A Fusion of Perspectives

by Stephen Vera Cruz

Last meeting, the bulk of the lecture was devoted to discussing the creativity of human action in narrative identity. The three steps are called Mimesis 1, Mimesis 2 and Mimesis 3. Mimesis 1 is the prefiguration step of the whole process. This part describes the lived human experiences of each and every one of us. Mimesis 2 is the configuration part of the process. It is our own world of make believe. What we have done in Mimesis 1 is linked to how we interpret Mimesis 2. For me, Mimesis 2 is basically the action of dwelling and struggling with the experience. Mimesis 2 in other words is our unique human experience. Mimesis 3 is the prefiguration part of the whole process. It describes what we do with what we have learned from Mimesis 1 and 2. It is our own opinion of our actions. It is a sort of metanoia or change in the base action of Mimesis 1. It is our own reaction to the threefold process we have all gone through.

After this lecture, I couldn't help but notice some similarities between the three fold Mimesis and Marcel's way of thinking. Marcel said that in order to strive for exigence and to try to answer the numerous questions we have when we encounter metaphysical unease, we have to try to use and intermediary way of thinking. The intermediary way of thinking is done by using both the Particularity method and the Universal method. The universal method is composed of all our common human experiences. It does not recognize the differences between human beings and is only concerned with what we all see. I think this method is very similar to Mimesis 1 since both talk about the same lived human experience. However, since this method does not recognize the differences within each human being, we have to also use the particularity method.

The particularity method talks our own insights and what we as individuals can do on our own. It describes how we uniquely interpret our common human experiences. This is the same as Mimesis 2. The particularity method is our own world of make believe. It shows us our own unique set of thoughts that no other individual can think of. Lastly we go to Mimesis 3. Again, Mimesis 3 talks about our actions after our whole thought process. It is how we react to the first and second Mimesis. Now I think that this is very similar to Marcel's mystery of being. We all interpret and react to things in our own unique way. Mimesis 3 talks about all these unique reactions to both our common and uncommon human experiences. I think that this is very similar to Marcel's mystery of being because these unique reactions are examples of the mystery Marcel is talking about. We all "be" differently. Our "inging" is not common with the person beside us. There is a mystery in the way we choose to react to our lives due to our many differences.

To conclude, I think the similarities between these two philosophical approaches show that there is a similar road we are all in as we live out life's journey. What happens during this journey is entirely up to us.  How we travel in life depends on the choices we alone make, and this is what philosophy helps us do, make wise choices in our common journey.