SIGNS OF SOME-THING ELSE / III
CODA / THE TRUE
When we are no longer one thing ...
There are days these days
When one could put
One’s hand straight
Through things,
When ‘where’ we are
Is not at all
Where nominal things
Are to be found ...
Rock and water,
Curtains bathed
In light and shadow,
Written in light,
White and grey cloth,
Moment by moment ...
Or, when what we are
Shifts to another ‘hour’,
An ‘other’ place,
To ‘where’ and ‘when’
We are outside,
Bereft of memory
Or merely staring
Into things ...
‘Where’ we are
What we are,
And there where
We are what we know
To be True ...
GK (DRAFT 08/01/07)
Kojève/Hegel: “Man’s humanity ‘comes to light’ only in risking his life to satisfy his human Desire -- that is, his Desire directed toward another Desire.” --Alexandre Kojève, “In Place of an Introduction” [pp. 3-30], Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. James H. Nicholas Jr. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980), p. 7; first published as Introduction à la Lecture de Hegel (Paris: Gallimard, 1947); Kojève’s 1933-39 lectures at the École des Hautes Études, assembled by Raymond Queneau ...Non-Ontological, Non-Singularities: “The dichotomy of singular and plural is rather one of language than of being. It involves no contrast of their ontic categories or types -- but only of their modes of designation, of the word-world correlations in themselves. The dichotomy is of distinct semantic values corresponding to just one objective realm, and not of distinct types or categories of things.” --Henry Laycock, “The Ideal Language Project” [pp. 141-171], Words without Objects: Semantics, Ontology, and Logic for Non-Singularity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), p. 151 ... / “The privileging of singular reference […] is seen to be ultimately, if ironically, well founded; it is in effect one side of a coin, of which the other side is the ‘nominalistic’ conception here advanced of non-singular reference.” Ibid, p. 152 ... / Paradox: “In one way or another, then, the notion of a seemingly ineliminable domain of discrete non-entities threatens major ontological embarrassment.” Ibid., p. 155 / “Plural reference represents the imposition of a humanly constructed ‘grid’ upon the world; and the challenge is to represent, in plural terms, just how things are without the grid.” Ibid., p. 156 / Wittgenstein: “Object-concept is a formal concept [category], never empirical and not to be explicated [i.e., it has ‘no reference to actual or possible kinds of things’] -- [e.g.] ‘x’/variable [as in predicate calculus] ...” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus (London: Routledge, 1951), §4.1272, in Ibid., p. 85 N 43 ...
To Say the Unsayable (Or, What Philosophy & Poetry Share): §4.112 "Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries.” L.W., Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921)
Linguistic Atomism: §4.1272 "Thus the variable name 'x' is the proper sign for the pseudo-concept object. Wherever the word 'object' ('thing', etc.) is correctly used, it is expressed in conceptual notation by a variable name. For example, in the proposition, 'There are 2 objects which ...', it is expressed by '(∃x, y) ...'. Wherever it is used in a different way, that is as a proper concept-word, nonsensical [unsinnig] pseudo-propositions are the result. So one cannot say, for example, 'There are objects', as one might say, 'There are books' [...] It is nonsensical to speak of the total number of objects. The same applies to the words 'complex', 'fact', 'function', 'number', etc. They all signify formal concepts, and are represented in conceptual notation by variables, not by functions or classes (as Frege and Russell believed). '1 is a number', 'There is only one zero', and all similar expressions are nonsensical. (It is just as nonsensical to say, 'There is only one 1', as it would be to say, '2+2 at 3 o'clock equals 4'.)” Ibid.
The Body (Revelation) (Soma)
Image (above, left), The Most Famous Painting in the World? - Velázquez, 'Las Meninas' (1656) ... / Image (above, right), Winged Victory ...
The (Ir)Real Thing (Looking Awry) ...
For an 'other' version of this poem, cliquez ici ...
The Editors
THE WAY OUT? - Levinas, Marion, Chrétien (SAMIZDAT)
