Nachmanovitch advises that the creative person distinguish between constructive judgment and obstructive judgment.
This means telling the difference between two kinds of time. The feedback between constructive judgment and ongoing creative work goes back and forth at more than lightning speed: it goes on in no-time (eternity). The partners, muse and editor, are always in synchrony, like a pair of dancers who have known each other for a long time.
(Free Play, p. 134)
Does one simply pop in on eternity? Pop! Has it always been "there," or does it need to be generated through something like practice? Can we judge eternity into and out of existence? Must eternity at any moment have been inspired? Does eternity even have moments?
Labels: judgment, muses, Nachmanovitch, practice, time
Nancy argues in favor of the transcendence of freedom:
The freedom of existence to exist is existence itself in its "essence," insofar as existence is itself essence. This "essence" consists in being brought directly to this limit where the existent is only what it is in its transcendence. "Transcendence" itself is nothing other than the passage to the limit, not its attainment: it is the being-exposed at, on, and as the limit. Here the limit does not signify the arrested circumspection of a domain or figure, but signifies rather that the essence of existence consists in this being-taken-to-the-edge resulting from what has no "essence" that is enclosed and reserved in any immanence present to the interior of the border. That existsence is its own essence means that it has not "interiority," without, however, being "entirely in exteriority" (for example, in the way that Hegel's inorganic thing is). Existence keeps itself, "through its essence," on the undecidable limit of its own decision to exist. In this way, freedom belongs to existence not as a property, but as its fact, its factum rationis which can also be understood as "the fact of its reason for existing," which is similarly "the reason for the fact of its existence." Freedom is the transcendence of the self toward the self, or from the self to the self–which in no way excludes, but on the contrary requires, as we can henceforth clearly see, that the "self" not be understood as subjectivity, if subjectivity designates the relation of a substance to itself; and which requires at the same time, as we will show later, that this "self" only takes place according to a being-in-common of singularities.
(The Experience of Freedom, pp. 29-30, Nancy's emphasis)
Nancy's reconceptualization of transcendence would be interesting enough, but he adds a wrinkle.
[T]he very factuality of freedom is the very factuality of what is not done [fait], but which will be done–not in the sense of a project or plan that remains to be executed, but in the sense of that which in its very reality does not yet have the presence of its reality, and which must–but infinitely–deliver itself for reality. In this way existence is actually in the world. What remains "to be done" is not situated on the register of a poiesis, like a work whose schema would be given, but on the register of praxis, which "produces" only its own agent or actor and which would therefore more closely resemble the action of a schematization considered for itself.
(p. 31, Nancy's emphasis, my bold)
I am skeptical of the idea that freedom delivers itself infinitely for reality. This skepticism is related to doubts I have about Nancy's ideal understanding of praxis, and therefore also the distinction he draws between praxis and poiesis. Nancy cites as a source Book 1 of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, an august source, but perhaps not the best way to start to think the problem of praxis. The observation that praxis "produces" its own agent is a keen one; however, I feel that actual practices also produce "goods," and I feel that there is a surplus of production (of goods and of agency) that should be considered. It seems that praxis needs to be rescued from its friends, but I'm not sure that it's my feelings that aren't putting it in danger. In any event, the view that goods are more highly valued than than the practice which produces goods reflects an unexamined judgement rather than a deep appreciation of praxis. This is evident if we look at poiesis as a kind of praxis. There is a view according to which the poem is more valuable than the making of poetry, and yet there are contrary views according to which making poetry–and therefore making poets–and also reading poetry (aloud and/or in silence) are more highly valued than the poems themselves. Metaphor, the emblem of poetry in Western languages, is a passage to the bournes of meaning. As Ernesto Grassi would remind us, metaphor is a passionate journey. It is a way that language actually exists in the world, neither infinitely nor finitely, neither in isolation nor in exile, but at the bournes. The question I would raise, then, is whether the self that is reached towards but never grasped in the practice of metaphor–having some relation to the agency that metaphor engenders–exists passionately, and, if so, whether we can think its passions apart from a subjectivity or a process of subjectification. How can we think its freedom, the freedom appropriate to metaphor?
Labels: freedom, Grassi, metaphor, Nancy, poiesis, practice, transcendence
A discussion with Nick about his thesis got me thinking about a connection between Deleuzean ontology and praxiology. In chapter six of Empiricism and Subjectivity Deleuze develops an argument that would lend itself to a praxiological understanding of the relation between possibility and reality.
A couple of preliminary remarks are in order. Deleuze wants to establish what empiricism really means. He says, "the question 'how does the subject constitute itself within the given?' means 'how does the imagination become a faculty?' According to Hume, the imagination becomes a faculty insofar as a law of the reproduction of representations or a synthesis of reproduction is constituted as the result of first principles" (p. 110). The principles are of course the principles of association and the principles of the passions. The human mind, according to Hume, with respect to the principles of the passions, can be likened it to a string instrument that reverbates after the string has been struck, rather than a wind instrument that exhausts itself with the exhaustion of the breath. "The imagination is extreme quick and agile, but the passions are slow and restive." Now I'm going to rush by Deleuze's analysis, and skip right to the argument for the primacy of the passions.
[T]he relations find their direction and their sense in the passion; association presupposes projects, goals, intentions, occasions, an entire practical life and affectivity. Given particular circumstances and the needs of the moment, the passions are capable of replacing the principles of association in their primary role, and of assuming their selective role. They are capable because the principles do not select impressions of sensation without having already been submitted by themselves to the necessities of practical life, and to the most general and most constant needs. In brief, the principles of the passions are absolutely primary. Between association and the passions we find the same relation that we also find between the possible and the real, once we admit that the real precedes the possible. Association gives the subject a possible structure, but only the passions can give it being and existence. In its relation to the passions, the association finds its sense and its destiny. . . .Hume often talks about a critique of relations; he presents in fact a theory of of the understanding as a critique of relations. Actually, it is not the relation which is subject to the critique, but rather representation. Hume shows that representation cannot be a criterion for the relations. Relations are not the object of a representation, but the means of an activity. The same critique, which takes the relation away from representation, gives it back to practice.
(p. 120, Deleuze's emphasis, my bold)
The analysis of the passions in terms of first principles is problematic for me. Quite possibly passions are raw and unprincipled. And if the principles presuppose an "entire practical life," I want to ask "Whose life?" I want to regard the practical life–I am uncertain about its entirety– as prior to any principles. It looks like we have competing claims for primacy: life, practice, passions, principles, the real, and, my concern, the person (which is not to be conflated with the subject, though we can try to imagine a subject more or less in keeping with the person). This is my niggling question about Deleuze's empiricism. I always want to ask "Whose faculty?" "Whose passions?" "Whose principles?" and "Whose Mind?" and in each case it seems the question is more or less appropriate. A personalistic philosophy may be compatable with a praxiology in many ways. I am still undecided about Deleuzean ontology and how this can be reconciled with my sense of being a person, or my sense of living a practical life.
Labels: accursed share, Deleuze, Hume, passions, possibility, practice, reality