PARENTS: REASON WORKSHOP WORKSHOPS ARCHIVE =============================================================================== In SUBJECT / OBJECT we have described the basis of RD, the dichotomy or dipole "subject / object". However, as described there this dichotomy lacks the justification of its existence, and of its existential structures. We shall try here to fill in this lacuna and to supply its ontological foundation. Reader familiar with rudiments of Philosophy will notice the kinship of our concepts with those of the Philosophy of Existence, which considers human existence as the central point of its investigations and which was always present throughout the history, from Socrates and Plato through Augustin (as opposed to Thomas), Pascal, Descartes, Stirner, Kirkegaard, Jaspers to Heidegger and Sartre. In particular, with Heidegger and Sartre, we consider Temporality as the basic structure of Existence. Temporality has three aspects: Present, Past and Future. Past is the domain of our "Object", which is a contingent Datum inaccessible to any intervention and change. We coincide here exactly with Sartre's "En soi" and Heidegger's "Wesen", which he described with one of the best sounding phrases of Philosophy: "Wesen ist was gewesen ist". Objective order is deterministic, based upon effective cause related to its effect. Future is the domain of our "Subject" which, as Heidegger's "Dasein" and Sartre's "Pour-soi" has the nature of "Project". Subjective order is teleological, based upon causa finalis related to its goal. Present is the domain of our "Awareness", which has some similarity with Heidegger's "Gegenwart" and Sartre's "Conscience (de) soi" or "Cogito prereflexif". We see Awareness as the ontological foundation of Situation (subject/object) and, via Situation, of whole RD. As such it transcends the scope of RD, of its axioms and principles. It appears "as such", without any polar counterpart, i.e. in terms of RD as an Absolute. We shall consider it as the Absolute Foundation of RD and as the unique Absolute recognized by RD. Nevertheless, even a fundamental Absolute stays absolute and propositions concerning it have to comply with RD principles, in particular with the "Foundation Rule of Propositions" (in editing). Consequently we cannot formulate any meaningful proposition about Awareness, including its definition. Accepting it as the unique Absolute we postulate that it is obvious "as such": I think, feel, see only upon the background of my Awareness of thinking, feeling, seeing. However, if Awareness as Absolute escapes all determinate symbolic, linguistic formulations, its essential obviousness makes it directly accessible to the Imaginary and, like "Conscience (de) soi" or ZEN, it may be illustrated with examples, allegories and parables, such as the following Steersman allegory: Steersman steers his vessel watching the river through the only window facing the back. He sees the river unwind itself backwards as the vessel advances. He recognizes himself and his own error in the wake of his ship pointing dangerously towards a bank. He corrects it with a counter-steer knowing that if the river is about to make a turn, this correction may crash the boat against the opposite bank. Luckily, his experience encompasses whirls, counter-currents, reflected waves and other precursory patterns announcing approaching turns, gorges and rapids. This experience, supported by the belief that it applies to the river ahead as well as it applied to it behind, helps him to steer with the future course of the river revealed to the eyes of his mind. NOTE: This 'awareness' of 'me-subject' opposed to 'notme-object' may resemble at the first glance the Hegelian triad respectively synthesis, thesis, antithesis. Nothing more misleading that this superficial apparent similarity. Hegel was convinced that logic is the deepest foundation of all reality. Reality was for him necessary and logical. Consequently he considered statements as directly logically determinate, i.e. absolutely true or false. He based his famous dialectics on the following entirely speculative argument: "Whatever we assert about the Absolute, our assertion will not be adequate and will call for negation. When we say that Absolute is a Pure Being we do not attribute anything to it, our statement is equivalent with saying that Absolute is Nothingness." Thesis "Absolute is Being" leads to antithesis "Absolute is Nothingness" and to synthesis that Absolute is some composition of the two. Andre Breton, or Salvadore Dali would probably say that Absolute is a very small bird. Hegel's genius assisted by subconscious knowledge inferred from this apparently pure speculation an impressing History of Philosophy and Philosophy of History. Less genial Engels transposed it to the nonsensical Materialistic Dialectics which dehumanizes and unjustly discredits Marx's Historical Materialism and which became the fundamental ideology of Gulag's inquisition. =============================================================================== Let us repeat here the conclusion of SUBJECT / OBJECT : 1.Subject is not object. 2.Subject is confused, i.e. identical with object. 3.Being identical with object, subject is not identical with itself. =============================================================================== 2. and 3. mean respectively: identity of oppositions and non-identity with itself. Logic applied at this level would conclude that human situation is a series of contradictions, a paradox. By extension it would decree that whole human universe of discourse is paradoxical and, consequently, does not exist. It would not be the first time that a deductive aprioristic theory disagrees with reality and nature. Who is right in such cases, the theory, or the nature? Hegel, informed that astronomical observations contradict his aprioristic model, that nature disagrees with his views answered: "So much the worse for the nature". Should we likewise say "So much the worse for human reality"? We would have to, if, instead of RD, we considered traditional logic as the founding discipline of cognition. Indeed in a Universe of Discourse UL founded upon logic there is no place for human reality, nor, indeed for the human being at all. Theories and ideologies claiming to be founded in UL lead invariably to sterile, stubborn dogmatism in science (eg. Theory of Ether) and to inhuman, cruel discrimination in social practice (Inquisition, Nazism, Gulag, etc.). =============================================================================== PARENTS: REASON WORKSHOP WORKSHOPS ARCHIVE