There is Only One Subject. But is it a Single, Progressive, or Trifocal Vision?

Sometimes I'm not that enthusiastic about writing yet another post. But then I remind myself, "Don't worry. No one is enthusiastic about reading one, either."

Then I think, "but if I stop posting, the satellight link will be severed and the trancemission will stop."

Okay, says I, we'll compromise: must every damn post be a big to-do? Why not just a few deft aphorisms or left field observations, like Larry King used to make in his weekly column? What's with airline silverware? Why's it always so cold? Ran into Henry Winkler at Duke Zeibert's, and he's still the Fonz!

As mentioned in the previous post, we're putting away Voegelin for the time being. We've been been flogging his corpus since way back before the Chinese flu was more than just an excuse for Dems to trash the economy.

So let's move on to another favorite German philosopher, Josef Pieper. It's remarkable how he says many of the same things as Voegelin does, only in 100 pages instead of 500. I realize he was a -- gasp -- popularizer. Nevertheless, he popularized some deeply unpopular things, most notably, truth and reality, so he's actually quite counter-cultural. He is a revolutionary against the permanent reactionaries of the left, even if he was far too polite to put it that way.

And he has such layers of depth in his writing and thinking, as is always the case with the True Philosopher and Theologian -- and in fact, this is how you can tell you're dealing with one. For it is written:

We only have to read in order to discover what we have to reread eternally (Dávila).

Perhaps you've noticed that in the sidebar there is a new category. In addition to current reading, there is a link to books I'm currently rereading (or re-rereading). This is because I've read enough, at least for my purposes. Petey says, "Okay, you can stop. Now, try to synthesize all that stuff to which you were directed by Holy Happenstance and Coony Coincidence. Put it all together into a Single Trifocal Vision. If you can!"

In other words, a dare. Challenge accepted!

Does this mean Bob doesn't need any more information, or that he's actually achieved the omniscience he pretends to have achieved? No! The Bob does not pretend!

What am I trying to say? The other day I read a book on Chesterton called The Complete Thinker. Like Pieper, he too was a popularizer, but a bit too wild & wooly for my taste. Too journalistic and chaotic for a vertical control freak such as myself. Nevertheless, we agree on all the main points, such as THE main point:

There is only one subject.

Boom. This is true whether we like it or not, but it takes no less than a lifetime to realize its truth. In other words, it goes to what Petey says above about putting it all together into a single vision. As we shall soon see, both words are equally important: single and vision, or apprehension of unity and reception of Light. This verticalisthenic is more passive and receptive than active and discursive. Third eyesight is 20/∞, and all that.

Before getting back to Pieper, is there anything else we can pull from G.K., any more hints, clues, or insults?

Here are a couple, one thing leading to the Other:

All proof begins with something which cannot be proved, but can only be perceived or accepted, and is called an axiom or first principle.

Anyone who presumes to think must accede to this truism. Add to it the following, and mix slowly:

[N]othing can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is true.

Now we've got something, and that something is Everything, the unifying vision, the vast area rug that pulls the whole cosmos together, both vertical and horizontal, subject and object, transcendence and immanence, etc. We'll return to everything shortly, but first a couple more somethings, and I'm going to try to skip over some juicy but non-relevant ones -- fine insultainment, but not suited to the present purpose.

"All real philosophy," says Chesterton, "is apocalyptic." It is a revelation. It unveils the truth. We all want to know more than what language tells us. We want to see the big picture, but we also want to know how every little picture fits into the big picture. We want to see how everything fits together.

Which is what Petey keeps telling me, precisely. Ah, but there's more! For it's not just how things fit together; rather, one must take it one step deeper, and explore how it is possible for any thing to fit, and indeed, what "together" could possibly mean.

How is "together" even possible? By virtue of what principle can things be related? And yet, everything hinges upon the irreducible possibility of two-gatheredness. To put it another way, if interior relations aren't baked into the cosmic cake -- or woven into the cosmic rug -- then this isn't even a cosmos, let alone an intelligible one. Who cares if a Chinaman pees on it?

Has the world gone crazy? Am I the only one who cares about the rules? All contrary opinions -- i.e., modern and postmodern philosophies -- have only three little drawbacks: they aren't connected to reality, they aren't connected to the human subject, and they aren't connected to themselves. Or in other words, they are internally inconsistent, externally inconsistent, and vertically incoherent. Eight year olds, Dude.

Before we even speak, we must acknowledge that this is the type of cosmos in which speaking is possible in principle, and this isn't just any type of cosmos. Moreover,

all communication is translation. It starts with translating our own thoughts into words and continues with someone else translating our words into something they understand.

This is asking a great deal of readers, and too much of trolls, but there it is: this is a translational cosmos, and what a concept! But

A modern thinker not only will not state his own opinion in clear, straightforward English, but he is hideously affronted if you do it for him (GKC, in Ahlquist).

Thus, quoting Biden is elder abuse, as quoting Kamala is racist and misogynistic. It is fear of a Strong Woman of Color!

This post is turning into another big to-do. We'll get back to Pieper and to the cosmic vision in the next post. We'll just leave off with these:

The modern ideas claim to be expansive and inclusive; they are in fact narrow. They are unable to hold anything so large as Christianity.

Well, they can, but only a desiccated straw man version. Which tells you a lot -- about the intellectual dishonesty at the heart of the modern project. Or worse, the clueless sincerity. For "Modern thought simply means modern thoughtlessness (GKC).

Thoughtless? Not me. Happy 33rd anniversary to Mrs. G, without whom! And with.