Weathering Philosophy

By Linda Boļšakova

Supervisor: Nicholas Davey

Art and Media advisor: Graham Fagan

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Contents

Introduction

4

Opposites

6

Body

7

Connection

9

Sensing

12

Weather

15

Theory

16

Art

19

Aesthetics

24

Conclusion

26

Bibliography 31

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Abstract

The temple of philosophy has been standing there seemingly untouched by the sun and rain, but it is time to

acknowledge the philosophical relevance of larger unraveling processes, which weather is a manifestation of.

Phenomenology, hermeneutics and aesthetics are essential for understanding our interconnectedness and

reciprocal relationship with weather, nevertheless by including weather into the field of philosophy expands its

horizon and opens it to a multidisciplinary discussion.

We are already inevitably a part of the ecosystem; therefore it is crucial to deepen our understanding of this

connection. Eight intertwined and non-hierarchical parts of this dissertation explore part-whole relationship, our

particular embodied perspective, connection with unraveling processes, inherent sensual interpretation, temporal

characteristic of weather and us, the role of theory in experiential process, connection between contemplative

and active participatory mode of perception, and the significance of aesthetic.

This dissertation participates in the discussion about the indispensable problem of climate change.

Acknowledgement and understanding of our interconnectedness with the environment is not only beneficial for

the academic field but has practical implications of increased awareness of one’s senses as intelligent connection

with the environment and more respectful and cooperative attitude towards oneself and other.

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Partly cloudy with heavy but short showers followed by sunny intervals throughout the day.

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Introduction

Weather is an experience shared by all human beings independently of where and how we live. It influences our

psychological, cultural, economic circumstances, our well-being and existence.1 Environment is the womb

through which we are born, raised and further reintegrated in after our death. Various environmental issues2 and

the lack of consideration in city planning 3 show the current insufficiency in understanding our strong

boundedness with the environment, calling forth the adequacy and need for philosophical investigation. The

argument of this work is very simple, but we seem to have forgotten this most simple of the truths, the practical

and theoretical understanding of the interconnectedness with our environment, so it is time to re-cognize it.

Some of the underlying questions of this dissertation are how do we understand weather and what is the value of

our everyday experience of it? What can we learn about ourselves through studying and appreciating the weather

more? Through phenomenology, hermeneutics and aesthetics the further eight non-hierarchical and entwined

parts of this paper will explore these questions.

- Environment and the sphere of the human have sometimes been regarded as opposite to each other, but

through closer examination of this dualism, the interrelatedness and unity of these opposites will be

revealed. Although the language used here is dualistic, it is used to reintegrate the separate parts and point

to the direction of more holistic worldview.4

- Looking at our body as our only standpoint from which we can perceive and think will further the

discussion about opposites.

- The connection and participation in larger processes of life and death will be disclosed by contemporary

examples of our engagement with the world.

- Through the twofold nature of touch, the sensing and interpreting embodiment will be understood through a

blending of phenomenology and hermeneutics.

- It will be argued that the simple everyday activity of talking about weather has a deep significance in

understanding ourselves as spatial, temporal organisms being-in the changing, temporal world.

1 The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by A. Light and J. M. Smith, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, p. 161-162. 2 United nations conference of climate change, viewed on 3 December 2015, http://www.cop21.gouv.fr/en/more-details-about-the-agreement/ 3 Activism in the Built Environment: Architecture, lecture attended on 28 October 2015, University of Dundee http://www.dundee.ac.uk/museum/exhibitions/city/ 4 As Maurice Merleau- Ponty puts it “All that is partial is to be reintegrated.” Note that he says re-integrated rather than simply integrated as to point at the primacy of togetherness. M. Merleau- Ponty, Visible and Invisible, edited by C. Lefort, trans. A. Lingis, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1968, p. 63-64.

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- We shall see if the abstracted knowledge of theory can complement the practical sense engagement with the

weather.

- In this part the relationship between contemplative mode of art perception and participatory mode of

weather perception will be explored.

- By expanding the horizon of aesthetics, it becomes an important ally for the understanding the experience

of environment, but also for advancing the possibilities of art appreciation.

Before starting more detailed discussion of environment, nature, weather and philosophy it is useful to clarify

what these terms mean.

Environment here means all the surroundings– so-called natural and cultural together, as it is not possible to

meaningfully separate these two. So call ‘nature’ has been influenced by human activity, changed through

agricultural activities or influenced by emissions from factories.5 I defend here in this paper the idea that we are

a part of a natural ecosystem; any strict separation between humans together with their activities on the one hand,

and nature with its forces on the other would be erroneous. So when further using the term nature it will

designate a particular group of physical objects and phenomena, while acknowledging their interconnectedness

with human activities. Moreover so-called cultural artifacts are formed or de-formed, if one likes, by the weather

conditions and inherently come from the interaction between human and environment. The term environment

here carries certain philosophical assumptions of a sensing embodied entity within a larger, unfolding process.

Weather, according to the dictionary, is “the state of the atmosphere at a particular place and time as regards

heat, cloudiness, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain, etc.,”6 and it is formed as the sun unevenly heats the atmosphere

of the earth. Thus weather indicate the surroundings that is this earth and its atmosphere, and also marks the

cycles in the universal processes. The term weather is very much related to the temporal and spatial aspects of

existence, as well as the relativity of a particular in relation to the more general. For example to say that the

weather is cold today is to say that the surrounding temperature is relatively lower to our body temperature.

5 A. Berleant, Living in the Landscape, University Press of Kansas, 1997, p. 30-31. 6 Oxford Dictionary of English, edited by A. Stevenson, Oxford University Press, Online Version, 2015, p. 2027, viewed on 18 December 2015, http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199571123.001.0001/m_en_gb0942660?rskey=tqbVDn&result=101279

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Gadamer uses the example of a setting sun, in relation to which we are relatively static and therefore able to

perceive suns motion behind the horizon.7

Philosophy in the context of this paper will mean not so much “the study of the most general and abstract

features of the world and categories with which we think” as explained by Oxford dictionary of philosophy,8 but

the more integrated (in life) philosophy of west and east, which is concerned with the practical and experiential

aspects of our lives as well as the more abstract; it emphasizes the integration rather than opposition. Many

eastern philosophies9 10 include some sort of practice: ritual, meditation or lifestyle suggestions.

The primary aim of this dissertation is not an abstract enhancement of a body of knowledge, but an exploration

of its derivative pragmatic consequences and an enhanced sense of one’s own body’s relation to the environment

that it inhabits. We are weathered with every season and every thought. It is time to bring weather to philosophy

and to let it become weathered. So having introduced the general themes, we will now move to its parts.

Opposites

The environment and humans can stand in opposition, but upon closer inspection this apparent dualism, as well

as the associated fears and need for control (as useful as it sometimes is) becomes more complicated as these

opponents dissolve into sameness. Kitarō Nishida tells us in the essay “The Unity of Opposites” that if things act

on each other in space they have spatial character themselves. The different forces existing and acting on us are

the changes that happen in space.11 So the force of wind, for example, is the change in the air and in our

surroundings: weather changes are a force in space that acts on us because we too are spatial beings.

7 H. G. Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall, Continuum, New York, 1989, p. 449. 8 S. Blackburn, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford University Press, New York, 2008, p. 275. 9 R. Littlejohn, Interner Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Daoist Philosophy: Introduction, Section 5., viewed 22 December 2015, http://www.iep.utm.edu/daoism/ 10 A. Velez, Interner Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Buddha: Section 2.b., viewed on 22 December 2015, http://www.iep.utm.edu/buddha/#SH2b 11 K. Nishida, Intelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothingness, trans. R Schinzinger, East-West Center Press, Honolulu, 1966, p. 163.

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Nishida sees reality as “[T]he unity of opposites, moving infinitely from formed towards forming.”12 The

individual and the environment, which are opposites, mutually exclude and complement each other through

forming and being formed by one another, “[T]he individual forms the environment and the environment forms

the individual.” 13 They come from one another and disappear into one another. The formed in this sense is the

past, something passed away, which negates itself by becoming the forming force, the future. Like the dead body

feeding the live, compost, for example. Death becomes life force and life force death, and people within the

weather changes, are part of the same cycle of formed and forming. Nishida thinks of the individual as the one

and the environment as the many (ones), so the individual as forming the environment. He also thinks of the

environment as the one (whole) and the individual as the one of many, so the environment as forming the

individual. It is what he calls the “unity of absolute contradiction.”14 The whole is a particular whole and the

particular is whole in its particularity. A world being one of the many as well as the many of the one in this

absolute contradiction, each contradicting part also contains a contradiction within itself.

Maurice Merleau- Ponty has similar view that meaning is contained in the whole and that each individual part

manifests the whole and therefore contains the meaning, emphasizing the strong influence that the whole and the

particular have on each other.15 As in language, which was the first interest of hermeneutics, each particular

word manifests the meaning of the text and the whole of the text alters the meaning of the particular words. The

meaning is born out of the reciprocal relationship between the particular and the whole, almost as the human life

is, by relation of one and its other.

Body

Although we are used to perceiving ourselves and the surrounding environment in terms of a dichotomy,16 there

is no sharp distinction possible between us and environment– the food we eat and the air we breathe with all the

pollution in it becomes our body.17 We plant the food that we grow and drive the car that pollutes the air and in

return the character of environment forms our personal and communal identities and further influences how we

relate to it.

12 Ibid., p. 174. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., p. 175. 15 M. Merleau- Ponty, The Prose of the World, trans. John O’Neil, Evanston, Northwest University Press, 1973, p. 28. 16 S. Bell, Landscape, E&FN Spon, London, 1999, p. 65. 17 Berleant, 1997, p. 11.

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Therefore, although the body is the only standpoint we have, we should acknowledge that it is not the pure

center, “it grows, develops, emerges from, is construed out of the diverse materials of culture, history, and

[climatic] circumstance.”18 To approach our environment phenomenologically means that it is not a “neutral and

objective medium, but one continuous with the act of perception.”19 The very fact of our embodied existence

means that we participate in life– something greater than us, but at the same time something that we too

constitute. As Merleau-Ponty suggests,

“The flesh is not matter, is not mind, is not substance. To designate it, we would need the ancient term

‘element’, in the sense it was used to speak of water, air, earth, and fire, that is, in the sense of a general

thing midway between the spatio-temporal and the idea, a sort of incarnate principle that brings a style to

Being, wherever there is a fragment of Being. The flesh is in this sense an ‘element’ of Being.”20

There is homogeneity between us and the weather that surrounds us. We consist of the same thing as rain and

snow; we are made of the same flesh as the world and its wider stellar environment. Through the observation of

the surroundings we can understand ourselves better, and vice versa.21 The enriched understanding of the body

that acknowledges the interconnectedness has significance in philosophy of nature.22 To understand weather

better leads us to understand ourselves better too. Nature and incarnation are just two ways of understanding the

same flesh.23 “Inside and outside, consciousness and world, human beings and natural processes are not pairs of

opposites but aspects of the same thing.”24

However in trying to understand what the body means and how it relates to the rest of the world we divide it

from its setting and this, as Arnold Berleant notes, is a tension in every discourse and philosophy as it necessarily

divides body from its matrix.25 Looking at our surroundings in this way we single out a particular form from the

rest of the existence; this in turn encourages the projecting of human characteristics onto the world and an

understanding of it in our own image. Yet, these are necessary or inescapable distortions26 and what is

sometimes considered as animism is, in fact, an expression of a deep understanding of the connection between

18 Berleant, 1997, p. 99. 19 Bell, 1999, p. 89. 20 R. Kearney, Modern Movements in European Philosophy, Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 1994, p. 89, original quote from M. Merleau- Ponty, The Visible and The Invisible. 21 Berleant, 1997, p. 102. 22 Ibid. 23 R. Kearney, Taiwan Lecture on ‘Ricoeur and Carnal Hermeneutics’, downloaded from http://myweb.scu.edu.tw/~crist/ricoeur%20web/kearney%20full%20paper.pdf 24 Berleant, 1997, p. 11-12. 25 Ibid., p. 98. 26 Ibid., p. 97.

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one’s character and the surroundings.27 So although our particular understanding of the world is very limited, it

is however the most truthful.

We can discern our body from the rest, but there are no clear-cut boundaries that set us apart, “it is rather an

approximation, a concentration of being in the midst of activity. [...] The flesh embodies motion and force but

must adapt to the motions and forces in the lived world.”28 Being part of this world means adapting to the

weather conditions, rather than putting ourselves in the center of the unfolding process and forcing these

processes to fit our view.

Connection

Native Americans lived in accordance with this notion of their land being their flesh29 and this association is

extended to natural phenomenon too. They believe and feel to be part of a larger whole where each part has

value and deserves respect. 30 To consider ourselves as separate from the environment brings harmful

consequences,31 threatening our existence as well as the existence of many more living organisms of this

environment.

Some Nanooks still kill their food themselves, being in direct contact with the elements, looking directly into the

eyes of their prey. This close relationship brings thankfulness and respect towards what they kill. It takes bravery

and acknowledgement of one’s own vulnerability and dependence. Living in this way collapses the traditional

distinction between savagery and nobility; they become intertwined in the continuous process of life and death.32

“[...] we were living in a very deep harmony with what was going on and now look, now there is global

warming, […] and its because we’ve removed ourselves from nature. […] when you shut your instincts

off, you shut yourself off and when you shut yourself off, you get lost. […] I have a hope, because nature

is always going to come back, like that’s one thing you can’t kill. And to be in harmony with it is to have

the deepest, deepest peace in your life.”33

27 Ibid., p. 100. 28 Ibid., p. 103. 29 Ibid., p. 99. Original quote from Waterwalker, a film by Bill Mason (national Film Board of Canada, 1964). 30 Ibid., paraphrased from Callicott, “American Indian Land Wisdom”, 214-215. 31 Ibid., p. 12. 32 iPlayer Radio, World on 3, Last broadcasted on 11 December 2015, listened on 14 December 2015, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06r5gxr 33 Ibid.

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This transcript of Tanya Tagaq, an Inuit throat singer, shows her concern that if humans see themselves as other

than nature, it will bring their downfall. The increasingly worrying loss of the sense of place in people is another

symptom of the separation between people and environment.34 Throat singing is directly influenced by the

surrounding sounds of wolves feasting on their prey, wintery winds or snowmobiles. When she sings, she uses

the whole of her body to create visceral sounds that show how much a part of the earth humans actually are.35 In

accordance with Tagaq is Andrew Brennan’s notion of ecological humanism encompassing the belief of a more

rewarding and fulfilling life if it is lived closer to the nature.36 These examples show the significance of physical

connections for the acceptance of ourselves and the processes happening around us.

Without recognizing the reciprocal relationship poses danger of a harm that extends beyond human. However,

life works in wondrous ways. Peta Hinton, whose work “investigates the way death and nothingness might figure

for a new feminist materialist politics and ethics”37 in PLaCE International Conference in Dundee uses an

example, heard on Radiolab,38 of 342 snow geese who on one stormy night landed on a toxic lake formed after

demise of a copper mine, and who were all found dead the next morning. If this story ended here it would just

add to the list of all the negative influences that humans have on environment and its parts, and may end up

perpetuating feeling of either guilt or might. However, the story continues and as time passes a chemist couple

researching the lake find life in this hostile environment of corrosive runoff; and not just any life, but organisms

that can extremely efficiently clean polluted water and organisms that can even help to fight cancer. However the

most poignant part of this story is that the life in this lake came from the yeast in rectal passageways of the geese

that died there.

34 Berleant, 1997, p. 108. 35 iPlayer Radio, World on 3, Last broadcasted on 11 December 2015, listened on 14 December 2015, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06r5gxr 36 Bell, 1999, p. 87. 37V. Cheung, Vibrant Matters, Posted on 9 December 2014, viewed on 3 December 2015, http://land2.leeds.ac.uk/2014/12/09/vibrant-matters/ 38 S. Wheeler, Even the Worst Laid Plans?, listened on 11 October2015, http://www.radiolab.org/story/91724-even-the-worst-laid-plans/

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The Berkeley Pit, (J F, 2009)

This example does not show that we should not think of more caring and respectful ways of being, but it puts us

in grander scale of life that is unfolding with or without us, life that comes out of death and destruction. This

coincides with the Taoist philosophical concept of yin-yang– the complementary oppositional forces, when one

reaches its peak, the other arises. Or as Berleant puts it “We are all bound up in one great natural system, an

ecosystem of universal propositions in which no part is [dominant and] immune from the environment and

changes in the others.”39 To have too much emphasis on the harmful effect that humans have on nature degrades

its magnificence and subjugates it to human will making the relationship between nature and human even more

difficult.40

It might seem obvious to adapt an accepting attitude towards the weather as it is seemingly out of our control

anyway.41 With the advances of science and technology however, this has changed and we now have the ability

to influence the weather. Chinese authorities have done so by shooting rockets at clouds in order to cause storms

and hence clean polluted air, rather than reducing the causes of pollution itself. From this example it is clear that

the seed of the Enlightenment, expressed in the wish to control and dominate nature, is still present.42 Berleant

points out that possession and control in nature as well as in love is a sign of power and not of appreciation.43

39 Berleant, 1997, p. 31. 40 This notion can be extended to gender equality. It is healthy to acknowledge the fact of oppression, but to change it, it is necessary to acknowledge the interconnectedness with the other gender and reveal the strength of the victimized part. 41 “Weather, even among natural phenomena, is one of the frontiers of human cultivation, manipulation and control” The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by A. Light and J. M. Smith, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, p. 171. 42 A. Abbas, ‘Adorno and the weather: Critical theory in an era of climate change’, Radical Philosophy, 174, July/August, 2012, p. 7. 43 Berleant, 1997, p. 15.

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Chinese authorities seem to have forgotten Daoist story about a row of engineers who lost their lives as they

unsuccessfully tried to execute emperor’s order to contain the flooding of a river until one engineer who did not

try to restrict the natural flow of it or even extinguish it, but who worked with the flow of the river by allowing

alternative routes for its flow; almost as a student of Tai Chi who works with the energy of its opponent rather

than opposing it. It is important to recognize this and try not to change, but have acceptance and respect for the

unfolding processes; work with these processes rather than against them, but in order to do so, we require an

understanding. So in order for the “impending catastrophe of global warming”44 to resolve, it is necessary to

reevaluate our place within and relationship with the environment. Philosophy, seen as a deliberate attempt to

understand the forces that affect human life, can assist us in this task.45

Sensing

Philosophy of environment, or weather, cannot be imagined without the fact of human embodiment.46 It is with

our sensitive and sensible embodiment that we inhabit this world. “Environment is an integral whole, an

interrelated and interdependent union of people and place, together with their reciprocal processes.”47 Sense

experience is at the basis of our relationship with the environment that continues throughout our lives. It is the

rich landscape of culture history and universal processes of nature48 that one is inevitably placed in. Because one

lives, one has a body that makes experience and perspective possible or inescapable.

When looking at weather philosophically, phenomenology and hermeneutics are important allies.

Phenomenology assists with embodied experience or how we experience weather on our own skins;

hermeneutics assists with how we understand or interpret these sense stimuli through historical, cultural and

sensual horizons. Although hermeneutic thinkers like Heidegger and Gadamer emphasize that they are doing

hermeneutic phenomenology, the heavy emphasis on text and consequential turning away from the body is

undeniable.49 Phenomenology and hermeneutics are also intrinsic to the aesthetics of environment. In the

appreciative engagement with the environment, intrinsic sensory experience and immediate meaning

predominates.50 Carnal hermeneutics offers to reconcile the relationship between sensation and interpretation.

44 Abbas, p. 7. 45 Berleant, 1997, p. 9. 46 Berleant, 1997, p. 97. 47 Ibid., p. 14. 48 Here nature stands for larger encompassing processes of life and death. 49 Carnal Hermeneutics, edited by R. Kearney and B. Treanor, series editor J. D. Caputo, Fordham University Press, New York 2015, p. 17. 50 Berleant, 1997, p. 32.

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This re-relation can assist to better understand how senses are interpreted and bodies oriented in a place, both of

which are crucial for a more profound interpretation of our relationship with weather.51

When being touched by the rain or sun, one does not become it, “Difference is preserved.”52 There is reciprocity

in the sensations as we are ‘touching’ and being ‘touched’, affected and being affected53 at the same time.

However we do not merge with what we feel; our sensuous bodies are bringing as well as bridging the distance,

which is essential for feeling and interpretation to operate.54 The differentiation and the unity are both necessary

for interpretation. This is also true for our relationship with weather. It always touches us and therefore affects

us, most obviously by influencing our mood or physical abilities; but it is also touched by us, as we start to

realize with the approaching threat of global warming.

Berleant asserts, by proposing alternative for Merleau-Ponty’s dualistic language that “touching is an assertion of

connection, a connectedness that is always present though not always apparent, because it may not be

concrete.”55 Interpretation as an inherent part of connection is already present in our bodily existence of sense

perception. Sensations are deeply intelligent; they bring us in contact to that which is greater than us and makes

us question our place and our meaning.56 The sensuous body is necessary for understanding and, as Richard

Kearney puts it, all sensations involve interpretation. “Touch keeps us open to the world– even in sleep (where

bodies still breathe and respond to noise or temperature)! Like Hermes it is forever moving and messing between

inside and outside, self and other, human and more than human. Tactility is a medium of transition and

transmission. It is always [like the weather] “on”.”57 To be in contact means to have continuity, something that

holds us together without extinguishing the particularity. Our relation with environment is more of a unity where

parts are retained rather than coherence between isolated organisms.58

Touch here stands more generally for what is tangible and represents all the senses. The only time when

sensations arise is now and it is the universal presence that is available to us just by existing. When paying

attention to the sensations we come back to presence and this allows us to be more conscious of the engagement

51 Carnal Hermeneutics, edited by R. Kearney and B. Treanor, series editor J. D. Caputo, Fordham University Press, New York 2015, p. 17. 52 Ibid., p. 19. 53 Ibid., p. 21. 54 Ibid. 55 A. Berleant, Living in the Landscape, University Press, Kansas, 1997, p. 104. 56 Carnal Hermeneutics, edited by R. Kearney and B. Treanor, series editor J. D. Caputo, Fordham University Press, New York 2015, p. 20. 57 Ibid. 58 Bell, 1999, p. 87.

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with the weather surrounding us. This was very clear to Buddhists when they developed mindful meditation,

which brings one back to the present moment as one pays attention to the sensations of one’s own body. This

mediation is also strongly linked with the understanding of change. As one observes one’s own body over some

period of time, it becomes clear that different kinds of sensations appear– pleasant and unpleasant, and these

fluctuate between each other.59 There is weather that we find pleasing and weather that we dislike. What the

Buddhist meditation teaches is not to get too attached to either of them, as the cycle of change will keep going

whether we accept it or not, and if we do not accept it, it just perpetuates our suffering.

Ultimately, we understand weather through interpretation, like we make constant changes in a process coherent60

and like we make sense of the multitude of variations and particulars in language.61 Interpretation is a primal

expression of the sensual body already being embedded with attraction and repulsion, and therefore oriented and

interpreting.62 So it is not just when we are contemplating that we interpret, but also when being involved in

activity. As Arto Haapala explains, with reference to Richard Shusterman, interpretation comes as an inevitable

part of connection and in this sense it is more to do with praxis than theory. It is something that we are engaged

in through our being-in-the-world.63

Interpretation happens not just through verbal communication, but also on a more primal level through sensual

bodies.

“For what kind of language are we talking about? One not only of words and writing, but also of sensing

and touching. And what kind of dialogue? One not just between speakers but also between bodies. And

what kind of sense and sensibility is at issue here? One not only of intellectual “understanding” but also

of tangible “orientation.” Thus does the simplest phenomenon of touch lead to the most complex of

philosophies. Because the simplest is the most complex and remains the most enigmatic.”64

Therefore phenomenology and hermeneutics blend together into one sensing and positioned flesh. The task of

carnal hermeneutics is precisely to find the balance in the movement of the same towards the other and other

59 Vipassana meditation course, Hereford, 15th-25th April 2015. 60 J. R. Hustwit, Interner Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Process Philosophy, viewed on 18 December 2015, http://www.iep.utm.edu/processp/ 61 Carnal Hermeneutics, edited by R. Kearney and B. Treanor, series editor J. D. Caputo, Fordham University Press, New York 2015, p. 240. 62 Ibid., 21. 63 The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by A. Light and J. M. Smith, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, p. 47. 64 R. Kearney, Taiwan Lecture on ‘Ricoeur and Carnal Hermeneutics’, downloaded from http://myweb.scu.edu.tw/~crist/ricoeur%20web/kearney%20full%20paper.pdf

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towards the same in the communication to which language is contributing its resources.65 There is no life without

touch, so let's not stay out of conscious touch of ourselves, others and the worlds around us.

Weather

It is a common everyday experience to ask and receive questions about weather. Expressing the fragility of one’s

own being and gaining a sense of unity with the others by relating to this all-encapsulating force. Therefore we

say: “The weather is tremendous today” and continue by posing an affirmative question: “Isn’t it?” Here we

notice how small-talk is rooted into deeper notions about our locatedness in the world. This notion is in stark

contrast with Martin Heidegger’s understanding of idle talk. Although he emphasizes that word idle is not used

in a disparaging way66 and that small-talk is still a part of Dasein, it is, however, the “most everyday and most

stubborn ‘reality’.”67 Heidegger is negative towards idle talk because he does not see that it could be strongly

linked to “primary and primordially genuine relationships-of-Being towards the world, towards Dasein-with, and

towards its very Being-in.”68 This could be true about some idle talk, like gossip that Heidegger mentions, but

here I am arguing that it is not the case when we discuss the weather. I am arguing that by talking about the

weather with others, especially at the start of the conversation or encounter, we are establishing a common

ground and this ground is our very Being-in-the-world and being-with others in it together. There is a mutual

understanding between parties involved in an everyday conversation about weather and it is something that

everyone can engage with. Heidegger says that it is so easy to engage with such a talk because of its

groundlessness and unrequired genuine understanding and incorporation69 of a situation discussed. But precisely

by talking about surrounding conditions it is possible to encourage the incorporation of them– we become more

aware of the sensations in us and therefore understand ourselves in the certain situation more fully: as being

thrown into the world with the social, historical and climatic circumstances. So the small-talk of weather is not

that small after all.

There is no one thing to point at and call weather, it is rather a process that is felt and experienced by us every

day. Weather manifests itself through change and it is always there. It would be impossible to wake up, look

outside the window and conclude that there is no weather today. The same way as it is impossible to say that

65 Ibid. 66 M. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2008, p. 211. 67 Ibid., p. 214. 68 Ibid. 69 Incorporation in ones own body; “making the thing one’s own.” Ibid., p. 213.

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there is no time, because as long as there is change, there is both the time and the weather. The observation of

change is in strong relation to time. The marking of the change of the sun’s location in the sky marks one of our

first understandings of the time. So the relation of time and changes happening in nature are interrelated. French

language gives an example of this connection using the single word temps for both the weather and the passing

of time.70 “Ecosystems71 evolve in time through the operation of weather; the ecology of human mind is equally

dependent on the two senses of temps.”72 This passage by Jonathan Bate connects the effects of weather or what

we could call the outside and the inside environments. If life is movement and movement is energy then weather

is the manifestation of the very life force in which we unravel together. Temporality is the meaning of existence,

as Heidegger puts it in Being and Time.73 Time is not the relation between how it was before and how it is after,

those are only the results of the passing of time. “Time must not merely be, it must come about; time is never

completely constituted.”74 So time is not an object of knowledge that can be abstracted, but it is the very part of

our living being.75 “Time is neither a real process nor an actual succession that I could limit myself simply to

recording. It is born out of my relation with things.”76 So the time is because our ability to relate to the sun, for

example, and we relate to it by sensing it. Seasonal change can be understood because of the changes that we

encounter within our spatial and temporal bodies, but also, bodily change can be understood in terms of the

change that we are a part of.

Theory

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe draws closer the relationship between theory and phenomenon. He is true to the

Greek roots for the words theory, the “beholding”.77 “The highest thing would be to comprehend that everything

factual is already theory. The blue of the heavens reveals to us the fundamental law of chromatics. One should

only not see anything further behind the phenomena: they themselves are the theory.”78 Every abstract idea

cannot be recognized directly, but need a particularization or materialization.79

70 J. Bate, The Song of the Earth, Picador, 2000, p. 109. 71 Interacting living organisms and their physical environment. 72 Ibid. 73 M. Merleau- Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. D. A. Landes, Routledge, 2014, p. 432. 74 Ibid., p. 438. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid., p. 434. 77 A. Zajonc, Catching the Light, Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 211. 78 Ibid., p. 21. Originally from Goethe, Scientific Studies. 79 Ibid., p. 211-212.

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Goethe’s writings encompass close analysis of external nature and close observation of inner feelings.80 “[...] the

full range of individual personality is a mirror of nature in its entirety. We have our granite aspect but also our

‘burning sun’.” Just as Nishida tells us that if bodies act on each other in space, they have spatial character,81

similarly Goethe, when talking about inner light of thought, asserts that the eye can perceive light because it is

sun-like, it is not the same, but it manifests the sun through connection that senses provide for us.82 “At no stage

is the whole on display.”83 Goethe acknowledges that the whole manifest itself through the particular in each

given moment as the time unravels.84

The aim of Goethe’s color theory is not so much to gain abstract knowledge, but to gain understanding that is

pragmatic- that which would enhance our experience in this world. For the reader to engage with the text, which

is an abstraction of the surrounding environment without stopping here, but re-integrating this newly gained

insight to widen the horizon of the perceptible surroundings.85 To understand environment is not a matter of

putting various disciplines together to reach a general conception of it, but to realize how these various

environmental disciplines overlap and form each other.86 Poetry and meteorology interdepend and influence each

other and people often employ vocabulary of aesthetics to talk about weather conditions.

“[…] humans along all other things inhabit a single intraconnected realm, and […] we must realize that

our ultimate freedom lies not in diminishing or denying certain regions of our world in order to favor

others but in acknowledging and understanding them all. This does not confer equal value on all. It admits

rather that all activities, processes, and participants that together constitute nature have equal claim to be

taken seriously.”87 88

I agree that every part of what constitutes environment should be taken seriously, however by taking every part

seriously or deepening our understanding of it and therefore its place in all encompassing environment would

lead to the realization that every part is as valuable as any other. Each of the perspectives above and below, of

theory, art, weather and our body are just one part of the whole of this discussion about environment, however,

each parts of it has equal value to the rest of the parts and the whole.

80 J. Armstrong, Love, Life, Goethe, Penguin Books, 2007, p. 302. 81 Nishida, 1966, p. 163. 82 Zajonc, 1995, p. 205. 83 Armstrong, 2007, p. 302. 84 Nishida, 1966, p. 145. 85 Armstrong, 2007, p. 322-323. 86 Berleant, 1997, p. 14. 87 A. Berleant, The Aesthetics of Environment, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1992, p. 9. 88 The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by A. Light and J. M. Smith, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, p. 157.

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“Goethe hoped that the pursuit of science would make us more perceptive of the world around us.”89 For

example, Luke Howard’s cloud classification helps us become more aware of our surroundings. Knowing the

differences in the clouds through Howard’s close observation that led to their classification lets us access and

perceive their subtle differences.90 However Goethe emphasizes first and foremost our experience of the world

and acknowledges that science, if too dominant, blinds our sense perception, therefore blinding our abilities to

form our own views and be there in the situation.91 So we should always use newly gained insights through texts

and re-integrate them back into our experience.

Berleant adds that knowledge arises not just from thinking but also from being (in the weather), it is

understanding gained through action.92 By active engagement and thoughtful interaction with the world, says

Goethe, our senses are made more aware, more perceptive; it educates and forms us.93 Shusterman calls this

increased sense of awareness, an awakening, which “[…] is praised for the more general value of promoting

keener, more focused consciousness in our everyday living.”94 He acknowledges the role of philosophy or

thoughtful interaction with our surroundings in the everyday, by saying that “Philosophy […] can provide a

means of reawakening us, so that we can see things more clearly, experience them more fully”95 He emphasizes

that the increased awareness or awakened state is not always connected to pleasure, but is more meaningful than

that. By attending more to the feelings and actions, even if they are unpleasant, there is an appreciation of the

meaning that arises from such an engagement and furthers self-understanding and improvement that is “[...]

central to the idea of philosophy as an examined, critical, ameliorative art of living.”96 So the experience of your

umbrella being torn apart in stormy weather can be a rich resource for deepened understanding of self and

environmental processes.

“Goethe consider[s] the realm of thinking and perceiving as interpreting. Perceiving is at once outside and at the

center of thinking, and thinking likewise passes through the heart of seeing, and surrounds it.”97 Goethe

89 Armstrong, 2007, p. 318. 90 Ibid., p. 319. 91 Ibid., p. 317. 92 Berleant, 1997, p. 18. 93 Zajonc, 1995, p. 205. 94 R. Shusterman, Thinking through the Body, Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 196, Downloaded ‘Somaesthetic Awakening and the Art of Living’ from http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781139094030 95 Ibid., p. 292. 96 Ibid., p. 296. 97 Zajonc, 1995, p. 213.

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acknowledges that sight and insight in art is crucial and inevitable.98 But this insight or understanding of the

phenomenon does not reduce the very sensual qualities of it by abstracting it into data or logical analysis,

instead, like in many works of art, the phenomena is exalted.99 In my own practice the meaning, technique and

the sensual are all intertwined: For the Spring installation, which is part of a year long project, grass from

Autumn installation has been mushed up into pulp, like autumnal leaves on the streets being slowly pulped by

rain and countless footsteps, then bleached and made into sheets of paper100 reflecting the cleanness and

sometimes terrifying emptiness of winter, to later apply light sensitive solution made from new grass that has

been grown from the same autumn plants and employing naturally occurring process of photosynthesis to expose

the paper to the sun, which resurrect us from the dark and reflects all the colors of the spring. So the insight into

the process of this work, which reflects the meaning of it, highlights the physical qualities of the piece.

Autumn grass Pulped grass Sheet of paper made from bleached grass pulp

Art

Similar to Goethe’s notion about theory, a contemplative mode of perceiving a landscape painting in contrast to

being in an actual landscape, can be a valuable experience if one sows the seeds harvested in the contemplative

experience back into the actual landscape. The experience of weather and art has a reflexive effect where by

experiencing the other, we experience ourselves. Artworks are places of aware-full experiences; they encourage

98 Ibid., p. 212. 99 Ibid., p. 213. 100 See the back cover.

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this mode of perception, but are not limited to them. In the artist Olafur Eliasson’s words, it is a device for the

experience of reality.101 Art and more broadly human creation is part of the environment. They are tightly

entwined: as we shape the materials available to us, we are being shaped ourselves; creations further become part

of the environment and participate in the reciprocal relationship.

James Turrell is a light artist whose works are not depicting light; they are light. In Skyspaces he accentuates

changing colors of the sky by framing it. These series make us become more perceptive to the subtlety of our

everyday environment. His work is very universal in that it deals with cosmological processes, but it is also very

personal, in that you need to be there to actually experience it; it emphasizes the human scale. Turrell agrees that

there is distinction between natural and man-made light, however it does not render man-made light artificial:

“[…] you have to burn something to make light”,102 whether it is the sun or a light bulb. So the way he

approaches the making and interacts with the phenomenon of light acknowledges that humans are partaking in

the transpiring processes. In Turrell’s own words his art “[…] has no image. It has no object. And even very little

a place of focus, or one place to look. So, without image, without object, without specific focus, what do you

have left? Well, a lot of it is this idea of seeing yourself see, understanding how we perceive.”103

Third Breath (James Turrell, 2005)

101 R. Cooke, The Guardian, The brightest and the best, created on 19 October 2003, viewed on 20 November 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2003/oct/19/features.review17 102 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, James Turrell Video Transcript, viewed on 8 January 2016, http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/past/exhibit/4819 103 Ibid.

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To know or interpret something it is important to come into contact with it. Turrell believes that his art can only

be truly experienced by being there, with light immersing the body.104

Berleant claims that it is impossible to know a landscape fully just by looking at photographs, videos,

experiencing artworks or reading descriptions. “Such indirect means”,105 he states, depend on people depicting

them and render experience difficult and partial. This however does not mean that these experiences are not

valuable. Experience is always partial as it is always perspectival, so to know something fully is never really

possible as there is always more to it. We experience weather by being in it: driving car attentively in the fog,

having picnic in the sun and arranging our body weight in strong wind.106 107 Nevertheless, by experiencing art, it

is possible to come closer to grasping more fully what the weather is. It is by directly being in the weather as

well as, paradoxically, by distancing ourselves from direct engagement with the actual phenomenon, that we get

to grasp it differently, thus adding another facet and rendering weather more fully grasped. Artist studio Random

International created Rain Room installation whereby the visitor can enter rain without getting wet, which

encourages an appreciation of rains sonorous and visual qualities that previously might have been disturbed by a

practical consideration of staying dry. Although it still prioritizes the senses traditionally valued in art, it

nevertheless opens up new aspects of rainy weather.

Rain Room (Random International, 2012)

104 Ibid. 105 Berleant, 1997, p. 18. 106 The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by A. Light and J. M. Smith, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, p. 160. 107 Berleant, 1997, p. 13.

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However, it still does not encourage to accept the rain as it is: cold and wet, but to have it the way we feel

comfortable having it, which immerses us deeper in what we want rather than what is. By accepting the

uncomfortable sensations and even appreciating them, rather than trying to escape or control them108 would open

us more to what this phenomena has to offer.

Yuriko Saito acknowledges the difficulty or inability to contemplate and acquire the distanced perspective that is

necessary for contemplative attitude towards weather in certain situations when it is the most severe and life

threatening.109 However, the conscious body does not perceive world in a contemplative mode only, but actively

participates in the experiential process, so although we might not be able to contemplate while being in a life

threatening or uncomfortable situation, it is still part of our experience in the world.

Saito argues that in contrast to the weather, art has a predetermined way of appreciating it– one reads a poem and

does not smell it; one looks at a painting upright and not upside down; while in terms of appreciating the

weather, one can look at the snow as well as piss on it;110 one can have a shower in the rain or drink it. At a

closer look, however, the difference between art and everyday appreciation is not that big. Fashion is an example

of supposed mood or way to enjoy the weather. How often have you seen a woman in fur walking on a beach in

June? The same way, some contemporary art is pushing the boundaries of how art should be appreciated or even

if it should be appreciated at all. Hideyuki Katsumata’s exhibition at the Dundee Contemporary Arts center

included yoga mats that opened up an opportunity to play with this feature– to let toddlers roam around or stand

on one’s head and enjoy the art upside down.

108 As the exhibition venue Baribican explains: visitors are offered to “experience how it might feel to control the rain”, falling back to the old desire to dominate nature. Barbican, Rain Room, viewed on 20 November 2015, http://www.barbican.org.uk/news/artformnews/art/visual-art-2012-random-internati 109 The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by A. Light and J. M. Smith, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, p. 163-164. 110 “Pissing through my doorway/I make a clean hole/in the snow.” Ibid., p. 76.

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USO de HONTOU (Katsumata, 2015)

So although it initially seems that weather appreciation is less determined than that of art, it is still very much

culturally and practically determined. However this does not mean that our experience is fully determined.111

The experience of artworks as well as weather is the meeting with the other as well as yourself, so both involve

predispositions as well as openness to a particular interpretation.

In her essay “The Aesthetics of Weather” Saito recognizes the multi-sensory experience of weather112 in contrast

to the experience of artworks where, in latter, the senses are deliberately narrowed down to allow more

intensified focusing on a particular sense. For example in the concerts we try not to take into account the smell of

a person sitting next to us or the hairstyle of the person sitting in front. The lights are dimmed, so that it becomes

easier for us to concentrate our attention on what we are supposed to concentrate on. Some composers, like John

Cage with the composition 4’33”, try to break away from these conventions, yet even in this case the auditory

perception, however broadened, is still exemplified over other sense perceptions. It is deliberate backgrounding

of some senses in order to more fully appreciate others. However, we can still experience poem, not just by

looking at it, but by smelling it as well, especially if it is in an old book. Even if there is deliberate

marginalization of other senses, or one decides to focus their attention on a particular sense, the multi-sensory

experience is always there available to us: the everyday life is full of creative actions and sensuous treasures that

are open to particular’s focusing, and the experience of an artwork is open to all-enveloping, multi-sensory,

111 Influenced, but not determined. 112 The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by A. Light and J. M. Smith, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, p. 157.

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interactive experience. In the same way as art can add to the experience of weather, the experience of weather

can contribute to the ways we experience art and I advocate inappropriate ways of experiencing art as well as life

to opening yet another way of being with the world.

Haapala explains how everyday experience is similar to Heidegger’s analysis of the tool, which we start to pay

full attention to just when it has changed.113 Art can assist with encouraging us to look or notice our everyday

environment. This is not to change the appearance of the environment, but an altering of our own ways of

looking at it. We always need the special experience, some sort of ‘break’ in Heideggerian terms,114 but it does

not mean that mundane experience is not as valuable. On the contrary it is a rich milieu from which art also

arises, and by acknowledging the reciprocity between the opposites the hierarchy between them dissipates.

Aesthetics

I am arguing that aesthetics deals with the sensual experiences that are at the basis of all our experience; hence it

has a place whenever senses are involved. This includes our everyday world and our relationship with the

weather. It does not mean however that we should ‘beautify’ sense experience, control it and turn it into

entertainment. Merleau-Ponty states that what can come into existence for us must have sensuous embodiment,

which we are able to perceive, like color, smell, texture and so on; and Saito further adds that aesthetic

engagement is related to precisely these sensuous qualities.115 The whole of our body is engaged in this activity

intentionally or not.116 “[Aesthetic experience is] our direct engagement with the flux of sensations and meanings

that mark our participation in all the activities and encounters that fill our lives.”117 So aesthetics is literally an

embodied experience,118 already there, present all the time, now it is just the case of re-cognizing it.

Berleant states that clothes are the same as landscapes, in that they are empty and meaningless without the

human contribution to them.119 This means that we are the creators or imposers of the meaning and it is

dangerous to adapt such view as it would make it no problem to eliminate that which humans do not inhabit or

do not find meaning in without acknowledging its role in a larger organization that we ourselves are part of and

113 The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by A. Light and J. M. Smith, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, p. 45. 114 A. Goldsworthy’s giant snowball in the city centre of London in June is a poignant example of such interruption of the familiar. A. Goldsworthy, Hand to Earth: Andy Goldsworthy Sculpture 1976-1990, Abrams, New York, 1993, p. 117. 115 The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by A. Light and J. M. Smith, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, p. 162. 116 R. Kearney, Taiwan Lecture on ‘Ricoeur and Carnal Hermeneutics’, downloaded from http://myweb.scu.edu.tw/~crist/ricoeur%20web/kearney%20full%20paper.pdf 117 Berleant, 1997, p. 10-11. 118 Ibid., p. 13. 119 Ibid., p. 18.

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therefore also effected by. Meaning, as hermeneutics well knows, resides in anything that is present to us, so

inherent in neither the perceiver nor the perceived but in the very interaction between them, it is just the case of

being open for the meaning to be revealed. And aesthetics with art and its everyday aspect can contribute in

increasing our sensibility to these meanings, which further contributes to the ways we engage with our

environment. Because “humans and nature exist ultimately by the same principle”120 we can recognize, assure

ourselves of and perhaps even appreciate our transient nature 121 by aesthetically contemplating the

impermanence of natural phenomena.

An expanded esthetics of environment can contribute in integrating mundane activities, design and craft objects

into a common field of aesthetic consideration, because it is a sensuous environment together with all its parts,

which we live with, and which is of practical consideration and subject to change.122 So the everyday experience

of tidying or decorating one’s home also belong to the aesthetic experience. Traditional aesthetics has a problem

with considering practices such as interior design and architecture, because a relatively large part of these works

attention is dedicated to practical considerations and are changing. This however is just a matter or proportion, as

a lot of practical concern is involved in casting a classical sculpture, and a lot of artworks change over time. This

is part of a larger problem of separation between the practical and the conceptual.

It is not just the contemplative mode of engagement that belongs to aesthetics, but the active participation too.123

The less popular areas of traditional aesthetic discipline like gardening, sports and tea ceremony would also be

included. We are engaged aesthetically, when we work in the garden and feel the soil on our skin and under our

nails, when we feel cool air in our thirsty lungs and when we savor a rich solution of plant leaves. We gain sense

stimuli from everyday objects and phenomenon in everyday environments and it is not a problem of the object or

phenomenon not having these stimuli engraved in them, but the very mode with which we perceive them. It is

not that the rainy weather is unpleasant, but that we find it so.124 Even if unpleasant, it is still an aesthetic

experience.

120 The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by A. Light and J. M. Smith, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, p. 170. 121 In accordance with the first law of thermodynamics I use term transient rather than finite. P. Atkins, The Law of Thermodynamics: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010, p. 16. 122 K. Melchionne, ‘Living in Glass Houses: Domesticity, Interior Decoration, and Environmental Aesthetics,’ The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 56, no. 2 (Spring 1998), p. 199, quoted in The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by A. Light and J. M. Smith, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, p. 175. 123 Berleant, 1997, p. 13. 124 M. Merleau- Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. D. A. Landes, Routledge, 2014, p. 159.

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If aesthetics involves sensing and therefore connections then it underlies even the processes of brain activity.

This diffuses the boundary between feeling and thinking, art and science, which data visualization is already an

example of. Feelings are grounded in the body, but thoughts, traditionally considered, are in opposition to the

body. Hence when the rational mind is considered as a property of a higher being, the feeling body is decried and

neglected and as a consequence both suffer.125 Yet thoughts need to be embodied in order to exist at all; whether

embedded in a brain process or in a body of text.126 The aesthetic experience is incorporation– our bodies being

brought into the engagement with the whole through our particular perspective. So we have come full circle

where we acknowledge the unity of opposites by expanding the field of esthetics, realizing that a strict

delineation of opposites is seizing dialogue and can prove debilitating.

Conclusions

I have swept over various fields to show the importance and potential of the philosophical investigation of

weather. Through the preceding eight parts I have showed the unity and reciprocity between the environment and

us.

Through the discussion of opposites, the relationship between general and particular, between human and

environment was revealed, thus establishing a philosophical relevance of weather exploration. Both weather and

humans partake in the all-encompassing process of life and death, which itself is a reciprocal cycle of arising and

disappearing into one another. Seeds germinate in spring and wither in autumn, producing new seeds for the next

season; we are born and we die, usually leaving posterity. In order for understanding and interaction to occur,

entities need to have commonality; for weather and us this is the spatial and temporal characteristic.

However intertwined the opposite or particular parts are, they have their particularity, which for us is our body.

We can never escape our own embodied, cultural and experiential perspective in the same way that we can never

escape the interconnectedness with the other or environment. Thus, instead of putting ourselves in the centre, it

is important to be aware of our body in the midst of the unraveling processes. To understand weather is not just

125 Part of the same discourse is identification of earth with female body and rational distance with male body. Berleant, 1997, p. 100. 126 Berleant, 1997, p. 97.

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to understand it as externality, but also to come to grips with ourselves. We cannot strictly be delineated from

our environment; we are constituted as well as being constituted by it; it is unity which sustains particularity.

Some contemporary examples teach about our connection with the surroundings. These reveal how control and

domination of the surroundings ultimately harms us; sustaining a primal physical connection with the

environment is important in order to retain harmonious relationships with its forces and ourselves. The invincible

forces of life and death unravel around and within us, whether we want them to or not, casting our abilities and

views in perspective. These examples assist us in understanding the connectedness better, which is crucial for

environmental issues to be resolved; by working together with the unraveling processes rather than against them.

Sensing is in strong relation to our bodies; it is the connection that is at the basis of our experience. The

connection in turn means someone who is sensing someone or something else. The phenomenon of sensing is

reciprocal: by touching someone or something we are unavoidably being touched. Sensations involve connection

as well as separation, which are both crucial conditions for feeling and interpretation to occur. The sensuous and

oriented body is the realm of phenomenology and hermeneutics joined together in one sensing and oriented flesh

in the branch of philosophy called carnal hermeneutics. Sensations are always there, offering to reconnect us to

the present moment and the environment. They are an important part of an enquiry, which tries to understand

weather and our environment, as well as our place within it.

Weather is an everyday phenomenon, always changing and unraveling around us. By talking about weather

conditions we ground ourselves and engage others in the participation of being-in-the-world, often expressing

acknowledgement of our vulnerability and establishing connectedness with others in the environment. Weather

is the change that we observe over time. We can perceive time only through change. We and our surroundings

are inevitably always changing. Time, change and so weather too is the life force and part of the meaning of our

being. We are temporal and spatial organisms that operate in ever changing spatio-temporal environments, which

is why we can perceive them and learn about ourselves through them, as well as understanding weather through

better understanding ourselves.

Theoretical knowledge can exalt our sense perception and actively participate in us being there in the

environment, if theory is integrated back from abstraction into active participation in the world. Philosophical

enquiry, as important and necessary as it is, needs to be materialized in the engaged participation, which implies

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practical activity in addition to more abstract though processes. Both of these modes are in reciprocal relation

complementing and constituting one another, forming the way we exist in the midst of the weather. The

phenomenon itself contains the theory, and the sensuous organization of being is always necessary for the theory

to come about. In the process of understanding the phenomenon of weather various disciplines overlap allowing

us to see their interdisciplinary character.

Art appreciation is conventionally a contemplative process, which requires some distance. This mode of

perceiving works of art, which portray weather phenomenon, can be a valuable experience. It enriches our

understanding of the environment and adds another dimension to the way we perceive weather. Weather

perception can be an equally valuable experience that can enrich the ways we appreciate art. Both of the

experiential modes are given, so partially determined, but also shaped by our particular perspective. The special

experience to which art belongs to is in reciprocal relation to the mundane experience of the everyday, which we

are often unaware of, and which we sometimes even wish to escape from. The everyday matrix is like fertile

ground from which the treasured fruit of special experience grows, so it does not mean that fruit is more valuable

than the soil; any sort of hierarchy in this intertwined process is ignorant and eventually destructive.

The discipline of aesthetics is not limited to the experience of art, but incorporates any sense based experience

including weather and even thinking, thus braking away from the conventional delineation of mind and body and

embracing the interconnectedness of our existence. The expanded aesthetic horizon also includes the

traditionally difficult fields of design, craft and architecture, moving away from strict delineations between

practical and conceptual. It includes active participation such as dance, sports and tea drinking, acknowledging

the bond between action and contemplation. It includes even unpleasant and mundane experiences and points to

the importance of the usually marginalized and denied. So aesthetics is not just about art or beautiful experience,

it is an existentially significant field of enquiry dealing with our very bond with the environment. As we have

concluded above, the sensations are an intelligent entity embodying meaning and this makes the expanded area

of aesthetics an important field to better understand our connection with the environment.

Considering the framework and restrictions of this current project there is ample space left for further

exploration. I hope to take this dissertation further by exploring the relationship between an increased sense of

body awareness and an understanding of the environmental processes, as well as continuing the exploration of

the expanded field of aesthetics.

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To acknowledge and understand our interconnectedness with the environment does not just add to the academic

field, but has the practical consequences of an enhanced sense of awareness of ones place in unfolding processes,

increased respect for ourselves, others and the environment, reduced desire for control replaced by cooperative

attitude, because we are inevitably already in this relation with the environment that it is crucial for us to

acknowledge and learn from and about it.

So perhaps next time when you are swept up in a stormy weather you will not fight with the wind but enjoy the

force and acknowledge that you are part of a larger unraveling process.

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I am the daughter of Earth and Water,

And the nursling of the Sky;

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;

I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain when with never a stain

The pavilion of Heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams

Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again.127

127 P. B. Shelley, The Major Works, Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 463.

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