[Xmca-l] Re: Playworlds, Performance, Perezhivanie, Apophasis ... and TRUMP'S speech!

Mon Feb 6 10:44:36 PST 2017

Greg

    As I haven’t worked out the details in my own mind, here is a sketch of what I was thinking about (I’m going to leave out page #s, etc). 

     In a sense Alfredo has already suggested how one might look at Trump’s speech and Michael has indicated a portion of a key text. I have a possibly slightly different view form Alfredo perhaps more in line with, for example, Sheehan. 

Heidegger writes in ‘Logic: The Question of Truth’ that, in effect, the statement as proposition is not where truth resides, but the truth of the proposition, in effect, resides in the possibility of bringing its referents into the light (here is where aletheia takes a part); i.e. uncovering. That is, on the level of ‘apophantic as’ things are propositionally either true or false, but on the level of the ‘hermeneutic as’ they are neither. However, the ‘apophantic as’ is grounded in interpretation, i.e. the ‘hermeneutic as.’ For Heidegger (and this is an oversimplification) hermeneutic truth is, in effect, disclosure. To quote  a portion of Alfredo’s email

> Heidegger's treatment of Aristotle suggests [.]Trump's speech would be rather *deceiving,* i.e., "putting something in front of something else ... and thereby passing it off *as* something it is *not*".

So, I was thinking that one could ask what ‘something’ was, in a sense, being covered up. Keep in mind that doing this would be interpretative work and, if one takes Gadamer seriously, complicated since if one, so to speak, surfaces to the apophantic then, in effect, there is a covering back up. The effect is a sort of spiraling almost, as I think about it, a jump from the apophantic to the apophantic or, perhaps in more Vygotskian terms, from the concrete to the concrete. Also, and this is more important, the consequent would not be an understanding of Trump’s speech, but an understanding of how I understand Trump’s speech.

Tugendhat has problems with a sort of lack of correspondence between apophantic and hermeneutic truth and argues false assertions can, in effect, also uncover. That is, if to uncover stands for pointing out, then every assertion (false or true) must uncover.; a counter argument is, of course, that Heidegger employs ‘uncover’ narrowly so as to, in effect, only allow for false assertions covering over. Further, if truth is bounded between concealing and unconcealing then Tugendhat argues it is impossible to determine the specific sense of apophantic falsehood, and therefore of apophantic truth.

Okay, this is more than enough.

Ed

I
> On Feb 5, 2017, at  7:27 PM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Ed,
> Could you expand on Heidegger and aletheia and Trump? (and Tugendhat).
> If it isn't too much trouble I'd appreciate the expansion very much.
> -greg
> 
> On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 1:05 PM, Edward Wall <ewall@umich.edu> wrote:
> 
>> It is perhaps worth pointing out that there are two different words being
>> used to supposedly point at the same thing (transliterated and taken from
>> Liddell and Scott):
>> 
>> apophansis: a declaration or statement
>> apophasis:  a denial, negation
>> 
>> Hence, people may be misinterpreting each other.
>> 
>> One could read Trump’s speaking with an eye to Heidegger, but it would
>> probablye done in term of aletheia. However, Tugendhat has shown that all
>> this is a little more complicated that Heidegger indicated.
>> 
>> Ed Wall
>> 
>>> On Feb 5, 2017, at  12:49 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Henry,
>>> 
>>> I guess for the cartoon to be about apophansis, Trump's speech would
>> have to present itself to Trump's supporters as two opposed things
>> *simultaneously*, but then perhaps this no longer would be *genuine*
>> speech, in the sense Heidegger's treatment of Aristotle suggests. Trump's
>> speech would be rather *deceiving,* i.e., "putting something in front of
>> something else ... and thereby passing it off *as* something it is *not*".
>>> 
>>> Cognitive dissonance seems to  imply there is some processing between
>> the said (logos) and its showing of itself *as* something, which would not
>> fit well Heidegger... In any case, as the cartoon nicely illustrates,
>> Trumps' supporters may be having a hard time too, it can't be easy.
>>> 
>>> Alfredo
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> on behalf of Wolff-Michael Roth <wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com>
>>> Sent: 05 February 2017 02:22
>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>> Cc: Wolff-Michael Roth
>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Playworlds, Performance, Perezhivanie, Apophasis
>> ... and TRUMP'S speech!
>>> 
>>> When you have a question about a concept, look up where it is defined.
>>> Michael
>>> 
>>> Heidegger, 1996, pp. 28–29
>>> Rather, logos as speech really means *deloun*, to make manifest "what
>>> is being talked about" in speech. Aristotle explicates this function of
>>> speech more precisely as *apophainesthai*. Logos lets something be seen
>>> (*phainesthai*), namely what is being talked about, and indeed for the
>>> speaker (who serves as the medium) or for those who speak with each
>>> other. Speech "lets us see," from itself, *apo*. . . , what is being
>> talked
>>> about. In speech (*apophansis*), insofar as it is genuine, what is said
>>> should
>>> be derived from what is being talked about. In this way spoken commu-
>>> nication, in what it says, makes manifest what it is talking about and
>>> thus makes it accessible to another. Such is the structure of logos as
>>> apophansis.
>>> Not every "speech" suits *this* mode of making manifest, in the
>>> sense of letting something be seen by indicating it. For example,
>> requesting
>>> (*euche*) also makes something manifest, but in a different way.
>>> 
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> --------------------
>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
>>> Applied Cognitive Science
>>> MacLaurin Building A567
>>> University of Victoria
>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>
>>> 
>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics
>>> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-
>> directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-
>> mathematics-of-mathematics/>*
>>> 
>>> On Sat, Feb 4, 2017 at 4:50 PM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Alfredo,
>>>> Would the attached link be an example of apophasis? I hope the link gets
>>>> you the cartoon from Daily Kos on Feb 1, which illustrates the
>> "cognitive
>>>> dissonance of Trump supporters”.
>>>> 
>>>> http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/1/1628099/-
>>>> Cartoon-Trump-supporters-cognitive-dissonance?detail=
>>>> email&link_id=15&can_id=d9825820685b26308482b9b5c5bb09
>>>> 5d&source=email-trump-reportedly-tells-female-staffers-to-dress-like-
>>>> womentwitter-says-fun&email_referrer=trump-reportedly-
>>>> tells-female-staffers-to-dress-like-womentwitter-says-
>>>> fun___162460&email_subject=news-organizations-and-
>>>> festivities-begin-pulling-out-of-annual-correspondents-dinner-with-trump
>> <
>>>> http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/1/1628099/-
>>>> Cartoon-Trump-supporters-cognitive-dissonance?detail=
>>>> email&link_id=15&can_id=d9825820685b26308482b9b5c5bb09
>>>> 5d&source=email-trump-reportedly-tells-female-staffers-to-dress-like-
>>>> womentwitter-says-fun&email_referrer=trump-reportedly-
>>>> tells-female-staffers-to-dress-like-womentwitter-says-
>>>> fun___162460&email_subject=news-organizations-and-
>>>> festivities-begin-pulling-out-of-annual-correspondents-
>> dinner-with-trump>
>>>> 
>>>> Henry
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Feb 3, 2017, at 11:20 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Larry,
>>>>> I am familiar with the term apophantic (the auto-spelling keeps
>>>> correcting the term to "hipophatic" which is the term you use) as it
>>>> appears in Heidegger. Not sure now about the connection with Vygotsky
>> that
>>>> you are after; it seems quite of a complex thread to weave across, at
>> least
>>>> in the xmca format.
>>>>> 
>>>>> But!, since I wanted to make sure we were using the same term, I did
>>>> google it and, guess what I found? An example of apophasis as used by
>>>> TRUMP!:
>>>>> 
>>>>> In 2015, Trump said of fellow Republican presidential candidate and
>>>> former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, "I promised I would not say
>> that
>>>> she ran Hewlett-Packard into the ground, that she laid off tens of
>>>> thousands of people and she got viciously fired. I said I will not say
>> it,
>>>> so I will not say it."In 2016, he tweeted of journalist Megyn Kelly, “I
>>>> refuse to call [her] a bimbo, because that would not be politically
>>>> correct."
>>>>> 
>>>>> Here is the link to the full article from the Huffington post:
>>>>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-rhetorical-device_us_
>>>> 56c358cbe4b0c3c55052b32b
>>>>> 
>>>>> Alfredo
>>>>> ________________________________________
>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>> 
>>>> on behalf of lpscholar2@gmail.com <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
>>>>> Sent: 02 February 2017 18:15
>>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l]  Playworlds, Performance, Perezhivanie, Apophasis
>>>>> 
>>>>> Beth and Monica explore the phenomena occurring in playworlds
>> generating
>>>> perezhivanie.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Playworlds are performance worlds and these worlds may be exploring the
>>>> relation of ‘unity’ and ‘difference’.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Another term that may have relevance when Beth and Monica refer to
>>>> negating the negation is the operation of ‘apophasis’.
>>>>> William Frank (On What Cannot Be Said) describes the apophatic :
>>>>> 
>>>>> *In apophasis, which empties language of all positive content, absolute
>>>> difference cannot be distinguished from absolute unity, even though the
>>>> respective discourses of difference and unity nominally stand at the
>>>> antipodes. BOTH configurations, unity and difference, are exposed as
>>>> relatively arbitrary and, in the end, equally inadequate schemas for
>>>> articulating what cannot be said. (Franke)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Claire Chambers in her book (Performance Studies and Negative
>>>> Epistemology) comments on the above Franke citation :
>>>>> 
>>>>> *If unity and difference cannot be distinguished from one another (we
>>>> cannot KNOW what makes them distinct), then it is impossible to
>> determine
>>>> what either ‘is’ – meaning that knowing and being, epistemology and
>>>> ontology, are also impossible to distinguish from one another.(Claire
>>>> Chambers Chapter 1)
>>>>> 
>>>>> I am not sure how far to go with this theme of : Negating the negation?
>>>>> I hear this theme in playworlds.
>>>>> 
>>>>> If this seems relevant, i can post the first chapter of Claire Chambers
>>>> book. I will just mention that Vygotsky’s Judaic childhood and
>> adolescence
>>>> would have encountered this apophatic ‘tradition’.
>>>>> Enough for one probe or possible pivot?
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 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