Answers ground and provide a basis for world interpretation. Answers eradicate the need for further question—extended inquiry is senselessly redundant: what is to be “known” is already known. Thus, answers ground thematic interpretations, deeming such definitive-as-true by self-appeal. With this, the hermeneutic circle is closed to any interpretation or understanding not sanctioned as “correct” by the dominant paradigm. It is in this way that history manifests as “monumental”: what resides elsewhere is linearly someplace “else” relative to where one `now’ dwells. “Truth” is already said and done, wrapped up within the meta-narrative sanctioned by the very same paradigm that promulgates said “truth”. From such a history, and by inverse associative relation, the `lived’ immediacy of the `moment’ is estranged via the mediated determinations linearly deemed “historically true”. Thus, metaphysical proclamations-of-history speak to an estrangement from empathy: history becomes an anthropomorphic “fact”, a form of linear representation rendered definitive and static, wholly disconnected from the immediacy of its originating effect. With this, history becomes objectively “true” as the `has-been’, merely something to be objectively taught. The result is an ignorance that announces itself as authoritatively “true”. During the epoch of metaphysics, a valid hermeneutic is presupposed as such—as valid—precisely to the extent that validity grounds itself upon the certitude of the answers underpinning the dominant interpretive exegesis.17 It is upon this hermeneutic dynamic that world-interpretations are manipulated to particular self-defined ends; all of which are self-referentially defined as “good”. Hence, war in a distant land, for example, will always be deemed necessary and “good” via appeal to the semiotics the warring parties advance. However, this cannot be the whole of the situation; as one man’s freedom fighter is another mans terrorist. Thus we see λόγος reflects only the manifest (i.e., revealed) aspect of the `answer (α/πάντηση α/παντώ).18 Answers are intertwined to that which they conceal. This withholding is inherent to the constitution of `answers and reflects opposition via the explicability answers announce: answers disclose a particular aspect of their privative duality and simultaneously conceal other elements. Though metaphysics assumes that answers silence their attendant `questions (this through the supposition that answers represent proofs), what resides in withheld alterity (the question) always remains. Concealed within the dynamic of `answering’ is the alterity-of-difference answering displaces (and which thereby steadfastly remains silent). Put differently: answers presuppose a form of withholding. That which discloses presupposes the concomitance of what is held in abeyance (this by the very nature of intersubjective communication): withheld is the abyss of silence, what remains unheard and unsaid, and what is inexplicable relative to what is articulated.19 It is only once this excluded `other ebbs into an intuited/empathetic relation to thinking, that thinking awakens to what remains concealed and `absent’. As thinking experiences the anxiety that comes with having something important displaced, thinking begins seeking `difference’ and enters the call of Transition. For philosophy, the task of disclosing “Truth” falls to metaphysics. According to the Tradition, universal “truths” manifest via the practice of metaphysics: it is assumed that training in metaphysics enables thinking to discern the noumenal essence of the phenomenal. With this, that which is concealed within and by the physical world can be accessed. From the beginning, “truth” (α/λήθεια) always asks after beings. Philosophy postulates Being (beingness) as a constitutive derivative qua beings. In simple terms: the `physical’ or phenomenal world—the world of beings and experience—can only be known if thinking goes further than the physical. For the Tradition, thinking must become metaphysical. Nevertheless, the realm of metaphysics is always already circularly qualified by appeal to the physical. This highlights how “truth”, as historically understood, is a metaphysical concept from the start. Hence, accessing “truth” is a question begged; a question only satisfied via appeal to the authority metaphysics erects. With this we see that “truth” is only `valid’ as a concept-of-certainty insofar as we remain blind to how truth is circularly derived. Furthermore, we only find the quest of metaphysics reasonable if we remain oblivious to the `meta-relations’ philosophy promulgates via its ontic-centrism. Such foolishness, while necessary for faith-based doctrines-of-truth, and any declaration of Truth as a principled absolute, has long-since been exposed as a tenet of will-to-power: circular appeals to one’s own authorship-as-authority, whereby authority becomes the benchmark for the narrative’s veracity, is a tired and worn methodology. 20 During the epoch of metaphysics, the means by and through which “truth” manifests is the logos. For the Tradition, truth is intertwined to the `word’, and the word is assumed explicit and intelligible (νόηση/νόησις). “Truth”, as hitherto understood, reflects the representative mode of thinking φύσις qua the assumption of a primordial order-of-stasis. It is only as such that the certainty of `what is’ can be discerned and thereby articulated. Language—the semiotics of representation—is historically deemed the medium through which “truth” advances. The word forms the foundation for intersubjective communication. It is upon this premise, and the assumed universality of what is known in its truth, that doctrines of “right” and “correct ways of being” become mandate. This process of rendering beings static and definitive, this so as to pigeon-hole them into paradigm-sanctioned frames-of-correctness, reflects the underlying impetus of metaphysics. This objectification of beings assumes their defined presence as a certainty [certitudo]. Such is the legacy of metaphysics, and such seeds the manipulation technology imposes upon beings; rendering them commodities to be used. We can take this further. For the Tradition, “truth” denotes an articulate `saying-of-beings’: “truth” speaks the explicit disclosure of extant predicated entities. In `saying-beings’, the truth-of-beings becomes (i.e., is) epistemic. Once rendered epistemic, beings become theoretically possible via discursive abstraction. It is upon this premise that beings are postulated as theoretically knowable. This understanding is premised upon the assumption of the apriori facticity of truth’s universality qua reason. The `what’ to be known (beings) must be rendered definitively present if the Tradition is to remain cogent in its directive. For over 2500 years, the knowledge of the truth-of-beings requires the definitive stasis of beings in their `presence’; for only as definitively present can “truth” be known. In other words, that which knowledge possesses must be represented as fixed and unchanging if “truth” is to avoid relativism as a period-specific (i.e., contingent) opinion. Metaphysics, i.e., the last 2500 years, requires the definitive placement-of-beings if “truth” is to be known, and “truth” is therefore about beings, i.e., truth is about what can be `placed’ into objective posit. Only as such can beings be rationally open to objective manipulation, definition, and control. --FOOTNOTES-- 17. Thus, the underlying basis for metaphysical legitimacy is circular in scope and begs its own question via self-referential discursive authority. 18. What is disclosed in the answer’s `saying’ speaks to the manner in which truth as ἀ/λήθεια manifests during the metaphysical period. 19. This is simple to understand when we realize that the development of language and the use of symbols merely denotes a means to bring a slice or sliver of what is a much richer and vast experience to the fore. Language seeks to communicate in an intersubjective and dialogical manner. Intersubjectivity is quite literally the attempt to bridge or form a causeway between what are separate realms of consciousness. Clearly, no two individuals would ever be premised to share the same experiential foundations for their histories. Thus, it is absurd to assume identical forms of consciousness as communicative qua an apriori tangential analytic. And I mean ABSURD (and is why monotheism is a joke). As such, the `word’ always `takes up’ space from the silence and `other’ it displaces in its `saying’. This displacement is necessary precisely because language, i.e., the conscious act of crudely projecting what outstrips the realm of signs qua the more original and vast prethematic experiences one has, must dumb-down so as to make things “common” and collegial in content, context, and delivery. The experiences of the ecstatically prethematic and one’s own death are examples of what outstrips semiotics (with the former being at the root of any subsequent representation as mediated by and through language). In short, the realm of intersubjective symbols and semiotics (as manifested via the semantics of language) covers over and displaces, i.e., such mediates and renders itself in alterity to, a more originary and phenomenally expansive prethematic region of experience. 20. Though for centuries this method of qualifying belief has been the rule, it is as senseless as accepting the premise that `Deno is the greatest because I write it here: Deno is the greatest. When truths validity is based upon circular tautology, the basis for believing in such validity comes from appeal to the narratives own authority. In this, the question of legitimacy is begged and is only satisfied via will-to-power.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 17:52:45 +0000