Jean Gebser’s Cosmology
Arneson, P. (2007). Jean Gebser’s cosmology: Poetic Openings
and Dialogic Possibilities. In P. Arneson (Ed). Perspectives on philosophy of
Communication. West Lafayette: Purdue
University Press.
Contextualizing Gebser’s work.
WWI and WWII prompted Gebser’s work:
1.
What was it about the alignment of cultures that
prompted the horrors or war.
2.
Gebser was an optimist in a world or pessimism.
3.
Wanted to be part of the reshaping of Europe.
“How we shout into the woods is how the echo will sound.”
Our answers will reflect our approach.
Three qualities of Post Modern Culture:
-
There are no universals of social theory:
o
Not rationality.
o
Not morality.
o
Not for social and political events.
o
No meta narratives.
-
All social and political discourse is saturated
with power and dominance.
o
There is a need to understand the underlying
structure.
-
Celebration of differences emerge.
Bakhtin: The inclusion of as many voices and perspectives as
possible, without trying to reconcile them.
Post Modernism: Is indifferent of consistency and
continuity.
Post Modernism reflects:
-
Globalization
-
Consumerism
-
Fragmentation of authority.
-
Commoditization of knowledge.
Dimensions of expressive consciousness.
Gebser’s work: Considered the base forms of ontological perception
present in culture.
Five perceptual formations (Structures of Consciousness)
within which cultures are organized.
They are not strictly historical and cannot be understood
through linear progression.
They operate sometimes latent, in our present lived
experiences.
There is a tension among them: They divide, disrupt and dissolve aspects
that prepare the awakening consciousness.
They are dynamic.
The Archaic Structure:
-
The first structure to emerge form the initial
unity of consciousness.
-
Prespatial – Pretemporal
-
Man and universe are one: No individual
awareness.
-
The idea of identity being immersed with nature.
-
Can’t really describe with words.
The Magic structure:
-
Magic awareness is the rudimentary correlation
with the self.
-
First fully human mode of consciousness
-
Can understand the world in its outline.
-
Vital experience:
o
Pre-rational and pre-causal.
-
Associations without thinking.
-
Instinct and intuition develop.
The Mythical Structure:
-
Bears the stamp of imagination.
-
Dreamlike in its awareness.
-
Works in polarity – or lateral associations.
o
A cycle of rhythmic and synchronized mode of
awareness.
o
Hunger for experience.
The mental structure:
-
Consciousness and
-
Acts of consciousness
o
Concepts are arranged in rational opposition.
o
A directedness, orientation and linearity.
o
Works in time and space.
o
Reality is formed form matter that can be
arranged.
o
Communication is represented through
representations.
o
Words express thoughts and ideas.
o
One’s perspective limits one understanding of
experience.
The Integral Structure:
-
Intensification of consciousness
-
Transparent consciousness and a temporality.
-
Integration of the other structures.
In summary:
-
Archaic: Closest with origin and pre-human.
-
Vital-Magic: Transformative sway of words –
Power to sway human action.
-
Psychic Mythical: Symbolic thought structured as
in terms of on-going cyclical processes.
-
Mental-Rational: Consciousness recognized words
spatially and temporally.
-
Integral: Concrete whole in its dynamic process
of temporalization.
Poetic expression: Revealing integral consciousness.
Gebser 1941 manuscript: The grammatical mirror-reflects a
transition to poetry.
The between dialogue enables “poetic narratives” to indicate
the integral dimension of consciousness.
Poetry allows an interaction of creativity and people:
-
It is experiential truth screened out by the
constraints of ordinary language.
Tiem is suppressed because of its detachment from memory:
-
Memory is always time bound.
-
The turn away from memory is a turn towards
freedom.
-
Shifts the recollected past to the present.
-
It is freed from space and time giving birth to
an aperspectival language capable of expressing new conscious structures..
o
Aperspectival: A perspective that does not
assume views.
The most extraordinary discoveries occur when the poet is
overwhelmed by what he has to say.
Dialogue: A species of poetry.
-
Post modern: Dialogue is considered more a
presence than a proposition.
Dialogue forms the in between of spaces.
The poetic is a way of optimistically accessing the
possibilities of the world.
Between reveals dimension of consciousness.
The between – openness to the integral.
Buber: Though speech and text have a prelinguistic relation
to being.
The between is a mental rational designation that allows
access to other dimensions of consciousness.
Between calls forth mystery of word and answer
-
Of tension between the different interpretations
of meaning.
No inter-subjective understanding is ever complete.
-
The process generates new understandings.
Thoughts and words are preceded by the body’s awareness of,
and in, relation to the situation.
-
The prelinguistic realm is the source of all
linguistic developments.
-
Language is the boundary between pre-linguistic
and linguistic.
-
Pre-linguistic – language – thought.
Dialogue may not be spoken:
-
Silence counts.
-
Silence can access the between.
The creative process of play unfolds in cosmic tension.
Poem is not a structure of experience, but a living speech.
-
Ordinary language takes on form between on and
the other.
Poetic narrative: Indicating the integral.
Openings present in “Between” of dialogue allow for all the
dimensions of consciousness to be articulated.
Poetic narratives provide concrete examples that best
represent the idea.
Poetic narratives reveal “the imaginary and fantastic” with
the real.
-
The power of story.
-
The end isn’t as important as the middle, or the
transition.
Narratives show us the relationships between the details.
Poetry is a way of creatively making.
The intensification of time/space transfigures aspects and
affects all of humanity. Whether the
people are conscious of it or not.
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