Writing and the Mind
- What do we use it for? What else? What else? What else? What else? Particular, specific, and general uses ... What is it about writing that gives these acts a common ground? (Specific is species-level - cat. Particular is case level - this cat. The general is abstracted from the particular and specific in conjunction with other sets of specifics. We distinguish dogs from cats at a species level, but put them in the same general groups when we use Western household pets or domesticated animals or animals in films .... Working up and down the ladder of abstraction is a matter of using writing to FORM ideas: idea FORMation.)
- What is the relationship between writing and speaking?
- What is the relationship between writing and thinking?
- What is the relationship between writing and knowledge?
- What is language's state of being? Does it exist prior to and independent of speaking or writing? We've seen that writing is material, but what is the ontological state of that materiality? (What kind of existence does that material have?)
- Does any of this change when we move writing from handwriting to print? From handwriting to digital? For the writer? For the reader?
- What's the significance of this our thinking about writing as electric language?
This is how Heim puts the questions:
Does literacy - writing and reading - influence how we think? Is a literate consciousness somehow different from a consciousness without literacy? Or different from a consciousness engaged in a primarily oral culture? Does reading and writing make us different thinkers than not?
Heim might require a slow, careful reading. He isn't writing an easy-to-consume textbook but is doing philosophy. But you'll find a lot of what he writes is familiar. he's considering matters you have probably considered as a hyper-literate person. He draws on many of the common ideas of reading books such as the private engagement in reading, the sense that we can loose ourselves in a book, that knowing how to writing and read is culturally privileged. This is to say that he's starting where we tend to start. He's developing a thorough argument, however - which takes time and discussion to think through.
So read Heim for Monday. Get from him what you can. Make notes on where you become lost or can't quite get. Commonplace those places you want to consider further. We'll talk about those parts when we meet.
Read three chapters by Michael Heim. All of these are in the Dropbox folder.
They are about 25 pages each, so get started early.
- Heim - Chap 1 Electric Language
- Heim - Chap 6 The Book and Classic Model of Mind
- Heim - Chap 7 Critique of the Word in Process
We'll set up a round table and will dig into Heim's ideas about how writing influences the mind.
