[lit-ideas] Re: The Guessing Game
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 5 May 2012 13:55:32 -0230
Sounds like an old Rod Serling *Twilight Zone* episode. The husband wakes up
but
doesn't recognize anybody in his family. He goes back to sleep. Upon awakening,
he recognizes everybody but nobody recognizes him, and his wife demands to know
what he's doing in her bed and whether he can help with this month's VISA bill.
Worst of all, his dog doesn't respond to his calls. Now THAT'S serious. Which
is the worse existential condition do you think?
I speculate that this is Robert Brandom's (and Witter's?) favorite TZ episode
as
it addressess matters to do with how personal identity (and the justifiability
of moral judgement) is socially constituted/ascribed, and dependent upon
reciprocal attributions of legitimacy. On that view, if you're wondering "Who
am I?", stop the Cartesian navel-gazing that presupposes the validity of the
substantialist metaphysics of simple-presence and look at how you're being
"recognized" (or not) in the public sphere. That's the claim, anyway. I have my
own reservations and misgivings from a Kantian perspective, of course.
Walter O
Quoting Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Unknown.
>
>
>
> On Sat, May 5, 2012 at 7:19 AM, David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> > Two interesting responses. I didn't make myself clear. The following is a
> summary of the movie I watched: How to explain that
> >> people--your wife, for example--don't acknowledge who you are when you
> wake
> >> up uncertain about who you are? Because you are not who you think you
> are.
> >
> > You were being invited to guess which movie this was.
> >
> > David Ritchie,
> > Portland,
> Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
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