Re: [xmca] Al Andalus as a model for *{ }*

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Christine

I sense a kindred spirit in the search for engagement and "enchantment".
Your mentioning Levinas as being difficult to relate to as well as Butler is
something I also struggle with.  It is Butler's recognition that "situated"
agentive subjectivity and "subjectification" as 2 sides of the same coin
that I find intriguing. The degree to which she wants to "de-construct" and
"liberate" is more biased than my own sensibility.
Levinas RADICAL call to respond to the other [with no expectation of the
call being returned] is an ideal that I cannot embrace [at this point in my
development]. However people who I respect [see Donna Orange or Roger Frie]
see Levinas as a central guide in exploring alterity.

However, another phenomenologist who I am relating to is Merleau-Ponty's
notion of the world as EXCESS beyond all theories. In the grasping of the
world [in*formation as an activity] we have a gestalt experience [cognition
is the process of "expressing" this  experience] I see this expression or
"singing the world" as a way of understanding in*formation.  Reason, from
this perspective, is the act of expression [conclusion] of what was OPEN &
MULTIPLE until the moment OF expression. Until expressed there are multiple
[but not infinite] possibilities or potential of expression. In this sense
the world is always already open and potential. We mistake the derivative
reflecting or looking back at the expressive conclusion [and in the looking
back "representing" the expressive movement] AS IF it was causal and derived
FROM propositional thoughts LEADING TO conclusions.  "Cognitive expression"
is a key concept in  M-P's last work "the Visible and Invisible".
John Shotter, who I believe has engaged deeply with both Vygotsky and
Merleau-Ponty, is an author that I'm looking to in my struggle to translate
these different traditions which I believe should be in a conversation.
Perception [M-P] and conception [Vygotsky] as a socio-historical
intersubjective dialogical AND ETHICAL "expression of EXCESS" is my growing
edge.

Christine, I'm not sure if you are interested in the framework of
"relational gestalt" or "relational psychoanalysis" that posits
"intersubjectivity" "all the way down" [not derivative] as the in*formation
of "situated agency". If you are I wouls suggest looking at Donna Orange's
book "Thinking for Clinicians". The book introduces Buber, Wittgenstein,
Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and Gadamer, as sharing a similar
project.  Psychoanalysis has been radically transformed by its engagement
with intersubjective versions of Continental Philosophy.
I am not at a point of integrating CHAT with this other framework, but
people like Zinchenko, Rey, Anna Stetsenko are also engaging with
subjectivity and alterity from within the CHT paradigm, so I'm acting on
faith that bridges may in*form my expressive journey.

Larry



On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 3:20 PM, christine schweighart <
schweighartgate@hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> Dear Larry,
> It was a very to and fro leading up to 'nomadism' I don't recall the traces
> as clearly as I helpfully might need to. I was in the background noticing
> Levinas - but he was and probably still is-  out of my usefully reading his
> 'otherwise than being. Ditto for J Butler's 'Subjects of Desire - because of
> trying to understand Davydov's want and 'will' - yet desire is different.
> There were different traces and  here is a reference I found useful in an
> extract of my brief notes on why I was interested:
>
>
>
> In another view keeping the nomadic perspective of an
> always open journey has empowering qualities.  A number of
> directions being taken suggest that this might be so, in CHAT and
> outside it. Engestrom’s accretion of Cussin’s theory of cognitive trails,
> Colin Crouch’s metaphor of the pilgrim’s route upseating theory of path
> dependency,
> complexity theory and ‘swarming’ behaviours. Can this empowerment be more
> than
> an individual person moving in a territory?
>
> Nomadism can be translated to an intellectual space. (
> e.g  Tamboukou’s analysis of the
> female self in art [1])
>
>
>
> “I will argue, therefore, that nomadism enables the
> reading of tensions, contradictions and paradoxes in textual and visual
> practices of self representation. It opens up an analytical plane where
> spatial
> practices can make connections with a polyvalent set of what Foucault
> (1988)
> has identified as technologies of the
> self, everyday practices
> historically and culturally constituted that subjects strategically deploy
> in
> becoming what they are.” (Tamboukou, 2010)
>
>
>
> The responsibility
> of considering what uncertainty lies ahead for subjects with these skills
> must
> be one the educator  explores in
> their practice. What does the possibility look like, that can afford a
> 'good life' to
> a collective deploying nomadic thinking skills, is it to open a disposition
> to
> open enclosures ( of copyrights, of technologies, of knowledge).  A
> necessary motivation , how do
> educators contribute to this form ahead of encountering ‘entrapments’? have
> we looked at teaching practice to ask this yet?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [1] The nomadism that Tamboukou draws upon comes from the
> same work as the rhizome concept Engestrom draws upon - Deleuze and
> Guattari (1988).
>
>  I haven't got access to my hard drive for the Tamboukou paper but here is
> a link to other work:
> http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/soi/article/view/8009/7165
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  The other topic was immanence and this was the reading with it's
> introduction: I now read and wonder how 'transcendence' in this work
> contrasts with 'ideal' , this seems to relate to individual internal
> uncertainty, without considering mediation and social relations. there isn't
> 'alterity'   Immanence:
> http://www.scribd.com/doc/36787280/6790328-Deleuze-Pure-Immanence-Essays-on-a-Life-Eng-Tr
>  But I'm not really able to situate it either.Christine.
>
>
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