Worldly beings becoming human beings: Differentiations and articulations within our different ways of being

Abstract

These excellent papers by Pablo Rojas and Mariagrazia Grantella, both in their own very different ways, begin to bring into view aspects of our social psychological functioning that Descartes’ mechanical–mathematical world view has occluded, i.e., made rationally invisible to us. They both emphasize the degree to which we have our being within already flowing, intra-mingling, strands of both physical and social activities that influence us more than we can influence them. Rojas’ interest is in our coming to feel so “at home,” so to speak, in moving around on a piano keyboard, that we can come to relate to it as we relate to our own vocal tracts in singing—skills that we can develop (but not easily) by rigorous training. Grantella too, in turning to Vico’s notion that the early people’s “were almost entirely body, and practically not at all reflection,” makes a similar point: we need to replace our rationalistic interest in abstract entities with an interest in origins and processes, and to focus on our human ways of being and of living our lives. My only point of criticism of these two excellent paper is that I think that they still start too late in the day.