CPI vs OD
November 12th, 2007, search relatedRelated posts :: No related posts
Cologne 12-Nov-2007
Joseph Polanik schrieb Sun, 11 Nov 2007 12:16:29 -0500:
> Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >Joseph Polanik
>
> >>the CPI is a more fundamental starting point than the OD. one begins
> >>to construct the OD in the attempt to answer ‘what am I?’
>
> >ME: The sense of “more fundamental” here is that of “given to
> >experience”, but it is precisely the task of philosophy to ask for the
> >presuppositions for this givenness, i.e. not to take it for granted.
> >And as I’ve said before, your setting up an opposition between CPI and
> >OD is SPURIOUS because the latter is neither an axiom nor a
> >starting-point, but has to be first brought to light by questioning the
> >presuppositions for our experience,
>
> the CPI is not an axiom. it is a statement. as a starting point, it is
> prior to the OD — which is not a starting point.
ME: I used the word “axiom” following your own usage. When you postulate a
purportedly undeniable starting-point, you are positing an axiom, aren’t you?
> >>>ME: What is presupposed in saying “I”? What is presupposed in asking
> >>>”What am I”?
>
> you seem to have a rather biased opposition to presuppositions. why
> would you ask about the presuppositions of ‘what am I?’ but not about
> the presuppositions of ‘who am I?’?
ME: Any philosophy that knows what it is is concerned with questioning ever
more deeply into its presuppositions. I do not exclude from that a
questioning of the presuppositions of ‘who am I?’.
>
> >>>Why should this “I” be somewhat at all?
>
> >>because nothing unreal is self-aware.
>
> >ME: Presupposes you have already clarified what “whatness” indicates.
>
> are you claiming that something that is not real in any sense can
> somehow be self-aware?
ME: No.
>
> >ME: The point being that to think “self-awareness” presupposes having
> >thought through awareness, which is ontologically prior.
>
> true, self-awareness presupposes awareness. what of it? can someone in a
> coma proceed “by questioning the presuppositions for our experience”?
> can someone without awareness contrast the “dimension of the
> first-and-second person” or the “dimension of the first-and-third
> person”
>
> all aspects of philosophical inquiry presuppose awareness.
ME: Being able to do philosophy presupposes a lot of things ontically,
including not lying in a coma and having awareness of the world around us.
But philosophizing as such is the putting into question of what we always
already presuppose so that the deepest structure of the world, its
ontological structure can be brought to light. That’s why philosophy always
seems to be dealing with obviousnesses and tivialities, and that’s why it is
so often ridiculed. There is nothing self-evident in philosophy. Triviality
turns into mystery. What we know very well and are entirely familiar with
becomes enigmatic. Paradoxically, philosophy brings to light what we already
know, but do not know.
> >>I’ve addressed the difference between whatness and whoness in my
> >>recent reply to Jan.
>
> >ME: Your reply to Jan merely made a distinction between the universal
> >and the individual, which is inadequate to grasping the difference
> >between whatness and whoness.
>
> in my reply to Jan, I pointed out that asking ‘what am I?’ is a
> first-person way of inquiring as to the structure of a human individual.
>
> unless you are claiming that the structure of the human individual can
> vary by, say, racial or ethnic grouping, the answer to ‘what am I?’ has
> to be universal? would you not agree?
>
> in contrast, asking ‘who am I?’ inquires about accidental features that
> distinquish me from other humans. the features Jan mentioned were all of
> this latter variety.
ME: Both somewhats and somewhos are marked by both universality and
singularity (individuality), and each human individual is marked by both
whatness and whoness, both of which are universals. Singularity is not a
matter of having “accidental features” but is, in the first place, the
universal of being a singular, individual entity. The whatness of a human
individual concerns its first-and-third person relation with the world in
both directions, i.e. its relation to the world of objects and conversely, it
being understood and dealt with by others as an object (e.g. a patient
undergoing heart surgery is being understood and treated — primarily — as a
third-person object). By contrast, whoness concerns the first-and-second
person relation with the world in both directions, i.e. the mutual mirroring
among human beings of who they are. Here the phenomena of recognition,
estimation, esteem, appreciation/depreciation, honouring/dishonouring,
fame/notoriety, etc. come into play (e.g. a convalescing heart surgery
patient is being understood and treated more in the second person as someone
requiring care, attention, respect, etc.)
>
> >In the phenomenon of whoness, at the very least, the dimension of the
> >first-and-second person must come into play vis-à-vis the dimension of
> >first-and-third person as the traditional dimension for ontological
> >questioning in which whatness inter alia is situated.
>
> whatness is ontologically prior to whoness. I have to be a human
> individual before I can identify which one I am.
ME: I agree that “whatness is ontologically prior to whoness” but not for the
reason you state.
>
> >>the CPI is taken as the starting point precisely because it
> >>facilitates inquiry as to the reality type of the referent of ‘I’.
>
> >>in previous posts I’ve mentioned that the root predicate has three
> >>’types’ or ‘modes’ — which in my useage I’ve named:
>
> >>1. existential (physical)
> >>2. phenomenological (experiential)
> >>3. ontological (non-physical being)
>
> >ME: All of which I have questioned in a previous post.
>
> >>each reality type is numbered as shown. now, in order to be precise
> >>when precision is needed, it is possible to subscript the first person
> >>singular pronoun according to the reality type asserted by its user.
>
> >>[more on subscripted pronouns: http://what-am-i.net/symbology.htm]
>
> >>you say that the use of ‘I’ presupposes self-awareness; and, I quite
> >>agree. but which ‘I’ is self-aware? am I-1 self-aware? am I-2
> >>self-aware? am I-3 self-aware?
>
> >ME: Subscripts only formalize distinctions; they don’t bring anything
> >to light.
>
> thank you for acknowledging the quality of the workmanship that went
> into constructing this system of subscripted pronouns.
>
> *they were not intended to shine with any light of their own*.
>
> they were intended to allow a speakers/writers/thinkers to illuminate a
> murky situation with their own light.
>
> >>when ‘what am I?’ is actually asked, presuppositions are not
> >>acceptable as answers.
>
> >ME: Hegel deconstructed the starting-point with the “I” two centuries
> >ago. Cf. the introduction to his Logik (i.e. his ontology) with his
> >critique of Fichte’s starting-point. I am not proposing
> >”presuppositions” as “answers”, but showing that your axiom “I know
> >that I am” is not fundamental, but itself based on presuppositions
> >(what is the sense of “I am”?) that have to be brought to light as
> >ontologically prior.
>
> Among the distractions (non-answers) presupposed by this last paragraph
> are:
>
> 1: that the CPI is an axiom. it is not. see above.
>
> 2: that you can quote only the first half of the CPI without distorting
> it. the CPI is the whole statement, “I know that I am; but, not what I
> am”.
ME: I am not trying to rob you of half your CPI.
>
> 3: that the CPI is not undeniably true as I have claimed. if you claim
> that the first part (the part you quoted) is deniable; then, by all
> means, *present* your denial. perform it; and, your performance of your
> own denial will be self-refuting. the second part of the CPI is also
> undeniable; but, for a different reason. since it reports a subjective
> fact — my own awareness and assessment of what I know and do not know
> — I am incorrigible (in the sense used by Rorty) as to this statement:
> you could not possibly know that it is false. are you actually going to
> allege that I know what I am when I say that I do not? in any event, if
> you claim that you have knowledge sufficient to answer the ‘what am I?’
> question; then, by all means tell us what it is, where it came from, and
> how the state of not having that knowledge is not ontologically prior to
> the state of having such knowledge.
ME: Speaking for myself, I would not deny that “I am”, but, even if I took
this assertion as a starting-point for philosophical reflection, I would be
led straight to asking what the sense of this “I” and “am” are. With “am” the
question of being has already appeared on the horizon. If however, you are
postulating your CPI, or only the second part of it, as an assertion of
“subjective fact” in the sense of what you hold to be the state of affairs
for yourself individually, then I can’t anything at all about it, because you
are only positing your opinion. As Hegel says, my Meinung (opinion) is meins
(mine) — it’s a private matter. But then any claim you may have to
universality falls flat. Your “confession” remains your own private affair.
>
> 5: that the OD does not have the presuppostions you allege the CPI has.
> since I am claiming that the CPI is ontologically prior to the OD, it is
> not really pertinent to claim that the CPI has presuppositions *unless*
> you can show that they are not also presuppositions of the OD.
>
> 6: that I am claiming that there is nothing more to be brought to light
> concerning the statement “I am”. not only have I not made such a claim,
> I have presented tools with which to facilitate this bringing to light.
> obviously, you are not required to use my tools; but, you haven’t said
> what tools you have used instead — or what you’ve found thru their
> use.
>
> 7. that what is brought to light is always an ontologically prior
> presupposition. this unproven belief is itself a presupposition of your
> claims above; and, a case could be made that what is brought to light in
> the clarification of ‘I am’ is the necessity of choosing a root
> predicate. the choice made is obviously subsequent to the bringing to
> light the necessity for making a choice. in any event, the CPI is
> ontologically prior to the OD because the CPI describes a state of
> awareness prior to choosing a root predicate while the OD describes a
> state of awareness subsequent to choosing a root predicate.
ME: Let’s do a little finger exercise in thinking to see if unearthing
presuppositions (i.e. that which is posited prior) as a way of proceeding is
merely an “unproven belief”. The alternative would be to simply accept prior
positings unquestioningly as given. If “the CPI describes a state of
awareness”, then awareness itself is the root or primordial phenomenon (not
“predicate”) in which all else is then inscribed and predicated, i.e.
awareness-of-… is prior to awareness of myself and awareness of anything
else, which presuppose a difference between myself and something other. Then
awareness without any further determination, i.e. pure, immediate/unmediated
presence, would be more originary that “I am”, i.e. self-awareness. The
difference between “I am” and (not) “what I am” in the CPI obliterates itself
of itself in something more originary, namely, in the pure, undifferentiated
presence of awareness per se which, of course, is also ontologically prior to
the OD, which refers to beings AS beings. But here, in this pure,
undifferentiated presence of awareness per se there is nothing, no being, no
contour of difference that would allow any being (entity) at all to be made
out. Nevertheless, it is in this open space of awareness in which any being
at all will be determined, defined by its limits.
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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_-
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> >>that is why I say the state of self-awareness described by the CPI is
> >>more fundamental. at the point where I know only that I Am, the
> >>referent of ‘I’ appears (in your terminology, shows itself); but, I
> >>don’t yet know enough to say I appear (or am showing myself) *as* this
> >>such-and-such instead of that such-and-such.
>
> >ME: The paradoxical and unique thing about philosophy is that it brings
> >to light through well-founded concepts (that’s the sense of
> >phenomen-ology) what we as human beings always already understand (and
> >must understand to be human beings), but do not know that we already
> >understand it.
>
> okay, so you are claiming that you already understand that the CPI is
> ontologically prior to the OD; but, that you just don’t understand it
> yet.
>
> Perhaps this post will help. 
>
> Joe
>
