Consciousness intertwines with the world like crossed hands

Evidence

This was the idea of consciousness as a ‘chiasm’. The word ‘chiasm’ or ‘chiasmus’ comes from the Greek letter chi, written χ, and it denotes exactly that crossed intertwining shape. In biology, it refers to the crossing of two nerves or ligaments. In language, it is the rhetorical device in which one phrase is countered by another inverting the same words, as when John F. Kennedy said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,’ or when Mae West said, ‘It’s not the men in my life, it’s the life in my men.’ The interwoven figure calls to mind two hands grasping each other, or the way a woollen thread loops back to grip itself in a knitting stitch. As Merleau-Ponty put it: ‘the hold is held’. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 742

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the chiasm concept central to late Merleau-Ponty, tracing its etymology and extensions across biology, rhetoric, and phenomenology.
• XREF: The ‘hold is held’ image connects to the relational/interwoven self theme running through this book and to the folding image in the prior passage. — connects to: The world’s instrumental organization depends partly on constituting consciousness; For Heidegger, Being-in-the-world means humans serve as a clearing where things reveal themselves — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 591; Consciousness and world are simultaneous in authentic reflection. — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 235 (+5 more)
• SHARE: The Mae West chiasmus example is a gem worth sending to anyone interested in rhetoric or phenomenology.

Broader Connections

• Consciousness and world are simultaneous in authentic reflection. #expands (0.85) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 235
• Consciousness is a temporary fold in being, not separate from it #expands (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 739
• Consciousness is a duality that is unity, irreducible to the in-itself #expands (0.82)
• Consciousness transcends toward the meaning of being, not being itself #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 154
• The incommunicable diversity of times resists unifying two consciousnesses #complicates (0.78) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 669