What to do with this site? Can it be rebirthed or redesigned into something workable or should I just resign and focus my attention elsewhere? Until then if there is any archived material that you wish to access let me know and I can give you the password…
]]>Philosophy has grappled with ontological question of what it means to be human. In light of the disruptive effect which technology is supposed to bring to our understanding of what it means to be human we first need a clear basis from which to survey the field. There are two specific tasks that will enable this analysis. The first a historical overview of how technology has shaped how humanity have lived our lives, from the emergence of agriculture, iron, the compass, the telescope through to mass media, the aeroplane and the internet. Each technology is proclaimed to disrupt the established order. This may be right from a social and political aspect. New and exciting opportunities are opened up whereby humans can engage in new set of activities. On the other hand, the continual technical development that has been a hallmark of humanity has not disrupted, fundamentally what it means to be human. A more sophisticated set of tools are still only as useful as the skill of the operator.
A brief survey of technological development reveals that there is an essential element to being human. It is this element, an essentialism which is evident on the most basic level through our corporeality. The body, the flesh, is central. Again, there have been developments throughout history in our understanding and valuation of the body. From the four humors through to advanced neuroscience, these elements present a picture of what we know about ourselves. However, it is how we engage with the world around us, objects and others that is the fundamental condition we have towards the world. Technologies disrupt this, the present new ways of engaging, new opportunities to put different skills to test, extend the limitations of the human body – machines for strength, for processing data, for movement. But the question to which I will return is how do we engage with these things, with the world comprised of objects that we manipulate.
One more segue comes to mind – communication. The technologies that have disrupted the most have involved communication. The exchange that is promised by communication, the sharing and gathering of knowledge, the freedom to move, travel and meet new people – communication technology has had a profound affect on political and social organisation. By positioning the human in a historical context with technology I will attempt to examine how technological advancement transforms the world in which we live and our mechanisms by which we understand it but does not effect the way our corporeal bodies interact within the world.
The cyborg presents a conundrum, yet fundamentally it is a human body with the physical body extended through technology, not an information machine attempting to be human. Does the cyborg present a problem for understanding the human as embodied? I’m not too sure, for if cyborgs are human at their core, are they not embodied too, which means they face specific opportunities and limitations as the rest of us…
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A return to thinking, a return to thought. This is only a sketch, a beginning, a segue. What it lacks in academic rigor is compensated by the fact that it is an emergent idea. Unformed yet a mark on the page a presentation into the ether. Return to research means turning towards an idea, something concrete, eschewing the proper name as the object of research and utilising them as support, assistants in attempting to understand what it means to be human in a technological world…
]]>Four years of blogging this month. It is interesting to think what has occurred over the past four years with the initial dabble into the blogging about all the deep and meaningful questions and research I was undertaking through music and politics to now snippets of actual research.
Smaller forms of communication now find themselves in a much more prominent place, the blog once the main vehicle for online communication is supplemented with twitter, facebook, delicious and a myriad of other tools online… it will be interesting to see what the next four year unfold…
]]>Reframe the question in relation to risk. What does the gambler choose? How can the probabilities of the various successes be factored into a coherent structure through risk? Eventually the price becomes known and a new set of conditions structure the next development of a coherent narrative. Ultimately everything is uncertain, everything is unknown leading to the minimisation of risk and a tempering of success. A temporal trade off today or a ripple that disrupts the future, both cards lie in the present. Coherence comes through knowing the evaluation, execution and expectations.
And in the end the cards say 22, walk away and pause for they could have just as easily said 19…
]]>This thesis seeks to examine the body in Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty focusing on where the corporeal subject is in their account of the being of being human. The body is a contested topic, as is evidenced by the multitudes of definitions of the body. Such definitions include the body identified by the soul in Aristotle, the body being a metaphor for culture in Nietzsche to the body being shaped by power in Foucault. Contemporary philosophers working in the post-phenomenological tradition have thought through the relationship between embodiment and being. Philosophers including Elizabeth Grosz, Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, Alphonso Lingis and Jean-Luc Nancy have all written on the body. The contemporary debate has developed from earlier renditions of being and corporeality which have appeared throughout the history of philosophy. Two key thinkers in twentieth century philosophy who have had an impact on thinking the question of being are Martin Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. However, it is Descartes philosophy of the body which provides an anchor for modern philosophy’s thinking of the body. The Cartesian body will provide the anchor for this thesis which will enable a critical engagement with the thinking of corporeality and being in Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty.
Careful consideration needs to be given to the way the corporeal subject is positioned within Descartes work. This will enable an assessment of the way that Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty position the body in philosophy. The role of the body in Descartes’ metaphysics is developed in The Meditations on First Philosophy. In Meditations, Descartes positions the body in relation to mind seeing “a great difference between the mind and the body, inasmuch as the body is by its very nature always divisible, while the mind is utterly indivisible.”1 Descartes presents the mind as separate to the body. For the body is a divisible thing, consisting of organs which are represented through mechanical functions, yet this body also contains a mind. It is the body’s role, through the senses to feed information to the mind. However, it is the mind that is the location for all understanding, it is the location of the self; the site where all knowledge emanates. This mind is marked by it being a whole entity, for if a body lost its eyes then the sense of sight is lost, the mind according to Descartes cannot be divided. The rationalisation for the primacy of the mind exists in engaging with concepts within the world. Descartes states that the knowledge of things outside of the body while sleeping could not have emanated externally. Accordingly:
Every sensory experience I have ever thought I was having while awake I can also think of myself as sometimes having while asleep; and since I do not believe that what I seem to perceive in sleep comes from things located outside me, I did not see why I should be any more inclined to believe this of what I think I perceive while awake.2
This denial of the corporeal subject as the site of being is central to Descartes’ understanding of what it means to be human. Recognising the impact of Descartes in the history of philosophy, it is important to work through the Cartesian body before thinking about alternatives for the body as it pertains to the being of being human.
Martin Heidegger’s philosophy is based upon being, specifically the question what is the being of being which is the central concern of his 1927 text Being and Time. Heidegger’s inquiry into being is not through ascertaining the metaphysical categories ascribed to being instead he probes being at the ontological level. Yet Heidegger notes the contested nature of his project from the start stating: “Being is the most universal and emptiest of concepts… it resists every attempt at definition.”3 The text, which Heidegger abandoned after what he actually projected as the first two divisions of part one, contains a detailed account of being as it exists within the world. The text is only partially successful in its aim, yet still has very important implications for the understanding of the being of being human. While there are many questions which emerge from Being and Time, I will explicitly focus on how Heidegger negotiates corporeality in the question of being. Dasein is the ground upon which being rests. The literal translation from German is Da-Sein with da denoting ‘there’ or ‘here’ and sein being. Heidegger states that Dasein manifests itself in the world, negotiating the subtle relationships that exist between itself and objects in the world. It is through Dasein which provides a critique of Descartes that the body is opened to questioning. Being represented through Dasein is a more expansive definition of being than the Cartesian mind. The position of the corporeal subject is unclear in Heidegger however, it is important to notes that Dasein is fundamental to being of being human as: “Dasein is an entity which in each case I myself am.”4 Dasein is already conflated to the I, the self, the subject that then enables a critical response to Heidegger’s project in relation to the body. Two key texts will be consulted from Heidegger’s early writings, Being and Time and The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics. These two texts provide an insight into Heidegger’s early engagement with being, which shifted significantly in his later thought with the disappearance of Dasein.
Developing upon the phenomenological work of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty positions the corporeal subject at the centre of his philosophy by pursuing the question of being in relation to embodiment. Merleau-Ponty’s project is concerned with investigating the phenomenological condition which arises from the senses, specifically perception. This perception begins with the body, the perception of the body of the subject. Phenomenology provides the basis for Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. Through an inquiry into phenomena, Merleau-Ponty attempts to establish an embodied sense of being, one which treats the body as its primary object of concern. This development positions the body and embodiment as central to Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of the being of being human. However, Merleau-Ponty also has another project in operation, a sustained critique of Descartes. The Phenomenology of Perception is the central text for engaging with Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy as it pertains to being, the body and Descartes. This text and supporting literature will be researched in order to assess which ways Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy positions the embodied subject centrally in relation to being. Subsequent research will then develop what implications Merleau-Ponty’s embodied account of being has for Heidegger’s project.
Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty can also be judged based on the success of their critiques of Descartes. Lurking behind their critiques however is the question of how to position the body in relation to being. Yet, it is the inquiry into how the body is represented that enables an opening of the understanding of the meaning of the being of being human. The structure of this thesis is as follows; firstly, the thesis will situate the body philosophically in order to ground its relevance and to explore what implications (if any) arise as Merleau-Ponty proposes from centring philosophical discourse on the embodied subject. Descartes is an anchor; he provides the framework of references that enables a comparison of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. A critical engagement can occur through assessing how Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty think of being and embodiment along with their critiques of Descartes. The final chapter of this thesis will examine the interconnection between Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty reflecting upon what can be gained through the positioning of the body within the world, in space and time.
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1. Descartes, René. Philosophical Writings Vol. 2. p. 59.
2. Descartes, René. Philosophical Writings Vol. 2. p. 53.
3. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. p. 21 [H 2].
4. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. p. 73 [H 53].
It is a great relief that I have finally put key to board and developed a coherent thesis plan that will provide a solid basis for the years ahead.
]]>The crux of the problem is attempting to understand how Heidegger transcends Descartes metaphysics, what is the role given to the body in Heidegger’s early thought. His thinking in Being and Time presents a specific way of understanding. That text, coupled with The Fundamental Problems of Metaphysics presents a way for understanding Heidegger’s lack of engagement with the body. This silence, a silence of the material, is striking in that Heidegger’s project is to overcome metaphysics. Subsequently, judgement can be made on how Heidegger attempts to engage with Descartes in his early philosophy before the turn. Temporality
The second consideration is how Merleau-Ponty fits into all this. Basically, I am attempting to use Descartes as a point of reference for Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty in order to tease out what the body means for both of them. Heidegger in his silence, just like the question and Merleau-Ponty in the active stance he takes with embodiment and ontology. Subsequent to this are the key considerations of time (Heidegger) and space (Merleau-Ponty). These are linked, into the whole structure of space-time which contains the world around us. Encounters with the world can be with objects ready-to-hand for consideration, such as the glass of wine which I know is approaching low, or the broad brush streaks, such as a week in the spatial confines of the office. Both of these images are ready in my mind. Is there anything to learn through an engagement of Merleau-Ponty to early Heidegger, spatiality to temporality in the attempt to describe a fundamental ontology. Or are both of them bound by metaphysics and fail to overcome the position articulated by Descartes separating subject from object.
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