[Xmca-l] Re: Time, Imagination, Metaphor

[larry smolucha]

My concern with using de Saussure's terms are 

(1) that most people use the term 'paradigm' or 'paradigmatic'
as referring to a world view as a result of Thomas Kuhn's 1967 book.
The way de Saussure used paradigmatic is what I call Aristotelian logic
(something is either A or not A).

(2) Syntagmatic as considering both this and that is what I usually
think of as Dialetical Reasoning.

Of course, de Saussure is refering to substituting words in a sentence
rather than focusing on concepts.

Perhaps, Kris Guittieriz will comment on Henry's suggestion about
'vertical' and 'horizontal' being akin to paradigmatic and syntagmatic.

> From: hshonerd@gmail.com
> Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 08:43:05 -0700
> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Time, Imagination, Metaphor
> 
> Re: “vertical” and “horizontal”: think paradigmatic and syntagmatic. 
> Henry
> 
> > On Dec 19, 2014, at 6:19 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > Francine,
> > Your comment:
> > 
> > "The 'Natural' Science  that arises from European culture begins as
> > mechanical physics and alchemy
> > in which machines have parts and chemicals have elements."
> > 
> > Having "parts" and having "elements" as the beginning "point" or "position"
> > from which we get "in" to this theme of "natural" science
> > Francine would you say  this theme iis also a "mytheme"?
> > I read this as a type of *opening* of an origin narrative or  history as
> > situating development in specific concrete situations. [situate as both
> > verb and noun] with a theme of "cultural diversity"  I keep mentioning
> > Raymond Williams as I find he writes within *THIS* STYLE and it is very
> > helpful for getting my bearings.
> > 
> > It will put IN play what we mean by "academic or scientific" concepts as
> > possibly historically effected understandings.
> > Will we also explore Kris's notion of "vertical" and "horizontal"  concepts
> > within cultural synergy?
> > David K's "grammatical metaphors" may also be involved in this cultural
> > diversity.
> > I have been considering reading more from Raymond Williams, so would
> > consider a shared reading with a similar exploration of cultural
> > permeability of  time, imagination, metaphor, perception and trans-versal
> > ways of orienting or moving *in* the world.
> > Larry
> > 
> > On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 3:37 PM, larry smolucha <lsmolucha@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >> 
> >> Message from Francine:
> >> 
> >> These three threads are all related (not forgetting perception and
> >> imagination).
> >> 
> >> One of the things about XMCA threads is that the members each have so much
> >> to contribute, from their own perspectives as well as bibliographic
> >> references.
> >> 
> >> The discourse does get philosophical raising old metaphysics questions of
> >> epistemology "How do we know what we know?" "How is our understanding
> >> shaped by language and culture?" XMCARs tend to be particularly
> >> self-conscious
> >> about their own use of language - which is good. There seems to be a
> >> striving
> >> for a new framework (paradigm) that clarifies these cross-cultural semiotic
> >> differences.
> >> 
> >> The project I am working on is on how new ideas, customs, inventions,
> >> language,
> >> art, music, etc. are created through Cultural Synergy - when 'artifacts'
> >> from one
> >> culture enter another and are combined into something  more than how the
> >> artifacts functioned in their original cultures. I can give mundane
> >> examples such as how
> >> noodles from China become spaghetti, elbow macaroni, etc. Or, the wheel as
> >> a potter's wheel, a wagon wheel, a gear, a grinding stone, a steering
> >> wheel, etc.
> >> (and all the mechanical devices that combine wheels, like pulleys and
> >> clocks and
> >> the first calculator). Concrete examples are a good start but there are
> >> more
> >> conceptual examples that I have just not had time to clarify. The
> >> discussion
> >> of time as it differs cross-culturally is  a good starting point. Where I
> >> personally
> >> would want to go with this, is to look how how new conceptions of time
> >> emerge through
> >> inter-cultural contact. That is metaphysics.
> >> 
> >> I also wonder how the semiotics of European, Middle Eastern, and Chinese
> >> cultures
> >> are related to their invention of the wheel and advancements in metallurgy.
> >> (Noting that Western African tribes did smelting of ore). The 'Natural'
> >> Science
> >> that arises from European culture begins as mechanical physics and alchemy
> >> in which machines have parts and chemicals have elements. It has evolved
> >> into
> >> the study of energy, and systems theory.
> >> 
> >> There is enough here for ten volumes. Anyone interested?
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >>> Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 03:25:02 -0800
> >>> From: lpscholar2@gmail.com
> >>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Time
> >>> 
> >>> This notion of our  being a "verb" or being a "noun" or being a
> >> "position"
> >>> or possibly being a "pre" - position.
> >>> What I am wondering is where we are going??
> >>> Are we actually "verbs" and "nouns" and "positions" and "pre"-positions??
> >>> Do we "exist" in the grammar [syntax] or do we "exist" in the "semantics"
> >>> [meaning] or do we  "exist" in the "Pragmatics" [doing, activity]
> >>> 
> >>> I apologize if this question is merely "idio"-syncretic but it is the
> >>> imaginal mutually reciprocal "third space" which I am being invited to
> >>> occupy in THIS SPECIFIC community as we trans-late the imaginal into
> >>> "genres" or "forms". For this reason, I want to hold on to the moral
> >> virtue
> >>> of "cosmopolitanism" that Kris Gutierrez articulated in her paper. [Yes a
> >>> trans-position]  Kris wrote:
> >>> "At the CORE of its [the third space] political-philosophical ROOTS, this
> >>> program is oriented towards a FORM {LP adds a form as a genre]]  of
> >>> "cosmopolitanism" (Appiah, 2006) characterized by the ideals and
> >> practices
> >>> of a shared humanity, a profound OBLIGATION to others, boundary crossing,
> >>> and intercultural exchange in which difference is celebrated without
> >> being
> >>> romanticized.
> >>> To get to this "space" or "place" requires imagination.
> >>> 
> >>> If Buckminster Fuller "seems" to be a verb, and others "seem" to be nouns
> >>> while others "seem" to be positions [stances] , while others "seem" to be
> >>> "pre"-positions, then the imaginal "seems" to be *IN* play. [with the
> >> full
> >>> awareness of *IN* as David K out-lined or under-scored or high-lighted.]
> >>> 
> >>> I  want to ask Francine what she meant by "metaphysical" in her signing
> >> off
> >>> on her recent examples or cases. Kris "pragmatics" or "performance"
> >> seems
> >>> to me "grounded" in the sense of rising [ideal] and returning [to ground]
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 2:17 AM, larry smolucha <lsmolucha@hotmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> I seem to be a verb
> >>>> 
> >>>> R. Buckminster Fuller 1970
> >>>> 
> >>>>> Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 00:36:03 -0700
> >>>>> From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
> >>>>> To: ablunden@mira.net; xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> >>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Time
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Interesting how you have taken this Andy - to suggest that the Hopi
> >> lack
> >>>> a
> >>>>> founding principle of Natural Science.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Whorf actually takes this in generally the opposite direction. In his
> >>>> work
> >>>>> on the Hopi language, he suggests that one finds a language much
> >> better
> >>>>> suited to thinking about the theoretical physics of Whorf's day
> >> (e.g.,
> >>>>> Einstein's theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, etc.). In that
> >> sense,
> >>>>> Hopi is, in fact, closer to describing the way the world really is.
> >> (and
> >>>>> I'll quickly rescind those last six words if you have any
> >> objections!).
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> As to your assumption that science requires the objectification of
> >> the
> >>>>> natural world, I'm sure there are others on the list who would agree
> >> with
> >>>>> me that there is good reason to question the necessity of
> >> subject/object
> >>>>> dualism for science. (and perhaps you were referring to a particular
> >>>>> scientific tradition by calling it "Natural Science" - maybe scary
> >> scare
> >>>>> quotes are needed?).
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> -greg
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 11:57 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> That is an extremely interesting paragraph or two on the contrast
> >>>> between
> >>>>>> typical modern expressions of Time and how the Hopi language
> >> expresses
> >>>>>> corresponding situations. It seems that taking Nature (including
> >> Time)
> >>>> to
> >>>>>> be something which exists independently of us humans and can be
> >> known
> >>>> as
> >>>>>> such, in other words, the founding principle of Natural Science, is
> >>>> built
> >>>>>> into a premodern language, and is not shared by (at least one)
> >>>> indigenous
> >>>>>> people.
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> Andy
> >>>>>> 
> >>>> 
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>>> *Andy Blunden*
> >>>>>> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> Greg Thompson wrote:
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> Helena and David,
> >>>>>>> I wonder if this quote below from Benjamin Whorf (one of the
> >> so-called
> >>>>>>> authors of the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis - a kindred
> >> tradition
> >>>> to
> >>>>>>> Vygotsky's) might be useful. In it Whorf is comparing the Hopi
> >> notion
> >>>> of
> >>>>>>> "time" to the SAE (Standard Average European - including English)
> >>>> notion
> >>>>>>> of
> >>>>>>> "time" and how each of these languages offers different
> >> affordances of
> >>>>>>> meaning. Whereas Hopi has a much more processual understanding,
> >>>> English
> >>>>>>> has
> >>>>>>> a much more reified/objectified/entified sense of time. (btw, I
> >> think
> >>>> the
> >>>>>>> first paragraph is easier to follow than the second - and in that
> >>>> first
> >>>>>>> paragraph you'll find our old friend "imagination").
> >>>>>>> David, does this jibe with what you were pointing to?
> >>>>>>> -greg
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> Taken from:
> >>>>>>> http://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/library/extra4/sloan/
> >>>>>>> mousesite/Secondary/Whorfframe2.html
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> " "Such terms as summer, winter, September, morning, noon,
> >> sunset" are
> >>>>>>> with
> >>>>>>> us nouns, and have little formal linguistic difference from other
> >>>> nouns.
> >>>>>>> They can be subjects or objects, and we say "at sunset" or "in
> >> winter"
> >>>>>>> just
> >>>>>>> as we say "at a corner" or "in an orchard." They are pluralized
> >> and
> >>>>>>> numerated like nouns of physical objects, as we have seen. Our
> >> thought
> >>>>>>> about the referents of such words hence becomes objectified.
> >> Without
> >>>>>>> objectification, it would be a subjective experience of real time,
> >>>> i.e. of
> >>>>>>> the consciousness of "becoming later and later"--simply a cyclic
> >> phase
> >>>>>>> similar to an earlier phase in that ever-later-becoming duration.
> >>>> Only by
> >>>>>>> imagination can such a cyclic phase be set beside another and
> >> another
> >>>> in
> >>>>>>> the manner of a spatial (i.e. visually perceived) configuration.
> >> "But
> >>>> such
> >>>>>>> is the power of linguistic analogy that we do so objectify cyclic
> >>>> phasing.
> >>>>>>> We do it even by saying "a phase" and "phases" instead of e.g.,
> >>>> "phasing."
> >>>>>>> And the pattern of individual and mass nouns, with the resulting
> >>>> binomial
> >>>>>>> formula of formless item plus form, is so general that it is
> >> implicit
> >>>> for
> >>>>>>> all nouns, and hence our very generalized formless items like
> >>>> "substance,
> >>>>>>> matter," by which we can fill out the binomial for an enormously
> >> wide
> >>>>>>> range
> >>>>>>> of nouns. But even these are not quite generalized enough to take
> >> in
> >>>> our
> >>>>>>> phase nouns. So for the phase nouns we have made a formless item,
> >>>> "time."
> >>>>>>> We have made it by using "a time," i.e. an occasion or a phase,
> >> in the
> >>>>>>> pattern of a mass noun, just as from "a summer" we make "summer"
> >> in
> >>>> the
> >>>>>>> pattern of a mass noun. Thus with our binomial formula we can say
> >> and
> >>>>>>> think
> >>>>>>> "a moment of time, a second of time, a year of time." Let me again
> >>>> point
> >>>>>>> out that the pattern is simply that of "a bottle of milk" or "a
> >> piece
> >>>> of
> >>>>>>> cheese." Thus we are assisted to imagine that "a summer" actually
> >>>> contains
> >>>>>>> or consists of such-and-such a quantity of "time."
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> In Hopi however all phase terms, like "summer, morning," etc.,
> >> are not
> >>>>>>> nouns but a kind of adverb, to use the nearest SAE analogy. They
> >> are a
> >>>>>>> formal part of speech by themselves, distinct from nouns, verbs,
> >> and
> >>>> even
> >>>>>>> other Hopi "adverbs." Such a word is not a case form or a locative
> >>>>>>> pattern,
> >>>>>>> like "des Abends" or "in the morning." It contains no morpheme
> >> like
> >>>> one of
> >>>>>>> "in the house" or "at the tree." It means "when it is morning" or
> >>>> "while
> >>>>>>> morning-phase is occurring." These "temporal s" are not used as
> >>>> subjects
> >>>>>>> or
> >>>>>>> objects, or at all like nouns. One does not say "it's a hot
> >> summer" or
> >>>>>>> "summer is hot"; summer is not hot, summer is only WHEN
> >> conditions are
> >>>>>>> hot,
> >>>>>>> WHEN heat occurs. One does not say "THIS summer," but "summer
> >> now" or
> >>>>>>> "summer recently." There is no objectification, as a region, an
> >>>> extent, a
> >>>>>>> quantity, of the subjective duration feeling. Nothing is suggested
> >>>> about
> >>>>>>> time except the perpetual "getting later" of it. And so there is
> >> no
> >>>> basis
> >>>>>>> here for a formless item answering to our "time." "
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> >>>>> Assistant Professor
> >>>>> Department of Anthropology
> >>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> >>>>> Brigham Young University
> >>>>> Provo, UT 84602
> >>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >> 
> 
>