II. Answers, Questions, Valuation The philosophical underpinnings of our question (What is to be done?) traditionally presuppose access to the “right” and “good”. Such is a lofty supposition: the “right” and “good” are traditionally presupposed as obtainable through language, understanding, and deed. Such epistemic suppositions advance by virtue of the questions presence.7 The manner in which `questions’ are posed during the now-passing metaphysical epoch presupposes thinkings privileged access to the truth-of-answers. Hence, traditional epistemology is circularly tautological in its premise of truth. Descartes makes use of this flawed methodology in his Discourse and Meditations. In this, the `question’ is not posed in its originary sense, but backslides into the devaluatory dynamic of will-to-power. During the epoch of metaphysics, the threshold of having the possibility of an answer is always presupposed as something antecedently given and noumenally “out there”. Responses to our question, when such exclude other possible options as per the Traditions rulebook, reflect epistemic access to principles of right and truth. This mode of thinking advances via exclusionary rule. Such delimiting exclusions manifest by epistemic design. For the Tradition, the “right” must remain in exclusive alterity relative to the “wrong” if traditional logic is to remain coherent; as the `right cannot also be the `wrong. In any analytic where the rule-of-exclusion hinges upon concepts of “good” and “right”, such relations-of-exclusion manifest via hierarchies-of-certainty and belief. These meta-epistemic assumptions provide the zealotry by which the `other’ (e.g., that which is defined as “wrong”) can be excluded. It is in this way that traditional forms of “validity” manifest as resolute answers; answers that shore up truth via a stasis of certainty. Metaphysics assumes that thinking has apriori access to that which is right, this vis-à-vis what is to be excluded as invalid and wrong. In this, thinking is assumed to harbor the apperceptive ability to gather disparate elements into a synthetic whole [Hegel]. The elemental `parts held away by the dualism of oppositional placement (and the valuatory hierarchies therein active) are thought to be accessible to thinking: one can only presuppose an understanding of the `right if one similarly has an understanding of, and access to, what resides in intertwined alterity: the `wrong.8 It is via this logic that the mythology of the last 2500 years advances. Having said this, thinking a `part of the whole sans all which constitutes the whole, speaks to a form of phenomenological insanity: a cutting of the nose only so as to spite one’s face (though for over two millennia this element of man’s mode-of-comportment has remained concealed). Nevertheless, any form of access positing a principle that is exclusionistic of another (i.e., of the `one’ delimited from the `other’) presupposes the intertwining of the `one’ and the `other’ as O αυτό (the self-same) in a more originary and fundamental sense. The Tradition postulates, be it through divine inspiration, logic, intuition, or rationality, that we can be resolute in understanding the `right’. It is this underlying apriori premise which provides the foundation for the Traditions correspondence theory of truth: such grounds thinking’s meta-epistemic proclivity for discerning the truth of `things’ through the assumption of man’s predicative relation to beings. It is only as such that thinking is capable of authoritatively providing (and understanding) the exclusionary power of “correct answers“ as they preside over and against the challenge alternative answers might present. This rule of exclusion allows an answer to be secured in its assumed efficacy, thus allowing the answer to support the dominant paradigms position-of-right. Through the exclusionary rules of the dominant meta-epistemic paradigm, the foundation of the `right’ is codified as a stasis-of-truth. Only as such do answers show themselves as hierarchically delimited and thus as the “best” answers vis-à-vis other available answers. Indeed, it is only as such that an answer ascends as the answer! Such “answers” reflect their definitive authority vis-à-vis the questions they address. By extension, possibility succumbs to the paradigms semiotic orthodoxy. By excluding `question, the dominant paradigm is free to foster whatever self-divined `right’ it defines as “true”. As men seek answers, and as the ensuing (i.e., conflicting) interplay between competing positions advances relative to deciding which answers are to be elevated to the exclusion of others, thinking turns “inward” to understanding, logic, and reason. Answers require a semblance-of-foundation so that the arbitrarily capricious is not seen as the presiding authority over an answers legitimacy: an adjudicating (transcendental) principle is posited to oversee the means by and through which right answers are deemed efficacious in their truth. It is through this process that the true and apparent worlds to which Nietzsche speaks become false. Nevertheless, the myth of well-founded truth must persist, concealed within the paradigm of “truth”, if the nihilism therein active is to remain concealed. The now-passing metaphysical epoch has long understood that belief in a lie (as true) is no less potent in developing “conformity” than any so-called `real truth’—for at bottom there is no difference!9 Developing a foundation for `answers’ finds early ground in the hierarchies of the natural world. Forces of nature, the elements, and all manner of natural phenomenon—emotive, psychological, and physiological—inform the manner in which `answers’ are culled and codified as “true”. With this, the ontic/ratiocentric foundations for the “logic of representation” finds root. As the need to bring centrality and `order’ increases, history witnesses the subsequent creation of deities to adjudication over the plethora of competing answers.10 Placing authority external to individuals becomes imperative insofar as the egocentrism of narcissism, blatant will-to-power, and wonton relativism, is to be avoided. As the `answers’ culled by early man fail as bulwarks against relativism, foundations are erected to stave off threats to the ordering dynamic said answers provide. Such is accomplished by erecting gods as representative talisman-like projections. The differences between each form of deistic representation, and thus between each `answer’ as extrapolated from the animated realm of nature within which polytheistic man dwells (and which is a form of our collective archetypal psychology), increases the need for each god or answer to heighten its power-of-exclusion vis-à-vis the challenges other potential answers represent. It is in this way that the `other’ begins its meta-nihilistic devaluation qua what is deemed `correct’ and `right’.11 Alterities-of-difference thus form and codify, providing delineation via lines of fixed stasis. It is in this way that polytheistic cultures develop hierarchies for the gods; thus inscribing power in an evermore centralized and stratified manner; erecting by metaphysical fiat a zenith in one primary, absolute, and exalted divinity.12 Human interests become inextricably hitched to the notion that a fixed center-of-stasis is imperative if the goal of securing `true knowledge’ is to be achieved. Such “knowledge” forms the basis for the `rights of protection’ which ground possessionary rules for property, and which maintain the general social order within culture. By extension, exclusionary rules and circumscribed behaviors proliferate as formal elements within society. As the centralization of power yields the appearance of greater social advantage, so too does the will to definitively proffer a sole answer increase (this so that things can be presumed apperceptively known as `good via truth). In other words, as hierarchically delimiting rules of exclusion increase the benefit received by those overseeing the dominant paradigm’s promulgation, such “rules” gain further legitimacy and take on the mantel of being “good” as apriori principles for society in general. It matters little that the validity of such truth-claims ring hollow at bottom; as the manufacture of subjective “truth” speaks to the conditioned responses instilled within the culture via the sentinels who promulgate the paradigm. Hence, economic paradigms of `right’, religious doctrines, theories of `state’, and myriad forms of propaganda, come forth as conditioning mechanisms for the masses. This mode of conditioning acclimates the citizenry to the “right way” as such is defined from powers center. In this, the path by and through which challenges to the rules-of-orthodoxy are forged become moot. The “truth game” is rigged via the metaphysical foundations which proffer the paradigm’s logic-of-truth. The ability to question a cultures dominant answers is usurped via the imposed exclusions mandated by the dominant paradigm. Such is the birth of ideology and the modern `categorical subject. --FOOTNOTES-- 7. At least this is true insofar as we utilize the standard hermeneutic playbook of the last 2500 years: behavior has been categorized by the faculty-of-reason and its assumptions of duality so as to posit `right actions’ or `the best’ vis-à-vis its opposite relation (as such is dualistically intertwined). The Tradition presupposes the answers efficacy by virtue of the questions presence. Descartes uses this methodology. 8. As Blake says in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell: The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom...for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough. The relation of any extreme speaks its identity only insofar as each pole is known in its essence. 9. As developed below, this is one of the striking facets of Heidegger’s analysis of α-λήθεια: “truth”—as defined in the Tradition—is always concomitantly given with that which fails to breach the unconcealed. This `otherness’ is an originary aspect of truth’s inception. However, with the dawn of Post-Metaphysical Transition, the question regarding Truth opens again as the bridging basis for `crossing’ into the ungrounded ground of what maintains no space-time presence (the ab/grund of Being). 10. By externalizing the impetus and source of and for the authoritative legitimacy of logos-as-answer, the infighting of a Hobbesian war of all against all (in the original state of nature) gives way to a form of adjudication whereby a semblance of `order’ is affixed to perspectives. This side-steps what would be a seemingly chaotic display of will-to-power— a war of all against all—via the adjudicative imposition of logic, myth, and reason. 11. Though this will be developed below in my analysis of nihilism, the roots of the nihilistic regress can be traced to this early period of man’s psychology. Most likely predating the move from polytheistic cultures as they transition to more monotheistic belief systems, and into the core of how divisions of labor are earmarked via systems of valuatory significance qua ascription of chieftain-like societal members. Through careful examination of early cave paintings, we see how chieftain-like entities begin to take on an authoritative posit relative to `others’. In this, a delimiting of hierarchical op-posit is already at work, delimiting difference qua `otherness’. Metaphysics is at work in a paleo-societal sense from early in man’s psychical evolution. 12. Thus, Zeus is the preeminent deity in Greek cosmology, ruling over the spiritual ground of all deities therewith amassed. This same dynamic breeds monotheistic doctrine and can be found at work in Hegel’s dialectic to Absolute Spirit.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 02:12:26 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015