Contemporary philosophy April 19th Cinema as philosophy •  Merleau –Ponty put emphasis on understanding lived world in its ;me‐dimensions (recent moment falling into past but s;ll having a con;nuity) and as a procedure that appears like movie: fragmented, episode‐like, like tentacles that are bound together somewhere but we don’t know, exactly, where •  Life incidents seem real but they always lack the immediate fundament, as if borrowing the reality from some unknown source Visible and invisible •  MMP puts together his ideas in the book ;tled “The visible and the invisible” (posthumous) and separates •  1. what can be said (known, conceptual) •  2. what can be seen (visible) •  3. what becomes real (chiasma;c moment) •  All these must become united in the act of knowing but not separately: they must be included in one act so that I am in my life both as a player and as a watcher at the same moment Cinema and kiasma •  MMP recalls how a cinema;c experience may act as a model for chiasma;c moment: being in the plot, inside the story, and watching the events, recognizing how the idea is carried on scene by scene (his example: Renoir, The Rules of the Game) •  Cinema frame gives a chiasm a chance: since well framed, the bringing‐together of the conceptual, sensory and some strange added value will merge into a real‐like, complex event Event •  And that discloses, like in a flash light, what we are ready to accept as real (reality, real‐
ness) •  MMP claims that in life‐world one only seldom becomes as convinced of the real as in the well‐framed non‐reality of cinema •  The reason for this may be in the intertwining of conceptual and sensory with the moment of something other, this strange added value Strange added value •  That may be the moment of threshold: when something turns to more complex than it originally is/was, the added value comes from the moment of knowing that •  It is something you cannot deduce from the conceptual and the sensory material given but it is included in the event that takes place and puts everything into a new order •  New order may be fantas;c or ir‐real when seen from the past but necessary for the event Event •  This goes back to Husserl, Ingarden, Scheler and Heidegger: Ereignis is given as the sole access to reality as experienced (something) but in real life (in every‐day‐ness) one cannot make it happen; it happens when it does, without our doing it •  Ingarden already (1937) thought that if cinema will evolve technically more manageable, it will as well treat life‐world to us in the manner more accessible than any theory may treat it Fic;on? •  In Nietzsche (Thus spoke Zarathustra) the event is approachable only through fic;on: one must create a frame and then fulfil it with a story in order to come closer to what is real •  The story is the tool but useless without a frame; together they present the real •  Like Husserl said: fic;;ous is the core element of the experience of real and the sole access to it What to think of that? •  All these, partly cryp;c, partly evident, sayings on fic;on, event, real, cinema, etc. aim at a new answer •  The new answer abandons duali;es like real‐
unreal, true‐untrue, and alike •  And begins with two core elements: everydayness and event Everydayness •  Kierkegaard’s problem, later in use in Nietzsche and Heidegger: the rou;ne of life has a confusing influence to human understanding •  The rou;ne includes incompa;ble factors that make us sha_ered, again and again (sha_er‐head, sha_er‐body, sha_er‐mind…) •  There is no way to make it real since it is ir‐real in its sources: heterology of All •  Human understanding have no capacity to deal with All Single •  Neither access to All, nor a loca;on wherefrom to take a good look to All •  The ir‐real nature of everydayness makes it impossible to approach the experienced world (life‐world) from above or “objec;vely” •  Fear for “subjec;ve” approach, however, makes us try such an approach •  But there is no above or objec;ve viewpoint •  Human experience has a single viewpoint that is not applicable to any other, or anyone other’s viewpoint Abground (Abgrund) •  Such a viewpoint only presents us a sight to a bo_omless abyss: I see that my experience is not compa;ble to any generic pa_ern that could be shared with other’s •  It is but an arbitrary collec;on of incompa;ble events that I used to take as “mine” •  There is no solid ground, any context, or meaning‐giving automaton that would re‐collect my experiences to a totality that I could manage and maintain Event (En‐owning) •  Experience makes world en‐owned: every reflec;ve moment (=thinking, comparison, looking from a distance) re‐collects the bo_omless everydayness into something where I become estranged from an idea of a shared world •  Such an enowning is a significant act since it shows the to‐and‐fro –procedure of understanding: to the shared, from the shared world Enowning •  This as well indicates that I leave the everydayness in its changing nature and accept the single viewpoint, my viewpoint •  Here I leave the comfor;ng story of human history for the highly ellip;cal viewpoint: singularity •  World enowned by me becomes a singular (not‐)reality that does not seek ader communica;on but plausibility •  Triumph over the everydayness is the guarantee that world is enowned in my experience Singularity •  The necessity of singularity in wri_en down in the history of thinking: history goes, however, against this evidence •  Only some, mostly Eastern, thinkers have started thinking from the singularity, from the deep loneliness, separateness of human being, from the self‐evident fact that everyone of us is sealed off into the self‐made ir‐reality of experiences and interpreta;ons thereof Singularity •  But almost all Western thinkers, eventually, arrive at the thought: a body with some mind is a singular enowning of world and Nature, with no evident contac;ng surface with others’ •  This is also included in religious and other ideological movements: they give an idea in order to make a contact between us, like say God, righhulness, truth, beauty, communion… Singularity •  But they can’t ignore the separateness since it alone jus;fies religion, ideology or philosophy •  In 20th century the tendency has been to say “yes” to the singularity: from Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre to MMP and Henry, and from thereon, either in affirma;ve with them or against them, say, Deleuze, Derrida, de Certeau, Sloterdijk, Schürmann Reiner Schürmann (1941‐1993) •  Schürmann’s father was a Nazi officer and Reiner escaped his family to Paris and later to NY where he taught in New School (with Arendt and other emigrants) •  He wrote (in French) a book on Master Eckhart and a kind of autobiography, called Les Origines where he explains his convic;on •  Posthumous main opus: Les Hégémonies Brisée Schürmann •  He is one of the most interes;ng contemporary thinker with his strong moral message: individuality is a bad dream that has its reason (if not a cause) in our separateness and in the singularity and it creates a fake idenAty of I that seems to be one and unbroken, as if recognizable as an unchanging something •  But we know be_er than that…and s;ll deny it Schürmann •  In this denial we, collec;vely, cling to the romanAcism, to a period historically led behind but as an aptude s;ll vigorously here •  We seem to be unable to get rid of the aptude that was original and new, then, but is en;rely outdated now •  Roman;cism, as a part of Modernism, “created” an individual: it gave the pa_ern to talk of the single as the individuality (and then as an iden;ty of the I) •  Schürmann •  It gave the equa;on (…equa;on of one unknown…) between what is single and what is individual •  An equa;on we s;ll don’t handle well enough •  In the denial we have created a huge history of how to repress the cri;cism against individuality by, e.g., pupng the individual in charge of becoming conscious of her/his responsibility for world and Nature Schürmann •  Though we cannot be responsible for something that we are a part of and thus subjected to •  But we may be responsible for the structures we have, historically, built in order to consolidate the beliefs that are in no way connected to world and Nature Evil •  Human beings are that bad, even evil, to each other that no other problem needs a solu;on more than that •  That is the core problem included in the roman;cist individuality: being able to be evil to others (not excluded to be good as well) •  All this: out of sheer individuality Schürmann •  RS aimed at a well‐done ar;cula;on of the singular being, without any metaphysical riffraff, just plain being singular: human condi;on starts with closure, uncommunica;ve state, “subjec;vity” •  This star;ng point is the end‐point as well: the death one dies someday is his or hers and incommunica;ve •  “vivi la tua vita perché morirai la tua morte” A life as an actor •  A single life is as fragmented and without a context as an actor’s life in a cinema: one enters and exits without one’s own plan, merely by chance, and with no sign of will‐power •  Those who learn to enter and exit accidentally, without much plan but re‐ac;vely, who don’t focus on the I but the situa;on, they may become, uh, “happy” •  “Happiness is not what humans are made for” Your personal exit •  Schürmann, like Heidegger & Sartre, sees the problem in the ;me span humans are capable to understand: one life is never long enough to become adequate for looking back and thus seeing forth •  All separate items in one’s life are taken too seriously to become seen properly; science fails here, too, since it takes seriously only items that are not yet or not any more parts of our life A kind of semio;cs? •  One needs an angle that is not ;ed to a idea of individuality but s;ll reveals the singularity: a reflec;on that is at the same one’s own and totally strange, proximity that unconceals one’s fate (here and not elsewhere) and the accidental nature of being •  Like in a sentence: •  “All things have become signs in the water’s reflec;on” Reflec;on •  Schürmann does not end in such a poe;c reflec;on but his idea seemed to reveal man’s chances in reflec;ve mode that does not take man as the source of being(s), nor as the creator of their values, but as a wanderer that has no other impact in life than that of breaker of water’s surface, confusing the reflec;ons that are already there •  Even that does ma_er, really Unconcealment •  The Greek word “aletheia” (truth) indicates that what we call “true” is always already present and easily seen but human doings (knowledge, science, beliefs) conceal it, again and again •  Reflec;on – if measured out in the right manner – may reveal truth en;rely, again and again, even though living a life covers it up again and again Unconcealment •  RS sees in postmodernist movement a demoli;on of old hierarchies •  But he as well warns us against hegemonic tendencies that are wrapped in epistemology, moral, economic thinking, or methods •  It seems that history (of philosophy, of economics, of belief systems) is repe;;ous: it serves the same dish again and again although just yesterday we rejected it as inedible Culture against man •  Culture works against man: it carries on any old idea and overcomes all cri;cism, again •  We don’t have intellectual prowess to leave past being past if it promises us a future (like hegemonic thinking does) •  Thus we stay in the game of hiding the truth, even if we know it, and uncovering it, even if only in order to cover it again An‐archy •  RS defines the possible change in thinking coming from origin that has no source (source‐less source, beginning‐less beginning, etc) •  We must think as if no star;ng point is represented •  Star;ng with one’s singular situa;on, rejec;ng hegemonic ideas, including bodily evidence, and s;cking to what is given as experienced I, with fierce cri;cism as is shown e.g. in Eckhart and Heidegger, MMP (and in phenomenological movement)