‘every landscape has its own vocabulary’

[Amorphos]

‘every landscape has its own vocabulary’

This popped into my mind the other day, so I would like your interpretations please. Philosophy can be similar to art in some ways, and I like to get away from structure where I can.

The basic idea in my mind is related too ‘contemporary thought’ [#1] and ‘liminality’ [#2]. A beach a valley, or any scene both real or in the mind is the wider ‘landscape’ in the meaning, that two or more poets or artists could go to the same beach and write completely different poems, or paint a different interpretation of said landscape, that is the ‘vocabulary’.

On another level this is a way of seeing things as; ‘change in reference to the particular‘. for example, one may say something about a given issue then seemingly contradict it the next time the issue comes up. Something has changed for the same issue to arise again [usually], hence the vocabulary of the landscape has changed [or vise versa].

1. new and now thought, inspiration and intuition etc.
2. ‘Between things’, balance, perspective, union and duality [as elements of the greater liminality].


strangely no0ne [at other forums] knows what to say to this thread

[Ummon]

Every human being has.

[My Favorite Martian]

Every human being can have verbal associations with landscapes.

[Amorphos]

To give you some juice to work with, here is a reply I just made over at ilp forums, if you can read between the lines it will help clarify what the meaning is here…

quotes from ilp

the language aspect is certainly very interesting. to what degree can we find commonality between mine and your perceptions/interpretations of "the same" landscape (beach, valley, etc)?

The way I see it is that from infancy we build a commonality of vision, such that in our everyday life the landscapes are seamless! Once this is arrived at we start seeing differences from an extraneous perspective to that, so we have a base of stitched together landscapes [which are primarily extraneous perspectives too], then we add metaphor to that according to our craft [art poetry, philosophy etc].

i am personally inclined to believe that none of us speaks the same language, ever, and that we all approximate each other to one degree or another

I agree absolutely. Our approximations get finely tuned as we learn and develop, such that perhaps by adulthood a cardboard box to me is exactly the same to you. In effect our ‘mirroring perspectives’ become perfected, although there are many ways in which they are still different.

On a more universal level, I would think that each and every instance of a thing, must be different to every other. I see at kinda like an infinite version of the children’s game where you put the right shapes into the correct holes, if you add another circle it would go in the circle hole ad-infinitum, thus the net result is that you always have difference and only difference.

…there are vocabularies within vocabularies, just as there are landscapes within landscapes... it gets pretty complex.

Indeed! One may come back to the same landscape and it will have a different feel about it, even though it is exactly the same as before [more or less]. Simply the act of revisiting makes as much difference as going to a different place ~ if that makes any sense? I take as the same in communicative terms, revisit a debate you have had with someone and almost immediately the context fails and one begins to build something else.

[Ummon]

Well, you see, it's probably too correct to argue. Only, we are vocabularies dealing in vocabularies, and vocabularies are landscapes, etc.

Terrible stuff, in the end.

[My Favorite Martian]

I have had recently a conversation with an art historian about idyllic river landscapes in antic wall paintings. He said, we will never know what the amount of realism is in these works or if they merely quotes (from texts).

[Amorphos]

Haha, now even I am confused

[Ummon]

Aren't we all, Quetz, aren't we all...

[My Favorite Martian]

It is an Edmond Jabès inspired talmudic talk about landscapes and words, the meaings of mount Zion and the four rivers - the idea of reality and the ability to imagine traces of memoires.

[Amorphos]

It is an Edmond Jabès inspired talmudic talk about landscapes and words, the meaings of mount Zion and the four rivers - the idea of reality and the ability to imagine traces of memoires.

Never heard of him, though I dare say the op is a variant of what many others have found over the years.

[My Favorite Martian]

Never heard of him, though I dare say the op is a variant of what many others have found over the years.

It has in the meanwhile already something unoriginal - maybe just another form of urban myth (the postmodern jargon). My way to work leads along a narrow road with hedges and fields on the sides. Now, when it rains one or two times a day, I mostly focus on the tar not to trample the slugs and snails. The perspective on the landscape is then a bit reduced into a slugs-and-snails-vocabulary (that "represents" "landscape"). I suppose it is more a premodern than a postmodern experience of landscape that finds its expression herein.

[Hippolord]

Every being has it's own vocabulary

Every being has it's own universe

Every being has it's own reality...

Vocabulary
Universe
Reality
Color

[chriscase]

Alas, the ghost of Plato is rolling over in his grave. (Is there one?)

Time to go pull out the Phaedrus...

[Amorphos]

Alas, the ghost of Plato is rolling over in his grave.

I presume you mean that plato considered that everything had its perfect ‘form’ or achetype, whereas this kinda contradicts that?

Time to go pull out the Phaedrus

The roman writer? Explain please.

[chriscase]

I presume you mean that plato considered that everything had its perfect ‘form’ or achetype, whereas this kinda contradicts that?

The roman writer? Explain please.

Yes, this view is depressingly postmodern, in stark contrast to the Platonic view. Phaedrus is simply one of my favorite dialogues.

[Amorphos]

Yes, this view is depressingly postmodern

Oh god I hate postmodern! I was seeing it as flowing rather than rigid.

[Ummon]

http://www.amazon.com/Iota-Unum-Chan...989951-3107022

A great book on these issues, by an excellent modern Italian Philosopher.

What flows?

[Amorphos]

Got any quotes from it or a summary?

[Ummon]

Too good a book to give summaries. I can suggest the reader's reviews, though.

[Khora]

Yet, the notion of "parties" by definition leads to a distinction, as does the notion of an "observer". Rather, does not 'Worldhood' and the existance of a common receptacle binding being and non-being together rule any divide, polarity or split meaningless? Thus, any difference in the signification of a landscape is not linked to any 'individual perception' but that of linguistic proximity and origin. Indeed, in actuality there is no 'object/subject' divide in description, be it in a concrete or liquid form. As opposed to this logocentric view, in which the signifier and the signified become consolidated due to the presence of a 'receiver', surely description must find its endroit de rester in the form of the mot écrit where there is a absence of connection between 'parties'. For any idea of literary independence must surely be independent of the signified as well?

Naturally, the ideality of independence is restricted and can not be seen from an individualistic viewpoint but, nonetheless, it is a concept which has some individuation ('principium individuationis', although within a collective receptacle.