Oddly Enough
November 8th, 2007, search relatedRelated posts :: Oddly Enough :: Oddly Enough - Existence of something, existence of an electron :: Oddly Enough :: Oddly Enough
Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> Joseph Polanik schrieb Thu, 18 Oct 2007 06:39:44 -0400:
>>
>>I must decide, as a singularity, a unique indidividual, to pursue a
>>search-focusing question such as ‘what is Being?’ or ‘what am I?’ or
>>’what is the structure of a human individual?’
>ME: The question “What am I?” forecloses the possibility that I am not
>a what. The question, “what is the structure of a human individual?”
>presupposes that an answer in the third person (as a “structure”) can
>be given.
nothing unreal is self-aware; so, I have to be a reality of some sort
— a what. but, *which* what? that is the question. whether asked in
the first person as ‘what am I?’ or in the third person as ‘what is the
structure of a human individual?’, I am not presupposing that we can
discover the answer. it may be that we can not, even in principle,
discover the answer. I am merely presupposing that there is exactly one
true answer.
>ME: Assuming that there is a universal ontological structure of human
>being, this does not preclude that it is constellated in historical
>time differently at different times, i.e. human being itself comes
>about historically.
I once knew some Christians who believed that, at some special moment in
history, God stepped in and started implanting souls into what were up
until that moment just soul-less primate bodies. or course, there is no
empirical or phenomenological evidence of such an intervention. I think
this was just their way of making peace with the theory of evolution.
what evidence would you cite for the proposition that one day the human
individual consisted of a human body and the phenomenological
experiencer of self-awareness; and, that the next (or the previous) day
the human individual consisted of those items plus an non-physical mind
or soul or self or ba or ka or whatever you wish to name it?
>>the theory of the ontological difference seems like an abstract
>>interpretation of a third-person analogue to the first-person claim
>>that
>>I call the CPI, the Confession of Partial Ignorance: I know that I am;
>>but, not what I am.
>ME: The ontological difference applies in the first place to beings out
>there in the ‘third person’. This has been the traditional stance of
>metaphysics since its inception. The first person asking of What I am?
>ends up with a third person answer, i.e. a what e.g. a res cogito or a
>res experientia.
I would consider an answer like “I am a res experientia” to be phrased
in the first person. ‘res experientia’ is a noun, though; and, it
requires more knowledge to make such a claim — more knowledge than is
required to make a claim ‘that I am’ which only requires a pronoun
rather than a noun.
in any case, are you saying that the entire difficult issue of the
ontological difference stems from the choice to pursue the question of
being in the third person rather than the first person?
Regards,
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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