Theatre + intensionality + throwness + Back Wall + social animal + simplicator + radical individualism

[here are some weak notes from last week's Metaphysics class:]

In order to present an image for the structure of human experience, we use the image of a “Theatre.” We are the person in the audience, always watching, not passive. We go to the Theatre to see with “intensionality.” Not “intentionality” (with deliberation), but with “intensionality,” – a basic movement or dynamism in our relationship (like Augustine’s “restless heart“). It is a “throwness,” where our experience of being thrown into that dynamism in engaging and not passive, like a picture camera (Naïve Realism).

Procrastination is, therefore, the art of trying not to be human, hanging on to and not moving … repeating the same thing to the point of distracting us from thinking, avoiding “intensionality.”

Also in the Theatre, we watch Actors that don’t move, but are identifiable to their purpose. Behind them are changeable “Backdrops” that we may see as an outdoor picnic scene or an indoor house scene that we can easily identify. These Backdrops are our presuppositions. We have “thematic” presuppositions that are explicit and fully conscious of. We also have “non-thematic” presuppositions that are implicit and ingrained in us that we must learn to identify. In order to come to real “truth,” we must identify what our “natural standpoint” is, that becomes our reference point, pull of presuppositions, to discover the universals of truth for our lives. These universal are the “Back Wall” of the theatre. The “Back Wall” behind the “Backdrops” is “being” that we seek.

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Man is essentially a social animal, as Aristotle said. Modernity, however, does something unique. Through Radical Individualism, the slate is wiped clean making man the only being of importance. This was best expressed by Locke … Man is essentially an individual. It is later on that he organizes itself as a society. This is portrayed in our society with icons like the “Marlboro Man” who’s a cowboy living independent very self-confident without the need of others. This idealized character, however, is not real and used to sell cigarettes.

This Radical Individualism cannot be true. We are born into a family that necessitates society to “raise” a human being, at minimum, a man and woman to conceive a human being. One of the first acts of God, as seen in Genesis, is to create a society: “It is not good for Adam to be alone.” Locke is wrong. Aristotle is right. We ARE social animals.

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With Naïve Realism, we have “Simplicators” that see things as “it is the way it is.” We must abandon the “Simplicitor.” We strive for Hermeneutical Realism, in which what man encounters is real … not imagined or invented.

Animals, just as man, has sensation that allows them to experience hot, cold, wet, blue, hungry, etc. Animals respond to their environment, but only as stimuli to their sensation. It is a “pseudo-perception.” Human beings, however, have true perception, whereby they can make discoveries and rationalize their sensations to, ultimately, make references using language. When we describe the world, we relate our presuppositions (“Backdrops”). All human experiences are mediated by language. Language is the beginning. We take it for granted. Man is the only being that is intrinsically dynamic, that has awareness that he “IS” (“Who I am?”). No other being is aware of it’s being.

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