No substitute for the individual’s own seeing.

“Each person must go through his own philosophical performance, interrogate his experience, and come to terms with what he can make of his fellow man’s claims and pronouncements. The burden of responsibility falls always, again and again, on the concrete individual who has to find his point of access to philosophy The significance of an egological orientation becomes apparent here. There is no substitute for the individual’s own seeing. But is should also be clear that the ultimacy of an egological ground does not mean that “seeing” is an easy or automatic affair”.

Maurice Natanson: Edmund Husserl. Philosopher of Infinite Tasks, Norwestern University Press, Evanston 1973.

PUZZLE POST.

Well, why not?

Oprah Winfrey. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.

Well, why not?

You probably didn’t think I had a picture of Oprah Winfrey. True, this morning I didn’t, but now I do. Just to remind you that absence can be turned into precence if you work on it. Please read this post and stay alert for more .

As I told you, Oprah Winfrey is in Copenhagen for the last push for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Chicago. Here leaving the lunch at the Royal Palace Amalienborg in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Yes, the Danish Queen was there too. In pink.

Go here for more images moving into precence .

Phenomenology: The Larger Picture.

Presence and Absence. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven

Following this blog you will agree with me that it stills needs a more practical approach to phenomenology. We need some tools that can be applied when doing, understanding and analyzing pieces of communication. Being it text or pictures or other.

Aspects of gestalt psychology have been pretty well covered in a number of posts. So have certain practical aspects of semiology. And there are plenty of useful information on both advertising efficiency and human behaviour, for readers that seek that kind information. (To be linked later).

The next series of posts will deal with a more practical approach to phenomenology. This is important since we have stated several times, already, that phenomenology takes up a special position within the barebones universe being both the basic of reflection as well as a particular area of investigation. Normally you refer to phenomenology as the method of phenomenology. The phenomenological method has been randomly covered by a series of posts taking it offset in the big book on phenomenology by late philosopher Herbert Spiegelberg. The big book being his The Phenomenological Movement. This however is by far not enough. Spiegelberg’s steps of phenomenology may be good, but not very practical.

Making the whole area more practical shall be very interesting since a similar effort had never been done before. Correct me if I am wrong here, but in my humble opinion this is the case. I am pretty sure that this effort have never been tried in anything that resembles a communication theory. So, it will be interesting to see what develops in the course of the future posts on barebones.

It is all in the photograph above. I call it Presence and Absence. There may be some presence, but there are certainly more absence. Let’s see, then,  if we can get more absence present.

Please take a note that this post is written the day before President Obama arrives for the IOC conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. Michelle Obama arrived early yesterday and so did the Spanish King, The Brazilian President, and Oprah Winfrey. And many more celebrities doing a warm up of for the 2016 Olympics. Chicago Tribune calls it The Big Push. Friday all will be settled since the voter’s votes will have been cast. And all the presidents will leave.

What this last information has to do will phenomenology? Well, the facts are certainly there, aren’t they? And the celebrity information around IOC’s meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, is likewise missing from the picture above, right? That is precisely why this information belong to the photograph.

Confused? Just wait till you read the next post on phenomenology. That post will deal with presence and absence and everything will become clear to you .

Have a good morning.

………………………..

More posts in this section.

Library Thing.

… a profile is private and subjective.

Modiglianis. Copyright 2009. Knut Skjærven.

“As I move away from the spot and you move into it, you see the same aspect that I just saw, but you will be experiencing profiles that are different from the ones I experienced, because the profiles are the momentary presentations, not the look or the view or the aspect that can be seen by many viewers. An aspect, a side, and of course the building itself are all intersubjective, but a profile is private and subjective”.

Robert Sokolowski: Introduction to Phenomenology,  Cambridge University Press, New Yourk 2000.

Paintings by Amadeo Modigliani. Painting at left hand side: “Alice” (about 1918). Painting at the right hand side: “Self Portrait as Pierrot” (1915). Both are at Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark), Copenhagen, Denmark.

Minkowski’s Measure

Minkowski's Measure. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.

“I say that I am expressing myself in an inexact manner. This is true. This imperfection, however, is not due to the insufficiency of the means at my disposal but result from the fact that becoming does not try to be expressed. What I mean to say is that, in its mysterious power, becoming leaves no island upon which we can set foot in order to arrive at a definition or a judgement in its regard. With its waves is covers over all that we might be tempted to set over against it. It known neither subjects nor objects. I has neither distinct parts, nor direction, nor beginning, nor end. It is neither reversible nor irreversible. It is universal and impersonal. It becomes chaotic.  And yet, it is quite close to us, so close that it constitutes the very base of our life. We would almost like to say that it is the synonym of life in the broadest sense of the word.”

Eugène Minkowski: Lived Time. Phenomenological and Psycopathological Studies, translated by Nancy Metzel, Northwestern University Press, Evanston 1970 page 18.

Library Thing. More on pitstops.

Sleep Walking Watchmen

The SleepWalkers. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.

Maybe you did not know this. The Royal Guard in Copenhagen, Denmark, have been at it for a couple of 100 years. They have such a routine in their job (guarding the Danish Queen and/or King) that they now do it with their eyes shut. Believe it or not.

Clever they are.

And a good weekend to you, as well .

Susan Boyle: I am 47, and that’s just one side of me.

I have never heard of Susan Boyle. Have you? She is a contester in Britain’s Got Talent. A friend sent me a link yesterday, and I am speechless.

I can’t embed the video from YouTube so you have to activate the link below.

She is 47, and that is just one side of her. See the other side.

Why do I post this link here? Well, hermeneutics is all  about accepting pre-conceptions, pre-judgement as an element of understanding. Let Susan Boyle sing for you, and you will know what I mean. Look at, and listen to the judges in particular. Then the audience. Someone certainly got their pre-conception modified here. And so did I. This is the hermeneutic circle on parade.

There is a little side effect here as well. Look at the video a couple of times, and please notice that the looks of Susan Boyle gets a little better after each view. Connotations on the moved.  Barebones calls this phenomenon the Susan Boyle Syndrome. From now on.

The Susan Boyle Syndrome goes like this: The more you get to enjoy a thing, the more positive connotations will be. Connotations change. This sounds very simple, and rather obvious in this case. My point is simply this; when you work with communication (on every level and within every area), it is a good idea to take;  a) a closer look on what is going on, b) extract and refine basics principles and c) put these principles to use in future communication.

As a digression, I should point out that the ability to learn from everyday experience like The Susan Boyle event, is of paramount importance when working with, and within, creativity models. It is simply, stated once again, a tactic for new combinations of elements. In other words Creatics.

Regarding Susan Boyle, my guess is that we have only seen the beginning yet. And barebones will stay tuned.

And what a great sentence that is: I am 47, and that’s just one side of me. Lots of new combinations there. Love it.

What Persists Unseen

What Persists Unseen. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.

“I hope in this way to reinforce an insight that is threatened with oblivion in our swiftly changing age. Things that change force themselves on our attention far more than those remains the same. That is a general law of our intellectual life. Hence the perspectives that results from the experience of historical change are always in danger of being exaggarated because they forget what persists unseen.”

Hans-George Gadamer: Truth and Method, Continuum, 2006, London/New York.

Library Thing.

Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation, Prague 2008. (c)

“Let us proceed to the exposition. Spiritual Europe has a birthplace. By this I mean not a geographical birthplace, in one land, though this is also true, but rather a spiritual birthplace in a nation or in individual men and human groups of this nation. It is the ancient Greek nation in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. Here there arises a new sort of attitude of individuals toward their surrounding world. And its consequences is the breakthrough of a completely new sort of spiritual structure, rapidly growing into a systematically self-enclosed cultural form; the Greek called it philosophy. Correctly translated, in the original sense, that means nothing other than universal science, science of the universe, of the all-encompassing unity of all that is. Soon the interest in the All, and thus the question of the all-encompassing becoming and being in becoming, begins to particularize itself according to the general forms and regions of being, and thus philosophy, the one science branches out into many particular sciences.”

Edmund Husserl: “The Crisis of European Sciences and the Transcendental Phenomenology”, Northers University Press, 1970, page 276. Translated by David Carr.

Library Thing. Amazon.

The barebones visualisation of this quote from Husserl it right here. You have seen it many times already.

The Light Enlightens

Pink Pathos (c).

I found this fantastic quote on a photo site recently. It says: “the light enlightens both the subject and the photographer”. Well, one can always hope. Some would call the quote an inventive phrase for “intentionality“.

Courtesy Federico Gentili. I picked the quote from his photosite.

And besides we had snow today. These Dutch tulips gives great aspirations of spring.