This past winter had me studying a lot more Lévinas, and a bit more on the work of Richard Rorty as well.  I have also been reading a surprising amount on religion, theology, and the philosophy related to those topics.  I finished the first presumably successful reading of a full-length work in French, and I found a few more difficult works to page through.  I’m hoping to get some time to start posting my translated bits up here on the ol’ journal as I wade through them, but time will indeed tell whether that is a possibility.  I have found myself wanting to get back into studying PHP.  My relevant knowledge is rather antiquated as it dates to the version 4.x series (non-object-oriented), but I keep thinking of great uses for the skill, so perhaps I’ll find the time to  get into it again soon.  I haven’t bothered to check, but I assume that either v. 6.x is around the bend or patches have been introduced for better unicode support by now, which I will greatly appreciate (these sorts of problems precluded my dabbling with PHP again while I studied Ancient Greek a year or two ago).

For now, I have to get back to the Akedah study.  Hebrew (and the semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family) is a remarkably interesting language–though frustrating.  I hope, if I get the time, to start working on a new little PHP script that will allow me to see how far unicode support has come³ while improving my ability to understand the Hebrew passages I am reading, but that is still in the concept stage.  Now, back to yet another reading of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling!  This time, I have finally got my hands on a Hong translation, which I hear is most excellent.  Class and outside discussion have been so exciting, I am actually thrilled to be going through Fear and Trembling for what has to be at least the fourth time.

In order to get the ball rolling, open up a terminal…we’ll do all our work from there:

wget http://omicron.homeip.net/projects/easy_e17/easy_e17.sh

That command will provide us with easy_e17.sh, the handy script which will make updating e17 easier.  Now we’ll make it able to run:

sudo chmod +x easy_e17.sh

Now let’s install the basic tools to get easy_e17.sh running:

sudo apt-get install build-essential libtool autotools-dev automake1.9 subversion

We’re in business!  Now let’s install what dependencies we can using apt:

libglib2.0-dev libltdl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev liblua5.1-0-dev libfontconfig1-dev libx11-dev libdbus-1-dev libbz2-dev libid3tag0-dev libpng12-dev libtiff4-dev libungif4-dev libjpeg62-dev libfreetype6-dev libpam0g-dev libxcursor-dev libxml2-dev libssl-dev autoconf pkg-config libpng3-dev libxkbfile-dev libsqlite3-dev libimlib2-dev libtagc0-dev libtag1-dev libxmu-dev libxdamage-dev libxcomposite-dev libasound2-dev

Okay, now on to the real goodness.  Run this from commandline:

sudo ./easy_e17.sh -i -e –packagelist=full

Let the script do it’s magic, grab a sandwich, and you should have everything fully installed in an hour or so, depending on your computer’s speed.

Then, you’ll need to set up the display manager to let you use enlightenment.  Unfortunately, it’s difficult and not recommended to use enlightenment’s display manager “entrance”, and gdm negates the beautifully quick start up time for enlightenment, as it takes a long time to boot the window manager after you log in.  Other display managers exist, but for now we’ll concentrate on just getting GDM to work.  Try this command:

sudo gedit /usr/share/xsessions/e17.desktop

Copy this content into the new file and save it:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=E-17
Comment=
Exec=/opt/e17/bin/enlightenment_start
Icon=
Type=Application

Then do:

sudo gedit /etc/environment

and append this to the end of the line in the file and save it:

:/opt/e17/bin

Now log out, log back in with GDM, this time selecting your e17 session from the session menu at the bottom of the gdm login screen, and you’re in business!  Bonne chance!

Reading about Hume also tends to come before questioning the correlation/causation presumption.

sudo apt-get install build-essential cvs subversion libglib-2.0-dev automake libtool libltdl3-dev automake1.9 autotools-dev libpopt-dev libcurl3-dev libx11-dev x11proto-xext-dev libbz2-dev libid3tag0-dev libpng12-dev libtiff4-dev libungif4-dev libjpeg62-dev libssl-dev libfreetype6-dev bison flex gettext libimlib2-dev libpam0g-dev libxml2-dev libxcursor-dev libgtk1.2-dev autoconf pkg-config libpng3-dev libxine-dev libxkbfile-dev libsqlite3-dev giblib-dev libxmu-dev libxdamage-dev libxcomposite-dev libtag1-dev libtagc0-dev giblib-dev libasound2-dev libdbus-1-dev libfontconfig-dev

Say “y” to install… then try this…

wget http://omicron.homeip.net/projects/easy_e17/easy_e17.sh

next, this:

chmod +x easy_e17.sh
./easy_e17.sh -i -e

After the install is finished, do this:

sudo nano -w /usr/share/xsessions/e17.desktop

You’ll be taken to a brand new document.  Paste this text in it:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=E-17
Comment=
Exec=/opt/e17/bin/enlightenment_start
Icon=
Type=Application

(click your mouse from the end of this text and drag it back to the beginning to copy it, middle-click to paste in a terminal)  Then hit Ctrl + x, say “y” to save changes.

Additionally, it’s a good idea to add e17 to your PATH:

sudo nano -w /etc/environment

go to the end of the line on this file, just inside the quotation marks, and add the text “:/opt/e17/bin” (no quotation marks), then Ctrl + x, and “y” to save changes.  Log out of your desktop environment and e17 should now be an option to select from GDM/XDM/KDM/etc.

All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors.

1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul.

2. That Energy, call’d Evil, is alone from the Body, & that Reason, call’d Good, is alone from the Soul.

3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following Contraries to these are True

1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that call’d Body is a portion of Soul discern’d by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.

2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.

3. Energy is Eternal Delight.

You can find the full text of the work here.  I think Blake’s position here augments my previous discussion without much need for further explanation and analysis

a scene from Blake's series on Dante's Divine Comedy

In the meantime, I have not been dormant.  I have taken on a bit of work researching Emmanuel Lévinas.  This work has thus far largely been one of data-mining, if you will; little actual reading and interpretation has yet been done, but I have learned or reacquainted myself with the task of journal-finding and sorting.  My skills had perhaps become somewhat rusty over the past year, but I also suspect that I had come to expect that my web-searching techniques would work just as well for sorting through piles of academic works.  Soon enough, I hope to actually be reading some of these journal articles and books, a task which is understandably more exciting than merely fishing for sources.  Since my first experience with Lévinas, I have found some of his ideas to have profoundly altered my perspective, others to seem prima facie contrary to reason, and a number more to simply baffle me.  I hope to find more clarity and insight, more explanation for the ostensibly nonsensical, and of course a little footing for the confusing material; of course, I suspect I will just find more material that fits into all three categories.

A number of issues probably made my earlier attempts at following Lévinas’ thought quite difficult, and I suspect that the most salient of these obstacles was my total inexperience with Husserl and Heidegger.  I have, since the time of my last writing (over a month ago, it seems) had my first tiny morsels of both of these philosopher’s works.  No doubt these little bits are markedly inadequate representations of these two philosophers’ complex perspectives, but I suspect that having a start will help me re-read Lévinas.

In the meantime since my last post, I have also experienced a few more tiny nuggets from philosophers like Michel Foucault, Slavoj Zizek, Roland Barthes, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Benedetto Croce, Daniel C. Dennett, Francis Bacon, and perhaps a few others whom I cannot now recall.  I suspect, though, that the thinker with the most substantial influence on my thought patterns over the past month has been none other than William Blake.  Therefore, I mean to take a moment to relax here at home, treating my Black Friday outside as if it were the terror its name implies, while I discuss a bit of the influence of Blake’s ideas.

My standard disclaimer applies; I am interpreting, but as an interested party with limited experience, rather than as an authoritative scholar.  I know little about Blake’s life, and have scanned only a few small works of his, so forgive (and correct, point out, or argue against!) my errors and missteps.

I first became interested in William Blake when studying art history.  I was struck instantly by Blake’s unusual forms, style, and color in Elohim Creating Adam.  This, as so many of his creations, depicted deeply religious images with aesthetic beauty and a seemingly converse, irrepressibly sheol-ic gloom.  I saw in Blake’s approach a sort of algedonic theology, maybe even an aesthetic retort to theodicy.  The creation of mankind, as an example, is an admixture of good and evil–at least from the standpoint of mankind today.  The work is a manner of showing mankind’s ability to get beyond good and evil (see also), without resorting the irreverent self-righteousness of proverbial Tower of Babel architects.

Elohim Creating Adam by William Blake

Recently I rediscovered William Blake, this time in the genre of poetry.  I am not much of a poetry critic, and quite honestly I have not experienced the same degree of aesthetic ekstasis from his writing as from his art.  My approach and my interest is in philosophical ideas, a category of thoughts which exist aplenty in these poems.

One thing that struck me immediately when reading Blake was his similarity to Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Both poets have an ostensibly devout affiliation with some form of Christianity, yet each has a fascination with other world religions.  Both adopt a pretty revolutionary form of universalism for their time.  Blake’s All Religions are One poem/print/argument indicates his position in the least-obscured manner:

The Argument    As the true method of knowledge is experiment
the true faculty of knowing must be the faculty which experiences.
This faculty I treat of.
  PRINCIPLE 1st  That the Poetic Genius is the true Man. and that
the body or outward form of Man is derived from the Poetic Genius.
Likewise that the forms of all things are derived from their Genius.
which by the Ancients was call'd an Angel & Spirit & Demon.
  PRINCIPLE 2d  As all men are alike in outward form, So (and with
the same infinite variety) all are alike in the Poetic Genius
  PRINCIPLE 3d  No man can think write or speak from his heart, but
he must intend truth. Thus all sects of Philosophy are from the Poetic
Genius adapted to the weaknesses of every individual
  PRINCIPLE 4.  As none by traveling over known lands can find out
the unknown.  So from already acquired knowledge Man could not ac-
quire more. therefore an universal Poetic Genius exists
  PRINCIPLE. 5. The Religions of all Nations are derived from each
Nations different reception of the Poetic Genius which is every where
call'd the Spirit of Prophecy.
  PRINCIPLE 6   The Jewish & Christian Testaments are An original
derivation from the Poetic Genius. this is necessary from the
confined nature of bodily sensation
  PRINCIPLE 7th  As all men are alike (tho' infinitely various) So
all Religions & as all similars have one source
  The true Man is the source he being the Poetic Genius

(Be sure to see some original prints of this here.)

It looks like we get to do a little metaphysics before we get the theory of religious/spiritual universalism!  Blake is pretty clearly setting up a definition of the self/mind, but it is not clear at first whether this coincides with Cartesian mind/body dualism or not.  Most readers would agree that, at the very least, Blake’s “poetic genius” plays a similar role to that of the mind in traditional Cartesian dualist models, because it is both the source of basic inner consciousness and the originator of thoughts.  I think that the work also implies that the “poetic genius” is also the recipient of experience (or at the very least, revelation); this “poetic genius” can also be said to be a consciousness of as opposed to simple consciousness, and perhaps a force of reasoning, memory, and other trope mental functions.

Blake's Behemoth and Leviathan

However, I think that it is quite unfair say that Blake’s “poetic genius” is simply synonymous with the Cartesian mind; a few important considerations illustrate that this would be an oversimplification.  First, even if it is only a matter of emphasis, Blake uses the term “poetic genius” place weight on the role of creativity being at the heart of the human being, rather than our gamut of cognitive functions and perceptions.  Blake’s education would have ensured that he knew of the term poet in its original Greek sense; the poet (ποιητής) is not simply “creative” (a term by which we typically indicate “original” thought) but an actual force of creating, a maker.  Likewise, the term genius, which to us now implies only high-level cognition, would have been known to Blake also with its Latin connotations; in this case, not simply excellent mental performance, but a sort of spiritual auspice for the individual.  Thus the poetic genius is not just a source of unique thought, but an active participating spirit in the world  A second consideration to note is the mind/body interaction model supplied by Blake.  While it is unclear in this work¹ whether the “poetic genius” and our physical bodies are made up of the same metaphysical stuff, Blake is unequivocal in declaring that the outward body is derived from the core, the poetic genius.  By then associating the poetic genius with that which “by the Ancients was call’d an Angel & Spirit & Demon”, Blake could be saying that the poetic genius is the incorporeal “mental” “spirit”, but he could also just mean that people formerly described features of the poetic genius in erroneous ways.  The middle-way interpretation which I think yields the most interesting results is that Blake is attempting to get beyond the corporeal/incorporeal distinction at this point.  By providing a metaphysical structure which allows not only simple mind/body-like interaction but also posits the excressence of the traditionally material from the stereotypically nonmaterial, Blake critiques this metaphysical distinction.

It is important to observe, though, that Blake still appeals to a metaphysical ideal–that the poetic genius is the “true” man; additionally, he offers another grand metaphysical ideal in the form of the universal poetic genius, which of course has implications for a possible hierarchy of metaphysical relationships between the self-ideal of the poetic genius and inter-poetic genius relationships.  Unfortunately, I never managed to get beyond the metaphysics to my main point about correlations between Emerson and Blake on topics like universalism, human creativity, and freedom (and, on reflection I think there’s an interesting correlation to flesh out between Blake and symbolists like Stéphane Mallarmé).  Perhaps the point is already becoming clear, but if I get the chance I might make another quick post about this topic.  I’ll make no promises this time, though, as that seems a sure-fire way to keep me from completing any post.

By the way, in the last month I have also had the unfortunate experience of rediscovering Librarything.com, a place for bibliophiles such as myself to waste their time online.  If you are likewise afflicted, I invite you to look me up there by my username “jxn”.

While I am at it, I might start posting a few random things on the progression of my thoughts and ideas in general, as that was one of the original bases for my posting here.

I am going to attempt to read from a little collection of Quine papers, and I shall hopefully soon make some headway in the Simon Critchley book, Infinitely Demanding, on which I just got my hands.

peace.

My intention is to utilize this online journal as a record of my thoughts in and over time, such that I might finally have an organized collection of salient notions which cross my mind–rather than relying on scraps of paper, random notebooks, files on different drives of different computers, and so on.  An added benefit to this method of organization is that I also may gain an improved understanding of precisely how my thoughts change over time and what sources have tended to consciously influence my thoughts.  The upsides of this which immediately strike me are that I might be able to more coherently explain my ideas and influences, that I might become more aware of my biases as they develop (and hopefully by extension become better able to constructively criticize my thoughts or to respond to constructive criticism), and that I might also be able to more knowledgeably advise or teach others struggling with problems relevant to my past thoughts or readings.  I intend, therefore, to publish my notes, thoughts, and opinions in some regular fashion–but the content itself may seem anything but regular.

I hope also, but do not expect or anticipate, to receive feedback.  Thoughts, corrections, comments, complaints, praise, concerns, or questions are heartily encouraged.

* While I hardly anticipate that the popularity of this one-among-billions-of-blogs shall incur the attention of many, in the rather obscure likelihood that this blog might ever receive any attention, the first post bears a particular statistical likelihood of also being viewed as a compliment to any other post onto which a reader may stumble.