Tag: metaphysics

Realms and Domains: Levels and Confusion

Are we governed by words or numbers? Martin Heidegger’s star pupil, Hans-Georg Gadamer, points a penetrating flashlight at this question of words vs. numbers when he writes, “It is obvious that not mathematics but the linguistic nature of people is the basis of human civilization.”

According to Gadamer, our primary way of being is interpretative rather than computative. Our fundamental function is to cope, not to theorize. He argues, we can never finally step outside the traditions and practices of our culture. As one critic stated, “the metaphysical aid of a view from nowhere is seen by Gadamer as a questionable illusion that can have damaging consequences for a culture. It is not that scientific methods are mistaken—he thinks that science is involved an unstoppable dynamic which cannot be halted by philosophical or other objections…Gadamer gives a central role to art in questioning the dominance of the methods of the natural sciences. The artwork is not something to be determined by concepts, but something which ‘happens’ via its reception in real social contexts…”

Think about the interaction between words and numbers in the opening of Vladimir Nabokov’s memoir, Speak, Memory:

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour).

Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory, Vintage Books, 1989, page 19.

Note how Nabokov describes our existence above. Think about the word “eternities”? It brings to mind infinity. For example, in algebra, 1/x goes to infinity as 1 approaches zero. Nabokov also states that man is doing all this infinity-watching which he describes in heartbeats per hour.

Another issue in this realm and domain confusion is provided by Gabriel Marcel, when he writes, “We must carefully avoid all confusion between the mysterious and the unknowable.” Marcel continues:

A problem is something which I meet, which I find complete before me, but which I can therefore lay siege to and reduce. But a mystery is something in which I myself am involved, and it can therefore only be thought of as “a sphere where the distinction between what is in me and what is before me loses its meaning and its initial validity”. A genuine problem is subject to an appropriate technique by the exercise of which it is defined; whereas a mystery, by definition, transcends every conceivable technique. It is, no doubt, always possible (logically and psychologically) to degrade a mystery so as to turn it into a problem. But this is a fundamentally vicious proceeding, whose springs might perhaps be discovered in a kind of corruption of the intelligence. The problem of evil, as the philosophers have called it, supplies us with a particularly instructive example of this degradation.

Just because it is the essence of mystery to be recognized or capable of recognition, it may also be ignored and actively denied. It then becomes reduced to something I have “heard talked about” but which I refuse as only “being for other people”; and that in virtue of an illusion which these “others” are deceived by, but which I myself claim to have detected.

We must carefully avoid all confusion between the mysterious and the unknowable. The unknowable is in fact only the limiting case of the problematic, which cannot be actualized without contradiction. The recognition of mystery, on the contrary, is an essentially positive act of the mind, the supremely positive act in virtue of which all positivity may perhaps be strictly defined. In this sphere everything seems to go on as if I found myself acting on an intuition which I possess without immediately knowing myself to possess it— an intuition which cannot be, strictly speaking, self-conscious and which can grasp itself only through the modes of experience in which its image is reflected, and which it lights up by being thus reflected in them.

Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being, Vol. 1: Reflection & Mystery, Harper Torchbooks, 1965, page 260-261.

A final profound confusion is the body as a physical item vs. a means of expression. Picture Fred Astaire dancing opposite Ginger Rogers. You have both the movements of his dance and what he conveys through body language. In order to dance, you have the biochemical fuel (food) to enable the biomechanical movement of the dance. The courtship expressed through his movements is something different. Marcel describes it thus:

We should recall, at this point, what we said in an earlier lecture about the body; the latter is not merely an instrument, it presents us with a kind of reality which is quite different from the reality of any sort of apparatus, in so far as it, my body, is also my way of being in the world.

Gabriel Marcel, page 257.

See also “Existence and the Problem of Separability”, “Is It Good to Be a Detached Observer?” and “Arguments Without End: A Few Simple Examples” which also reference Marcel.

Is It Good to Be a Detached Observer?

The famous Dutch historian, Pieter Geyl, in his Napoleon, for and against (Dutch, Napoleon: voor en tegen in de Franse geschiedschrijving) teaches us that there are “arguments without end.” One example is the question surrounding the concept of detachment. Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, proposes “eudaimonia,” a Greek word literally translating to the state or condition of good spirit coming from imperturbability. This sense of things is all over the Western tradition. Think of the line from the British poet, Alexander Pope, “For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.” (An Essay on Criticism, 1711). You see from this that fools lack detachment and act on impulse.

We get a confirmation of Geyl’s arguments without end when we remember that almost every love song recommends the opposite. For example, “Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread)” originally made famous by Frank Sinatra and later Elvis Presley, offers us the line “But wise men never fall in love / So how are they to know.” From this, we can interpret that wise men can be foolish and foolish people can be wise. You may also have in the back of your mind Tennyson’s “Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all.” It is not wise to be careful always.

We get a twist on this in the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical South Pacific. Think of “Some Enchanted Evening”:

Who can explain it?
Who can tell you why?
Fools give you reasons—
Wise men never try.

Fools give you reasons because they think everything can be explained, where wise men realize this is not always true. The larger point, from existential thinker Gabriel Marcel, is that all the phenomena of life that are explainable are themselves wrapped up in a larger mystery. He discusses the question of detachment in Being and Having: An Existentialist Diary, which we covered in “Existence and the Problem of Separability” and “Is the World Broken?”.

Marcel says:

March 8th [1929]

I am more and more struck by the difference between the two modes of detachment: the one is that of the spectator, the other of the saint. The detachment of the saint springs, as one might say, from the very core of reality; it completely excludes curiosity about the universe. This detachment is the highest form of participation. The detachment of the spectator is just the opposite, it is desertion, not only in thought but in act. Herein, I think, lies the kind of fatality which seems to weigh on all ancient philosophy—it is essentially the philosophy of the spectator.

But one thing must be noted: the belief that one can escape pure spectatorship by devotion to a practical science, which cannot quite clearly formulate it as yet. I should express it by saying that the modifications which such a science imposes on reality have no other result (metaphysically of course than of making that science in some sense a stranger to reality. The word ‘alienation’ exactly expresses what I mean. ‘I am not watching a show’—I will repeat these words to myself every day. A fundamental spiritual fact.

The interdependence of spiritual destinies, the plan of salvation; for me, that is the sublime and unique feature of Catholicism.

I was just thinking a moment ago that the spectator-attitude corresponds to a form of lust; and more than that, it corresponds to the act by which the subject appropriates the world for himself. And I now perceive the deep truth of Bérulle’s theocentrism. We are here to serve; yes, the idea of service, in every sense, must be thoroughly examined.

Also perceived this morning, but still in a confused way, that there is profane knowledge and sacred knowledge (whereas previously I have wrongly tended to assert that all knowledge was pro-fane. It isn’t true, profane is a supremely informative word). Inquire on what conditions knowledge ceases to be profane.

Incredible how thronged these days are spiritually! My life is being illuminated right into the depths of the past, and not my life only.

Every time we give way to ourselves we may unawares be laying an additional limitation on ourselves, forging our own chain. That is the metaphysical justification for asceticism. I never understood that till now.

Reality as mystery, intelligible solely as mystery. This also applies to myself.

Gabriel Marcel, Being and Having: An Existentialist Diary, Harper Torchbooks, 1965, pages 20-21.

Notice this discussion starts by analyzing modes of detachment and concludes with Marcel talking about reality and himself as mystery. This brings us full circle to Geyl and his concept of arguments without end because trying to define pros and cons of detachment and what is a mystery is ultimately undecidable. This may remind you of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, that finding a complete and consistent set of axioms for all mathematics is impossible.

Existence and the Problem of Separability

In contracts and legal documents, there is a concept of “separability” which means that clause A is connected to clause B in a way that cannot be undone.

The great twentieth century French philosopher, Gabriel Marcel, has a profound non-separability analysis of existence itself. Marcel wrote:

…We cannot really separate:—

  1. Existence
  2. Consciousness of self as existing
  3. Consciousness of self as bound to a body, as incarnate.
Gabriel Marcel, Being and Having: An Existentialist Diary, Harper Torchbooks, 1965, page 10.

This leads to saying things that are very deep aspects of existential thinking governed by the points above. For example, Marcel wrote, “As I have said elsewhere, the moment I treat my body as an object of scientific knowledge, I banish myself to infinity.” Consider the end of the previous phrase. The very notion that someone, within themselves could go down a route to “banish themselves” in this way, shows you a door into very deep psychological problems. In other words, Marcel is telling you that some psychological problems could have a philosophical or existential root cause and are a type of blunder.

This is not to say that one should avoid scientific thought. Taking a drop of your blood and viewing it under a microscope is not a blunder. However, if you take this to the extreme of trying to analyze everything scientifically, to the exclusion of philosophy in daily life, this is Marcel’s warning.

Marcel’s context for this thinking is given here:

Notes for a Paper to the Philosophical Society

Undated, written in 1927 or 19281

When I affirm that something exists, I always mean that I consider this something as connected with my body, as able to be put in contact with it, however indirect this contact may be. But note must be taken that the priority I thus ascribe to my body depends on the fact that my body is given to me in a way that is not exclusively objective, i.e. on the fact that it is my body. This character, at once mysterious and intimate, of the bond between me and my body (I purposely avoid the word relation) does in fact colour all existential judgments.


What it comes to is this. We cannot really separate:—

  1. Existence
  2. Consciousness of self as existing
  3. Consciousness of self as bound to a body, as incarnate.

From this several important conclusions would seem to follow:

  1. In the first place, the existential point of view about reality cannot, it seems, be other than that of an incarnate personality. In so far as we can imagine a pure understanding, there is, for such an understanding, no possibility of considering things as existent or non-existent.
  2. On the one hand, the problem of the existence of the external world is now changed and perhaps even loses its meaning; I cannot in fact without contradiction think of my body as non-existent, since it is in connection with it (in so far as it is my body) that every existing thing is defined and placed. On the other hand, we ought to ask whether there are valid reasons for giving my body a privileged metaphysical status in comparison with other things.
  3. If this is so, it is permissible to ask whether the union of the soul and body is, in essence, really different from the union between the soul and other existing things. In other words, does not a certain experience of the self, as tied up with the universe, underlie all affirmation of existence?
  4. Inquire whether such an interpretation of the existential leads towards subjectivism.
  5. Shew how idealism tends inevitably to eliminate all existential considerations in view of the fundamental unintelligibility of existence. Idealism versus metaphysics. Values detached from existence: too real to exist.

Existential and personalist interests closely linked. The problem of the immortality of the soul is the pivot of metaphysic.

Every existent is thought of like an obstacle by which we take our bearings—like something we could collide with in certain circumstances—resistent, impenetrable. We think of this impenetrability, no doubt, but we think of it as not completely thinkable.2 Just as my body is thought of in so far as it is a body, but my thought collides with the fact that it is my body.

To say that something exists is not only to say that it belongs to the same system as my body (that it is bound to it by certain connections which reason can define), it is also to say that it is in some way united to me as my body is.

Incarnation—the central ‘given’ of metaphysic. Incarnation is the situation of a being who appears to himself to be, as it were, bound to a body. This ‘given’ is opaque to itself: opposition to the cogito. Of this body, I can neither say that it is I, nor that it is not I, nor that it is for me (object). The opposition of subject and object is found to be transcended from the start. Inversely, if I start from the opposition, treating it as fundamental, I shall find no trick of logical sleight of hand which lets me get back to the original experience, which will inevitably be either eluded or (which comes to the same thing) refused. We are not to object that this experience shews a contingent character: in point of fact, all metaphysical enquiry requires a starting-point of this kind. It can only start from a situation which is mirrored but cannot be understood.

Inquire if incarnation is a fact; it does not seem so to me, it is the ‘given’ starting from which a fact is possible (which is not true of the cogito).

A fundamental predicament which cannot be in a strict sense mastered or analysed. It is exactly this impossibility which is being stated when I declare, confusedly, that I am my body; i.e. I cannot quite treat myself as a term distinct from my body, a term which would be in a definable connection with it. As I have said else-where, the moment I treat my body as an object of scientific know-ledge, I banish myself to infinity.

This is the reason why I cannot think of my death, but only of the standstill of that machine (illam, not banc). It would perhaps be more accurate to say that I cannot anticipate my death, that is, I cannot ask myself what will become of me when the machine is no longer working.3

[1] This paper was never delivered.

[2] It is thought of, but it is never resolved. The opacity of the world is in a certain sense insoluble. The link between opacity and Meinbeit. My idea is opaque to me personally in so far as it is mine. We think of it as an adherence. (Note written Feb. 24th, 1929.)

[3] ‘To be involved.’ (idée d’un engagement) Try to shew in what sense this implies the impossibility (or absolute non-validity of my representing my death. In trying to think of my death I break the rules of the game. But it is radically illegitimate to convert this impossibility into a dogmatic negation. (Note written Feb. 24th, 1929.)

It is evident that this whole train of thought is at the root of le Gouvernail: the first notes on the theme of le Gouvernail were composed a few days after these. (Note written April 13th, 1934.)

Gabriel Marcel, Being and Having: An Existentialist Diary, pages 10-12

The reader should not be afraid of converting this level of discussion to everyday life and everyday slang. For example, when Marcel uses phrases like, “I banish myself to infinity” that should resonate with phrases like “flipping out.”

Take this example from Kierkegaard. There’s a book-seller in Copenhagen and he greets a customer who has just entered his shop. The book-seller turns to his wife and says, “It is I who am speaking, isn’t it?” Kierkegaard’s book-seller seems to have “banished himself” and cannot return.

Countries and Deep Patternings: China

China’s High-Level Equilibrium Trap as a Concept

The Pattern of the Chinese Past
Mark Elvin
Paperback: 348 pages
Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1st edition (June 1, 1973)

The 1973 classic work in Sinology, Mark Elvin’s The Pattern of the Chinese Past gives the student an “exemplum” in the kind of scholarship that might be called “pattern-seeking.” Without such attempts, all of history becomes formless and shapeless and an endless parade of “routs and rallies,” and “crimes and follies and misfortunes” (in Edward Gibbon’s catchphrase).

Professor Elvin renders Chinese history through an economic perspective instead of using the common dynastic classification by attempting to answer three questions:

  1. What contributed to the continuity of the Chinese empire?
  2. Why was the Chinese economy the most advanced in the world from the Song dynasty (960-1279) up until the latter half of the Qing dynasty (mid-1800s)?
  3. Why did China fail to maintain her technological advantage after the mid-fourteenth century while advancing economically?

In the first section of the book, the author elucidates the staying power of the Chinese empire was due to the following factors. The economics of defense in relation to the size of empire and the power of its neighbors never became an extreme burden that it rendered the state impotent for any consecutively long period of time. It was always able to reformulate itself after a short disunity or rule by a foreign power of the whole, which only happened twice within a two thousand year period (Mongol and Manchu rule). Two other factors that contributed to the continuity of the Chinese state include a relatively isolated existence from the rest of the Eurasian landmass and the important placed on cultural unity, beginning with the first emperor’s destruction of local records in order to quell local loyalties (pp. 21-22). Both of these factors had been built up over time through a revolution in communication and transportation.

The second section of the book analyses the causes of the economic revolution that occurred between the 8th and 12th centuries and the technological growth that accompanied it. The transformation of agriculture, especially in the south, was the major impetus that fueled the economic growth of this period. This revolution in agriculture had four aspects.

  1. The preparation of soil became more effective as a result of improved or new tools and the extensive use of manure and lime as fertilizer.
  2. Seed improvements allowed for double cropping.
  3. Improvements in hydraulic techniques and irrigation networks.
  4. Specialization in crops other than basic food grains (p.118).

Improvements in transportation and communications were almost as important as agriculture in growing the economy. Water transport saw big gains and led to the golden age of geographic studies and cartography, with envoys traveling as far away as Africa. Money and credit matured during this time helping to expand the economy. Paper money made its first appearance in 1024. Improvements in science, medicine, and technology also occurred during this period. However, despite all these advancements, “this period was the climax and also the end of many preceding centuries of scientific and technical progress” (p. 179). Although the Chinese economy continued to advance from the 14th century on, albeit on a smaller scale, it was not accompanied by improvements in technology.

The last section deals with this phenomenon, describing the distinctive characteristics of this late traditional period (1300-1800), and then proceeding to point out why technological advancements did not keep pace with the growth in the economy. This period sees a rise of small market towns in the sixteenth century and a decline in contact with the non-Chinese world around the middle of the fifteenth century. Also, by the eighteenth century serfdom disappeared, aiding population growth, which had reached 400 million by the mid-1800s. Elvin interestingly points out that the highly sophisticated metaphysics that evaded Chinese intellectual thought during the Ming and Qing dynasties negated any deep scientific inquiry (p. 233). In the attempt to explain the lack of technological advancement, Elvin disputes a number of conventional explanations. Contrary to popular belief, there was enough capital during this period to finance simple technological advances, also there was minimal political obstacles to economic growth.

In short, Elvin believes “that in late traditional China economic forces developed in such a way as to make profitable invention more and more difficult. With falling surplus in agriculture, and so falling per capita income and per capita demand, with cheapening labor but increasingly expensive resources and capital, with farming and transport technologies so good that no simple improvements could be made, rational strategy for peasants and merchants alike tended in the direction not so much of labor-saving machinery as of economizing on resources and fixed capital. Huge but nearly static markets created no bottlenecks in the production system that might have prompted creativity” (p. 314). This condition is what he terms as a “high-level equilibrium trap.” The term “trap” to describe the condition of late imperial China’s technological advancement in relation to the economy is similar to Escape from Predicament, Thomas Metzger’s analysis of the “predicament” that confronted Chinese intellectual thought from the Song through to the end of the Qing dynasty. Both explanations have at their core the idea of late imperial China not being able to generate real sustainable progress internally, stating that it was the Chinese response to the Western threat in the mid to late 1800s that finally brought the needed change.

Interesting Intuition from Marx

There’s an intriguing and puzzling quote from Marx which is very informative in a completely unexpected way, when Marx says:

“Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.”
(The German Ideology, International Publishers, 1970, page 47)

This seems to fit Marx’s obsession with practical circumstances as the “driver” and ideas and subjective states of mind as secondary or even derivative. For Marx, culture and consciousness are “epiphenomena” like the foam on a wave.

In a different way, modern philosophers have their own versions of this:

  1. For Wittgenstein, “forms of life” come first before all else.
  2. For Husserl, “the life-world” comes before theory.
  3. For Heidegger, “being-in-the-world” comes before theory.

Marx’s reduction of everything to material circumstances as primary causes of everything would seem to these other philosophers as a kind of extremist monomania on Marx’s part, as when he says:

We do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process. Their material life-process dominates.

The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life-process which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence.

Karl Marx with Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology, page 47

This idea from Marx is both suggestive and obsessive and maniacal at the same time, what the French call an “idée fixe” or fixation.

It is more accurate to say perhaps that life and consciousness are a “double helix.”