Date: Fri Jul 21 16:22:54 1995
Subject: Re: truth, etc.



David wrote,
 
"Truth is an experience, an affair of Dasein, we might say.  I mean it in a
very mundane way.  Like being hungry, scratching an itch, or on a more
refined level, the gestalt "aha!" experience of solving a math problem,
"feeling" love for someone, "listening" to the call of conscience.  All of
these things have biological, cultural, historical, etc., that is, ontic
aspects to them.  But that is not the whole story, or even the most
interesting part maybe.  So it is with truth. "
    
--- David,
 
Your thinking seems to agree with mine on this truth issue. 
I put the emphasis on my post recently on a division 
between: mundane and more "elevated and clarified truth". 
Truth is there in both cases, but there is truth and there 
is Truth. Something like that. Most of your post to Lois 
says this. The "we can't do much" is very interesting, and 
probably largely, er, true. But on the other hand, it seems 
to relate to an almost bourgeois aspect of Heidegger...
 
If truth is an event in being with particular conditions, if 
there is a "showing to this epoch", whose watching the show 
and how? Who knows it's a "show" at all? If no one "watches 
the show" or "asks the question", truth, what is what, even 
reality (things being what they are) slouch forgetfully 
ahead anyways.
 
It seems to me that the question of agency can't be solved 
in the struggle between either the efforts to prioritize 
action/praxis (Marx) or thinking (clearly, Heidegger). 
Rather, agency seems to be much more possible and perhaps in 
some very new ways (falling short of a god, I rather 
imagine) in something like an *activated difference between 
thinking and doing*. So we don't have to sit around and say, 
"what's the use..." :-)
 
Tom
        

---
There is no path to peace. Peace is the path.

Tom Blancato
tblancato-AT-envirolink.org
Eyes on Violence (nonviolence and human rights monitoring in Haiti)
Thoughtaction Collective (reparative justice project)




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