Is "consciousness" overrated?

by Narkissos 36 Replies latest jw friends

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  compound complex

  M. Narkissos:

  It is perhaps not relevant to your question regarding the overrating of "consciousness," yet I would be grateful if you would kindly answer a question from my initial post:

  Is it a question of how one understands one's own native tongue
  and the consequent word association within those linguistic para-
  meters?

  Given my desire yet failure to understand the nature of your question, any clarification you might provide would be appreciated. I realize that consciousness is at a plane higher than the mere verbal expression of what one senses and ponders intellectually; however, I sincerely desire to understand your point.

  Je suis un enfant en ce qui concerne telles choses ...

  CoCo
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  Narkissos

  Hi CoCo,

  Mes plus plates excuses! I didn't mean to ignore your question, but I misunderstood it as "rhetorical".

  I completely agree: our language(s) determine(s) to a very large extent our way of thinking -- against the naïve semantic idealism of early linguistic dogma (pure "meaning" unaffected by different systems of arbitrary signifiers, and in principle exprimable in any language and transferable from one to another), we do lose (and sometimes gain) in translation. On the topic under discussion, even if I can grasp the semantic differences between English "conscience," "consciousness" etc., they tend to remain superficial to me.

  One objective reason is that English, due to its double (Germanic and Latin) inheritance, has many more synonyms (actually doublets)than French -- of course one might object that, stricto sensu, there is no such thing as a synonym in any language (differences of language levels or connotations if not semantic range). Yet I believe that many English quasi-synonyms come closer to the mark synonymy than French ones. One possible consequence being that the English-speaking thinker may be more apt and willing to create formal semantic differences between mere words, without wondering whether a corresponding conceptual distinction is actually tenable. To my French mind "thoughtless consciousness," for instance, makes little sense. Perhaps the same "thing" (but is it the same?) I would express by "a different mode of thinking/knowing".

  One common feature of many "modern French thinkers" (especially the so-called "post-structuralists") is that they tend to consciously (or shamelessly!) use the particularities of their language as tools in forging their concepts (cf. Derrida's treatment of "monolinguism," in Des tours de Babel for instance) rather than trying to get around them in the quest of pure, universal or "idiom-free" ideas (which are often delusional, inasmuch as there is no such thing as an "idiom-free" thinker). For this reason their translation is often problematic (or, at least, the common problems of translation are less easy to forget).
• 

  BurnTheShips

  One objective reason is that English, due to its double (Germanic and Latin) inheritance, has many more synonyms (actually doublets)than French -- of course one might object that, stricto sensu, there is no such thing as a synonym in any language (differences of language levels or connotations if not semantic range). Yet I believe that many English quasi-synonyms come closer to the mark synonymy than French ones. One possible consequence being that the English-speaking thinker may be more apt and willing to create formal semantic differences between mere words, without wondering whether a corresponding conceptual distinction is actually tenable. To my French mind "thoughtless consciousness," for instance, makes little sense. Perhaps the same "thing" (but is it the same?) I would express by "a different mode of thinking/knowing".

  I've noticed that too, there is a lot more word choice in English than in say, Spanish.

  The "redundancy" allows you to "flavor" your communication in a lot of different ways.

  BTS
• 

  compound complex

  M. Narkissos,

  Thank you for getting back to me on this question of language; I realize now that how I posed it would have appeared rhetorical. Your clarification has set well at my level of comprehension - a clarification that hammers home the point (que j'aime les idiomes!).

  Je vous en remercie tellement ...

  CoCo plus content qu'il ne l'etait
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  RAF

  Thanks

  Always pleased to read NARK ... as well as to meet you (my sister would like either - whenever you feel like ... my coordinates by PM)
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  Rapunzel

  Hello Narkissos - As I have absolutely no formal training in philosophy, I am not sure if this post of mine wll appear "off-topic" to you or not. If it does seem off-topic, please excuse me.

  Your post reminded me of two things, the first being one of the major tenets of phenomenology - the notion that consciousness is intentional. Consciousness is always directed at something. Speaking of phenomenology, I was wondering if you had been able to find any satisfactory answers in the writings of phenomenologists such as Hegel; Husserl; Heidegger; Ricoeur; Brentano; Levinas; or Merleau-Ponty. It seems to me that phenomenologist philosophers usually write from a transcendental, existential, or dialectical perspective. Of course, they sometimes will combine these two, or even three, perspectives. I wonder what you think of the philosophers that I mentioned above [for that matter, I would like to know your ideas on the philosophers whom I did not mention].

  To answer one of the questions that you posited in your original post, I am rather pessimistic in regard to the ability of anyone [be they "mystics" or not] to escape [echapper a] or to transcend the eternal regression of which you speak. Consciousness is an eternal spiral [whether you conceive of it as "ascending" or "descending" is your choice] from which there is no exit [huis clos].

  I have always been interested in etymology, the origin of words. As I speak a little French, I am aware that the French word conscience is rendered two ways in English; it is translated both as conscience [that is to say moral sense, or awareness, or discernment], and as consciousness. Perhaps I am mistaken, but don't these three words share a common Latin etymology. In etymological terms, don't these words mean something like "knowing together" or "knowing with"? Isn't this idea suggested in the Latin prefix of these words? The point that I am "aiming at" is that perhaps both consciousness and conscience are of a collective nature.

  Your post also reminded me of a passage at the end of the novel, Steppenwolf, Harry Haller has already had his full share of the "Magic Theater." It is the character "Pablo" who is speaking to Harry - "You have no doubt guessed long since that the conquest of time and the escape from reality, or however else it may be that you choose to describe your longing, means simply the wish to be relieved of your so-called personality. That is the prison where you lie.'"

  Pablo continues his "lesson" to Harry by saying: "You have a longing to forsake this world and its reality and to penetrate a reality more native to you, to a world beyond time. You know, of course, where this world lies hidden. It is the world of your own soul that you seek. Only within yourself exists that other reality for which you long. I can give you nothing that has not already its being within yourself, I can throw open to you no picture gallery but your own soul."

  And do you remember the passage entitled "Harry's Execution"? It's at the very end of the novel. In the passage, the "public prosecutor" reads the verdict: "'Gentlemen, there stands before you Harry Haller, accused and found guilty of the willful misuse of our Magic Theater. Haller has not alone insulted the majesty of art in that he confounded our picture gallery with so-called reality and stabbed to death the reflection of a girl with the reflection of a knife; he has in addition displayed the intention of using our theater as a mechanism of suicide and shown himself devoid of humor. Wherefore we condemn Harry Haller to eternal life and we suspend for twelve hours his permit to enter our theater. The penalty also of being laughed out of court may not be remitted.'"
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  Narkissos

  Hello Rapunzel,

  Thank you very much for your post.

  Your point about consciousness being consciousness of something is central to this topic imo -- and, yes, it is echoed in both sun-eidesis and con-scientia: the mirror play of the inner (mind) "scene" reflects the outward, social, worldly "scene"; in a sense there's nothing "deeper" than representation; nothing more "interior" than the exteriority of ek-stasis. To me consciousness implies difference, resistance, distance, and antagonism with the un-conscious or the otherwise-conscious -- and difference, etc., with that difference, etc.. In one word, ek-sistence as the substratum for a (possibly one-way) relationship with the "other". The attempt at (or temptation of?) leaping into absolute, subjectless and objectless "consciousness" may be a leap into nothing -- the mirror tricking us into smashing it, as it were.

  It seems to me that phenomenologist philosophers usually write from a transcendental, existential, or dialectical perspective. Of course, they sometimes will combine these two, or even three, perspectives.

  Very insightful. Perhaps (relatively) pure phenomenology is born and dead with Husserl. Before and after him, the combination of a measure of "phenomenology" with something else (also idealism, ontology, structure, narratology, ethics, etc.) makes a thinker's (relative) originality and value.

  To answer your question, random has governed my limited philosophical readings (at the age when most get a systematic education I was reading Watchtower stuff only, lol). But I have enjoyed what I did read (although less and less looking for "answers"), including diametrically opposite approaches like Heidegger's and Lévinas'. Among those whom you didn't mention, I would say Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Foucault, Lacan, Derrida (sorry) and Deleuze have had the strongest influence on me.

  Thanks for the (good!) memories of Steppenwolf. As HH says in his conclusion, Einmal würde ich das Lachen lernen -- someday I would learn to laugh, too.