I’ve simplified the main/top level of the project, which divides into five kinds
of interest:
- sharing Heidegger’s interests reliably for new readers;
- regarding scholarship about Heidegger as topic (barely begun);
- sharing my own engagement with Heidegger’s texts;
- defending good faith reading of Heidegger relative to his political times; and
- prospecting the usefulness of Heidegger’s ways for our century (barely begun).
This has involved changing the section location of some discussions (not the urls of any discussion), so that some embedded discussions become more readily evident, particularly: - an introduction to Contributions to Philosophy: from enowning, which has been expanded.
- a discussion of Heidegger’s Considerations.
- and discussions about three controversial passages in Heidegger’s notebooks.
I’m immersed in work unrelated to the aims of the website. But I have a huge set of notes for future work here, beginning in mid-January (I hope). But I expect that rate of updates will be a low curve through winter.
Nov. 23 | The months leading to the election of Biden inspired a lot of little projects which have been gathered into the “democratic America” project, which will develop further during 2021 (beyond its current ending, Nov. 22). Formation of the project is briefly discussed at “prospective reading as conceptual inquiry.”
Nov. 7 | Around 9;30 A.M., my neighborhood (near the university) sounded like late-night parties at various houses. When I saw news, I got tears.
Considering thoughtful comment at a news article as dialogue with the text,
then an organization of comment segments into a thematic sequence of topics may instance a practice of theorizing from life (albeit journalistic narratives).
That’s a more improvisational version of engagement sentence-by-sentence
with others’ academic narratives, which can become tedious, but exemplifies discursive creativity, which performs detailed reading as formulation of conceptual stances and interpretive frames. I did that for many years via listserv forums. (Frankly, the potentials of discursive engagement and deconstructive work available through close reading make Frankfurt brand critique seem antique.)
I’ll eventually go back through my current improvisation to pull out the trans-situational themes and convene those into a relatively abstract narrative—
a discursive convention—which easily suggests longstanding conceptual prospecting by others, along with material that I didn’t use for today’s weave, which confined itself to existing comment elsewhere; or was oriented by that.
This posting will probably be expanded. When that happens, I’ll note it on
the home page. Meanwhile, a practical sense of conceptual prospecting expresses interest in discursive moment (i.e, potential general importance).
The past few weeks, I linked to more of my comments at news articles than I ever have before, but that’s less than typical of the degree of commenting that I do, which is discursive field work.
When Joe Biden avowed in mid-August that “the soul of America is on the ballot,” he was as vitally accurate as the so-called “Idea of America” is readily forgotten by predatory politics.
Twelve years beyond Obama’s 2004 declaration that “there is no Red America, there is no Blue America; there is the united states of America,” he hallmarked the humanity of the American Idea at the U.N. and at Hiroshima. Then, last month he avowed the sacredness of our citizenship.
I’ve wanted to show how the integral futurity of oneSself flourishing is the point of historical value, the soul of humanism (upcoming), the appeal of humanities (more coming), and the humanitarian heart of enlightened governance (never ending).
The soul of one’s life is always on the road to making and keeping the soul of one’s neighborhood as largely horizoned as one’s region needs from everyone for thriving.
Can the promise of American democracy depend on cherishing the “impossible” Idea of being an American soul?
The question is fun to explore.
next—> “humanity of Our potentiating futurity”
Things are evolving. I thought I’d have more of my current project to upload by now, but I’m a victim of themic mitosis, which is when a topic divides itself into longer subtopics than earlier anticipated. Five became eight first-level topics, and several of those have divided themselves (they do it without my initiative—phenomenally speaking) into several second-level topics each.
I believe I’ve recovered from the mitosis, so progress should be good before next check-in.
Sept. 5 | “being an American (with conceptual issues)” is a prospective venture in light of the four leading lights of the 2020 Democratic National Convention. It results in a sense of political virtue; and is the first part of an 8-part project that I hope to finish—I expect to finish—before the election of Biden opens a new era of American and global politics.
A Washington Post article this week about why people are blasé about covid-19 risk unwittingly gives good reason why philosophers worry about “mind-brain” relations/difference, titled: “How our brains…” I thought we each had only one. “…numb us to covid-19’s risks.” There are so many of me, you know.
“being of the point in a life” may seem obliquely titled, but it’s apt for beginning a new project that will be an ordered set of prospective topics.
“What’s the point?” is at least implicit to any focused attention (though commonly explicit), yet also implicit to unfocused interest, like the intrinsic curiosity of children and older explorers: What’s implicitly “there” to be discovered? What’s interesting? What’s satisfying?
And “So, what?”: What’s important? What’s worthwhile?
Today among days, I find increasing media opinion that We are in
a milestone of the century. Tom Friedman is an example.
Yet, I find far more opinion indicating that a new season is merely postponed.
In my opinion, fall of 2020, then 2021 are to be fabulous for Euro-American life—not to forget others’ suffering. My modest life is, as
I said last year, “luxury compared to what most of humanity endures daily. But I do my best to be basically optimistic.”
