I think I took more from Gadamer than I realized. I think I may have introjected that understanding into my reading of Buber, too, though I am not sure how much. * Some distinctions: 1) an empathetic, reconstructive understanding of the subjectivity (that is the way of seeing) of fellow-subjects 2) a sympathetic, participatory understanding … Continue reading People inside-outside
Nick Gall and I have developed three modes of conversation: debate, dialogue and dialectic. Debate is conversing with the intention of advancing our own ideas against the other’s. This is an arguing mode of conversation. Dialogue is conversing with the intention of getting inside the other’s ideas and really understanding them so that multiple ideas … Continue reading 3D conversations
I’m noticing that I am using the terms “concept” and “conception’ very differently from how Langer uses them. In my way of thinking and talking about them, conception is a conceiving move — and what is conceived through the conception is a concept. When a student is presented with a new kind of math problem … Continue reading Conceptions and concepts
Nick was asked by an old colleague to provide a simple, universally applicable definition of fruitfulness. Earlier, I would have pointed to Thomas Kuhn’s paper on theory choice, where fruitfulness, along with accuracy, consistency, scope and simplicity, was a characteristic that might make a theory more attractive to a scientist, depending (scandalously!) on that scientist’s … Continue reading What is fruitfulness?
My friend Nick sent me an image of an everting sphere. Note how the sphere becomes a shell-like torus midway through the eversion. Note how we human beings are such that we can view reality from an inner first-person and outer third-person and experiences at once a metaphysical behind and a metaphysical beyond. Recall that … Continue reading Everso
When I, as a subject, look into a mirror I see me, as an object. When I reflect on this experience, I realize that it is still my subjective I who sees: what stands out to me when I look at my objective me-image is quite different from what another person sees. * The relationship … Continue reading Reflection on reflection
Mutual, mutable, mutate and mutant are all derived from the same Latin root, mutare, to change. Mutual comes from Middle French mutuel, from Latin mutuus — lent, borrowed. Mutable, from Middle English, from Latin mutabilis. Why should anyone care about this etymological bit of trivia? For me, the profoundest value of entering a relationship of … Continue reading Mutual mutation
It seems obvious to me that Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Postphenomenology are complementary lenses for understanding social situations. ANT gives us the network viewed “objectively” outside-in, and Postphenomenology helps us understand inside-out how the nodes interpret inputs from the network and translate them into outputs. An ANT practitioner will be the first to tell you … Continue reading ANT, Postphenomenology and their mutant child, OOO
I’ve called my metaphysic a “metaphysic of surprise”. To get what I mean by this, it is helpful to keep in mind the basic terms of my metaphysical conceptualization, which are 1) metaphysical reality versus 2) our understanding of reality which is truth. In my view truth is an adequate-as-possible person-reality interface, true to the … Continue reading Surprise vs comprise
This is a series of rewritten, streamlined posts on the theme of shells and pearls, which I’m considering incorporating into my pamphlet. I’ll link to the originals. If you have time to compare, let me know if you think anything was lost in the chipping, sanding and polishing. Evert Announcing an exciting new vocabulary acquisition: evert. I have … Continue reading Shells and pearls
Announcing an exciting new vocabulary acquisition: evert. I have needed this word many times, but had to resort to flipping, reversing, inverting, turning… inside-out. Evert – verb [ with obj. ] Turn (a structure or organ) outward or inside out: (as adj. everted) : the characteristic facial appearance of full, often everted lips. DERIVATIVES eversible … Continue reading Evert
Christopher Alexander has been on my mind lately. My company just moved locations, and improved its environment a thousand-fold. Everywhere I look I see examples of densely interconnected living patterns, and it has exactly the effect on me Alexander describes. I feel more alive here. Yesteday, entering the studio space it occurred to me how … Continue reading Living Alexander
Respect will crush you. Infinity is stranger than magnificent. Everything in the world is the world inside-out. Everything in the world is a blend of being. Before the beginning, you stood on the surface of the Heaven looking up into Earths. Truth is something we use well or use poorly for a bewildering variety of … Continue reading Provocative statements
Two reasons I am glad to have read Luc Boltanski’s On Justification: I have been looking for something like Boltanski’s Framework for Analyzing the Common Worlds for two years: basically a structure for describing a lifeworld/worldview. Boltanski’s descriptions of the different political worlds in pure and hybrid form have provided me with a much finer … Continue reading On Justification
When we are subjected to misery, we object. When we subject others to misery, we become objectionable. When we subject ourselves to misery, we become objectionable to ourselves. * When our own subjectivity subjects us to misery, we objectify our subjectivity, and try to rise above that misery. We take ourselves as personae, and become … Continue reading The blessing of Apollo
Engineers (including those social engineers called “managers” and “administrators”) think about things and use. Marketers think about media and message. Neither of these perspectives are sufficient. The mid-point of average of these perspectives is not sufficient. Both of these perspective added together is not sufficient. Only a deeper perspective that accommodates both and relates them … Continue reading Prognosis
Some random notes on the inner topology of oysters… * A pearl is an inside-out oyster shell. * An oyster coats the ocean with mother-of-pearl. Outside the shell is ocean, inside the pearl is ocean. Between inner-shell and outer-pearl is slimy oyster-flesh, ceaselessly coating everything it isn’t with mother-of-pearl. It is as if the flesh … Continue reading Iridescent irritants
Nietzsche, again: “My eyes, however strong or weak they may be, can see only a certain distance, and it is within the space encompassed by this distance that I live and move, the line of this horizon constitutes my immediate fate, in great things and small, from which I cannot escape. Around every being there … Continue reading The sphere of subjectivity
The voice of the marginalized is the password at the gate. * You walk through, and the door closes behind you. Did you lock yourself in or out? * Freedom is not being locked in or out on the right side of the door; freedom is being able to pass through. * Pandora’s box was … Continue reading Janus
Think about these statements: “Bear with me.” “Please hear me out.” “It will all make sense in the end.” Why are these requests necessary? When are they made? To what feeling in the listener is the speaker responding? What kind of appeal is being made? Do we owe it to another to give him a … Continue reading Christian cred