It seems appropriate to say that phenomenology is "metalogical."  On the one hand phenomenology happens prior to logic -- as in the apprehension of essences, i.e., eidetic intuition -- but on the other hand posterior to logic -- as in reflection of the nature of logic as a complete organism.  Logic is properly something which happens in the natural attitude:  it is propositional reflection.  Phenomenology transcends argumentation to the realm or "space" of truthfulness, of truth as known or as mine.  Certainly there is a continuous dialectic and dialogue between logical and phenomenological (metalogical) thought. Appropriating the medieval categories, one might say that logic is Ratio and phenomenology is Intellectus.

felix culpa

I was looking through some old papers, all written in 2006, and by some happy accident found two poems that I (evidently!) had written, scribbled on the back of a sheet of a rough draft for an essay I was writing. They could use some revision, of course; but for now, I copy them exactly as I found them, in all their off-the-cuff glory.

____________________________________________________________

This, you knew, maturated your being

And begged you for compromise with the world surrounding.

The world, your world, unfolds before you with

Eloquence and diligence, loveliness and sprite.

Have you enough ply to crack open this nut?

The world, sweet world, which sprints

Before you?  The mysteries of ages, the

Wonderment of minds, beyond your finitude,

Have but scratched the surface

Of the darkest corners of sights even untold.

Yet you seek, your finest achievement, and wield the

Knowledge of Being in Action, knowing, yet not,

The strength of your own mind, you wait,

You wait to dawn upon your intellect the essence,

The kernel, the radical definition of this thing.

*               *               *

The street-light makes love to the mist,

And a little kiss hurt no one ever,

Who so longed to touch your body

Couldn’t lose the misty longing of the night.

Four pieces composed your decomposèd life,

And sucked out of me potency and inertia and truth.
____________________________________________________________

Orson Welles said that while he loved making movies, he didn't like watching them.  Dare I write poems who does not (except for Eliot) read them?

Notes toward the establishment of a new blog

There are many things I've thought about as regards the pursuit of a purely autonomous career.  I've made little films and thought about making bigger ones; I've re-mastered the guitar, recorded, and figured on making a living as a musician; I've spent a decade in the university system figuring I might eventually become a professor of something, but probably either Philosophy, English, or Art History.

The saga of areas I want to "break in to" continues:  along with Italian Renaissance architecture, which I've been studying off and on for over a year, I'm now poking my nose into geometry, and the physics of music.

In all of these "fields," while it is true that they intrigue me in a theoretical way, I can't say I have any interest in them on a practical level.  For examples:  I really don't want to start playing gigs; nor do I want to be an architect, design new buildings; nor do I want to get anywhere near that Edifice of Bullshit which is Modern Academia.

The one area of confidence I have -- that which exceeds anything else I'm capable of doing, relatively speaking -- is writing.  I don't remember a time when I didn't have a knack for language.  Nor have I ever met anyone who was a better writer than I am.  I'm sure there are better writers out there, but I've never met any of them.  I have read many of them, but they're all dead now.

But here, alas, is the rub:  I have no passion for writing!  So what am I doing right now:  I'm communicating thoughts, by means of writing. What most people call Great Writers are, more properly speaking, literary artists:  they make beautiful objects -- just as plastic artists do -- but with pen, paper, and poem or paragraph.  I would call this writing for writing's sake (ars gratia artis).  And these type writers, true writers -- those who have both the natural talent and passion -- do not do what I want to do.

However, I seem to only be able to do what I want to do by means of writing.  For what I want to do most of all is to study, to master, and to communicate my findings.  The only way I know of to do this (besides talking) is to write.  This activity is not writing for writing's sake, it is not art.  This is more akin to philosophical reflection.  What I am talking about is writing for the sake of something else.  E.g., writing about an idea, writing about a building, writing about a film, writing about an author or book, writing about music theory.  All I really want in life is to understand (and, on occasion, to get into "a reasonable amount of trouble").

What I've been thinking of, in terms of a new blog, consists of -- rather than most blogs one sees, which deal with one predominant "subject" -- interdisciplinarity.  I would have one blog, but with separate sections; e.g., there would be a section on Philosophy, a section on Architecture, a section on Music, a section on books and authors that I read, a section on films perhaps.  In the music section, I would discuss not only music theory, but also have recordings of my concrete experimentation on guitar with new theoretical ideas (which would stream, but could also be available for people to download for a small price).

But with all of this, I see still something much bigger going on.  I believe that all of these things are connected. I see, e.g., music and architecture not merely as two separate arts, but as two kinds of manifestation of deeper ontological significance.  So, perhaps, what I am working toward is a great game of connect-the-dots.  Looking for such "substrates" might, in fact, form the content of the section on philosophy.

Alas, about all of the aforementioned, I have my doubts....

my nihilism

I wrote this down several months ago and just now re-read it.  I think it's a good example of how logic can be employed to separate out groundless emotion from the mind, and yet place one back in his original state, but with clearer understanding of the fundamental issue.
____________________________________________________________

I think my nihilistic streak is very unconventional. For one, I do not hold that the universe is without purpose or that humanity is without purpose within it. I do not deny the reality of objective truth. No, the "nothing" of my nihilism has to do with me: it is I, who seem to serve no purpose, have no function or reason for existing, other than to exist, and to be painfully aware of existing with out purpose. The cosmos is not chaos: I alone am chaos.

The flaw in most nihilistic argument is that X has a feeling of purposelessness and projects this on to the entire universe:  his error is to assume that the truth of the part includes the truth of the whole.  The flaw in my own nihilistic argument is the other way around:  I assert that the universe, and humanity, of which I am a part, have a purpose, and that I am part of this whole, but have no purpose.  But whatever is true of the whole is true of the part.  So, if the world is purposeful, so must I, being a part of it.  I just don't know what that purpose is.

I can never really decide if I have "what it takes" to be a professional musician.  I haven't done most of the things requisite to embarking on such a career.  I don't sell myself; I rarely perform anymore; I don't practice enough.  Nor can I ever tell what other people really think of my playing; some people love it, and others are indifferent to it.  One thing I've never been told is that I'm no good at it; at the very least I haven't been told that I suck.  Invariably it seems people will take either the position that I'm really good, or that they don't understand what I'm doing.  I suppose this is because I'm not much of a "song writer."  In any case I feel like I'm floundering in mediocrity.  But one thing that everything seems to always come back around to is that I'm better at this than I am at anything else -- at least, at anything that could potentially do to make a living. There are things that I like much more than music, but they're all things that I couldn't make a living at.  Or, there are things that I can do better than almost anyone -- such as writing -- but which I have no interest at all in making a living of, even though it is a talent that can be made into a living.  Actually, I think that for me writing and music are in the same position:  I can do them well, but they're not what I "want to do."  The things I "want to do" either are not marketable, or else they are things that I am, in fact, not already good at, things that I have still yet to learn.  My position is very precarious.

the proto-phenomenologist

"σωφρονεῖν ἀρετὴ μεγίστη, καὶ σοφίη ἀληθέα λέγειν καὶ ποιεῖν κατὰ φύσιν ἐπαίοντας." + Ἡράκλειτος

"Reflective reasoning is wisdom, and the most excellent of virtues, for it unveils meaning by listening to the essence of things." 
+ Heraclitus (Fragment 112)

Mere Lewistry

"The dominant impression I get from reading the Psalms is one of antiquity.  I seem to be looking into a deep pit of time, but looking through a lens which brings the figures who inhabit that depth up close to my eye.  In that momentary proximity they are almost shockingly alien; creatures of unrestrained emotion, wallowing in self-pity, sobbing, cursing, screaming in exultation, clashing uncouth weapons or dancing to the din of strange musical instruments.  Yet, side by side with this, there is also a different image in my mind:  Anglican choirs, well laundered surplices, soapy boys' faces, hassocks, an organ, prayer-books, and perhaps the smell of new-mown graveyard grass coming in with the sunlight through an open door.  Sometimes the one, sometimes the other, impression grows faint, but neither, perhaps ever quite disappears.  The irony reaches its height when a boy soloist sings in that treble which is so beautifully free from all personal emotion the words whereby ancient warriors lashed themselves with frenzy against their enemies; and does this in the service of the God of Love, and himself, meanwhile, perhaps thinks neither of God nor of ancient wars but of 'bullseyes' and the Comics. This irony, this double or treble vision, is part of the pleasure.  I begin to suspect that it is part of the profit too."

+ C. S. Lewis, "The Pslams" (Christian Reflections)

theologiae graecae

"The traditional theology of the Greek Fathers devised three terms for these three aspects of man's one spirit.  That which is unconscious and below reason was the anima or psyche, the 'animal' soul, the realm of instinct and of emotion, the realm of automatism in which man functions as a psychophysical organism.  This anima is conceived as a kind of feminine or passive principle in man.

"Then there is the reason, the enlightened, conscious, active principle, the animus or nous. Here we have the mind as a masculine principle, the intelligence that governs, ratiocinates, guides our activity in the light of prudence and of thought.  It is meant to direct and command the feminine principle, the passive anima.  The anima is Eve, the animus is Adam.  The effect of original sin in us all is that Eve tempts Adam and he yields his reasoned thought to her blind impulse, and tends henceforth to be governed by the automatism of passionate reaction, by conditioned reflex, rather than by thought and moral principle.

"However, the true state of man is not just anima governed by animus, the masculine and the feminine.  There is an even higher principle which is above the division of masculine and feminine, active and passive, prudential and instinctive. This higher principle in which both the others are joined and transcend themselves in union with God, is the spiritus, or pneuma.  This higher principle is not merely something in man's nature, it is man himself united, vivified, raised above himself and inspired by God.

"The full stature of man is to be found in the 'spirit' or pneuma.  Man is not fully man until he is 'one spirit' with God. Man is 'spirit' when he is at once anima, animus, and spiritus.  But these three are not numerically distinct.  They are one. And when they are perfectly ordered in unity, while retaining their own rightful qualities, then man is reconstituted in the image of the Holy Trinity.

"The 'spiritual life' is then the perfectly balanced life in which the body with its passions and instincts, the mind with its reasoning and its obedience to principle and the spirit with its passive illumination by the Light and Love of God form one complete man who is in God and with God and from God and for God.  One man in whom God is all in all.  One man in whom God carries out His own will without obstacle.

"It can easily be seen that a purely emotional worship, a life of instinct, an orgiastic religion, is no spiritual life.  But also, a merely rational life, a life of conscious thought and rationally directed activity, is not fully spiritual life.  In particular it is a characteristic modern error to reduce man's spirituality to mere 'mentality,' and to confine the whole spiritual life purely and simply in the reasoning mind.  Then the spiritual life is reduced to a matter of 'thinking' -- of verbalizing, rationalizing, etc.  But such a life is truncated and incomplete.

"The true spiritual life is a life neither of dionysian orgy nor of apollonian clarity:  it transcends both.  It is a life of wisdom, a life of sophianic love. In Sophia, the highest wisdom-principle, all the greatness and majesty of the unknown that is in God and all that is rich and maternal in His creation are united inseparably, as paternal and maternal principles, the uncreated Father and created Mother-Wisdom.

"Faith is what opens to us this higher realm of unity, of strength, of light, of sophianic love where there is no longer the limited and fragmentary light provided by rational principles, but where the Truth is One and Undivided and takes all to itself in the wholeness of Sapientia, or Sophia. When St. Paul said that Love was the fulfillment of the Law and that Love had delivered man from the Law, he meant that by the Spirit of Christ we were incorporated into Christ, Himself the 'power and wisdom of God,' so that Christ Himself thenceforth became our own life, and light and love and wisdom.  Our full spiritual life is life in wisdom, life in Christ.  The darkness of faith bears fruit in the light of wisdom."

+ Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (pp. 139-41)

De Schola

"Leisure, considered as a state of the soul, is the counterpoint to the concept of 'intellectual labor' [the definition of philosophy as conceived by Immanuel Kant] -- and that from all three of the perspectives previously considered (labor as activity, labor as effort, and labor as social function).  First, leisure, as an attitude of inner unpreoccupiedness, is that form of being silent which is a prerequisite for attending to reality: only one who is silent can hear.  Leisure is an attitude of receptive listening, of intuitive, contemplative immersion in being.  It stands, as it were, perpendicular to the normal course of a business day:  it is not, like the work break, a part of that day; it stands in the same relation to the workday as the simple gaze of the intellectus does to the ongoing process of discursive thought.  (Boethius compared the ratio to time and the intellectus to the 'always now' of eternity.) Secondly, leisure involves the adoption of an attitude of celebratory contemplation toward the world; it is sustained by its relation to the origin of all real being, by the consciousness of being in harmony with this origin and being included within it. Leisure is, because of its affirmation of oneness with the wellspring of all being, that disposition of soul in which man can, as in sleep, without any laborious efforts, receive the gift of perceiving 'what holds the world together in its innermost being' -- a gift that is, in any event, unattainable by exertion -- even if only for a moment, a moment whose insights would then have to be rediscovered and reconstructed through strenuous labor.  Thirdly, leisure, as an attitude involving a contemplative and celebratory gazing at the world, is not a working attitude in the sense that it is directed toward performing a social function.  Its purpose is not through bodily rest or mental relaxation to generate new energy for renewed labor.... It derives its legitimation, not from the fact that the functionary remains a human being, that he does not fully identify himself with that cross-sectional milieu designated by his narrowly circumscribed function, but rather from the fact that he is able to view the world in its totality and to realize himself as a being oriented toward that whole.

"But does the genuinely philosophical not consist in precisely this, that despite all exertion and effort -- even at the intellectual level -- the posture of contemplative gazing, which is directed, acquiescingly, at the world as a whole, remains alive?  Indeed, is this not so much the case that one might legitimately argue that its leisurely quality belongs more essentially to philosophy, to philosophizing, and to philosophical education than its characterization as labor?"

+ Josef Pieper, For the Love of Wisdom (pp. 21-2)

[fragment 7.19.2013]

Under poison of narcotic,
I feel my mind corrupting.

Courage and honesty, crumbling.

An ivory tower of formulae and syllogism,
To keep love and pain locked outside.

Tucked away into silence and artificial security,
There is just this one moment in which illusion justifies itself.

I wake to the Devil, who offers me a smile and a cup of tea.
And he says, “That’s right.  I’ll have to be going along now.
But just let me know if you need anything.  And remember:
Everything is your own free choice.”