So…I haven’t blogged much since the
end of 2.0, and I already feel exhausted after writing…what, 15 words?!...but
it’s impossible for me not to write after my three hour visit
to MOMA.
Today is my final day of being down
here in the NYCtropolis. Left the forest and hill 29 Sunset Drive this morning,
feeling energized, inspired, and not a little bit sentimental, especially when
I bid farewell to my folks, first my mom at the house, and then my dad at the
train station. I expressed sincere
gratitude to both of them for the hospitality, the food, the warmth, the
conversation, the laughter, they offered me this past 8 months. Once on the train to Penn it was all work
focus, listening to the last hour of the 34hrs of the Dead Zone I recorded, and
reading Martin Jay’s history of the Frankfurt School The Dialectical Imagination, starting the prep work on the chapter
on Critical Theory and Education that I’ve been commissioned to write –
literally, I was invited and I’m being paid
to do this work! (what academics, let
alone philosophers get commissioned to write chapters on Critical Theory and
Education? Oh… the irony, the sweet and
bitter irony <much like this Arnold
Palmer I’m drinking at The Grey Dog Café on 16th…MY place!>. Two things jumped out to me when reading
Jay: first, the reminded that πραχις is the crux of the
matter for Critical Theory, understanding praxis
as the dialectical relationship between thinking qua theory and action qua
practice. Jay describes it as
self-generating, which sounds to me like a euphemism for autonomy, and that ok
so far as it goes towards pointing us in the direction of what Castoriadis said
in the “Inside Television” installation that is part of the “Cut to Swipe” http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1516
exhibit at MOMA: ‘philosophy is
freedom.’ Really? I so much want to endorse this memory of
Attic philosophy, specifically of the thinking/writing of Heraclitus, the
street pedagogy of Socrates, and Plato’s dialogues, to the extent the latter
are read as literary works, which the translator of the Hackett edition of the Phaedrus insists. -- < in the compendium to the “Inside
Television” installation, there’s that quotation from Aby Warburg that includes
the category of the ‘old book,’ which was a central trope for me in B&L2.0
during the late spring/early summer.
I’ll need to search that when I get connected to wifi> --. But it’s not enough to say philosophy is freedom, especially when
Aristotle explicitly tells us in the Metaphysics
that philosophy arises in a particular temporal horizon, σκολε, one that is always
available to a particular class of individuals who are granted this ‘free time’
of leisure by a class of individuals
who are doing the necessary labor. The
Attic word for the workers in the political economy that ‘granted’ leisure time
is δουλος, which is also the word that Paul uses when describing his relationship
to Christ. δουλος is
translated as ‘slave’. So we need to
hear Castoriodis’
‘philosophy is
freedom’ through the mediated sonic filter of memory that recalls the dialectically
rendered πραχις of Critical Theory
arises from Marx’s 1844 manuscript, specifically
his critique of Hegelian idealism. πραχις is what Hegel’s writing offers as writing. The second bit in Jay’s opening chapter that
caught my attention was the history of the first ever meeting of Marxists in
1923(?...I’ll need to verify the details later) that would be the
proto-Frankfurt School. According to
Jay’s history, the funding for that meeting was provided by [insert name later]
whose father had moved from Germany to Argentina and made a fortune exporting
grain from Argentina to the Continent.
In this sense it’s not at all a stretch to say that the roots and seeds
of the Frankfurt School are literally
Latin American!
Running out of
gas with this writing...
From Penn
Station I walked west one block down 34th street to B&H, where I picked up
the Tascam portable audio recorded, microphone that Hofstra purchased for
me!!! Before picking it up I spoke with
a B&H employee who works in the audio dept.
He confirmed I had all I needed in terms of patch cords, and also,
coincidentally -- <there are no
coincidences!> -- informed me he had purchased the same Tascam for
recording that he does...the recording of live chamber orchestra
performances. As I told him, if it works
for him, it’ll work for me.
I then made my
way up to MOMA, ostensibly to experience the much talked about Bjork exhibit,
that, it turns out, has been trashed by the NYC art critics. [After attending I have to agree it’s a bit
more hype that substance.] The
installation I attended was noteworth for what it described as the 49 speaker
3D audio system that was ‘specially’ designed and installed for the
installation. It was the category of
‘3D Audio’ that most caught my attention, especially since just yesterday I
asked, in the final exam for my spring Intro to Philo of Ed, my students to
produce a ‘three dimensional’ portrait of the philosophical educator. 3D audio indeed!
Little did I
know, but the Bjork installation was the appetizer for what would be a feast of
art that I would experience for the next two hours. The first course, which followed the Bjork
appetizer, was the “Cut to Swipe” exhibit that featured
the very kind of multimedia works of art I was calling for in the final exam I
designed for FDED 127. (I had a sense that I was calling for something of the
sort, but only hinted at it during my discussion of the final with the
students. I folded a paper into three
parts and made reference to triptych, thinking but not saying it, of Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights.” And further, when describing
section 2 I used the analogy of walking into an art exhibit and being greeted
with a description on a wall. After
today I am now intending to give my students extra credit if they attend the
MOMA and include an selfie and a description of what they encountered.
The third and main course was the new installation
that featured a history of sound recording and broadcasting, starting with
Edison and Marconi. Making
Music Modern: Design for Ear and Eye
This hours after picking up the Tascam,
and in the wake of completing the 34hrs of radio work!!! To say that I feel the
poetic praxis/folk phenomenology project has a kind of destinal force behind it
would be to both diminish and understate the amplitude I experienced as I made
my way through the exhibit. At several
stops along the way I couldn’t help but smile widely as I encountered the
propaganda for early radio, and the description of Marconi’s experiments with
recording. At times I experienced the
proverbial goosebumps and chills, especially when an original poster for WQXR,
whose studio speakers were donated to WRHU and are now in the very same annex
where I recorded the 34hrs. In sum, I
experienced such an intense intimacy with the material in the exhibit that I
had moments where I delusionally and manically imagined it was all meant for
me! Of course is was meant for me, or dare I say for the poetic praxis/folk
phenomenology project, especially now that it has made the turn toward the
sonic, to the recording (documenting of conversations, dialogues), to the
engagement with the fundamental questions raised in Phaedrus regarding philosophical dialogue – the voices of
philosophy – as the manner of planting seeds of wisdom in the soul. --<Yet another way of describing ‘soul
music’?>-- Planting and sowing of
seeds via dialogue is all just a way of talking about cultivation, of
cultivating a particular world together,
such that we experience freedom together. But…there
is indeed the need to engage in παιδεια, specifically, in offering a training in listening. As I’ve said many times, there is an
important distinction between hearing and listening, which maps on to the
distinction between speaking and saying.
And this is the first reason why we’ll be recording the seminars.
“This is a very interesting
recording, it’s listed as an in-house FM.” Professor Iguana, hr1 min3 of Dead
Zone July Show Part 1, 88.7FM, WRHU.ORG."
-----------------------------------------------------------
FDED 127
Intro to Philosophical Education
Prof.
Duarte, Hofstra University
“The
teacher who seriously wishes to impart philosophical insight can only aim at
teaching the art of philosophizing. He
can do no more than show his students how to undertake, each for himself, the
laborious egress that alone affords insight into his principles. If there is such a thing at all as
instruction in philosophy, it can only be instruction in doing one’s own
thinking; more precisely, in the independent practice of the art of
abstraction.”
Final project: Portrait of a
Philosophical Educator
portrait |ˈpôrtrət, -ˌtrāt|
1 a painting, drawing, photograph, or engraving of a
person, esp. one depicting only the face or head and shoulders.
• a representation or
impression of someone or something in language or on film: the writer builds
up a full and fascinating portrait of a community.
For your final project you should
revisit the original question of this course:
Who is the ‘philosophical educator’?
After a semester of studying many philosophers, and, more importantly,
engaging in philosophical study together and forming a learning community, we
can now revisit this original question and ask, not simply Who is the
‘philosophical educator’?, but How does the philosophical educator take up
their work?, How do they define teaching and learning?, What are some their
fundamental goals? (I’m sure you can
think of some additional questions!)
How will you take up these questions?
What will you say and how will you say it?
Part 1a: write a single sentence that completes following:
A philosophical educator….
Part 1b: in 250-300 words offer a concise
articulation of your sentence.
Part 2: in 500-750 words offer a
concise explanation of the design of your final project, i.e., explain how you
are responding to the original question.
Part 3: with a combination of words
(max 750), sounds, and images, offer a portrait of the philosophical
educator. Your portrait should be three
dimensional:
three-dimensional (adjective)
having or appearing to
have length, breadth, and depth: a three-dimensional object.
• (of a literary or dramatic
work) sufficiently full in characterization and representation of events to be
believable.
Specifically, the portrait should
have three perspectives: a three-part
description that includes words, sound, and image.
FINAL PROJECTS ARE DUE FRIDAY MAY 15TH
NOON, AND SHOULD BE POSTED ON THE
DESIGNATED BLACKBOARD DISCUSSION BOARD.
