Within this meta-onto-theological morass, the proverbial fly in the ointment resides in how an analytic-of-reason can be developed so as to yield “proper” access to “truth”. This 2500 year-old method of thinking, though now understood as a dysfunctional farce via begging of its own question, maintains the socio-epistemic order that cultural elites deem “necessary”. Metaphysics and theology assume that with the question’s presence, the saving grace of an answer is antecedently `out there’. Such a method of thinking emphasizes the Cartesian folly—premising conclusions upon that which is presupposed as a necessary causal means-of-effect. Such is also the underlying delirium endemic to religion in general. This mode of thinking theoretically allows thinking to side-step the dilemma inherent to Kant’s problems in the Critique of Judgment. Thus, thinking traditionally assumes the authority of the word-as-answer apriori. Of course, a proper method of accessing these “answers”, answers meant to quell uncertainty, nature’s inexplicable sense of mystery, the specter of truth as a capricious manufacture, the internal contradictions of duality, and the threatening terror of an undefined and mysterious universe, is the proverbial fly in the ointment. Such is the focus of critical thinking after Nietzsche. Metaphysics stands or falls with the validity of the “answers” it provides. Via inverse circularity, the concept of “validity” is always already assumed a cogent premise from the start. For the Tradition, the world, existence, and every mystery of life, must be definitively intersubjective at bottom; for how else are pronouncements-of-truth to hold valid unless validity holds constant as an underlying communicable fact. Insuring that this state of affairs remains in force becomes the primary concern of will-to-power. Though metaphysics is the epistemic ground for religion, metaphysics is disallowed the benefit of blind “faith” or irrational “belief”. Within this method of thinking, reason is suppositionally granted ascendant posit as the foundation for enlightenment. Reason is the manifestation of logos-as-answer for the epoch.35 For metaphysics, as with religion, “answers” are deemed antecedent to chaos, mystery, awe, ambiguity, and wonder. Insofar as God—an originary logos—can be heard, the Tradition assumes it to be an articulate `saying’. This primordial logos is assumed explicitly intelligible: In the beginning was the “word”; the λόγος (John 1:1). Metaphysics presupposes the originary λόγος as an articulate, meaningful, intelligible “word”. Furthermore, metaphysics and theology assume that with the questions presence, the saving grace of an answers availability is already `there. This is an apriori assumption and creates a false-sense of well-being (as does any anesthesia). In this, thinking assumes the authority of the word-as-answer out of hand. This allows eschatological meta-teleologies their hermeneutics-of-meaning. This all boils down to the following premise: answers gain normative, epistemic, deontological, and ethical import only insofar as: 1) “knowledge” is deemed “good”; 2) the good of knowledge, and thereby a knowledge of the “good”, is assumed present in definitive terms; and, 3) metaphysics is understood to be the route to such “knowledge”. However, and is the case with any epistemic premise grounded upon duality, the imposition of an `answer simultaneously renders the seeker ignorant; as the need to `think has reached satiety via `the answer. There is no longer a need to `think; as the truth has been revealed and one can simply appeal to their new-found state of enlightenment for epistemic comfort. Answers are deemed “good”. It is assumed that answers clarify and bring certainty forth as secured qua νοημοσύνη [intelligence]. For metaphysics, answers ground questions and denote the causal relation for the question’s presence (παρουσία). Descartes brings the classic form of this argument to the fore: One would not question the existence of God unless God exists so as to make the question worthy as a valid query. Logos-as-answer carries import only to the extent that the “answer” is deemed antecedently authoritative vis-à-vis the question addressed. Answers disclose “truth”, ridding ambiguity through the supposition of certainty. Via this assumed access to noumenal “truth”, thinking renders `question’ pejorative. If possible, and as a goal, thinking renders `question’ moot via exclusion. This mode of thinking is typical of Descartes and the “modern mind”: Descartes presupposes the answer—the existence of God—apriori. In effect, the `question’ of God is deemed a foundation for the inevitable answer Descartes derives. For Descartes, the fact he thinks the question of the existence of a supremely good being is proof for the existence of a non-deceptive being. This same circular form of begging an answer’s question permeates the entirety of Occidental thinking and can be found in the meanderings of Socrates, the epistemology of Plato, and the metalogic of Aristotle. For the Tradition, the uncertainty associated with `question’ is devalued as undesirable. `Question’ speaks to thinking’s lack of attunement to the certainty “truth” is assumed to deliver. During the metaphysical epoch, an answer’s assumed surety provides the meta-basis for excluding the `other’. Via this process, answers ascend to the pantheon-of-good via the culture’s articulation of “truth”. By inverse identity-association, questions are understood to reflect `lack’ and deficit, wherein `absence’ is an ontic problem of “having”, possessionary `rights, and utility (i.e., of negative freedom). Insofar as logic, semantics, reason, and the current method of hierarchical valuation deem lack and deficit “bad”, the circle of definition is complete: answers are a good in and of themselves, fostering surety, whereas questions reflect the chaotic abyss of uncertainty and bring thinking’s impotency to the fore as an onto-epistemic issue. In effect, it has been assumed for centuries that one only questions if “true knowledge is `out there’, merely something yet to be secured. Insofar as the meta-epistemic basis for question presupposes the availability of a corresponding answer, question remains in the pejorative, with the other-of-question (the answer) deemed hierarchically superior. By placing answers foundational to the mystery and the inexplicability of what is unknown, and thus by making questions pejorative relative to answers, thinking seeks to impose order and patterned regularity upon the haphazard world we experience. The realm of questions is devalued in the pejorative and is understood as lacking the necessary knowledge and regularity answers provide. In effect, metaphysics holds that questions reflect lack, absence, deficit, and ignorance, while answers denote knowledge, surety, and the stasis of certainty. We will come to understand just how errant this understanding is at bottom. Imposing form and order upon chaos is the utility answers are assumed to provide. By delimiting the world in a semblance-of-stasis, answers impose an exclusion of what resides outside the authority of the answer’s scope. For the Tradition, it is better to render what is inconclusive into absence, than to tarry onward with confirmation of the epoch’s epistemic bankruptcy. Regardless of whether or not the foundation of an answer is purely arbitrary and thus a product of a dominant paradigm’s imposed language-game, an answer’s ground is epistemically and ontologically bound up with this exclusionary rule. At bottom, the pathos of history seeks the blindness of forgetting and the absence of that which is most question-worthy. Such is how power manufactures its vassals of subjectivity via information dissemination: propaganda paraded as objective fact and “knowledge”. --FOOTNOTE-- 35. This in no way presupposes that the rational methods of philosophy are not themselves forms of `belief-based absurdity. Nevertheless, it is the secular mantra of the Age, embraced from the early Greeks, through Aquinas and the Scholastic, and found in every form of empiricism and epistemology, that propels history.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 06:14:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015