Jyoti wrote, asking for help with her German translation homework from me and Corina; the course is basically a German-for-reading-knowledge course in which they translate parts of Kant’s 1st Critique (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]).
Jyoti asked: “simply cannot find the meaning of this verb anywhere — affizieren, and it appears several times in our homework this week — so might either of you know the meaning of it? Or, know where to look? Or, is it close enough to the English (no clue).”
Corina responded: “Can you give me the context? I found it as ‘to affect’ from the Lat. ‘afficere’ in Leo http://dict.leo.org”
My response was as follows, that I had found the same Leo source as Corina and …
See also: http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/patriotism/mieszkowski/mieszkowski_essay.html
in the Critique of Pure Reason, where Kant writes of a form of intuition, “the mode in which the mind is affected through its own activity . . . and so is affected by itself” (87).[2] Kant’s reflexive “to affect oneself” (sich affizieren) comes from the Latin afficere: “to affect,” “to act upon,” “to excite.” Neither active nor passive, neither a model of self-positing nor self-reflection, self-affection—the mind’s capacity to “touch” itself—is the posture that facilitates all other mental activities even as it is indifferent to them.
Also: http://www.textlog.de/31903.html
Affizieren s. Affektion.
Or: http://www.biologie.de/biowiki/Affizieren
Affizieren (lat. afficere: hinzutun, einwirken, anregen) eigentlich: erregen, reizen – bezeichnet die Fähigkeit eines materiellen Objektes, auf die Sinnesorgane des Menschen einzuwirken und Empfindungen hervorzurufen.
Der Begriff wurde von Immanuel Kant in die Logik bzw. Philosophie aufgenommen. Nach Kant muss der zu erkennende Gegenstand “das Gemüt auf eine bestimmte Weise affizieren”, um erkannt werden zu können.
And: http://www.jstor.org/view/0065972x/sp040032/04x0983u/0
Another example of such causation is the impact of things in themselves on outer sense which Kant calls “affizieren”.
It would take another essay to *possibly* connect Kant’s use of affizieren to any sort of post-Baroque reflection on the Doctrine of Affectation(s), and I don’t think it’s *that* complicated here, but it does appear that Kant’s use is tied to the idea/concept (not in the Kantian sense) of the Intution being affected, stimulated.
In other news:
- Last night: Jolly Bob’s with my brother, Sherie, some already tipsy blonde named Jackie, Sherie’s friend Martha, Taylor the new program director at the hostel, and several undergrad women whose names I never caught. Several tasty rum-based cocktails were consumed, and I had the very tasty and yet affordable Curry Fried Thighs.
- Got around to posting my blackberry pie recipe and photo-documentation on my own site. It as a damn good pie.
- Opened a bottle of twin fin cabernet sauvingnon (2004). It’s a cheap wine (the kind I drink!) but is pleasant, if not that complex. There are better cheap cabs out there; there is nothing offensive about this one, it’s just not remarkable. Quite drinkable, though. Tasted in the front of the mouth it’s quite fruity but not too sweet; plum might be right. Almost no nose, though.
- I put two loaves of banana bread in the oven a few minutes ago; that finished off the bananas in my kitchen, which were quickly becoming quite soft. Banana bread, though, is an amazing comfort food, I find.
- I sent out next week’s lesson plan to my students. I’m getting lazy in my teaching. I want to show up and lead class, but I’m not that interested in preparing, organizing, or grading. But that’s the career I’ve chosen. I want to make.
I am finishing up much of “J” today … but I won’t get through it all by midnight: I simply have too much Joe Satriani.
Last night I had Jethro Tull (Aqualung) — there are some amazing pieces on there, and it makes me want to go collect prog rock. I had two Jewel albums after that. It’s a guilty pleasure, perhaps, but the first Jewel album is just a lot of fun to listen to; she’s the cotton candy of “serious” female vocalists, and even when she’s talking about abuse or racism, it seems light. Some might say shallow. But catchy, damn it.
Today I got to Jim Croce. And I remembered why I loved that guy. I grew up on some “oldies” radio with my parents before Adult Contemporary made headway and suddenly the 80s were “oldies.” I grew to love Croce, especially “Bad Bad Leroy Brown” and “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim.” Then I had an album of Jimi Hendrix (The Ultimate Experience), and while I do enjoy U2s rendition of “All Along the Watch Tower” … f**k, this is Jimi we’re talking about. And so much more. Middle-aged bobo pseudo-audiophiles with their High-Def this and High-Def that and so much surround sound that they string theory to model all the dimensions of sound, but that’s still not Jimi — any CD, album, or cassette is just a reproduction, and our chance to see him live in concert is long gone.
“J” is one of the best letters I have here. Once I get to “T” I have all the “The” bands, so there will be quite a selection, but we’re talking Jethro Tull, Jim Croce, Jimi Hendric, Joan Jett and more. After Joan came Joanna Newsom, a newcomer whose harp-based acid-folk fit well with some Dada-era poetry I was reading today, in particular Kurt Schwitters’s “An Anna Blume” (To Anna Blume — Blume meaning flower, bloom, or blossom). Her music is hard to categorize and on first hearing it, it jars a bit, but trust me — it grows on you. There is subtle childlike melody that masks musical sophistication there. Thereafter followed Joe Cocker, and as much as I enjoy his gravely Brit-rock-meets-blues voice and while he is supposed to be a “classic” of sorts — and I do like listening to Cocker — his Greatest Hits album, overproduced as it is with hints of reggae seems too much like a cover album of other people’s songs.
Then came Joe Satriani, where I am now. I’ve got 5-6 more albums of Satriani before I get to John Denver, John Mellencamp, and, most importantly, John Coltrane.
Like I said: “J” is a great letter. For music, at least. And Satriani goes well with red wine.
