on conceptualizing • gary e. davis • berkeley


	Project	discursive moments

	on conceptualizing gary e. davis	February 8, 2019

My sense of conceptualizing involves the entire Project up to here (and anticipating later sections of this cycle).

Full elaboration of any project in its own terms doesn’t automatically entail appropriateness for standard topics and for unknown readers or conversants.

What’s a good way of conceptual downscaling?—bringing topics and others up the hill, so to speak, while convening happily midway, thereby appropriating presentational sense to standard topics (discursively) or to others’ thinking (educationally)?

That’s not now about what, altogether, “conceptualizing” is (beginning with early child development, individuated through research results, and shaped into high scale discursivity); rather, about appropriation (hermeneutical translation) that is topical and appreciative. The following is probably obscure at first, but it becomes more accessible later on the page (which also exhibits what I’m scaffolding).

The event of appropriation is twofold (two appropriations of three modes):

[1] from [a] Work (constituting— poiesis of— a theater: highlands) to [b] backstage discourse (a drama, logos); and

[2] from [b] discourse (dramatic acts, e.g., previous Area presentations of this project) to [c] topical focus (e.g., scenes about “flourishing,” “importance,” “mind,” “reasoning,” etc.).

Appropriation, most evidently [b <—2—> c], is a Janus-faced condition of given formulation (troping a logos) challenged to be threefold:

[3: c—> d] worthwhile (re: ethos).

The horizon of activity is essentially dynamic and Open ([1]—> [3]): [2] a dynamically-open development of topic and [3] contribution to the individuation of the other—then, perhaps, contributing to [4] potential originality of effect—becoming fourfold, for

[4: d—> e] inquiry in Our (academically shared) evolving theater of conceptual interest. We want intergenerational progress. We want to contribute to evolving conceptuality.

I distinguish evident, to-be-presented appropriation in lower case: event...; and the entire process [1—> 4] as Event (containing interactive events).

The extended, multi-modal Event of Appropriation [1—> 4] eco-inhabits its horizon [b—> d], where the topography of a given topic [c]—> [e] is the interactive discourse-orienting structure for advancing its topology [b].

The telos of the Event is, in principle, topogenic [a—> b], though actual accomplishment ([2]—> [3]) is likely modest (if even useful, in the ever-experimental condition of advancing inquiry). We share the appeal of venturing, but where that goes ([3]—> [4]) is always an open prospect.

A topic’s implied -ology (conceptuality: [c]) is an evolving (-ogenic: [b—> c]) implicature of emergent -ography (thematic and tropical: [b—> c]), altogether serving the open domains of evolving conceptuality [3]—> [4]—open conceptuality of evolving domains (always a large-scale emergence of countless inquirers and discursants). The evolutionarity of domains gives way (shows appellant gravity) for evolving conceptuality (which is retrojectively narrated as fundamentals of a field dynamic).

I trust that every inquirer wants to turn discursive Moments (oriental importances) into long-term inquirial ventures—for my part: interest in group theory of humanities. Ideally, I expect to learn from primordially venturesome others, advancing humanity through flexible appropriativity: receptivist, semiotic, phenomenological, psychoanalytical, deconstructive, gestaltist, anthropological, and hermeneutical. (Thank you, Wolfgang Iser).

Comprehensive discourse that is idealized as a “Unity of Reason in the Diversity of is Voices” (ch. 6) is better conceived as a unitarian generativity. Its discourse ethic is ultimately facilitative, mediately appropriative—not compelled (Habermas isn’t compelled, by the way) to seek generalized constraint, i.e., idealizing strict formalization, absolute foundationism, Ontology, deontic overbearingness, etc.

So may go a philogenic adventure of contributing to the cultivation of humanity (as oriental value, as range of care) that my Project prospects. Retrojectively, that can be explicated as a process philology (beyond “Process Philosophy”) which is as relevant to metascience as to interdomainal research in humanities.

Appropriatively, I like to render The Project as prospecting a philosophy of teaching. Flexibly (astutely) managing situationality (scenic minding) is far beyond instilling structural understanding (serving “situated cognition” through instruction).

The oriental purpose of teaching as discursive activity is enablative ([2]—> [3] above), i.e., enriching capability (re: talent) for better comprehension (re: domain mastery) that can be more efficacious (re: field value). The warrant of discursive teaching for good* is genuineness of intending other-self efficacy (a consequen-tiality of other-responsiveness), premised on truth-and-rightness (good*) of insightfulness (([1]—> [2] above) irt probability of good effect from discursive activity ([2]—> [4] above).

I know such scaffolding seems formulaic. But I’m rendering a dynamic that can be subject to detailed analysis of the “teachable moment” in discursive interaction.

Persons normally enter into discursive inquiry from a lifeworld conceptuality that is richly tropical in aspiring for systemicity and methodic formalism, while the developmental (individuated) basis of that constraining desire can be quite intractable for self-reflection.

Displacing the difficulties of that through discursive reading can enact an emancipatory (therapeutic) interest through dramactional guises of shared interest in insight, resulting in a mirrorplay of reading and self-reflection— enframing and enstancing (for both reading and self-reflection)—that is enabling. Understanding this dynamic may be conceptually advanced through phenomen-ological and tropological analysis.

At best, a conceptual partnership develops beyond topical specifics. Abstractly here, but quite demonstrable in practice, a mutuality of appreciating the evolutionarity of a developmental view brings the biologistic notion of “evo-devo” into the cultural theater where it actually originates, where prospects of creative achievement may contribute to the evolving of a conceptual landscape, of being “devo-evo” in a way that’s lasting, developing a landscape to a degree that evolves (transitive verb). This is hallmarked by the leading minds that we bring into our canons (echoed by the hopes of new PhDs for their careers!).

For example, in Habermas’s theory of social evolution, potentials for evolving conceptuality are compromised by understanding “dramaturgical” action (pp. 85-7) as supplementary to co-operative action. Potentials for insight are compro-mised by understanding individuation relative to socialization (ch. 7), rather than socialization relative to individuation.

We want social integration to serve advancing cultural life and cultivation of creative humanity. This calls for conceptions of creative individuation whose sense of interpersonal life is interpersonal (merely), though ideally inter-self-identical (between kindred “souls,” having intimate rapport, thinking-as-One)—which is so beyond “sociality.”

But sociocentrism is a vital aspect of understanding creativity and innovation relative to intergenerational progress. Dramactionality ([2] <—> [3] above) of Work transposed to works ([b] above: [2]) is pointless without scenic understanding in durable theaters ([3] <—> [4]).

But conceptuality as fundamentally sociocentric expresses an evolutionarity of understanding that is—and always has been—ultimately dependent on “gardening” high individuation (e.g., Habermas himself), which cannot be fairly conceived sociocentrically. In other words, insight and high creativity cannot be understood sociocentrically. Sociocentric conceptuality of being conceals its own potential.

And cultural evolution is not Originist: Our future-oriented generativity is served by genealogies of itself, not based in them (contrary to the explanatory ethos of standard, professional evolutionary thinking, which traces back to fables of genesis).

The bricolagic nature of evolving humanity calls for conceptuality that is manifoldly (isomorphically) Open. Exemplarities of scientific artistry emerge from educational leadership that is always still learning unanticipated ways. We are ultimately in the Open, facing prospects of ultimate unprecendentedness.

After all, though we have the same genome as the classical Greeks, they might be overwhelmed by our leading minds. And We are exponentially growing up (e.g., scientifically), achieving a lot (e.g., Internet future shock), paying forward (e.g., university as global kind of life), and moving on (e.g., S.E.T.I.)—becoming, very fast, what We prefer to conceive.

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