The kinds of things that go through my mind on a Saturday morning.
For any of you who are philosophically minded (that includes all you dick joke types), I've got an idea rattling around in my head. I'd appreciate it if any of you could read it to see if I'm making sense. If it does make sense, what do you think?
Does it do us any good to think of the world in terms of a subject/object dichotomy?
I don't think I'm trying to suggest that these terms are useless or meaningless (although I might be), but that they are not helpful in describing the ontology of the world. To me, subject/object suggests some separation that can never be breached, but I think this is a flawed view. As subjects, we are not alone in our own creation, we are not isolated, separate. Objects, and particularly objects that can be thought of as "technological artefacts" (ie. something created by the hand of man), do not exist in some separate world from us, we give them their meaning (some may notice the Heidegger slipping in here).
I'll draw the best analogy I've come up with yet. So says the saying, "no man is an island", and I believe this nugget of folk wisdom to be true. However, let us for a second imagine that all men are islands (apologies to the politically correct for not using "humans", but a) I'm male and b) it ruins the poetry). Imagine that all objects are islands. Everything is separate. But is it? Not at all, it is all connected by the water that surrounds each island. Each island is influenced by the ocean; soil erosion and depositing, the shifting of flotsam and jetsam from place to place. We can think of the ocean as the connections between each of us, our artefacts, other beings and the world. It is the idea of the inventor, the determination of the entrepreneur, the skill of the engineer, the desire of the consumer. All of these subjects and objects are intimately connected to each other, so it doesn't make any sense to separate them. Nor does it make any sense to try and understand any of the islands on their own, they can only be understood as part of the archipelago. Otherwise one doesn't understand the tides and currents that shape and form the island (which are themselves shaped and formed by other islands).
I think this is what Heidegger is getting at with Gestell (enframing). Gestell is the ocean. Gestell is the ontological aspect that we should be looking at to understand our world, not subjects and objects.
Why do I think this? Well, I've been reading a bit of Heidegger and Arendt lately, and I'm particularly interested in their ideas of the problems with modernity. Arendt talks of the Animal Laborans, the worker who has been enslaved by the industrial revolution. Animal Laborans is the result of the individualisation of the self. In the modern world, we have been shaped and pared down and packaged into nice little units to be used as resources by the industrial machine. However, individuality does not imply uniqueness. We are all individual in the same way all the cogs in a machine are individual.
However, I think both Heidegger and Arendt are making a fatal flaw in believing that science and technology have caused this (although Arendt lightens up a bit on this in her later editions of Origins of Totalitarianism). I see this as totally inauthentic. I think they see science and technology as the problem because it is the most obvious change in the world between the time of Homo Faber (the pre-industrial, creative worker) and Animal Laborans. It is indeed empirical belief that has led us to this point, but it is not science. It is philosophy.
Pirsig sees the subject/object dichotomy extending from empirical reasoning and logic. Things are or they aren't. You are me, or not me. However, this completely ignores the oceans I was talking about before. I'm not just me, but I am also pieces of everyone I've ever met, the culture I grew up in, the education I received. I believe it is this push, by Philosophers, that has led to Animal Laborans. As it is only with the language and understanding of subject/object that we are able to see people as individual, but not unique, resources. It allows us to think that we are, indeed, an island, but that the ocean does not touch our shores.
If any of you have studied any Hindu philosophy, this concept is very similar to the idea of Atman and Brahman (I'm ripping it off Heidegger somewhat, he ripped it off the Hindu's). Can we really think that we are not connected to the rest of the universe in some way we either cannot fathom, or do not fully understand? What would happen to a child raised in a totally blank room, without any concept of 'things' or 'other people' (ie. subject and object). Would they see themselves as alone in the universe, or as the universe? There is only one, but it is all, so you're not alone, you're intimately connected to everything.
Sorry if I'm not making perfect sense, this is largely a brain fart, and I need some other people to bounce it off. Thanks.
Does it do us any good to think of the world in terms of a subject/object dichotomy?
I don't think I'm trying to suggest that these terms are useless or meaningless (although I might be), but that they are not helpful in describing the ontology of the world. To me, subject/object suggests some separation that can never be breached, but I think this is a flawed view. As subjects, we are not alone in our own creation, we are not isolated, separate. Objects, and particularly objects that can be thought of as "technological artefacts" (ie. something created by the hand of man), do not exist in some separate world from us, we give them their meaning (some may notice the Heidegger slipping in here).
I'll draw the best analogy I've come up with yet. So says the saying, "no man is an island", and I believe this nugget of folk wisdom to be true. However, let us for a second imagine that all men are islands (apologies to the politically correct for not using "humans", but a) I'm male and b) it ruins the poetry). Imagine that all objects are islands. Everything is separate. But is it? Not at all, it is all connected by the water that surrounds each island. Each island is influenced by the ocean; soil erosion and depositing, the shifting of flotsam and jetsam from place to place. We can think of the ocean as the connections between each of us, our artefacts, other beings and the world. It is the idea of the inventor, the determination of the entrepreneur, the skill of the engineer, the desire of the consumer. All of these subjects and objects are intimately connected to each other, so it doesn't make any sense to separate them. Nor does it make any sense to try and understand any of the islands on their own, they can only be understood as part of the archipelago. Otherwise one doesn't understand the tides and currents that shape and form the island (which are themselves shaped and formed by other islands).
I think this is what Heidegger is getting at with Gestell (enframing). Gestell is the ocean. Gestell is the ontological aspect that we should be looking at to understand our world, not subjects and objects.
Why do I think this? Well, I've been reading a bit of Heidegger and Arendt lately, and I'm particularly interested in their ideas of the problems with modernity. Arendt talks of the Animal Laborans, the worker who has been enslaved by the industrial revolution. Animal Laborans is the result of the individualisation of the self. In the modern world, we have been shaped and pared down and packaged into nice little units to be used as resources by the industrial machine. However, individuality does not imply uniqueness. We are all individual in the same way all the cogs in a machine are individual.
However, I think both Heidegger and Arendt are making a fatal flaw in believing that science and technology have caused this (although Arendt lightens up a bit on this in her later editions of Origins of Totalitarianism). I see this as totally inauthentic. I think they see science and technology as the problem because it is the most obvious change in the world between the time of Homo Faber (the pre-industrial, creative worker) and Animal Laborans. It is indeed empirical belief that has led us to this point, but it is not science. It is philosophy.
Pirsig sees the subject/object dichotomy extending from empirical reasoning and logic. Things are or they aren't. You are me, or not me. However, this completely ignores the oceans I was talking about before. I'm not just me, but I am also pieces of everyone I've ever met, the culture I grew up in, the education I received. I believe it is this push, by Philosophers, that has led to Animal Laborans. As it is only with the language and understanding of subject/object that we are able to see people as individual, but not unique, resources. It allows us to think that we are, indeed, an island, but that the ocean does not touch our shores.
If any of you have studied any Hindu philosophy, this concept is very similar to the idea of Atman and Brahman (I'm ripping it off Heidegger somewhat, he ripped it off the Hindu's). Can we really think that we are not connected to the rest of the universe in some way we either cannot fathom, or do not fully understand? What would happen to a child raised in a totally blank room, without any concept of 'things' or 'other people' (ie. subject and object). Would they see themselves as alone in the universe, or as the universe? There is only one, but it is all, so you're not alone, you're intimately connected to everything.
Sorry if I'm not making perfect sense, this is largely a brain fart, and I need some other people to bounce it off. Thanks.