“What, after all, is the function of great literature if not to enhance
the human endeavor and raise its potential beyond what is otherwise conceivable? As Toni Morrison said in her acceptance speech at the Nobel Prize banquet, literary artists mine the resources of language
to produce ‘illuminations none of us has dreamed of’.”
I have updates on literary-conceptual work, but I want a couple of days to add at the same time more than I have today. Coming.
The death of Jürgen Habermas last weekend caused me to do some updating of my Facebook/Habermas page. Also, I spent too much time defending Habermas at a couple of Heidegger discussion pages, which seems to have been a waste of time. One venture became a blog posting: “response to ambivalent praise for Habermas.”
Self-differentiation through writing as speech;
self-withholding in writing for an audience through an appropriate degree of candor, etc.;
receptiveness as “reading” another person;
writing the author of a silent text: Is it perceiving, creating, projecting?
Is the inferred author (the authorship) some weird mirror of one’s capability, preference, self-begetting?—
All of that is happening in non-“literary” life.
Rationality should be understood relative to life-orienting Purposes
of flourishing, rather than relative to near-term goals which are means for bettering the quality of one’s life.
I suppose many researchers and artists feel as if the soul of their genius destined them to find high resort away from tyranny.
My intent to write about aspiration led me into wanting to be clearer to myself about what I’m ultimately doing with all my projects: how does it all cohere purposefully?
I’ve gained satisfactory conceptions of It All. But its density of articulation, its semantic compression, wouldn’t make sense without extensive explication.
Good-bye autumn.
I expected to share new discussions before today, but my path got more bushy than I anticipated. The clearing can be seen, but I’m not there yet. Wilderness, you know.
Really: My prospecting goes where it feels good to go, which gets very complicated. But what’s apt to share online should be easily accessible. That challenge is another world.
And my optimism about sharing more soon tends to delude itself about “soon.”
Sorry (and not), but (and because) the clearing is seen, which looks to be fun.
Welcome, winter!
Someone or something may be appreciated to have value or
be given value.
Time’s gift is a miracle of nature, from one’s eonically given genome, granting gifted mentability, to concertable cultivation of a healthy child’s individuation of promising futurity, its futurity and giving time to its generation’s futurity.
Every individuated action can be given to feel, want, understand, and belong in flourishing times.
One is gifted by the given presence of a person by finding integrity and singularity in their being, giving aptness to their ways.
I’m enthused about upcoming points in my conceptual story.
But do I lose credibility by calling a discursive venture a story?
Narrativity is an elastic thing, like phenomenality, or “Literary” sensibility.
But I don’t have more update for today. But there’s more Attitude coming soon.
Sept. 5
I’ve combined four recent projects (late August through today) under a single title, as four parts of a single project, “a person-al humanity,” which was my intent at the beginning (early August). That exemplifies my ongoing plan now to do short pieces which are later combined under a single title after the pieces are done.
Finding isomorphic relations is fascinating. The eight short parts of “iso-belonging” prospect my interest in isomorphic thinking relative to aspects of belonging, from a horizon of “a pragmatic sense of life” (previous note here) to conceptual modeling of action.
Two discussions, on a pragmatic sense of life and belonging, continue my ventures into ways of which We are “human,” prospecting part of a holism of differential scales of being, from inner psychality to political life.
This is a very close reading of a Heideggerian scholar’s essay on why he regards Heidegger as “mystical,” which is invalid (in my view), but admirably discussed by him. (The author, Richard Capobianco, is an acquaintance.)
My reading may seem tedious at times, but his essay is available by link (and PDF download) at the top of my discussion, for following along.
