[Xmca-l] Re: Method as Disposition

[Larry Purss]

Annalisa,
My answer, just sent, also emerged from the refection you posted:

"Larry, your contribution points me vaguely to an idea or possibility that
perhaps it is the habit of a method which habituates to remove the subject
from view. Of course a method can conjure a disposition, too


On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 11:49 AM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:

> Dear Larry,
>
> Thank you for that wonderful contribution.
>
> My own disposition toward a method, after reading your post was to reach
> to the dictionary, which shows that definitions are not beyond me and my
> disposition. Paradoxically, the word I sought was "disposition" and the
> hallowed tome said to me:
>
> 1. the predominant or prevailing tendency of one's spirits; natural mental
> and emotional outlook or mood; characteristic attitude: "a girl with a
> pleasant disposition."
> 2. state of mind regarding something; inclination: "a disposition to
> gamble."
> 3. physical inclination or tendency: "the disposition of ice to melt when
> heated."
> 4. arrangement or placing, as of troops or buildings.
> 5. final settlement of a matter.
> 6. bestowal, as by gift or sale.
> 7.power to make decisions about or dispose of a thing; control: "funds at
> one's disposition."
>
> So many definitions which reference a word-meaning! Isn't it the case that
> the meaning emerges based upon the event the meaning is required, which
> depends upon what is present and what presents itself, but also... who uses
> it?
>
> I also looked to the root:
>
> 1325-75; Middle English disposicioun (< Anglo-French) < Latin dispositiōn-
> (stem of dispositiō), equivalent to disposit (us) (past participle of
> dispōnere [to distribute]; dispos- (see [dispose] ) + -itus past participle
> suffix) + -iōn- -ion
>
> And what emerges there are the words [to distribute] and [dispose]. In
> order for there to be a disposition, there must be a point of departure in
> which to distribute from. Namely a point of origin, which would to me
> present as a person, a subject.
>
> I'd like to offer for what it is worth that discussion from the focal
> point of an "I" could be considered "intense" but it also may be that
> speaking has its own _habits_ (derived from contexts), in that speaking
> from an "I" starts to sound strange and may cause discomfort. Speaking from
> a focal point of "I" is a method, just as not speaking from a focal point
> of "I" is a method.
>
> Larry, your contribution points me vaguely to an idea or possibility that
> perhaps it is the habit of a method which habituates to remove the subject
> from view. Of course a method can conjure a disposition, too, I would
> gather, and if that were the case, I think I would want to know how that
> method is influencing me as a subject, especially if it is influencing my
> freedom as a subject in the world.
>
> However, putting that aside for the moment, forgetting to take ourselves
> into account is a common human phenomenon. It is like searching for my
> sunglasses that were always perched upon my head, or that I was wearing
> already during my search thinking I had lost them! This phenomenon occurs
> for a material reason. In our bodies, all our organs of perception point
> outwards. One cannot perceive oneself as an object in the world because one
> is the person behind the organ that perceives. It would be like taking a
> telescope into the world and looking for myself, when I am standing at the
> originating viewpoint of the telescope. I will look and look and only find
> that which is anything but myself. At some point I forget that I'm even
> there.
>
> It is quite easy to forget that one is the originating point of inquiry.
> Historically and socially, subjectivity is considered ill-mannered because
> what may be true for you is not for me. Which means we started to fight
> over rightness and this comes to blows, which resulted in monarchies and
> oppressions. In response to that uncomfortable emphasis upon subjectivity
> was to take a survey and search for a consensus, and this creates an
> illusion of objectivity because enough people see the same thing with their
> telescopes using the same method. The problem is that in the search for
> objectivity we have doubly forgotten ourselves as subjects, so that can't
> be right either because objectivity can dislocate us from ourselves. Not
> only from our senses but our ethics. Hence The Bomb. Hence Fossil Fuels.
> Hence Otherness, Etc.
>
> Subsequently, a product of this method of [objectivity without a subject]
> there is a tendency to become ensnared in a kind of ventriloquism, in which
> we must all look from the same vantage point at the same objects in the
> same way, which is impossible because each of us has from the beginning a
> unique point of view despite shared tendencies with others. Understanding
> shared tendencies and view points and objects observed are of certainly of
> value, but we cannot forget that understanding variations in tendencies and
> viewpoints and objects observed are of value as well.
>
> My sense that it is the noticing of variations that innovations and
> discoveries might take place, and the methods that these derive are an
> essential part of our creativity as humans.
>
> This suggests to me that a method to seek is one that equally considers
> subjects with the objects they interact with. We have the subject, the
> method or interaction, and the object. These must have equal standing in
> understanding what there is to understand. If we eliminate one to focus on
> two, or we eliminate two to focus on one, there will be a collapse, like
> the three-legged stool. In respect to math, three points define a plane,
> which perhaps here is the plane of understanding, and perhaps that plane of
> understanding is meaning itself?
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Annalisa
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf of Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> Sent: Friday, November 28, 2014 8:40 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l]  Method as Disposition
>
> I wonder how central to "reading and writing the world" is the notion of
> "disposition". At the risk of falling back into the vortex of intensity or
> of becoming too "distanced" in my conversational style, I want to share an
> extended reflection by Chris Hacket on a Hediggerian quote.
>
> First the quote:
>
> "implicit in the essential nature of all genuine method as a path towards
> the disclosure of objects is the tendency to order itself always toward
> that which it itself discloses."
>
> How Chris Hacket expands and explores how he reads and interprets this
> Heideggerian quote is fascinating.
>
> Three things stand out for Chris in this quote:
>
> 1] Method is a "tendency" - one could even say "disposition", or better a
> "habit" and "habituating toward" something
>
> 2] Method is as a result a "path".  A metaphor that "guides" these
> reflections.
>
> 3] Method is "marked" by paradox.  Genuine method, though not "equated"
> with disclosure of objects is a critical mark of the path to the disclosure
> of objects AND at the same time and precisely because the object is present
> there, method is most essentially understood to be a tendency, a
> disposition, perhaps even a habit - to be "ordered" to that which method
> itself discloses, - to disclosure itself.
>
> In other words - method for Heidegger is that which emerges "out of" an
> ordered disposition toward the disclosure of its object. More RADICALLY
> [going to its root or its founding], method traces its own emergence in the
> "event" of intelligable disclosure: just as intelligibility is, "through
> questioning" TIED to the questioning - where we "found" the disclosure of
> the presence of method - so also for the "path" of method which is now the
> TYING itself.
>
> The paradox, BOTH "toward" AND "from" [approach to disclosure AND
> emergence from disclosure]. Method is only "calculated approach" as it is
> simultaneously wholly "incalculable emergence". This conception of the
> "nature" of method - as a sort of formal name we give to A MORE FUNDAMENTAL
> "disposition" that defines material phenomenology  - "indicates" [points
> to] that method does not define phenomenology. Material phenomenology, it
> seems, is not a method although it surely requires that which method
> formally "signifies".
>
> Thus, for Heidegger at least, the particulars of a method do not make
> material phenomenology what it is, in the FIRST place. Rather, the "genuine
> question" that arises from experience defines material phenomenology. Here,
> method is the thoughtful "approach" [path, tendency. disposition] to
> phenomena of "the questioning" - itself.
>
> In other words the paradox of questioning and answer as a method, a path,
> a disposition, and a habit BOTH "calculated" and "incalculable emergence"
>
> I found Chris Hackett's expansion and elaboration evocative. Others may
> read it as constipated word/play. The notion of "disposition" tied to
> questions & answers as a method or path.
>
> Larry
>
>