I posted over a year ago that “I began using ‘psychal’ in mid-March, 2011, because I wanted a correlate of my term ‘mindality’,” which is “associable with phenomenological interest.” [“psychalness,” Jan. 2019]. “…Psychal interest in mind or psyche is experiential (or phenomenological). Psychological interest in mind is methodic, structural, or conceptual...” (sweet transgression, Mar. 2011).
The middle ’o’ of ‘psychological’ is merely a conventional connector between the root ‘psyche-’ and ‘-logical’. I substitute ‘a’ for inquirial (inquiry-al) interest in psychalness: psychalogical interest.
I mentioned in November, 2011 that “...my preference for ‘psychalogical’ over ‘psychological’…is analogous to a difference between [interest in] phenomenal experience and systematically-interpreted experience” (“...developmental interest”). But that is better represented as two kinds of inquirial interest: phenomenological and empirical.
psychalness is integrally relational. So, being ‘in relation to’ expresses a primordial aspect of being, signed by ‘irt’, which I prefer to ‘vis-à-vis’.
(Clinical interest in psychal life is better grounded phenomenologically—as applied psychalogy—than as applied empirical psychology. But that’s just suggestive; clinical work is very hybrid.)
That relationality is also integrally differential. Experientially, phenomena show as if self-differentiated—which I discussed briefly, May 2011 (§12).
Developmentally primary differences are twofold:
- first, between inner/outer, or me/there—growing into holistic differences like self/other; life/world; and second:
- tangible/intangible—> material/abstract; perceptual/conceptual: commonly “lower”/”higher” construal of meaning.
And immanent to everything (“perpendicular” to the fourfold) is the temporally enacting (generative) difference between [being{being}], i.e., being of being—there of thereing.
I’ve long referred to intrinsic interest in self-enhancement (well-established by empirical developmental psychology) as “selformative interest” (dropping the hypenated second ‘f’). That psychal intrinsicness can be traced back to the evolution of recursive (self-formative) intelligence, advancing anthropologically by highly individuating (autogenic) lives that gain lasting influence across thereby-evolving culture.
So, individuational capability for perspective (or for better differ-
entiation) may follow from the automatic capability for self-differentiating experience that is intrinsic to neonatal psychalness.
In all events, psychalness is always in a temporal flow of experiencing, differentiable relative to one’s “level” (or degree) of individuation. “Level” is standardly regarded as sophisticating appreciation for differentiations, for complexity, for flexibility of perspective-taking, etc., typically identified relative to some model of development and standardized educational grade levels.
I find the medium of textuality to be an exemplary mode of modeling differentiation (for literate life): Experience can be interpreted like textuality is interpretable. March 2011, I noted: “…I’m coining a notion of psychalness with a textuality of phenomena in mind, i.e., regarding all experience inasmuch as it may be regarded as interpretive...”
(a validating frame of mind, Mar. 2011). Differentiation of experience into literal elements makes those elements metonymic of their meaning and significance of continuing experience, just as extracted words mean relative to their sentences. Ordinary specification of an experience requires a differentiation from ongoing time (being) like decontextualized words imply read sentential meaning.
Especially interesting to me is psychalness that enjoys the appeal of gaining “higher” (or greater) appreciability (born from intrinsic curiosity). For decades, I’ve used a simple motto “Learning never ends” because psychal venturing can be endless enjoyment.
For many years, I’ve desired to understand that kind of psychalness as best I can: being highly drawn to ever growing, ever receding horizons.
This posting, largely recollective, is a preface to pursuing that desire relative to some leading minds.
This is part 1 of “being one Self”
