Metaphors and "truth"

“Here our theory differs radically from standard theories of meaning. The standard theories assume that it is possible to give an account of truth in itself, free of human understanding, and that the theory of meaning will be based on such a theory of truth. We see no possibility for any such program to work and think that the only answer is to base both the theory of meaning and the theory of truth on a theory of understanding” (Lakoff and Johnson, 184).

And just when I thought Zen had completely cracked my head open, Metaphors gives me part three. I always get so apprehensive when the notion of truth comes into play in the conversation, the way I did last semester after spending time in History of Rhetoric and Composition talking about Plato/Aristotle/all of the others who spent time musing and thinking they could can wrap truth into a neat little bundle. The idea of capital T “Truth” isn’t possible for me; there are too many different notions of “good” relative to all individuals, as well as different perceptions of what we would consider “evil” (hello “killing puppies” situation). So, I agree with Lakoff and Johnson – that truth is based on understanding, and that every person’s understanding is anywhere from slightly to incredibly different (even within certain circles who follow the same thing, like religious groups or school departments) than everyone else’s. Truth is relative, based on understanding – okay, I think I’ve got that..?

I googled “true” just out of curiosity to see what different definitions I might get for it. The first one that came up was “in accordance with fact or reality.” Another, “being in accordance with the actual state or conditions; conforming to reality or fact; not false.” Another, “not false; based on facts and not imagined or invented.” Fact, reality, imagined, or invented. If we were to take these definitions at their word, does that mean fact and reality are also relative to each individual (I’m leaving science out of this equation)? But then that makes perfect sense – it’s something I’ve recognized for a while. It’s why creationists and evolutionists will never agree, and why some religions will never settle on who gets to say they know the way to god with a capital “D.” (Funny, the emphasis we place on capitalization.) You can’t place fact on emotions, and yet the phrase “true love” is such a common one. 

Does that mean then that we can’t use the word “truth” in the way we think we can? It’s a construction, one that we have our own constructions of based on our own lives. Does that mean it’s easier to look at it as a theory then, as Lakoff and Johnson suggest it is? I agree with the book’s suggestion I quoted above, but I’ve never thought about truth as a theory. And I’m still not sure how to do that. 

I wonder who first attached meaning to that word – origins are such a funny thing.

Metaphors pt. 2

Every single day, I have this exact conversation at least sixty times over:

"Hello!" *Happy smile
"Hey." *No eye contact, fumbling for wallet.
"How're you doing today?"
"Good. How're you?"
"Oh, not too bad."

Literally - working at the bookstore doesn't leave a lot of room for unique, friendly conversation when there's a line of college students in a hurry to buy Fritos and get to their next class. It's funny - in high school, I took two years of French, and when we learned greetings, it went something like this:

"Salut!"
"Salut! Ça va?"
"Ça va."

And for some reason I always thought it was silly that you would answer a question with the same phrase, and it wasn't until I entered the customer service force a bit after that that I realized it was literally the same thing I was doing over and over again at work in my own language. Now, if they actually deign to ask me how I'm doing, I like to throw in a word like "splendiferous" instead of "good"or something odd like that. It's amazing what the usage of one different word will do in the flow of a monotonous, but culturally deemed necessity for polite conversation.

I'm not sure what this has to do with a lot of what I read, but I couldn't stop thinking about it in the ARGUMENT IS WAR/the structure of conversations section (there was also a bit with French in it - the difference between "avec" and "with" - and I just reread that last sentence, container and with!) that involves going through a "set of initial conditions" (Lakhoff and Johnson, 78). But I kept thinking about how each customer has control of that conversation I have everyday, not only because of our "the customer is always right" policy that any service job I've ever worked has, but because they are there on their own agenda, and not mine. You become invisible behind a service desk, almost - I'd say a solid 85 percent of the time. But it's so funny how a sudden shift in conversation can occur because of a single word. At the use of an unfamiliar word, I go from being a non-entity behind the counter to being someone on the same level as the customers themselves - they look up, smile, and make eye contact. It such a little thing - but I find it fascinating.

Beginning Metaphors We Live By

I find it ironic that, after having been told I sometimes overdo metaphor in my prose writing, I'm reading a book which points out that I use metaphor almost every time I open my mouth. Haha! This book is fascinating, and it's got me spinning in circles right now. The fact that these terms are so ingrained in our minds that we use them without thinking is so, so cool.

My mind actually jumped back to an earlier post of mine for this class during Zen (it was my a priori one) because of this line: "All of this consistent detailed metaphorical structure is part of our everyday literal language about time, so familiar that we would normally not notice it" (Lakoff and Johnson, 43). I think for me so far, this realization about time has been the most interesting. In the blog post I mentioned, I'd said this: "We watch time pass - we see it change as shadows shift and the sun goes up and down everyday, and technically, that's a sense that we perceive through sight, and can name - we gave it a name: time." And then I remembered the class during which we'd discussed time as a construction, a man-made creation that exists only because society decided to create sundials and clocks and calendars so that we can run on schedules, and found that connection oddly satisfying.

Language is fascinating. And that time realization is what I'm stuck on, because the American view of time is structured so incredibly different in other countries. My experience living in Rome would have driven a few of my friends mad, as they are always "on time" and the Italians are quite "lax" in our estimation.

I wonder then, do other cultures with different languages use metaphor the same way as we do in conversation? And is it possible to understand those metaphors if you just learn the language and haven't been raised on it from birth?

*Just read through this before posting. SO MUCH METAPHOR.

"Writing it seemed to have higher quality than not writing it, that was all."

When I hit the last part of this book, specifically the area in which Phaedrus is describing being in the philosophy class with the rude and awful teacher, I started thinking, This is why I'm a fiction person. Because, at least when it's fiction, I know the author is using "lies" to tell an intended truth/message, etc, what have you. And what kept coming back to me was the small author's note from the beginning, stating that much of the story has been changed for rhetorical purposes, but to regard the following as fact. It drove me nuts through most of this book, because I kept doubting the semi-autobiographicalness of the writing.  I kept searching for this black and white line the entire time, and then, after reading the afterword and the introduction, I had this epiphany moment where everything fell into place and I realized the the narrator had been trying to teach me about the gray. I'm going to attempt to explain how that happened, but I'm not sure I know how to just yet; one, because there's so much, and two, because I'm still so shaken over Chris's death and the appearance of Nell, and the idea of ghosts.

"And finally: Phaedrus, following a path that to his knowledge had never been taken before in the history of Western though, went straight between the horns of the subjectivity-objectivity dilemma and Quality is neither a part of mind, nor is it a part of matter, it is a third entity which is independent of the other two." (Pirsig, 240).

In threes. It's always in threes. (And I don't think it's any coincidence for me that immediately after that paragraph comes one of my favorite passages for "romantic" reasons, I suppose, as the book would say: "He was heard along the corridors and up and down the stairs of Montana Hall singing softly to himself, almost under his breath, 'Holy, holy, holy...blessed Trinity.") And so, if I'm seeing it correctly, Quality could be called a priori; it's not mind or matter, it's something beyond the two, not immediate to the senses? That seems to make sense to me. The problem with trying to draw any sort of conclusion for myself at the end of all of this is that I still don't know any of it for certain. I'm still feeling that uncertainty, and I'll continue to go in circles with a question until I start to lose my grip - and looking in that frame of mind, it's easy to see how Phaedrus was driven mad by this.

So, do we try to grasp those concepts? Or do we take a step back and see that these questions are woven into the "pattern" as he calls it, of our realities, that will keep recurring long after we're gone?

Whew. I don't know anything for certain after finishing this; only that I have that feeling that I sometimes get, as though something so huge has opened beneath and around me that I won't understand what it is or what it has done to me until later.

Ok. So, where to start?

I hit the end of this section, with the narrator recounting his experience with the seed crystal that seemed to put "everything" in motion - a woman watering her flowers and inquiring whether or not he was teaching Quality to his students. And he's right - what is Quality, with a capital Q? I don't understand the lady's enigmatic statement very well, but it puts me in mind all the way back to Kant's concept of a priori, the "aspects of reality which are not supplied immediately by the senses" ( Pirsig, 130).

At first I wondered if Quality would fit into that mold, as something we know but can't immediately sense. After the above passage, the narrator then gives the example of time as something you can't hear, smell, taste, see, touch, etc, falling into the category of a priori - but is that entirely true? We watch time pass - we see it change as shadows shift and the sun goes up and down everyday, and technically, that's a sense that we perceive through sight, and can name - we gave it a name: time. It's not just intuition if we're watching light change, right?

So could Quality could be a better example of  a priori as something we can't name to any of the senses? But in some cases that wouldn't work either - if one soup tastes better than the other, and they're the same soup, it's because one was prepared in a superior way to the other, and we perceive that. But that could be relative to the person doing the tasting - one person's preferences almost never fall directly in line with someone else. Does that mean that we have to get into the concepts of truth, and truth being relative to every individual?

I feel like I'm grasping at one of so many straws.

Phaedrus, what's good?

And what is good, Phaedrus,And what is not good - 
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things? 

Pirsig's Phaedrus, and Plato's Phaedrus.

I've known about Zen for quite sometime - my dad, who I'm constantly sharing books with, gave it to me almost two years ago now, and I had kind of forgotten about it until last year's spring semester, when we were discussing Phaedrus in Sexson's Mythologies class last year. My blog for that class period involving Phaedrus centered around a song, Nerina Pallot's "Idaho" which was and still is one of my favorite songs. In one lyric, she sings, "Tell me Phaedrus what's good, is it Idaho?" I'd been wondering exactly who the Phaedrus was that she was referencing for awhile, and thought I'd stumbled along the answer.

Dr. Sexson, however, pointed out the whole line before that one: "Mr. Robert he says it's all in the head/ Tell me Phaedrus what's good, is it Idaho?" And so went on to tell me about Robert Pirsig, and brought up Zen. Which left both of us wondering, and thinking, that Pallot had read Zen before she wrote this song. What are the odds?

Since them, I've been meaning to read the book and was thrilled when it showed up on the syllabus. And now, having gotten through part one, and begun to discover who Pirsig's Phaedrus is, I'm back thinking about that song, and what was going on in Pallot's life as she wrote this song.

I don't even know where to start. I could go research him, to find out why he made this trip, why he's chasing this ghost (which I'm itching to do) but I think I want to wait and discover along the way. And probably discuss a lot of it with my father, who dearly loves his Sportster 1200 custom, and who takes its maintenance seriously. I've never seen anyone but my dad work on that bike. And I don't think I ever will. Except for maybe me, if he'd teach me how this summer. I am a little miffed at Pirsig's generalization that "The dirt, the grease, the mastery of underlying form required all give it such a negative romantic appeal that women never go near it" (Pirsig, 71). Horseshit and codswallop. I know some women mechanics.

Enjoying the read, though, and excited to see where it goes.

Here's Nerina Pallot's "Idaho":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RlcDuRQSas
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