Anita Mason's 'The Illusionist'. In Mason's novel,
which is concretely to do with the confused and confusing aftermath of the
crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, with respect to the early followers
of the new sects of fresh christianity, I found Allen's problem recurring.
At one point, a main protagonist who was present at the resurrection and
profoundly affected and disturbed by it, is reporting on an earlier
conversation with the live Jesus (here called Joshua). Joshua says "[Some]
things must not be said"; "Why"; "... And for another reason, which you must
never tell to anyone. There is a kind of truth which, when it is said,
becomes untrue..." The poor protagonist is bewildered, and the novel is
largely about the working out of this wilderness in time.
Jud:
Of course Jesus never said such a thing [I know you didn't claim this
anyway] - it is all in the rich imagination of Anita Mason.
No truth can become an untruth no matter what is claimed about it or denied
about it.
A thing is either true or false. What we humans conceive of as "truth" is
the act of
making a statement which corresponds to the actual way in which that which
exists exists.
"Being" does not exist and therefore there is nothing for any truth claim to
correctly or incorrectly correspond to.
Like God "Being" is simply a cognitive fantasy, a cerebral activity or
behaviour of some human holisms.
Michael:
Now, I wish to consider the "There is a kind of truth which, when it is
said, becomes untrue" statement through an analogy (which can not be an
analogy). And here I am tallking with respect to Heidegger's performances of
"being" (and "be-ing", "beying", "Being", etc) in his texts. A fundamental
problem in dealing with "being" [the word] is that it does not signify any
one being or collection of beings or a totality of beings or commonality of
beings or abstract concept of beings, etc. Neither does it signify something
like an activity (of an actor or agency, present or absent) or process, etcBut, because when speaking of being we must say "being", we immediately
trans-late what is not a thing or being (a name-able entity or collection of
entities, etc) to (wham! bang! thankyou mam'!) some thing, some being, some
entity, etc.
Jud:
Heidegger acknowledged with Husserl that the "Being" of all entities lies in
the sense we gain of them in our understanding.
"Being" means for him "Object Giveness" the aspect under which the entity is
understood.
He said: "It is the object of its form in the complex of meaning to give
the object its "Being.""
Leaving aside the juvenilism that a "form" can GIVE anything to anything, it
is obvious that we all sense objects differently.
A Hottentot perceives of a woman with a huge retrousse behind as beautiful,
whilst the westerner does not, I might adore
a piece of Edwardian furniture with you think repulsive, the
transcendentalist terrorist sees the continued "Being" and the being of a young girl as
something meaningless to be shot in the back, etc., therefore everyone's idea
of "Being" {I am going along with the fantasy in order to communicate] is
different. "Being" therefore is in the eye of the befuddled beholder, and there
areno doubt more versions of "Being" floating around out there than the
whole of Plato's forms multiplied by a couple of thousand million million million.
Objects in the sense than Heidegger fantasises are NOT GIVEN by nature or
God or anybody else, the only objects that are ever "given" is when one human
being or human organisation gives an object to somebody else. For anything to
be "given" it requires a "giver" and the only entity capable of "giving itself
to another is of course â?? a human being in an act of love or allegiance, or
in the case of Heidegger-groupies - subjugation. .
Michael:
For Heidegger, the very history of philosophy (metaphysics,
ontotheology) is the history of the errance of being as some being (or
version of being-ness).
Jud:
Then this directly conflicts with what he has to say about "Object
Giveness," for according to him
"Being" is the way WE understand an object when WE perceive it â?? "Being" is
NOT the way an object is â?? but the way
WE understand it to be, therefore any "errance" of the "Being" of an object
is the errance of OUR understanding of it.
Michael:
When we talk of being we say "being" and at once
this "being" does not refer to being at all: it has been trans-formed,
metamorphised.
Jud:
He contradicts himself continually for here he says precisely the opposite:
Heidegger:
" When we say about beings that they are thus and so, we might distinguish
between beings and being.
But in this distinction being and the "is" remains continually indifferent
and uniform, for it is emptiness itself."
Jud:
How come that our understanding of an object â?? "the aspect under which the
entity is understood" is "emptiness itself?"
Heidegger spake thus: "It is the object of its form in the complex of
meaning to give the object its "Being."
If it is the object's form in the complex of meaning that gives an object
its "Being" how can it be [in your words]
that: "this "being" does not refer to being at all?
Michael:
In this sense, the truth (the revelation, the unconcealing,
a-letheia) of being has become its untruth in the very saying of its name
(just as in Joshua's statement above).
Jud:
Why? How can there be TWO different unconcealings of "truth?" One
unconcealing
reveals that "Being" does not refer to being at all." and the other
"revelatory" unconcealing reveals
that: "it is the object's form in the complex of meaning that gives an
object its "Being."
Additionally, if according to "The Brain of Germany 1926," "Being" is
"Object Giveness" [which is] the aspect under which the entity is understood,"
and given that different people understand different things differently how
can we have all those competing "truths" flittering about like bats bereft of
linguistic/acoustic verificational systems?
Michael:
We also gather that being is the only 'thing' worth thinking; its very
oblivion is testament to that. So how can
we speak of or concerning being (the only thing worth thinking) without
crossing it out as it is uttered, by speaking its name?
Jud:
You could try leaving out the vowels [actually a diphthong] and render it as
"B--ng" in the manner that Hebrew treat Yahweh.
That would be helpful in alerting newbies and those poor coves that don't
already realise that Heideggerianism is nothing more than a
religion suitably decontaminated of the more obvious inanities of
Catholicism by a recreant apostate miffed for being kicked out of the seminary.
Michael:
We can address be-ing without topicalising it; instead of speaking about it
(which it denies us because it is never a topic), we can speak around it
(peri-, meta-); instead of speaking about it, we can speak from it
(trans-mittance, re-source). These, in the same sense that, say, a Marxist
might address Marxism and Marxist ideas, not by mentioning and referring to
Marx and Marxist theory, but by speaking about some other matter in a
Marxist fashion, thus trans-mitting Marxism but without topicalising Marxism
itself.
Jud:
There is a big difference in a Marxist not mentioning Marxism and a
Heideggerian not breathing the magic word "B-E-I-N-G."
a more apt illustration would be a Heideggerian not mentioning Heidegger or
Heideggerianism [some hope].
Michael:
The admonition to not speak certain truths (say, the truth of be-ing)
because such speech, when articulated, becomes an untruth (be-ing becomes a
being, thus negating and dissolving the ontological difference), does not
necessarily incur the active oblivion of be-ing (both genitives), but rather
invites a genuine concern with rhetoric (bringing something on, presencing)
as the highest form of (philosophical) speech.
Jud:
What admonition? As far as I know neither Heidegger nor Jesus ever issued
such a firm rebuke?
Is this off your own bat â?? this admonition not to speak the dreaded word?
;-)
Michael:
As Heraclitus once supposedly said (who cares whether 'he' 'actually' said
it!) "being tends to be cryptic" [my trans-lation-cum-interpretation].
Jud:
It'll be even more cryptic if we are not allowed to utter the word or commit
it to paper. ;-)
Regards,
Jud
Personal Website:
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_
(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm)
E-mail Discussion List:
nominalism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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which is concretely to do with the confused and confusing aftermath of the
crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, with respect to the early followers
of the new sects of fresh christianity, I found Allen's problem recurring.
At one point, a main protagonist who was present at the resurrection and
profoundly affected and disturbed by it, is reporting on an earlier
conversation with the live Jesus (here called Joshua). Joshua says "[Some]
things must not be said"; "Why"; "... And for another reason, which you must
never tell to anyone. There is a kind of truth which, when it is said,
becomes untrue..." The poor protagonist is bewildered, and the novel is
largely about the working out of this wilderness in time.
Jud:
Of course Jesus never said such a thing [I know you didn't claim this
anyway] - it is all in the rich imagination of Anita Mason.
No truth can become an untruth no matter what is claimed about it or denied
about it.
A thing is either true or false. What we humans conceive of as "truth" is
the act of
making a statement which corresponds to the actual way in which that which
exists exists.
"Being" does not exist and therefore there is nothing for any truth claim to
correctly or incorrectly correspond to.
Like God "Being" is simply a cognitive fantasy, a cerebral activity or
behaviour of some human holisms.
Michael:
Now, I wish to consider the "There is a kind of truth which, when it is
said, becomes untrue" statement through an analogy (which can not be an
analogy). And here I am tallking with respect to Heidegger's performances of
"being" (and "be-ing", "beying", "Being", etc) in his texts. A fundamental
problem in dealing with "being" [the word] is that it does not signify any
one being or collection of beings or a totality of beings or commonality of
beings or abstract concept of beings, etc. Neither does it signify something
like an activity (of an actor or agency, present or absent) or process, etcBut, because when speaking of being we must say "being", we immediately
trans-late what is not a thing or being (a name-able entity or collection of
entities, etc) to (wham! bang! thankyou mam'!) some thing, some being, some
entity, etc.
Jud:
Heidegger acknowledged with Husserl that the "Being" of all entities lies in
the sense we gain of them in our understanding.
"Being" means for him "Object Giveness" the aspect under which the entity is
understood.
He said: "It is the object of its form in the complex of meaning to give
the object its "Being.""
Leaving aside the juvenilism that a "form" can GIVE anything to anything, it
is obvious that we all sense objects differently.
A Hottentot perceives of a woman with a huge retrousse behind as beautiful,
whilst the westerner does not, I might adore
a piece of Edwardian furniture with you think repulsive, the
transcendentalist terrorist sees the continued "Being" and the being of a young girl as
something meaningless to be shot in the back, etc., therefore everyone's idea
of "Being" {I am going along with the fantasy in order to communicate] is
different. "Being" therefore is in the eye of the befuddled beholder, and there
areno doubt more versions of "Being" floating around out there than the
whole of Plato's forms multiplied by a couple of thousand million million million.
Objects in the sense than Heidegger fantasises are NOT GIVEN by nature or
God or anybody else, the only objects that are ever "given" is when one human
being or human organisation gives an object to somebody else. For anything to
be "given" it requires a "giver" and the only entity capable of "giving itself
to another is of course â?? a human being in an act of love or allegiance, or
in the case of Heidegger-groupies - subjugation. .
Michael:
For Heidegger, the very history of philosophy (metaphysics,
ontotheology) is the history of the errance of being as some being (or
version of being-ness).
Jud:
Then this directly conflicts with what he has to say about "Object
Giveness," for according to him
"Being" is the way WE understand an object when WE perceive it â?? "Being" is
NOT the way an object is â?? but the way
WE understand it to be, therefore any "errance" of the "Being" of an object
is the errance of OUR understanding of it.
Michael:
When we talk of being we say "being" and at once
this "being" does not refer to being at all: it has been trans-formed,
metamorphised.
Jud:
He contradicts himself continually for here he says precisely the opposite:
Heidegger:
" When we say about beings that they are thus and so, we might distinguish
between beings and being.
But in this distinction being and the "is" remains continually indifferent
and uniform, for it is emptiness itself."
Jud:
How come that our understanding of an object â?? "the aspect under which the
entity is understood" is "emptiness itself?"
Heidegger spake thus: "It is the object of its form in the complex of
meaning to give the object its "Being."
If it is the object's form in the complex of meaning that gives an object
its "Being" how can it be [in your words]
that: "this "being" does not refer to being at all?
Michael:
In this sense, the truth (the revelation, the unconcealing,
a-letheia) of being has become its untruth in the very saying of its name
(just as in Joshua's statement above).
Jud:
Why? How can there be TWO different unconcealings of "truth?" One
unconcealing
reveals that "Being" does not refer to being at all." and the other
"revelatory" unconcealing reveals
that: "it is the object's form in the complex of meaning that gives an
object its "Being."
Additionally, if according to "The Brain of Germany 1926," "Being" is
"Object Giveness" [which is] the aspect under which the entity is understood,"
and given that different people understand different things differently how
can we have all those competing "truths" flittering about like bats bereft of
linguistic/acoustic verificational systems?
Michael:
We also gather that being is the only 'thing' worth thinking; its very
oblivion is testament to that. So how can
we speak of or concerning being (the only thing worth thinking) without
crossing it out as it is uttered, by speaking its name?
Jud:
You could try leaving out the vowels [actually a diphthong] and render it as
"B--ng" in the manner that Hebrew treat Yahweh.
That would be helpful in alerting newbies and those poor coves that don't
already realise that Heideggerianism is nothing more than a
religion suitably decontaminated of the more obvious inanities of
Catholicism by a recreant apostate miffed for being kicked out of the seminary.
Michael:
We can address be-ing without topicalising it; instead of speaking about it
(which it denies us because it is never a topic), we can speak around it
(peri-, meta-); instead of speaking about it, we can speak from it
(trans-mittance, re-source). These, in the same sense that, say, a Marxist
might address Marxism and Marxist ideas, not by mentioning and referring to
Marx and Marxist theory, but by speaking about some other matter in a
Marxist fashion, thus trans-mitting Marxism but without topicalising Marxism
itself.
Jud:
There is a big difference in a Marxist not mentioning Marxism and a
Heideggerian not breathing the magic word "B-E-I-N-G."
a more apt illustration would be a Heideggerian not mentioning Heidegger or
Heideggerianism [some hope].
Michael:
The admonition to not speak certain truths (say, the truth of be-ing)
because such speech, when articulated, becomes an untruth (be-ing becomes a
being, thus negating and dissolving the ontological difference), does not
necessarily incur the active oblivion of be-ing (both genitives), but rather
invites a genuine concern with rhetoric (bringing something on, presencing)
as the highest form of (philosophical) speech.
Jud:
What admonition? As far as I know neither Heidegger nor Jesus ever issued
such a firm rebuke?
Is this off your own bat â?? this admonition not to speak the dreaded word?
;-)
Michael:
As Heraclitus once supposedly said (who cares whether 'he' 'actually' said
it!) "being tends to be cryptic" [my trans-lation-cum-interpretation].
Jud:
It'll be even more cryptic if we are not allowed to utter the word or commit
it to paper. ;-)
Regards,
Jud
Personal Website:
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_
(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm)
E-mail Discussion List:
nominalism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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