Sorry for the spelling mistakes, I’ll fix that later.
I heard recently that apart from the other 1700 words that Shakespeare invented (nbd), he invented the word “unreal”. Imagine it, that before there was that concept, the idea of reality was never so strongly highlighted; imagine learning of it and realizing that, “oh” yeah, the unreal, is what’s not-real, thus highlighting the reality we’re in. Only in contrast do we fully understand things right. This of male and female. There isn’t exactly a maleness if there was no femaleness, the term would be pointless if there were only males on planet earth. But then this makes one wonder, if all concepts are expressed in this binary of negations, then what has real meaning. This is why the whole system requires a primary side for the others to form their meaning around. Whereas without this signified, male is not-female and female is not-male; with the primary signified, female is not-male but male is male (there is no recourse to the opposite, one simply assumes the primacy of one side so as to structure the whole thing). And bam, you have patriarchy. You privledge one perspective to give meaning to the whole structure. Obvious recent privlidged centres are male, white, Western, me….no scratch the last one. But the key point to notice is that there must always be privledged centres for our meaning to have any grounding. They can shift, and perhaps shift to less narcissistic privledged perspectives, but there is still this play of privledge.
Now I’ve noticed an interesting play of these binaries–in particular reality and unreality–in philosophy.
Phenomenolgy with its emphasis on the fact that in reality, there is no need to get over this Cartesian subject-object gab because you are always already dwelling within the world; they also emphasize that the Cartesian dualism of subject and object is unreal and in fact is an illusion that those contemporary analytic philosophers are blind to.
Conversley, the analytic philosophers emphasize the fact there is a real distinction–though not necessarily a classically Cartesian one–between the self and the objects out there in the world; and therefore, it is meaningful to ask whether objects are real and how they are real. They also emphasize the fact that those phenomenologists are blatantly ignorant of the obvious question as to if and how objects exist; and further, their horizon of being talk is unreal, and since it merely ignores the hard problem of the dualism between self and object.
Each privledges one side over the other, and has very adequate justifications for why they are right once the privledges perspective is choosen, but no justification for why to choose their privledged perspectives or reality and unreality. If we think back to the beginning with our talk on Shakespeare, neither phenomenology, nor analytic philosophy exist as they do without the other. The play of real and unreal is apparent here.
So, shall we take the waves of this ever shifting play of meaning so seriously, or do we enjoy the play as a play, and not get lost in the characters of the drama on stage too intensely. To end my call to embrace the play of philosophy as a drama, as a poetry, which we must simultaneously take seriously and deconstruct, I leave you with Robert Frost’s, “To a Thinker”.
“The last step taken found your left/ Decidedly upon the left./ One more would throw you on the right./ Another still–you see your plight./ You call this thinking, but it’s walking./ Not even that. it’s only rocking,/ Or weaving like a stabled horse:/ From force to matter and back to force,/ From form to content and back to form,/ From norm to crazy and back to norm,/ From bound to free and back to bound,/ From sound to sense and back to sound./ So back and forth. It almost scares/ A man the way things come in pairs./ Just now you’re off democracy/ (With a polite regret to be),/ And leaning on dictatorship;/ But if you will accept the tip,/ In less than no time, tounge and pen,/ You’ll be a democrat again./ A reasoner and good as such,/ Don’t let it bother you too much/ If it makes you look helpless please/ And a temptation to the tease./ Suppose you’ve no direction in you,/ I don’t see but you must continue/ To use the gift you do possess,/ And sway with reason more or less./ I own I never really warmed/ To reformer or reformed./ And yet conversion has its place/ Not halfway down the scale of grace./ So if you find you must repent/ From side to side in argument,/ At least don’t use your mind to hard,/ But trust my instinct–I’m a bard.”
