communit y “being- with” i. as a quality or state. 1.a. the quality of appertaining to or being...

community

“being-with”

I. As a quality or state.1. a. The quality of appertaining to or being held by all in

common; joint or common ownership, tenure, liability, etc.; as in community of goods.

b. Right of common. (Obs.)

2. Common character; quality in common; commonness, agreement, identity.

3. Social intercourse; fellowship, communion.

4. Life in association with others; society, the social state.

II. A body of individuals.6. The body of those having common or equal rights or rank, as

distinguished from the privileged classes; the body of commons; the commonalty.

7. A body of people organized into a political, municipal or social unity; a state or commonwealth.

c. Often applied to those members of a civil community, who have certain circumstances of nativity, religion, or pursuit, common to them, but not shared by those among whom they live; as the British or Chinese community in a foreign city, the mercantile community everywhere, the Roman Catholic community in a Protestant city, etc., the Jewish community in London, familiarly known to its members as ‘The Community’.

e. A body of nations acknowledging unity of purpose or common interest.

8. A body of persons living together, and practising, more or less,community of goods.

a. A religious society, a monastic body.

b. A socialistic or communistic society.

9. Of gregarious animals…a group of plants or animals growing or living together in natural conditions or inhabiting a specified area.

Plural1. Denoting more than one (or in languages having a dual

form, more than a minimum number).

Opposed to singular

3. C. Designating or characteristic of a society, economy, etc., whose structure reflects the presence within it of different ethnic groups or cultural traditions; as a plural community, plural democracy, plural economy, plural society.

SingularLiving alone or apart from the herd solitary exclusive

sole forming the only one of the kind denoting or expressing one person or thing having no special office

private

Opposed to plural

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Jean-Luc Nancy

Being Singular Plural

By combining opposing terms (which is clearly a protracted and intentional contrivance), Nancy establishes an immediate tension that is at once linguistic, grammatical, geometric, and which provides the platform for philosophical consideration of the sometimes culturally ambiguous concepts of “community” and “other.” Community is both an object (a signifier in and of itself), and a medium (in which signifiers are cultivated). “We are meaning,” he says, “in the sense that we are the element in which significations can be produced and circulate” (2). Circulation implicates community.

People, he claims, are contiguous, but not continuous -- proximate, but not connected. Yet “all of being is in touch with all of being” (5). Thus “meaning…is a matter of one or the other, one and the other, one with the other” (6).

“Coexistence holds itself just as far from juxtaposition as it does from integration. Coexistence does not happen to existence; it is not added to it, and one can not subtract it out: it is existence” (187).

As we proceed, consider these concepts:

community as object community as body freedom expression origin

“The ontology of being-with is an ontology of bodies, of every body, whether they be inanimate, animate, sentient, speaking, thinking, having weight, and so on. Above all else, “body” really means what is outside, insofar as it is outside, next to, against, nearby, with a(n) (other) body, from body to body, in the dis-position. Not only does a body go from one “self” to an “other,” it is as itself from the very first; it goes from itself to itself; whether made of stone, wood, plastic, or flesh, a body is the sharing of and the departure from self, the departure toward self, the nearby-to-self without which the “self” would not even be “on its own” (Nancy, 84).

“In Être Singulier Pluriel (trans. Being Singular Plural, 2000) Nancy deals with the question how we can still speak of a 'we' or of a plurality, without transforming this 'we' into a substantial and exclusive identity.

The fundamental argument of the book is that

being is always "being with,"

"I" is not prior to "we,"

existence is essentially co-existence

Nancy thinks of this "being-with" not as a comfortable enclosure in a pre-existing group, but as a mutual abandonment and exposure to each other, one that would preserve the "I" and its freedom in a mode of imagining community as neither a "society of spectacle" nor via some form of authenticity” (www.egs.edu/faculty/nancy.html).

“…as in Heidegger's Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, Nancy determines Kantian freedom as a autopositional freedom, the freedom of a subject who 'forgets' that it is always already thrown into existence, even before it can decide to be free. So, one has to think freedom from its existential ground, its finite being. As long as one thinks freedom as the property of an 'infinite' subject, every form of finite being will appear a kind of heteronomy, as a restraint of my freedom'. My freedom, says Nancy, does not end where that of the other starts, but the existence of the other is the necessary condition to be free. There is no freedom without the presupposition of our being-in-the-world, and of our being-thrown into the existence” (www.egs.edu/faculty/nancy.html).

Thus, most traditional concepts of freedom bear the limits of a finite setting, and an existence (physical/spiritual/emotional/conceptual) requiring some form of mutual, even communal understanding and comprehension of its given nature.

A body of thought.

To experience freedom means to accept fully the terms of its limits… even to ‘free one’s mind’ is to acknowledge a limiting other space… and a departure from that convention.

Freedom demands the presence of others.

Freedom of expression means there is a listener, a viewer, an other.

http://www.egs.edu/faculty/nancy.html

Book ReviewJean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural, trans. Robert D. Richardson

and Anne E. O’Bryne (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), 207 pp.

If individualism and subjectivism are but sticky residues of our modern tradition,how is it that we continue to value the singularity of events and identities? Byhighlighting the limits of Heidegger’s critique of individualism we come, roughly,to the view that the communalization of meaning need not reduce events to theircommon properties. To do so, we must think of community not only as expropriatingindividual properties but simultaneously as individuating material events.But is that enough to justify the sweeping generalizations (“Philosophy is . . . ,”“The whole question of politics is . . .”) that accompany Nancy’s contribution?Only for the already converted, I suspect, which is all the more unfortunate giventhe communication that might have taken place along these lines. The secondhalf of the book shows Nancy as social critic, applying an artillery of theoreticalneither-nors to recent chapters in the ongoing story of human barbarism.Someone else might one day draw a good argument from these musings, especiallythose on “sovereignty,” but there is too much pontificating to see the matterclearly. “Human Excess,” a short essay toward the end, returns from the glibdepths and reminds us, as does the title essay, that Nancy is indeed one of themost interesting thinkers in France today.

—Michael Fagenblat



http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jeanlucnancy.html

Of course, there are other

minds

ideas

expressions

Par example, le Marquis de Condorcet…



(September 17, 1743 – March 28, 1794) who was a French philosopher, mathematician, and early political scientist who devised the concept of a Condorcet method (for voting).

Unlike many of his contemporaries, he advocated a liberal economy, free and equal public education, constitutionalism, and equal rights for women and people of all races.

He was imprisoned and died for his philosophy in a French prison, during an intolerant regime.

But he left us with…

But in this progress of industry and prosperity . . . each generation . . . is destined to fuller enjoyment; and hence, as a consequence of the physical constitution of the human species, to an increase of the population. Will there not come a time when . . . the increase in population surpassing its means of subsistence, the result would necessarily be-if not a continuous decline in wellbeing and number of people, a truly retrograde movement-at least a kind of oscillation between good and bad? Would not such oscillations in societies that have reached this point be an ever present cause of more or less periodic suffering? Would this not mark the limit beyond which all improvement would become impossible. . . ?

No one will fail to see how far removed from us this time is; but will we reach it one day? It is impossible to speak for or against an event that will occur only at a time when the human species will necessarily have acquired knowledge that we cannot even imagine. And who, in fact, would dare to predict what the art of converting the elements to our use may one day become?

But supposing a limit were reached, nothing terrible would happen, regarding either the happiness or the indefinite perfectibility of mankind. We must also suppose that before that time, the progress of reason will have gone hand in hand with progress in the arts and sciences; that the ridiculous prejudices of superstition will no longer cover morality with an austerity that corrupts and degrades it instead of purifying and elevating it. Men will know then that if they have obligations to beings who do not yet exist, these obligations do not consist in giving life, but in giving happiness. Their object is the general welfare of the human species, of the society in which people live, of the family to which they belong and not the puerile idea of filling the earth with useless and unhappy beings. The possible quantity of the means of subsistence could therefore have a limit, and consequently so could the attainable level of population, without resulting in the destruction . . . of part of the living.

Among the progress of the human mind that is most important for human happiness, we must count the entire destruction of the prejudices that have established inequality between the sexes, fatal even to the sex it favors. One would look in vain for reasons to justify it, by differences in physical constitution, intelligence, moral sensibility. This inequality has no other source but the abuse of power, and men have tried in vain to excuse it by sophisms.

We shall show how much the destruction of customs authorized by this prejudice, of the laws it has dictated, can contribute to the greater happiness of families, and to the spread of the domestic virtues, the first foundation of all other virtues. It will promote the progress of education, because [education] will be extended to both sexes more equally, and because education cannot become general, even among men, without the cooperation of mothers…….

Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain

(Paris: Masson et Fils, 1822)

All these causes of the improvement of the human species, all these means that assure it, will by their nature act continuously and acquire a constantly growing momentum.

We have explained the proofs of this . . .; we could therefore already conclude that the perfectibility of man is unlimited, even though, up to now, we have only supposed him endowed with the same natural faculties and organization. What then would be the certainty and extent of our hopes if we could believe that these natural faculties themselves and this organization are also susceptible of improvement? This is the last question remaining for us to examine.

The organic perfectibility or degeneration of races in plants and animals may be regarded as one of the general laws of nature.

This law extends to the human species; and certainly no one will doubt that progress in medical conservation [of life], in the use of healthier food and housing, a way of living that would develop strength through exercise without impairing it by excess, and finally the destruction of the two most active causes of degradation-misery and too great wealth-will prolong the extent of life and assure people more constant health as well as a more robust constitution. We feel that the progress of preventive medicine as a preservative, made more effective by the progress of reason and social order, will eventually banish communicable or contagious illnesses and those diseases in general that originate in climate, food, and the nature of work. It would not be difficult to prove that this hope should extend to almost all other diseases, whose more remote causes will eventually be recognized. Would it be absurd now to suppose that the improvement of the human race should be regarded as capable of unlimited progress? That a time will come when death would result only from extraordinary accidents or the more and more gradual wearing out of vitality, and that, finally, the duration of the average interval between birth and wearing out has itself no specific limit whatsoever? No doubt man will not become immortal, but cannot the span constantly increase between the moment he begins to live and the time when naturally, without illness or accident, he finds life a burden?C’est plutôt comme le “Cyborg Bill

of Rights,” n’est-ce pas?

and then there’s

Edward O. Wilson…





“we are human in good part because of the particular way we affiliate with other organisms. They are the matrix in which the human mind originated and is permanently rooted, and they offer the challenge and freedom innately sought. To the extent that each person can feel like a naturalist, the old excitement of the untrammeled world will be regained. I offer this as a formula of reenchantment to invigorate poetry and myth: mysterious and little known organisms live within walking distance of where you sit. Splendor awaits in minute proportions”

(Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia, 1984, p. 139)

Entomologist

Author

Biologist

Philosopher

(still living)

We are, [Wilson] argues, a biological species who will find little ultimate meaning apart from the remainder of life. We are bound to living things by what Wilson describes as an innate urge to affiliate which begins in early childhood and cascades into cultural and social patterns. (David Orr)

"If natural diversity is the wellspring of human intelligence, then the systematic destruction inherent in contemporary technology and economics is a war against the very sources of mind . . . It is impossible to unravel natural diversity without undermining human intelligence as well.

"If you study life deeply, its profundity will seize you suddenly with dizziness . . . "Let a man once begin to think about the mystery of his life and the links which connect him with the life that fills the world, and he cannot but bring to bear upon his own life and all other life that comes within his reach, the principle of Reverance for Life." (A. Schweitzer)



Patriotism, the name we give to the love of one's country must be redefined to include those things which contribute to the real health, beauty and ecological stability of our homeplaces and to exclude those which do not. Patriotism as Biophilia requires that we decide to rejoin the idea of love of one's country to how well one uses the country. To destroy forest, soils, natural beauty and wildlife in order to swell the gross national product or to provide short term and often spurious jobs, is not patriotism but greed. Real patriotism demands that we weave the competent, patient and disciplined love of our land into our political life and our political institutions. No one has expressed this idea more clearly than the former Czech President, Vaclav Havel, "We must draw our standards from the natural world. We must honour with the humility of the wise the bounds of that natural world and the mystery which lies beyond them, admitting that there is something in the order of being which evidently exceeds all our competence."

biophilia = "the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life”

(plural community) bee before “I”



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“ ‘Justice’ designates what needs to be rendered… What needs to be restored, repaired, given in return to each existing singular, what needs to be attributed to it again, is the giving which it is itself….Justice, therefore, is returning to each existence what returns to it according to its unique, singular creation in its coexistence with all other creations” (Nancy 186-187).

An other community



“the return of “war”…as a figure in our symbolic space is undeniably a new and singular phenomenon, because it produces itself in a world where this symbol seems to have been all but effaced… it is a question for the world - of knowing to which symbolic space we can entrust what is known as liberty, humanity” (Nancy 101-102).

“The right to wage war excepts itself from law at the very point where it belongs to it both as an origin and as an end…at a point replete with sovereign brilliance” (107).

“War borders on art…understood absolutely in its modern sense. …But this manipulation does not exhaust an aesthetic (a sensible presentation) of the destiny of community: the death of individuals is immediately recuperated within the figure of the Sovereign Leader or Nation where the community finds its finishing. War is the monument, the festival, the somber and pure sign of the community in its sovereignty…

In essence, war is collective…[and] the entire history of the concept of war demonstrates that its determination is located within the constant play between its relations with the res publica (the commonwealth as good and end in itself) and its relation with the Princeps (the principle and principate of sovereign authority)” (Nancy 122)



“Our understanding (of the meaning of Being) is an understanding that we share understanding between us and, at the same time, because we share understanding between us: between us all, simultaneously - all the dead and the living, and all beings”

(Nancy 99).

“The unity of a world is not one: it is made of diversity, and even disparity and opposition. It is in fact, which is to say that it does not add or subtract anything. The unity of a world is nothing other than its diversity, and this, in turn, is a diversity of worlds. A world is a multiplicity of worlds; the world is a multiplicity of worlds, and its unity is the mutual sharing and exposition of all its worlds - within this world.”

Jean-Luc Nancy

communit y “being- with” i. as a quality or state. 1.a. the quality of appertaining to or being...

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