Love this bit: The new Creation shimmers before the backdrop of non-being. It is perennially fresh because it has never existed before, like the virginal birth of Venus, who floats on the foam of chaos, born on the scallop-shell of consciousness to arrive on the shore of knowledge.
I have also been digging into the pre-Cartesian notions of subject / object due to chapter 4 of TPOF.
How is the word subject (hypokeímenon) most often understood today? When
we think or speak of a subject, we primarily think of human beings, beings
capable of thinking and making decisions; that is, rational and free beings. In
this sense, a subject differs from mere objects and things. A subject also differs
from the world of animals; while we do not call animals, things or objects, we
do not call them subjects. Human beings are primarily subjects, and since they
are subjects, they cannot be treated as mere things or objects. This is how it is
understood today, but the way to this was rather long and complicated.
Like the word ‘object,’ the word ‘subject’ is a literal translation of the Greek
word ‘hypokeímenon,’ and the corresponding Latin term ‘subjectum.’1 The word
indicates what was thrown (keimai, jacere) under something (hypo, sub), and what as a result of this lies under something and is a foundation (substantia, hypostasis). This etymological analysis of the word subject appeals to the imagination, but in philosophy it had a very subtle meaning, especially when it took on a technical meaning.
it’s a great point re the ironic reversal of the term’s meaning. “realism,” “energy,” and “natural” have gone a similar way since the Nominalist and scientific revolutions. “subjective” today usually means “personal,” with the connotation of something idiosyncratic and even arbitrary. before Descartes, it indicated the contingency of a phenomenon on a subject, if i have understood correctly. “subject” seems to refer to an enduring point to which experience is indexed just as “substance” seems to refer to something analogous in respect to accidental changes in material configuration.
I like the word "substance", it evokes the idea of something that grounds, establishes the foundations for, provides a bed on which, something else may reside. My soul is that place, from the one side comes thinking, from the other observation and these 2 aspects can regain their unity in this substance. The unity that existed before I pulled it apart. The imagery of Seth/ Typhoon. Isis and Osiris works particularly well for me in the above context.
yes, and i wanted to point out that “subject” can play a similar role in another dimension: “substance” indexes to the dimension of ontology, for instance, and “subject” to epistemology
Love this bit: The new Creation shimmers before the backdrop of non-being. It is perennially fresh because it has never existed before, like the virginal birth of Venus, who floats on the foam of chaos, born on the scallop-shell of consciousness to arrive on the shore of knowledge.
I have also been digging into the pre-Cartesian notions of subject / object due to chapter 4 of TPOF.
How is the word subject (hypokeímenon) most often understood today? When
we think or speak of a subject, we primarily think of human beings, beings
capable of thinking and making decisions; that is, rational and free beings. In
this sense, a subject differs from mere objects and things. A subject also differs
from the world of animals; while we do not call animals, things or objects, we
do not call them subjects. Human beings are primarily subjects, and since they
are subjects, they cannot be treated as mere things or objects. This is how it is
understood today, but the way to this was rather long and complicated.
Like the word ‘object,’ the word ‘subject’ is a literal translation of the Greek
word ‘hypokeímenon,’ and the corresponding Latin term ‘subjectum.’1 The word
indicates what was thrown (keimai, jacere) under something (hypo, sub), and what as a result of this lies under something and is a foundation (substantia, hypostasis). This etymological analysis of the word subject appeals to the imagination, but in philosophy it had a very subtle meaning, especially when it took on a technical meaning.
it’s a great point re the ironic reversal of the term’s meaning. “realism,” “energy,” and “natural” have gone a similar way since the Nominalist and scientific revolutions. “subjective” today usually means “personal,” with the connotation of something idiosyncratic and even arbitrary. before Descartes, it indicated the contingency of a phenomenon on a subject, if i have understood correctly. “subject” seems to refer to an enduring point to which experience is indexed just as “substance” seems to refer to something analogous in respect to accidental changes in material configuration.
I like the word "substance", it evokes the idea of something that grounds, establishes the foundations for, provides a bed on which, something else may reside. My soul is that place, from the one side comes thinking, from the other observation and these 2 aspects can regain their unity in this substance. The unity that existed before I pulled it apart. The imagery of Seth/ Typhoon. Isis and Osiris works particularly well for me in the above context.
yes, and i wanted to point out that “subject” can play a similar role in another dimension: “substance” indexes to the dimension of ontology, for instance, and “subject” to epistemology