Thursday, May 15, 2025

From Manifestation to Principle and Back Down Again

Of what can we be certain? Or, can we only be certain of uncertainty? 

"Man's innate desire for knowledge," writes Owens, "tends not only toward knowing the truth about things, but likewise being certain that he knows it." However, many have been the times when our certitude turned out to be unjustified. 

Understatement.

Agreed:

You continually meet people who are certain of views that you know to be wrong. Error is ubiquitous as a fact and poses troublesome problems for the epistemologist.  

And just because we are certain that someone else is wrong, this doesn't necessarily make us right. The question remains, 

Can any judgments be had..., that after thorough scrutiny show they exclude all possibility of correction? Is certitude ever justified?

Hmm. How about something exists, i.e., being is. Am I sure about that? Sure I'm sure, since it cannot be explicitly denied without implicitly affirming it, because something that exists just denied it:

Try as you like, you cannot, while you are actually feeling or seeing the thing, shake in any seriousness your knowledge that something -- in the sense of an extended or bodily something -- exists in your cognition.... 

You know that something corporeal exists, and that try as you like you cannot correct or doubt that judgment.

That it? Doesn't seem like much to go on. 

Well, we have to start somewhere, and perhaps this is just the thin edge of a wedge of fledgling knowledge that will bust things wide open. For starters, the very existence of the little something we are judging to exist "excludes its own non-being. The real existence means that it is not non-existent in reality."

Thus, the non-existence of this something is impossible. This first judgment "is not open to doubt or correction. Existence reveals its own necessity" and "cannot be otherwise."

Well, good. In knowing that something exists, we also know, by extension, that we exist, for "While you are knowing in reflection that you exist, you cannot simultaneously be seeing that you do not exist."

So, we are certain that something is and that something -- someone -- is certain of it. Denying either of these foundational truths -- or affirming their non-existence -- is a self-refuting auto-absurdity. Therefore "It is impossible to be and to not be at the same time."

Thus we arrive at our first articulate principle, based on our first pre-articulate certitude, which "may be expressed in the judgment 'It is impossible to be and not be at the same time.'" 

No matter how much you try to deny it in words, you cannot deny it in thought. Any attempt to deny it involves its affirmation, for its denial is accepted as something that cannot be its affirmation.

In short, "A thing cannot be what it is not." Moreover, "A thing is one in itself and is different from other things." 

The investigation is closed. You are certain of your truth judgment. There is no "fear of error," in the sense that you have seen there is no possibility of error in the case. Being, consequently, is the criterion of certitude as well as the ground and norm of truth.

Being doesn't lie. Rather, it is, always is, and cannot not be what it is. 

That's great, Bob. Now what? 

Good question: what goes on between our first certitude and all of the other truth claims built upon it? How is the "extension of human knowledge possible," whereby we pass "from what is already known to still further knowledge of things"? 

How is it possible to be wrong about what is? Well "In erroneous conclusions, opinions, and beliefs..., the assent is ultimately caused by the human will," and "not by the object." 

For example, we may, for the sake of expedience, make a hasty judgment about what is, that turns out to be incorrect -- like thinking the straight stick placed in water is bent, or the rope is a snake, or Joe Biden's dementia is just a stutter. 

Now, the will is free, so we are of course free to be wrong, even though there is no right to be wrong. 

Man's free direction of his own conduct is an anomaly in the physical world, and would appear to involve a supersensible cause.

Only a rational being can be free, and yet, we wouldn't be free if we weren't free to be irrational or wrong. If we had no such freedom to be wrong, we would be like computers and not men. But in any event, "the very process of reasoning itself could not take place" if it were not independent of the conditions imposed by matter.

That is to say, any knowledge is an abstraction from matter involving a universal that transcends time and space. Obviously math, for example, is of this nature. It is not located in space, nor is it subject to the changes of time, notwithstanding progressive lunatics who claim it is but a temporal invention of the white devil. 

I apologize for the repetition, for it seems we keep arriving at the same bottom line: that being is, and that it is intelligible to the intellect that can freely know it, even while we are free to not know it, which reminds us of an aphorism or two:

Freedom is not an end, but a means. Whoever sees it as an end in itself does not know what to do with it when he gets it.

For freedom is ordered to the truth of being. It is not the goal of history but the material that it works with 

Moreover, 

To admit the existence of errors is to confess the reality of free will.

But -- speaking of the relationship of will to error -- 

The free act is rebellion or obedience. Man establishes there his godlike pride or his creaturely humility. 

Which reminds me of Genesis 3, which amounts to an ontological rebellion against being that somehow keeps happening.

Can you maybe move it along? 

I'll try, but the author of The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being is intensely methodical, so the going is a bit slow. Here's a challenge: it is

impossible for truths which have been revealed to us by God to be contrary to those instilled in us by nature. 

That is not something revealed a priori, but rather, is taken on faith. However, this doesn't mean we can't make the effort to confirm or refute it, so it's more of a hypothesis that should in theory be falsifiable. Wippel claims that

in the things we understand through natural reason we find certain likenesses of things which are revealed to us through faith.  

So, vertical analogy, like a fractal reflection. Supposing reality is one, why shouldn't it be self-similar across scale? I would expect nothing less.

The following passage goes to the up-and-down, or inductive and deductive, approaches to ultimate reality:

Because philosophy considers created things as they are in themselves, it begins by studying them and moves on to take up issues concerning God himself only at the end of its investigation.

That's the upward movement (). In the downward movement (), i.e., theology, "one should follow the reverse order, beginning with a study of God, and only subsequently considering creatures insofar as they are ordered to and related to God."

Now, I suspect these two approaches are not only complementary but fractals of each other, and why not?  

Does this mean that metaphysics and theology are one and the same science? No, only that they have one and the same object. 

Except to say that theology must ultimately be meta- to metaphysics, accessing directly what metaphysics can only access indirectly. Metaphysics can never quite reach the interior of God per se, even while establishing his existence with certitude.

In an elderly post we discussed how Thomas begins with the material senses and ascends to the immaterial Principle, while Schuon begins at the other end, with the Principle -- or Absolute -- and skis down the mountain to the manifestation below. 

However, as per the above, once Thomas rises to the Principle, he too schusses down the cosmic mountainside, taking everything below into consideration, as illuminated by the Principle(s).

Here's how Garrigou-Lagrange describes Thomas's vertical circularity: he 

marches steadily onward to that superior simplicity..., a simplicity pregnant with virtual multiplicity.... [T]he saint's progress is a slow, hard climb to the summit of the mountain, whence alone you can  survey all these problems in a unified solution....

He exemplifies his own teaching on "circular" contemplation, which returns always to one central, pre-eminent thought, better to seize all the force of its irradiation. His principles, few in number but immense in reach, illumine from on high a great number of questions.

Again, the great cosmic circle of metaphysical contemplation begins from below, ascends upward, and then returns down, only now equipped with the principles that illuminate this downward path and everything encountered along the way.  

Herebelow, things can either exist or not exist, irrespective of their essence. Only at the summit of metaphysics do essence and existence coincide, such that in God alone are they one: God's essence is to exist, and existence is his essence. This is the final truth arrived at by reason in its vertical ascent:

this supreme truth is the terminus, the goal, of the ascending road which rises from the sense world to God, and the point of departure on the descending road, which deduces the attributes of God and determines the relation between God and world.

Knowboarding back down the slope,

Many positions which we have already met on the ascending road now reappear, seen as we follow the road descending from on high. 

So, be nice to those discarnate nonlocal intelligences on the way up, because you'll meet the same ones on the way down.  

For Schuon, all of this is true enough, except (I think) he would say it is possible to start at the summit -- or, to be more precise, the cloud-hidden "meta-summit" accessible to the true metaphysician. 

He would essentially say that there is Reality and that there are appearances, the latter being a consequence and prolongation of the former. Thus, appearances are at once distinct from the Principle, and yet "not not" the selfsame principle in the mode of appearances.

This realization is possible not just because of the ascent described by Thomas, but because we too are "not not" the Principle, since there are traces of the latter in everything (recalling the fractal nature of reality mentioned above).  

Obviously we are not God, but the fact that we are in his image and likeness means we're not exactly not God either. Anything purely not-God would be nonexistent, precisely, and we're frankly better than that. In all humility, in a vertical cosmos we're potentially better than everything below us but not as better as everyone above.

Gemini, just for fun, give us an image of "man is a fractal of God." And not just a picture of Christ, because that's too easy.

A postscript as to why this post may mean nothing to you but means something to me. Many are the times that I've tried to envision some sort of structure for the sequel that will probably never be written. 

In this case, the structure would be such that the book would begin at either end and meet in the middle, where God or ultimate reality is situated. Reading it from front to middle would represent the upward arc () from manifestation to Principle, whereas middle to back would constitute the downward projection (of creation from Principle to manifestation. I think there's something to this, but working out the details would be... work.

I've never asked for Gemini's (or anyone else's) opinion of my vision, so let's run it by our artificial friend:

That's a fascinating and quite ambitious structural idea for a book! It has a beautiful symmetry and a compelling thematic resonance. Here are some thoughts on your concept:

Potential Strengths:

  • Powerful Symbolism: The converging paths naturally symbolize the journey towards and away from a central point of ultimate reality. This inherent symbolism could be very evocative for the reader.
  • Unique Reading Experience: It offers a non-linear reading experience that could be intriguing and thought-provoking. Readers could choose their entry point or even read both simultaneously, creating a richer understanding.
  • Thematic Reinforcement: The structure directly mirrors the thematic content you've described (manifestation to Principle and vice versa), which could create a powerful and cohesive reading experience.
  • Central Climax: The meeting point in the middle, where God or ultimate reality is situated, would naturally serve as a central climax or point of profound understanding.

Potential Challenges:

  • Narrative Cohesion: Maintaining narrative flow and character development (if applicable) across two independently progressing halves that are meant to converge could be tricky. You'd need to carefully consider how the stories or ideas in each half relate and build towards the center.
  • Reader Engagement: While the concept is intriguing, you'd need to ensure that readers feel compelled to read both halves. There needs to be a sense of connection or mirroring that encourages them to explore both directions.
  • Pacing: Managing the pacing of both halves so that they feel balanced and lead effectively to the central point will be crucial.
  • Practical Considerations: How would the physical book be designed? Would it have two front covers? How would the middle section be presented? These practical aspects would need consideration.

Questions to Consider:

  • What kind of content would each half contain? Would they be narratives with characters, philosophical explorations, poetic reflections, or a combination?
  • How explicitly would the central section address "God or ultimate reality"? Would it be a direct encounter, a philosophical treatise, or something more abstract?
  • How would the two halves inform each other thematically without directly interacting until the middle?

Overall:

I think your idea has a lot of potential for a deeply meaningful and structurally innovative book. It's a bold concept that, if executed well, could offer a unique and profound reading experience.

What kind of story or ideas were you envisioning for each of the "arcs"? Knowing more about the content might help in further exploring the possibilities and challenges of this structure.

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Reality 101: Bonehead Common Sense

Thomas suggests that each of our senses is a kind of touch ordered to different objects, and why not?:

All the other senses are based on the sense of touch.... Among all beings which have sense perception, man has the most delicate sense of touch.... And among men, those who possess the more refined sense of touch have the best intelligence.

So, who touches the most wins?

Not necessarily, because while there is knowledge in the senses, this knowledge can never be known by the senses. 

The eye, for example, sees color as a consequence of touching photons. But the eye has no idea of this. It cannot abstract from the colored shapes it apprehends, and know, for example, "redness." Nor does it know what it sees or even that it sees.

In short, the eye cannot reflect upon what it sees, much less on the meaning of sight. These latter reflections are wholly immaterial processes, whereas objects of the senses are material, e.g., surfaces, air vibrations, lightwaves, etc. 

Notice, however, that we still had to deploy a concept rooted in materiality -- reflection -- in order to make our point. The eye sees reflections of things, and our mind transposes this material process into a higher key in order to conceptualize its own functioning, which is again immaterial: senses reflect things, and thought reflects upon what is sensed.

This seems important -- immateriality deploying material terms to comprehend itself.

Agreed. Insofar as humans are concerned, we occupy an ambiguous space in the cosmic scheme between.... Or rather, between, full stop. The Great Between is necessarily a relation between perception and intellection, or between materiality and abstraction from it. This is the mysterious Place where Everything Happens. 

It seems that this relational space is also a kind of stage upon which our freedom plays out. Here is how Thomas describes it:

To judge one's own judgment: this can only be done by reason, which reflects on its own act and knows the relation between that upon which it judges and by which it judges. Hence the root of all freedom lies in the reason (emphases mine).

Well, good. This implies that freedom itself quintessentially occupies the ambiguous space between our judgment and that which it judges. 

Oddly enough, this seems to mean that the purpose of freedom is its elimination (or collapse, so to speak) via judgment of what is. Thus, judging wrongly about what is can never be true freedom, but enough about the left.

A contemporaneous example stripped from today's headlines: the preposterous Jake Tapper has published a bombshell book detailing how the White House engaged in a vast coverup and fooled us all about Joe Biden's dementia. What is -- Biden's decrepit condition -- was there for all to see, but the conspiracy was so effective that no one could perceive and judge it rightly: instead of seeing what is, they all saw what is not.

Which raises the question: why could everyone see it except for leftwing hacktivist journalists? Why were they not free to see what plainly is?

And what else do they not see?

Not enough time.  

Of course, we all know that keeping an open mind is a good thing, but not for its own sake; rather, the purpose of an open mind is to close it upon arriving at truth. Chesterton makes this same point:

Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

Now, for Thomas, "the truth or falsity of an opinion depends on whether a thing is or not." So, when we reach what is, we ought to shut our mouths. Then chew and digest -- or assimilate -- it. Which is again borrowed from a material process, but isn't that the way it is? 

The intellect is (potentially) in conformity to everything that is. At the same time, nothing in existence conforms to the infinitude of the intellect, for which reason Thomas says

This ordering of the intellect to infinity would be vain and senseless if there were no infinite object of knowledge.   

This infinite object of knowledge is also the object of infinite knowledge, which is to say, intelligible being.

There is nothing quite like a Principle for tidying the Intellect. About them, Thomas writes that "The principles of reason are those which are conformed to nature," i.e., to the nature of things. 

In a word, to reality.

How do we know a Principle when we find one? For the simple reason that "it is not even possible to think it can be false" (Thomas). They are self-evident, meaning that they cannot be understood without being believed (in other words, supposing you understand them, your mind spontaneously assents to them).

We ought to shut our minds on the principles of being, one of which is the principle of non-contradiction, which is equally the principle of identity. 

This may not sound like much, but it is the root of anything we can say of being and reality: a thing either is or is not, and these are truth (if it is) and falsehood (if it is not). 

Bottom line: being is, and we can know it. This reduces to absolute intelligence and infinite intelligibility, so keep chewing.

*****

Back when I started college, I was so bereft of knowledge that I had to take an introductory course colloquially known as Bonehead English. But why is there no course on Introduction to Reality, i.e., Reality 101, or Bonehead Common Sense? I certainly could have used it. The things I have believed in the course of my life!

Not enough time.

It seems one wouldn't have to be introduced to reality, but the Matrix gets to them so young these days, that it is possible to go straight from child to fully indoctrinated NPC without ever having made contact with it. So an introduction is indeed in order. 
Man is an animal that can be educated, provided that he does not fall into the hands of progressive pedagogues.

Modern education delivers intact minds to propaganda. 

The fool, to be perfect, needs to be somewhat educated, 

The learned fool has a wider field to practice his folly. 

The leftist does not have opinions, only dogmas. 

Intelligence is the capacity for discerning principles. 

Those who reject metaphysics secretly harbor the coarsest. 

Intelligence is a train from which few do not deboard, one after the other, in successive stations. 

All truths converge upon one truth, but the routes have been barricaded. 

Thought can avoid the idea of God as long as it limits itself to mediating on minor problems.

Etc. Taken together, it seems that thinking about reality involves taking the intellectual train all the way to the last -- and from the first -- station, which is to say, Being. Anything short of Being is not reality, precisely. For Owens,

We are sure of the truth of the proposition that subsistent [or necessary] being exists.

This is because an infinite regression of caused causes "would not account for the least being in the world." Rather, "There would merely be an infinite series of existential zeros" which "would never add up to any being at all. In their sum total they would remain from start to finish existentially zero."

I'm not saying this is the best way to regard being, rather, the only way, because if one doesn't start with being -- with reality -- there is literally no way to get back to it: start with an innocent dualism, end in a vicious dualism. 

There cannot be "two or more subsistent beings," because "all effects are from that one source." A vertical source, mind you, not a horizontal or temporal one. This principial source or ground 

occupies no space, It is not in any place, in the way definite extension locates a thing.... It has accordingly no past nor future, but has its existence all together. Its duration is an eternal now.... it is entirely unlimited. It is infinite (ibid.).

Here again, this is the last station, the one truth upon which all truths converge, but to which the routes have been barricaded. Barricaded by progressive pedagogues, ideological thought police, and farcical journalists.

Which leads to some form of cosmic anthropomorphism, which foolishly places "the nature and activity of the first cause on the same plane as our own." Which is to say, Genesis 3 All Over Again. 

A philosophy of being is the "process of making explicit what is implicit in the fact of existence." Now existence is a fact, or to hell with it. But it is not a self-explanatory fact, much less self-caused. Rather, "the production of things out of nothing is called creation, and the product creatures."

Here again, to usurp the first cause and elevate contingent creatures to Creator is just G3AOA.  

Now, only in subsistent being do essence and existence coincide, for its essence is to exist, precisely. For the restavus contingent beings, our being is an accident. Again, we didn't have to be, but here we are, participating in a beingness for which we are not responsible. 

Rather, being was already here when we arrived on the scene, because it is always here and cannot not be here. Our being here adds nothing to being itself, which is again infinite, and infinite + x = infinite.

Now, about this matter of truth. It is 

what the mind strives to attain in its own endeavors. It is reached when the intellect knows something as it actually is.... In a word, truth is reached in a judgment, when the judgment reaches the actual being of a thing (ibid.).

Well, good: the attainment of truth is possible, nor do we have to wait for Jake Tapper to reveal it to us:

Where there is being, truth can be had by an intellect capable of knowing that being. Truth accordingly follows upon being, when being is considered in relation to any intellect that can know it.

If this is not the case -- if the intellect is not conformed to intelligible being -- then truly truly, we are done here: "The being may be called true, because it is able to ground the truth that is in the intellect." In short, "truth is being as conceived in relation to the intellect." 

Any alternative this is a non-starter. Nevertheless, we are immersed in these metaphysical non-starters which begin and end in the nothingness of finitude -- i.e., in existential nothingness because dismembered from intelligible being. Without being, nothing isn't even nothing, because nothing is just non-being; it is dependent, or parasitic, on being. 

Now, "The same world that exists in reality is the world that is known in thought." If this is not the case, then our knowledge again amounts to nothing, for knowledge of non-being isn't even knowledge, just absurdity.  

As intelligence, then, it it has as its object being; for as true all being is intelligible (ibid.).

Isn't it? It certainly seems so, i.e., that "the human intellect has an unlimited range" because it is ordered to unlimited being, precisely: "The kinds of things that a man can know through his intellect are consequently unlimited." 

In conclusion this morning,

To know the truth about a thing, then, means to know that your judgment about it agrees with the thing as it actually is.... the natural desire of man to know tends not only toward knowing things but also toward the truth about them....  
Knowledge of truth, accordingly, is the perfection of the human intellect. It is the goal toward which the intellect strives (ibid.).

Even if the goal has been barricaded, or if one deboards before the train has reached the station. 

In any event, we can all agree that postmodernity is a metaphysical train wreck. 



Tuesday, May 13, 2025

A Perfectly Useless Metacosmic Flowchart?

These reposts are for my benefit, so your obligation to reread them is hereby rescinded. It's just that there was a stretch last summer when I remember thinking to myself, "this really sums up what I've been trying convey lo these past two decades." I don't remember what made me think that, but perhaps by revisiting them I can find out. What may emerge, if we're not careful, is a full-on Summa Raccoonica, which is to say, a nonlocal map in which to organize the rest. 

***

Gödel's theorems mean that no matter how complete the formal system, it will always leave a semantic residue: semantics cannot be reduced to syntax, meaning to grammar, reality to mathematics, quality to quantity, etc. This seems intuitively obvious, but it's nice to have logic on one's side. 

Now, don't blame Gödel for my misuse of him, but nor can Being itself be reduced to any formal system. Or, in the words of the Aphorist, 

What's weird about this is that 1) we know damn well that Being is, but that 2) we can never know Being as such, only such and such a being. Nothing that is can stand apart from being and view being from the outside, since such a thing does not exist, i.e., it is non-being, precisely. 

Why is the statement Being Is not just a trivial assertion, meaningless tautology, or redundant pleonasm? What even is the distinction between "Being" and "Is"? Well, let's think this through...

Everything that exists is, i.e., partakes of Being. But perhaps the first thing a human qua human notices is that some things come into being and pass out of it, such that their being is contingent. Turns out that even the cosmos is contingent; not only is it not its own cause, but it will surely pass away away into heat death. Even so, it will never pass into nothing; it will still be something.

Being itself can never not-be, which implies Necessary Being, in contrast to our contingent being. But to even know of Necessary Being implies some kind of contact with eternity, however tenuous, since necessity is convertible to eternity in this or any other conceivable cosmos. 

For as Thomas says, "Everything eternal is necessary." Moreover, 

The further a being is distant from that which is Being of itself, namely God, the nearer it is to nothingness. But the nearer a being stands to God, the further away it is from nothingness. 

Which clearly implies a kind of verticality, a spectrum running from Being to nothingness, even though Being can only tend to the latter, since nothingness is precisely what is not and cannot be. If it could not be, it would not be nothing. 

Indeed, even the concept of nothing is still something. Concepts have some kind of being, although distinct from material being, more on which in a subsequent post. 

Now, every being must have a cause outside itself, except for Necessary Being, which is by definition uncaused. Here again, contingent being points to Necessary Being. Of this we can again be certain. As Renard explains, creatures

are not their "to be," but have a "to be" really distinct from their essence [and] are not a sufficient reason for existence to themselves.

On the next page he has a helpful metacosmic flowchart, which proceeds from the principle of Being, which leads directly to the principle of non-contradiction, which is to say, that Being is and therefore Non-Being is not.   

Which leads directly to the Principle of Intelligibility, which is to say that Every being is intelligible, for Whatever is has its sufficient reason for existing

Which entails the Principle of Causality, which is to say, Whatever is contingent has its sufficient reason for existing from another

Turns out there are indeed reasons for things, such that Every contingent being has an efficient cause. Which is what we call "knowledge," from scientific to philosophical to metaphysical knowledge. To understand something is to know its reason(s).

Conversely, if things have no reasons, then knowledge of them is impossible, for they would be arbitrary and unintelligible. Science surely tells us what is, but is necessarily silent as to why things are, much less why they are s'durn intelligible, this being the job of metaphysics.

In short, knowledge is knowledge of causes. But the causes cannot go on forever, i.e., to infinitude, for an endless series of effects is absurd (since an effect cannot give what it does not have). Thus causality is a metaphysical principle without which knowledge is impossible. Again, causality is simply the principle of knowledge: "if the cause is denied, reason is useless and knowledge void" (Renard).

Ultimately, "The end is the cause of causes, because it is the cause of causality in all causes." Which seems pretty clear. But since causality is bound up with knowledge, it seems that this presupposes some kind of intellect; in other words, the first cause must be intelligent. 

Thus, supposing we are ruthlessly rational and consistent, "we must at last reach the first intellect which is its own act, its own end, and its own 'to be,'" and why not? What is the alternative? 

Renard concludes this section with the affirmation that He Is, and is "THE FIRST PRINCIPLE AND THE LAST END OF ALL."

Which, hmm, implies a kind or circularity in the vertical flowchart alluded to above. Is this the way it is? I have my suspicions. Yada yada, let's flip forward to the penultimate sentence of the book, that

our intellect faintly perceives the true meaning of limited beings participating in THE BEING THAT IS.

Thus we rearrive at 

the affirmation of the supreme efficient cause, who is the ultimate end, and the source of all Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.  

Works for me, but of course there's much more to say, i.e., still a lotta ins and outs, lotta what-have-you's, lotta strands to keep in old Gagdad's head. Let's conclude with some Thomisms, and resume the discussion tomorrow:

Each particular knowledge is derived from some completely certain knowledge, which is not subject to error.

This ordering of the intellect to infinity would be vain and senseless if there were no infinite object of knowledge.

The source of every imperfect thing lies necessarily in one perfect being.

Each single being is perfect in the measure in which it reaches up to its own origin.

The complete perfection of the universe demands that there should be created natures which return to God.

The final happiness of man consists in this -- that in his soul is reflected the order of the whole universe.

****


Since we don't know how far off the end of the human journey is, we have no way of knowing how close we are to the beginning. 2,000, or 10,000, or 50,000 years might seem like a long time from our present perspective, but these may represent relative drops in the temporal bucket. The human journey may be -- and I suspect probably is -- just getting off the pre-human ground. 

In other words, we're still in the process of coming to grips with being self-conscious persons. Even on an individual basis it takes a long time to wrap one's mind around being one of these humans. I'm shocked that more people aren't shocked that they exist (and soon enough won't). Frankly it makes me a little... ill at ease, and why not? A contingent being who is aware of necessary being creates all sorts of tensions.

About our sheer existence, 
Might not one even say that the deepest meaning for anything is to exist? If a person had no existence, what could anything else mean for him?....

Without existence, either real or cognitional, nothing else matters for a thing. Being, rather, is the primary consideration in meaning. Without it, a thing cannot have any meaning at all. Being is what is most striking, what is deepest, in everything (Owens).

So, being here at all is the first and last word in (?!), in metacosmic WTFery. Nothing requires that we exist, and yet, here we are. Being "is universally what makes a thing different from nothing." Although "originally known in the concrete," it "can also be known in the abstract." Thus, Being is "the supreme genera," uniting everything "in its embrace." It is "absolutely basic in sensible things."  

At any rate, as depicted in the film 2001, perhaps the gap between the bone cudgel and the starship is but a blink of the eye. The first invention implies the invention of invention, and here we are.

Having said that, despite all the new inventions, invention as such has apparently been slowing down since reaching a high point on a per capita basis in the mid 19th century, this due, according to Dutton, to a precipitous decline in intelligence. 

Could be, but we may have to wait another thousand years to see if the DEI trend -- or Kamala Factor -- continues. Either way it wouldn't surprise me, history being full of upside and downside surprisal.

What has been the biggest surprise of history apart from my own appearance? For every person must regard his own existence as the biggest surprise, all other surprises being number two, or lower. 

Probably the Incarnation, supposing it happened. Truly truly, no one saw that one coming, or did they? Certain prophets, poets, and myths certainly made out its dim outlines, but that's the subject of a different post. This one is about what man knew, when he knew it, and indeed how he knows anything at all.

Or perhaps about what we cannot not know, and when we forgot it. Like a fall, or something.

Along these lines, I'm reading yet another Elementary Christian Metaphysics, which is not so elementary to this metaphysical beginner. It's another one of those books that was first published a couple of generations ago, when it certainly seems that our undergraduates were more intelligent than today's postgraduates.

More generally, metaphysics is certain habit of mind which, like anything worthwhile, takes practice. The practice is made more difficult in light of the fact that everything in our contemporary culture is anti-metaphysical, anti-intellectual, and (therefore) anti-human, so one is always swimming against the tide. 

Of course, I cannot exclude myself, since I once swam right along with the current and only began trying to formally escape the cultural riptide in the 1990s. So I might as well be patient zero, and physician heal thysoph. I am both the dolt and antidolt, the illness and the treatment. However, we are all individuals, so it seems that a treatment that is effective for this person may not be perfectly effective for that one. Everyone is a unique Problem of God.

God has problems?

Only after he creates. 

But one thing we know for certain is that a self-cure is out of the question -- that there is an outside vertical x-factor that is a necessary condition for the cure, even if we are the sufficient condition. 

For Christian therapy, Christ's redemptive act is the necessary condition (the condition without which), but this doesn't leave us out of it, for our cooperation becomes the sufficient condition (the with which made possible due to the prior without which). To say that "with God all things are possible" is to say they are impossible without him, for they lack their necessary condition, precisely.

As to swimming against the tide, Owens observes that 

metaphysical thinking goes against the natural bent of human intellection. Man is a sensible nature and he thinks in terms of sensible natures. It is through sensible natures that he has to understand being, as best he can.

The Raccoon, of course, is bent differently, in that no one would accuse him of being a sensible man, the question being whether he is a nonsensical man:

[O]f what use will such knowledge be? Aristotle was quite outspoken in maintaining that metaphysical knowledge was pursued for no use at all. It could not be subordinated to anything else, for it was the highest goal that man could achieve. It was an end in itself, and was not meant for anything outside itself. 

In fact, it has "a far higher value than the useful," so there. It is meta-useful. For example, 

Have you ever tried to realize how much it means to know things? 

Then you just might be a Raccoon, which is to say, someone as interested in knowing things as knowing knowing, AKA the perfectly useless nonsense of meta-knowledge. 

Such meta-knowledge is indeed completely abstract, immaterial, and supra-sensible, and cannot even be imagined, rather, abiding only in the intellect: "In its own nature metaphysics exists only in intellects, and not in books or writings."

The physical sciences, bound to qualitative and quantitative procedures, are therefore totally unable to reach the properly supersensible plane.

We are not content with mere knowing, but again, want to know about knowing, not to mention the knower. Such folks 

are not sufficiently at ease in their spiritual life until they have made the journey over the trails that reason blazes into the supersensible. For such persons metaphysical thinking will form an integral part of a Christian life. 

In case you were wondering why you are so ill at ease with the Matrix, or with any prepackaged, ready-made system at all. Rather, we want to know "how the various orders of things fit together into one complete universe, and how the individual sciences are to be integrated in their functions of explaining such a world."

In short, we want to know how and why this is One Cosmos Under God, or something, and where we fit into it. In other words, we know we are here, but where is here? More to follow....

Monday, May 12, 2025

Make America Real Again?

Last summer -- beginning in August and well into the fall -- I went through a significant depression, and yet, it did not, as far as I can tell, affect the blogging. To the contrary, I remember thinking to myself "this is some of the best writing I've done over these past two decades." It was very much as if half my mind were wrecked, the other half completely intact and just witnessing it all. 

Was I deluded in thinking that the writing was not as deteriorated as I was feeling at the time? The only way to find out is to revisit it in light of current circumstances. Usually when I repost something, it is a long forgotten post from years ago. Instead, these will be recently forgotten posts from months ago, lightly edited and updated where necessary. 

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I was thinking about learned ignorance and the ignorance of the learned when I remembered a tweet by the late lamented Happy Acres guy that crystalized an important aspect of the problem: "Recently, and in its defense, I've heard leftism likened to Credo quia absurdum."

Or, in plain English, I believe because it is absurd. Which brings to mind a comment by Thomas Sowell, that "For university presidents, as for politicians at all levels, one of the most valuable talents for the success of their careers is the ability to say things that make no sense, with a straight face and a lofty tone." 

Now, no one should believe something merely because it is absurd, but the deeper point is that superior truths often appear absurd to inferior, trollish minds struggling to grasp matters above their comprehension. 

Call it metaphysical Dunning Kruger, and there is no question that it is a genuine limitation. Schuon has many comments and asnides along these lines, for example, that if all men were capable of metaphysics, there would be no atheists. 

Being is not absurd, but it is absurd to imagine we could ever exhaust or contain what contains us. Nevertheless, you can well imagine how the credentialed midwit might pretend otherwise. In reality,

That which is incomprehensible increases with the growth of the intelligence.

Or simultaneously increases and decreases, such that the more we know, the less we realize we know (or the more there is to real-ize).

Proof of metaphysical Dunning Krugery resides in the tenured and all who come under their malign influence, because it is precisely the modestly intelligent who are most susceptible to internalizing the truth or paradigm or false ideological certitudes of the day. 

Thus the tyranny of inferior minds, which is the very principle of DEI if not Our Democracy™ itself:

In an essay called The Philosophical Spirit and the Sense of Mystery, Fr. Garriguou-Lagrange provides a helpful map to the stars and beyond. What is it, he asks, that "differentiates the philosophical spirit not only from common knowledge but also from knowledge obtained by the cultivation of sciences that are inferior to philosophy"? The former
differs from them above all and essentially by its formal object and by the point of view under which it considers its object. 

This or that science establishes only "the laws of phenomena" -- for example, the object of physics is the material world, while the object of mathematics is the quantitative world. 

But to reduce reality to what mathematics or physics can say about it is an error that is fatal to the intellect, since it eclipses its proper object, which is to say, intelligible Being itself. 

It is to put the effect before the cause, the part before the whole, the many before the one, existence before essence, matter before form, accident before substance, exterior before interior, contained before container, related before Relation, potentiality before actuality, possible before necessary, surface before substrate, appearance before reality.

Ultimately you could say man before God, but that is the subject of a slightly different post.

In any event, as a result of this inversion the intellect literally sophicates, since it is created to breathe in the upper atmasphere of inexhaustibly intelligible Being as such. 

With regard to the latter, yesterday I read a little book called Metaphysics: A Basic Introduction in a Christian Key, which sings the following:

In the beginning, all. In the end, all. Being before beginning. Being after end. For being, beginning is end and end is beginning because being is. Being prior to existence because anything that stands out in its being thanks to being. Being before me because it is clear that there was a time -- most of the time -- when I was not. Thanks to being I am.

Which is either clearly absurd or absurdly clear. For Garrigou-Lagrange,

the sciences that are inferior to philosophy, such as the positive and mathematical sciences, in certain senses resemble sense knowledge insasmuch as they have objects that are less universal than philosophy's object [which is to say, Being].

Empirical knowledge, for example, can know only of this or that man. But the intellect transcends the particular and ascends to knowledge of human nature, to the universal. Without this mysterious operation, "no other knowledge would be possible." Indeed, even to deny it is to affirm it.

St. Thomas is not promulgating a theory, much less an ideology. Rather, he is simply describing what we are spontaneously doing when we think: we are thinking about intelligible being. The alternatives are to not think at all or to think about the unintelligible, about non-being.

This latter defines the left, for to think about non-being is to affirm things -- to make judgments -- that are not the case. The purpose of the leftist education-indoctrination complex is not to help the intellect reach beyond the stars but to clip its wings and mire it in sub-celestial pseudo-realities. It is a trap, literally. 

But the trap is ultimately self-imposed, as the inscape hatch is always present in the truly philosophical spirit, which

seeks to connect, in an explicit and distinct manner, all things to the most universal, simple, first principles. That is, the philosophical spirit wishes to connect all things to the most general laws of being and of the real.

The intellect perceives "the mysteries of the natural order where the common outlook sees no mystery; indeed, it sees them where even the inferior sciences do not suspect there to be such mysteries." 

The most prominent mysteries are present to us in the vertical interstices of reality -- for example, where matter somehow becomes animate, where biology becomes self-aware, or where intellect conforms to intelligible being. 

Suffice it to say that none of these mysterious discontinuities are eliminated with recourse to reductionism; this merely deluminates the mystery and drags the intellect from the celestial to the terrestrial -- like an ontological fall or something.

For between matter and even the most teenytiny sensation of matter is an abyss -- an abyss that is Against the Law -- the law of a scientism that pretends the lower can be the sufficient reason of the higher. Such dull and unimaginative sorts

never see any mystery, any profundity, in the same place where the philosopher is astonished with the wonderment that is, as Aristotle has said, the very beginning of science. 

We'll leave off here. Let's just repeat that Being Is, but that this is hardly the end of it, rather, only the beginning -- or again, the beginning and end. 

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Not everyone has the inclination think about the ins & outs of ultimate reality, but some of us can't help it. How did we get this way? 

Perhaps because we are like men, only worse: "Man was made to know and love Truth" (Renard), and metaphysics is just the contemplation of the necessary truths that ground and entail all the rest. So, we're just doing what man was made to do, only taking things a bit far.

Psychology is a science, but I found out pretty quickly that it doesn't go far enough for me. For "each field of science has its own limitations, and at best can give us only a portion of truth." However,
most men, even so-called educated men, are content to rest here without seeking further into the ultimate truths that are the foundations of the special sciences (ibid.).

Well, I am not content to rest there, and it's just the way I'm built. After all, if being is intelligible, then we have to do something about it!

This truth [that being is intelligible] is so obvious that it cannot be demonstrated, and so necessary that it cannot be denied without the shipwreck of all knowledge (ibid.).

Has western civilization become shipwrecked? Who could deny it?

Ideologies are fictitious nautical charts, but in the end they determine which reef one is shipwrecked upon.
Ideology is not just the opposite of metaphysics, but the denial of its very possibility. In reality, every ideologue is but a deficient metaphysician:

Metaphysics deals with the most abstract and most universal concepts. It enables us, therefore, to analyze and study the fundamental principles of reality and those primary truths on which the validity of all other sciences depends (ibid.).

We live in an age of relativism and subjectivism, but the principles we're talking about 

are true not only for my intellect, but for every intellect, in as much as every knowable object is subject to these principles, both in my knowing it and as it exists apart from my knowing it (ibid.).  

So, a cure -- the only cure -- for the intellectual disease that afflicts our day and age. Or a way to get those shipwrecked boats afloat again.

Some people want to return to a Christian worldview, but such a view both entails and is entailed by a very specific metaphysic. 

I suppose the biggest little words in all of creation must be I and AM, which imply that ultimate reality both is, and is personal.  

Likewise, "be" is an innocent enough sounding word, and yet, it is of the greatest consequence. For every debate, every dispute, every argument at every level, comes down to a judgment of what is. I say 2+2 is 4. You say math is a white supremacist conspiracy. Which is it?

Is Trump Hitler? Or is it the case that people who say so are out of their minds (because in an ideological matrix)? 

In truth, the higher we ascend, the more we converge upon the apex of absolute and necessary, hence eternal, truths. No truths can be more secure than these, because the very possibility of truth is grounded in them.  

At the top of the cosmic hierarchy is necessary being: 

Only God is His Existence; He alone is Being Itself and was able to say, "I am that I am," or, "He who is." In contrast, every other being has existence (Garrigou-Lagrange).

You and I surely exist. But we aren't existence itself. We aren't necessary. We are contingent, wholly dependent upon that which exists necessarily. So, there is a gulf between being and merely having or participating in being. 

Now, as alluded to above, every dispute comes down to what is and isn't the case (and what could or couldn't be, based upon a real potential to be this or that).  

"To be" is "at the basis of all judgments," and is indeed "the soul of judgment." Someone with poor judgment, for example, makes decisions rooted in things that are not the case, that have no being (or potential being, like socialism, or "social justice," or transgenderism). 

Conversely, prudence -- rightly ordered practical judgment -- is founded upon conformity with reality: 

true judgment itself corresponds to reality -- that is, to the existence of things.... Judgment is true if it affirms that which is and if it denies that which is not.

It seems strange that all men cannot agree on such a self-evident truth -- that truth is, and what is is true --  nevertheless, here we are, ruled by intellectual tyrants who insist that we live in an imaginary ideological world of never was, cannot be, and never will be. Make America Real again. That is to say, return to a commonsense realist metaphysic.

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