I was thinking more about conceptual persona. As we know Cp is when a person creates a character to ask questions that the philosopher must answer. I was thinking more about this and I was wondering if experience would itself be a form of conceptual persona. If your experience is subjective wouldn’t any experience that poses a philosophical question be a form of CP because it was created from a character formed from that experience.
In addition wouldn’t any question posed by an outside source be considered CP because of subjectivity of experience. As it is said earlier people cannot share the exact same concepts as one another, even if there is complete understanding they are different because different people are thinking them. If a person proposes a philosophical question to a person that person is interpreting that concept, they are therefore creating their own concept through the interpretation. They are creating their own CP by interpreting the information they got earlier. And by working through those concepts it would be the same as if it were figured out through CP and working through it. Therefore reading a philosophy book would be the same operation as Descartes Cogito. Through the act of interpretation and translation to propose the question to ourselves, we are constantly creating Conceptual Persona. And if this is the case, it would seem that all thinking then would require conceptual persona, not just Philosophy. In addition where does the CP end does my thinking 10 minutes ago qualify as a completely different person? Every time we are thinking we are constantly putting on different costumes in order to analyze the things we are thinking. Our experiences form our thinking and build our costumes so all of our thinking would be the result of something that happened earlier in our lives. We put on a Kant costume because of our experiences with Kant. So philosophy is really just a remembering of past experiences so it is a plane of reference in that sense. Now I bring myself back to the question I had a couple weeks ago about whether or not science is just a philosophy. In science to figure out the patterns in the real world based on the data we have experience with. In Philosophy we are doing the same exact thing, the only difference is philosophy has trouble being tested in the real world. Philosophy at our level is merely a science because it is based on our experiences with the things we have read and we try to find some truth in it, some pattern. We haven’t truly created completely new concepts we were taught them. Our philosophical data that we have been acquiring over the last 4 years has been combined to make our thoughts, and every blog post is merely trying to find truth or debunk some of the data we may have seen. Unless the ideas came completely from our own head it is the same as science because every bit of data we acquire is turned into a conceptual persona that we try to make truth from.
I may be wrong but I think you may be misinterpreting the Conceptual Persona a little bit. I don't think the idea of the Conceptual Persona is so vast as to include every instance of thinking about something in a certain character. I think it is more like the system of philosophy we think within. So when we say someone puts on a Kant costume, what we mean to say, possibly, is that they are thinking in the context of Kant's philosophical system. In that case, it wouldn't be reaching out to include so many ideas.
ReplyDeleteWe should be careful about our terminology here. There wouldn't be much explanatory force behind the conceptual personae if they could be applied to any kind of thought. Indeed, the project here consists of identifying particularities of philosophy that distinguish it, so we should look for clues that might limit the conceptual personae as distinctively philosophical accoutrement.
ReplyDeleteOn pg. 69, D and G tell us the "the role of the conceptual personae is to show thought's territories, its absolute deterritorializations and reterritorializations. Conceptual personae are thinkers, soley thinkers, and their personalized features are closely linked to the diagrammatic features of thought and the intensive features of concepts".
Only philosophy involves the creation of concepts. The singularity of concepts (i.e. the unification or coming together of constituent components) carve out territory on a plane of immanence. (How? E.g: concepts X, Y,Z emerge as A, a unified concept; X, Y and Z inhabit territory A whereas concepts U, V, W lie other side of territory A. Of course, there is no hierarchical or exclusive categorization of concepts within the plane, so Y, Z, V, and W might emerge as concept B and thus inhabit territory B while X and U lie on the other side of territory B). Thusly, components--concepts themselves--such as 'I', 'thought', 'finite', 'other', 'object', 'external' find themselves inhibiting certain territories. In a Cartesian scheme, the thinking thing, subject, being, and doubting, emerge as the 'I'. This emergence involves a deterritorialization (i.e. the former dividing lines of territories separating of these concepts fall away) and reterritorialization (i.e. new dividing lines are formed around these concepts and thus new territories are created). Concepts like 'external' find themselves on the other side of a territory inhabited by concepts like 'thought' and 'being'. It's worth noting that under an e.g. Platonic scheme, the territory would be carved up much differently; the 'external' realm of the forms and 'being' would probably find themselves much closer to 'thought' or 'logos'.
There role of the conceptual personae is to illuminate these territories, to show us the dividing lines of concepts. Descartes' Idiot makes us aware that thinking, doubting, being, etc. come together as thus create new territory of the 'I'. The features of the 'I' reflect the point in which the components of the concept in question meet (viz. the intensive features). Only a subjective thinker can show the fragility of these territories of thought. It doesn't follow that all subjective thinking performs this task performed exclusively by the conceptual personae.
Suggestions for further consideration:
Why can only a subjective persona explore the territories of thought?
I've given an example of how the personal features of CP reflect the intensive features. How do they reflect diagrammatic features?
I must say that I agree with Ben on this one, particularly his comment that “The role of the conceptual personae is to illuminate these territories, to show us the dividing lines of concepts”. Remember, if the conceptual personae is the “mover” of concepts on the plane of immanence, then “deterritorialization” of thought the is objective of the conceptual persona. If “each persona has several features that may give rise to other personae, on the same or a different plane: conceptual personae proliferate” (76). The conceptual persona, in deterritorilizing thought, assists in making concepts available that would otherwise remain stagnant on their plane. This may provide some clarity with your concern, Jared.
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