Sunday, January 07, 2007

FOOD FOR CONTINUED THOUGHTS

Below on my blog I used the term "sympathetic reading" and I also intertwined a piece of poetic writing with a piece of writing based upon both educational theory and social and political theory related to education and learning practices in the world as it is or as we find it structured. What was more was that that blog was aimed at some comments on the Toby Lewis site "Reasons Sword" ( see links) where Wittginstein was an attempted thread. So now may I offer something more for this table talk :-

" The challenge today is to find alternative forms of social rationality beyond the positivistic extremes of both state socialism and utilitarian liberal capitalism ... For a genuine social rationality to exist we must refuse to allow the critical and interpretative functions to be reduced to the calculative ... Therefore we need a third dimension of language, a critical and creative dimension, which is directed towards neither scientific verification nor ordinary communication but towards a disclosure of possible worlds. This third dimension I call the poetic. The adequate self-understanding of the man(sic) is dependent on this third dimension of language as a disclosure of possibility."
( from Paul Ricoeur )

I trust that this small snippit makes reasonable sense in the context of the Awkward Squad Ring of Disenchantment. Maybe the conversation may continue ........

21 comments:

anticant said...

I fear this is the type of academobabble that turns me right off. If this gentleman means that there needs to be an imaginative, creative, artistic, playful aspect to life as well as a materialistic one, why doesn't he say so in plain language?

Havelock Ellis wrote a very interesting book, "The Dance of Life", in which he expounded his philosophy that the good life resembles the dance - it looks graceful, easy, effortless, but is in fact the product of severe self-discipline. He wrote to his companion, Francoise Delisle, "It has often been supposed that my views of love are loose and easy, but it is a damnable lie. I do say that life is a dance and that there is in it an infinite flexibility, but I also say that it is infinitely difficult, and that the dancer may always expect to find his slippers full of blood. There has usually been blood in my slippers."

zola a social thing said...

Anticant : Again, as Toby said on his blog, philosophers often appear in a way that upsets us. My feelings are more with you than against you here.

However, the scene of truth-claims, is attached to rationality. It is this which is significant here and for Ricoeur a social rationality is needed today to counter the clear evils of more closed-up certainties that have been revealed as poppycock.

anticant said...

Of course I agree with that, but philosophers have no need to use such gnomic language. It's part of their stock-in-trade, designed to convince their paymasters that they are worth their keep.

zola a social thing said...

Anticant : Are not all so called professions like that and making a special protective use of language for their own ends? I would not say that only philosophers do this and I might say that some philosophers do have good reason to use special language.
As for the blog and Ricoeur he would always ask us to keep open the possibilities as if it were a kind of court with always an "up for appeal" aspect.
This is hardly however different a smack in the teeth for the likes of Karl Popper who I suspect you would agree with and think twice about complaining about "continental" philosophers.
So maybe you are being a little unfair to Ricoeur and the position so cited.
BTW : indeed to read Ricoeur is not quite an experience that many would enjoy and i remain in some agreement with you.

anticant said...

In my situation, Zola, I haven't enough time left to do things I don't enjoy for the sake of self-improvement. My end-game now is to get through each day with the minimum of pain and the maximum of pleasure.

That is why, having just been informed by Big Pike that there are NO rules on the Internet - his version of it, anyway - I have decided that in future I shall only post on his site in the persona of a talking fried egg.

zola a social thing said...

Understood and reasonable and I have always had a soft spot for younger ones that struggle with THE BIG BOOKS due to a warped educational system. I have always thought that there are many ways of learning and with pleasure too.
I find your position to be valid through and through.

But having said that you will be in need of a bit of boredom and punishment sometimes ( so you know the other ways) so I shall continue to post on these kinds of things sometimes.

zola a social thing said...

BTW : Recently Butwhatif made some comments on a thread from Szwagi and I joined in happily. Much came from a few well directed comments and maybe I can show respect to you by repeating something from that thread. There I cited G.Lukacs who, when sent to one of those damned concentration camps as a Jew, continued giving lectures on philosophy no matter what. He would say and urge us all to "Think Full Time".
Although that ability has escaped me I do try to respect it and even live up to it as well as I can.
This i do in a way that Winnicott would agree with as being "just good enough".
But that has been my own way I guess.

Anonymous said...

Hi ZoZo
Anticant - this 'fried egg' thingy....erm, isn't that a term used to describe saggy tits........just a thought here, I see you more as a Humptydumpty.......proud, not like a you-know-what...........
Philosophy.Pah. I do logic.......!!

anticant said...

Don't just think. Meditate. Be calm. Still the mind. Concentrate on a mantra. [NOT the Lady from Crewe - that would agitate you.]

anticant said...

Fried egg? Maybe. I said poached egg over on Big Pike's site. Perhaps plain boiled sometimes. Or an omelette. Or eggs florentine. Taking a leaf out of He Who Shall Henceforth Be Nameless's book, I shall be whatever sort of egg the mood takes me. I won't be just jokey, I'll be Yolkie. You just wait and see. Cybercharades is a game I can play too - if I could be bothered.

Anonymous said...

ah...A Yolkie Man.

I used to love those ads........a very fine speciman - taking a chunk out of........
oh, hang on..........that was a chocolate bar.

I would like to be a Faberge Egg.

anticant said...

You'd be too costly.

zola a social thing said...

Hard boiled the lot of you.

zola a social thing said...

Difficult to be calm in a stormy sea.

Anonymous said...

I saw the Faberge egg in the Hermitage and have to agree with the Lavender One's self description.
Small and knobbly with the occasional sparkly bit. Greenish in the morning.

zola a social thing said...

Just wait until you see the real me !
Bite yer legs I will.

Anonymous said...

ZoZo...
you are forever in my dreams..........
Anticant has told you to 'stick to knickers'.
I hardly dare ask what this means.......

zola a social thing said...

LB : Is this me sticking to knickers or knickers sticking to me ?
Must rush ...... too late.
Wheres me mum?

Anonymous said...

A lesson for you Zola. You will need to run to mother more if you keep on with your verbal diarrhea.

zola a social thing said...

I like running to mother!

zola a social thing said...

Mothers invent.

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