The spirit of infancy

Finally, one step ahead, one realizes that truth for the modern day westerner is on the one hand what makes a consensus and on the other hand what no one can deny, this second point implying the first. There exists in effect a primacy of negation: is considered to be true what one cannot deny. Moreover, in a certain number of cases, one cannot deny an assertion or its contrary. For example one cannot deny the existence of God or Gods non-existence. We consequently conclude that "It is not important to know whether God exists or not, what is important is the manner in which one believes or disbelieves".

It is also for this reason that mathematics seduce so much, are omnipresent and impose themselves as wisdom, for they prop themselves up on an aspect of intelligence and on a logic with a universal countenance. Can we demonstrate that 1+1=2? I don't think we can, but we cannot demonstrate the contrary. Therefore it is of little importance whether it is true or false, but what we can do with it, statistics, marketing etc.

I know a little chap who got an F in algebra because to the question "how much are 1 and 1", he would obstinately answer "1". So his mother, a bit bewildered and asking herself if he was not a bit slow, turned to him holding a tennis ball, then a second one, and asked him: "So now, this ball plus this ball, how many balls in the hands?, and he answered : "Two, of course! But that was not the question that the teacher asked! She did not say how much are 1 plus 1, she asked how much are 1 and 1! Yet 1 and 1 is 1 mom, just like you and you is you, and moreover, you and you doesn't mean anything since it is already all of you in you! The little chap had already understood what One is and what a transcendental is! In fact, I have oft noticed that children are much better metaphysicians than many adults who are perverted in their intelligence. This is the spirit of youth which we hear of here and there, which is not infantilism. The child always seeks the "why" of things, and he is right to do so, for that's really all that is interesting, whereas the adult does not cease to bog himself down in the "how" of things. It is the adult who is infantile!

Now then, what is worrying is that negation is at the heart of what is considered by the modern westerner as true. One should imo scratch quite a bit around that spot.

The road less travelled

The more I ponder over it, the more the answer to the question "Why do so few attain substance?" becomes clearer; bear with me for a second.

1) To begin, one must let go of "I am" to get to "This is". That's the first stage, and obviously it eliminates all those who haven't sharpened their pencil; that is to say about 80%.

2) Then, face to face with "This is", one must abstract "is". Here, you have another 15% who get sidetracked.

3) There are only 5% left who, in front of the abstraction of "is" must now set forward the interrogation: "What is being as being"? Amongst those who have surmounted the first two obstacles, more than half drop off - only 2% remain in the race.

4) Then, in front of this interrogation, one must let go of the abstraction of step 2, in other words the universal being, the being of reason, go beyond logic, that is beyond the "thinking the being", further than the artistic or poetic or mathematical approach, and practically all of the contemporary elite, turn here indefinitely in circles, Heiddegger, Levinas, Husserl, Jacques Maritain... they are subjugated by being in their thought, and they never come back to the concrete and reality. That's where the big divide plays out amongst people who think, with the following choice: either intelligence dominates being, or being dominates intelligence. In Antiquity, single-handedly and foremost, Aristotle accepts to revert to experience and to be dominated by being.

There are only 000,1% left: 1 in 100.000.

5) These few come back to reality with "I am", the "I" being the most perfect modality of the "This(is)" that each of us experiment. There, finally, they discover soul, then substance. Yet there are still a good few who don't get past soul, to substance, like Saint Augustine.

We have 0000,1% left, 1 in 1.000.000.

This is curious, for the contemporary figures which I admire the most, notably artists, all fall at stage 4.

What I don't understand is why metaphysics should absolutely be art? The big obstacle is in effect that of stage 4, which equates metaphysics and logic (or art, it's essentially the same). When one adopts an artistic viewpoint, one does not do metaphysics, and vice versa, when one does metaphysics, one does not do art. I admit I do not understand how we have managed to make a rivalry out of these two touches... as if we absolutely wanted not to differentiate two vital activities, like to sleep and to eat for example. I don't quite understand the thing about absolutely wanting to mix the two, possibly to the point where they become mortal enemies; this is quite curious really.

The majority don't get past stage 1, they stop at "I am", most often in a very infantile way, for if the Cartesian spirit has found its way into the bloodstream of Westerners, not everyone is Descartes either, who was a cretin but certainly no idiot! :)

Credit image: Frost by Chapin

Back to the sources

Following on the "Two sources" post, an e-conversation between Avatar and another web-user.

Aqua: "I think for you there are the "realist" philosophers who see the truth and the others who make nice constructions which inspire respect but who are as far away from truth as can be. Tell me if I am mistaken?"


Avatar: What is true? It is what is, isn't it? Do you agree, Aqua, that what is true is what is? If you do, you must conclude that a construction of the spirit, which truly exists, in the spirit, but truly exists, is thus true! Therefore how do we manage if we start with the spirit which is separated? We can't, so it's well and truly with external experience that one must start, with what is not oneself. If we start firstly with the spirit, or the relations produced by the spirit, we find ourselves in an area of maximum confusion between what is (and which is not ourselves) and what is in ourselves and which we will then project over reality. Descartes sentence "I think therefore I am" is correct! It is quite evident that by experimenting that I think I can conclude that I exist, but what is horrific, is that Descartes decrees, quite explicitly, that his thought is solely reliable and objective, not at all what is real, which can be a source of error, and that in consequence one must set ones idea before what is real, as the first stone of all philosophical research. In this way, Descartes is the father of modern ideologies... for what is not mentionned very often is that he greatly influenced Marx, Freud and a good few others.

Aqua: "You say you take Aristotle out of the picture? So who are the realist philosophers who adhere to your school of thought?"

Avatar: I know a few of them, who are alive, but it is certain that the realist approach does not have a huge following, as the intuitive and poetic approach is far more appealing. It is wearisome to read someone like Aristotle, it is almost drudgery, it is drawn out, without poetry... whereas Plato is absolutely delightful! Thus to answer your question, I do not see many famous philosophers who have gone as far as Aristotle down the path of realistic thought. Many have tried to find something else, and since he has gone very far down this path, they naturally wrote a philosophy of spirit.

I thus see two reasons why so few "celebrities" have put forward a realistic thought, in Aristotle's footsteps: 1) It is wearisome 2) Aristotle has taken it very far, and it is not via this route that one can invent and claim some fame; the first role is already taken.

Moreover, I don't have an interest in Aristotle per se!! Thought does not belong to Aristotle, thought belongs to man, it is a common good!! What Aristotle discovered does not belong to him, even if he is the father of realist thought!! It is a concept which belongs to an author, not what is real, which belongs to all!! Thus one must choose: either one wants to invent a completely new way of thinking under the premise that realistic thought is a concept, either we seek truth, and use predecessors as indicators, without ever dispensing oneself from reverifying or rediscovering, or not, what they have discovered! I say this to stress once more that I do not speak of Aristolianism. And I am not a professor! I seek the truth! Thus I am no more Aristolian than Avatarian! What is true is neither to the left nor to the right, neither red nor blue: it is! Lol


Aqua: "This philosophy based on a construction of the spirit that substitutes itself to being is that what you call a philosophy of relation? I see nothing synonymous between these two expressions."


Avatar: What does human intelligence produce if not relations? Can you show me something other than relations that is produced by intelligence? Either intelligence contemplates or it produces relations. This is precisely why I say that at the start of any philosophical thought, either we admit that being is what falls first in intelligence (contemplation) or we create relations. So you could retort that Aristotle never ceased to create relations, that he even wrote the Organon, which is a treatise on logic, all right, I agree, but he did so after having chosen, accepted and sought to look at reality as imposing itself to him, which changes everything! Consequently, there are well and truly only two starting points to philosophy, a philosophy of being, and one of relation.

Aqua: "Another question: is it unthinkable that the concept of being could be a construct of the spirit? This question must be asked if one desires to orientate oneself in philosophy."

Avatar: Of course it is possible, this is what Heidegger did! But I am not speaking of the concept of being (which is not being), I speak of being. So I agree with you, this begets immediately a question which has far reaching consequences and which is this one: given that it is I who knows and that there is no adequacy between reality and my knowledge of this reality, how does one know this reality since to know it one must know how one is known. This is the reason for which everything starts with "this is" (and not "I am"). That is to say with the judgement of existence pertaining to a reality that is not me and that has a "this" and an "is", i.e. a signification of reality (this) and an apprehension (is). Everything plays out there, right at the start. So each and everyone chooses, more or less consciously for that matter, but that's where it happens, and the ramifications are rather extensive downstream.

Image:

A spectacular firework

After having started by confounding substance and the individual, Descartes explicitly turns his back on Aristotle, followed later on by Hegel... with Hegel came dialectics and the primacy of relation.

We thus have forgotten that substance is the indirect source of relation. One could say that relation is the granddaughter of substance, its daughter being quality. If we truly understood relation we would paddle up to the grandmother - substance - and this would help us to understand its necessity... at least it would be easier to grasp it than in a direct manner. In lieu of which, we have thrown grandmother off the train!

We started with substance and we magnified relation and the relative, setting off a spectacular firework, but we are only left with smoke and an odor of burning. Contemporary philosophy knows no principles; it can't teach us anything; it only carries breezes which give the neuron a cold.

Now relation is literally asinine when it seeks to take the place of substance. Hence the world is an asinine place.

In the last analysis, there are only two ways to go about it, either we start with relation to go to substance, or we start with relation to decapitate substance. There are presently two philosophies on the market, not three, two: to divide philosophy into philosophy of spirit on the one hand and philosophy of relation on the other hand is a delusion, for what does human intelligence do if not abstract, thus produce the universal, and what is the universal if not a relation? Thus there lays the choice, because we well and truly have to start with relation: either one starts with relation to go to substance (and it is not handy for one must paddle counter current and the descending current is quite fierce), or one does as everyone else: you start with relation, you head dunk grannie, and you let yourself drift down the current whilst splashing amongst the corpses.

Well then, we have no choice! We must go back to Aristotle to see how he looks at relation, and also take a peek at Hegel. Between the two there is Descartes, but it doesn't take too long to walk around that diminutive thinker. Conversely, one must absolutely go back to Aristotle and spend a bit of time with Hegel, for he is the father of all contemporary dialectics.
Credit image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/463819664/

Time

Time is a measure of movement, hence of becoming. Why is there becoming? Because every potential being is entirely relative to a being in act which it is attracted to, and that it is through becoming that being in potency meets being in act.

Therefore, not only being in potency is not being, rather a modality of being, the most tenuous at that, it is not anymore becoming. However, it is through becoming that being in potency attains its end by joining being in act.

It follows that being in act is anterior to being in potency from the point of view of perfection, which is the inverse of the (genetic) viewpoint of becoming, where being in potency precedes being in act.

I thus conclude that being is anterior to becoming, and that becoming only exists through being, which manifests itself through the present moment, since only the present moment exists, for neither the past nor the future exist.

The present moment is the victory of Act over Potency, thus of Being over Becoming... an ephemeral victory at that.

Gypsy swing

2004. Bireli Lagrene. You will realize, when you listen to him, why it did not take me long to understand that this prodigious kid would necessarily become an international star.

Later on he revealed himself capable of understanding a music piece in less time than is required to write it… and he played and plays today with anybody without difficulty. Obviously he never studied music, that is how it is taught in the “Conservatoire”. He does not read partitions for example. He plays everything by ear.

Around 16 years of age he listens to Georges Benson, Jimmy Hendrix, Frank Sinatra, American jazz and he absorbs everything at a phenomenal speed. What is more, he works the violin, the bass... Soon he escapes to the US and plays everywhere with Jaco Pastorius, the most famous virtuoso bassist of the time. At age 24, Biréli has assimilated all American music and jazz. He can play with the best.

He has, for around the last 2 years, started a group which plays the themes of Django. In the group there are gypsies but also the son of… Jacques Dutronc. How long will Biréli stay in this line? Probably not too long, the danger for him being to be completely absorbed, body and soul, and thus to be squelched in a certain sense, by the spirit of “show business”…

Imagination IV

When we are engulfed by imagination, we lose the sense of reality, hence of quality. It is important to see that it is through reality that we attain quality, and through quality that we attain reality... not at all through imagination! We have so much difficulty in inducing substance that it is always possible to slide into a figurative mode, whereas quality puts us in direct contact with reality. In fact, substance is completely overlooked in today's world; not only do we replace it by relation of reason (i.e . the "universal", One from the multiple, Being as an abstraction) but we don't distinguish relation of reason and real relation. Hence, we cannot discover what realism is, as relation dispenses of distinguishing between realism and idealism.

In the order of Being, if we do not ask the question what is the is of the judgement of existence "this is" (i.e. what is Being), our experiences are always susceptible of being idealized and of being enveloped by our imagination. Why do quantity and imagination often go hand in hand? In my view, it is because quantity has no limits. Incidentally, quantity plays a huge role in psychology. To let oneself be taken down the river of quantity can give us a thrill not unlike that of rafting. In any case, one can well measure the difference between the Freudian and the Aristolian vision... for the former, our sleep and our vegetative life are the peak of the human person, whereas for the latter the peak is the spiritual soul: intelligence and will in act.


Credit image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/h-k-d/

Imagination III

Imagination is borne of the body. It is what is most subtle in it. It indubitably comes from it for it is grounded in our senses (hence the body). Without a body, no imagination. Hey, do you realize "angels" don't have an imagination!? Hard to imagine, huh? :wink:

It's a curious thing because imagination proceeds from the body and at the same time it seeks to separate itself from it.That's what imagination and virtuality are: a world that could exist but doesn't; a world that proceeds from reality but that is not reality.

There is an affective virtuality, a mathematical virtuality, a scientific virtuality, an artistic virtuality. It is because this make believe world, which once more doesn't exist but could exist, proceeds from me that I like it so much and that it often interests me much more than reality itself.

In short, however this subject warrants a much longer development, the body, hence imagination, is terribly limited, but it is positive in as much as it enables the soul to live of sensibility. That will be all for today. At ease! ;-)

Credit image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/h-k-d/

Dialogue with God

Dialogue with "God" on Dialogus2.org

Avatar: ...while I'm at it, ill give you my viewpoint on euthanasia. Given that I cannot stand to see others suffer, I am in favor of local euthanasia dispensed in priority to those who suffer confronted to the suffering of others. Like that it will only be necessary to take care of those who suffer without having to be bothered by those who don't suffer. Me for example, if a family member dies, I have asked for some local euthanasia beforehand... for I do not want to suffer unnecessarily, nor lose my dignity for that matter. It is not only liberty which stops at the moment where that of the others begins, you too may I point out!

God: Only the suffering of those who are close to you make you suffer?

Avatar: It is a question which is absent of you. I suggest the following one. Who is close to you? It is in effect not customary for you to interest yourself in what is measurable and quantity, rather in what is not measurable and quality. It is even the first time I hear "solely" in your mouth. May this serve as a lesson, for now you are diabolically preoccupied by the fact that a suffering does not weigh enough.

God: there is much subjectivity in your words. What do you know of my "morals"? Why should I only be interested in what is not measurable? Why should measure be a quantity?

Avatar: Your morals? How do I know them? Don't be a snob please, as if we did not know each another! Jeepers! Why would you only be interested in what is not measurable? With what you pay me, do you really think you are the right one to ask me this?? Why should measure be quantity? That one is easy, because quantity is measurable. :)

God: hmmmmmm

Avatar: Don't pull that face!! No kidding, I find your strategy consisting in sending the ball back in a backhand crosscourt passing shot with "it is in your head that it is true" undertones a bit short. Short passing shot if you will. If I were in your sandals I would try to have a bit more fun. You have no excuse really! I would help them to a theology of the sea on its natural coulis of metaphysics. If you want my opinion, there is only you to ban religion. Hey, for example we spoke of humility, why didn't you answer: "Humility bores me. It has in common with arrogance that in both cases you speak of yourself." How did you say? Hmmmmmmm. Did I say that right?? :0)

Spiritual vs intellectual

"Avatar" answering the question "should one distinguish between spiritual and intellectual...?"

It seems intelligence and spirit have fundamentally the same meaning: one speaks without distinction of human intelligence and human spirit... intelligence signifying what proceeds from human intelligence, and spiritual what comes from the human spirit.

From this objective consideration, and as is often the case when there are two synonymous terms, other meanings have been superimposed. We say intellectual, for example, when we wish to say non-manual, or university professor, or abstract, or someone whose feet are not grounded in reality, or even “mind-aching” (prise de tête). The same diversity exists with the word spiritual, which sometimes means humorous, or religious (this last term is in my view a quite equivocal falsehood), or even divine (“Gods” spirit), to distinguish between divine intelligence and human intelligence, etc.

As far as the distinction made by editors in their “Spirituality” collection, we have here, I think, a mistranslation (which I pointed out) between spiritual and religious. Yet, fundamentally, there is synonymity. I see here on the one hand a type of marketing gimmick which seeks a label which does not ruffle anyones feathers; on the other hand, one must recognize that these collections include everything and its opposite: religious considerations, psychoanalysis, astrology, clairvoyance, and what have you... Therefore, they include what purports to be a rather speculative reflection, which happens to correspond to the first sense of “intellectual”.

I think the term intellectual is not used solely because the connotation is sometimes pejorative or mocking in nature; the same is true for the term “speculation”, which would turn away the clients who claim to be non-intellectual and pragmatic, concrete, with their feet solidly anchored in the ground! Hence “spiritual” is much more consensual, and in any case the term is gratifying. In short, “spiritual” signifies astute and clever, whereas “intellectual” can signify pretentious and pain-in-the-neck, which is evidently not the best pitch.

In brief, spiritual sounds “authentic” whereas intellectual has undertones of “concepts” or “ravings”. It is a bit foolish, but I think that is why it is so; a bit as why red and yellow are associated to biscuits, and why few of them are sold in a blue package. :-)

Fifth round

It’s a classic, at the fifth round of drinks, someone gets up and says “if God knows in advance what I will freely decide, that means in truth that it was planned or written in advance, and this means that I am not free.”

So someone else asks “if "he" whom you call God exists, and if "he" is as you suppose eternal, why would "he" not know in advance what you will decide freely? For that would mean that "he " is not atemporal…”

Obviously, this creates a bit of discomfort, and usually the spotlight swings immediately to “and me, why don’t I know in advance what I will freely decide?”

Which then shows the desire to not be free, putting forward the following dialectic: “If I know ahead of time what I will decide freely later on, then I will freely choose the opposite, or at least something else, just to experience what it will do. Yet I cannot decide to do differently or the contrary of what I ignore!”…

Thus the bloke answers that he would like to freely renounce his freedom, which is a sophism evidently... therefore, we find ourselves in front of the following assertion: “I am not free to not be free”, that is to say in front of two consecutive negations.

But does saying “I am free to be free” make any sense? Not really any more than the preceding double negation, for “I am free” is enough, and we don’t clearly see what “to be free” adds. In consequence, it seems that a freedom which contemplates itself should necessarily and logically lead to its suicide, bogged down in a sort of perverse effect: I request not to be free”. Just as if that was the only choice. Curious isn’t it?

This shows that freedom is not an end in itself, and also that when one seeks to make a transcendental out of it, we kill it. I wonder if that is not what we do when we carry to the rank of transcendental whatever else that is not one, like beauty for example. I mean by this that I wonder if to make a transcendental out of beauty doesn’t also, sooner or later, lead to negate beauty. Finally, instead of creating, that is when one assimilates oneself to "he" whom religious traditions call “God”, what we mostly know what to do, is destroy lol

What characterizes contemporary thought is negation. Aristotle is the friend of wisdom in as much as he starts by admiring, even that which is reputed to be self-evident. Aristotle is the philosopher of admiration. The contemporaries are for the most part the buffoons of doubt and of negation. It is Descartes who pulled the first punch: “I think, therefore I doubt, and therefore I am”… Geez! 

It is because of Descartes that all of contemporary thought is a saloon-bar philosophy.

Never vanquished

Should you ask people around you what truth is, you will mostly be told that it depends on your conception of truth. If you insist and point out that what exists or not is entirely oblivious to any opinion one may have of it as far as being or not being, you will, without more ado, be singled out as sectarian. You will be told that you are trying to impose your ideas, exactly as if reality was an idea. Now then, whether or not you seek to impose what you think neither affects error nor truth, and consequently it is well and truly postulated that reality does not exist outside the idea you make of it. Not to consent to the relativity of reality constitutes in many places a form of raging intolerance. To accept that each and everyone can express his opinion is one thing, something important, for sure, but on the other hand truth also deserves to be upheld. :)

A suicide of intelligence

These days you are not understood if you say that the primacy of being has been substituted by nothingness. Most people stare at you with a dazed look. Yet, for anyone who has the slightest inkling of metaphysics, it is obvious that being primes over non-being, and that it is well and truly being which is, before nothingness… despite Jean-Saul Partre and the cortege of logy intellectuals of the 20th century. Thus negation has taken front stage, in all spirits, even those of the blockheads.

In short, if one is no longer understood on a metaphysical level, one can nevertheless clearly distinguish the primacy of negation concerning the human person and freedom. In this day and age, in the person we firstly see someone who is ailing (thanks to the psychocretins & co who have reduced the human person to personality), and in freedom the capacity to say “no”, that is to say the most infantile vision of things.

Thus we find the three poles where lies the solution to any problem (the person, truth, freedom) absolutely poisoned by negation: truth is firstly nothingness, the person is firstly ailing, and freedom is firstly saying “no”. If that is not a suicide of intelligence, it strangely resembles it, for what “falls” first in intelligence is being, not non-being, which figures the absence of being, thus the destruction through despair of intelligence, memory and will. Hence, we claim to fecund the spirit firstly with nothingness, that’s a good one, for it is exactly as hallucinating as a farmer who would sow “nothing” whilst prophesizing an unparalleled crop.

Roots of ideologies

Nietzsche, in my opinion, was an artist bestowed with a prodigious capacity to love and with an … unflinching jealousy, jealousy consisting certainly, in its most speculative and humanely sublime form, in looking for a master over which to dominate.

Ultimately, if we wish to separate the poets from the philosophers, contemporaneous or not, and precisely identify the sources of ideologies, even to hatch a few, it is quite simple. I know three means to go about it.

The first is to consider one of the seven dimensions of man which most of the worldly traditions lay out – the vegetative dimension, the animal dimension, the spiritual dimension, work, friendship, politics and religion – and to isolate one of these dimensions from the other six (one can also take 2 or 3 of them and mix them together, whilst separating them from the others, or even endeavour to exclude one of them and only consider the 6 remaining ones). For example, Marx and Nietzsche exalted (admittedly in quite different ways) work or the artistic activity as being the only acceptable way to save man and humanity. Kant exalted the religious dimension and morals, etc.

The second means consists in taking the three poles at the center of which rests the answer to any problem – Truth, The Human Person and Liberty – and in the same way as in what preceeds, to isolate one of the three. For example, Sartre isolates Liberty and veneers it for its own sake, etc.

The third is even more efficient, as it is more hidden to blunt intelligences. Take the 5 transcendentals (transcendental = notion which is convertible to Being) : Esse (Being), Aliquid (Something), Verum (Truth), Unum (One) and Bonum (Good). I’m showing you the general technique here, without entering into any detail, because we may end up getting spotted! LoL Firstly, note that "beauty" is not a transcendental, even though it has been exalted as such and is still exalted in this manner. Many people do not understand for example how the concentration camp SS could listen to the quatuors of Mozart during their dinner… as if beauty finalizes! Beauty is relative to the transcendentals and can be separated from them.

All right, but even more devious, only Being is an authentic transcendental, it is the keystone, and the four other transcendentals are acolytes of Being. Those who have a metaphysical touch understand this, the others stare blankly, persuaded that all this has no interest at all or is not concrete, even though we are well and truly at the heart of the most real reality.

Therefore, if one seeks to identify the source of all the deliriums and monstrosities that human intelligence is capable of, sometimes with much talent, one only needs to isolate one of the 4 transcendentals relative to Being (Aliquid, Verum, Unum, Bonum) and to consider it as separated from Being. You will have there a formidable tool to manipulate the fools and seduce the intellectuals. This approach is obviously the name of the game, the other two being more immediate and straightforward. :P

Aerobics

In the last analysis, love consists in stooping down whereas art consists in stepping up... and we are no more an artist by stooping down than we love by stepping up, which means, if you are still following, that we do not stoop down by stepping up nor do we step up by stooping down. Evidently, evidently... The most distressing are those who crawl with their head high up, but that's another story. :)

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A logical question

A little (pre-arranged) conversation between myself and "Avatar". "I think you" means "you are the subject of my thoughts".


Good day all,

If I write this proposition: I think you, therefore you are. Can I logically deduce the following one : I don't think you, therefore you are not?

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The answer is YES, I can logically deduce the second affirmation from the first, but I must add "in my mind" in both cases. The sequence is therefore "I think (of) you, therefore you are (exist) in my mind. Consequently, if I don't think (of) you, you are not (don't exist) in my mind."

However, if one does not precise "in my mind" the first proposition is already false because there is no necessary link between the fact that I think something (necessarily in ones mind) and the existence of this thing elsewere than in ones mind.

If you agree with this cursory analysis, you must conclude that any reality which is not in your mind transcends your mind. If you do not agree, then there is no difference for you between "to exist" and "to exist in your mind".

Hello,

Your answer has hit me in the face to a point you can not imagine. Now I understand that Descartes in fact said "I think, therefore I am in my head". This changes everything. I now feel freed from my cartesian chains!

Harvey

Harvey,

I am pleased to hear your Harry Houdini type evasion has been successful. Without a doubt there is something akin to prestidigitation in Descartes formula, which starts in full immanence (I think) and dreams of spewing out a transcendence (therefore I am).

Avatar

Credit image: Fritz at Hikingartist.com

Peripaticians

Impromptu online discussion on the subject of the source of modern Western human thought, Aristotle and his metaphysics.

The radical difference between Plato and Aristotle is that the former considers his personal and interior experience to come first, whereas the latter looks firstly at reality which is exterior to him (obviously this is less poetic!). It is fashionable to consider Plato to be a philosopher, even though he is more of a poet of the soul, and to denigrate Aristotle whom we find less amusing, and moreover whose musings are not as easily accessible. In particular, Aristotle is criticized for his theory on the spontaneous generation, his treatise on the heavens which today seems rather infantile, etc., as if this chap were a scientist… but Aristotle was first and foremost a philosopher, and was only interested in science “accidentally”, using the tools of his time!

This preference for Plato is linked to the poetry of his discourse, to the exaltation of intimacy and interiority (immanent and immediate experience), to his explanations which are often metaphorical… He has always exerted a great seduction, which is normal as he is a poet, whereas Aristotle is hardly poetic, and is sometimes lacking in humor! William of Ockam, in the 14th century, gave a new life to Plato; later Descartes brought him to the forefront, and practically permanently! Later still, some mystics like Simone Weil expressed their love of Plato and their aversion for Aristotle. It is too bad really, and this probably proceeds more from ignorance than discernment. In particular, Plato held women to be slightly more evolved than animals, and without a soul. It is Aristotle who was the first in Ancient Greece to speak of friendship – philia – between man and woman, returning dignity to women by elevating them to the rank of human beings, on an equal footing to men… I’m not certain Simone Weil knew that, and even less so for many unconditional contemporary admirers of Plato!

So one must read “Nicomacian Ethics… which is a simple book, much more so than the treatise on the soul or the treatise on metaphysics. Aristotle is the first to have given a real metaphysics to the Western world, i.e. a science beyond physics, what he called “first philosophy”, but what was later named meta-physics (beyond physics) for this treatise was found, after his death, on his bookshelves, just after his book on physics. Today one must speak of “first philosophy”... if you speak of metaphysics, you get penalty points… even if they are one and the same thing! Being that we have celebrated the death of metaphysics, this shouldn't come as that much of a surprise! :)

So, in two words if possible, what is Aristotle’s metaphysics? Precisely because he distinguishes himself from his master Plato (whom he followed for 15 years, in silence), who set thought before reality, Aristotle sets reality before the idea he makes of it, and he does this through what some call the judgement of existence”: THIS IS. One must note that in the fundamental assertion “This is”, the “this” is not “me”… !!! This is the radical difference with the notorious “I think, therefore I am” of Descartes, who sets the “I” before the “this”, or the internal experience before the perceived external reality, in other words sincerity before truth.

Consequently, Aristotle seeks foremost reality as it is other than himself and which is unmindful of the idea he makes of it to be what it is. He then looks at what intelligence is, where it comes from, what it is made of, according to what model and in view of what, five interrogations which can be associated to his five senses: what it is (sight); where it comes from (hearing); what it is made of (touch), according to which model (taste), and in view of what it is (smell). To answer your question more concretely, it is obvious that seeking what is true entails a constant back and forth between our sensible touch of reality and intelligence, in other words a perpetual round trip between the abstraction of reality through the senses, delivering the observation to intelligence, and reinjecting into reality what I understand of it, to verify the adequacy between my intelligence and reality. Thus, for Aristotle, truth is the adequacy between intelligence and reality. Well, it isn’t easy to speak of these “things” in a few lines… We’ll speak again, hopefully… and it is important to have fun around this neck of the woods, is it not? :))

Credit image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plato_Aristotle_della_Robbia_OPA_Florence.jpg

Aesthetics

The word aesthetics is not so old. I believe it was coined by Kant, borrowing on the the Greek eitésis, which signifies sensation. We find the same root in other words, like "an-esthesia", which means absence of sensation.

Consequently, aesthetics, in the first instance, is what procures a sensation. Now, many impute to beauty or aesthetics a moral value. In other words, they persuade themselves that beauty is necessarily concomitantly good. It is not very difficult to show that they err. If beauty is in effect what procures a sensation, there have been for example many an aestheticism linked to perverse ideologies or frightful dictatorships. Moreover, aesthetics seems in those cases to carry more importance: colossal architecture, apocalyptic music, magnificent uniforms, quite spectacular ceremonies and public reunions, solemn literature, etc.

Hence, beauty has no finality of itself. In other words, it is not sufficient or capable of itself to lead to the completion of the human person. It is ordered to something other than itself. Without redeveloping here an entire metaphysics, some would hang the phone up, lol, we can nevertheless try to look at that towards which beauty is ordered.

In Greek philosophy, but also in other philosophies, like Hindu metaphysics for example, there are 5 recognized transcendentals. A transcendental is what suffices to itself, or what does not have any cause other than itself, or again what is finalized by itself and attracts the rest in as much as it is precisely first cause and final cause (which is absolutely not the case of beauty, and this well and truly constitutes one of the major errors of the contemporaries who elevate beauty to the rank of transcendental. Beauty is an errant cause of sorts, neither good nor bad of itself, it all depends on what it is associated to…).

In reality, Being is THE transcendental par excellence, but since Being is also aliquid (something), and since Being is true, and since Being is one (indivisible), and finally since Being is good, we turned aliquid, truth, one and good into four other full-fledged transcendentals, which isn’t wrong, but those four are in reality more like acolytes of Being. In other words, they are four other ways of naming Being.

Furthermore, as we quite rapidly ceased to understand what One is, we substituted it by Beauty, which is a singularly toxic error, the consequences of which are massive. This has lead including to physical massacres... for beauty ultimately substituted itself to good by veiling it and by sometimes justifying the most horrifying acts (not always, let's not exaggerate either).

Nonetheless, we must recognize that beauty is typically human. Animals do not make art or craft. Art and craft are one of the ways of differentiating man from beast. The animal does not wear ornaments, or clothes, which confers to clothing a foremost value of aestheticism, maybe even before any notion of moral value or modesty. :)

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