In a message dated 07/11/2004 06:58:29 GMT Standard Time,
michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Jan speaking of the materialist-nominalist version of a 'tautology':
> For a materialist it is nonsense to say "matter exists as matter" or
> "energy exists as energy", these are empty phrases, even employed
> in didactical settings [my students would laugh their pants off when
> i would claim that 'circles exists as circles' or that 'an integer exists
> as an integer' or that 'the number pi exists as the number pi'].
Hi Jan sorry for butting in, but, I think something other than emptiness is
being conveyed by clauses of the kind:
'X exists as (or in the manner/way of) X' = clause-J
A few thoughts.
1) clause-J is pushing the limits of language especially language in the
form of predication; partly this is to do with a kind of emphasis (a sort of
not-quite-repetition, particularly useful in music and poetry, and a sort of
self-predication that suggests a certain 'depth' of multiple layering of the
signifiers) being put on the very power-cum-impotence of language to deliver
up the utterly unique, the uniqueness of individual beings;
Jud:
As usual MichaelP only half-thinks through ideas. It is not just that
LANGUAGE
lacks the power to deliver up the utterly unique - the uniqueness of human
beings or individual objects/entities
it is HUMAN COGNITION itself handicapped as it is by crude sensorial
detection equipment. Even if language
HAD the potency to deliver up descriptions of the utterly unique and the
uniqueness of individual beings;
what it would deliver up would be a mockery of the actual *Being* of those
beings, it would be a bastard-version
transacted as the result of imperfect physiological observational and
detection systems.
This power-cum-impotence of language which MichaelP helpfully points to -
the language which is generated by our human cognition systems,
proves the point regarding the crude notions of Husserl and Heidegger
regarding the instantiation of *Being* as a process of *object givenness.*
What Michael is doing here is actually assisting me in the deconstruction of
*Being* Thanks Michael.
Michael:
words tend to bring in what purveyors of J-clauses might call (not without
irony)
'abstraction', commonnesses, classes/sets, platonic <ideas>, and the like,
thus overriding/transcending the utterly unique; such overriding of the
unique things (entities/objects etc) by the very unique quality of
predicative language in its grasp and deference of the 'experience' such
unique beings tends to obscure what the purveyors of J-clauses mean to
reveal...
Jud:
The words used in the ontological statement: *An entity exists in the way
that it exists* are sufficient to state the ontological actuality, clearly and
succinctly. It makes no matter, or does not alter or debase the
overwhelming ontological profundity and truth of the statement if the Indefinite
article, "an" is replaced by a signifier [name] attributed to it for purposes of
identification. For example if the identificational indefiniteness of *an
entity*
was replaced with the word *a sausage* generating the sentence:
*A sausage exists in the way that it exists, * it would not make one jot of
difference to the profundity of the ontological import,
regarding any sausage that could be found on the face of the earth.
In fact it matters not how many descriptive adjectival or adverbial
terms were contributed to the statement - it would not alter or have any
effect whatsoever on the ontological verity of the statement.
Thus: when Michael is returning from a trip to Prague, the statement: *The
rather smelly seven-day old Moravian sausage which Michael Pennamacoor has
secreted in his right-inside jacket pocket as he passes through the Ruzyne
International Airport customs exists in the way that it exists,* is equally
valid
Michael:
2) and related to (1), such J-clauses say two things apart from the
tautological:
they say "X!"
an emphatic declaration of the implacable thatness of X
Jud:
True, but: *Incontestable truth* would be a more balanced, less hysterical
description of *ontological truth.*
*Implacable* carries the inference that nature is somehow being *spiteful*
to heideggerians because ontological verity
cannot be twisted to suit their fantasies. The use of the word *implacable*
is yet another [yawn] example of the Heideggerian *philosophy-game*
of attributing anthropocentric *properties* to *properties.* Thus
Heideggerian haecceity has great haecceities upon their back to bite 'em,
and little haecceities have lesser haecceities, and so ad infinitum.
Michael:
they say "exists {in the way of}!"
Jud:
True in the sense of: *the sausage exists in the way of being the sausage
it is.*
Michael:
that X is as a way, an emphasis on the "as" (which has no referent and thus
returns us to that which does..., very clever that)
Jud:
Nothing *clever* about it - *cleverness* doesn't enter into it. Ontological
*truth*
[the fact that entities exist in the way they exist] is not *clever*
Michael:
A heideggerian might recognise these as akin to asserting the existentiality
of X, the be-ing of the being X, rather than (as it were) the essence of X.
Jud:
A Heideggerian is free to *recognise* what the hell he or she like to
*recognise* - [we live in a *democracy after all) that does not effect the
ontological truth and fundamental existential verity of the statement. The
Heideggerian is free to introduce as many bizarre attributives as he likes,
but he does so at his peril, for as soon as he departs from ACTUAL or REAL
descriptions of his sausage, [the fact that it is smelly and seven-days old
etc.], and begins to assign anthropocentric attributes to objects, such a a weird
ability to *show themselves* [give themselves as object in Heidyspeak] or be
*hidden* from the probing eyes of the customs officers - then he opens
himself up to ridicule.
In the same way the Thomo-Heideggerian Anthony Crifasi maintained that:
*mountains actually pop up and down" when they are confronted by humans in a
vehicle on a winding, hilly approach-road. (See my *Pepperpot* page on my
website.)
Michael:
That the label-X means to convey something the label can not convey as a
label.
Jud:
I hardly ever use the *X label* I prefer names like *entity, sausage or
mountain.*
Michael:
Such J-clauses pull us into (if we do not assume that they are simple
meaningless tautologies) considering the very isness of X, X's refusal to be
simply caught by the label-X. In this such clauses register emphatically
their anti-platonism.
Jud:
*X* is in no ontological position to *refuse* or *agree* with anything.
This is another blatant example of the Heideggerian's
unthinking attribution of anthropocentricities to the non-anthropic.
MichaeL:
Both (1) and (2) have resonances in the famous untranslatable clause from
exodus: "Eyeh-Asher-Ehyeh". Allen Scult writes:
[because of the absence of tense in the hebraic verb 'to be' (hyh)] "The
phrase cannot be tied down to any particular time. It evokes a future, but
not a future that will ever become present.
Jud:
If [as I already know it is] the Hebraic verb 'to be' is tenseless and the
temporal existentiality
of the subject *I* [a pronoun for *God* then it surely evokes not just a
future that will never become present,
but a past that will never cease to be a past, and a present that will never
cease to be a present?
This IS NOT the case with the statement: *An entity exists in the way that
it exists* for in this case the verb *exists* is in the PRESENT TENSE
[caps as always for emphasis only] and pertains to the present existential
states or modalities of the object.
Regarding the antecedal states of entities, we can if we wish provide Jan
with another example of the sort of ontological truth-tautology he asked for,
by generating the string:
*An entity existed in the way it existed,* or: *King Henry the Eighth's
crown existed in the way that it existed.*
We may even create for Jan a futural ontological truth-tautology, whether we
agree or do not agree that the universe consists of basic particles which
are the ultimate entities of existentiality, and create the string:
*Entities will exist in the way that they will exist,* thus demolishing once
and for all the dotty transcendentalistic notion of *probability.*
Allen:
Given its placement at the limits of narrative power, it seems to echo
Heidegger's meditation on the
'unthought thought' of metaphysics: the mysterious source of the opening in
which being is displayed." [Scult 'Being Jewish/Reading Heidegger' p86]
Jud:
It is only the linguistic inexactitude *at the limits of HEBRAIC narrative
power - NOT GERMAN narrative power, for in the German language the biblical
tautology can be expressed quite simply and clearly. I have never tried to
render *I am that I am* into German - perhaps *Ich bin, daß ich bin,* - but
Rene could probably help here? Those interested in the modern Hebrew treatments
of *IS* may wish to see my Hebrew page at:
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/hebrew.htm_
(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/hebrew.htm) A note of warning though. The
actual translation of the biblical original is still a matter of contention
amongst biblical scholars.
Michael:
Although such J-clauses seem to exhibit a circular tautologous
almost-meaninglessness, I think they rather bring be-ing kicking and
screaming into the opening the clauses linguistically provide an ingress to
Jud:
HOW? Your major task now is to provide an epistomology containing reasons,
evidence, data which proves your
statement that: *they (type [2] tautologies) rather bring be-ing kicking and
screaming into the opening the clauses linguistically provide an ingress to.*
AND how you reconcile THIS particular brand of conjured-up *Being,* from
the other versions of the *Being* of objects, as separately and individually
[and sometimes idiosyncratically] instantiated with the help of the "highly
acclaimed" patented process of the "ontological generator," *Object
Givenness.(*Copyright © E. Husserl/ M. Heidegger,) by the remaining 5-billion,
1,000,000,999 human instantiatonistas on this planet?
Regards,
Jud
Personal Website:
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_
(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm)
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