The self-moving soul

Both photos were made in the English lake District. The first picture was taken above Easedale. and the second at the entrance to Wastwater.

Spectacles make a subjectivity complex; i.e. makes it consist of more than one perspective. For Socrates the beloved is the central example of a spectacle. A complex subjectivity is a self-moving and enduring soul. If a subject is unable to love spectacles they are simple subjectivities.

If you should say: Does this idea of love and the soul entail belief in a transcendent realm of ideas, or forms? Then I would say: No. Platonic transcendence is just a way of explaining the way in which spectacles defer definite answers.

The Literal and the Spectacular

The top photo was made in nepal. The bottom photo was taken in Coniston, Cumbria.

If you should ask: Why do you claim that the only the perception of spectacles is independent of the perspective of the perceiver?Then I would say: Because spectacles are not identified as literal objects. Perceptions that are identified with words are necessarily conventional. Literal perception cannot be other than dependent on the conventions of the perceiver. Perceptions of spectacles may make use of conventional signs, but their use is not literal. What is meant is not what is said.The perception of spectacles discloses something; i.e. it puts something in a different light.

Spectacles

The spectacle is Socrates’ model of philosophic vision; this vision is both affective and cognitive. The spectacle is something whose meaning does not depend upon the conventional perspective of the knower; i.e it cannot be something that is recognised as a generic object. The journey to see the spectacle is presented in The Republic by means of the analogy of the cave. It is a journey by which the traveller escapes from the bondage of conventional habits. A spectacle an event that brings about change. Changes produces feelings.

Nothing could be more unlike the contemporary spectacles presented by commodities, which are fashioned in order to satisfy conventional opinion. The new commodity is intended to disrupt, but to disrupt and displace those commodities currently in good currency and in so doing reinforce the conventional perspective of the consumer. For many people the English landscape offers a relaxing alternative to consumerism, but for others the landscape halts the traveller and puts the commodity culture into question.

Landscape as Spectacle

The Landscape around Glencoe is unique. To the east is the flat expanse of Rannoch Moor then the glen forms a cavern with massive outcrops to the south. The village of Glencoe to the west seems very separate from all this dark menacing atmosphere.

I found Glencoe spectacular and infectious. By this I mean that it was other than myself and yet I felt a part of it. Often the spectacle is treated as something different and sometimes as something we might identify with, I think this misses the distinctive quality of what spectacle refers to. The spectacle reminds us of something we have forgotten but which is part of our world. It works by breaking up the self-imposed bounds of perception and participation. The spectacle can deconstruct our subjectivity without making us homeless.

Wildlife around Glencoe

Images from around Glencoe

Here are two photographs from my visit to Glencoe. The top one shows a sea otter. The bottom one a stag in a glen near Inverdoran.