KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA32 (Muller)

Commentary 18 (to R4)

( TRANSCENDENCE AND ENCOMPASSMENT )
by Hugh Bone
16 January 2001, posted 13 February 2001

I agree that a lifetime of experience can scarcely be "encompassed", and I agree that larger concepts encompass smaller concepts. My problem with a great deal of formal philosophy, particularly modern continentals, is that common meanings of words fall short of the meaning(s) intended by those who have read and absorbed the works of certain writers.

Dictionary meanings, like encompass are only a starting point:

en·com·pass

transitive verb

Pronunciation: in-'k&m-p&s, en- also -'käm-

Etymology: Middle English

Date: 14th century

1 a : to form a circle about : ENCLOSE b obsolete : to go completely around

2 a : ENVELOP b : INCLUDE <a plan that encompasses a number of aims>

3 : BRING ABOUT, ACCOMPLISH <encompass a task> - en·com·pass·ment /-p&-sm&nt/ noun

And "experience", is a noun and a verb, and is a name for a lifetime of stored memories, most of which are not readily accessible, yet affect practically all conscious acts of "mind" and body.

Think of all the meanings philosophers have given words like history, enlightenment, freedom etc.

As for "talking to one's self", that, for me, is what one does in acts of thought and motion, when one is reflective, selective, judgmental.

For example you state:

"I am generally in agreement with what he writes, but I want to clarify some of his points for my own use."

Of course talking to one's self can also mean words spoken by a person deranged by fever, a blow to the head etc.

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Hugh Bone

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REPLY

If you wish you can avoid the words "transcendence" and "encompassment" entirely. What matters are the consequences of concept-dynamics.

(a) The meanings of word-concepts go beyond a particular experience (and also beyond repeated and collective experiences). This has led to the notion that words (or concepts or ideas) either have, or "refer" to, a reality that is independent of experience. This type of belief causes a number of conceptual problems, besides erroneously implying an ontological subject-object split.

(b) Experiences are wider than the concepts, or combinations of concepts, which are used to describe them. This leads to attempts to grasp the remaining part of subjective experience. This wish is understandable, because the available structured (eg, "knowledge of") experience is necessarily always incomplete. But the aim of nevertheless making all of subjective experience "scientific" is self-contradictory. One can study the conditions needed for experience to occur objectively, but not subjectivity itself.

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Herbert FJ Muller