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a philological sense of Our evolving |
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degrees of exemplarity gary e. davis |
September 26, 2024 |
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A teacher may be masterly inasmuch as s/he successfully sets a masterly stand- ard by having in mind (embodying) a conception of teaching. But the teaching is less concerned about being seen as masterful than concerned with being excellent teaching—as model example? as paradigmatic exemplar? as venturer beyond a model?—which thereby may deserve to be exemplary to others differently. There are degrees of something or someone exemplifying a given model (tropal distance). An instance may be the model, thus metonymic of the model, e.g., dialectics of classical philosophers instanced by Platonic professor Q: Q under- stands philosophy as such as dialectical teaching (in the Socratic sense, not German Idealist metaphysicalism). Referring to Q as teacher could be metonymic of philosophy as dialectical. A figurative reference may “echo” an ideal: Maybe C. G. Jung was ideally Platonic. Maybe the former’s conception of archetype suggests the Theory of Forms. An aspect of a model may stand for its type: To someone, philosophy “is” what one means by referring to dialectics (synecdochal of philosophy). Or one refers to dialogal practices by a professor for the sake of invoking the type of practice, in the sense that one’s profession is a practice. An instance may outstrip its model, thus antedating its model by way of perfecting it, autonomously showing fidelity ironically because the exemplarity is beyond the paradigm it seeks to emulate, becoming by experience better than the model, thereby intimating a paradigm shift whose implied model is eponymously the practitioner, such that experience of the example is metonymic of the paradigm shift. (Is Heidegger a paradigmatic phenomenologist? Husserl said no; a Heideg- gerian might claim that Husserl wasn’t yet authentically phenomenological.) Exemplarity may be a nomadic tropality: An “a” which is metonymic of A in one relation to (irt) A, may be metaphoric in another, synecdochal or ironic irt A. Empathic dialogue may trope therapeutic teaching. Philosophy might be regarded as therapeutic teaching (centuries prior to Wittgenstein). Psychotherapy might be metaphoric of therapeutic teaching. Emancipatory interest might be synecdochal of Heidegger’s motive for doing Being and Time. (Heidegger’s thinking can be easily shown to express emancipatory interest in therapeutic teaching.) Being “figurative” or “symbolic” “is” (as), “like,” ambiguous/ambivalent about its degree of tropality or semblance. Nevertheless, tropal differences in interality can be flexibly lived, maybe relevant to developmental and progressive processes —recursively, perhaps: from original instance (eponymously metonymical of its implied paradigm) through others’ ana- logical exemplification, later symbolically instancing the model more distantly (synecdochal), then outgrowing the model ironically through excellent embodi- ment of it, thereby intimating a new model, exemplified eponymously (metonymic of its implied model). Maybe I’m making a Procrustean bed of exemplary variation, but examples can variably instance or mirror or outstrip their model. And some models are regarded as better (more valuable) than other models. A person may prefer one model over another because a conception of modeling (or the ideality of the conceptual value of modeling) entails that. There’s useful sense in considering what a better model is, relative to interest in modeling. Embodying a model may disclose its implicit potential to be a better model. All in all, exemplarity is fundamentally about Value conceptuality (an upcoming focus), be it preferability of model instances or preferability of models. My inter- est in teaching, which tropes exemplarity as concept (being symbolic, in the ordinary sense?), may be also possibly exemplary of caring interaction, standing for the value of cultivating understanding widely (e.g., parenting as teaching; leadership as educational; criticism as therapeutic). The history of philosophy may be a conceptual allegory of one’s potential to highly fit into Our evolving. |
next—> Who’s a master? |
Be fair. © 2024, gary e. davis |