CPI vs OD
November 8th, 2007, search relatedRelated posts :: No related posts
Jan Straathof wrote:
> Hi Joe, you wrote:
>
>>I know that I am; but, not what I am.
>
> You have used this ‘maxim’ a couple of times now in your posts,
> but i must confess i don’t really understand what you mean by it.
> Of what i know, or can guess from your presence here on the list,
> at least the following can be said about what/who you are:
>
> - you are Joe (Joseph Polanik)
> - you are a male person
> - you are of a certain age
> - you are born in country X, city Y
> - you are a person whose ancestors came from Poland
> - you are part of a certain cultural tradition
> - you are educated at school X, Y, Z
> - you are working at company X
> - you are member of political party Y
> - you are (f.i.) a good cook
> - you are (f.i.) a lousy baseball player
> - you are partner of ….
> - you are a fan of ….
> - you are delighted by …
> - you are fearful of ….
> - you are angried by …..
> - you are interested in philosophy
> - you are etc. etc. etc.
>
> I believe that all these and many more characteristics make what you
> are now, i.e. what it is that make you the unique person “Joe”. And
> your personal ‘whatness’ is not finished, as long as you live you will
> keep questioning and searching for new answers. Heidegger once said:
> “Questioning means: being able to wait, even a whole life long”.
>
> What am i missing ?
you are missing the difference between ‘what am I?’ and ‘who am I?’.
these questions are not interchangeable. as I see it, ‘who am I?’ asks
about my individuality or uniqueness. you’ve listed some inferences
you’ve made as to *who* I am based on the content of my posts.
in contrast, ‘what am I?’, at least as I use it, is a first person way
of asking ‘what is the structure of a human individual?’. it asks about
universality rather than individuality.
the statement (or ‘maxim’) that I’ve named the CPI, “I know that I am;
but, not what I am”, describes the starting point for someone who asks
‘what am I?’ in search of a universal answer.
in the current context of the discussion thus far concerning the OD, I
would say that the awareness expressed by the CPI is prior to the OD.
in the beginning, all I know is that I am self-aware. because nothing
unreal is self-aware, I conclude that I am a reality of some sort. this
doesn’t tell me much. it only identifies the root predicate that I use.
I still have no idea what sort of reality I am; but, pursuing this
question seems to generate the network of concepts said to be between
subject and object (or between ‘that I am’ and ‘what I am’).
> ps. I am still working on your previous question about Heidegger
> and the mind-body problem; will come …. DV
I’m looking forward to it.
Joe
–
Philosophy is, after all, done ultimately in the first person for the
first person. — H-N Castaneda
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http://what-am-i.net
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