Andrea,
You write:
> Since the subject lies on our horizon
> (is
> actually the tool by which we conceptualize, and we need to conceptualize to
> understand/reply to questions), trying to answer short-circuits language.
Yes, Andrea, the question of whether all language is or is not universally
metaphorical is a very global question indeed - that doesn't prove that it
is at or beyond some "horizon". Nor do I get the metaphorical connection
between language and electricity. I gave a very full discussion on the
substantive question of this tread, containing my own reasoning and
conclusions, at the very outset. It created no contradictions or paradoxes
or "short-circuits". Nor did it receive or any direct comprehending replies
(except from Roger). Perhaps you didn't read it. If you want to say that
it is imposible to address this question directly, please take my post
(which addresses the question directly) and show me how I am really talking
nonsense.
What I said was:
>
> I'm particulaly interested because it seems to me that you can't call most
> human language *literal* exactly, given that it's the words as begets the
> objects, not the other way around. On the other hand, that doesn't
> automatically make such words metaphorical - I mean "metaphorical" might not
> be a direct opposite of "literal", there might be some langauge which is
> neither a report of a thing in terms of itself, nor a depiction of a thing in
> terms of another. Most language in fact. And if it's this third category of
> language (neither metaphoric nor literal) which is really fundamental (what
> gets the objects off the ground, so to speak, so that we can later come along
> and be 'literal' [and 'metaphorical'] about them), maybe we want to [must] say
> that metaphor *can't* be
> all pervasive.
> But then again we don't really know [haven't yet discussed] what metaphor
> is....
> If you say with one camp [mine, and the dictionary's] that it's depicting
> one thing through another, then it looks like [is the case that] metaphor
> cannot go right down to the root of language - because the
> root is where you have no thing to describe anything in terms of.
> But maybe
> the initial act of naming, of numbering - maybe this too [in a sense, not
> literal, since there isn't a "one thing" before the numbering, obviously] is
> seeing one thing
> in terms of another - imposing *formal* being on the *dynamic*..... Or is this
> something else again from what we normally call "metaphor"
> [Which is what I'd Say] - what say you?
I made my points in a conversational style to encourage conversation. My
main thesis is that language cannot be universally metaphorical "because the
root is where you have no thing to describe anything [else] in terms of".
Any caveats to that depend on our coming up with a creative and persuasive
redefinition of metaphor - which I also hoped might happen (but has been
singularly lacking).
*Well now Andrea, would you like to engage my proposals on metaphor in the
critical discussion I hoped to start, or are you content to speechify?*
You need to be a lot more careful about reading Wittgenstein into Zen,
Andrea - both on the question of what the nonsense is telling us, and on the
question of where the nonsense starts.
I don't enjoy your talk of "horizons". It appears to be Wittgenstein's
"limit" - a concept that as you know I don't entertain *at all*. Language
as it is imposes no "limits" on what can be said, nothing that the poet or
the philosopher cannot extend - that's what poets and philosophers *do*
(what they are *for*). The limits, such as they are, are imposed by
*reality*, not language. Wittgenstein's talk of a limit imposed by language
is largely a result of wanting all language to fit his model of extensive
training ("slab!"), a mixing up of language with the limited (non-existent)
imaginative capacities of the people (or robotic cyphers) who are used by
language rather than the other way around.
And yes Andrea, nonsense can inform - of course it *can* inform. The
question is whether, on a case by case basis, it actually does.
You talk a bit about informative nonsense in Zen.
I don't think this fits with notions of "horizon" or "limit" at all.
It was my impression that, for instance, the challenge "what is the sound of
one hand clapping?" is intended to elicit enlightenment to the fact that our
answer to the question depends entirely on how we *choose* to define the
world, in particular the concept "clapping". One hand clapping? Nonsense -
that is, if you define clapping as the sound of two hands coming together.
But you could choose to define it differently, say, as any noise made by a
hand on sudden contact with another body, any other body. You slap the
whithers of your horse: this is the sound of one hand clapping. So in this
case Zen isn't doing anything Wittgensteinian like symultaneously seeing and
not seeing beyond the boundaries of language so as to draw them, or
asserting and not asserting contradictions, but merely pointing out the true
relation between rationalisations and the world.
"The sound of one hand clapping" is informative nonsense because it can be
enlightening about what nonsense statements are and why they are nonsense.
What we are supposed to learn from the nonsense is a general Buddhist theme:
that we have to take responsibility for our own actions - in this case the
action of defining a word.
My problem with Wittgenstein as you may have surmised from earlier posts, is
that what his nonsense is supposed to inform us about turns out, on close
inspection, to be nonsense as well. At that precise point I lose track of
where the "information" is supposed to lie.
Something to bear in mind in all cases where someone claims to be teaching
through paradox. Be sure that the koan is a koan, a puzzle with a point,
and not just a pile of gibberish wasting your time.
If someone talks self-contradictory gibberish at you, and the up shot of
this gibberish is that you are led (mysteriously) to believe the train is at
six, while in fact it left the station at quater to four, you won't have
been very much informed. You will have had nonsense talked at you though.
Stay aware,
Elephant
> From: Andrea Sosio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Organization: Italtel S.p.A.
> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2001 09:28:47 +0200
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: MD rogers metaphors
>
>
>
> elephant guessed:
>
>> Andrea, I don't think you really want to say that Zen amounts to accepting
>> incoherent stuff as valid answers to coherent questions. But I am just
>> guessing.
>
> Well, no.
> Who knows, maybe another physical metaphor may be understood, this time. Let's
> try:
> If a question addresses something that lies on your intellectual horizon, for
> example, language. Of course I'm not referring to just "any and whatever"
> question about language (e.g., what's a noun?), but some general question such
> as "is all language metaphorical?"... Since the subject lies on our horizon
> (is
> actually the tool by which we conceptualize, and we need to conceptualize to
> understand/reply to questions), trying to answer short-circuits language. The
> answer would require a perspective from outside your horizon. So you build a
> mock answer, which somehow, in your opinion, resembles what the "true" answer
> should be. Nonsensical or self-contradictory statement seem to work better
> than
> other kinds of mock answers for Zen disciples, probably because they too
> clearly
> reveal the short-circuit that occurred.
>
> (Not that all contradictions work - they have to somehow resemble, in your own
> opinion, what the true answer would be if we could phrase them. Surely some
> contradictions have more value than others, don't you think so?)
>
> Andrea
>
> --
> Andrea Sosio
> RIM/PSPM/PPITMN
> Tel. (8)9006
> mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
>
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