Derrida: "What Comes Before The Question?"

[Blau&Gruen]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2bPTs8fspk

Derrida thinks in this short meditation about the status or modus of what goes asking a question ahead.

Why do you think he thinks that an affirmation or an affirming gestus comes before the question as such?

Btw. This is an ethical topic as Lévinas has said, that a philosophical thinking rests upon prephilosophical experiences.

[sparty]

I think he's right that we're presupposing that Being infers a much smaller time frame than is respectful of a philosophical theory that may in fact pre-date time and post-date what we might consider the future.

It's an interesting concept to say that every question comes from a predisposed set of conditions rather than being an eternal question of being for example you're really only asking about the nature of being as it exists in this moment.

[Chaigidel]

which is a very good point on our inherently limited perceptions-- why we need science and experimentation to find a valid consensus truth.-- and objective truth; apart from our perception

[sparty]

Well I'm not certain that's what Derrida is getting at in the video though. That's only one component of his argument about the nature of questioning.

It is really intriguing though.

[Ummon]

Without looking at the videos, every circumstantial set of conditions is one of or depends from a series of eternal and time-wise recurrent combinations of factors.

[Da Skinna]

Even better:

"what comes after the question?"


Oh... the answer. Right.

[Blau&Gruen]

Even better:

"what comes after the question?"


Oh... the answer. Right.

Well, he says somewhere, "the question that interogates itself". You could say then that what may appear us as an answer, can be just another question. - Beside, what might be even more basic in this self-interrogation is what he calls the (willingly ablitity) to rely on the other, the (self-)affirmation before the event when you expose yourself by asking something from another one.

[Ahlerich]

"What Comes Before The Question?" is this another chuck norris thread?

[Da Skinna]

Would not the necessity for the question need to be thought of first, like a use for actually asking the action?

Fire.

"How make fire?"

"Witchcraft."

Or something?

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Before a question comes desire. An example:

"I want this pen"
"How shall I pick up this pen?"

"I want some food"
"What food should I have?"

Many people would say a problem causes questions, but it is desire that causes all problems, so at the root of all questions therefore (and all problems) is desire.

[sparty]

These are philosophical questions not functional questions.

The core questions of philosophy not daily life.

So a more appropriate example would be:

What is the nature of my freedom?

It implies that freedom exists which means it is a current condition in which the question can be asked. However, the question doesn't account for the idea that freedom may not have always been the case and may not be the case in the future.

Likewise, it only accounts for a perceived condition of freedom. What if freedom actually has limitations, but the questioner has never experienced those limitations? In that sense then you've got something like the central question posed in The Matrix series of movies: What is real?

[Ummon]

Before a question comes desire. An example:

"I want this pen"
"How shall I pick up this pen?"

"I want some food"
"What food should I have?"

Many people would say a problem causes questions, but it is desire that causes all problems, so at the root of all questions therefore (and all problems) is desire.

But since desire is a product of the universe, at the root of all questions there lies physical reality. One.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

But since desire is a product of the universe, at the root of all questions there lies physical reality. One.

At the root of everything lies the universe. We're not asking for the root, just what comes directly before a question.

[Blau&Gruen]

I have not yet understood what Derrida means with "in everything there is a trace". Who does speak here, Heidegger or Derrida?

[Da Skinna]

Does not philosophy stem from necessity for our brains needing to cope with with greater meaning in a greater context, so we examine more and more the small things in a great way?

There is philosophy even in necessity. It is not a redundant practice, but the most valuable one.

[Blau&Gruen]

Philosophy is asking questions in a particular fashion certainly. Still, the clip is more about the temporality of questions and less about the ontology of questions as such. Temporality might mean here, before we ask ourselves questions, there is a situation which already includes a horizont which comes in the fact of having asked the question to a temporal conclusion. I suspect that Derrida plays with the idea of an ethic behind the ontology of asking something, e.g. the begger's demand for bread that appears in his eyes, or what lovers can read from their lips. Well, I may interpret something in the clip, what's not there.