Punished by Rewards LO14298

Winfried Dressler (winfried.dressler@voith.de)
Fri, 11 Jul 1997 10:10:20 +0100

Replying to LO14214 --

"Doc" Holloway cited Ortega y Gasset regarding "language used between two
lovers"

Thank you Doc! I like this citation as I like OyG.

(The below is also a comment on the thread "ecological literacy")

The point is, that language need not be rational. The real requirement for
language is to be adequate. And language which is rational in the
classical logical sense can be completely inadequate for instance between
lovers.

The general observation is that rational language is adequate where things
can be distinguished in the sense "A - NON-A" as in empirical science,
where measuring subjects discribe measured objects.

But in the case where a subject meets another subject (lovers or not) a
hermeneutical method of understanding has to apply and the adequate
language is usually paradox (I don't like the word "irrational", it is too
close to "crazy"), because one has to try to understand the "between" of
the two subjects, or in other terms "A" is always "B in A" and "B" is
always "A in B".

With this my thesis is: Rational language is inadequate with respect to
motivation (no "inside - outside"). Motivation can only be understood in a
hermeneutic process ("in between").

I think that speaking in systemic loops is a kind of using the hermeneutic
circle. May be one can say that ecological literacy is the art of using
this paradox language without becoming irrational (in the sense that
everything becomes true).

-- 

Winfried.Dressler@voith.de

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>