Charles Taylor, Philosophical Arguments(1995)
Questions & Answers #6: "Heidegger, Language, Ecology"
1. T. writes that H. believes "that something beyond the human
makes demands on us, or calls us. But this source can't be identified with nature [some
objective thing or process] or with the universe" (cosmos), 100-1. What could this
be?
Probably the best answer is that it is an enigma. It
doesn't seem to make epistemological sense to construe it as a transcendental (e.g.,
Platonic Form; God). On the other hand H. doesn't concede to the opposition: that it is a
personal fantasy (Freud) or will-to-power (Nietzsche). Freud presents an interesting
parallel. The concrete form of psychic life is different in billions of individuals. Even
identical twins have different memories, desired objects, etc. Nonetheless, Freud (as a
modernist & reductionist) believes that this "many" is caused by a
"One" (libido) operating in a very few fundamental ways. H. would likely charge
Freud with the crime of trying to smuggle in transcendentals under the rubric of science.
Libido seems suspiciously like Henri Bergson's elan vita (the stuff of life; life
itself) & 19th c. vitalist theories. For this ghost H. would nominate
language. If you continue to ask about its metaphysical standing, some of us are driven
towards Confucian flavored philosophy (including, perhaps, pragmatism).
2. H. "talks of language speaking rather than human beings
speaking" (101). Why? Does this make sense?
Obviously it is a poetic usage. The intent is to
deny the Romantic model in which (divine) (1) inspiration exists pre-verbally & then
(2) searches for the appropriate (3) word to express the supposed (1) idea. Notice that
"inspiration" has mutated into "idea" before getting to the stage of
language. However, ideas/concepts are language & do not exist outside language. Again
H. sounds Confucian. People never have inspirations or any other human emotions outside
(internalized) social contexts. Thus a Confucian would say that human
relationships/contexts assigned roles for identity (son, students, etc.) & optional
scripts (good son, naughty son, etc.). H. would likely point out that language is the most
fundamental human(izing) context & as such "causes" or partially causes who
we are (humans, not monkeys) & what we do: language speaks or (partially) determines
who & what we are.
3. T. writes, "I come up with a word to articulate [express] my
feelings, & at the same time shape [order] them in a certain manner. * * * The term
does its work because it is the right term," 104. How does one know when or if
a term is the right one? The designative/correspondence model of truth does not seem
adequate, does it?
A large part of the problem seems traceable to the
temporal component of the Newtonian model, which features discrete temporal steps. As in
#1 this model dictates that the inspiration/emotion exist completely in step 1 in order to
cause step 2. Again Chinese thinking provides an alternative in which step 1 provides the
preconditions (e.g., the pigments or parts) for #2, which is distinguished from #1 by the
pattern/order or in the case of language, the explicitness it has attained. Notice what
changes from the Western model where Platonic transcendentals operate. The correspondence
model must have bridges from the instance to the Form; this reveals order. In the
Chinese/pragmatic model order is inherent (not transcendental) in the system itself.
4. T. writes that the 18th c. believed that language
originated "from the expressive cry" (106). Producing sound by beating drums
& making music, perhaps like Bobby McFerrin, evolved into symbolic sounds, words &
ostensive definitions. Why does this account fail, according to T.?
If it expresses pre-verbal, non-conceptual emotion
(#1 in answer 2), then it cannot become conceptual & meaningful (words; #3 above) . If
it essentially changes we must be able to locate what caused the difference. To say that
it evolved or just happened is as unacceptable in a philosophy class as in a chemistry
class. Notice the foundationalist thinking which supposes that one side of the
correspondence theory is in place before humans arrive: "What the expression conveyed
was thought to exist independently of its utterance" (107). The concept evidently
exists before any human expresses it. How can this be? It can't & consequently the
correspondence model fails.
5. The empirical tradition -- Hume in particular -- said that
"simple ideas" correspond exactly, as though they were photocopies of,
"simple impressions" or sensations. Ideas are words; impressions are sensations.
Can the two be virtually the same, as Hume claimed? T. says "language transforms our
world," (107). How does this affect Hume's epistemology?
It wrecks it. Hume wants minimal difference between
sensation & conception; & this may be initially convincing in examining specific
empirical events in the physics lab. It is unconvincing when we try to answer Socrates
(e.g., what is justice or any humanly meaningful question) with specific instances:
"language transforms our world, using" world "in a clearly
Heidegger-derived sense. We are talking not about the cosmos out there . . . but about the
world of our involvements" 107.
6. Read closely the top of 112: "language . . . opens access to
meanings." Does this mean that the individual "paints" or poetically
creates a gestalt or image from the pigments of his perceptions, as the Romantics said?
Look back at the 1st paragraph of the essay where T. says that H. is not a
Romantic, that he is "anti-subjectivist" (100). If one is anti-subjectivist
(including anti-Romantic), then a good bet would suppose that one must be looking for
objective reality/truth. Back to 112. What does H./T. means in saying, "The
disclosure is not intrapsychic, but occurs in the space between humans"?
"Intrapsychic" implies privacy; that an
event has meaning exclusively for me & no one else. Existentialism seems to say this.
Foundationalism offers the polar extreme: meaningfulness is objective regardless of what
you may subjectively feel. H. says that language operates somewhere between these
extremes. No individual can be thought to simply invent language the way God in Genesis
creates the cosmos ex nihilo. Mothers teach infants how to speak over the course of
years of intense tutoring. No relationship can be characterized as one party contributing
100% & the other party passively receiving 100%. Every relationship can be
characterized as dynamic, non-determinative, & organic in the sense that neither party
can predict the outcome or even feel confident that she knows (objectively) what is going
on. Language works like this. It is not off the shelf, a priori. Neither is it a
will-to-power by Adam, Chaucer, Shakespeare, etc. Focusing on meaningfulness makes the
same point. "Ours [the humanly understood world] is a world in which things have
worth" (113). "Worth" is a social determination. Even when one attempts to
escape, as a hermit (or more likely rebellious adolescent), the supposedly independent
assessment of what to escape or destroy is made against a social background; to impress
"them" with your power, independence, etc. If one where able to truly walk away,
no one would know.
Same issue; read closely the bottom of 113: "One immediate
temptation is to see it [meaningfulness] as our power, something we exercise [or
will, or create]; disclosure [cf. Invention; of meaning] is what we bring about. For H.
this is a deeply erroneous [Romantic] view."
Romanticism smuggles in the transcendental in the
guise of immanence. This is why Taoism is more popular among Westerns who know a little
something of Asian thinking than Confucianism. Romantics & Taoists believe that an
objective (divine) force drives (determines) individual behavior &/or world events.
The second version ends up in fascism. The first version fuels adolescent dreams of
"finding my true self/identity" which supposedly exists independent from any
social situation (cf. American Indian religion in which people have a secret, primal or
profoundly true name/identity).
7. Translate: "the clearing should not be identified with any of
the entities that show up in it," 114.
Pretty easy, but tricky. One has to periodically do
the recursive function to clean house. This is why post-modernism is not modernism: it is
on-guard against "discovering" the One which supposedly causes the many. If
anything the One is dynamic, temporal, & non-empirical; a field & not an item in
it. Buddhism offers an interesting parallel. One of its tenants is that the self is a
temporal conception & does not name anything essential or transcendental. The believer
accepts this conceptually but continues to organize events in a utilitarian fashion, so
they are beneficial to me. Or she becomes enthusiastic about helping others. The recursive
Buddhist question asks who these others are that one is so devoted to helping? Ultimately
they can only be temporal phenomena; karmic patterns temporally working themselves out so
that they will dissolve. Language works analogously. It disrupts the silence & psychic
equanimity. It temporally proceeds until it dissolves. It is literally the way (tao)
that human beings exist. Consequently no item/theory that the process can focus on or
propose could possible replace or substitute for the process.
8. More translation: "The clearing in fact comes to be only around Dasein. It is our being-in-the-world which allows it to happen. . . . The clearing doesn't just happen within us," 115.
The fact that we articulate the clearing indicates
that it "doesn't just happen within us." Hinduism identifies the clearing with a
slippery kind of transcendental called Atman/Brahman. Atman designates a
subjective/experiential knowledge; Brahman indicates the attempt to define the clearing in
objective terms. However, "Brahman cannot be known . . . for to know necessitates a
subject being aware of an object. Brahman can only be known by a "knowing" which
transcends subject & object" epistemology. Part of this is familiar, resonating
with T.'s embodied knowledge ("knowing" how to ride a bicycle, whether one is in
love, etc.). "Brahman is unknowable by man because man, being Brahman, cannot achieve
the necessary metaphysical distance in order to make Brahman an epistemological
object" (T.O. Wilson. The Hindu Quest for the Perfection of Man, 108.)
9. "The space of expression is not the same as, that is, can't be
reduced to, either ordinary physical space or inner psychic space . . . . It only gets set
up between speakers. . . . It cannot be placed 'within' minds," 116. How does this
claim affect the status or definition of language?
The paradigm shift moves from spatial (Newtonian
mechanics; Greek essentialism; Christian souls) metaphors to temporal metaphors: Confucian
tao can only be discerned in human performance. Note that from a Confucian view
claims of transcendentalism by Taoists & Zen Buddhists must be framed or recognized
against the appropriate background i.e., these interpretative claims about transcendentals
are made by Taoists or Buddhists. H.'s "clearing" is misleading in its spatial
connotation. Confucians prefer to talk about hearing the melody or tune of sound which is
now transformed into music/language. The temporal dimension cannot be marginalized or
overlooked. It is indispensable.
Clarify the 3 views on 117-8. 1) Hegelian
Romanticism: the creative activity is "something beyond the self"; usually
associated with the divine ("a cosmic spirit or process," 117). 2) "The
space ["clearing" for H.] is something we make" or will into being (117);
"the making of a medium in which the reality can for the first time appear"
(118). This is the Nietzschean line followed by most posties (postmodernists), like
Richard Rorty. They "see the clearing as something projected" by us 118. 3) The
intermediate position is occupied by pragmatism (Wittgenstein, H., T.) which
considers that the clearing "arises out of conversation, so that its locus [of
origination] is the speech community," 118.
I can't help but notice the strong connection with
Confucianism here: "All speakers as they enter the conversation from infancy [always
having a "ritual" or assigned role to play, as in a drama] find their identity
shaped by their relations [the roles/identity they adopt for the occasion] within a
preexisting [socially defined] space of expression," 118.
10. Translate: "the clearing is not to be ontically grounded, or
locatable, [we should not] . . . see it as self-enclosed" (119), i.e., independent of
our agency.
Now I am struck by the Hindu parallel: "It [the
clearing; meaning] couldn't happen without us, but it is not our doing. It is the basis
for all the sense that our lives make," 121. This sounds like the definition of Atman
&/or Buddhist notions of what human nature or Buddha nature. However, Hinduism &
Buddhism profess in transcendentals. Once the karmic obstacles are removed (avidja/ignorance),
human nature (i.e. Atman or Buddha nature) is self-disclosing; it blossoms like a flower.
H. would insist on the Confucian nuance: the social dimension. No one becomes an authentic
human (jen/ren) being by herself. In fact being an authentic human being is a temporal
performance which requires 5 basic human relationships.
11. This essay promised to tell us about language. Read p. 124
carefully. "Our use of language is no longer arbitrary, up for grabs, a matter of our
own feelings and purposes." So when paraphrased "a preexisting space of
expression" as socially defined or invented (in the note after #9), I was wrong. We
know that Hegel's ghosts are out; that there is not a cosmic Atman of some kind
causally at work. So, what is the status of this order/logos?
Notice the lecture against 20th c. fascism on 125-6: "the purposes [the goal or ends] are not simply human" (126); presumably they are divine - at least to those caught up or enthusiastic about the project (cf. religious zealots). "Our goals here are fixed by something we should properly see ourselves as serving. Kant has a Western answer for this: anything that requires me to forfeit reason, so that I become enslaved by some passion or non-rational belief, diminishes rather than enhances my character/identity; because I am essentially reasonable. Notice how the pragmatists (like T.) feel that they have to give up on the absolute claim (made by Kant) about reason or human nature. This is why all the talk about language (cf. reason) is so important. If the designative/atomic theory is accepted, then each individual is - in principle - free to invent/create her own gestalt or picture or language. What is the implication for ethics? Values are nothing more than personal tastes; anarchy.
On to #7: "Irreducibly Social Goods"
Oct. 96