Movement into Transition, typically termed the postmodern, advents with breaching the abyssal expanse of the nonfoundational; this precisely because the foundation of Foundations is exposed in its lack and it’s hitherto (concealed) deficit. With exposure to the ab/grund, thinking is summoned via the anxiety now ubiquitous and ever-present. Nonfoundational Da-sein discovers the disclosure of this `lack’. In this `event’, that which resides in alterity to the extent presence of what is overtly manifest qua the language-games of metaphysics, comes forth as an issue for thinking. In this we find that the measure of assurance and certainty metaphysical Da-sein assumes as apodictic “truth”, and which reflects the predisposition of the will-to-power and its metalogic of hierarchically delineated pronouncements-of-objectivation, comes under the friction that advents with the will-to-question. We thereby understand that when Heidegger says that “Complete, measureless oblivion, i.e., concealment, would exclude the least ground of the essence of man, because such an oblivion would allow no disclosure and would deny unconcealedness its essential foundation”93, our response must be: and so, to what end? In effect, the passage of Da-sein into gathered appropriation is itself only possible—and for that matter the possibility of Possibility is only capable of manifestation—insofar as the ground upon which what has come before (and that recedes into absence by necessity) de-grounds and vanishes. The gift proffered by oblivion is the lack of essentialistic `form’. The ground upon which such thematic representations might secure themselves as `meaningful’ are `not’, i.e., foundational premises of thematic form vanish into the antecedent relation of the `not yet’—the no-thing. This `event-of-turning’—what I define as the Nietzschean Event in the appendix—is endemic and necessary to thinking as it moves through the latter-day elements of metaphysics. Here we see just how the advent of overt nihilism troubles Heidegger’s thinking; as an open embrace of that which primordially administers to Da-sein’s fallenness is precisely what Heidegger is wrestling with qua the dilemma-of-exclusion. All “truths” (in their legitimacy) fall into disrepute once the foundations for such truths transition into the antecedent realm of what is `not’. Such a transformation-of-foundations can only advent insofar as within the forgetting which is forgetful of it’s forgetfulness—and which thereby keeps what remains concealed occluded as a safe-keeping—a clearing-of-alterity advents; a clearing whereby a means of reflectively accessing the paradox-of-existence comes to light. Because the transformation of forgetting is indicative of how the beginning of metaphysics comes about 94, and because such is a significant aspect of the pre-metaphysical mind, any movement beyond or in alterity to the privative relation of ἀ/λήθεια in its logocentrism denotes movement towards that which is earlier vis-à-vis the epoch of metaphysics. “Mistakes” ground with and by the dualistically exclusionary dynamic of Hellenistic thinking. Truth is a relation of alterity for the Greeks; a relation where the revelation-of-truth [disclosure] autoaffectively conceals the `other’ therewith intertwined. Hence truth (ἀ/λήθεια) reflects only a part of the originary phenomenon.95 In this, Heidegger correctly notes that turning to the Greeks advances thinking towards the problem of truth in its foundation. Nonetheless, Heidegger fails to recognize how “Greek” the problem of concealment is in origin. Because “man in his Da-sein is especially subject to the rule of mystery”96, and because Occidental thinking defines mystery in the pejorative relative to the metaphysical methods assumed necessary for disclosing truth as certainty (and which thereby seeks to exclude ambiguity as a liability vis-à-vis the goal of securing the truth-of-beings)97, we find that traditional epistemic methods reside in alterity to the experience of mystery and its possibility. In essence, traditional language-games are estranged from the capacity by and through which mystery is brought to presence (παρουσία). This imposition-of-exclusion is by metaphysically derived (and self-imposed) rule. The validity of traditional epistemology hinges upon thinking’s ability to accurately represent beings in their truth. Insofar as the import of metaphysics requires this `proof of representational correspondence’, excluding that which evades ontically objective disclosure, i.e., excluding that which does not adhere to the duality of true-false disjunction qua beings as normatively judged, becomes imperative to meta-paradigmatic survival. Inexplicable mystery, and the ambiguity it instills, compels early Da-sein to impose order (κόσμος) and explicability over and upon the inexplicably prethematic. Whatever fails to conform to this order-of-form (and thus to the imposed representations of the Apollonian) is inevitably excluded from the dominant paradigm. Such elements of exclusion are defined as absolute alterities qua duality and duality’s oppositional mandate. Hence, phenomenal relations which evade impositions-of-form are summarily forgotten: they hold no affirmative import relative to the teleological premise of the dominant meta-epistemic paradigm, always only serving utility insofar as they withdraw from preview and can be deemed false via exclusion. This understanding can be readily plugged into Heidegger’s analysis of everyday Da-sein. Da-sein is weak when confronted with the specter of the unknown (and unknowable). In a bid to side-step this deficiency, Da-sein turns and flees into the ready-made pacification of its everyday way-of-being. Furthermore, and as Heidegger suggests, such everyday modes of interpreting the world are demonstrative of the anthropological dictates of will-to-power; and as such, Da-sein’s everydayness reflects the ligatures endemic to the dominant paradigm as such directs Da-sein to shun and evade mystery. In this mode of comportment, Da-sein turns away from Being and is simultaneously directed towards the all-embracing oblivion-of-Being (this qua the dominant paradigm’s mode of representational objectivity). This oblivion proliferates precisely to the extent that metaphysical thinking seeks the surety of a controlled and ordered stasis. Objective correlations can be managed and `planned for’. With this, that which is defined as “good” is equated to be one and the same with what is malleable qua “control”. Insofar as beings are rendered objective relations of utility and can thus be seized upon and used, the ability to manipulate and enframe beings becomes the paramount form of a thing’s manifest “good”. --FOOTNOTES-- 93. Parmenides, p. 123. 94. Parmenides, p. 130. 95. On the Essence of Truth, p. 317. 96. The Essence of Reasons, p. 318, Northwestern University Press (1969). 97. Parmenides, p. 136. Being and Time also addresses the issue of ambiguity and develops how the ambiguous is traditionally interpreted in ontical terms. However, I am here noting that mystery (and the attendant ambiguity therewith held in tandem) is an endemic relation of awe and wonder qua any thinking that focuses on the ontological and which, as such, speaks to the phenomenal relation of what outstrips the confines of language. In effect, mystery comes forth through the ambiguity of that which is prethematic and in alterity to the semiotics-of-form and representation. In this, ambiguity sounds as a Dionysian relation of the formless. [Forgetting and the Oblivion-of-Being]
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 00:44:30 +0000
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