Comments on the dorsal stream: Aboutness

D...

2011-07-06T08:13:20.939-04:00

Yes, it's a funny thing, the word 'about&#...

2011-03-17T10:48:28.401-04:00

Yes, it's a funny thing, the word 'about', that it captures both the firm latching on of thought (even in the absence of proximity, access, the thing itself) and being nearly or almost there. As you astutely note, it does therefore nicely embody the problem of thinking itself.

Philosophers co-opted another word, 'intentionality', as a term of art for aboutness, presumably to capture the medieval sense of aiming an arrow at something--like thinking as a type of hunting. Still, if you ask me, this term of art lacks the art of the original.

I do love the word "about." To think &qu...

2011-03-16T21:36:41.810-04:00

I do love the word "about." To think "about" something - to think on something, to think around something, to think the opposite of something, to think in the vicinity of something...
the contrariness and capaciousness of "aboutness" seem to make it uncannily well-suited for conveying the vexed relation between things and thoughts that you so eloquently contemplate? in other words, a term that can problematically thingify/thinkify how we get from thinking to thing...or, as you seem to imply, how we get the thing from thinking?
http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/527

Beautiful!

2011-03-11T19:50:23.391-05:00

Beautiful!