Current Views

Gianni Vattimo gave a talk in Toronto recently (Jan 30). His theme was the myth of Unity.

He spoke at some length about Foucault's phrase "ontologie de l'actualité" which he connected in some fashion to Heidegger. Englishing the phrase one gets the "ontology of current events", an apt expression to describe the currents that flow from an event and offers in a sense an ontology inflected towards emanations.

Unity with a capital U points upwards like the logical symbol for union; stood on its head, it is the symbol for intersection. It becomes possible to think unity in terms of connectedness and not merely as dominion. There is a way via Peirce to recoup the Thomastic transcendentals (Unity, Beauty, Goodness) of Being for a practice mindful of place and situation and co-federation — at least from the perspective of Canada, a confederation that was once a dominion.

And so for day 49
01.02.2007