true only in situations which are highly important for a man’s life. From one side a heterogeneity of the activity’s inadaptive motivation is determined by vagueness, uncertainty of the results of the forth-coming activity, an appearance of a certain new aim or task at the end of this activity. It can happen if a man is looking forward to carrying out the unexpectedly opened opportunities and due to his self-consciousness and self-realization in each concrete activity and each concrete situation. But at the same time motivation reflects some outer wishes, purposes or consciousness, his personal attitudes thus converting into the motivation for an action. A person’s nature, his personal qualities, the causes and the motivation of his work are determined by his hereditary, his individual genetic and psychological memory of generations, his social behaviour and responsibility to the society. Memory as a consciousness factor helps a person to render, store and reproduce life experience. Hence, the mentioned problems have been insufficiently researched by psychology, philosophy and other branches of science. In the whole, this problem has an interdisciplinary character, i.e. philosophical, ethical, medical and lawful.

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A L AW F U L A N D P S Y C H O L O G I C A L C R I T E R I O N O F A P E R S O N ’ S P O S I T I V E A N D N E G AT I V E A C T I V I T Y

A person lives and acts in the world which he somehow realizes, interprets and comprehends using his own mental abilities. Law in the civilized world comprises juridical (lawful) clearness, a certain regulation of existence, a rightful approach to basic human relations and the order established and accepted by the society. The sources of appearance and growth of legal norms and regulations in their historic retrospective ensure their perception through the phenomenon of person’s consciousness. He accepts them as a universally recognized category, as a result of the society’s historic development. He doesn’t believe laws to exist only nominally. Law doesn’t exist quite by itself in any society. It realizes itself through a corresponding rightful or wrong conscientious activity of people who behave according to their free will. All this determines the society’s self-regulation together with a personality’s self-individualisation in the lawful environment and in the whole society. Hegel stated that “a personality has a law-ability and makes a notion and an abstract basis of an abstract and a formal law. Hence, the order of the law proclaims: be a person and respect others as persons”. Law is historical. Mankind developed and develops in the direction of freedom, equality and justice assuming their absence and a lack of their minimal forms. Law as a social and historic process means that the development of the law’s essence and the appearance of law relations take place simultaneously during the development and the perfection of the society. Law is based on the experience of preceding generations and finds its expression in the present life experience of every country, every society and everybody. A genesis of the law nature of a person, a law enforcement is closely connected with the apprehension of the fact that in the law’s abstractions and behind their external forms and conventionality one can find the hidden main essence for every concrete individual and the society as a whole, i.e. information about freedom, justice, safeguard of interests as primary attributes of a deserved life of every single person and the society as a whole. A great importance of freedom for people’s life is also determined by the role of law in people’s social life. Law can be viewed as a cultural phenomenon; it is an achievement of people’s collective thinking and the worldwide culture. The present-day historic process of liberating people from various forms of dependence, i.e. suppression, oppression and the like is actually a lawful progress in strengthening and defending a developing freedom; it’s a progress in making people equal as formally free personalities, i.e. lawful equality. Lawful phenomena are rightful norms, lawful relations in the society and among individuals, i.e. a lawful subject, a reality of the world of

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lawful formalities; it’s an evidence of formal equality with some definite social consequences. A man lives and acts in the world which he apprehends, realizes and lets “go through his consciousness” in his own way. Law in the human society includes the lawful lucidity, clarity, the order of everyday life, the lawful approach to basic relations and regulations established in this society. The sources of the appearance and development of lawful criteria and norms in the historic retrospective lay the foundation for the perception of lawful norms through the phenomenon of a person’s consciousness, as generally accepted categories determined by the historic development of the society, but not as formally existing law. Law doesn’t exist in the society quite by itself. It finds its expression through the lawful or unlawful conscientious activity of people who act according to their free will. It determines both a self-individualization in the lawful environment and in the society as a whole. But we don’t intend to analyze problems of interrelations among these notions. We mention them with the only aim to define the sources of law consciousness and unlawful activity of a person. Forming the motive of his future unlawful action, a person realizes that he acts against the law. But the motivation proves to be more than the fear of punishment. Formation of the criminal motivation is preceded by some complicated psychical processes, closely connected with satisfaction of needs and inclinations, with resolution of particular life situations. In a number of cases emotions of a person, his interests and values are of great importance for criminal motive formation. Needs of a person demonstrate his dependence on the outer world. A motive is an intrinsic impulse for activity, it is the best characteristic of one’s personality. From the point of view of psychology, it is possible to speak about professional criminal behavior of a person, which is determined by the past criminal experience, kept in the memory. The memory keeps the crimes committed in the past, they are repeated in the present, but they become “more advanced”, based on the analysis of the mistakes; the motivation to commit crimes in the future remains. The other type of criminal behavior of a person is with inadaptive motivation. Such motivation is typical for mercenary and official crimes. For example, one of the motives is to gain a better social position and authority. The second motivation is mercenariness, tendency to profit illegally. It is necessary to mention, that these types of motivation can be both the main ones and complementary. The legal criterion, besides the mentioned ones, allows to speak also about a violent and a sexual types of personalities, who commit criminal actions. All types of motivation are characterized by temporary transformation of conscience, which is an altered state of consciousness. But this alteration is evident only for the people around. The person committing a crime has his own set of

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perverted values. We found out that in the majority of cases a new reality is constructed in the consciousness of criminals, this is a new vision of the world, in which they are righteous and even necessary for the society. A new type of personality appears – a criminal one. Deformation of the sense of justice can happen as a result of another psychological reality – physiological affect. This psychological phenomenon can be caused by particular emotional background, conflict background, by the circumstances which occurred suddenly. The structure of a particular behavioral action can be analyzed from different angles. The complexity of the criminal person study and the study of his activity motivation is determined by a number of different approaches to this problem from legal, psychological, social, genetic and some other points of view. In spite of the fact that a person apprehends and realizes the world through his changed consciousness, as it was stated by as above, in general it is the same personality as all the others, but this personality requires correction and special study. An illegal action, a crime is a result of interrelation of the inner and the outer, the person and the society, social and genetic (inherited). The most attractive, though strange it is, for the lawyers is the genetic (inherited) factor, but it hasn’t obtained its indisputable proof, the tendency wasn’t observed. As was established, the society, in which the person was brought up and lived for some long time, has the forming influence. That is why the cause of illegal, negative motivation of person’s behavior is determined by phenotypic changeability, internal and external factors of individual development, but not by his genetic inclination. The influence of genotype, though, can not be excluded completely. Alongside with this, person’s inclination to positive behavior is not an inherited quality. Positive creative activity of a person is based on mature feeling for law and order, reflection of identity and contradiction of thinking and objective reality. The basis for motivation of positive activity on the legal criterion determines a famous statement that everything, which is not directly prohibited by law, is allowed then. But this presumption of appropriateness is impossible in the modern, even if it is constitutional, state, because in any state there exist positive and natural law. According to natural law approach the mix, in some cases even the substitution of positive law by moral evaluation is caused by the unity of formal and factual, the necessary and the existing, ideal and material. Kelzen’s teaching about law is devoted to the examination of the question what law is and why it is law. This concept defends purity of the positivist law theory. Life of a person is determined by objective economical and social factors, which influence the person’s choice whether of a positive or a negative motivation. Social consciousness with its diversity of advanced and retrograde views, moral and ethical opinions, national and cultural traditions

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has its own degree of influence upon a person. But one shouldn’t forget about socio-psychological factors and subjective circumstances. They also have its impact upon the behavior of a person through the prism of consciousness. Person’s actions are motivated also by the previous social experience, behavioral skills, which are revealed in other life circumstances. Formation of creativity is connected with the historic experience, passed through generations, with the personal experience and the process of social practice cognition. The experience accumulated in consciousness can be creatively transformed and become the source for new cognition. Let’s consider an example from the practice of our research. A convicted citizen N. was staying in a correctional institution for money counterfeiting. In the past he had skills in drawing and painting and used them in his criminal activity. After a visit of a priest to the colony he developed an inclination to apply his skills in the positive way and expressed an initiative to decorate a chapel which was on the territory of the colony. The positive motivations of the action led him to painting icons, improving the skills day by day. There were positive changes in his consciousness, he reestimated much of the reality and started seeing his own and the others lives and human relations and actions in the new way. The Russian State Humanitarian University (the RSHU), Moscow, Russia

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“INTERPRETING” THE MODERN T I M E S – P O S S I B I L I T I E S , L I M I TAT I O N S , S O C I A L A N D V I TA L F U N C T I O N S

ABSTRACT

The modern times – understood as the current status of collective and individual life, social and cultural communication, achievements of technological and scientific progress, modern structures and civilisational devices – become less and less recognizable and more difficult to understand by an ordinary man. This is induced by the constant growth in the complexity of structures and functions, the so-called “slovenliness” of the civilisational reality and an increase in the rate of its transformations, as well as the flood of data and information (information smog), exceeding the capabilities of human perception, including various deformations of media transmission. In this situation, the most up-to-date and significant problem – important not only because of the desired correctness and sanity [psychical and mental] of the life of a modern man, but also taking into account the man’s future and preservation of the civilisational and cultural accomplishments – is the issue of “interpreting the world anew” in a manner that the features and characteristics of its processes and mechanisms, the nature of its structures and systems, the character and the directions of transformations are correctly perceived. This interpretation is also necessary for the man to be able to understand the world as far as possible and not lose contact (both intellectual and emotional) with it. This interpretation is necessary to allow the man to control the world at least partially and prevent him from succumbing completely to alienation and self-alienation. The concept of “interpreting the modern times” initially drafted in the paper is a general project of becoming acquainted and understanding the social and civilisational reality on the basis of integrated intellectual effort [natural cognition, commonsensical cognition, scientific and philosophical cognition] with potentially full inclusion of the relevant humanistic, moral, empathic and creative attitudes. The paper presents both the full possibilities of the project and its restrictions, as well as the role of philosophy in this complex cognitive process. 191 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 191–200. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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Let us start with a general and informal statement: the modern world, i.e. the world of “here and now” requires a new “interpretation”; it needs to be “experienced and re-considered.” What does this concise (and a little too-intentional) sentence mean? In particular, what is the meaning of the phrase: “to interpret the world anew”? Let us answer this question briefly. This term means reaching for these manners of cognitive “interpretation” of reality that allow new intellectual paradigms generated currently in the main spheres of intellectual and creative activity of man, i.e. scientific, philosophical and artistic creativity. The above includes such research specialisations as nuclear physics, molecular biology, information technology, technical sciences, or certain philosophical disciplines, such as environmental philosophy, bio-ethics, philosophy of life and creativity including the philosophy of life of A. T. Tymieniecka. “Interpreting the world anew” i.e. interpreting the world in a new and more efficient fashion, on the basis of intellectual paradigms worked out by the modern researchers in certain areas of “intellectual access” to this world, means the possibility of understanding the world as a whole; the possibility of holistic reception of the world, and its cognitive comprehension in more extensive (global) dimensions and aspects. This manner of experiencing the world that exceeds the scope of traditional sciences and philosophical disciplines (mainly its social, civilisational, mental and cultural changes and processes), as well as becoming acquainted with it from the comprehensive position of epistemology of the human world, is obviously a very difficult and unprecedented task; yet it is also indispensable. Otherwise, the feeling of “being lost in the world” experienced by the modern people and the future generations and their “distance of understanding in relation to the products of modern civilisation”1 will increase in an alarming and dangerous manner. Some scientists who say that the world understood in a wider scale “surpasses us” and who claim that “even though we have control over the immediate surroundings, yet the wider world exceeds our mental capabilities” and those who say that “our rough minds are faced with more and more complicated world, therefore the distance increases”, especially with respect to “the world of politics, social life, human behaviour”, as well as scientists who claim that “[. . .] we do not have [. . .] trustworthy hypotheses, which could explain the past and we do not have the tools for making projections”2 might still be wrong. Maybe the situation is not so bad, at least at the level of scientific description of certain spheres of human world. However, as far as the understanding of the world is concerned, cognitive pessimism is justified. This understanding quickly decreases and the modern civilisation evidently weakens its possibilities. “In our very complex world”, a philosopher writes, “we are unable to find our own place, we are unable to find the joy of living;

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we cannot understand the structure of the world, which has changed so much in the course of the last 70 years.”3 Another theoretician of modernity adds an irrefutable comment to this statement by saying that “[. . .] the civilisation of the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century [. . .] is characterised by de-humanization, and the advancing technology deprives man of the elemental need to understand the surrounding world, the possibility of accepting it and defining one’s own role in it. A statistical man is able to internalize the entire civilisation and understand its technical meanders in a slight degree; these meanders and intricacies are no longer represented by ‘great’ technology, but by the technological instruments of our immediate surroundings.”4 There is little exaggeration in the following statement, according to which “[. . .] most of us do not understand the world, i.e. do not know what is going on and why [. . .]; [. . .] most of us are persistently indisposed for understanding the world.”5 Especially elder people have great difficulty in meaningful interpretation of the modern times, i.e. in understanding technological and other complexities of modern creations and civilisational equipment; the attitudes, mentality and skills of these people were shaped in the era preceding “post-modernity”, which is distinctly different from the entire past of humanity. It would be advisable to pay attention to main difficulties or even barriers in the present communication of people from different generations with the modern times; in other words, their difficulties in “interpreting” and understanding the world in which they live and in understanding themselves in this world. These difficulties are numerous and most of them are integrally linked with the main mechanisms and processes of the modern civilisation; their nature is predominantly objective and slightly subjective. This means that the modern man does not have major influence on them and is mostly helpless with respect to them. These are some of the above-mentioned difficulties: – transformation of the modern world [mainly Western societies] which some authors define as civilisation entropy. It means increasing complexity and internal confounding of the civilisation, its “messing up” or falling into the states of increasing disorder and chaos. This feature of our civilisation, mainly in its social, humanistic and moral aspects blurs its transparency and legibility; it weakens and sometimes even excludes the possibility of understanding it. According to one Polish author “[. . .] the entire reality surrounding us is constantly becoming complicated. It is becoming more and more ‘slovenly’

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and less and less legible as far as obtaining information about it is concerned. [. . .] People do not understand what is going on around them and inside them. This leads to irritation, partial disorientation and frustration, [. . .] the complicating reality is the background for non-adjustment of people to this reality.”6 This may be a starting point for certain psychic disorders and mental disturbances. Difficulties in proper orientation in the complex and confounding world, especially with respect to deeper understanding thereof, greatly increase the speed of its transformation, the speed that is subject to constant acceleration and which takes place in almost all important areas of social, legal, cultural and technical spheres. This is a speed whose effects not only escape the possibilities of perceiving them by an average man – with all negative psychological and existential consequences of this state of affairs – but in many cases it also escapes – which is dangerous for the future of humanity and the entire modern civilisation – rational control and reliable predicting. It is a commonly accepted fact that social and humanistic sciences, including sociology, pedagogical and psychological sciences (in particular social psychology) and other sciences, do not keep up with civilisational and social transformations of the modern world. Paradoxically, other major impediments in interpreting the modern times in a meaningful fashion are connected with the manner of developing and providing information about this world, as well as obtaining the information, collecting it, putting it in order and disseminating. In general, the information is selective, collected hurriedly and structured in a random fashion [according to commercial and not methodological] criteria, often disseminated on the basis of its sensational character and broadcasted in a flood which makes proper reception impossible. This is well exemplified by the information activity of mass media. As a result of this “information smog” or “information pulp”, the so-called “information poisoning” and “information loss” takes place. A cognitive entity receives deformed, rudimentary and shallow communications about the reality; the picture of reality is too simplified, caricatural and fake. This phenomenon is aggravated not only by the hurried and not always reliable procedures for obtaining cognitive data and one-sided information activity of mass-media, but also the mass-culture, which is the most characteristic creation of the modern civilisation in the cultural domain and “spiritual consumption.” From the point of view presented here, the mass culture not only effectively supersedes the values of high culture, but also distorts the criteria of accurate valuation by its recipients; it makes the axiological orientation of man shallow and muddy. A renowned expert of this issue says: “A modern man is accustomed to the omnipresent mass culture, in which a number of values were degraded.

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This is the culture in which he no longer knows what is valuable and what is mediocre.” This negatively impacts the spiritual life of man, or the “ontopoiesis of life”, which is a term used by Anna Teresa Tymieniecka. The above difficulties in the general perception of the modern (post-modern) world by an average man influence the character of this perception. Its scope is limited, fragmented and selective with respect to the subject matter; as far as its efficiency is concerned, it is generally superficial, not thorough and inadequate. The difficulties also exert impact on the general cognitive status of the subject matter of the perception. It is weakened, inefficient and disintegrated. In other words, the world is escaping the cognitive capabilities of man and becomes less and less understandable for him, whereas the man becomes more and more disoriented and lost in the world. Nevertheless, the difficulties signaled here become a challenge for man. They constitute tasks and problems that require solving. They are very difficult, yet impossible to avoid and disregard, if a man is still to be considered homo sapiens, along with the major attributes of humanity. Therefore, the demand for “interpreting the world anew” or, to speak pictorially, “reading” it as if from a new book, is provided with a new imperative. The new book of the world contains knowledge which is more complete, deeper and more thorough; it also contains orientation clues which distance it from the offensive stupidity and irrationality of our world. Therefore, what does the new interpretation of the world, postulated here, entail? How to understand wise orientation in the world, protected heroically from stupidity and irrationality? Let us answer this question concisely. First of all, it is necessary to state that “interpretation of reality” which is of interest to us, does not mean any completely new research programme, recommended only to scientists, or a radical new method of philosophical interpretation of the world. In other words, this interpretation does not mean something that is currently absent from science and philosophy and which, most probably, will be absent in the nearest future. On the other hand, it denotes the indispensable and difficult (yet, to a certain extent, possible) reorientation in the natural [colloquial] environment, the scientific environment [mainly in the sphere of social and humanistic sciences] and the philosophical environment [on the basis of properly integrated philosophical thinking, i.e. philosophical thinking divided into separate disciplines and specialisations]. The new “interpretation” of reality offers different possibilities and, so to speak, different cognitive scopes, on each level and on each plane. However, the general objectives may be common. It is known that the horizon of natural [colloquial] cognition is limited, and its capability of deeper penetration into the sphere of the cognitive object or its beyond-sensory view is relatively

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small, not exceeding the borders of sensual, intuitive and commonsensical “reception” of reality. Scientific cognition also has its various barriers and limitations (which are often shown in an exaggerated manner in the contemporary times, the postmodernism era) even though in comparison with the natural cognition, it is deeper and more reliable. Nevertheless, it tends to be more or less fragmentary within its own subject matter.7 On the other hand, philosophical cognition, despite its numerous advantages (such as greater curiosity and criticism, acumen and depth, extent of horizons and sometimes successful reaching to the core of the problem and the sense of the debated aspects of reality, in comparison with non-philosophical areas of human cognition) also raises many doubts and reservations, expressed more and more often by its many critics. For example, there is a question whether such cognition is not too arbitrary, speculative and methodological and not sufficiently established, too hypothetical and generalized.8 However, despite their limitations, these three types of human cognition may be provided with an appropriate role in the concept of the new “interpretation” of human world, even though their capabilities, objectives and tasks within this concept may be varied. Therefore, in the case of natural [commonsensical] cognition, the aim is to retain the greatest possible distance and criticism with respect to threats reaching the recipient from mass media and symbolic sources, ideological and political discussions, language of commercialism and consumerism. Wellknown and intensifying deformations and falsifications of the picture of the human world and human values, increasing lack of cognitive, moral and aesthetic sensitivity which is replaced by dominant transmission of data about the external and internal environment of people are so great and destructive that they require maximum exertion of criticism and common sense, full mobilization, vigilance and independence of the mind already on the basic level of thinking, valuating and elementary orientation in the world. On the other hand, at the level of scientific cognition, the requirements of the modern interpretation of the world dictate the need for pursuing multiand interdisciplinary research, as well as radical acceleration in development of social and humanistic sciences (including political sciences, sociological, cultural studies, psychological, and pedagogical studies) which are lagging behind transformations of our civilisation. These sciences should be equipped better for deeper identification of mechanisms and structures, changes and transformations of the globalizing human world. Especially these sciences whose nature is interdisciplinary and which have direct practical tasks require strong stimulation and acceleration in the rate of development. These are: educational sciences, sciences dealing with social

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and family life, sciences dealing with civilisation and globalization processes. Their multi- and interdisciplinary nature, strong ties with the sphere of practice and social experiences, cognitive search of reality by means of extended list of methods and cognitive tools, as well as constructive and prospective approach, predispose them to difficult tasks within the scope of “renewed interpretation” of the contemporary world. Finally, let us pay attention to what philosophy, or – to be precise – philosophical cognition – may contribute to the cognitive and understanding programme that is discussed here. Philosophy plays major and indispensable role in this necessary, yet more potential than real programme of cognitive and understanding activity defined as “interpreting the world anew”. This refers both to certain varieties of the existing philosophies, as well as certain types of potential philosophies which could be established and adjusted to this new role, as is shown by attempts made in this respect.9 However, only philosophies with the so-called “human element” can be of interest here, i.e. philosophies whose cognitive interest is focused mainly on man – his nature, place and role in the world, individual and collective life, aim and sense of existence, world of ideas and values, etc. Moreover, the philosophies should aim at recognizing not only the states of affairs revealed in a phenomenalistic manner, but also deeper layers and dimensions of the subject of cognition, its nature, sense, meaning, etc. On this level of philosophical cognition, it is necessary to have the evaluating function, with indispensable participation of intuition, direct experience, empathy, internal feeling, intellectual and emotional valuation and also the “renovating” intentionality in relation to the world that is being experienced, evaluated and understood. Certain types of philosophy are vested with such typical and atypical cognitive possibilities; they are related with the philosophy’s capability of indispensable interpretation of reality, general or holistic attitude to the subject matter of the cognitive search. For example, these are the manners of cognitive interpretation of reality which have been developed more or less successfully on the basis of Plato’s dialectics, Bergson’s intuitionism, Husserl’s cognitive phenomenology, direct experience of R. Ingarden, hermeneutics of H.G. Gadamer and P. Ricoeur, environmental philosophy of H. Skolimowski or the philosophy of life of A. T. Tymieniecka and in a few other philosophical epistemologies [e.g. E. Levinas, M. Buber, J. Tischner, J. Ba´nka and others]. Of course, a lot is to be done for the sake of harnessing the existing and future philosophy into this new interpretation of human reality. There is a significant possibility of achieving certain success; however, on the condition that philosophy (just like the philosophy of life and the human creative condition

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of A. T. Tymieniecka) will effectively free itself from idle speculation, narrow minimalism, old-fashioned rationalism, pretentious academism and absolutist tendencies. As A. T. Tymieniecka has shown by in her numerous works, the new philosophy (if it is meant to cope with the challenges), should derive from (just like ancient philosophy), admiration of the world, positive sentiment towards it and its critical affirmation; it cannot derive from indifference and nihilistic criticism. Only then the philosophy will be able to explore the world in a cognitive manner and to comprehend it in an understanding fashion, and therefore to contribute significantly to its proper interpretation. In this respect we have a characteristic statement of one of the supporters of this new philosophy: “[. . .] modern philosophers usually do not have the heart for the world, they do not feel any sentiment to it. They believe that they live in an indifferent and mediocre world. Therefore, their philosophy is also indifferent and mediocre. A condition for establishing a good and thrilling philosophy”, says the author “is affirmation of the world, and even admiration of it. This is the impulse that gave rise to the original philosophy in the Greek period [how wonderful!]. This was the impulse that gave rise to great philosophies.”10 Obviously, the concept of interpreting the modern world presented above is an initial and unfinished project, formulated as a sketch and open for indispensable specifications and concretizations. Above all, it constitutes a postulate of a specific direction for the necessary methodological and cognitive searches, reflections, attempts and solutions. Due to the particularly difficult tasks of this project, its great complexity and extensive range, it cannot be placed in any traditional or classical intellectual paradigm, but it is looking for its own place on a plane of non-traditional epistemological and hermeneutic thinking. First of all, the concept relies on the fact that it combines all possible types and levels of cognition into one comprehensive cognitive act – in this case the modern “interpretation” of the human world. These types and levels of cognition include natural and philosophical cognition, each of them having certain value and autonomy. If we assume – according to W. Tatarkiewicz – that human cognition is enriched on every level, some people reach higher and higher for complete cognition, obtaining some new values as they go along. On the scientific level they deepen and specify the natural cognition, and on the philosophical level they obtain the synthesis of both types of cognition. Moreover, they also achieve new cognitive options and perspectives, allowing them to get closer to the nature of existence, the nature of man, the sense and the value of life, moral sense, the place and the role of man in the world, etc. Secondly, the concept combines or integrates various levels of moral, humanistic, aesthetic – so to speak – cognitive and at the same time emotional and intuitive “access” to reality.

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According to the idea of “positive relativism” adopted in the concept, none of the intellectual, emotional, intuitive and moral contacts with the surrounding world listed-above are made absolute; each of these contacts is considered precious and indispensable, taking into account their qualitative differences. The concept discussed here is concerned with integral knowledge that is possible to obtain and the cognitive effort not on differentiated and narrowed planes, but on a vast cognitive field: commonsensical, scientific, philosophical, as well as emotional, intuitive, humanistic and moral. In other words, it is the potential integration of the entire human cognition and understanding, with all its types, levels and planes. Only this, so to speak, “total integration” may allow some significant progress towards deeper and fuller “interpretation” of the contemporary time. Thirdly, the cognitive project discussed here does not entail, as it was said before, an arbitrary and irrational vision or an uncontrolled fantastic idea. Of course, it is not devoid of certain spontaneity and it is situated at the border of the impossible and the Utopian approach. However, it does not refer the actual state of affairs, but rather how things should be organised; in this respect, it is assumed that the manner of thinking that is little feasible, Utopian, or even desperately demanding with respect to these areas of human activity where most important problems of human existence emerge and where crucial issues regarding the general condition of man and his future are decided, is quite justified or even necessary. Failure of one or other Utopian concept cannot be a discouragement with respect to the entire idea of Utopia, because it has been a great driving force for the human nature. It is necessary to become reconciled with the fact that “[. . .] the history of human societies, in their best dimension, is the history of Utopias that people thought of and tried to implement, sometimes better and sometimes worse. Without these experiments in searching for the ‘heavenly state’ we would still be in the vicinity of a cave.”11 Poland

NOTES 1

Cf. Wiesław Sztumski, My zagubieni w s´wiecie. Przyczynek do filozofii s´rodowiska z˙ycia jako ´ askiego, podstawy environmentologii, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Sl ˛ Katowice 2004. 2 Bogdan Chwede´nczuk, Dialogi z Adamem Schaffem, Iskry, Warszawa 2005, pp. 144–145. 3 Henryk Skolimowski, Jan Konrad Górecki, Zielone Oko Kosmosu. Wokół filozofii w rozmowie i esejach, Elita 2, Wrocław 2003, p. 115. 4 Lech Radzioch, Intuicje i obiektywizacje. Z problematyki samostanowienia si˛e przedmiotu filozoficznego, Katowice 2005, p. 304. 5 Ibidem.

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6 ´ ask” Janusz Czerny, Zagro˙zenia wychowawcze we współczesnym s´wiecie, “Sl ˛ Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Katowice 1999. 7 Cf. Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Droga do filozofii i inne rozprawy filozoficzne, vol.1, Pa´nstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa 1971, pp. 13–25, 43–47. 8 Cf. Jan Szmyd, Filozofowanie u˙zyteczne. Studia z filozofii praktycznej, Oficyna Wydawnicza “Branta”, Bydgoszcz-Kraków 2003, pp. 26–33. 9 Cf. Anna Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life, Book 1–3, Dordrecht – Boston – London, 1989–1990. 10 Henryk Skolimowski, J.K. Górecki, Zielone oko Kosmosu. Wokół filozofii w rozmowie i esejach, publisher’s quotation, p. 117. 11 Ibidem, p. 65.

E. FUNDA N ESLIOGLU

T H E A C T I V I T Y O F T H E S E L F - R E A L I Z AT I O N W I T H I N T H E C O N T E X T O F T H E FA B R I C AT E D I D E N T I T Y O F T H E C O N S U M E R S E L F A N D I T S T R A N S F O R M AT I O N

ABSTRACT

The basic question motivating this paper is the question of where we are to go from here. The answer of this question requires reflecting upon the different human possibilities that it is within our power to realize, upon the conditions of their possibility, and upon the ways in which they may variously support or exclude each other. In my opinion, such a reflection upon the human possibilities is necessary, since “where we are to go from here” is a question whose answer is more to be decided than discovered. However, where possibilities are considered in order to decide, choices must be made; this leads us directly to better life theory as social, cultural and critical/normative theory. In this context the problem I would like to consider is whether the notion of self-realization has a future, and whether can play a useful role in “better life theory”. THE N OTION O F SELF

Different disciplinary cultures inevitably produced different visions about the nature of self. Many thinkers do not prefer to deploy the concept of the self at all, instead of “subject”, “person”, and “individual”. These terminological differences are often seen as theoretically insignificant, though they reflect differences of substance. I think some distinction is surely required. The concept of “individual” is typically found within liberal discourses, especially among methodological individualists. In its classical formulation, individuals are seen from the outside, as isolated, embodied units, even machines (Hobbes), processors of certain human powers and interests but fundamentally separate from one another and standing in opposition to society. Their subjectivity follows from a common human nature. By the rise of subjectivity in the eighteenth century and ethical, political and aesthetic theories focusing on the inside of the individuals, individuals were defined as possessors of inner depths. The opposition between inside and outside is complemented by a distinction between a higher and lower self. Rousseau, Kant, and later Mill all associate moral and intellectual activities with the control 201 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 201–212. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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of a lower, appetitive self associated with desire and the body. The “subject” was defined in opposition to objects, which include nature and society as well as the body and its passions. “Subjectivity means separation from the object realm, yet paradoxically the subject who dominates objects must also exercise control over itself in order to banish its own contingency: the self becomes an object for itself”.1 Such recognition of human beings both as objects and subjects of knowledge emerges a distinction between self and subject. With taking the self as an object of knowledge, a wideness of discourses from ethics to psychoanalysis arose. These discourses aim to inform the self of its true nature and to prescribe criteria of normality and authenticity. With these discourses speaking from the third-person position of detachment, the self becomes the subject of objective theories operative in the social realm. The self, on the other hand, is their alleged referent, a mystery which each bears within itself and which such discourses attempt to disclose. From this point of view, the subject is irremediably social insofar as it is articulated through public languages. But what of the self? How far do the effects of the social and its discourses reach? From this perspective any discussion must rely on theories of subjectivity. But these theories may be perceived as emancipatory if they help enlighten the self about its true needs and motivations, however they can never fully capture a self that is of an other order. Moreover, there is always the danger that discourses of subjectivity manipulate, or even construct the self of which they speak. Thus, for Foucault, psychoanalysis does not free or enlighten the self, but produces and normalizes it. Postmodernists avoid such concerns by collapsing the tripartite distinction between individual, subject and self into a single category of subjectivity. Eliminate discourses of subjectivity, and the illusion of an inner, autonomous self, like the quest for individuality, disappears. Selves, in other words, are but special effects, and the question of power arises at the level where they are discursively constructed rather than at the point where the integrity of the self might be threatened. T H E P O S S I B I L I T Y O F S E L F - R E A L I Z AT I O N

The notions of self-realization and self-alienation were firstly appeared in the history of modern philosophy. It has taken as the fundamental theme of the tradition of modern thought, the quality of human life. Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche were among the leading contributors to the debate about this topic that regard in the last century, and spilled over into this one, in such developments as Existentialism and the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. Along with the idea of human nature, the idea of “genuinely/truly/fully human life” has been the

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basic topic, and it leads to rethink the question of the life in the present age and the future. Such a re-evaluation of life or the notions of self-realization and selfalienation raised with the rejection of the idea of some absolute, immutable and eternal essence of humanity in the philosophy and the critical social theory; because there was seen that we must admit that our humanity is a historical, contingent and plastic affair, admitting of great variation under different social conditions. After “the death of God”, of traditional metaphysics, and of all absolutism and essentialism in our thinking about human nature, value and morality there may be no way of setting questions about the human good and the quality of life once and for all, by discovering some reasoning that will lead us into the real, ultimate truth about these matters. But even though we may be obliged to recognize that there is no such truth awaiting our discovery of it, and so to abandon the quest for it, we now find that a different challenge confronts us, and a different task appears on the agenda of philosophy. We must chart our course on what Nietzsche calls the “open sea” on which we find ourselves, with ever-receding horizons and no fixed and final port. We must first take stock of what we have become, and of what we have to work with as well as of the boundary conditions we must reckon with – and we then must consider what we are to make of ourselves, and how we might make the most of our human existence in this world. This will require reflecting upon the different human possibilities that it is within our power to realize, upon the conditions of their possibility, and upon the ways in which they may variously support or exclude each other. Hegel and Marx are also concerned with the questions of the realization or non-realization of the human possibilities. For example, for the classical Hegelian analysis, self-realization has a future, because self-alienation is finally overcome in the kind of life made possible in the well-ordered state. In this case, the basic condition of self-realization is presented as the well-ordered state. But would all the well-ordered states in this world be able to ensure that things would go in such a way in their economic, social and political affairs as to enable such self-realization for their citizens? As in the Marxian case, a high priority is attached to the cultivation and expression of human creative powers. Man’s essential powers, his latent and potential human powers are unlimited in their capacity for development. If man is now no more than a laboring beast, he need not remain in that condition; he can attain the highest forms of creativity, thought and action. This is the underlying conception by that Marx assessed and evaluated social systems. Man’s latent creative powers were stifled and repressed under the social conditions of all class societies. The existing system, capitalism, was not preventing

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the fulfilment of his potential as man; it was even depriving him of his animal needs – fresh air, food, sex and so on. Hunger, for example, was not felt as a result of external, natural conditions, nor was it experienced as a phase in the recurrent and inevitable rhythm of man’s metabolism. On the contrary: Hunger was a condition of deprivation imposed by other men. Marx thus condemned the capitalist system for its effect on individual human beings. His view can be seen more explicitly in one of his early philosophical works, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. In the words of Marx: Even the need for fresh air ceases for the worker. Man returns to living in a cave, which is now, however, contaminated with the mephitic breath of plague given off by civilization, and which he continues to occupy only precariously, it being for him an alien habitation which can be withdrawn from him any day – a place from which, if he does not pay, he can be thrown out any day. For this mortuary he has to pay. A dwelling in the light, which Prometheus in Aeschylus designated as one of the greatest boons, by means of which he made the savage into a human being, ceases to be need for man. Dirt – this stagnation and putrefaction of man – the sewage of civilization (speaking quite literally) – comes to be the element of life for him. Utter, unnatural neglect, putrefied nature, comes to be his life-element. None of his senses exist any longer, and not only in his human fashion, but in an inhuman fashion, and therefore, not even in an animal fashion.2

On the other hand, Marx views, in these philosophical writings, the dehumanization of man as a consequence of alienation. That idea, though Hegelian in origin, was fundamentally transformed in Marx’s hands. Alienation for Hegel, like his other constructs, was exclusively a phenomenon of the mind. With the Young - or Left-Hegelians, the concept was significantly altered but remained primarily a philosophical notion — that is, a condition in which man’s own powers appear as independent forces or entities controlling his action. But Marx says that man has the ability to make his life activity the object of his will and consciousness. That is what makes it possible for man to attain ever greater degrees of freedom. The animal produces only when dominated by his immediate physical needs; man, however, can produce “even when he is free from physical need and only truly produces in freedom therefrom.”3 It may be true that human beings create themselves by creating their world. But throughout history, human beings have been unable to control, or to understand, the forces their collective activity unleashes. On the contrary, those forces have often been a source of enslavement. Hence the life-activity of the wage labourer under capitalism is subordinated entirely to the socioeconomic relations which define him or her. Nevertheless, for Marx, the development of capitalism promises to create the circumstances in which human beings can master the powers with which they make their lives and establish a revolutionary new form of social life – communism – in which those powers can self-consciously be harnessed to issue in conditions in which universal human flourishing is possible.

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In our own time, however, the new political economy betrays such an understanding of human beings as capable of mastering their powers for free action. It has produced new structures of power and control, rather than created the conditions, which set selves free. The most tragic one is the modern idea of technological utopia which sees the activity of self-realization as the transformation of self to consumer.

THE ACTIVITY O F MODERN SELF: I CONSUME THEREFORE I AM

The concept of self, especially of the Cartesian cogito, has received a great deal of critical attention from postmodern and neostructuralist theorists. The rational ego is posited as the subject of knowledge in modern science and technology. The selves which in the modernist tradition have become the subjects of knowledge and scientific power were, in the Christian tradition supplanted by modernism, the eternal souls that provided an invariant substratum for the fluctuating experience of human emotion and sense perception, providing a spiritual continuity in the quest for salvation: the stable vehicle bound for the static endpoint of history. That endpoint provided the template on which the modern idea of technological utopia has been modelled, from Bacon through Disney. The Magic Kingdom is, after all, a rarefied and idyllic image of suburbia with synthetic manifestations of American fantasy, from fake presidents to the eternally childlike persona of Peter Pan, both thinly disguised forms of the national self-image of incorruptible innocence. It is as if America wanted to go to heaven so badly that it created its own version of it, with prices accessible to most everyone, improving on Christianity by insuring salvation to anyone for a nominal fee. The mall, a pervasive expression of the same sensibility, provides an environment where the self, transformed from pilgrim or scientist to consumer, can achieve happiness, the realization of dreams, by the purchase of commodities. Thus the original quest for salvation has been transformed into one for consumption without end through the mechanisms of the science, technology and capitalist economy created by the modern cogito: “I consume therefore I am.” But has the freedom which was originally to be achieved through salvation from sin, and later to be won by the twin revolutions of modernity – the industrial and the political – really been provided by the culture industry of consumer choice? The notion of freedom is based on the concept of the will: it is a characteristic of the will, which is supposedly capable of uncoerced volition. If a consumer “chooses” to buy a product, is she or he then expressing her or his free will? The advertisers would have us believe it, and many of us

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have been convinced, at least implicitly accepting the idea that shopping is the good life and inscribing the desiring subject of consumerism into ourselves by our daily practice of mall strolling. This idea is the one of codes which make up postmodern artifacts and representations, including the schizophrenic postself, are the result of the commercialization of culture by what the Frankfurt School called the culture industry, and the pervasive dominance of advertising, even identification of advertising, as the logic of culture. T H E S C H I Z O P H R E N I C P O S T- S E L F A N D T H E G A M E O F P O W E R

If postmodern selves as consumers are slaves, then those who make the rules for consumption, the capitalists, are the masters; together they produce the master-slave dialectic of late capitalism. Consuming more will not make the slaves masters, and becoming capitalists will not free them from the dialectic, for their power is constrained by the need for slaves to feed profits. In late capitalism, as Marx foresaw, both capitalist and consumer, like capitalist and worker in earlier phases, are prisoners of the logic of capital in its game of masters and slaves: the game of power as power over the other. The Nietzschean think the postmodern game is to get out of the dialectic altogether: power as power to create (Kulturmachen). As Nietzsche says, contrasting his ideal with thinkers in the tradition of Kant and Hegel, “Genuine philosophers, however, are commanders and legislators . . . With a creative hand they reach for the future, and all that is and has been becomes a means for them, an instrument, a hammer. Their ‘knowing’ is creating, their creating is legislation, their will to truth is – will to power.”4 The social philosophy of Nietzschean postmodernity is emerging as a neo-Marxism embracing both a critique of capitalism and an incredulity at the master narrative of collective liberation through state socialism. Pluralism, decentralization, feminism, environmentalism, local empowerment, in the Nietzschean sense, of diverse peoples and cultures are the semiotic formations of the new movement. As Lawrence Grossberg and Cary Nelson argue in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, a volume embodying the new diversity of discourses in this domain: As Marxism has been challenged and rewritten, both by its dialogue with other bodies of theory and by its effort to acknowledge the diverse political realities of the postwar world; as Marxism has attempted to find more sophisticated models of the relations between culture and power, more reflective understanding of its own position within these relations, and more politically insightful and relevant tools for the analysis of contemporary structures of power – so has it become a much more varied discourse.5

In this context, the ideas of self, self-formation and self-realization are crucial to the understanding of what empowerment might mean and what it might

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achieve. Empowerment of the creative self requires a critique of the dialectic which makes a master or a slave out of the spectral self: the consuming logic of images in the mall. The logic is so pervasive and so dominant that it is not unlike that of the stained glass in the medieval church, consumer icons replacing religious ones. Herbert Marcuse’s critique of late capitalism provides a useful beginning from which a deconstructive critique may proceed. Marcuse utilized Freudian theory to highlight the subtle forms of repression emerging in the advanced industrial West during the 1950’s and 1960’s, when consumerism was burgeoning into what Jameson, Lyotard, Baudrillard and others would recognize as the postmodern cultural formation. In One Dimensional Man, Marcuse develops his most telling analysis of the way in which the capitalist economy was reducing the complexity and autonomy of collective and individual power by the mechanisms of the market, transforming workers and citizens, both potential revolutionaries, into consumers. A key to his analysis is the concept of “repressive desublimation,” which inverts the traditional Freudian analysis, where civilization is said to be formed by the sublimation of desires and the structuring, in capitalism the exploitative repression, of eros into alienated labor for someone else’s profit. This dimension of Marcuse’s work was an expansion of his earlier Eros and Civilization in which he supplemented the traditional Marxian interpretation of capitalism in terms of economic exploitation with the Freudian one in terms of psychological forms of control. What was new in late capitalism, particularly consumerism, Marcuse argued, was that the work ethic analyzed so well by Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which required that the desire for pleasure be sublimated in order for worker or capitalist to succeed, was now being overturned. The logic of consumerism was precisely the repressive structuring of pleasure for the purpose of control. Consumers were encouraged to desublimate and indulge their desires for a myriad of products which were made all the more alluring by the glossy images of advertising. Thus where capitalism once required hard work and sacrifice, it now requires leisure and self-indulgence. The apparent contradiction between these two tendencies is no doubt at the basis of the contradictions and irony pervasive in developed consumer economies, especially the United States, where people are simultaneously told to work hard and to enjoy themselves, to diet and to eat, to save and to spend, until they are understandably confused and lined up for therapy. This contradictory situation is at the basis of Jameson’s called “cultural logic” of late capitalism, mentioned above, of what Jameson, Baudrillard and others have referred to as postmodern “schizophrenia,”6 and of what Charles Jencks, speaking of architecture and the arts, calls postmodern “double coding.” As these theorists, especially Jencks, suggest, this logic, while it has a great many

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destructive features – consider the mass control of the consumer population by the soft methods of the market that have invaded every sphere from health care to politics – also opens some creative possibilities. For the masters of the consumer kingdom, the patron saints of the Consumer Church (Lee Iacoca, Donald Trump, etc.) are not necessarily in control of the pandora’s box of pleasures they have opened. What may be taking place – what we hope is taking place – is a splintering of the very mechanisms of control that gave us the structures of consumerism in the first place – and the opening up of a creative option for politics and culture. We may still accept the sacraments of the consumer church, but we may not still believe in the religion. This disbelief is part of what Lyotard has called the postmodern incredulity about master narratives – progress, enlightenment, salvation and, we would add, consumption. With economy and ecology crumbling, increasing numbers of us are willing to admit that there is trouble in consumer paradise.

T H E T R A N S F O R M AT I O N T H E P R E F A B R I C AT E D I D E N T I T Y O F T H E S E L F : T H E W I L L T O P OW E R A N D T H E W I L L T O P L AY

Nietzschean, like Derridean, play invokes the unfolding power of differance, of what Bateson calls the “difference which makes a difference”7 , the generative identity of the rule-maker unconstrained by any strictures except those created by her/himself, including of course the gender codes of selfhood implicit in the aforementioned pronouns, for the game. As Nietzsche says, in his typically contemptuous way, “Wisdom: that seems to the rabble to be a kind of flight, an artifice and means for getting oneself out of a dangerous game; but the genuine philosopher – as he seems to us, my friends? – lives ‘unphilosophically’ and ‘unwisely,’ above all imprudently, and bears the burden and duty of a hundred attempts and temptations of life – he risks himself constantly, he plays the dangerous game . . .”8 What is the “dangerous game”? If it is the play of differance which makes irrelevant the premises of the spectral self created by the will to appearance or creating the extraordinary risk and responsibility of self-making, the impetus of the Will to Power. To give up prefabricated identity is to play the dangerous game of having to make one’s own, of going “mad.” As Daniel R. White and Gert Hellerich have argued, the therapeutic disciplines of the social sciences, like psychology and education, are in the business of regulating and enforcing norms of identity consistent with the bureaucratic structure of modern states and corporations.9 In those disciplines the production of truth is not the production of true utterences, but the establisment of domain and “regimes of truth” which correlate with the structure of modern state. In such regimes

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“the practice of true and false can be made once ordered and pertinent.”10 The fabrication of identities, as Foucault argued, is indeed the dream of modern powers, since power is exercised at the level of life, the species and the race.11 To challenge those prefabricated identities, the neostructuralist deconstruction of self seems as an another way. The concept of “self” will not withstand the criticism that it exists within a language game requiring its opposition to, differentation from the “other”. The self-other opposition is a difference which itself must be accounted for: the binary opposition, “self-other”, in Derridean terms, a structure which provides for the stability of its constituent opposites but cannot account for its own “structurality,” its own “center”. If Derrida is right this structurality is not a static, metaphysical reality but a relationship created by the play of difference. So the elementary deconstruction of the idea of self – that its is in necessary opposition to the other and that both opposites fit within a structure whose structurality is generated by a process of playful differentation – provides a neostructuralist view of “self” as a form of inscription in a dynamic language game which can only come to rest through the failure to think, or the agreement to stop thinking, that is metaphysics.12 This is the insight that prompted Heidegger to write “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking.” Is deconstruction a form of empowerment? Does deconstruction animate the self it recontextualizes as incribed within the play of difference, or does it simply make it into a passive design in an unfolding pattern? As Foucault argues: In fact, among all the mutations that have affeceted the knowledge of things and their order, the knowledge of identities, differences, characters equivalancies, words — in short, in the midst of all the episodes of that profound history of the Same — only one, that which began a century and a half ago and is now perhaps drawing to a close, has made it possible for the figure of man to appear.13

If man is the product of this evanescent historical structure, of its arrangements, then Foucault, as well as various neostructural and postmodern views, are no doubt correct so that, as Foucault concludes: If those arrangements were to disappear as they appeared, if some event of which we can at the moment do no more than sense the possiblity – without knowing either what its form will be or what it promises – were to cause them to crumble. . .then one can certainly wager that man would be erased, like a face drawn at the edge of the sea.14

The crumbling of the structures that generated the Western self is broadly evident amidst the mode of information which makes up late capitalist society, and particularly so in the widely documented loss of identity and neurosis that people increasingly experience in advanced industrial civilization. In order to overcome such difficulties Nietzsche, ironically, calls the “slave sciences” which help to maintain them, is to set out on a hard climb, the upward path which as Nietzsche says requires discipline. Since, with this means, on

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the one hand it is possible to deconstruct and dissolve the self, and on the other hand to reconstruct and empower it. This is where Nietzschean postmodernity differs from that of Fredric Jameson, at least if we understand his “cultural logic of late capitalism” pessimistically as defining the limits of postmodern coding. As Kathleen Higgins said, “Although both Nietzsche and the postmodernists advocate a fragmented, perspectivist orientation toward our experience, Nietzsche’s purpose distinguishes him from his alleged intellectual heirs. Nietzsche’s primary concern is the possibility of rich and meaningful subjective experience”.15 CONCLUSION

I think, Nietzsche – or rather, a neo-Nietzschean way of thinking – presents us with an alternative to both the neostructuralist and postmodernist conceptions of self-realization and genuinely human life. It carries the “romantic shift” a step further, displacing the emphasis common to both of the latter upon the worth of the self as it may be realized within and by means of either sort of social solidarity. On this neo-Nietzschean view, very briefly put, what matters most within the realm of human possibility is the flourishing and enrichment of human culture. To this end all else is to be subordinated and revalued; it is very important that this end includes also the expression and the development of the self as the basic feature of the enrichment of the human life. The world of the consumer selves may be deconstructed by the Nietzschean critique – the restrictive premises of late capitalism, of bureaucratization, of channelled and conditioned desire revealed – and in their place the possibility of a new game opened. The deconstruction is achieved by Nietzsches’s simultaneous criticism of the oppositions of the master-slave dialectic and his provision of an upward path that transcends it. This is a transcendence not of “the world” but rather of the polarities of a game, the restrictive logic of dominator and dominated, and hence into the freedom to be a true player – a maker of games – instead of a piece – whether king or pawn – in a prefabricated game. Nietzsche offers a new beginning, a game in which “the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers his own world.”16 We should understand this spirit that wills itself not as the traditional ego of the West, but rather as the play of difference in the psyche, creating the personas of selfhood via the multilevel paradoxes of play. The latter, and the host of creative options they open by making communication ever incomplete, are generated by the peculiar self-referentiality of the message, “This is play”, which Gregory Bateson translates as “These actions in which we now engage do not denote what those actions for which they stand would denote,” so that,

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for example, the playful nip denotes but does not mean the same thing as the bite.17 It this opening up of communication via paradox to the expanding indeterminacy of play that, Bateson suggests modestly, “may have been an important step in the evolution of communication.”18 The opening up of communication to indeterminacy is also an opening creativity, as Nietzsche and postmodernists suggest. It is a way out of the stylized rules of the static game of control, imposed by the powers that be, and a way into culture making by powers that become. For as Bateson concludes, more profoundly, regarding play, “we believe that the paradoxes of abstraction must make their appearance in all communication more complex than that of mood signals, and that without these paradoxes the evolution of communication would be at an end. Life would be an endless interchange of stylized messages, a game with rigid rules, unrelieved by change or humor.”19 Ondokuz Mayis University, Samsun, Turkey NOTES 1 Diana Coole, “The Gendered Self” in The Social Self, (eds.) D. Bakhurst and C. Sypnowich (London: SAGE Publications, 1995), p. 126 2 Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (New York: International Publishers, 1961), p.117 3 Ibid., p. 75 4 Fredirich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1973), sec. 211 5 Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988), p. 11 6 Fredirich Jameson, Postmodernism or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991), p. 29 7 Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Northvale, N.J.: Aronson Bateson, 1987), p. 381 8 Fredirich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1973), sec. 205 9 See Daniel R. White and Gert Hellerich, “Postmodern Reflections on Modern Psychiatry: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Disorders”, The Humanistic Psychologist 20 (1992), pp. 75–91 10 Michael Foucault, “Questions of Method: An Interview with Michel Foucault,” (trans. Colin Gordon), Ideology and Consciousness 8 (Spring, 1981), p. 9 11 Michael Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, (trans.) Robert Hurley (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978), p. 137 12 See Peggy Kamuf, A Derida Reader, “The Gendered Self”, in The Social Self, (ed.) D. Bakhurst and C. Sypnowich (London: SAGE Publications, 1995), p. 64ff 13 Michael Foucault, The Order of Things (New York: Vintage, 1973), p. 386 14 Ibid., p. 387 15 Kathleen Higgins, “Nietzsche and Postmodern Subjectivity,” Nietzsche as Postmodernist (ed.) Clayton Koelb (Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 1990), p. 191

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Fredrich Nietzsche, Zarahustra, in The Portable Nietzsche, (ed. and trans.) Walter Kaufmann (New York: Penguin, 1976), p. 139 17 Gregory Bateson, “A Theory of Play and Fantasy,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Northvale, N.J.: Aronson, 1987), p. 180 18 Ibid., p. 181 19 Ibid., p. 193

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bateson, Gregory (1987) Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Northvale, N.J.: Aronson Coole, Diana (1995) “The Gendered Self”, in The Social Self, ed. by David Bakhurst and Christine Sypnowich. London: SAGE Publications, 123–139 Elster, Jon (1986) “Self-Realization in Work and Politics: The Marxist Conception of the Good Life” in Marxism and Liberalism. ed. by E. F. Paul, F. D. Miller, J. Paul and J. Ahrens: Oxford: Blackwell Foucault, Michel (1981) “Questions of Method: An Interview with Michel Foucault”, (trans. Colin Gordon) Ideology and Consciousness 8 (Spring), 3–14 Foucault, Michel (1978) The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley, Harmondsworth: Penguin Foucault, Michel (1973) The Order of Things, New York: Vintage Grahal, Bart and Paul Piccone (eds.) (1973) Towards a New Marxism, Telos Press: St.Louis Higgins, Kathleen (1990) “Nietzsche and Postmodern Subjectivity.” Nietzsche as Postmodernist, ed. Clayton Koelb, Albany, New York: Suny Press, 189–215 Jameson, Frederic (1991) Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham, NC: Duke University Press Jencks, Charles (1986) What is Post-Modernism? New York: St. Martin’s Press Kamuf, Peggy (1991) A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds, New York: Columbia University Press Kaufmann, Walter (ed. and trans.) (1976) The Portable Nietzsche, New York: Penguin Marcuse, Herbert (1964) One-Dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon Marx, Karl (1961) Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, New York: International Publishers Marx, Karl and Engels, Fredric (1970) The German Ideology, London: Lawrence and Wishart Nelson, Cary and Grossberg, Lawrence (eds.) (1988) Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press Nietzsche, Friedrich (1973) Beyond Good and Evil, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Taylor, Charles (1979) Hegel and Modern Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press White, Daniel R. and Hellerich, Gert (1992) “Postmodern Reflections on Modern Psychiatry: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Disorders.” The Humanistic Psychologist 20:75–91

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. . .We may see in nature improvised consertos or landscapes or still lifes, etc. However, there seem to be three focal points with respect to which the specific features of the aesthetics of nature appear to us. In analogy to the aesthetics of the works of art, I propose to call them the Spectacle of Nature, the Symphony of Nature, and the Drama of Nature. A.-T. Tymieniecka. “The Aesthetics Of Nature In The Human Condition”, Vol. XIX ABSTRACT

The philosophic problem of Home gains a new sounding in phenomenological interpretation of Ontopoesis of Life by Alma-Teresa Tymieniecka. She believes that Home, as a Place, is not only a building or a dwelling. In the process of structuring the stages of life’s individualization the phenomenon of Home becomes a dominating link in self-determination of human creativity. Within the space of several centuries the thinkers shaped up a philosophic concept of Home as condenser of Memory, memory of forefathers. In the consciousness of a human being the notion of “Home” has always been associated with remembrances of childhood, youth, adolescence, becoming, departure from paternal home, with the feeling of love to Motherland, with nostalgia for nice nature surrounding home (flowers, trees etc.). Phenomenologica1 perception of “Home” has always been connected with the desire to preserve it as a whole, as a “personified memorial” or its separate attributes, which with the passage of time gain a character of “guardians” of former traces (households, habits and ways, skills etc.). Separate household items such as period furniture, crockery, clothes, paintings etc. become the carriers of Home’s memory, the guardians and holders of home Aura, the footprints of the past in the present. This paper gives an analysis to three philosophical-aesthetic levels, which illustrate dialectic interrelations and reciprocal transitions of utilitarian-applicative and notional artistic-creative impulses of natural landscape development in its correlation with various arts and with architecture in particular. This dialectics of functional levels allows us, according to our reckoning, educing gradation in elaboration of the concept of “landscape architecture” at the earliest stages of development, where material source of this category was identified, then its 213 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 213–229. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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religious models were determined and thereafter it turned into a philosophicalartistic model of creation. The notion of architectural landscape as eden, as microcosm, and later on as masterpiece of art, evolutionally came up out of utilitarian practice of human being Firstly, landscape architecture might be presented as part of aesthetically arranged landscape environment that surrounds a human being. Due to its functional nature this level may be called a utilitarian-applicative one, a fundamental mechanism, the development of which is in satisfaction of materialeconomic needs with “involvement” of certain elements of beauty, and there are also direct “hints” to formation of “Nature-Paradise” formula. The presence of aesthetic component in this case contemplates a “preponderance” of the usefulness over the beauty. Secondly, there is an intermediate form between aesthetic landscape environment and art, which is typical for fragmentary-imaginative level. In this case we observe an “intensification” of dynamics of decorative-beautification functions together with utilitarian meaningfulness, which means that perception of nature as paradise becomes more embossed and deep. In this connection, imaginative or emotional-notional beginnings accumulate artistic energy of separate fragments of architectural-landscape space, thus balancing the beauty and the usefulness. Thirdly, which is important to prove, there is an architectural-landscape composition as archetypal artistic phenomenon. This stage in development of landscape architecture is presented as an integral artistic-notional one, in which the nature is perceived not just as paradise, but as complicated philosophical microcosm with its laws and order, as completed artistic subject matter of the cumulative idea of Man-creator. In this case cognitive-estimative beginning of functional nature serves as cementing link, and the beauty dominates the usefulness. In this respect it is interesting to note classification of aesthetic principles of garden art, set forth by English enlightener and literator Henry Home. Home explicated fundamental provisions of aesthetic theory of garden art and architectonics in his three-volume work “Elements of Criticism”. The philosopher gives comparative characteristics to these two arts, distinguishing the principle of usefulness (relative beauty) and the principle of exquisiteness (absolute beauty). “ . . . There is certain beauty in usefulness, and, when reasoning about the beauty, one should never disregard the beauty of useful. This allows us viewing the parks and buildings from different standpoints: either as dedicated exclusively for usefulness, or for the beauty, or for all of them ”1 . Home believed that the reason for tastes differences in garden art and architectonics is in multitude of designations of these arts.

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Let us discuss each of these three levels of aesthetic manifestation in landscape architecture. The first stage is connected with expression of aesthetic ties by way of formal perfection of utilitarian-applicative functional beginnings. The notion of “perfect”, as is known, is an attribute of aesthetic in various fields of surrounding reality. The principle of beauty and usefulness, purposeful and beautiful serves as criterion of aesthetic evaluation of arrangement and improvement of corporeal environment. The “preponderance” of the usefulness over the beauty is typical for landscape architecture in its initial utilitarian-applicative meaning. We may trace the dialectics of such regular pattern both using historical material and by reference to modern aesthetic principles of landscape arrangement. The ability of rearranging landscape aesthetically resided in the nations of Ancient and Medieval East. Thus, available source materials make it possible to assess high aesthetic culture of Egyptians in the field of arrangement of natural environment. Fineness and exquisiteness of taste of ancient gardeners became apparent in their planting of greenery in straight, narrow and densely built streets of Egyptian cities. In order to conceal chaotic development of buildings, they were necessarily planted all around with palm alleys2 . In general, architectural landscapes of Assyria and Babylon, which were different from Egyptian ones due to huge dimensions and luxury, including more natural planning and arrangement, served as hunting and entertaining venues. Rich vegetation assortment allows us considering them as prototypes of botanic gardens. There was an abundance of utilitarian elements, but it gave birth to the beautiful. “Contemplation of amazing harmony and effectiveness of irrigation systems built by vanished civilization between Tigris and Euphrates became the reason for the first planned garden. All those gardens were an idealization of that imaginative panorama . . . ”3 Mainly utilitarian character resided in medieval monasterial landscapes. Located on fertile lands, monasteries were embowered with gardens, which served for horticulture, growing of medicinal herbs, flowers, and hunting. Tom Turner4 , English researcher of garden art believed that they were a kind of springs of scientific knowledge. It was the monasterial garden as a special genre of landscape architecture that Christian philosophers thought about “. . .not only as the most immaculate and divine type of activity, open to human being, but as a method of resurrection of paradise, which was once jointly created by Man and the God”5 . One ought to bear in mind that monasterial landscape was a kind of “continuation in time” of Persian garden-paradise yet with lesser imaginative-notional vibration and set on another national soil – Western European one. Such architecturalenvironmental space was destined to be a continuation of celestial life on earth.

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This feature of monasterial landscape was noted by the ideologist of Russian landscape architecture T.B. Doubyago. She wrote that monasterial garden in Kroutitsy in the suburbs of Moscow (XII century) with fruit trees, wellarranged water springs, living chambers and odoriferous herbs, were perceived “as real paradise”.6 There are examples, when aesthetic regular pattern of surrounding countryside was taken as top priority in creation of utilitarian monasterial gardens. Thus, Patriarch Nikon’s conception of building New Jerusalem monastery on the bank of Istra River in the suburbs of Moscow is a testimony to the fact that the beauty of surrounding landscape became determinant. Imitation of ancient Jerusalem topography in vicinity of that monastery, giving symbolic names to various landscape objects (“Siloam’s baptistery”, “Jehoshaphat Valley”, “Mauritius Oak” etc.) – all these testify to aesthetic development of natural environment, to the ability of subordinating its archetypal and newly created beauty to religious-utilitarian objectives.7 Notwithstanding high religious symbolism, penetrating all spheres of vital activity of human being (“. . .landscape art of Middle Ages was more intuitive rather than rational, and at the same time it inclined to symbolization . . . ”8 ), only marginal significance was given to aesthetic aspects of these gardens. In most of the cases medieval monasterial landscapes represented objects with high domination of functional-practical attributes.9 Here, “relative beauty” of landscape as usefulness dominated “absolute” beauty, i.e. the aesthetic one. Researchers point out that only in XVIII–XIX centuries the utilitarian-aesthetic or religious canons of medieval monasterial landscape being “more emotional rather than intellectual” exerted “inspiring” influence on romantic garden art and became an “aesthetic standard” for asymmetric composition.10 With the lapse of time, the volume weight of the beauty made headway over the usefulness and “has overgrown” into a stylistic example or canon of imitation. Predominance of utilitarian functions over aesthetic is typical for various modern architectural-landscape variations, being constituents of aesthetic arrangement of environment. The natural space is being aestheticized in accordance with its functional specialization, landscape-genetic attributes of environment. Urban territories, forests, banks of water bodies, even agricultural and mountain landscapes become subject to cultural-aesthetic “rearrangement”. Accounting on genetic territorial features, people develop gardens, parks, boulevards, arrange rhythmical vegetation along the roads, embankments etc. All this as a whole, one may say, plays an additional decorative-beautification role, and is repeatedly brought to life due to socioeconomic and ecological needs. Thus, arranging roof gardens is known for thousands of years: Diodore’s and Strabo’s descriptions of Hanging Gardens of Semiramis; high prices for land in Greece germinated a custom of beautifying flat roofs and balconies

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with flower pots; description of gardens on verandas and roofs by poet Justinian and in Byzantine Gospel and Books of Common Prayer of XI–X centuries; images of such gardens in Indian miniature painting. In Genoa and Venice arrangement of hanging gardens was due to lack of plain lands and other natural-economic reasons. Le Corbusier enunciated the specific theme of “roof-garden” and made it a constituent part of new architecture, as he believed that gardens were supposed to be on roofs of dwellings in order to economize on space. “Isn’t it against the common sense, when an area of an entire city is not utilized at all and the slate has nothing to do but to talk to stars?” exclaimed Le Corbusier.11 Aestheticized nature enriches architectural ensembles of squares, exhibition and memorial zones, historical and architectural objects, accentuate meaningfulness of social centers. Moreover, it may serve as a recreational venue for local people, visitors and guests. In this context, tremendous creative interest was caused by German exhibition in Moscow, where artists-designers12 demonstrated incomparable art of introduction of natural elements into production sphere, as well as International symposium on landscape architecture in Singapore in 2001.13 However, notwithstanding the fact that during arrangement of such territories the designers apply aesthetic methods of landscape arrangement and that in its completed form they become carriers of certain cultural-aesthetic or mass-communicative load, in the initial momentum such form of landscape modification is differentiated by predominance of utilitarian-economic functions. Contributing to comfortization of natural space, ecological “cultivation” of human living space, by attaching it to the atmosphere of genuine natural beauty, applicative architectural-landscape combinations may induce various emotional moods. In this connection it is pertinent to get back to uniform Kantian approach to living nature and artistic creativity on the basis of purposefulness principle. Accentuating subjectivity of purposefulness principle in relation to natural forms, Kant pointed out an amazing correspondence of nature with that principle (in forms of crystals, shapes of flowers, internal structures of plants and organisms of animals14 ). In utilitarian-applicative architectural-landscape arts this aspect is depicted in the content of “concomitant beauty” category introduced by Kant alongside with “pure beauty”. “Concomitant beauty contemplates understanding of objectives, which predefine the designation of things”.15 Fundamental here is the practical interest inherent to aesthetically rearranged nature. Landscape architect beautifies local natural space. But this beauty is an accessory one. In other words, in this case there is too high doze of practical motivation. The cornerstone here is usefulness, which could be

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brought up by this natural-aesthetic object (it may be used for rest, rehabilitation, production of agricultural goods, making scientific investigation etc.), while aesthetic enjoyment from intercourse with that is of minor, “accessory” character. That is why emotional-sensuous sentiments of human being in this connection are so unstable: they are mainly concentrated for “obtaining” optimal benefit, which is happily aided by harmony and rhythm. Utilitarian-applicative landscape must, first of all, satisfy practical needs of human being. Otherwise no harmonious combination of natural elements may bring aesthetic pleasure, wherefore the surrounding will seem too contrived and intrusive. Landscape architect J. Simonds described the beauty and the usefulness as follows: «. . . Spaces delight us because the volumes, shapes and character of them are in exact correspondence with their original designation”.16 These words denote fairly enough the utilitarian-applicative variations of landscape architecture. As already stated, landscape architecture might be presented not only as an aesthetically arranged natural environment, which is evidenced by the above functional level of its development. There is also an intermediate level between aestheticized natural space and the art sui generis. In this connection the functional meaningfulness of architectural landscape is more saturated. Separate fragments deepen informative aesthetic potential: decorative beautification is “supplemented” by imaginative-notional and religious-philosophical gradations. In the history of world landscape architecture there are quite convincing examples when utilitarian or decorative elements accentuated not only the economic meaningfulness, but fragmentary and integrally “turned” the landscape into a philosophical-religious element of cognition and an aesthetic object. Quite interesting, in this respect, is the evolution of the concept of “NatureParadise”, which, it ought to be remarked, appears in most of religions – Islam, Buddhism and Christianity. Regardless of strict chronological sequence in historical process of formulating, the beautiful has always “stemmed out” from the utilitarian and, in this connection, has often served as “equal” feature of nature-paradise, whether it be Hanging Gardens in Babylon or floating ones in ancient Kashmir, gardens of ancient Persian villa Eshref or landscape bezel of Taj Mahal mausoleum in India... This fact is supported by most of the garden art researchers.17 Initial conceptuality of the “Nature-Paradise” notion is connected with the genesis of Persian paradise. “The Garden of Eden, or “paradise” in its “pure” form, represented a territory protected from outside enemies but crossed over by multiple water channels and wonderful fruit trees, symbolized the celestial and an earthly paradise”18 . “Equilibrium” of the beauty and the usefulness, perhaps, was most optimally defined in ancient Persian model of paradise.

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Alongside with utilitarian-household dominants, the religious-symbolic rationale and aesthetic orientation in natural environment gain more permanence and definiteness. The passion and devotion of ancient Persians to trees and flowers was evidenced by Xenophan. Tsar Kir built the garden with his own hands; another emperor was so fascinated with a sycamore, that he decorated its beautiful branches with golden amulets.19 Aesthetic tastes were mixing with materialeconomic predilections, as well as with religious beliefs and philosophical searches for truth. This reciprocal causation becomes evident, if we thoroughly analyze separate fragments of garden-paradise in its religious and national dynamics. For example, the most illustrative compositional fragment of Persian garden-paradise is irrigative system of four intersecting water channels, which divide the square area of landscape into four spatial units accordingly. There is a deep religious-symbolic implication in this seemingly ingenuous, even primitive design. “This is an ideal example of irrigative system, in which the water is presented both symbolically and physically as the Author of Life. . . The junction of water channels – lifelines – symbolizes the meeting point of Man and God in most of religions”.20 Meanwhile, in the Book of Guinness this point is defined as the “essence of the garden”, as communion of the spiritual and the material, as interaction between practical needs of human being with religious symbolism.21 The remarkable fact is that this most significant fragment of Persian landscape-paradise – the system of water channels – has been historically modifying on various national soils and attained its peculiar and new philosophical and aesthetic evaluation in Arabic landscapes of Alhambra and El Generalif in Spain, the gardens of the Great Moguls in India and most regions of Islamic East. The formula of “Nature-Paradise” “echoed” with a new vibrancy in West European monasterial gardens, which we intentionally did not relegate to fragmentary-imaginative functional-aesthetic level, but to utilitarian-applicative one. The reason, according to our reckoning, is in fact that monasterial architectural landscape is a new, as a matter of fact, idea of that archetypal Persian landscape-paradise, original - paradise. The garden in a monastery was designated, as we stressed already, for resurrection of paradise on earth, it served as a method of paradise revival (there is a belief that the idea of paradise was introduced to medieval monasterial gardens of France and England by crusaders22 ), that is why the useful prevailed, though the share of religious symbolism was big too. For instance, intercrossing alleys divided the landscape into four portions that, undoubtedly, replicated irrigative systems in Persian paradise. In general, monasterial garden as genre phenomenon

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in landscape architecture if compared with “original” nature-paradise is only a replica, in which dominating are utilitarian-economic objectives. Persian tradition of landscape-paradise made the most influential impact on India. In the gardens of the Great Moguls – Babur, Gumayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shalamar and others, the water was attributed with high utilitarian meaningfulness (channels were much wider taking into consideration hot Indian climate). At the same time there was an increase of aesthetic imaginative-notional assonance. Babur, the first of Moguls, is famous for perfecting the concept of “nature-paradise”, as well as for the use of aesthetic principles order, harmony and symmetry in Indian architectural landscapes. Intersecting channels here divide natural space into eight portions by analogy with the eight sections of the Koran and “. . .symbolize reconcilement of human flesh with the endless circle of eternity”.23 The construction of water basins is conjugated with Muslim system of measurement. Prior to making prayer the believers had to go through ablution in such heavenly basins. In addition to utilitarian-economic and decorative-beautification designation, other fragments of landscape-paradise also had a high degree of implication. Evergreen cedars, alternating with fruit trees planted along the water channels, symbolized eternal life, while spring blossoming trees – revivification.24 The aesthetic as fragmentary-imaginative phenomenon reflected in ancient Greek public gardens. We may call them a nunciate of modern urban gardens and entertainment parks. Alongside with tremendous utilitarian-functional significance, the social landscape was an incarnation of cultural-imaginative implication of the époque. Sacred groves (heroons), for instance, were arranged in favor of heroes and prominent public figures but, at the same time, they introduced certain utilitarian functions: they were places for horticulture and sports. Decorative-beautification opportunities of social landscape were gradually perfected – palm and sycamore boscages with ivy-encircled pergolas surrounded architectural structures; the alleys were beautified with statues and vases with flowers and fountains. All that served the role of effective aesthetic accompaniment to functional basis of landscape, thus accentuating its meaningfulness. Architectural-landscape space was gradually gaining another qualitative parameter – the social-philosophical one. The philosophers used to intercourse and sophisticate things in the boscages in the shade of trees. That was the outset of gymnasia – public places for open air rallies and agoras of the Greeks. It is on record that Plato organized a public garden, dedicated to Academes25 ; Aristotle established the public school Lyceum and taught his pupil in sycamore “peripateas” – alleys, while successor Theothrast, the Father of botany, was

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also practicing in the lyceum garden. Horatio inspired by Plato and Epicurus studied philosophy in Academes in Athens. . .26 Some utilitarian and decorative elements of landscape in Hellas, and later on in Ancient Rome, were reflected in the consciousness of contemporaries as completed philosophical bezel. If decorative compositions of Persian landscape-paradise mainly personified the magnificence or eastern extravagance, and the aesthetic was perceived through the prism of religious images, then the ancient Greek public garden embodied a sociocultural atmosphere. Its aesthetic and “useful” fragments were of philosophically cosmological and imaginative character. In case an aesthetic purposefulness becomes transparent through Parnassian palette, then architectural landscapes of Ancient Greece and Rome attain an integral artistic-ideal vibration, which we are going to dwell upon below. Having gone through temporal historical continuum, various elaborated models of architectural landscapes play and important role in perfection of functional and decorative-artistic features of modern urban, playground, sculptural and other aestheticized natural spaces of gardens, entertainment parks etc. Utilitarian-applicative side of such landscapes, constitutionally, has a priority in the total functional structure. However, there is quite high level of aesthetic values in artistic florist decorations, unique architectural-sculptural elements etc. The architectural-artistic image of landscape is defined by a combination of all aesthetic attributes with living natural environment. If we consider a very specialized form of landscape-architectural art such as playgrounds, then it appears obvious that they equally combine both utilitarian and aesthetic elements. Being designed for children, entertainment, sporting and cultural-educational events, most of playgrounds at the same time posses an imaginative-expressional feature. Their sublime aesthetic potential is an indispensable part of functional-applicative balance. Inclusion of various decorative structures made of wood or concrete into the natural and artistic landscape, including original playing sculptures, small architectural forms etc., creates an illusion of fabulous perception of reality. Being established for various purposes, the playgrounds have always had its individual character and inimitable image. Thus, the design solution of famous Disney Land in the USA was based on the fusion of two beginnings – functional-applicative and scenic-entertaining ones. Designated both for recreation and entertainment of children and adults, the park in its separate portions has a great imaginative-notional load. “. . .The design of Disney Land, presumably, includes all effectively functioning attributes, which make an impact of a masterpiece of arts presented most extensively and most purely”.27 The scenic-circus performances, which combine the facilities of separate attraction features in an adventure-type amusement, are based on the synthesis of

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arts. For instance, “convergence of fire and music” (S.M. Eisenstein) may animate fairytales, legends and cartoons. Festive communion of floral environment and scenic thematic performances does intensify the emotional status of the visitor. Active forms of amusement generate associations with carnivals and masquerades. The usefulness and the beauty in such parks are in harmonious equilibrium. Playgrounds as modern form of fragmentary-imaginative landscape architecture are in fact an aesthetic fusion of special utilitarian and emotional-notional aspects. It is recognized that imaginative-notional significance is inherent not only in specialized parks and playground. Many recreational parks both of central and regional importance, with successful planning and design solutions, due to their separate fragments’ specifics set the pattern of artistic expression. Poly-functional and multiprofile features of such architectural-landscape combinations never diminish their aesthetic and, to certain degree, ideological directional effect. For instance, the famous Hyde Park in England, with its Speakers Corner is dedicated not only for strolling and recreation. Their wide lawns serve as real venues for various meetings and events, which attribute to their greenery a kind of sociopolitical hue. This resembles public gardens of ancient Greece, where social content were deeply intertwined with natural-decorative background. Inimitable example of decorative methods applied in landscape architecture was given by Brazilian landscape architect Robert Burley-Marx. This guru of architectural landscape implemented artistic tasks using specific means of natural materials in a confined lot of functional-planning requirements. In contrast to ordinary landscape architect who, first of all, achieves certain functional objectives and incidentally creates scenic perspectives, lawns, alleys and groups of plants, R. Burley-Marx gives top priority to attaining artistic objectives. He was the first contemporary landscape architect, who began applying tropical plants in urban landscape architecture. Formerly it was believed to be a bad taste. Decorative-scenic method of R. Burley-Marx presumes a dismemberment of functionally uniform garden components (walkways, lawns etc.) into various parts with specific color and texture of vegetation. Special attractiveness is contributed by sidewalks paved with decorative mosaic. It looks like the geometricity of the pattern is reviving the old Brazilian tradition of street mosaic in dark and light cobblestones. These peculiar ornaments extended for hundreds of meters, confer to that walking zone absolutely unusual and, at the same time chamber but humane scale and character. The space in this connection is shrinking visually and disintegrates rhythmically, in which historical chords can be heard. The useful and beautiful beginnings here are interpenetrating and reciprocally determining each other.

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Just as painting with natural decorations so applying architectural-sculptural monumental tooling, in parallel with utilitarian opportunities, does introduce an additional effect of spirituality, implication and imagination. The atmosphere of such natural spaces is perceived not only as a place for walking, recreation or public entertainment etc., but some of their fragments may generate associations of much higher order – emotional-notional or, to certain degree, artistic-imaginative, as it happens when you are faced with a masterpiece of art. Functional content of architectural landscape here impenetrate with powerful emotional-associative charge, adding a note of deep notional vibration. An incomparable impression arises when visiting Vienna municipal garden, where functional-utilitarian content is expanded thanks to the input of artistic-monumental accent – the monument to Johann Strauss. The surrounding vegetation is, one may say, a background frame of a sculptural theme. The composer playing violin is in the foreground, and sculptural presentation of various scenes from his operettas serves as background. All this brings forth a musical-scenic image by means of statuary art and vegetation. The visitors of the park, who are willing to take a breath from everyday hustles, at the same time, experience emotional eruption in rendezvous with the monument. The well scheduled and purposeful promenade is interposed with an aesthetic wave of art. One may feel an impression of high melodious uplift, debonair humor and equivocal folk music of Austria. Natural movement of trees and bushes concords with the theme of classical “Wiener Waltz”. Architectural-landscape composition in intermediate level between aesthetically rearranged environment and art, undoubtedly, causes more stable emotions rather than those that arise when viewing trees rhythmically planted for utilitarian purposes only. However, imaginative informativeness of such compositions is still accessory and vulnerable, wherefore the nature of it is still “close” to utilitarian archetype. Understanding of landscape as paradise throws back to subjective-practical activity of human being. In this respect, the creativity, to a greater extent, is oriented to the sensation of pleasure, pleasantness, to satisfied economic-transformative ego of Man-creator, and then – to deep notional evaluation, as it happens when you face virtually with a masterpiece of art. This assertion may not be considered as absolute, it just testifies to existing tendencies. Depending on situation or sentiments or intellectual potential of personality, a mere pleasure may be also gained from the intercourse with atmosphere of artistic landscape and, vice versa, staying in forest-park may induce a multitude of deep associations and experiences. In this case we should again turn back to Kantian principle of “subjective purposefulness” with its fundamental notions of “concomitant” beauty and motivation. If in the art of utilitarian architectural landscape the dominating role belonged to practical interest, then for fragmentary-imaginative landscape architecture the typical is

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the decrease of the level of motivation through introduction of artistic-notional accents. However, the pleasure of intercourse with such gardens and parks is never free from sensations and reason. The motivation remains, but with lesser strain if compared with that on the preceding utilitarian-applicative level. As for manifestation of the refined as evaluative-cognitive aspect in landscape architecture, then most adequately it externalizes itself in the next functional-aesthetic level – an integral artistic-notional one. The artisticnotional architectural landscape as a piece of fine art may impersonate not only a “pure” beauty, free from any motivation, but may realize the “concomitant beauty”, as expression of ethical and aesthetic ideal rather than as an element accentuating the utilitarian-functional needs.28 That is, Kant attaches deep gnoseological implication to the informativeness of pieces of fine art (here – artistic-notional landscape), by saying that «. . . their complete perfection requires a lot of knowledge”.29 Historical-artistic parks-museum, memorial-manor parks-monuments, artistic small gardens, ethnographic and sculptural parks (we relate them to integral artistic-notional level of landscape architecture) are committed to solving something more meaningful rather than approaching formally-compositional perfection – be in concordance with laws of rhythm, proportionality, harmony, eurhythmy and thus inducing various fleet emotions and sensations of predominantly hedonistic nature. We believe that architectural landscapes of such type due to their functional-aesthetic attributes may come well along toward pieces of art, wherefore their impact on us is akin to the influence of seemingly non-utilitarian arts such as easel painting, instrumental music, poetry etc. The integral artistic-notional architectural landscape represents a masterpiece of art in shape of creative self-sufficing subjectivity created in accordance with the laws of beauty, which imaginative features express historically-spiritual status of time in its dynamics, stratification of normative-ethical potentials of certain epoch and, therefore, it is a cultural-axiological landmark with “residual” utilitarian elements, which are also attaining aesthetically-axiological overtone. In this connection, architectural landscape appears as not just a material object created by the scales of rhythm and harmony; it expresses spirituallyethical implication of human life, and is serves as axiological medium. Here is the essence “of compound perception of an object” (A.V. Ikonnikov), in this case - the architectural landscape, as objective physical entity in its utilitarian function and as a carrier of meanings, symbols and signs.30 There is a question if the utilitarian element disappears from the orbit of artistic notional architectural-landscape composition for good? Hegel, as is known, never related decorative art to fine arts. However, he has been always noting instability and dialectical agility between artistic and non-artistic. It means that this interdependence and reciprocal transitivity of

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utilitarian-aesthetic and specifically artistic produces an overall, summarized insight on dialectics. The “insignificance of differences” between “spiritual utility” and material one was highlighted by M.S. Kagan.31 Artistic composition is more instrumentally connected with social practice, rather than the results of functional-utilitarian and aesthetically-applicative activity. However, this relationship is not completely excluded, but the artistic charge here becomes more eminent and dominating. We evidence cognition and evaluation of various aspects of social practice through the prism of artistic-imaginative views. Hence it appears that architectural-landscape composition as an art might not be assessed in form of artistic object absolutely deprived of utilitarian beginning. Its artistic existence has been always contemplating at least some presence of utilitarian-applicative nuances. “The beauty and usefulness are indeed connected; they are supplementing each other, they are associated in the same objects, but they neither amalgamate with nor dissolve each other”.32 Perhaps, this differentiates the landscape architecture as art from other types of arts, where utilitarian determinants do not have so much expressed, underlying-mandatory character. Even in cases when functional peculiarity of architectural-landscape composition is in carrying of artistic-symbolic or ceremonial-ideological load (for instance, Japanese tea garden), the point of departure for formation of such phenomena in landscape architecture is the utilitarian practice, which subsequently looses its field of force, thus reducing to a minimum, but never ceases at all. Reasoning about the beauty and usefulness in architecture, G.B. Borisovskiy accentuates the necessity of genesis of the “second, spiritual realm“: “Important is that utilitarian usefulness would turn into spiritual. This is what makes architecture the art”.33 This process is deeply dialectical. Most of architectural-landscape compositions, before attaining relative status of a piece of art, prior to turning into evaluative-cognitive objects, have undergone various metamorphoses in their historical development. Initially created without intentional orientation to artistic-imaginative content, which, however, have enough potential and, in general, which represent genuinely planned utilitarian-aesthetic objects, – the compositions of landscape architecture with the span of time were capable of multiplying spiritual-axiological potential, thus compensating fragmentarity of imaginative notions. What specific features of architectural-landscape art allow us contending that? Firstly, this is the depth of artistic beginning with its imaginative lexicon; the memorial-documentary elements being both environmental and corporealpersonified.

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Secondly, here we would need a real feeling of unique and inimitable stylistics of landscaping maestro; an imprint of synthetic amalgamation of art; a viewable incarnation of the entire complex of characteristics in museum existence. For us to define an integral, artistic-ideal status of landscape architecture, it is necessary once again to bring in some logical clarity to the dialectics of its functional-aesthetic level. If at utilitarian-applicative stage of its development the aesthetics of nature-paradise was generally defined by economical regular patterns, and at the fragmentary-imaginative level – mainly by certain religious and philosophical landmarks, then at the artistic-notional level the landscape gains universally integral image of creation. The most spectacular example to that is Japanese philosophical landscape. As distinguished from other cultures, where a human being sometimes occupied an ambivalent or even antagonistic position in relation to the nature, Japanese tradition for centuries preserved deep commitment to harmony with nature,34 – wrote Japanese researcher of garden art Michio Fujioka. Based on subjectivistic Dzen-Buddhism philosophy (dzen – contemplation), which denies logical thinking and maintains intuitive comprehension of concealed essence of things, Japanese artistic landscapes were created as deep philosophical-symbolical structures. The ideal of major types of such landscapes – arid landscape, flat garden or tea garden – was “the formula of existence”, distillation, the essence of nature as Universe, “cosmic body of Buddha”. This is the Japanese symbolic garden where less important are utilitarian “sources” of such art. They are strictly subordinated to semiotics, the philosophy of nature. The aesthetic value of plants, stones, water etc. is in similar dependence too; it is accessory if compared with what these elements of the garden symbolize. The artistic image in consciousness of recipient emerges through signs and symbols. The principle of self-sufficing consilience as synthesis of artisticaxiological, normative-cognitive and “residually” utilitarian functions is the most apparent feature of traditionally Japanese genre of landscape architecture such as tea garden. Here, the utilitarian becomes the subject of artistic reworking. The cult of tea (tya-do) originated in China, was subsequently rethought and creatively transformed in collective consciousness of Japanese nation. There was the emergence of two constituents of the organic whole: a special building – tea house (tya-sitsu) and tea garden (tya-niva). The tea ceremony is referred to as tya-noyu. The ideological foundation of the ceremony is in Buddhist-monasterial tea-drinking rituals. The very procedure is based on aesthetic principle of “beauty-usefulness”. “The beauty and true essence of any object can be discovered and comprehended only through utilitarian implication of such object in the very process of its utilization”,35 – wrote

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N.S. Nikolayeva. The brightest correlation of useful and beautiful is manifested in the tea garden (tya-niva), which became a nodule of artistic-symbolic and ritual-aesthetic principles. The artistic self-sufficing of this complicated and unique phenomenon in landscape architecture is undisputable; beautiful and utilitarian in it do not contradict each other, on the contrary, they are “squeezed” through the art and, therefore, become the subject for aesthetic cogitation. Two interrelated aesthetic categories – “Vabi” and “Sabi” became the foundation for the genesis of artistic rules in tea gardens. “Vabi” sentimentalizes such qualities as modesty and tenuity, meanwhile having quite significant ethical nuances; “Sabi” accentuates beautiful in forgotten and abandoned, old and inconspicuous. The artistic-imaginative “text” of tea garden was shaping up in accordance with these aesthetic canons. Its practical designation is being aestheticized. Inconspicuous “useful” attributes – stone vase for water, lantern, and footpath through the garden – discover their exact artistic implications. This is due to their inelaboratedness, simplicity and even roughness. Each element of the garden has a hint, an emotional symbol. This explains their equivocation: in one case it is apparently utilitarian, in the other case – veiled symbolic. For instance, the lantern served not only as a lighting devise, but symbolized the light of truth that dispels darkness of ignorance. Natural “performance”, inspirited with utilitarian simplicity, used to allow the human being to be “released”, abstracted from vanity of vanities and troubles. Dialectics of this association became a kind of “foothold” for conscious changeover to absolute submergence in the world of aesthetic experiences and pleasures. The tea garden, gradually infusing emotions by way of movement, is drawing attention to genuine thematic views, which, at first glance, are dominated by absolutely utilitarian objects, as though unveiling the next stage of the art of aesthetic pleasure inside the tea house (tya-sitsu). Therefore, Japanese tea garden embodying a unique link between the beauty and the usefulness, which turns a utilitarian function into the object of aesthetic pleasure, may be assessed as artistic-imaginative, self-sufficing objectivity attributive to a masterpiece of art. Both Chinese and Japanese garden arts have been tendentiously aimed at these objectives. High artistic semiotics and imaginative pictorialism, produced by creative thinking and energy of landscape artists, are assessed as prevailing. In summary, the dynamics towards the beginnings of masterpiece of art in landscape architecture has always found its shape in the framework of “beautyusefulness” system. In this context we observe significant preponderance of the beauty, which subordinates the functionality of useful. Accordingly, relative dissociation of artistic beginning in landscape-architectural art, appropriation of the essence of a piece of art dedicated for making aesthetic impact on the

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consciousness of people, is evident. In the process of this interaction the architectural landscape is “breaking away” from underlying empiricism and creates with its recipient a “delusive duplication” of life and its imaginative models. This means that at a certain stage of development architectural landscape turns into a piece of art. The State University of Land Use Planning and Control, Moscow, Russia

NOTES 1

Home H., Elements of Criticism. – M., 1977, p. 514. Zhirnov A.D. Garden Art – Lvov, 1977, p. 14. 3 Jelleicoe G., Jelleicoe S. The landscape of man (Shaping the environment from prehistory to the present day). London, 1975, p. 139. 4 Turner T. English garden design: history, styles since 1650 5 Ibid., p. 9. 6 Doubyago T.B. Russian Regular parks and gardens. – L., 1963, p. 19. 7 New Jerusalem: Historical Description. – M., 1903, pp. 4–6. 8 Jelleicoe G., Jelleicoe S. Op. cit., p. 139. 9 On Monasterial Gardens. See: Hazlenhurst F. Jacques Boyceau and the French formal garden. – Athens, 1966. 10 Jelleicoe G., Jelleicoe S. Op. cit., p. 139. 11 Holwitzer H., Wirsing W. Roof Gardens/Translation from German – M., 1972, p. 6. 12 Grub G. Greenery between houses. “Task Green”. Ideas, Concepts, Examples of introduction of natural elements to the sphere of production: Catalogue of Exhibition in Moscow. – 1990, July. 13 38th IFLA World Congress Singapore 2001 Conference proceedings, 26–29 june 2001 Sicec, Suntec city, Singapore. 14 Novikova L.I. Principle of Purposefulness in Kantian Aesthetics//Bulletin of Moscow State University. Philosophy, 1974, Vol. 4, p. 20. 15 Kant, Works – M., 1966., Vol. 5., p. 233. 16 Simonds J. Landscape and Architecture. – M., 1965, p. 214. 17 CM.: Lehrman J. Earthly Paradise (Garden and courtyard in Islam). – London, 1980; The gardens of Ifughul India. A history and a guide. – Delhi, Bombay, London, 1973; Shalamar. Karachi. – Pakistan, 1984; Stuart Y.C.M, Gardens of the great Mughuls. – New Delhi, 1987 18 Jelleicoe G., Jelleicoe S. Op. cit., p. 23. 19 M .: The gardens of Mughul India. . . , pp. 16–17. 20 Ibid., p. 17. 21 Ibid., p. 16. 22 Ibid., p. 21. 23 Ibid., p. 20. 24 Ibid. 25 Jelleicoe G., Jelleicoe S. Op. cit., p. 117. 26 Turner T. Op. cit., p. 10. 27 S.M. Eisenstein. Disney // Problems of Synthesis in Artistic Culture. – M., 1985, p. 214. 28 Kant, Works – M., 1966, Vol. 5., p. 240. 29 Ibid., p. 240. 2

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30 A.V. Ikonnikov. Research on the problems of forming aesthetic values in industrial products // Research on the problems of forming aesthetic values and aesthetic evaluation/Tr. VNITE. Mechanics. Aesthetics. – M., 1983, p. 6. 31 Kagan M.S. Morphology of Arts – M., 1972, p. 318. 32 Cantor C. Beauty and Usefulness. Sociological aspects of material-artistic culture. – M., 1967, p. 18. 33 Borisovskiy G.B. Beauty and Usefulness in Architecture. – M., 1975, p. 41. 34 Fujioka M. Japanese residences and gardens. A tradition of integration. Tokyo, N.Y., San Francisco, 1982, p. 47. 35 Nikolaeva N.S. Japanese Gardens. – M., 1975, p. 174.

SECTION V M E M O RY I N T H E C R E AT I V E O N T O P O I E S I S O F L I F E

ELGA FREIBERGA

M E M O RY A N D C R E AT I V I T Y I N T H E C O N T E X T OF ONTOPOIESIS OF BEINGNESS: A - T. T Y M I E N I E C K A A N D A . B E R G S O N

M E M O R Y A S C R E AT I V E O R C H E S T R AT I O N : A G L I M P S E I N T O T Y M I E N I E C K A’ S C O N C E P T O F M E M O R Y

The question of memory nowadays is connected with the problems of psychology and cognitive sciences that envisage a more simplified look at the problems. There are but few philosophers who mark the metaphysical perspective of memory; this view is represented by the French philosopher Henri Bergson’s ideas that shed a brilliant light on the humanized features of time and memory. Memory as creativity, as the framework of the metaphysical totality of life is strikingly marked also in A-T. Tymieniecka’s philosophy. The principal theme of the report is the link between memory and creativity in A-T. Tymieniecka’s and H. Bergson’s philosophies. In A-T. Tymieniecka’s philosophy the problem of memory is given a multi-faceted examination singling out the creative role of memory in the perfection of the stages of life while reaching the onto-poetic progress of man’s self-individualization. Memory essentially permeates the very concept of onto-poiesis; it is the leitmotif of this concept. In a way this view unites the opposition of Bergson’s pure memory and Proustian affective memory highlighting the wholeness of life stages and man’s creativity relationships. The concept of memory is to be closely connected with the concept of the Logos of life. A-T. Tymieniecka’s draws attention to the fact that memory is often regarded as an everyday effortful activity because it is associated with “recalling” a fragment of something already known that has been stored away somewhere or hidden in an accessible place so that our cognitive abilities could make free use of it. It is a naturalistic understanding of memory that places memory among the problems of philosophy of mind. This point of view makes man’s life into a string of mutually disconnected events, thus ignoring life’s continuity. Examining the relationship of stages of life and memory it is stressed that memory has certainly got the function of storing the data of experience and is to be regarded as an activity of the mind that is quite clear from the use of the verb “to recall”. But is it the only function of memory? – Tymieniecka 233 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 233–242. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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asks. Evidently it would be a mistake to assume that the function of memory is limited to the function of storing and summarizing physical facts and experiences1 . Filling the life process stages with sense and meaning is not to be explained as data accumulation and compilation task, but as a process of man’s self-individualization that starts as an interpretation of one’s existence while being in the process of the existence. Memory has a decisive role to play here; it is an essential function of life that in a way outstrips all the other functions forming a mutual link of prototypical stages of life, without which the manifestation of Logos of life is unthinkable2 . However, Tymieniecka points out that this prototypically linking function is not the only function of memory. To understand the role of memory one has to examine it in the light of man’s creative activity. Creativity is an absolutely indispensable component part of Tymieniecka’s conception; it shows how different stages of human life are manifested and realized as man’s selfindividualization. What then is the task of memory? At this level it is important to separate the function of memory serving as a conscious mechanism of man’s activity from the part of memory that is self-interpretation of man’s existence or, to be more exact, that forms the individual pattern of man’s being. Creativity is certainly to be examined first and foremost as the transformation of man’s vital forces in a specific harmony of creative abilities that are characteristic of him alone and which Tymieniecka calls creative orchestration. It is in this aspect that the most important characteristic of memory finds manifestation. Memory constitutes man’s life world as well as the conditions of his everyday life. Describing this creative orchestration as a system Tymieniecka names its constituent parts: imagination, will, memory and intellect3 . They are not separable one from the other forming all together the creative orchestration that marks the formation of man’s self-individualization that is not a creation of intellect alone but presupposes also the spontaneity and progress of the creative act that make one understand more loosely the transformational ability and mutuality inherent in the stages of life. The important task allotted to memory here is to store the imagined, the experienced and the released energies compiling it all into the basis of creative arrangement. Memory releases man’s abilities to use this creativity and it establishes the primordial temporal horizon of man’s experience. Manifestations of man’s creativity are simultaneous with man’s live presence; they can come to life due to the specific nature of memory. Memory also enables opening past horizons providing witnesses to the present event. This condition draws Tymieniecka’s conception closer to E.Husserl’s teaching on time horizons and the mutual link of time, for the explanation of which Husserl uses the analogy of melody and Tymieniecka – the orchestration analogy.

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The importance of memory is not only in it being a link; it is also a condition for development, it is a participant in the creative formation of any object, without it creativity is improbable, Tymieniecka concludes4 . However, the task and the role of memory in Tymieniecka’s conception would not be exhaustive without reminding of the importance of retaining the wholeness of man’s life world. Tymieniecka stresses the importance of memory in the preservation of the wholeness of live present that precludes life’s disintegration into mutually unconnected events. Tymieniecka’s philosophy, as previously mentioned, stresses the priority of man’s life world, not only the intellect; the life world involving all the stages of life up to the act of self-individualization of man’s life. Tymieniecka reminds that man views himself as a being simultaneously experiencing himself in a live continuous act responding to Bergson’s “la duree vecue”5 . It is not a conscious act, but rather an experiencing act that envisages spatial presence. In it only something is partially lighted, incompletely, but at the same time it is clear that our live presence is also an indication of belonging to something bigger, something general – the world. The world is not only around us, it was before us and will be after us; it does not begin with our experience and does not end with it; it is in what we imagine, remember, experience and think about. Memory holds together and creates new and new potentially possible links and connections. It makes the live world appear to us as very well known and inseparable from our being in it and transforms a momentary experience into an important act of creatively rich presence. P U R E M E M O R Y, R E M E M B R A N C E A N D R E C O L L E C T I O N : B E R G S O N ’ S C O N C E P T I O N O F M E M O RY

The category of memory6 in Bergson’s philosophy is one of the most complicated problems of investigating time that forms an essential link between man and the world, matter and spirit. Memory as pure time and impersonated time, as returning and recalling is for Bergson not just an arrangement of psychological acts; it is an opportunity to speak about metaphysics. French philosopher Frederick Worms accentuate the interdependent relations between two forms of memory proposed by Bergson – mechanical, sensory –motor memory and pure, creative recollection, describing these as convergent7 . In connection with the problem raised the most essential impulse of Bergson’s philosophy is in manifestations of interlacement of consciousness and body described in greater detail in his work Matter and Memory. Bergson, from one side, links the problem of memory with the experience of a live body, but it is not reduced to either physiology or psychology. The live

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body is not controlled by external stimuli; it does not resemble a mechanism. It is characterized by recollection, response, image rendering that are both the modeling of mind created constructions and also sensuous motivity inherent in the body8 . The body, in Bergson’s view, is not divided into matter and spirit; as a live body it is characterized by wholeness. The body, to Bergson, is like an experience of being in the world; it is in space and is spatial at the same time9 . However, to substantiate the idea of the body’s wholeness, a live wholeness at that, live reality that cannot be experienced just as perception of space is also of importance to Bergson. That is why he stresses the role of intuition in the experience of time because only in the duration of time emerges the wholeness of mental life. Duration (duree) is at the basis of the force of life (elan vital); it is creativity itself10 . In a way duration becomes to Bergson a characteristic of reality, as it were, changing the views on the world and man who is not split into the body and spirit, but formed as a creative wholeness maintained by mental life that opens up to man only from the “ inside” intuitively. Intuitive observation is not passive; it is controlled by the activity of will. Intuition combined with will acquire dynamics and activity, turning into something like creative self-inspiration, making one concentrates for a creative act. It is at the basis of man’s creativity indicating the freedom of his creative ability. But Bergson does not maintain that man’s creative ability starts from his ego; but he can continue the impulses of life at the basis the flowing changeability of life and joins man and cosmos. It is the task of real, genuine selfness that fuses together the separate, fragmented perception of life into a unified organic whole. This conclusion allows Bergman to overcome exteriorizing man’s world, the dependence of man’s selfness on social conditions, the images of the external world and their power over the manifestations of man’s creative life. Mental life extends between the extremes – action (where images are embodied in motion) and knowledge (images are retained in consciousness). The importance of this conclusion for Bergson is in the ability to show the difference between the states of mental life and the states of the brain. Bergson underscores the basis of man’s activity in the world wherein the fundamental truth is hidden in the motion of a live body, not in an observed object moving in the space of the world. Being live the body perceives and preserves the stores of remembrances and recollections that differ from simple external stimuli. It is this standpoint of Bergson’s that allows drawing closer to the solution of the memory problem. In Bergson’s view perception and memory are closely connected or even parallel phenomena: “Bergson refuses to understand perception as a passive mechanism of registering impressions and stresses its synthesizing, vital disposition”11 . They show the way man perceives the external world or the world of material things, or just matter because all that is perceived is an image

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(a picture formed in the mind). An image is not only a representation of a thing; it is more than that. An image differs from a representation in the degree of perception. Perception in its pure manifestation is matter itself or the materiality of things where this materiality is contained in images. Pure perception is unconscious; that is why the second mode of perception is also important to Bergson, the one in which images are structured and arranged in time and space not as an automatic replica of objective reality, but as an act of the presence of consciousness that occurs intuitively. Perception is also the birth of consciousness, but consciousness is not just “an observation of pictures” or “viewing” the perceived images. Such an approach would make one explain consciousness as a spatial structure that would, in its turn, make one return to the problem of locating consciousness (for instance, in the brain). For Bergson, consciousness is a flow of time and that is what makes memory so important. Memory occupies a higher position in the hierarchy of understanding consciousness because only that way the flow of time (duree) can be expressed. Bergson stresses the qualitative difference between perception and memory, just like between the two types of memory: habit memory (memoire-habitude) and pure memory (memoire-pure)12 . Habit memory is naturally sensory-motor; it allows the body to find bearings in space while pure memory is autonomous, independent of the body, a spiritual phenomenon. This distinction shows that both perception and memory, in his opinion, possess both the virtual and the actual aspects. The virtual aspect is connected with pure memory. The elements of pure memory are “pure remembrance” (souvenir pure), “memory- image” (souvenir image) and “perception”. Remembrance includes preservation that is transferred to memory-image. The distinction Bergson draws within the framework of pure memory between the types of memory: pure memory and memory-image is connected with Bergson’s understanding of consciousness in which the image does not yet show a qualitative difference between consciousness and the material world; this distinction comes into effect only with the ability of memory as a flow of time to preserve an image separated from the perceived reality. Imagination, the imagined is the mediator in the remembrance and perception relationships. Imagination, the imagined, in Bergson’s philosophy, acquires an original modality of images – they are called spontaneous remembrances – recollections; the most familiar kind of recollections are childhood recollections. Recollections or remembrances belong to the strongest types of memory that include both the perceived and the sensually experienced things, both movements and habits. They keep the emotions and what was perceived – experienced – in their wholeness, however being closely connected with the perceived they are like an accumulation, a condensation of recollections. Recollections point to the fact that remembrances are not continuous because

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they are closely interwoven with forgetting. With this paradoxical explanation Bergson shows that it is perception that contains forgetting, not memory; and any perception is also destruction of forgetting. Memory is not a continuous unraveling of recollections (if we imagine some symbolical ball of recollections whose thread we begin pulling at leisure) that safeguards the images in one’s memory from being replaced by the just perceived ones. The action of images within the framework of memory is twofold: in the first place, the image “retains” matter (the perceived), in the second place, the image “retains” some lost initial intuition. The latter kind of memory displays the essence of memory – it is not that we have memory, but we are memory. It is because in man’s consciousness there is no precise moment at which the present turns into the past, nor can we clearly state the moment when the perceived turns into recollections. Recollection is important because it collects, stores, as it were, moments of remembrances. Perception and memory are simultaneous. It has already been mentioned that Bergson distinguishes pure remembrance from memory-image. Pure remembrance is characterized by the duration of time that is completely self-sufficient and therefore is not to be materialized into images. What is embodied in memory-images is no longer pure, but attached, though indirectly, to the demands of the present. Memory-images have practical tasks; they are connected with what is necessary for one’s life. Memory-images are also subdivided into recollections or recalls that are spontaneous. Bergson characterizes those as dreams, but the greater part of memory is habit memory that retains the necessity for the habitual in perceiving the renewal. Thus, in Bergson’s conception of memory, images are a threat to the existence of pure remembrance – the image replaces the lost initial intuition taking its place without filling it, but spatializing the flow of time, that has a negative role in the process of self-realization. Bergson’s researcher John Mularkey characterizes that as “stopping the subject’s self-realization”13 reminding that the problem of memory and perception just like the problem of matter and spirit are not only questions per se, namely, philosophically neutral and abstract, but directly related to the problems of man’s consciousness and subjectivity. The problem of pure memory just like the problem of pure thought is difficult to substantiate because it is consciousness without consciousness, i.e., unconscious and at the same time it is not just a state of psyche as it is being explained in contemporary theories of psychoanalytical coloring. Pure memory is a wider concept than consciousness itself, true, in Bergson’s writing there is no clear statement of how the transition from pure memory to memory-image occurs. Evidently, pure memory should be explained on the analogy of creative evolution – as a metaphysical concept.

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Memory-image in Bergson’s philosophy is to be understood as the start of disintegration of pure memory. Memory-image is what is detached from pure memory and can be seen, analyzed and described. That means that memory-image when detached from pure memory that is a synthetic and virtual phenomenon, can be operated with in most diverse science and art spheres; also in philosophy. Singling out memory, the qualitative separation (despite simultaneity of memory and perception) leads Bergson to the conclusion that perception and activity is “a fundamental law of our psychic life”14 whereas memory is “a game of fancy, imaginative activity because it possesses as much freedom as the mind takes from nature”15 . Bergson allots imagination the thankless role of separation in the process of which reality is transformed into images. “Separation is the work of our imagination, the true task of which is to fix the moving images of our daily experience”16 . However, Bergson never strictly detaches perception from imagination, nor perception from memory, perception being an isolation of images from the aggregate of images, as it were. Bergson can be reproached for shortage of explanations because he manifestly explains one concept through the medium of the other. Perception of images is also an imagination of images just like memory is “imaginative” because it is coordination of imagination and memory. This obscurity indicates Bergson’s desire to separate everyday experience that we – philosophers call empiric, from philosophical by asking the question what memory, imagination and perception mean in this, i.e., philosophical aspect. That is why the concept of pure memory is something bigger than what is given in individual consciousness. Memory is a multi-plane formation; it is not one-dimensional. Pure memory is passivity; it is contemplative as a plane in which activity, motion arises that finally destroys pure memory splitting it up into innumerable memory-images that at the same time are not only separated entities, but form spontaneous recollections or accumulations renewing the subtle demand for the forgotten, spontaneous presence of intuition. Bergson’s memory conception is a complicated, multi-plane formation that cannot be explained only by body, mental experience or the spiritual autonomy of consciousness. At the basis of it is metaphysical judgment on the essence of time, on man’s subjectivity and its presence in the flow of time that Bergson has taught us to call consciousness. The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze is one of the thinkers who after a long period of critical contemplation of Bergson, turns to Bergson’s philosophy seeing in it the possibility of renewing the debate on time flows, freedom and creativity. Deleuze does not characterize Bergson’s philosophy as a manifestation of man’s wisdom, he considers it to be victory over man’s limitedness (enclosure in the shell of one’s Ego), transcending the borders of man’s

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wisdom that is seen already in the parallel lines of Bergson’s philosophy: intellect, intuition, matter and memory, time and space. Bergson’s philosophy gives one the possibility to ask about the conditions of man’s life, stresses Deleuze, because man lives in a poorly comprehended, analytically obscure world in which subjective and objective lines, external and internal experiences reciprocate thus pointing to the possible limits of understanding and the conditions of multi-plane existence. Bergson is the philosopher who has asked the question about time and memory. In Deleuze’s view, duration (duree) is both memory and freedom and consciousness. The duration of time and returning in time, the question about the location of memories Deleuze regards as a “leap in ontology”17 , possibility to speak of being (l’etre). Bergson has asked the question on memory in an ontological plane keeping aloof of the psychological understanding of memory. What Bergson calls pure memory, in Deleuze’s opinion, is ontological memory as the origin of all possible memories that is necessary to be able to return to one’s memories, or in Bergson’s words: from the virtual state to the actual state or motion. Deleuze explains this direction as follows: memory from the ontological dimension, an impersonal existence can only gradually pass over to its embodiment, to filling it with one’s image, psychologically inhabiting it, repeating it. Any image being only a separate image cannot link with what has been and is no longer. Deleuze referring to Bergson points out that the link is formed in the flow of time where the present and the past are not two points but rather two parallel, co-existent elements where every present returns to itself as the past. It is not the usual succession of the process of time that presupposes gradual succession, but co-existence where the past virtually lives next to the present. This co-existence is duration that just like virtual reality repeats simultaneously at all possible levels where the past is represented in its wholeness “as such”, in all the possible planes. It must be admitted that Deleuze’s reading of Bergson that is reflected in his work Bergsonism points to the fact that Deleuze has merged the ideas of two philosophers: Friedrich Nietzsche and Henri Bergson in creating his conception of repetition. Intertwined are Nietzsche’s ideas on eternal return Deleuze has repeatedly been writing about, and Bergson’s duration concept. It is this combination that allows him to speak about a “leap into existence” that occurs in memory. The two philosophers’ contribution consists in thinking of differences that in Bergson’s metaphysics manifests itself as the difference in the sensation of time. In Bergson’s philosophy Deleuze singles out the asymmetry between time and space and also between the two modes of time. The manner characteristic of Bergson’s philosophy of forming distinctions within the framework of one phenomenon (for instance, between memory and pure

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memory, between pure recollection and memory/image) allows retaining the philosophical plane of the problem without lowering to the mundane and psychological views, but revealing the multi-plane existence and philosophical importance of every phenomenon. The time differences noted by Bergson revealed themselves also in the context of memory – perception relationships. Deleuze underscores that memory and perception, in Bergson’s interpretation is not to be regarded as separate modes of experience, but rather as a mutually overlapping, intertwining experience. How can one differentiate between them? – Through the medium of different time planes. Perception is spatialized time that arranges, organizes perceptions allowing to describe them as events with their own succession and causal relationship. Thus described they are ontologically non-active, “frozen”, as it were, in the present state. It is possible to perceive something only on the basis of something already perceived because perception is similar to the revelation of causal relationships and connections and, according to Bergson, it happens through spatialization of time, stopping and arranging what has happened at the point of time (Bergson repeatedly refers to the aporia of Zeno of Elea. It is this interest that suggests to Bergson the idea of speculating about motion and time). Memory is duration that is a different mode of temporality that Bergson prefers to call temporal. Duration is heterogeneous, not homogeneous; cause or homogeneousness is not visible in it; it cannot be subdivided into periods or analyzed. Both units of time exist simultaneously and this simultaneity is only possible due to the difference between the two modes of time.

CONCLUSION

At the beginning of the essay I mentioned the opposition in Bergson’s and Proust’s understanding of memory pointing out that A-T. Tymieniecka in her conception of memory solves the problem by not stressing only the metaphysical or affective character of memory. Memory as a link or, as the author calls it, an orchestration holding together the processional symphony of all the stages of man’s life; shows also the role and task of memory at every of the separate stages of life. The task of memory is vitally important – it holds together in one undivided entity all the life stages separated by intellect without making them only into a rational or an irrational process. Man’s path to his self-individualization is also a manifestation of the Logos of life; and this orchestration is perfect.

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1 Tymieniecka, A-T. “Memory and Rationality in the Onto-poiesis of Beingness.” In Phenomenological Inquiry. A Review of Philosophical Ideas and Truth. Vol. 13, October 1989, p. 98 2 Ibid., p. 100 3 Ibid., p. 101 4 Ibid., p. 104 5 Ibid., p. 106 6 The formulation of memory problem should naturally to start with Plato’s philosophy and in particular with the Meno dialogue. Gilles Deleuze also stresses Bergson’s Platonism, but still more important for understanding Bergson is neo-platonism, and Plotinus in particular on whom Bergson lectured for years. It is from Plotinus that he borrowed “the dynamic scheme category” that is a fundamental structure of Bergson’s philosophy 7 Worms, F. Introduction a Matiere et Memoire de Bergson, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1997, p. 135 8 Bergson H. Matiere et memoire, p. 155, 156 9 Ibid., p. 216 10 Ibid., p. 105 11 Rubene, M. No tagadnes uz tagadni (From the Present to the Present). Riga, Minerva, 1995, p. 107 12 Bergson, H. Matiere et memoire, p. 57 13 Mularkey, J. Bergson and Philosophy. Notre Dame, IN:U of Notre Dame Paris, 2000, p. 25 14 Bergson, H. Matiere et memoire, p. 180 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., p. 189 17 Deleuze, G. Bergsonism, transl. By H. Tomlinson and B.Habberjam. Zone Books, New York, 1991, p. 23

S A L A H A D D I N K H A L I L OV

A B O U T T H E C O R R E L AT I O N O F M E M O RY A N D R E M E M B R A N C E I N T H E S T RU C T U R E OF THE SOUL

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses some peculiarities – similarities and differences – of memory and remembrance (personal life memory). The mechanisms of storing knowledge and recollection have been analysed. It was shown that earlier used spirit-body or soul-body methods could not adequately explain the correlation between memory and remembrance. For consideration specific details of the correlation of memory and remembrance more realistic model of “spirit-soul-body” or “mind-soul-body” was developed Knowledge is the most alien of the different forms of consciousness for the human being, particularly, knowledge which is not related to the human being, his personal life, and his fate. In fact, human participation as a subject is ruled out in the content of knowledge. Because the events reflecting personal life and reflecting events that happened in the life of a human being are related to personal emotions and feelings, they are kept in the memory as a remembrance. In this sense, knowledge and remembrance can be distinguished. Certainly this differentiation comes from distinguishing events as native and alien to a person. It also expresses the difference between single and common. Thus, remembrance remains in the memory not as knowledge, but as an image. The human being retains events in his memory as he understands and lives. That is because remembrance is the second mental existence of the human life. It is also the form of existence of life, as opposed to material life, which does not obey the law of the inevitability of time and which can reoccur and be restored at any desirable moment. The remembrance can be “bitter” or “sweet,” “pale” or “motley,” and can make a person feel what he lived in his past. But knowledge is inanimate and neutral and is not directly related to the personal senses, and in this sense it is alien to the person. Are the events related to personal life not summarized in the mind? Are imagination and sensual images not connected with appropriate notions, and proper knowledge deduces from it accordingly? As Suhrawardi stated: “luminosity, discovery, occurs when a human being finds in the object what is in 243 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 243–250. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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‘himself.’ Thus the cognition process is possible due to adequacy of what is in the ‘self’ and in the external object.”1 This opinion corresponds to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka’s idea of ontopoiesis of life.2 In real mental life, neither are sensual images separate from notions, nor are notions separate from sensual images. It should be said that the sensual and rational are always in unity and complete each other. However, both sense and image, as well as notions and judgments, possess a certain relative independence. Thanks to this independence we differentiate them and assess them as different levels of cognition. Events that organize personal life can be divided into two parts: first—unique phenomena which happen only once or rarely, second—repeat events which happen on a regular basis and very often depending on the circumstances. The second also includes events which seem to be different, while the main elements of them coincide. Certainly there are no events that are totally unique and completely unrepeated in their all elements. However, a person does not feel the need to compare unrepeated, mainly unique events in terms of their second degree elements. That is because the sensual images of these events, remembrances, do not succumb to rational operation which consists of getting rid of some elements and generalizing others. It keeps its sensual integrity and concreteness. However, there is no need to keep in mind every detail of repeated events in all their own concreteness, and this is of course impossible. This is because most of personal life is composed of repeated events. This is why details are left and the sensual image gets rid of the insignificant elements and the main repeated elements are generalized. Notions are formulated and events become interpreted by the system of notions. So repeated events, which are the necessary elements of every-day life, are not retained in the memory as entire sensual images and do not become a remembrance. Events that are retained in the memory through the notions in a generalized form, namely an “inanimate” scheme of a certain group of events, do not influence the sensual state of the human being. It is only possible to think through notions, whereas it is impossible to be affected by them. Understanding everyday events that are not connected with human specialization and professional activity, and are mostly general for all, is called “ordinary consciousness.” As a professional cognitive form of philosophical thought, scientific cognition, and literary cognition, ordinary consciousness is one of the main forms of understanding reality. However, it has one main distinctive quality. Ordinary consciousness is not a professional cognition form and composes the main basis of cognitive activity of all people. Everyone mainly addresses ordinary

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consciousness, not only from the perspective of their personal life and in everyday activity, but also in professional activity in any field. The production of daily sensual practice is often called ordinary knowledge. This knowledge is organized as the generalization of reflections of people’s everyday practical activity and is a kind of first knowledge that appeared due to the formulation of the generalized ability of human beings. As stated above, transferring from thinking through sensual images (prelogical thinking), remembrance, and sensual imagination of the consciousness to thinking through notions mostly encompasses daily life activity (activity which is not imposed on labor division). Early notions are those reflections of generalized elements that appear at the time of necessary activity. Relations among things are reflected as relations among notions, and early knowledge appeared accordingly. By reflecting life activity, which is common to everyone, and by reflecting “daily life,” that kind of knowledge is considered “ordinary knowledge.” However, along with the expansion of human activity that kind of knowledge goes beyond the notion of “ordinary knowledge.” Gradually, the center of gravity in human-nature relations shifts toward Nature. In that kind of interaction a human being systematically receives impulses and his activity goes beyond the necessary needs of ordinary individual life. Consequently, “ordinary knowledge” loses its simplicity to a higher degree. Specifically, ordinary knowledge, which organizes the core of human activity, appears in a relatively different character, and provides activity in a wider sense. That kind of knowledge is not for direct use in individual life, but for society’s use. However, through society, this knowledge indirectly affects the life of the human being as a member of society. In his first formulation process, the human being gradually ceases to live for himself, but mostly lives as a member of society, as a personality. That kind of change appears not only in his material activity, but also in the character of his knowledge, as well as in the scope of his knowledge. Knowledge that was alien to human being becomes more alien because of its wandering from his personal life. On the other hand, knowledge forces him to become a member of society, forces him to become closely tied to society. In spite of seeming paradoxical, the formulation of a human being as a social being and a member of society in this context, the formulation of society, is connected with expanding human-nature relations and human influence on society. Historically, human beings (their first ancestors) were an indivisible part of society and were essentially not separated from the other parts. At that time, man’s ancestors lived as a flock, lived in a certain correlation with each other. However, this is a characteristic element of nature and it would not be right to look for man’s social essence here.

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During the next period of natural-historical development, the process of man’s separation from nature began. During this period, there were no personalities or biosocial beings, but only biological existence. However at the top level of biological evaluation, the process of becoming human beings began, due to the appearance of the first components of consciousness and changes in objective reality. And this process coincides with the separation of man from nature and putting himself before it. During mutual correlation with nature, man primarily acts to ensure his material needs and to understand nature as his extension, then as being different from himself, as an opposite side. As long as man does not separate himself from nature, his imagination is restricted to sensual images and sensual thinking. Although sensual images of the first historical reflection forms of human-nature relations possessed certain dynamism, it did not reflect reality and its objective context adequately. It is very difficult for people to separate themselves from nature and feel their ancestors’ prelogical syncretic mode of thinking, since contemporary man thinks with notions proper to the law of logic. Analyzing national creative masterpieces and mostly mythology shows that the appearance of knowledge in its objective content and logical thinking are products of long-term transformation. During transformation periods, trends toward uniting personal fate with desires and symbolic meaning with the real images of real events gradually decrease. Events become free from decorations and they are shown in all their bareness, simplicity, relatively dim, but with their own color. Nature is no longer regarded as an extension of man and becomes independent. Man separates himself from nature, and nature from himself. As long as sensual images were not generalized and formulated in the shape of a notion, the world was chaos in human understanding. The formulation of a notion made it possible for man to transfer the order and harmony that exist in the material world to the human world. A human being is the carrier of two different ideas, and there is no direct relation between them. One of these ideas refers to the body. The body itself is a system genetically coded and programmed in advance. On the other hand, one part of the body – the brain – appears to be the carrier of another idea that reflects the whole Universe – the Cosmos. Due to the function human (concretely, brain) is Microcosm, regarded as epitomizing the universe. So human brain or widely to say, human itself is the carrier of the ideas of body parts, and essence-idea of whole body, as well as passive idea of whole cosmos. In a practical life of the human being only very little part of this cosmic idea is actualized and used. Untraditional reflections of this great potential as a result of unusual events beyond of standards are also possible. Then knowledge, information-ideas that a human being was ignorant and that were not

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acquired as a result of his sensual practice throughout his real life, may be activated and these cases are regarded as mystery and sensation. While all human beings possess this potential, capacity, we have not yet acquired well the mechanisms of activation of these passive ideas. Studying the ways of the activation of the passive ideas of our brain is one of the main tasks nowadays. In philosophical literature mostly the problems of spirit and body or soul and body have been researched. But the problem of spirit-soul-body or mind-soul-body has not been clarified enough. Everything that has completed form and certain function is a carrier of certain idea. In fact, things are not carriers of one idea, but a lot of ideas. But we name things according to ideas reflecting its essence. Because of this, the same thing can be named differently depending on the situation, the context, and the idea it emphasizes. For example, golden ring is referred to a “circle” in geometrical content, a “ring” for its function, and “gold” when evaluated as a thing possessing certain mass. In other words, in every case one of the ideas that things carry in themselves appear as their essence. The matter here is not about idea itself or live idea, but about its copies, of their passive representation in things. There can be many copiers, and the same ideas could be carried by many objects. Differentiation factor of any object in a sensible world is the idea which they carry and in what portion it contains it. All ideas that passive objects carry are passive. The appearance, activation and illumination of any idea is only possible in the cognition process. The subject intentionally finds out the idea carried by the object or event when cognizing it. That is to say, the idea passively contained in the object is not illuminated by itself, but as a result of focus of human’s-subject’s attention on it. In conception of Ishragism it is called illumination, but in phenomenology it is intentionality. The term phenomenon used in phenomenology differs from the object itself in the point that not the whole complex of passive ideas but only one or some of them are illuminated, and in considered context it replaces the object. But the rest is the collection of passive ideas which remains dark to the subject is called “thing in itself” by Kant. In this meaning darkness could also be understood as non-being. Thus, in fact “thing in itself” as it is presented in Kant’s conception, is not something that remains untouchable, dark for the human being, but it is assessed as a dark part standing in every concrete cognition process. In this approach, relying to synthesis of agnosticism and phenomenology a new model of knowledge appears here. The question appears here: whom does it mostly depend on the activation (illumination) of the idea of the object? Is it object or subject?

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Object itself does not have the ability to activate or illuminate. Only the human being possesses this ability. But how does the human being “see” and recognize what there is in the object? How can the human being “recognize” the idea which he did not have in advance? It means, these ideas (as well as ideas concerning to all objects) were in human being in advance. Contact with the object, subject-object relations firstly leads to the animation of proper ideas in the human brain. Then this makes impression of appearance of active ideas in the object. But the passive idea in the object remains passive. Here we can come to the following conclusion: differing from other alive beings and objects the human being is a carrier not only the ideas of his own body, but the ideas of other objects. This is not the capacity of body as well. Body as a thing is also a “thing in-itself”, a carrier of certain passive ideas. They also need illumination, intention for their cognition. And the location of passive ideas in focus determines special trend of thinking activity. The only choice standing here is that any part of the body possesses special ability, i.e. programmed in a different way. Brain is as if the little model of the universe, and the carrier of all possible ideas, and it is a tool for their animation. Books or computer as an object possess certain essence, they are the carriers of the ideas of “book” and “computer”. Along with that, they are also the carriers of different ideas and information. Here the matter is the symbolic containing of ideas. Even in computer the transformation of some definite information from passive to operative memory is possible as well. Here any information-idea is activated, illuminated on the bases of certain program. Illuminated factor for the human being is an external impact. Such kind of impact can be considered as a situation, environment in a common sense, or as the nature, the sensual world, and the cosmos in a wider sense. Cosmic power could also be considered as God’s will. But we are not interested in this now. The problem of adequacy of passive ideas in objects to ideas in potential memory of the human being is one of the crucial matters in philosophy. Some conceptions support the view that the idea illuminates in the human being as the result of sensual experience, i.e. ideas appear as the reflection of passive ideas, qualities of the thing. According to writings of Plato in “Menon”, as a human soul is eternal, and that he keeps the result of practice of his previous life in his universal memory, the matter is the remembrance, acknowledgement, or re-perception of object in his present life3 . But even in this case, it is too difficult to speak about the adequacy. According to the other point of Plato, objects are the copies of ideas. They are not completely adequate to original in this case as well; ideas are distorted in a sensual world. The only reasonable version remains: both ideas in objects and genetic memory of the human being are the result of the same creation process. In other

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word, passive ideas in microcosm and passive ideas in objects are adequate to each-others, both of them are the copies of same active, original ideas. Soul expresses an idea of the body. Separate parts of the body have their own ideas. But the whole idea of the body is not of their gathering, expresses a new quality of its essence. Body is a programmed even when it is in its embryo and in fact its idea is equivalent to this program. It is too difficult to change this idea afterwards. In order to realize his own program, to ensure the demands of his body it functions in interrelation with environment. The soul is a spiritual process directed to realization of the idea of the body. In other word, we understand the soul as the activation of passive ideas of this or other part of the body in a contact with external environment. These are human instincts, biological desire, and volitional qualities. Some other authors include delight, fervor, esthetic feeling and etc. when soul is taken in a wider sense; all elements of spiritual world are also included here. Even the mind is taken as the highest stage of the soul. But we are limiting it with the activity of body. A human’s association with the cosmic spirit (with the spirit of the world) is realized with idea of higher levels that it carries. The mind is activation, and illumination of the cosmic idea. And the realization of this idea happens in a contact with external the world as well. As cosmic spirit has the same potential base everybody knows this language. But simply, different parts of this program are actualized for different persons. In order to use this potential base of knowledge the human being has to demonstrate the will. But the will connected with the idea of body is included to the structure of soul. That is, the human activity can not be reasonable if it is bounded with instincts, sensual demands. Both the human soul and the mind can not be actualized at the same time. It is supposed that the passive idea is equivalent to the notions of structure and form. This explication is directed toward to the already constructed, existent world. When it is said that any object is a bearer of a certain idea and has a definite form, it is not its creation, activity, the motion toward self-exhaustion, or end that is being spoken about. Its activity and functioning are considered only in the form of possibilities in the passive idea and form. When positing that the world is created with a definite form and system of forms and that the Creator does not interfere in the processes going on afterwards, we have to search for motion and the source of the activity in this world. Aristotle rightly points out that Plato’s doctrine of ideas gives only a static model of the world and cannot show the source of motion. The source of movement is the soul. According to Ibn Sina and Suhrawardi, all bodies move through the wills of their souls. In the hierarchy, the soul lies higher than the body (soulless bodies cannot move without intervention from aside).

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Ideas in the brain (the idea of the cosmos) are higher than the ideas of other organs of the body. But man, if he does not focus (meditate) on some organ, cannot contemplate it. An organ can be cured by arriving at a picture of its perfect form (idea). In turn, the body can contribute to perfecting the soul. Al-Farabi writes: “When the soul is imperfect, then it gains perfection due to [the body], for the body appears to be a condition of its perfection, just as the soul appears to be a condition of the body’s existence.”4 Thus by trying to cognize the world, man can appeal, on the one hand, to the external world, partly revealing for himself the ideas established in the universe. These are all those codes, regularities of the external world that are discovered by means of experience and experimental-scientific investigations. On the other hand, he can fathom all these in his internal world. The “internal world” is a precise copy of the idea of the universe; it is present in the brain of man. But not every human being is aware of it – of his internal treasure. University of Azerbaijan, Baku, Azerbaijan NOTES 1

Al-Suhrawardi, “Hikmat al-Ishraq,” in: Oeuvres Philosophiques et Mystiques, Vol. II, ed. by H. Corbin (Tehran and Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1976), p. 223 2 The Passions of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming, ed. by A.-T. Tymieniecka (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003), p. 3. 3 Platon. Sobraniye sochineniy v 4-x tomax.: T.1 Moskva, 1990. p. 588. 4 Al-Farabi. Natural-scientific treatise. Translation from Arabic. (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1987, p. 292.)

E R K U T S E Z G ˙I N

T H E I N T E R P L AY O F L I G H T A N D D A R K “Historical Sickness” (Nietzsche) and The Possibility of Freedom, Sanity, Universal Wisdom, Salvation for East and West

ABSTRACT

In this paper I develop and expand the Idea of use of pictures that Wittgenstein elucidates in the context of his thought experiments and reminders assembled as “language-games” which is not an ordinary concept, but a sign signalling its own flashes by Wittgenstein’s movements of thinking the articulations of which are capable of evoking the same insightful attention that may now enable us to understand and philosophically articulate the universal wisdom expressed by eastern ways of thinking which otherwise remains incomprehensible with the western standards and habits of thinking and imagining, and which are therefore misjudged as mystifications of eastern thinking in positive or negative senses. I also try to show the contribution of Wittgenstein’s elucidations to the understanding of phenomena phenomenologically, free from pictures of phenomena as representations which circles and closes one’s thinking in entanglement with the images of world imagined as resembling to those imagined pictures, while pictures owe their conceptual differentiations represented to the operations with signs woven with the significations of phenomena and to the rules of the naming and describing based on the internal connections of learning to operate with signs. That makes a texture texturing its own text, narrations, representations that may easily capture and mislead the imagination of the imprudent in its own labyrinthine ways, with a language-game of its own reverberating and prolonging with imagination, and possibly “sickening” psyche, as Nietzsche diagnosed once, as one’s life energy decays and one doesn’t require more and more light, if one does not move by contacting with the glimmers of light out from the labyrinth of the cave so to speak in resonance with Plato’s metaphor. But that requires more than the deconstruction of the text and narratives on the level of interpretations that may soften the hard structures of imagination by providing it with different imaginings with different continuations in the language-game of culture with which hermeneutic methods seem to rest contented. 253 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 253–282. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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KADESH WAR On one side of the river Asi, Stood Muvattali among his soldiers, Gazing without movement. On the river’s other side pharoah, Ramses, was up on his chariot, His eyes fixed across. Here is what we all know, Though history narrates lengthily, Yet this encounter of gazes rests, if anything rests at all. Melih Cevdet Anday (Trans. by Erkut Sezgin) You can learn all about yourself completely without a book, because in you is the totality of mankind, in you all history is buried, not the dates of kings and wars, but the historical movement of growth. Krishnamurthy1

Phenomenological Awareness of Phenomena of Life flashed out by means of thought experiments and reminders assembled and signalled as “Languagegames”. Live facts of memory and imagination intertwining with operations with signs while signs are signifying and interconnecting the internal relations for signs to differentiate, picture conceptual differences in the texture of language-game.

“ L A N G UAG E - G A M E ” O R D I NA RY O R E X T R AO R D I NA RY

Empirical habit structures, imagination of empirical phenomena as such, intertwined and internally connected with operations with signs that are interrelated and woven endlessly to their train of consequences are clarified by means of reminders and thought experiments assembled and signalled by the term “language-games” – The texture of which is unravelled and elucidated by the reminders that serve for untying the knots that entangle thinking to the images of signs and representations as they are intertwined with operations with signs that are interwoven with phenomena which cannot be thought and pictured in isolation from the life and interplay of significations, from the live texture of significations as such. That texture is elucidated by means of cross-strips flashing out so to speak, upon the live texture of significances interrelating and intertwining phenomena of memory, imagination reactions, reactions of consciousness and operations with signs in connexion with the clarification of the rules of logic and logical thinking that operate with signs in the language-game. These reminders flash out, instantaneously so to speak, the live phenomena of signifying relations in such a way that one comes to be aware that they are presupposed for anything to be shown, named, or conceptually differentiated at the moment one’s imagination and operational habits of thinking are

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interrupted and baffled by the manoeuvres of thought experiments peculiar to Wittgenstein’s movements of thinking. We are dazzled by realizing how we misunderstand our body, our actions and the things and events, our surrounding world as such, the signs and descriptions of which are signalling their conceptual differences along with our consciousness of them which are expressed in the form in which we tend to imagine them in likeness to the imagination pictures we have of them. As i.e. we imagine a difference2 between sensations and the bodily symptoms and behaviour expressed along with them without however awareness of how the internal relations are working and being structured by the significances of phenomena manifesting which are not subject to such analysis3 , but which are requiring a deeper phenomenological awareness of phenomena as such4 for one to realize that the conceptual differentiation and description of the sensation and the significances of phenomena are internally connected within the phenomena that internally connect and interweave the image of sensation to its imagined locality. The imagined locality may correctly and automatically coincide with the sensation as i.e., one remembers the sensation already as conceptually differentiated and learnt to be described as a “toothache”. Still one may be wrong in locating the sensation say a toothache, as one’s pain reactions are increasing by the dentist’s slight hits on the teeth one comes to realize that one was imagining the pain sensation in the wrong tooth. Wittgenstein’s famous thought experiment known as “private language” argument5 while on the one hand plays on our memory habits of logocentric imagination challenging us as such whether we can name a coming and going sensation by a sign, to which our memory and imagination reactions are ready to respond positively – reacting on the model of our remembering our sensations, their locations and qualities as if their conceptual differentiations as to their localities and qualities are also given, perceived, by such imagining and habitual remembering. Hence Wittgenstein reminds the role of the phenomena with its significances, namely pain reactions and symptoms that are interwoven and intertwined with the sensation internally which connect up with the sense and the place of the sensation named, localized. The qualities of which may further be described in the language-game, by means of comparisons, similes as to the qualities of sensation, as i.e., whether it fits to be described in comparison to the sensation expressed in reaction to the burning of fire, or as “tingling”, which is a short description understood on the basis of a comparison that makes use of our sharing such a particular sensation-reaction expressible by such a simile as i.e., “it is like a sensation felt as if many ants were running over my . . .” Thus sensations conceptually differ from one another concerning their locations and qualities by means of the significances and the consequences of the expressions and reactions that are intertwined with names and descriptions that are operating with them in the language-game.

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Hence, the weave of signifying relations are elucidated as to how they internally connect to make a logical scaffolding, set up a system structure the rules of which are learnt operationally by operating with signs in the context in which their significances are woven to the use of other significant operations in the language-game. What is clarified as such is the texture and interplaying dynamics of language-game the many facets of which are not numerically to be identified and pictured for thinking to operate by old habits of thinking! But they are reminded and assembled as those aspects of the manifesting life and texture of phenomena of language in which the phenomena of operations with signs are structured along with thinking and imagination habits. Without the awareness of such texture of phenomena in its structuring and interplaying dynamics with imagination, imagination always tends to start from the conceptually differentiated representations of world and reverberates and is reverberated by pictures6 (representations) of language. Hence the insight or the level of awareness of the presented cross-strips as to how signs differentiate anything conceptually from others – from a sensation to one’s behaviour and to things and events as one’s surroundings, which have been misrepresented by the metaphysical theories of knowledge as “external world”. T H E T E X T U R E O F C O N S C I O U S N E S S A N D I M A G I N AT I O N

This clarifies that there is no such a sensation as imagined introspectively in isolation and in deep forgetfulness from the texture of signifying phenomena the internal relations of which are now elucidated by Wittgenstein’s thought experiments, which are offered, though not to give us a picture, a general theory that would accommodate many pictures systematically in one body. I.e. a general picture of language and culture to be interpreted by means of the picture of human beings, their shared actions and reactions the images of which we can easily empirically imagine as i.e. we can imagine a community of people surrounded by natural and cultural environment acting and reacting, learning the uses of tools and the rules and techniques of applying them etc.7 as we have i.e. such a general scientific picture of human culture and history as to its natural development from primitive reactions to its present intellectual development that we are taught to believe in accordance with our western methods of thinking and operating scientifically. They are pictures with which our imagination and thinking are trained to operate in the language-game, in the systems of language and culture we are trained and educated. That would be a general picture of language and culture providing us with such pictures as tools of interpreting the development of language on the model of constructing tools of language as tools of culture etc. – which is an anthropological picture of language and culture. Nor are the reminders assembled as “language-games”

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offered to give us a general picture as to how logic and language are internally connected to operate, as against the Platonist and Cartesian presuppositions of the logical empiricism of Russell and the analytic tradition. No doubt these questions are central to these elucidations, but they find their answers not within and by means of a general picture, by a theory as such, but by thought experiments and reminders uncovering unnoticed aspects of the life of language that play and important role in applying logical rules logical thinking in the logical differentiation, and picturing, naming and describing surrounding life and world, as well as in the structuring of empirical consciousness and imagination with the images of these pictures. P O E T RY A N D P H I L O S O P H Y

They are in fact offered to serve for quite the reverse of our habits of thinking and imagining with pictures; more in the way of counter-gestures of poetic sensibility8 , namely to disentangle and free our thinking and sensibility from the weave of structures of imagination reverberating with pictures, hence to sense the game at those moments of Use within the signifying interconnections of which anything is; by virtue of the signifying internal relations in the weave of which anything is differentiated and conceptually pictured. The poetic reticence is part of this sensibility capable of bringing the standstill of imagination, by invoking the insight that everything is not as imagination takes and identifies it in likeness or resemblance to an imagination picture – As one’s imagination operate and is operated with the use and significances of these pictures that are all interwoven with other uses and operations interplaying and texturing its own historical texture as different language-games do, with differing cultures and imagination, with their similarities and differences, synchronically and diachronically, but still in one texture so to speak. The aspects of that texture are instantaneously flashed out by Wittgenstein’s reminders and thought experiments elucidating the Use, by virtue of which the dead signs (representations) – otherwise imagined as pictures in resemblance to the images reverberating habits of imagination, in isolation and deep forgetfulness from the use that weaves these pictures to their own deep texture of significations – are then animated to display the internal relations between signs and meaning pictured by their use; hence to clarify how their uses and operations signal the meaning and sense they represent. Life’s eternal duration is then sensed by the awareness of instantaneous flashes of moments in which signs live with their significations that texture the meaning represented with conceptual differentiations by pictures of language, by that awareness which is disentangled from reverberations of imagination and memory reactions, hence with reticence, as an eternal moment of cairos,

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which is filtered by the chronological time consciousness of one’s memory and imagination shaped by the habits of the language-game and culture. That awareness is expected to bring the standstill of our reactions of imagination that reverberate and operate with habits of empirical imagination between the images of pictures, enabling us to gain and deepen the level of our awareness bit by bit with the momentary awareness of those moments that flash out phenomena ubiquitously the significations of which enable us to point, pin down, conceptually differentiate, locate, thus to picture anything conceptually for our empirical imagination and memory to operate automatically9 in accordance with the rules and techniques taught and mastered in the language-game. All empirical things or events, from our sensations, to our bodies, to our behaviour and to the nature surrounding along with their images owe their conceptual identities and differences to the signifying relations of the uses and operations that texture their significances in that texture the centre of which is nowhere and the circumference of which is everywhere so to speak. Therefore the sage’s remark, “From the first not a thing is”.10 is precisely to the point that coincides with the dimension the flashes of that are signalled by thought experiments the reminders of which assembled as “language-games”. What is elucidated sheds its own glimmering light with that minimalism and the reticence issuing from the awareness of life the sense of which is precisely filtered by the habit structures of thinking and imagination woven by the operations with signs and pictures, the operations which take different forms in different languages and cultures because of the impact of the images of pictures of language on one’s imagination whether in the east or the west. The reminders and thought experiments are not only meant to elucidate the logic of language but they are shedding its own light by means of these elucidations to that level of awareness capable of clearing the grounds from the misleading play of pictures of language-games of cultures which may be forms of intellectualist, philosophical or traditional thinking that may all be serving to shape and condition the imagination and consciousness of people. Without that awareness of the phenomena the significances of which set up the internal relations that conceptually differentiate everything from one’s private sensations to thoughts, intentions, feelings categorized as “consciousness”, “subjectivity”, to the things and events that one spatially or temporally localizes and operates – which are being categorized as “external world” as opposed to subjectivity or consciousness – a different consciousness which are operated and operating with the images of conceptual pictures are structured. This is empirical imagination reacting with the thinking and operational habits which filter the unity of life from one’s sensibility and which are leading one on and on in the labyrinthine ways of imagination operating and constructing pictures, the unawareness of their impact on one’s imagination would endlessly

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continue to reverberate and proliferate a language-game of its own, with theories and general pictures. Therefore an insightful understanding penetrating to the nexus of phenomena in which one’s memory and imagination reactions along with operations with signs elucidating how thoughts and sensations are conceptually differentiated and recalled later in imagination as “one’s private feelings, thoughts, intentions, or as one’s private awareness of one’s sensations differentiated as “visual” or “tactual”, or as “headache” with its conceptual difference from a “toothache” is of utmost importance. If we had a sensation of toothache plus certain tactual and kinaesthetic sensations usually characteristic of touching the painful tooth and neighbouring parts of our face, and if these sensations were accompanied by seeing my hand touch, and move about on, the edge of table, we should feel doubtful whether to call this experience an experience of toothache in the table or not. If on the other hand, the tactual and kinaesthetic sensations described were correlated to the visual experience of seeing my hand touch a tooth and other parts of the face of another person, there is no doubt that I would call this experience “toothache in another person’s tooth”.11

This is dazzling precisely because that brings awareness of interrelated phenomena from the texture of which nothing is isolatable as we imagine our bodies, behaviour, and the surrounding objects and events in accordance with the discreet spatio-temporal pictures (representations) of which we are presented and trained to operate. Thus as one’s imagination operates and is operated along with the structures of techniques of using these pictures all the internal relations of phenomena are filtered from our screen of awareness leaving us with the habit structures of operating and imagining our surroundings in terms of images of pictures – imagined to be perceived and analysed by the subject imagined again in accordance with the habit structures of empirical imagination. Whereas the use of these pictures signify what they mean in the texture of signifying phenomena with which the activity of our body, our actions and reactions of our consciousness and imagination are internally connected. This is brought to our awareness in contrast to our imagining them the reactions of which prompted by the images of these pictures as if they are natural perceptions operating and conceptually differentiating surroundings later to be named and described by signs and words whereas nothing is picturable in isolation from the texture of signifying relations of phenomena, the nexus of proto-phenomenon, language-game as such, in which memory, imagination reactions and operations with signs are intertwined and internally connected and which are reminded and elucidated by getting around the reactions of imagination and hence by contrasting them with what happens and surrounds them significantly before, after and contemporaneously. This serves to unravel the knots that are tying and entangling awareness to the habit structures of imagination woven in internal relations to the operations with signs. We are dazzled precisely because of our awakening, momentarily though, from

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the deep sleep of imagining and confusing representational reality with Reality, with no real sense of texture of signifying relations of phenomena, lifeworld as such. Thus we may come to realize that the matter of fact world, the things and events, our body and behaviour, are not as we imagine them to be, i.e., thinkable and nameable as we seem to be pointing and demonstrating (i.e. in the manner of G.E. Moore’s demonstration of his hand12 ) at their tangible reality easily and straightforwardly, as we come to realize that they are rather the images of pictures while their representational reality is woven with the uses and operations with signs, with the texture of signifying relations from which no image of a picture is isolable. We also come to realize how our confusions with images and pictures find expression in our forms of expressions by means of theories, narratives, representations, which are issuing from thinking habits of operating and constructing pictures the images of which reverberating and building up such habits of thinking and imagining. They all indicate that we are entangled in the habit structures and modality of imagination or consciousness the consequences of which are expressed, learnt, taught in the form of techniques and applications to be shared and operated in the language-game of our culture for our convenience. Hence we are entangled in a modality of thinking and imagining which may be shared on a scientific or historical, cultural basis. Our world is a world of representations that we mistake as hard reality discovered by science, or we are led to believe as what is hard or essential reality by being trained and taught culturally with traditional belief systems – which science may deny, replacing them by empirical beliefs the instrumental truths of which are verified by empirical techniques. Hence, we may also realize that being in deep oblivion of how these representations are structured along with our memory, imagination, and reactions of consciousness in operating with signs, our thinking is so entangled with the operational techniques that are structured and developed in the language-game, as to mislead us to picture relation of consciousness and reality in the way in which the habit structures of consciousness and imagination dictate. This is betrayed by the theories of perception and naming either in the way of rationalist pictures of consciousness and reality, or in the way of empiricist positivist pictures. That they are all related and being issued from the deep oblivion of signifying and interrelating phenomena from which neither our consciousness nor the phenomena pictured as the surrounding world are isolable in the way in which they are pictured as the privileged grounds by theories of knowledge as we may come to realize that they are structures, knots so to speak tying and entangling our thinking to certain imaginings the suppositions of which are woven with habit structures of memory and imagination intertwined with the use of pictures in the language-game.

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Hence, the reminders assembled and signalled as “language-games” flash out those moments in which one’s learning and operating with signs are noticed in their internal relations to the texture of signifying relations, with that sense of reticence and silence issuing from the sense of such remarks as: “From the first not a thing is.” That is the ontopoietic awareness calling to be responded not from a centre structure of imagination and consciousness, but from the dimension of insight flashing out from where the centre of which is nowhere, the circumference of which is everywhere so to speak. These words without the insight that requires philosophical clarification and penetration for their sense are easily seen by intellectualism13 as mystical or “metaphysical” i.e., by those whose thinking are structured by empirical belief systems of a culture to operate and be operated empirically, with either mystifying or pejorative implications, or by those whose thinking are structured with the systems of beliefs and traditions of a culture. That’s the kind of intellectualism issuing from the unawareness of live phenomena manifesting with its interrelating significances the internal relations of which are reminded for anything to be significantly named, signalled and described. This unawareness then centres around the suppositions of imagination privileging subjectivity, consciousness, dividing life between the images of subjectivity and objectivity. The philosophical ideas stemming from that kind of intellectualism also have contributed to the opening and deepening of a gulf between the cultural and philosophical differences of east and west, the kind of differences which are actually due to differences between forms of lives the consciousness and imagination of which are woven by the belief systems of language-games in east and west and not simply between east and west. That is the kind of intellectualism lacking necessary insight as to the texture of consciousness and thinking. That kind of intellectualism, whether in the west or east, is easily led to compare cultures and thinking according to the pictures of one’s logic, rationality or reason. The presuppositions and mystifications of such intellectualism in western philosophy are elucidated by Wittgenstein as against the background, clarifying the texture of significations and internal relations, hence clearing the ab-ground, that which calls a different level of thinking and awareness as Heidegger points out by “mindfulness”. He thus clears the ungrounded grounds of the game from mystifications of western philosophical pictures, clearing them without introducing another picture but by raising awareness to the level of clearing with reticence; hence by bringing the standstill of imagination that is otherwise fluctuating and reverberating with the pictures of language-games. That is achieved by patiently unravelling and untying knots and entanglements of thinking and imagination, for the first time in the history of western philosophy, as we are not provided with a new, original representational picture of state of affairs, to be used as we are used to expect from novel theories in the language-game. We

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are rather provided with the unexpected movements of a thinking peculiar to Wittgenstein playing with our imagination and thinking habits that are used to operate and be operated with pictures of theories. Those movements of thinking, baffling and getting around our imagination and memory reactions serve to flash out those moments as Heraclitus once pointed out: “If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought and difficult.”14

Our awareness is raised for the first time in standstill to respond reticently, as we do in poetry with gratitude. That which may have been after all what we have always hoped to find in philosophy, the light of wisdom, the insight that would lead us out from the labyrinthine ways of imagination to the clearing. That may enable us then to see with insight that one may be driven into labyrinthine ways by means of philosophical theories and pictures, by the kind of intellectualistic language-game developed in western philosophy education and academicism the standards and cares of which may have already lost the possibility of an authentic search for such light because of the enclave of an imagination, and therefore to make sense of such terms as “levels of awareness”, “clearing”, “reticence” etc. etc. as the present concerns in philosophy may testify. The reminders signalled as “language-games” do not simply indicate that the pictures of language-game are fore-structured historically in language and culture,15 as an argument for contextualism, historicism, or “cultural enclavism”16 , but elucidate the logical structure of “pictures” in their internal relations to the surrounding life which is not anymore to be thought from a confinement and entanglement in the web of pictures, within the perspectives of contextualism, historicism, historicalism, modernism, post-modernism etc. etc. as competing perspectives in history. They are general pictures that reverberate and are reverberated with habits of imagination from one perspective to another between the images of pictures, between the images picturing human beings, in culture, history, nature from the possible points of view in the language-games. Rather, by these elucidations life’s horizon is flashed out instantaneously not from the perspective of pictures, but as the play of cairos and chronos, to speak with Professor Tymieniecka’s terms17 , giving birth to space-time and the structure of empirical time consciousness and imagination with the use, or operations with signs the significations of which make it for us to differentiate and picture anything spatially and temporally. These reminders thus enable our awareness to gather what happens with the use of pictures which are internally related with operations with signs the significations of which make for us possible to spatialize and causally order, to mechanize, instrumentalize surrounding events as “before”, “after”, “simultaneous” with the use of pictures. That in turn allow us to be aware of the reactions of our

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imagination to the images of these pictures – to be simultaneously aware of the modifications of our reactions to the images of pictures, i.e., in the form of seeing something as something with different consequences and significances that differentiate them conceptually from each other. That is also the live texture of the system structure of which the operations with signs conceptually differ from one another to represent their operational meaning or sense on either plane as i.e., a name of a thing, or as the thing conceptually differentiated by its name, with such lucidity that is clearing all the suppositions by unravelling and untying the knots as to the suppositions of subjectivity and perception of objectivity, the polarity and the division of which all issue from the habit and imagination structure that misunderstands and misconstrues the naming relation. That misunderstanding and misconstruing results from the oblivion of the background of internal relations textured by significations which are presupposed if one is to name, show, differentiate anything by a sign or by itself, that connects up with the insight as to the Use expressed by the sage: “From the first not a thing is.” Hence the horizon and the dimension opened by the “Use” that weaves the internal texture and the logical system-structure uncovered by the reminders assembled as “language-games” radically differ from the horizon fully covered with representations, i.e. from the picture of human beings represented as acting and reacting with things and events in relation to surroundings already pictured and conceptually differentiated, which presupposes pictures already objectified and polarized as subjectivity consisting of empirical consciousness and imagination – rather than elucidating the ungrounded grounds of the game in which the uses and operations with signs weave the logical structure of pictures along with memory and imagination reactions. One then becomes so absorbed as to be preoccupied with the images of these pictures and representations as not to be able to gather any more the living grounds and texture of these images of pictures as we tend to identify certain images as privileged centres, grounds as such, of naming, identifying, perceiving, recognizing reality as those presuppositions, truisms which are betrayed by our theories of knowledge, by our implicit or explicit suppositions about the foundations of knowledge and thinking. We owe the excavation and uprooting of those presuppositions to a level of awareness from the depths of unawareness to Wittgenstein’s elucidating efforts. That awareness or mindfulness (Heidegger) the lack of which otherwise continue to entangle one’s thinking in its web of imagination and habit structures, hence to move thinking on and on in the circular habits of seeing life and world by constructing pictures and theories, in the “vertical movement” as characterized by Wittgenstein in his foreword to Philosophical Remarks by contrast to his thinking activity, that is a movement that is motivated by its own moments of light, by virtue of which the moments

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of awareness are flashed out unexpectedly and are capable of bringing the standstill of intelligence by its dawning. One’s thinking is otherwise bound to remain in entanglement to fluctuate by reverberations of imagination, with the images of pictures, rather than finding its way out from the labyrinthine ways of the cave to speak with Plato’s metaphor. The light of awareness is flashed out, elucidated by reminders getting around the logo-centric habit reactions of imagination and memory; i.e., first by giving way to the reactions of imagination to the images of pictures, to the logocentric reactions that focuses on the images of pictures, from one’s body and behaviour images, to the images of sensations; or from the images of things (as if there is such an image, or perception of a door or anything given to the attention directed and pointed to the door, apart from the use of a door which is woven along with the significances of images to the uses and operations with signs in the language-game) to their after images visual, tactual, or otherwise; or from the images of signs to the images of things supposed to be named by them. In each case, these imagination reactions are excited and frustrated by reminders to elucidate that these images imagined as external or internal to conscious awareness – as if their conceptual differences are being animated by such imagining; as if such imagining is instantiating perceiving! They are clarified that they remain as wrong gestures of imagination habits, as empty ceremonies signifying nothing in isolation from the signifying relations of facts of operating with signs. They betray as such only the misunderstandings and the logocentric imagination reactions expressed in the form of wrong gestures, such as G.E. Moore’s, in deep oblivion of the background texture of signifying relations of phenomena of language-game. The pictures are thus shown, by contra distinction to the habit structures of logocentric imagining and thinking, to mean, to represent, conceptually to differentiate anything by the signifying internal relations of their uses that interrelate with other uses and operations in the language-game – from the texture of which nothing can be singled out, named or pictured, let alone to be a privileged centre as one’s consciousness – or as pictured by such picture of human body as “acting and reacting surrounded by natural conditions, developing the use of signs as tools of culture and language, and the historical development of culture”. This latter picture of language-game in terms of tools of culture and the techniques and institutions developed along with it is such a picture that, instead of serving for us to disentangle our thinking from the knots that are woven by the use of pictures, it restarts the thinking by means of constructing pictures of “Contextualism”, “Cultural relativism”, Historism etc. in entanglement to the presuppositions and paradigms woven by learning the rules and techniques of operating with signs, to centralize another picture replacing the ontological entities, this time, with the picture of the human actors in their natural cultural

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conditions picturing their activities of developing tools of culture that transforms natural surroundings unfolding a history. Hence the ground is pictured rather than approached to be uncovered by mindfulness as Heidegger points out, with due attention; or as Wittgenstein does by careful and patient untying of the knots that are entangling thinking with habits of imagination by unravelling of the texture of language elucidating the state of affairs18 for pictures of language to picture, to differentiate anything conceptually from one another, including the differentiation of a sign as a name from the thing named. Therefore, the state of affairs elucidated by the reminders signalled as “language-games” flash out aspects radically different from the conceptually pictured and differentiated aspects of language, nature, culture, history etc. as these representations automatically filter and distribute things and events in accordance with the present dominant structures of thinking and imagination. Whereas the elucidations are precisely meant to untie those knots that are hampering sensibility from gaining a level of awareness of the manifesting life that is flashed out with the use that interrelates signs significantly for us to speak of anything, from sensations, to our bodies and limbs, and their actions and reactions the significances of which connect up with operating and differentiating, ordering surroundings as things and events causally and chronologically. They are what they are in use that interrelate them in the language-game, in accordance with the sage’s remark that “From the first not a thing is” but in Use. The horizon of representations and the empirical imagination, having been reciprocally structured in the life of language, presuppose each other without allowing for one an awareness of the surroundings of pictures. Therefore surroundings from the aspect of life’s non-numerical manifestation at every moment is obliterated from one’s awareness, leaving one as an actor thinking and acting only with the sensibility and habit structures of empirical imagination. Therefore, also the phenomena of memory, imagination and operations with signs appear to the empirical consciousness already in that structured aspect that disguises how they operate and intertwine with phenomena of operating with signs. Phenomena as such appear to the empirical consciousness as if they are discreet in space and time in causal order of chronological time consciousness as it is so used in our ordinary language game of imagination. Thus, without the awareness of life as manifesting, without the awareness of the unity and interplay between observer and the observed as Krishnamurthy pointed out – one is left deprived of developing insight into how observer and observed constantly modify each other (how the phenomenon of “seeing as” modifies and is being modified in the surrounding texture of phenomena internally related) in their interplay while structuring an empirical imagination and consciousness in operating with pictures objectified in the language-games. Thus one is left with the content of one’s imagination, isolated from the sense

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of life that manifests itself by significations of phenomena. One is left with the images of pictures (models) hardened as tools and standards of the pragmatic culture game, without the awareness of how the uses and operations with signs and pictures and one’s existential being are interwoven. That is the awareness that Heidegger thematizes by the difference between beings and being, by pointing out that the latter is the background of the former and that the latter can neither be thematized nor grounded in the manner of the descriptions and entities introduced by western metaphysical tradition. Those entities introduced owe their conceptual beings to a history of imagination and consciousness woven and structured together with the operations with signs; the kind of empirical consciousness the habit structures of which and the uses of concepts are mutually structured in such a way that one’s thinking moves on only on the rails so structured, making up a vicious circle, as i.e., thinking and proliferating entities of imagination on empirical or rational grounds, centring around the belief structures that weave and feed on the structures of imagination. Res cogitans and res extensa are such entities imagined by Descartes’ analytically structured thinking; or “monads” of Leibniz, or “universals” and “particulars”, “sense-data” of Bertrand Russell, “Individuals” of P.F. Strawson etc. are all such descriptions introducing metaphysical entities of a language-game rather than constituting the ontological grounds of logical thinking, perception and knowledge. Such descriptions and theories introducing and mystifying entities with their unquestioned metaphysical presuppositions indicate the need for the elucidation and unravelling as to the real living texture of thinking which is misconceived because of the imagination and habit structures woven in the language-game – a misconception which is misleading one in their own channels, on their own rails so to speak, to proliferate pictures introducing entities with their essentialist qualifications as the modern versions of primary and secondary qualities in their implicit or explicit forms. Such qualifications and differentiations while serving to picture thoughts with their purports are not concerned with the conditions that contribute to the logical structuring of pictures. They are so much preoccupied with the kind of pictures that would cover everything with their grounds as not to be concerned what is filtered into oblivion, as not to be concerned whether this oblivion is playing against one’s intelligence. One is therefore misled by this unmindful oblivion deeper and deeper away from light into a labyrinth of language-games, which may sound intellectual and appear logically segmented enough to be counted as philosophical in certain academic circles and journals19 – as to miss in the end the glimmering light, that which once started and put the interrogation on the way and that allowed us to conceive philosophy as such a way to the light of Truth – of Wisdom – that may be requiring a leap guided by flashes of insights – rather than the ladder of logic, the steps and

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structure of which may lead the imprudent into a labyrinth of doxas rather than the truth of light. One is thus led by the habit structures of a thinking absorbed and preoccupied with constructing pictures and theories, proliferating images of representations; so long as one is lacking a deep concern as to how logic, logical thinking and use of signs and pictures of language operate in language. Heidegger develops a language to impart such sense of thinking lost due to the particular developments of western ways and habits of applying logic, by introducing terms that are meant to be attended with mindfulness, on a different level appropriate to listening with a deeper sensibility and awareness that would then gather the pieces of a shattered sensibility that is reverberating with the images of pictures reflected on a false mirror, imagination as such, to integrate sense of life on a different plane, on the level of clearing to be reached by silencing the reverberations of historical chronological consciousness and imagination. That would then surpass the plane of culture and the history of culture – divided by chronological pictures and narratives of historie that are serving to reverberate the similarly divided historical consciousness and imagination that continues to weave its own habit structures around one’s sensibility, leaving one then as blinded to the interplay of light and dark so to speak. One’s attention is hampered away from the living moment manifesting beyond images in past or present, the sense of which only gives way to a voice of poetry whose images and syntax serve to make a space for the background, ungrounded ground, ab-ground as such, to be sensed by deforming forms so structured, by breaking and deconstructing the hardened structure of the images of pictures that fill and exhaust our whole horizon of life. Therefore geschichte differs from historie pictured and accounted chronologically and with scientific logic; it differs in that it contains what the latter filters in accordance with the rules of logic and rationality interpreted in accordance with the hardened ontological presuppositions of Western metaphysic. “Da-sein means taking over the distress of the grounding of the truth of be-ing – it is the beginning of a history that has no ‘history’. From the perspective of thinking, mindfulness means preparing the preparedness for such a take over in the form of a knowing-awareness of being, because thinking inquires into the truth of be-ing, in imageless saying of the word. But the word is the tune of the struggle between countering and strife – the word is attuned out of en-owning, is thoroughly tuning the clearing and is tuned-in to the ab-ground of be-ing. In accordance with the mirroring of en-ownment, every foundational word (every ‘saying’) is ambiguous. But such ambiguity does not know the arbitrariness of the unbridled; it remains enveloped within the richness of the uniqueness of be-ing. Because be-ing sways in and as the word, all “dialectic”, of “propositions” and “concepts” moves constantly within objects and blocks every step towards mindfulness.20

Such subjectivity as a divided imagination between the images of the subjective and objective expresses itself in its idioms peculiar to itself, with a new introduction of concepts, with pictures of a language-game that are claiming

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essential access to Reality based on the belief in the self evidential verity of the distinction between a priori or a posteriori truths, without going deep into the question of the consciousness of truth and the ground of the conceptual distinction between a priori and a posteriori. Instead we are presented with concepts as if they are describing, picturing Reality analysed and conceived analytically on a priori or self evident a posteriori grounds by means of the theories of Perception, Rationality, Ontology, Transcendentalism, Historicity, Historicism, Objectivity etc. as we meet in the train of language-games that reverberate and proliferate them in the history of Western Philosophy. They are all theories constructing pictures as to the grounds of knowledge centring around consciousness, subjectivity, monads, even in the case of historical accounts of consciousness as i.e., in Hume’s way of accounting empirical consciousness and imagination without actually unravelling the logical structure of habits and empirical imagination, or as in Hegelian way of deriving everything from the unfolding and evolving of Spirit. They remain on the level of thinking and operating with pictures, on the level of the empirical consciousness structured as subjectivity as against the pictures of language-game objectified. Hence, they remain without awareness of the threads of the texture of phenomena that weave memory, imagination and operations with signs – the background texture in the foreground of which human beings act and react and operate with signs and pictures of language that are handed down to generations with changes and modifications in accordance with the concerns and interests of human beings. Hence a human being acquires the imagination and concerns of the historical culture which amounts to the train of language-games with their belief systems and so on at the particular stage of history, but in such a way that is in entanglement to the imagination and consciousness acquired at that stage. One may think as if one is aware of the entanglement in the manner in which provided by the intellectualist accounts of history of consciousness as i.e., provided by Hegelian and Marxist accounts of alienation, without however the awareness of one’s possibilities for unravelling and disentangling one’s intelligence for the freedom of light so to speak. Plato’s cave and light metaphor is to the point at one level of awareness that would then drive one to move towards the glimmering light, to find one’s own way at the moment of flashes unravelling the threads that are weaving and entangling intelligence within the stream of empirical imagination. T H E T H O U G H T W O R K I N G I T S WAY T O WA R D S L I G H T 21

That sounds too Platonic to a pragmatic empirical sensibility of present consciousness on a lesser level of light-sensibility so to speak, leaving one indifferent to the possibilities of such thinking, to the “mindfulness” so to

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speak in Heidegger’s terminology, as the present level of concerns and research in philosophy also may testify. Leaving aside the present historical state as it is, the first time in the history of western philosophy, we are presented, not with pictures of language, but with reminders assembling for a picture to picture anything as something, to differentiate anything conceptually from a “human being”, to “human consciousness”, from the inner life of consciousness to the “consciousness of things external to that consciousness”, from “subjectivity” to “objectivity”, from an “atom” to “tables” and “chairs” etc. which otherwise are apt to confuse us to imagine tables and chairs that they are made from atoms more or less resembling the model of the atom in the picture! No doubt this confusion is still underway and uncovered for many, as the play-ground of the concepts, as the dimension and horizon opened by the reminders and thought experiments and the sensitivity to the interplay of light and dark require each other and deepen together. On the other hand, the first time in the history of western philosophy we are presented not with pictures introducing entities the reality and the grounds of which are asserted and denied by arguments, but with reminders elucidating the surroundings of these pictures that clarify for our thinking that the use and the applications of these pictures and the techniques of constructing them are internally related in that texture texturing them in one piece as that surroundings the centre of which is nowhere the circumference is everywhere. It is because of the radical difference of his particular approach to the habits of thinking to operate and to be operated with pictures and theories; (namely by getting around habits of imagination and thinking by means of thought experiments that arrest and check those habits to recover for our attention the surrounding texture of internal relations of significations from the deep sleep of awareness we become more and more attentive enough to the terrain in the texture of which one’s thinking operates with pictures) that these reminders and elucidations cannot be approached to be assessed by old habits of argumentation,22 but by mindfully taking note of these reminders assembled or indicated with reticence as to what happens in fact in the life of language. They remind us how these pictures dominate, structure our imagination and consciousness by the very fact of our forgetfulness of that texture the awareness of which is filtered from our horizon always by those pictures in the foreground. Hence by the awareness of that texture, the dominating pictures of consciousness and reality lose their entangling grip on our thinking giving a space for a new sensibility, namely to the ontopoetic awareness, to the movements of thinking capable of “working its way towards light” – to a sensibility capable of acknowledging the deep sense of such a remark.

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The phenomena characterising the life of language and culture are elucidated in the language-games to be interrelating and texturing the internal relations for signs to mean “something” – to be a sign of anything in human life – even to be a sign to picture (represent) itself. As i.e., the sign “F” can be written, drawn as a picture of a letter, on a “paper” in the language-game of teaching, reading and writing with letters. The teaching and learning activity that interconnect and interweave with many activities from learning and using one’s body with the use of a pen and paper, to saying and writing with words – the interwoven uses and applications of which make up the concept of “paper”, “pen, “letter”, “word”, “hand”, “body”, “sign”, “tool”, “behaviour” etc. in the language-game”. Wittgenstein elucidates the internal relations textured by the phenomena of significations that are expressed and structured for a particular concept to make sense, elucidating also how things appear with their conceptual differences as entities, i.e., by reminding how the two impressions differ from each other as “visual” and “tactual” by pointing out the fact that “You cannot search wrongly; you cannot look for a visual impression with your sense of touch.”23 Reminding also that the conceptual difference between them is already learnt in the language-game, in the context in which the difference between them is expressed and learnt by the consequences of reacting by one’s sense of eyesight and by one’s sense of touch which both connect up with one’s acting and reacting with one’s limbs and body in one’s operations with signs. However the language here should not mislead us to suppose as the words “operations with signs” may sound to imply as if there are such signs surrounding us to operate. That should rather be understood they are what they are only in the operations that interrelate and significantly connect them as the parts or items in a system structure. Such reminders also clarify that the senses and the sensations of eye-sight and other senses and sensations tactual and otherwise are not separable from the weave of significations that texture operations with signs and the conceptual differences that are pictured and represented further and further to such an extent that one gets lost and shattered between the images of pictures losing the tip of the track back from the images of pictures to their use in their own texture – to the operations with signs and their consequences interweaving with the back-ground, language-game as such. That would have gathered the many pieces of the puzzle picture and brought the fluctuations and reverberations of imagination to a standstill that is necessary for the insight to get clarity. The insight of these elucidations is such that the signs and their internal relations make possible for us to speak of our body, behaviour and the things surrounding by indicating and differentiating them conceptually and spatiotemporally with their differences. In other words the internal relations are

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set by the significances that inter-relate phenomena and they are prior as the background presupposed against which anything is – for anything to be an entity with its significances that differentiates one from another conceptually – by means of the operations and the consequences that internally relate it to that background surrounding. From which “language-games” assemble only those aspects necessary, the phenomena in its internal relations for a particular concept to differentiate, picture anything as a spatio-temporal event with its surrounding events preceding and consequent, or as a thing in its own conceptual differences and similarities to others. Therefore, “language-games” are not presented and emphasized with certain aspects to form a general picture of language, such as conceived anthropologically as a cultural game, and the use of signs in their internal relations to the actors of the cultural game changing and developing with cultural conditions and with the interests and the changing paradigms of the belief systems that are woven with the rules of the game. No doubt, such pictures are abstracted, emphasized in understanding culture, development and history in Western philosophy and the science developed by Western culture. But Wittgenstein’s reminders assembled under the term “language-game” does not intend to contribute a new general picture, to abstract and present certain essential features of language. They neither support theories of cultural development nor undermine them but open a different dimension by unravelling and rooting out the threads that weave imagination and consciousness, the time and belief systems of history, the history buried in each one of us as Krishnamurthy states. A dimension that would enable us to understand the history of cultures with their forms of lives, without the entanglement of the prejudices due to conditionings and structures of our own culture, due to the history of belief systems and habits of operating with pictures that capture our intelligence in its own web. It is because of their movement against the entangling habits of our thinking that those reminders and thought experiments would sound anarchistic, the anachronisms and incongruousness of which serve only to remind us the ungrounded grounds of the hardened structures that rail thinking with the imagination of developing culturally and historically; whereas what is really needed is the level of awareness, the mindfulness in Heidegger’s terms, that is required to open the dimension into the ungrounded grounds of the game, the horizon that cannot be approached with old habits of thinking, by remaining on the rail system the networks of which moves our whole thinking and consciousness from one network of a language-game to another, in entanglement to the pictures and their images reverberating and being reverberated between them so to speak.

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Those reminders are not assembled to contribute a general picture of language and culture (i.e. “language as a form of life” understood as such) to the Western philosophical understanding that seems to have been structured in such a way as to receive philosophical understanding in terms of pictures formatted according to the analytical habits of thinking. Those formats are developed and structured as techniques of processing thoughts (representations) in accordance with the instrumental requirements of operational thinking and they allow us to process (mind the operational character of such thinking) a priori and a posteriori relations of thoughts in comparison to their objects which can then be argued and handled from the standpoint of scientific objectivism that presupposes the subjectivity, the empirical consciousness that is woven and structured in the history of a particular culture with its own systems of beliefs philosophical, scientific, or otherwise. Such habit structures of thinking dominate and hamper thinking as long as one remains unaware in entanglement to structures of one’s thinking and imagination which then go on weaving and being woven by its own network of operations. That means that one is moved into the labyrinthine ways of imagination reverberating with the images of pictures proliferating and prolonging the language-game of a culture preoccupied with the construction of pictures and theories as such. By contrast, Wittgenstein’s elucidations rather seek after complete clarity, the light so to speak, to free the fly from the fly bottle24 , from the web of its own threads woven in the language, by the history of language-games – hence to bring the movements and fluctuations of thinking to a standstill, to the level of “clearing” so to speak in Heidegger’s terms. Otherwise, one’s thinking seems as if it is condemned to reverberate between the images of pictures resembling the pictures representing conceptual differentiations. For they both appear to empirical imagination as if their conceptual differences, say between a book in my one hand, and a book’s picture on a paper in the other are being given by their appearing differently in my sense perception. One should notice that such suppositions only serve to hide from one’s own attention what is really significant as the different appearances are isolated in imagination from the actual significances and differences of learning and speaking with these conceptual differences in the real, living context of language and life. As one tends to imagine as if in both cases differentiation of the book from its picture is carried out and noted by the differences of one’s sense perception of the book! Thus what is forgotten and obliterated from awareness as such is the internal relations of these conceptual differences expressed and learnt with the use of words which connect up with learning and operating with many other things and events from using books to comparing things with their resembling pictures on paper as well as the certainty expressed and shared along with such operations.

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When G. E. Moore demonstrates his hand as a proof of the existence of the externality of the world with the certainty of his belief in this demonstration, his demonstration fails precisely because of his failure to cover the internal relations of such a demonstration that one’s use of one’s hands and limbs connect up with learning many activities and usages that go with the operations with signs. Namely, the internal relations of surroundings, language-game as such, from the texture of which nothing can be pointed out and demonstrated in isolation – as from one’s sensations to one’s hands and physical surroundings. Moore’s gesture betrays only his oblivion that paves the way to the particular gesture which expresses the movement of his imagination to express itself in this form. Wittgenstein reminds us also of the surroundings necessary for naming and speaking of a sensation the images of which easily reverberate the memory habits of empirical imagination to confuse the images of pictures introspectively isolating them in imagination, in oblivion of the surrounding texture of language-game in which the use of words and the significances of sensing, feeling a sensation that are expressed are intertwined. However, analytical habits of operating with pictures are so developed and hardened as to obliterate the real living background from one’s screen of thinking and imagination that one cannot think and sense life but reacts instead to operate with the images that resemble the pictures; hence while the plenitude and mystery of life25 is filtered from sensibility, one is left with the hardened images of pictures with the shared imagination habits of the language-game, with the language-game of subjectivity as such divided with the images representing “objectivity” – which is a concept rather than an ontological verity to Rational perception, consciousness etc. The short thought experiments and reminders of Wittgenstein that are said to be assembled to clarify how logic and logical thinking operate in the language (those reminders that seem now to have completed its mission to that philosophical public as they are understood only on the basis of understanding a philosophical thesis or position regarding logical thinking and rules of logic) are meant rather to serve for disclosing a different dimension of life that remains closed to a type of thinking woven and structured with a different stance in relation to life – a stance which suffers, though without much awareness of its symptoms, from being a shattered sensibility by the impact of images of pictures and signs through the history of language-games in east and west. Nietzsche being aware of the symptoms of the “historical sickness” was searching the light to be a symptomology to treat the symptoms, as Wittgenstein does in fact by his thought experiments the reminders of which are meant to disentangle intelligence from the historical conditionings due to the habits of thinking and imagination woven by the systems of beliefs and narratives of

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language-game. I believe that we owe much to Wittgenstein in the West, perhaps more so than to Heidegger and others for the unravelling of the threads that are entangling intelligence – for the lightning that flashes out live significations of phenomena of language, in the internally related texture of which one’s imagination and memory reactions are being interwoven along with operations with signs. Therefore it is a sad story that those reminders seem to have been interpreted mainly as clarifications of the rules of logic on the basis of agreement by practice in the community of a culture with its form of life etc. etc. without being struck at all what is really remarkable and most powerful! We fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.26

That is to say, they are not received on the level where they penetrate into how imagination and memory are intertwined and where they blind us to the moments of live phenomena manifesting with signifying relations the power and sense of which is conveyed to us by certain poetry expressed in certain art forms as sculptures, paintings, verses and myths. They are received rather with a pattern of thinking and interpreting thoughts by processing them again with old habits of operating with pictures, i.e., to take them as the general picture of language-game that pictures human beings and the use of signs on the model of learning the techniques of applying the tools of a game of culture. We need to notice that such interpretation consists of only pictures – of human beings, of natural and cultural surroundings, of human behaviour, of inner and outer, of signs as tools of culture etc. They are pictures confused with the images resembling them in imagination which are filling and exhausting one’s whole life-horizon, without leaving any space for the mystery of life to be sensed and shared with freedom from the distortion of pictures, representations of language. We cannot therefore expect for such consciousness and imagination to assess Wittgenstein’s contribution to the opening of the deeper dimension the religious sense of which would certainly differ from the imagination and consciousness shaped by the symbols and representations of orthodox systems of religion.27 They can then continue to argue for or against a thesis pictured as such without any shift in one’s stance, without a level change in one’s awareness and life stance. That seems more or less to be the present stance of Western philosophical understanding concerning Wittgenstein’s contribution to philosophy, let alone understanding the contribution of eastern philosophies penetrating into the dimension that his insightful elucidations try to disclose while patiently unravelling the threads that weave the webs of imagination around one’s intelligence and sensibility.

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On the other hand, the philosophical mission gains a different character and dimension here, for what is presented to our awareness is not a new picture in our horizons of imagination, but the deconstruction and elucidation of the grounds of the game in which our thinking and imagination, our life-horizons as such, are woven with our operations with signs in the language-games past and present, in the cultures and forms of lives proximate or very far diachronically as well as synchronically. Hence, “language-game” here cuts those aspects of language and life that are filtered from our life-horizon, which means our failure to contact the forms of lives and life-horizons of other people in history, therefore the Other of ourselves, which is filtered by the consciousness and subjectivity of imagination woven by the history of language-games. What are assembled and reminded under the term “language-games” serve to unravel rather than weave our consciousness and imagination about our life horizons in the language-game of operating with signs in history – uprising our awareness to a real, authentic, understanding of history, of historical consciousness and imagination by unravelling and disentangling the threads that conditions intelligence to a particular language-game, culture, history. Hence elucidating the texture of language-game in which the use or operation with signs and one’s use of one’s body, rationality, use of concepts are internally related in the contexture of the language-game, in which nothing is from the first, a privileged a priori centre of being, which incidentally contributes to the clarification of the age-old insight of the student of Bodhi-dharma, expressed by the Zen master Hui-Neng: From the first not a thing is. Things are what they are in their internal relations to one another, the significances of which connect up with the uses and operations they are subject to in the texture of language. Hence they are used and read (seen as) as part of this texture, in their internal relations to that texture. These elucidations, therefore, serve for our awareness to disentangle itself from the prejudices of empirical imagination memory reactions which are structured to differentiate objects and the surrounding world with logo-centric habits, locating them operationally in chronological and causal order in accordance with the interests and purposes of the organism. The surroundings of the organism take on the appearances that represent the conceptual features differentiating them from one another. They are thus filtered from the phenomena of life manifesting, from Noumenon, as phenomenon proper in space and time to speak in Kantian terminology. Therefore, his clarifications as to the questions about the rules of logic, how logic and logical thinking in accordance with the rules operate in the language-game cut cross-strips from the phenomena of life, which is also covered rather than uncovered by Kant’s introduction of Noumenon – which is a concept understood and defined as opposed to understanding phenomena as

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represented by rational, “scientific”, application of a priori concepts the understanding of which in turn is conditioned by his failure to give a real account of the a posteriori basis of a priori as Wittgenstein does; namely, by clarifying the structuring process of the rules of the language-game. He does this, by neatly differentiating memory and imagination reactions from operations with signs which are in fact intertwined to work together in the structuring process of the rules of the language-game. Without this differentiation, imagination and habit reactions taking the lead prevent one from noticing what really happens in the structuring process of the rules of the game that gives sense to the application of a priori rules, and mislead one to suppose thinking with a priori forms as inborn as Platonism and Cartesianism held, and to suppose in accordance with what imagination dictates to suppose ontologically or otherwise. The things, appearing in the cosmos-like space-time order with their conceptual differences and relations, therefore, appear so, as a result of our language-game and history of our culture, that presuppose a filtered background of phenomena of life, a sense of presence filtered from sensibility and awareness that leaves a human being with only the sensibility of memory and imagination of the present at hand. The “present at hand”, to speak in Heidegger’s terminology, can be located and shown in space and time as a conceptual picture of anything – as one can name or point to anything having been taught the operations and significances that are woven with the use of the sign in the context. Therefore the context is the field of significances that serve for the picturing (representation) of phenomena and things in space and time, the terrain of which is not to be localized in space and time in terms of pictures by means of conceptual differentiations of language, but that which is to be elucidated as cross-sectional aspects from the manifesting life of phenomena – rather than by phenomena represented in space and time by means of conceptual pictures. They are, “cross-strips” as Wittgenstein says, elucidated for our awareness by means of thought experiments and reminders assembled under the sign “language-games” that clarify the possibility of picturing, i.e., articulating thoughts logically by means of propositions. Hence many aspects of language, thinking, memory and imagination come to the fore in their interplay along with the elucidations in response to the question of how pictures work and operate logically by means of operating with signs in the texture of significations which the reminders of “language-game” are assembled to clarify. What is elucidated as such, is not subject to be pictured by means of concepts, but the non-numerical multiple facets of a “game” that makes it for us possible to mean, show, picture represent anything by the use of signs as words, conceptual tools, pictures. Therefore if the “game” in question is emphasized by

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certain aspects as done by anthropological, instrumental, pictures of languagegame of operating with signs as tools of the game”, as certain descriptions and interpretations of “language-game”, such as the term “ordinary language” imply, the vital dimension of these elucidations are missed as they bring to the foreground, to the centre-stage so to speak, the play of certain pictures and what they resemble. That restarts the language-game of imagination all over, fluctuated and reverberating with the uses and construction of pictures; the language-game of operating with pictures constructing them on one another – the vertical onward movement of the language-game of culture as Wittgenstein pointed out in his foreword to his Philosophical Remarks. By contrast, he points out that the aim of his elucidations is meant to grasp always the same, the insight of that is expected to bring a standstill to the fluctuations of thinking between images and operations with pictures that reverberate and drive the language-game in an onward movement so to speak. That is a movement of thinking divided by the images of pictures, reverberating among the resemblances and associations of the images of pictures, while the pictures picture, differentiate and represent a concept by their uses which are woven with the use of other signs in the life of language-game. Therefore, against habits of imagining and identifying concepts with the images of things and what they resemble, as if the conceptual identity of a thing named can be pictured by ostensive definition, Wittgenstein reminds the surroundings of the ostensive definition, i.e., how this showing and pointing to the thing is woven with the learning of the use of the thing and its name; how the consequences operating with the thing is woven with the use of other things and signs in the language-game. The word “game” indicates the surrounding texture of signifying relations that make it possible for us to speak of the being of anything, including phenomena in space-time. Hence what Wittgenstein elucidates for our awareness contributes directly to the elucidation of the difference of beings and Being (or be-ing) that Heidegger was trying to elucidate in a way with a different terminology attempting to penetrate to the structure of historical consciousness of beings that surround human beings with their different beings, as things or phenomena in space-time, with their conceptual differences as such. The term “Dasein” therefore replaces the concept of “man”, “human being” to avoid the standpoint of these descriptions of man that treats Being and being from the standpoint of empirical consciousness and imagination that takes itself as a starting centre of certain beliefs that are believed to be certain on a priori or a posteriori grounds, whereas the real question of grounds, Ontological question as such, lie covered by the structure of the empirical imagination of these beliefs the certainty of which is held to be a priori or a posteriori, without however thinking deeply about the meaning of certainty28 of a priori or a posteriori. Therefore, Heidegger claims, I think rightly, that Western metaphysics

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took a wrong turn with a philosophy of mind, consciousness, soul, starting with Plato and the Rationalism of Cartesianism that seem to have infected even Heidegger’s teacher Husserl in the first phase of his philosophy of consciousness which seems to be much preoccupied with the perception of “essences”. It is noteworthy here to see Wittgenstein’s contribution to phenomenology, to the phenomenological clarification of the essential aspects of signifying phenomena from the diversity of manifold multiplicity of non-numerical phenomena of life; namely the phenomena of memory, imagination and operations with signs that texture the logical scaffolding for names and descriptions to differentiate anything conceptually to the picturing of things and phenomena in space-time. Hence, the reminders and thought experiments of Wittgenstein assembled under the term “language-game” elucidate precisely, what cannot be pictured and thematized on the level of beings that Heidegger was trying to penetrate by phenomenological hermeneutical descriptions of the basic historical situation that is shaping the rationality and consciousness of the beings in space-time with their numerical conceptual differences. NOTES 1

Inward Revolution, Shambala, Boston and London 2006. For instance, by means of concentrating on the image of the sensation, introspection as such, imagining as if the sensation is meant by this attention – in complete oblivion of the nexus of phenomena, sensation in its internal connexions with the signifying phenomena of expressive symptoms and expressions the significations of which connect up with the locality and qualities of the sensation differentiated by concepts; or conversely, by concentrating on the pain behaviour, or imitating the pain behaviour without the sensation of pain as if their conceptual differences are also given by this demonstration of concentrating and meaning. Compare this demonstration with Moore’s demonstrating his hand which is a gesture of logocentric habit of imagination rather than gathering the field of significances for one to speak of one’s limbs, one’s actions and behaviour or the surroundings, as I comment to clarify in further paragraphs. Incidentally, these phenomenological aspects of operating with signs seem to me not to have been explored enough in the phenomenological tradition yet, with the possible exception of M. Merleau-Ponty. The later developments represented by Jacques Derrida rest contented with deconstructions by showing the impact of different narratives and interpretations on imagination; by indicating the impossibility of grounding the language-game on certain propositions of rationality and truth; by clarifying the textual character of truth as against the claims of perception. Such textual understanding despite its philosophical merits remains on the level of cultural textual level, at the level historical imagination without clarifying the fore-structure of history, as Wittgenstein’s reminders assembled as to the facts of operating with signs do. Textual deconstruction without clarifying and excavating enough phenomena phenomenologically, has prepared the way to post-modernist imagination reacting to the modernist imagination in the western history of culture. Whereas the real philosophical issue, as I understand from the “philo” of “sophia” is about reaching a level of awareness that would transcend the imagination modern or post-modern, or western and eastern. But that in turn requires “going the bloody hard way” as once reminded by Wittgentein, the effort that still awaits the lover of wisdom who is philosopher par execellence. 2

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3 I.e. operating logocentrically, by habit memory and imagination, on the already conceptually differentiated images resembling the images of signs, models, representations, whose conceptual identities and differences are in fact expressed by means of the uses and significations the consequences of which are woven with the phenomena of language-game. 4 Without that the phenomenological description Lifeworld, instead of opening the original dimension would drag the backload of habits of imagination and project them on the interpretation of this signal the significations of which on the other hand requires the instantaneous and ubiquitous insight of phenomena texturing and being textured in signifying relations with particular attention to the reactions of memory and imagination, i.e., in the learning process that are intertwining and interacting with operations with signs, with pictures (representations) of language. 5 Philosophical Investigations, p. 258. 6 Therefore, i.e., “Hermeneutical method of H. G. Gadamer and their followers however that may be useful and original in their own ways do not go deep enough to unravel the threads of historical consciousness and imagination, the fore-structure of language as such threaded by memory and imagination reactions intertwined and interwoven to the texture of culture and history, as Wittgenstein’s phenomenological reminders and thought experiments do. Gadamer’s hermeneutical method is not phenomenological enough, in my opinion, to expand the insight expressed by the words of the sage: “From the first not a thing is.” – As Wittgentein’s unravelling the use of pictures of language, clarifications as to the texture and interplay of operations with signs on the one hand and memory and imagination reactions on the other, do in fact. It is worth dicussing and comparing the interpretations related to the understanding of “lifeworld” in connection with the original dimension in question here, which my discussion hopes to open the ways that would enable us to make such a comparison. I daresay in passing, while Husserl, Heidegger and M. Merleau-Ponty express more phenomenological insight as to the interweaving of phenomena of memory, imagination reactions along with operations with signs, later developments represented by H.G.Gadamer in Germany by J. Derrida in France, who has been compared with Wittgenstein in certain respects, seem to have been much more occupied and contented with cultural criticism based on the understanding of the impact of language and culture on one’s consciousness and imagination, by which Derrida’s deconstructions are meant to unravel its historical and cultural basis by offering different narratives, different pictures with different possible continuations in the language-game, without however going into the deeper level of awareness that would have touched the heart of the matter so to speak, as we sense in the strivings of Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, in the effort that brings them and Wittgenstein in the service of glimmering the light of an old insight as expressed: “From the first not a thing is”. Therefore, I am of the opinion that later hermeneutical approach is not penetrating enough to deconstruct the fore-structures of thinking, imagination and consciousness on the basis of phenomenological insight of phenomena that is capable of unravelling and stilling the fluctuations of imagination entangled in the fore-structures of thinking and imagining. That disentanglement from the fore-structures of language doesn’t necessarily mean going outside language-game, but a possibility of acting with a new sensibility in life. Lastly, Hermeneutics without the phenomenological differentiation of significant phenomena in distinguishing what is essential from the inessential for a sign to name and differentiate, picture anything in the language, would fluctuate with different interpretations and imaginings by the narratives and texts which seem to exhaust the interpretation of lifeworld, instead of cracking the structures of imagination for the light that would have stilled the reverberations of imagination – the deep silence of which would have been sensed as the reticence of life’s poetic presence, as sometimes poetry – the poi˘esis of which is not to be thought as confined only to its recited verbal

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forms – touches with counter-points and counter-gestures that deform and shift the dominant syntax of language and imagination, hence transcending the state of memory and consciousness the threads of which are continously being woven by the texts of language. As the poem seem to be touching enough forlornly but with deep vitality at the opening of my text. 7 I.e. such an interpretation of “Language-games” dominates Peter Winch’s argument against Norman Malcolm in his: Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View? (Routledge, 1993, pp. 104– 105) where emphasis is placed on removing philosopher’s puzzlement and language games are seen as a logical instrument in the service of removing such puzzlement as if everything then would be ordinary enough not to strike us as extraordinary and therefore puzzling. Such a view of language-games necessarily falls short of uncovering the extraordinary aspect, the theos or ontopoietic dimension of life free from symbols of religious systems yet with that awareness of reticence, the sense of which is necessarily missing from such pragmatic interpretation of operations with signs in the language-game. I therefore, try to elucidate further the texture of language-game, taking the cue from Wittgenstein’s elucidations, in the hope of contributing to the uncovering of that dimension of life, to the standstilling of imagination that is behind the philosophers’ puzzles issued by the structures of imagination woven and reverberating with the images of pictures in the language-games. Language-games are indeed used in the service of removing such puzzlements to free one’s intelligence from the imagination of the actors of the language-game, to see the game aright without the interference of imagination pictures but with that sense of reticence that is capable of stilling the murmur, fluctuations of imagination with its inner rhymes, sense of ontopoiesis. 8 Wittgenstein’s remark is to the point: “I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought really be written only as a poetic composition . . . I was thereby revealing myself as someone who cannot quite do what he would like to be able to do.” Culture and Value, p. 24. It is no surprise therefore for Eastern philosophies, who tend to express an ontopoietic sense of life by gestures, puns, images, forms of expressions which is seen as “poetry” and “mythology”, rather than “philosophy” from the standpoint of the intellectualist analytic habits of thinking that implicitly or explicitly attribute essentialist conceptual differentiations to these descriptions. Hence the Orientalist standpoint of the west that barres itself not only from responding to the insight of the eastern philosophies, but from such insights as Wittgenstein’s targetted to unravel the threads of imagination and habits of intellectualism woven by western ways of thinking and philosophizing in the western philosophical world. 9 As Henri Bergson once tried to clarify its structuring process as “habit memory”. See his Matter and Memory, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1970. 10 The insight in question being as old as Buddha and Bodhi-dharma and as modern as Krishnamurthy, is worth considering i.e., by comparing the insight expressed by the Zen master Hui-neng with the insight that Wittgenstein was trying to clarify in connection with the use of picture that are interwoven to the activities, and operations that texture language-game along with one’s thinking and imagination habits. Vide D.T. Suzuki, The Zen Doctrine of no mind, ed. by Christmas Humphreys, p. 31 and pp. 41– 42, Weiser Books, 1993. 11 Wittgenstein, Blue and Brown Books, Blackwell 1969, pp. 52–53. 12 See how Wittgenstein’s deals with this particular gesture and demonstration in On Certainty. 13 The word “intellectualism” in the sense in which I use it refers to habit structures of thinking the logic of which refuses to dig up its own roots in search of light so to speak, but rests contented with them with a general picture of the rules of one’s language-game of culture with its own historical fore-structure. The difference of this intellectualism from philosophical work in

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Wittgenstein’s sense is well characterized in his foreword to Philosophical Remarks and by his comment characterizing bourgoise philosopher type of dealing with philosophical problems. 14 John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, Herakleitos of Ephesos, fragment 7, p. 133. 15 Which is a common place view by now in western philosophy, one which is so much used as a picture of language, in terms of the pictures of human beings using and developing tools of culture and language, without however going out of the circling structures of thinking and imagining with pictures, such that one can imagine language-games by the help of these pictures, i.e., by imagining human beings using and developing tools of language on the model of tools of culture, and history in terms of the development of tools in accordance with human interests and needs, and the cultural changes along with such developments and events with an internal reasoning based on human interests and material conditions and so on. 16 See: Jung and The Eastern Thought, A Dialog With The Orient, J.J. Clarke, Routledge, 2005, pp. 16–17. I am trying to show that the kind of enclavism pointed out by Clarcke issues from trying to formulate the idea of “language-game” in terms of pictures, with those habit structures of thinking that the reminders signalled, flashed out as “language-games” are meant to show precisely that how they enclave, weave, structure and entangle thinking. 17 Prof. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka seems to me to be one of those few in the west to have gone deeper and further starting from phenomenology of Husserl’s investigations into the structure of consciousness to the necessity of clearing the grounds, as she contributes to the uncovering of ab-ground that requires the mindfulness or insight of that which cannot be approached with the logical habits of picturing and grounding, logos interpreted and pictured as such. Hence her idea of ontopoiesis and logos in the way of recovering the ungrounded grounds of the game; and her criticism of ontology understood on the basis of understanding logos as dictated by the presuppositions of subject object ontology. I would like to express my thanks for her authentic openness for a philosophical discussion that enables and motivates me now to disclose the most important aspect or dimension of Wittgenstein’s elucidations that seems still to remain in complete obscurity in Anglo-Saxon tradition, while his language-games and rules of language are taken as picturing the application and learning the rules of logic by learning the use of words in context, by agreement in shared practices and so on with all the intellectual subtlety and references to his thoughts, without however that awareness flashed out with all its reticence by the reminders assembled and signalled as aspects of “language-game” beyond pictures. Indeed two radically different stances in philosophy are in question here; the western way of thinking and operating by means of constructing pictures on the one hand, and unravelling the threads of such habits of thinking and imagining along with elucidating the texture of pictures of language, as Wittgenstein’s, on the other. The latter therefore is capable of meeting and expanding with the philosophical insights expressed in the east by ways of Zen, Buddha and Sufis. The western styles of philosophising with all the systems of education with its universities and public editing and publishing journals with their norms, are no doubt shaping a whole mentality whose habits of thinking and imagination are being questioned now as Orientalism. 18 I have emphasized all along that what is elucidated by this term is not subject to be imagined by means of pictures and generalizations and that the elucidations in question are not meant to generalize a picture from the reminders assembled as such. They rather serve for us to raise our awareness, our sensibility to a new level in which our shattered sensibility so to speak, by the impact of images of pictures of language representing reality, is unified at those moments of awareness flashed out by these reminders. 19 I am trying to point out the roots of Wittgenstein’s deep dissatisfaction with academicism with no intention of a sarcasm.

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Martin Heidegger, Mindfulness, Continuum 2006, p. 17. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Translated by Peter Winch, Blackwell, 1980, 47e (1946). 22 As Piero Trupia does in his: “The Subject. Immanent In The Code, Transcendent In Discourse”, Phenomenological Inquiry, Ed., by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Vol. 30, October 2006. 23 Philosophical Remarks, 43. 24 Phil. Inv. 309. 25 That is expressed in the language of poetry which does not necesarily mean to be expressed by verses, on the contrary it can only be expressed by the sensibility of the awareness to articulate it, such as expressed by the painting of Giorgio de Chirico, René Magritte and others and by the Chinese masters who advised not to paint the representations of mountains, but “mountains in their spirit of silent greatness” etc. Wittgenstein’s articulations serve for the same purpose in its own peculiar way, namely by means of thought experiments and reminders that are arresting the movements of imagination and memory habits, with an effect similar to the poetry of René Magritte’s painting. 26 Wittgenstein, Phil. Investigations, 129. 27 It is worth noting here, forbidding images and symbols are not of help in emptying consciousness from images to bring the standstill of imagination to sense sacredness of life as emphasized by the religous ideas of “The necessity of “emptiness”, “nothingness” expressed in Christianity, Islam or in other religions. It is because of such ideas the art of painting has been forbidden in Islam, whereas the language of painting has been a means of conveying the sacred holistic sense of life in Chinese culture and philosophy. (See: Vide et Plein, 1979 by François Cheng, Edition du Seuil, 1979, translated into Turkish: Kaya Özsezgin, bo¸sluk ve doluluk, ˙Imge Kitapevi, 2006.) Although these ideas are expressed, emphasized in religions Christian, Islam, or in ways such as Zen and Dao issuing from Buddha’s illuminating insight, they are mostly misunderstood to be giving way to systems of practices of sects, the practices which are believed to be emptying mind or consciousness. These practices, without the insight that is related to the awareness of the moment at which imagination and memory reactions are intertwined with operations with signs, lead to a sort of self hypnosis, into beliefs and imagination peculiar to itself. This is pointed out by the Zen master, Hui-neng, an insightful student of Bodhi-Dharma, against the intellectualism of the northern school of followers of Bodhi-Dharma. (See D.T. Suzuki: The Zen Doctrine of No Mind, Weiser Books, 1972) The necessity of awakening of an awareness related with insight is also expressed and summarized by Krishnamurty: “The observer is the observed” – the sense and expansion of which is elucidated by the moments flashed out by Wittgenstein’s reminders, the awareness of which is expected to help one to disentangle one ‘s intelligence from reverberating with imagination reactions, and which bit by bit may awaken and possibly enable the observer, empirical subject as such, in relation to the observed, in the texture of signifying and modifying relations of phenomena which the reminders and thought experiments elaborate to elucidate what Krishnamurty expressed very summarily. 28 Wittgenstein deals with the certainty (in On Certainty) expressed in the nexus of protophenomenon, language-game as such, which is no more or less certain than the rules of the game which are held fast and which cannot be judged by the standard of certainty modeled on the certainty of a logically necessary conclusion in logic and mathematics as i.e., Descartes did by applying his methodical doubt that contradicts and violates the rules of the logic of language which presuppose the certainty of the rules of the language-game of operating with signs, and which cannot be held therefore more certain than the certainty of the rules of the language-game held fast. See Wittgenstein: Phil. Inv., p. 345 and Remarks on on the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol., II, p. 145. 21

A L E K S A N D R A PAW L I S Z Y N

M E M O RY – T H E P O S S I B I L I T Y O F C R E AT I O N I N A L E A R N I N G W O R L D – I N T E R P R E TAT I O N

ABSTRACT

I would like to present the memory question in the context of the phenomenological grasp of time and in the context of language (interpretation). Our considerations are at first concerned with the phenomenological way of consciousness, and with constitutes in the same way the intentionality of retention as the source of memory. We also consider Husserlian category of in-feeling (to enter into one’s spirit) (Einfülung) as describing an experience of the essence of an indirectness – so just directness in an access to the spiritual sphere of someone who is not mine. It presents the responsibility as the essential characteristic of a meditating (interpreting) transcendental “I”, in the inter-subjective context of other people. With regard to our interest it will be worth to investigate how phenomenology develops into an ontology of corporality (la chair) (M. Merleau-Ponty) and into philosophical hermeneutics (M. Heidegger, H.-G. Gadamer, P. Ricoeur). In both developments, it a language matter has been described and the question of the status of the reason – generating an attempt (a hard work) to interpret the world – as the acting reason. INTRODUCTION

To consider the memory question in the context of human possibility in creating a learning world, we suggest to interpret a course of grasping time – here it is the phenomenological course. Phenomenological tradition is composed of riches of European philosophical tradition. The wealth of European philosophical tradition refers to the modern philosophy when a human being realizes human possibilities in creating a learning world (Descartes) and at the same time uncovers his specific position in the world. At that time it appears a transcendental reflection (Kant) which discloses a hitherto hidden human sphere – the spiritual sphere of meditation, which generates an activity of interrogation of the world. This transcendental motif will be developed in Husserl`s phenomenology, whose reflection discloses a new grammar of entities, in within 283 A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 283–301. c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 

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the frame of which many human activities are occurring, also interpretation, mainly based on the past (memory, tradition). Our considerations are at first concerned with the phenomenological way of the constitution of the immanent sphere of consciousness, and with constitutes in the same way the intentionality of retention as the source of memory. We also consider Husserlian category of in-feeling (to enter into one’s spirit) (Einfülung) as describing an experience of the essence of an indirectness – so just directness in an access to the spiritual sphere of someone who is not mine. It presents the responsibility as the essential characteristic of a meditating (interpreting) transcendental “I”, in the inter-subjective context of other people. With regard to our interest it will be worth to investigate how phenomenology develops into an ontology of corporality (la chair) (M. Merleau-Ponty) and into philosophical hermeneutics (M. Heidegger, H.-G. Gadamer, P. Ricoeur). In both developments, it a language matter has been described and the question of the status of the reason – generating an attempt (a hard work) to interpret the world – as the acting reason.

A RIDDLE OF LEARNING

Phenomenology as a science, rises from the philosophical reflective attitude and, as a method based on this attitude might to, in Husserl’s opinion, consider the problem of the final sense of the learning process, which constitutes an object of learning. It might also give the sense for the object appears as a result of its learning possibility. So, the object constitution taking place by and through this learning process of the subject. From philosophical, and here it means also from the phenomenological point of view, this is an essential mystery of grasping the learning object in an act of learning. When the way of reaching the object appears as a riddle, we have to do with the philosophical reflective attitude which differs from a natural attitude when a subject does not notice the problem of transcending learning limits. From the natural attitude, it turns out that the world’s existence is finding as an unquestioned state, which is suspended by the philosophical attitude. In the natural reflection of every-day life, (. . .) we are on the ground of just finding the existing world; such as when we confirm being in an every-day life. “I can see a house there” or “I remember that I have heard this melody” etc, in the transcendental- phenomenological reflection, we leave this territory by means of the general epoche for the question of the world existence or non-existence.1

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NON-PHILOSOPHICAL CHARACTER OF POSITIVE SCIENCES

Every positive science in the epistemological reflection is in the range of the natural reflection. Husserl calls in question also pre-scientific cognitions, which in the same degree as scientific cognitions, avoid the cordial question, namely: what are they learning?, what are their results concerned with? The objective accuracy of the learning “I” generally becomes puzzling according to the sense and the method, just next to plainly doubting; precise learning is not less puzzling than not-precise, scientific not less than pre-scientific. The possibility of learning becomes problematic, and to be more exact, problematic becomes this how it can reach to (treffen) this, what is objective, this what yet is in itself that what is.2

So, Husserl’s analysis carries to differ two specific spheres: in one, positive sciences work, which as pre-scientific reflections are in the natural, what here means not-philosophical attitude, where reality is in an undoubted way given; the second is the philosophical sphere, where the existence of learning things is not a fact understanding by itself; however it is a riddle as to the certitude of compliance between learning and the object of learning. Natural sciences immanent in the natural attitude in their development come across essential lowering on the level of attainments, because they are do not carry on theirs own methodological-notional grounds.

PHENOMENOLOGY AS EPISTEMOLOGY

Sciences rise from the natural attitude (positive sciences) seem to be in a kind of epistemological emptiness, they seem not to have grounds. Because they do not search their sources, do not ask how they reach the thing. Husserl tries to cross their learning naivety and find the roots of human learning – this way he would be able to decide a learning aptness question. He proposes phenomenology as epistemology, as a science about learning phenomena. Husserl tries to investigate what does it mean “to be given”, he also tries to grasp the sense of an absolute presentation. So, philosophical (phenomenological) sphere is the sphere of self-presentation, of an absolute clear to be given. However, Husserl anticipates two ways for phenomenological science activity. In Cartesianische Meditationen he marks out the area of transcendental self-experience with characteristic evidence and the stage of transcendental experience critique in general. That first stage is not, according to Husserl, philosophical in the full meaning.

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The pure looking and gasping act takes effects in an immanent sphere cogitatio, where we can gain a certain absolute data as when we notice in our perception as if extending before our eyes such an it-here, the absolute data sphere, which is a kind of circle of the absolute learning. According to Husserl, the immanent character of that sphere is the reason why the absolute learning is going on that sphere’s limits could offer a given absolute and undoubtedly entity, which could be recognized as the starting point of learning. The immanent sphere of the pure look uncovered by Husserl, has the fundamental meaning, because it gives the ground for learning, which as to resolve the problem: how is it possible a transcendental learning, can not use the scientific knowledge about transcendences? and must do a phenomenological reduction and rely on seeing (intellectual) – which can not be inferred and proved. Because of the phenomenological reduction, we can gain the evidence of cogitatio being, which now is the sphere of the pure immanence, revealing as the pure, takes no account of psychological relations of “I”, phenomenon in the phenomenological meaning. So, it establishes the object of the specific science engaged in the transcendental subjectivity. However, in the frame of “I”, Husserl notices the structure consists of certain kinds of “I”, namely: “I” absorbed in the world, above which rises a structure of phenomenological “I”, treated by Husserl as a not prejudiced observer. Yet, we need not to treat this distinction in an absolute way. With all this evidence one can say: as existing in the natural attitude I, I am simultaneous and in every time (. . .) a transcendental I, but I know about it when I am caring over the phenomenological reduction. Only just this new attitude makes me to notice that the universe, and in this way also every entity experienced by a natural method existing only to me, existing with all its actual own sense as the entity obliging only regard for me, as cogitatum of my changing cogitationes; and only in this form, I keep it in the power of obligation.3

So, according to Husserl “the rule of every rule” is that “I” focuses our the past and our the present, evident in undoubting consciousness of being “I”. “I” experiences the world, which has sense only in regards to “I” – as the result of the phenomenological reflection. T H E S P H E R E O F A B S O L U T E I M M A N E N T D ATA

In that sphere appears data which are pure (free from transcendents), and in this sense: absolute immanent, creating the sphere of cogitationes. An absolute datum grasping in the pure immanent look can intentionally see the objective reality, but for Husserl, this concern includes the character of manifesting in this way phenomenon and he does not decide the question of being or not,

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a reality. So, phenomenology is not a kind of psychological or sensualistic idealism. The matter for Husserl is to create a science constituting the way of revealing the wealth of doubtless ground of consciousness of “I am”, in spite of which every sense of entities constitutes. In the pure cogitatio clear up by reduction presenting to the pure look, where clara et distincta perceptio plays the fundamental rule to learning, such “ithere” data, on the one hand is given as an absolute self-present data, on the other as general cases, which can be examined by general analysis. In the frame of that absolute presentation taking course, based on the pure look, the investigation of the essential general cases, which could be described as the essential analyses passing by the sphere of absolute data. So, the essential analysis is generated by the truth of the essential necessities, revealing by Husserl, that in the transcendental (phenomenological) “I”, the world as the sense constitutes according to the best sources.

THE SPHERE OF THE PURE EVIDENCE OF LEARNING IN THE MOST STRICT SENSE

It is important, according to Husserl, not to understand the phenomenological reduction as a procedure of tightening the immanent sphere to the cogitatio sphere, but rather realize that it is the way of uncovering the sphere of the pure self-presentation data. As a result of phenomenological reduction, the sphere of the pure evidence is constituted. The evidence means here consciousness of direct and adequate look of pure self-presentation data. The awareness has to do with symptoms of the thing, rather then the thing which constitutes to “I”. In the frame of awareness comprehended as shaped in the specific way thinking acts, going on the evident look, or the learning in the most strict sense. This is the way that Husserl tries to analyze the question of time.

S I N G U L A R I T Y O F T H E P H E N O M E N O L O G I C A L I N V E S T I G AT I O N OF TIME

We should be interested the way in which the experience is given, not the experience itself. And so, to the essence of this situation belongs the possibility, that “I” points out at how temporality is given and “I” learns with evidence (and all of us in fact gain this evidence, experience (nachlebend) into intuition). That otherwise there is no possibility of any permanent experience, only in that way that it is constituting in the uninterrupted passage of ways be given as this what is one and uniform in the process resp. in the duration; then, that way of giving the temporality experience is itself the experience, however a new kind of experience from a new dimension.4

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Thus, the consciousness of the evidence, where it is approached to selfpresentation, it limits the essential investigation by looking, in the consciousness of temporality as the presentation of temporary objects. C O N S T I T U T I O N O F T E M P O R A RY O B J E C T S

To analyze the consciousness of time, Husserl starts to describe the constitution of temporary objects. By temporary objects in the particular sense we comprehend objects that are not only units in time, but also including the temporary extension.5

From this description of a temporary object, follows that on one hand it belongs to time, where it appears as the unity, yet, on the other hand, it has a temporary extension itself. One can also say that because of the fact that a temporary object has a temporary extension itself, so, it “consists of” many passing by moments of time constituting this “extension”. Therefore, we must additionally know that these “extending” moments of time belong to the one object, which could be the unit in time. From this comprehension of time’s objects emerge two views of time: one embraces manifesting objects as temporary units, the other reveals “temporary interiors” of these objects. The temporary object is for example a sound. Because when it resounds it as if it takes possession of such time’s “extension” – actually sound passes, going into a sphere of that what is in the past and on its place appears more and more “now”. When we listen to such a sound, we know that it is the same sound, though it partly has passed, it still sounds in our ears. Husserl says that the sound in its passing is the same, but changes the way on which it appears to me. This “how” of an object is just the way on which it reaches my awareness and becomes my experience. E X T E N S I O N O F T E M P O R A RY O B J E C T S

Time in the meaning of temporary extension of objects becomes the way that leads them to my awareness. Because of this way, “I” can experience these objects. So, we can say that because of the temporality of objects (their temporary “extension”) our consciousness can in general analyze them. Intentionality could be here comprehended on the one hand as a tension of consciousness to this, what is manifesting in its “how”, and on the other, to this what simply manifesting. The intentional way could be directed on the way on which the object is manifesting, on its temporally changing from the present to the past, and in to more new present. We can also take into consideration object itself, in its substance.

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Thus, the temporary way of manifesting objects leads them to the awareness, which, by its intentio embraces also either that way of manifesting the substance of these objects, or simply the objects themselves. It is important, according to Husserl, also to know that time’s moments of an object belong to one object, that this “dispose” in time is the way, on which one object reaches our consciousness. The knowledge about the unity of a temporary manifesting object in later Husserl’s work adopts the shape of knowledge necessary to identify an object in many varieties of its manifestations. To identify an object (for example: a cube) one can do it, according to the author of Cartesianische Meditationen, on the foundation of a passive synthesis. So, the objective time of an object can be different from an experience’s temporality, from an inner time of its appearance. This appearance is the process passing in its sectors and phases of time, sectors and phases, which on their side are continuous changing symptoms of the same cube. Their unity is the unity of synthesis, so, it is not only a common connection making cogitationes continuity (. . .) but [their] connection in One awareness (. . .), where constituting the unity of the intentional object as the unity of the same object in many variety of its manifestations.6

P R E - I M P R E S S I O N – N O T- M O D I F I E D P R E - S O U R C E O F A N IMPRESSION

The moment that a temporary object is creating, is named by Husserl: preimpression, or some “now”, for example: of a sound. Pre-impression is that what is absolutely not-modified, it is the pre-source of every next awareness and entity. Its substance is this what the word “now” means, in the most exact sense. Every new “now” is the substance of a new pre-impression. Always flashing more new pre-impression with more new either the same or changing substance.7

The way of time, on which the object reaches awareness is the way of the next modification, of an ever changing way of its modifications. However, this way consists of not-modified moments, fill up what the word “now” means. In order to come into existence an impression, for example: a sound, must appear as pre-impression, as the pre-source of every modification in consciousness, namely: modification “now” into “this what only just has been”. So, the way, in which the object reaches awareness is modi of changing of its “places” in time. These “places” are next points “now” – not-modified pre-source of this what continuously changing. Thus, the temporary way of appearing the object to our consciousness consists of absolutely unchanging, not-modified moments “now”. Every new “now” is different in its substance in relation to the previous one. So, it is a new, changing substance of a new pre-impression, but the fact

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of that every next point flashing “now” is unchanging, is stable. This is the paradox that time is both stable and changing. P R I M A RY R E C O L L E C T I O N ( R E T E N T I O N ) A N D S E C O N DA RY RECOLLECTION

However, in a moment “now” becomes “only just past” and changes from consciousness of impression into consciousness of retention. Retention is to Husserl a kind of surroundings of every changing “now”, keeping lasting of “now”. Husserl names retention primary recollection. To the retention essence, which is the primary recollection, Husserl considers the secondary recollection and shows the difference between them. As far as retention is for him “a braid of a comet” attaching into every perception, so, it belongs to perception, to the act of origin constituting the object. In so far, as the secondary recollection (repeated) is the act of making the present a picture of the object, so, it is not the act of original appearing of the object. The present passing is for Husserl something out of our influence, we can only look at it. Meanwhile we are able to make present the object (its picture), we can perform it faster or slowly, at one stroke or in articulating steps. So, retention occurring in the act of original appearing object – it is the area of coming into the past, keeping in one moment “now”, as if stretching it in awareness. Retention’s role is to grasp and to keep, what is running away, in awareness. PERCEPTION

When Husserl describes the perception, he pronounces sentence, which its echo is hearing in the Heideggerian fundamental ontology and in philosophic hermeneutics of H.-G. Gadamer. Namely, he pays attention that perception is not only “now” with the retention area but also it is an expectation looking forward to the next “now”, and it belongs to the essence of the perception. So, according to the essence, the perception is the point “now” surrounded by retention and directs to next point “now”. Thus, the perception characterizes specific dynamics tending to penetrate the future (what in a minute will become “now”). The perception is happening in the area of consciousness of the future – as looking forward to what will happen, and in this tension to the future, Husserl sees the source of the presence of life. It seems obvious how important is to analyze temporality, to notice retention and protention surroundings of every perception, to characterize Dasein – the fundamental category both to Heideggerian and Gadamer’s philosophies.

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R E C O N S T R U C T I O N O F T H E PA S T P E R C E P T I O N

In Husserl’s opinion, every act can be reconstructed. Perception is here comprehended as a way on which the object of time reaches awareness. So, we perceive something that appears to our awareness in the way of time. Perception as an act refers to the way in which what has been perceived reveals itself to us. This way, on which something perceived presenting to us, we could, according to Husserl, reconstruct. Because this way belongs to awareness, which we always are able to refer to the actual “now”. However, it is impossible to restore what was the substance of perception, what has happened and irretrievably passed. When we try to reconstruct such passed perception, we must realize the object of this perception in its being, and also in its “now”, which moreover we must gain to actual “now”. In the recollection of what happened are present on one hand calling perception in its temporal modifications of consciousness, on the other calling what was perceived, which we can not reconstruct because of the irreversibility of natural process’.

T R A N S C E N D E N TA L I I N T E R P R E T I N G T H E W O R L D

Now, we try to describe transcendental motive of philosophy, working out by phenomenological reflection. Husserl notices that Decsartes marked out a new, transcendental dimension to put questions to the world. Husserl’s philosophical attempt reveals the evidence of the world’s existence, but certitude of this evidence is next revealed as a problem to philosophical substantiation. Someone who meditates on the existence of the world becomes the human being out of the pressure of the universe great change (relatively). That human being becomes reflected awareness and realizes that he is influenced by other awareness. So, he is like I, who, as Husserl noticed, experiences the universe but he suspends the importance of the world’s existence. This “taking in brackets”, which does not interrupt the existence of the world, gives the ground to the reflective activity, of the human subject. In this kind of activity the subject experiences the world in the specific way, and is able to judge the world. The phenomenological reduction gives the human on the one hand the sense of certitude, on the other, a relative withdrawal over incessant changes of things in order to make the most of his epistemological endowment and to methodological entity to enter in its learning constitution.

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So, we can here admit that the existence of the world, which forces me, draws its understanding from my specific comprehension of the world’s life. Thus, in the concrete ego, revealed by the reduction of as “being over all existence of the world”, take place every act and learning process’as well as thinking activities, understanding and interpreting of what is meeting with the world. It is worth to underline that phenomenological attempt creates the specific learning-critic sphere rooted in the subject, even so, this subject lives “is plunged” into yet the irremovable surrounding world. Reflective activity does not change the order of the cosmic (transcendental) world, but creating essentially the spiritual attitude of the subject disclosing wealth of the world’s profiles, which was work out by our learning possibilities. It is interesting that Husserl emphasizes that the subject is responsible for the sense. So, as the transcendental Ego, I am the absolute responsible subject for my every experience of the existence importance.8

Thus, the subject is not only the solipsistic source of the world, of its sense, but just the subject is responsible for the senses, is the one who is armed to fight for the senses and at the same time the subject is surrounded by the existence revealed by the specific human learning endowment. Constituting in that way, the spiritual dimension of the transcendental ego activity seems to be the area in the frame where every learning-interpreting act are being realized. This spiritual area is essentially connected with all the world’s surrounding. The unity of the world surrounding presenting in different ways seems to be our unquestionable state of things for us. INTER-SUBJECTIVE CHARACTER OF AN INTERPRETING M E D I TAT I O N

Critical reflection sees the spiritual sphere of individual human being as essentially intertwined with transcendental consciousness, which functions basing on “community-zation (see Ger. : Vergemeinschaftung) world of life”. Phenomenological consideration to bodies of other “I” indicates at hermeneutic character of apperception of other living body. At manuscripts, probably from 1934 Husserl writes: “Apperception of that their physical body as other living body, or equivalently as other “I” body, is apperception of “expression” (. . .)”9 Thus, in the case to meet someone, who is not mine, we have to do with the interpretation of such a sign, of such a symptom of the world, and we interpret

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basing on our own direct being. “Other “I” passes for me in my not-subjective (nicht ichlich) world as having, gave them by consciousness, the same surrounding world, which I have myself, but as the world in their modifications of consciousness, and not mine.”10 In direct grasp of phenomenological meditation is uncovered that surrounding world, with other “I”, could be reached by interpreting our attempt to conceive what human being meets in the world. THE OTHER IS REIGN WHICH NEVER CAN BE MINE

In-feeling with the other “I”, animated body of other human being, is connecting with Husserl`s description with realizing that “should be described with words such ‘as if’ some reign rules his transformation’, reign, which however is not mine reign and could never been mine.”11 So, to interpret the world is first of all to realize that I can experience the reign of my existence. Phenomenological thought is here a kind of meditation revealing transcendental character of meditating human, and because of this meditating, ego is next revealing as the source of continually creating the world. This creating, with spiritual provenience, basing on relations transcending time and space (also body) limits, becomes determinant of human freedom, freedom as an ability to the proper recognition of the rules reign the human contact with the world. The motivation of this contact presents at the inter-subjective relations between people seems to be distinguished by the spiritual status quo of relations which constitutes the immanent meditative subjective sphere of human being. Thus, this spiritual (private) sphere could be the domain of precise, pertinent thought and could generate, theoretical infinite riches of experience, not only on learning course, the world by human being. THE WORLD CORPORALITY IS THE BASE FOR THE WORLD O F C U LT U R E

In the frame of phenomenological intellectual movement, the world of essences’ and facts are described (essentially) by the category of “corporal tissue” (la chair – Merleau-Ponty). The world’s status quo has been leaded out from time and space, which were treated as “chips” of my corporality. So, every thing surrounding me are existing “on the border of time and space radiation”, radiation, which is “secret sending from my corporality”. Entity (the world) is here something, which as if it passes across me and my corporality, “gives roots” to everything what is saying about the world (entity). The world of corporality seems to be something primary, which generates what we named the world of nature, or the world of culture. In the question of interpretation

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seems to be important here, in that kind of phenomenological reflection, the way of grasping the speech (the language). The speech is the entire portion of meanings, just like corporality is the entire portion of what is visible – just like relation to Entity by mediation of datum entity (. . .) just like body feels the world feeling itself.12

Husserl wrote that the reign of our existence reveals to the human by reflection of the reign of the other humans. On the contrary here possibility to feel the world is joined with possibility to feel oneself. So, here the speech is a kind of the world feeling; as what is intellectual and essential, the speech leans upon what is visible and corporal. When we expose reflective philosophy too much we forget, as claims the French philosopher, about previous belonging of our body to the world entities, what is the pith of our existence in the world, and in the same time, is the human way of communication with the world. Thus, we will interpret the world always through our own corporality, as if from the depth of our corporal (visible, feeling) connection with the world. C O R P O R A L I T Y I S A N I N N AT E A N O N Y M I T Y O F M Y F E E L I N G

It is worth to look at what Merleau-Ponty names “corporal tissue” or “corporality”. Feeling in itself, this innate anonymity of myself we have named, a moment ago the corporal tissue and we know that in the traditional philosophy there is no name for it. Corporal tissue is not a matter as particles of an entity, which retire from each other or find their extension to create entities. (. . .) One could name them by the old term “element”, in the sense of water, air, soil, fire, so, in the sense of general thing, in half a way between an individual in space and time, and an idea, as something as a sort of incarnate rule, which brings on such a way of being everywhere there is even its particle.13

Corporality as my innate anonymity of my feeling is, for French philosopher, a kind of way of being mine and the world. Thus, interpreting speech plays here the rule as a sort of feeling, which is able to grasp the corporal essence of the world. The meaning comes from not only the logical dimension, but as a “fold of the world’s corporality” it is as if broken corporality, extending and making deeper our feeling of the world. . . LANGUAGE AS THE ELEMENT OF THE EFFECTIVE R AT I O N A L I T Y

The world, or also the entity, is here not only the thing, this is a kind of coincidence between things and us; according to Merleau-Ponty, things sink into us like we into them. The French philosopher foresees, like Heidegger, that

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the language seductive character, however when we treat language statement as a kind of the world’s experience, it becomes the most important “witness of Entity”. And also there is the language of life and activity, of literature and poetry. So, the language here is a kind of the world’s existence (the world, which communicates with the human through the tissue of corporality), it is as well the way to influence human body and corporality of things surrounding the human. Thus, the incarnated element of the entity, as Merleau-Ponty names corporality, is the element of effective rationality (language), which is understood, as it seems, as the frame of Heraclitus logos (Logos). The conversation between human being and the world is filled by what is visible, tangible and, like we, gives the measure to the things, as well as the things give measure to us by the corporality of the world (entity, Entity). Our glance as if wreathes visible things, touches them, connects with them. As if we were tied with them pre-designed harmony relation, as if we have known about them before it gets to know about them; it moves on its own way, in its broken, stormy style, and yet the looks that have fallen to them are not arbitrary. I do not look at the chaos, but at things, and so nobody can tell if it or they are ruling.14

So, corporality is the incarnated rule brings over the world and the human of its style, recognized and named by the human being as a kind of communication by corporality describes as “I” with what is named “the world”. This communication is possible because, as it follows from above fragment, loading out from corporality – our, for example, a glance is connected with things by “pre-designed harmony”, which seems to be not to the end enlightened sort of making accessible things for us, a sort of mutual (we and the world) participation with a definite style (corporality). Next it seems, that to realize that “pre-designed harmony” is the task to philosophize. It occurs to me, the Heraclitean statement about visible (sensual) harmony, which reflects invisible harmony (reasonable). On these harmonies, connecting what is visible and invisible, is supported by our possibility to interpret the world.

C O N TA I N E D I N T H E W O R L D I T S P O T E N T I A L COMPREHENSIBLENESS

The word-logos contains the potential possibility to be comprehensible, so one could say about it something essential. However, to say essentially, in a comprehensible way, one ought to be able to hear. If we can not keep silent and in this silence hear the wisdom of the logos (Logos), our speech will be loud, wasting the sense, and empty. Creating the word of the logos, first it must be heard in order to be pronounced. Philosopher from Ephesus says: Not able to

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hear nor to speak, what suggests that the word (Word) can be interpreted when it was heard, and in this word reveals the entity (Entity). Similar philosophical important is presenting M. Heidegger. Become silent is a sober right of persisting in silence (σ ιγ αν). ´ (. . .) Silence follows from the essential source of language itself.15

To philosophize as a continuous search for a new beginning will be ruled here by “a logic” of becoming silent. And silence, according to Heidegger, will be here an attempt of persistent opening to the truth, working out the attitude of asking questions about what is worth asking – being (Being). I N T E R P R E TAT I O N I S T H E O P E N I N G F O R W H AT IS UNEXPECTED

So, the opening for what is unexpected is here the essence of the interpreting caring about the world and the human. Silence, as a kind of distance is here connected with thinking activity, as also a specific distance, and suggests the idea of phenomenological reduction, which has to give to learning subject the possibility of direct, yet from reduction distance, a grasp of what is presenting. The interpret concerned with the cultural world must takes into considerations the consolidation about the world constitutions followed, from phenomenological-hermeneutics reflection. According to Merleau-Ponty, some cultural ideas, literature or music, are not opposite to sensual entity, and “these ideas are not able, as in science, to separate them from their sensual appearances and hammered into second positive”.16 In Merleau-Ponty’s opinion, the measure for things is given by my body, which participates in “the corporality tissue”. From this follows that we think, interpret the world through our own body, through our involving into visibility and feeling of the world. The general instruction to the interpreter is obvious: it is essentially not-proper attitude to phenomena to treat ideas as a sort of “positivity to itself”, separated from animating, corporal background. PHENOMENOLOGY IS IN THE FIRST MEANING I N T E R P R E TAT I O N

In the context of phenomenology of the culture, the most important matter is the language question. Merleau-Ponty says: “It is, as if visibility animating the sensual world emigrates not out of any body, but to other body, not so heavy, more transparent, as if it changes corporal tissue, leaving what is specific to the body, for tissue of language, getting free itself from every condition, but do

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not get rid of them.”17 Language seems to be here another kind of corporality; in language and by it, someone can experience to get free from conditions of every day life and at the same time to overmaster them. So, functioning on different levels, sensuality is able to settle the speech zone to create a sort of indirect (cultural) experience between the human and the world – a sort of upcast in our live at the great change. The direct corporality of language (material carrier) indicates to something which manifests itself – the meaning – just through the group of carriers of the meaning, transforming structures of the visible world. The corporal ground of language, its fundamental involving into being in the world, is also exposed in M. Heidegger’s hermeneutics. The author of Sein und Zeit draws out the sense of the phenomenological description and names it as the interpretation, and phenomenology treated as hermeneutics “in primary sense of this word, according to which this is the interpretation.”18 The German philosopher presents differ from traditional attitude to ontology, concerning the structure of being of entity. Basing on the phenomenological method Heidegger tries to grasp the being of Dasein – the special kind of entity, who understands and interprets “the proper sense of being, and fundamental structures of his own being”.19 Hermeneutics, and here also interpreting, are concerned with the possibility of ontological investigations, which expose the world as the sense. Thus, to interpret is to make open the possibility of being, is to open the possibility of new projects of the world, in which the human being participates. It is to give the task to think over the truth coming near from the world (entity). Generally, the intention of the interpretation is here to open the human being on the reaches of the world, on following from the existence itself (from the world presenting in such a way) the truth, on revealing on this course profiles of the world, revealing to being learning sensitive on the world. So, to interpret is to open oneself on disclosing through meditation, still unknown, views of the world (entity), also past, appealing to our presence, and this opening must help the human fighting with every day life, how to choose the most optional variant from occurring constellations of circumstances.

TO INTERPRET IS TO READ THE WORLD ACCORDING TO THE SENSE FORMULA

The above context induces to see interpreting as an activity of grasping written by occurrences score of the world, the music of this world, which gives different ways of read over (play) the truth of the world. According to the similar spirit, P. Ricoeur characterizes interpretation of the text, when reading the text is comprehended as a performance of the music compositions from

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written score.20 So, understanding happens in the world-text, in the distance of thinking, when we try to find ourselves among surprising us every day occurrences of the world. When hermeneutics treats thinking activity as played in the grounds with linguistic character of our being, and also as an activity, which brings the human rescue from the pressure of the great change, and thus also as an activity, which we can fix in the form of record, in the same time hermeneutic’s thinking notices threat followed from the isolation of what was recorded, so, connected with that beneficent distance. To interpret here is to cross over that isolation and base on the most exact insight into the world appearing in the text [for example, literary (verified by arguments applied to juridical interpretation)]. Reading that text the human being would have the possibility to participate into, theoretical without limits, scenes of the world (by means of the text), into new ways of being in the world (after Heidegger). I N T E R P R E TAT I O N I S A N E X P R E S S I O N O F H U M A N ’ S LEARNING LIMITS

Phenomenological-transcendental philosophical narrative disclosing on the learning subject the source of the world sense (Husserl), transformed into hermeneutics attempt to open revealing to the human (now and here) the sense of the world with taking into considerations a variety of connections and constellations of the world (Heidegger, Gadamer). The author of Wahrheit und Methode enters into relations with Plato’s division on discourse and intuitive thought and notices that interpretation is connected with discursive character of human mind. “Thus, interpretation takes part into discursive character of the human mind, which is able to think the unity of the thing only as the result of its states.”21 The above ascertainment pays our attention on the limits of human learning possibilities, which specific character marks out the way how we interpret something that is contained into our learning possibilities. It turns out that the singularity of human mind as its discursive character follows, as it seems, from the temporal way of human being, what manifests that human mind is able to think over the unity of the thing as the process. So, interpreting the word will be the process, which tries to penetrate the sense of the existence and at the same time to grasp the truth of the game of existence, in which the human has been involved. It seems, that in philosophical hermeneutics (Gadamer) understanding, and interpreting the word play similar function in searching meanings of interpret occurrences. When Gadamer wrote about understanding he describes it as the real experience – the meeting with something that wants to be the truth.22 Thus, one can see here distinctly the phenomenological motif in describing understanding as the meeting with what, as if from itself, wants to show itself from itself, so, it wants to be the truth.

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INTERPRETING IS TO MEASURE SWORDS WITH DUSKY ZONE OF THE SPEECH

Phenomenological roots of the above hermeneutic reflection are evident. Phenomenology of effective speech (Merleau-Ponty), speech being the dusky zone, which generates the light of the meaning, climes me reversibly relation between this what wants to be articulate and the speech. Perception, look, because of material carriers of their notion is stopped (retention); “reverse removes its own coming into existence data”, to be able to participate in “universal Speech”, when silent look “falls into the word”, express’ truth, making into the structures of the visible world, so it becomes “the look of mind”.23 In the body Merleau-Ponty notices all carriers of language, which ontology is here the ontology of corporality. To understand such a sentence means here to meet corporality of the sound, corporality coming from the world, with it own corporality of hearing, corporality “lined”, in opinion of the French philosopher, by meaning. The task of philosophy is here grasped as the attempt to restore the sense, the sense, which is not obvious, but likes to hide. . . In such a sense, as Husserl says, all philosophy relies on restoring the power of the meaning, on reconstructing the birth of the sense, or the wild sense, on expressing, by means of experience, which lights up especially the specific language domain.24

Linguistic is here the way of grasping the world by human being, and interpretation is the essential feature of that way to participate in existence by the human. The horizon of experienced, interpreted by that way things, will be rather corporal, porous horizon of entity – the human domain rather than the logic horizon. Phenomenological course of revealing the world that was grasped by the human, concludes that the human existence is the expression of the world existence, and this expression points out the dusky zone of the entity-speech. Human being in the world could be grasped as an allude to this what is hidden, what is not-presentable but demands to be articulate. Thus, phenomenological view of the world sensitizes us on the one hand on accuracy and precision in using meditative way of learning the world (Husserl). And on the other, indicates at situation when to realize the learning project is to annihilate this project (Heidegger, Derrida). In light of the above reflection we have two types of interpretations: one of them takes into consideration the concrete situation in the world, and the other regards the existence in general. The game of the existence in general escapes from any determinations and this seems to be the rule of its working, while the human existence written down into the world is searching rules protecting from non-sense. So, generally, every interpreting thought is searching the sense, which is constituted by the power of human learning possibilities.

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To bestow the proper attention to the transcendental philosophy realizing that it is naïve to expect the sense from phenomena meet in the world. When someone has forgotten about the subject activity in searching the sense, it leads to precocious conclusion about the sense absence. Philosophical hermeneutics (Gadamer, Ricoeur) as well as phenomenology (Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty) recognize that the sense tracing is the task to do but not a durable state of the world. The result of transcendental-critical considerations is to realize that the source of the sense is: to search it individually, but contemporary thinkers notice that the sense is not attractive today for the human and the sense does not stimulate human activity. It is worth to indicate that human activity to search the sense ought to take into consideration the responsibility in relation to the truth, as well as to the good. Human being should be prepared to what is unexpected, what makes the human to search for concealed sense; but concealed, meander sense is still the sense. University of Gda´nsk, Gda´nsk, Poland

NOTES 1

E. Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen, Hamburg 1977, (our translation is after the Polish translation by A. Wajs, Medytacje kartezja´nskie, Warszawa 1982, p. 48.) 2 E. Husserl, Gesammelte Werke, Bd II: Die Idee der Phämenologie. Fünf Vorlesungen, herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Walter Biemel, 2. Auflage, Haag 1958, (our translation is after the Polish translation by J. Sidorek, Idea fenomenologii. Pi˛ec´ wykładów, Warszawa 1990, p. 35.) 3 Ibid., p. 53/54. 4 E. Husserl, Ideen zu Einer Reinen Phänomenologie und Phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch, [after the Polish translation by D. Gierulanka, Idee czystej fenomenologii I fenomenologicznej filozofii. Ksi˛ega pierwsza, Warszawa 1975, p. 257. 5 E. Husserl, Gesammelte Werke, Bd. X: Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (1893–1917), hrsg. Von Rudolf Boem, Haag 1966, [our translation is after the Polish translation by J. Sidorek, Wykłady z fenomenologii wewn˛etrznej s´wiadomo´sci czasu, Warszawa 1989, p. 35] 6 E. Husserl, Cartesianische. . . , p. 60/61. 7 E. Husserl, Gesammelte Werke, Bd. X: Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins . . ., (our translation is after the Polish translation by J. Sidorek, Wykłady z fenomenologii wewn˛etrznej s´wiadomo´sci czasu, Warszawa 1989, p. 100.) 8 E. Husserl, Philosphy and Phenomenological Research, vol II, 1941, (after the Polish translation of S. Walczewska, Fenomenologia i Antropologia, “Arhiwum Historii Filozofii I My´sli Społecznej” T. 32, 1987, p. 342.) 9 E. Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität, Husserliana, Bd. 17, herausg. Iso Kern, den Haag, 1973, (our translation is after the Polish translation by D. Gierulanka, Zagadnienie wczucia, “Znak”, 237(3), 1974, p. 321.) 10 Ibid., p. 323. 11 Ibid., p. 321.

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12 M. Merleau-Ponty, Le Visible et l`Invisible suivi de notes de travail, Gallimard, 1964, (our translation is after the Polish translation by M. Kowalska, Widzialne i niewidzialne, Warszawa 1996, p. 124/125.) 13 Ibid., p. 143/144. 14 Ibid., p. 137/138. 15 M. Heidegger, Beiträge zur Philosophie (vom Ereignis), Frankfurt am Main, 1989, (our translation is after the Polish translation by B. Baran, J. Mizera, Przyczynki do filozofii (Z wydarzania), Kraków 1996, p. 80/81.) 16 M. Merleau-Ponty, ibid., p. 153. 17 Ibid., p. 156. 18 M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, Tübingen, 1993, [our translation is after the Polish translation by B. Baran, Bycie i czas, Warszawa 1994, p. 53. 19 Ibidem. 20 P.Ricoeur, La mètaphore et le problème central de l`hermèneutique, “Revue philosophique de Louvain”, 1972. 21 H.-G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik, Tübingen 1975, (our translation is after the Polish translation of B. Baran, Prawda i metoda. Zarys hermeneutyki filozoficznej, Kraków 1993, p. 426.) 22 Ibid., P. 440. 23 M. Merleau-Ponty, ibid., p. 157. 24 Ibid., p. 158.

NA M E I N D E X

Aichinger, I., 20 Akbay, G., 167–180 Al-Farabi, 250, 250 n.4 Allison, H. E., 169, 178 n.8, 179 n.35 Alperson, P., 225 Al-Suhrawardi, 250 n.1 Andreas-Salome, L., 23 Augustine, 34 Ba´nka, J., 197 Barresi, J., 179 n.30 Bateson, A., 211 n.7 Bateson, G., 208, 210, 211, 212 n.17 Batstone, P., 162 Beer, J. S., 179 n.24 Bergson, A., 233–242 Bergson, H., 25–49, 280 n.9 Bernet, R., 162 n.2 Bhumika, S., 141–146 Blondel, M., 25–49 Bordoli, R., 46 n.42 Boris, W., 106, 115, 116 Borisovskiy, G. B., 225, 229 n.33 Brower, C., 162 Buber, M., 197 Burgess, A. A., 110 Burley-Marx, R., 222 Butler, J., 179 n.35 Butterworth, B., 101 Cage, J., 160 Caputo, J., 107, 110, 111 Carpentier, A., 20 Cochran, J., 101 Commoner, B. D., 66, 71 n.15

Coole, D., 211 n.1 Cowan, D. F., 78 Cozma, C., 53–59 Deleuze, G., 40, 46 n.38, 46 n.47, 47 n.46, 48 n.82, 239, 240, 241, 242 n.6, 242 n.17 Derrida, J., 133–139, 209, 278 n.2, 279 n.6, 299 Diana, C., 211 n.1 Djinn, M., 115, 117 Doubyago, T. B., 216, 228 n.6 Downing, F., 76, 78 Edmund, G., 182, 184, 186 Edmund, H., 44, 153, 162 n.1, 162 n.2, 162 n.4 Ehrlich, P. R., 66, 71 n.14 Eisenstein, S., 120, 132 n.5 Eisenstein, S. M., 222, 228 n.27 Engels, F., 81 Eriksen, N. N., 114 Ferenczi, S., 21 Ferrara, L., 162 Fichte, J. G., 108 Flis, A., 149, 152 Forman, R., 74 Foucault, M., 202, 209, 211 n.10 Frame, D., 20 Frankl, V., 185 Freiberga, E., 233–242 Frye, N., 110 Fuentes, C., 20

303

304

NAME INDEX

Fujioka, M., 226, 229 n.34 Funda neslioglu, E., 201–212 Gadamer, H. G., 197, 279 n.6 Gadamer, H. -G., 55, 57, 290 Gilson, B., 31, 35, 39, 41, 46 n.39, 47 n.62, 48 n.76, 49 n.91 Greenery, G. G., 228 n.12 Gregory, B., 210, 211 n.7, 212, n.17 Grossberg, L., 206, 211 n.5 Guignon, C., 75 Guitton, J., 147–152 Gültekin, H., 73–79 Hall, H., 74 Haufniensis, V., 111 Held, K., 139 Hellerich, G., 208, 211 Hering, E., 21 Higgins, K., 210, 211 n.15 Hill, K., 73 Holmes, G., 96 Holwitzer, H., 228 n.11 Horrax, G., 96 Husserl, E., 153–163 Iacoca, L., 208 Ikonnikov, A. V., 224 Ingarden, R., 197 Jackson, H., 21 Jameson, F., 207, 210, 211 n.6 Ján, 117 Jencks, C., 207 Johnson, B. R., 73, 76 Jouhaud, M., 49 n.90 Kagan, M. S., 225 Kale, G., 119–132 Kału˙za, M., 147–152 Kamuf, P., 211 n.12 Kangas, D. J., 108, 109, 110, 111, 112 Kant, I., 157, 201, 206, 217, 224, 247, 283 Kast, J., 113 Kaufmann, W., 132 n.18, 212 n.16 Khalilov, S., 243–250 Kharyuchi, S. N., 86

Khlystun, V. N., 86 Kierkegaard, S., 105–118 Kihlstrom, J. F., 179 n.24 Klein, S. B., 179 n.24 Klokov, K. B., 86 Komov, N. V., 86 Langer, S., 157, 162 n.10 Laugier, 122 Lawlor, L., 135 Leach, E., 148 Leary, M. R., 179 n.24 Lecoeur, S., 115, 116, 117 Leibniz, G. W., 170, 171, 175, 179 Leontiyev, D. A., 185 Leopold, A., 64 Levinas, E., 197 Lisciani-Petrini, E., 45 n.25, 47 n.44 Lissa, Z., 162, 163 n.14 Locke, J., 9, 168, 169, 172, 174, 175, 178 Lodoli, C., 122, 123, 130 Loyko, P. F., 86 Lucchesi, M., 122 Luria, S. E., 95, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101 Lyanova, T. E., 81–91 Macauley, D., 77 McCarthy, V. A., 111, 117 McGonigle, T., 114 Marcuse, H., 207 Marie Curie, 116 Mariette, P. -J., 122 Martin, R., 179 n.30 Marx, K., 81, 211 n.2 Mathieu, V., 46 n.27 Mazur, K., 106, 107 Merleau-Ponty, M., 96, 279 n.6 Mertens, W., 163 n.19 Millet, L., 30, 33, 44, 46 n.41, 48 n.64 Molodkina, L., 213–229 Molyneux, W., 179 n.35 Montaigne, E., 27 Moore, G. E., 260, 264, 273, 278 n.2 Morgan, R. P., 162, 163 n.17 Morrissey, B., 105, 115 Mugerauer, R., 74, 77

NAME INDEX

305

Mugeraurer, R., 75 Mularkey, J., 238

Russell, B., 13, 14 n.6, 15 n.7, 266 Rykwert, J., 119, 122, 123, 132 n.9

Nelson, C., 206, 211 n.5 Nietzsche, F., 202, 203, 206, 208, 209, 210, 211, 211 n.4, 211 n.8, 212 n.16, 240 Nietzsche, F. W., 131 n.1, 132 n.18 Nikolayeva, N. S., 227 Nikon, P., 216 Novikova, L. I., 228 n.14

Saint-Sernin, B., 44 n.8 Santiniketan, V. -B., 145, 146 n.20 Sartre, J.-P., 150, 151 Schechtman, M., 179 n.29 Schelling, F., 108 Schenker, H., 160, 163 n.16 Seamon, D., 74, 76, 78 Senurkmez, K. Y., 153–163 Sezgin, E., 254 Shoemaker, D. W., 167, 178 n.1 Shoemaker, S., 170, 171 Shuleikin, A. D., 86 Simonds, J., 218 Sina, I., 249 Skolimowski, H., 70, 72 n.30, 197, 199 n.3, 200 n.10 Smith, A., 81 Smith, M., 77 Smith, R. C., 112 Sol, A., 167–179 Stambaugh, J., 162 Stockhausen, K., 161 Stoltzfus, B., 105, 113, 115 Strawson, P. F., 266 Suhrawardi, 243, 249 Szmyd, J., 191–200

O’Donnell, J., 172 Olbromski, C. J., 133–139 Oudachin, S. A., 82, 86, 87 Özcan, I., 105–118 Passmore, J., 63–66, 70, 71 n.1, 71 n.17, 72 n.29 Paterson, W., 99 Pawliszyn, A., 285–300 Pelletier, L., 132 n.6 Perez-Gomez, A., 120, 121, 123 Pérez-Gómez, A., 132 n.6 Perkins, R. L., 110, 111, 117 Pershin, P. N., 86 Pessina, A., 45 n.12, 45 n.20, 46 n.32, 47 n.57, 48 n.69 Petty, V., 81, 82 Petty, W., 82 Piranesi, G. B., 119–132 Poselskaya, L. N., 181–200 Pyra, L., 63–72 Ramsay, R., 114, 115 Ray, S., 141–152 Reid, T., 169, 179 n.11, 179 n.35 Reimers, N. F., 86 Ricardo, D., 81 Ricoeur, P., 26, 34, 44 n.5, 46 n.42, 47 n.54, 108, 197, 283, 284, 297, 300, 301 n.20 Robbe-Grillet, A., 105, 106, 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118 Robin, H., 113 Roy, Le, 122 Ruggiu, L., 29, 46 n.31

Tatarkiewicz, W., 198, 200 n.7 Taylor, P., 63, 66–70, 71 n.18, 72 n.24 Teil, D., 139 Tischner, J., 197 Troitskiy, V. P., 82, 86 Trump, D., 208 Turner, T., 215, 228 n.4 Tymieniecka, A.-T., 233–242, 244, 250 n.2, 282 n.22 Van Der Ryn, S., 78 Van Manen, M., 75 Varlamov, A. A., 86 Vattimo, G., 121, 129, 131 n.2, 132 n.8, 132 n.25 Vico, G., 122, 123, 130 Vieillard-Baron, J.-L., 36, 41, 48 n.65, 48 n.73, 49 n.87 Volkov, S. N., 86, 87

306

NAME INDEX

von Baer, K. E., 22 von Brücke, D., 113 von Dieter Lohmar, 139

White, D. R., 208 Woessner, M., 75, 76 Worms, F., 235, 242 n.7

Wait, E. C., 93 Waldenfels, B., 135, 137, 139

Zahavi, D., 173, 179 n.27 Zhirnov, A. D., 228 n.2