Green Tara c. 1260s, Nepal

“Homage, golden lady, whose lotus-hand

Is graced with a blue water-born flower.

You embody generosity, diligence, endurance,

Serenity, patience and meditation.

Homage to the one whose victories are endless,

Jewel on the great Tathāgata’s crown.

You are well served by the heirs of the Victors,

Those who’ve accomplished all the perfections.

Homage to the one who, with tuttāra and hūṃ,

Fills desire realms unto the ends of space.

You trample underfoot the seven worlds,

And have the strength to summon all” (from the Praises to the Twenty-One Tārās)

~

“Science is a plant that we must abandon to its natural growth” - Joseph de Maistre

~

“Just as the fire when touched with or without knowledge burns the body so does the ash worn consciously or unconsciously sanctify the man” (Shiva Purana)

NOESIS 3

*

“If [living things] can live in the way natural to them without impediment, what prevents us from saying that they too are in a good state of life?...For they can have satisfactory experiences and be engaged in their natural work”

(I.4.1)

That is, we are anticipating already, at the opening of this section, that “inconspicuous being-in-the-world” (to borrow Heidegger’s phrasing) has some kind of connection with the “good life” (here “euzoia”, though usually “eudaimonia”, as per this Ennead’s title). How exactly “eudaimonia” is imaged (if that is the nature of the link in question) by this inconspicuous character of animal life remains to be seen, but we should keep this association in mind for what follows. Somehow or another, then, a condition of uninterrupted work that flows without reflection (for this would interrupt the flow) is so connected with the object of this section’s inquiry that it is the very first example Plotinus produces for our reflection. In any case, that is already an interesting juxtaposition here that will recur throughout this section, namely, between the “good” and “life”, and together with this, though he does not quite say so explicitly in the above passage, we have also just inferred the factor of how conspicuous the manner of “good life” in question is, that is, how conscious or unconscious. The question of the “good life” will revolve around these four poles—“life”, the “good”, consciousness, unconsciousness. Moreover, note also that he opens this section with an immediate contrast between human life and other goods, and indeed perhaps multiple kinds of life, and multiple goods, and indeed perhaps multiple kinds of consciousness and unconsciousness to complement them.

*

“Those who deny [the good life] to plants run the risk of denying it to all living things...[for] the experience must be good before one is aware of it, for example, to be in a natural state is good, even if one is not aware of it...and that it is pleasant (as it must necessarily be)”

(I.4.2)

Here Plotinus drives a hard conceptual wedge between the good and awareness, such that one can be in a good state without being aware of it (“lanthanein”—it escapes one’s notice), its goodness remaining entirely unaffected according to whether or not one notices it—these notions are purely and simply distinct. What is more, he drives this wedge so far that a condition of this kind can even be termed a pleasant one, absent any awareness that it is such. This seems to run against conventional understanding, and almost sounds absurd when stated this bluntly. In fact, however, there is an example consistent with this assessment common to ordinary experience, and it is even an example which has a place of fundamental philosophical importance for another contemplative tradition, namely, that of advaita vedanta. The experience in question is that of deep sleep (sushupti), or what is also known as the “third state” in a scheme of four, for, as they make it a point of noting, and as our own experience will probably confirm, in waking up from deep and dreamless sleep we have the general impression that “I have just experienced something very pleasant”. Be that as it may, here Plotinus brings in the question of consciousness or lack thereof, to which we alluded above, explicitly, and in connection with different kinds of life, even including plants in his assessment of the “good life”, a condition which, evidently, is indifferent to one’s consciousness or lack thereof, such that to exclude plants from a share in it (even as a matter of degree) merely because they lack awareness is considered insufficient grounds.

*

“So if something is good and is there its possessor is already well off, so why should we bring sensation into it unless of course people attribute good not to the actual experience [ginomeno pathei] but to the knowledge [gnosei] and perception [aisthesei] of it?...But if he must know that it is the good, this is no longer the business of sensation but of another greater power”

(I.4.2)

To begin with, it sounds strange, semantically I mean, to say “experience” in a way that excludes awareness, but this has the sense of something one undergoes, something one “suffers” (pathei), as it were, just as a person rendered unconscious with sedatives is able to undergo the “experience” of surgery. That out of the way, we can turn to the more interesting point here, namely, the question of the “power” through which one apprehends the good, as we briefly considered also in the last section. Depending on the “good” in question here, he could, for instance, have intellect in mind, and so the “good life”, as for Aristotle, would be a contemplative (theoria) one turned toward the good of knowledge. On the other hand, he could mean the good, unqualified, which as stipulated earlier, is approached in an unknowing, a hyperagnosia, since it transcends intellect and being. At the same time, he has just posited the “good life” as a condition indifferent to one’s consciousness or lack thereof. Bringing these reflections together here, it would seem that the hyperagnosia in which the good is approached is itself something indifferent to the status of our awareness, conscious or unconscious. This, once again, recalls the theories of advaita vedanta, for the “fourth state” (turiya), in their scheme of four (waking—dreaming—deep sleep—turiya), is considered as beyond the conscious-unconscious distinction, inferred as the unity (or rather “non-dual” [advaita] premise) implied by the transition from consciousness to unconsciousness and back, the “subject” of these experiences, as it were (albeit, not in a transcendental sense [2]). Turiya is what always subsists, whether or not we are aware that it is so, whether or not we have realized an identity with this through that “greater power”, greater not only than sensation but, in this case, also of knowing, a power which effects that identity or removes the “illusory” (maya) obstacles to the apprehension that this identity always already subsists. The “good life”, then, would seem to be something of this kind, or at least somehow related to this, a “fourth state” that subsists irrespective of our awareness. Indeed, one can extend this to goods generally, as Plotinus does. Goods, as goods, are indifferent to our awareness of them. To know is good, but the goodness of this knowledge does not depend on any awareness of it [3]. A seemingly paradoxical formulation—is it knowledge if I do not know that I know it?—but one whose implications will be crucial for what follows, as pertains to the character of knowledge itself, and not only the good as we just considered, and in relation to the conscious-unconscious distinction. Putting aside the question of the “goodness” of this knowledge, for the moment, we can reflect on the above question (is it knowledge if I do not know that I know it?) in terms of a factor that we brought in earlier, namely, that of “inconspicuous being-in-the-world”. The answer to this question, then, is a definite “yes”, for in our everyday manner of being we relate knowingly to our situation without an explicit awareness of this knowing as a knowing. Knowledge, for Plotinus, does not depend on explicit awareness, a point which he will confirm more explicitly later on in this section. We can also refer to the identity of intellect and being (both of which, together, constitute the second of the three primary hypostases). Knowledge simply is. Awareness is an extraneous factor here (though, this is a point we will have to qualify later on).

1: Hence, “unknowing” is not synonymous with “unconscious” nor does it exclude the opposite.

2: That it is not in a transcendental sense is obvious from the fact that there cannot meaningfully be a transcendental subject in a state of total unconsciousness, that is, absent a subject-object relation.

3: In this case, it neither depends on any awareness of the goodness of that knowledge nor on any awareness of that knowledge. For both knowledge and the good are distinct from awareness. These are three distinct notions which sometimes happen to intersect in our thinking about them.

*

“Suppose we assume that [well-being—“eudaimonia”] is to be found in life...The term ‘life’ [however] is used in many different senses, distinguished according to the rank of the things to which it is applied...and ‘living’ also means different things in different contexts”

(I.4.3)

Here we are given occasion to connect points we raised previously, in relation to “virtue” and the “journey of ascent”, with the question of “life”. As we can see here, this notion should not be taken for granted, at least not in a Platonic context. What “life” even is or means is not prima facie obvious (likewise, we have hopefully been careful thus far not to take “soul” for granted either). Like virtue, the meaning of “life” is extended across “levels”, and these “levels”, as considered in relation to the “journey of ascent” (incidentally, cf. the “miraj” of Muhammad, which terminated at a tree in the “highest heaven”), must be simultaneously considered under the aspect of continuity and discontinuity. Which is to say, there are different kinds of “life” which somehow are all subsumed by this same term, and this meaningfully and not by way of mere equivocation.

*

“[The term ‘life’] is used...in various ways of things distinguished from each other by the clarity or dimness of their life; so obviously the same applies to ‘living well’. And if one thing is an image of another, obviously its good life is the image [eidolon] of another good life...If the best among realities is being really alive, [this] is the perfect life [teleios zoe]. So its good will not be something brought in from outside...At present we are not looking for the [’outside’] cause but for the immanent [euparchon] element...The perfect life...is in that transcendent intelligible reality [noera phusei]...[and] as long as all living things proceed from a single origin, but have not life to the same degree as it, the origin must be the first and most perfect life”

(I.4.3)

Having established the multivalence of the term “life”, we also have to consider the criterion (or criteria) which differentiates one form of life from another and, since for Plotinus it is also a question of rank, a “higher” form of life from a “lower” one. Here we are presented with two ways of approaching this, ways that intersect and contradict each other, ways that seem to exhibit their own ranks in conformity with the forms of “life” they sift. On the one hand, we distinguish forms of “life” by their clarity or dimness, and, on the other, distinguish them by their goodness. The criterion of “clarity and dimness” would seem initially to be chiefly continuous here, a matter only of the degree to which a single magnitude is expressed, but there are indeed kinds, for the clarity of the senses is one thing, the clarity of dianoetic thinking another, and the clarity of intellection a third. The question of a life’s goodness, as represented in this passage, initially seems to be chiefly discontinuous, for it is represented as a series of levels which image (eidolon) each other analogically. Yet, implicitly, we seem to have something continuous in mind here, by even considering these levels as exhibiting either more or less a degree of “goodness”. We have here our basic terms—clarity and dimness, image and goodness—and now we must turn to consider their interactions and contradictions.

In the first place, then, “life” considered on its own, apart from its goodness—for, we stipulated already that these are susceptible of being treated separately (after all, if knowledge and the goodness of knowledge are distinguishable than the same should be applicable here)—and the criterion which distinguishes one life from another, a “higher” from a “lower”, is its degree of clarity or dimness [1]. This distinction of clarity (tranoteti) and dimness (amudroteti) seems to be roughly parallel to the distinction of consciousness and unconsciousness (if not merely another way of phrasing the same). Thus, to be more conscious is characteristic of life qua life, and yet, somehow, our degree of consciousness is irrelevant to the “good life”. That is curious. To live a “good life”, one need not be conscious or conscious that it is a “good life”, and yet that life which is more conscious is also “higher” and therefore we can reasonably suppose it to be better! There is a certain further distinction we can introduce here in order to deal with this difficulty, though Plotinus does not explicitly do so, and the implications of factoring this further distinction into our thinking here prove interesting enough to justify this inclusion, in my view.

The distinction in question is that between act and potency. Let us say, then, that a “higher” form of life evinces a greater potential for clarity (or consciousness) than a “lower” one, irrespective of whether this is “actualized”. The goodness of a life is indifferent as to whether a life’s clarity and consciousness falls on one or the other side of this divide between act and potency, which is to say that a form of life is “higher” or better according to the degree of consciousness that its form (eidos) accommodates. Indeed, it seems we have to refine our new distinction even further, by adding a third term, for if the goodness of a life is indifferent to the divide between the act or potency of its clarity then to say that a “higher” one evinces a greater “potential” for clarity would be to formulate things in a way that is still partial to the “potential” side of this divide. The third term that we are looking for, then, is none other than that of possibility, for possibility is the indifference to act and potency which encompasses them both—an actuality is just as possible as a potency. What is more, “possibility” also transcends these terms altogether, for one can also speak of “pure possibilities” which are neither potential nor actual. This, stricto sensu, is what a “principle” is. Hence, if it is the possible clarity of a form of life which makes it more “good”, then we have arrived at a manner of speaking here that is much more satisfying in its terminological exactitude, for “possibility” and “good” (in its Platonic sense) are two terms which characterize plenary non-being, depending on the tactillective aspect under which we want to consider it (and the same, of course, applies to the equally tactillective characterization “plenary non-being”!). Stated somewhat crudely, “possibility” and “good” have the same “referent” (and, to consider that which excludes all otherness and relationality as a “referent” is already a tactillective procedure).

In light of this, it seems we also have to refine what we mean by an “indifference” to the divides of act-potency or consciousness-unconsciousness, for we seem now to be faced with two possible senses of such an “indifference”. On the one hand, we have an indifference either to consciousness or unconsciousness (ditto for act and potency) and, on the other, we have an indifference to consciousness-unconsciousness altogether. Thus, if the indifference which transcends the distinction altogether has just been identified with “the good”, via “possibility”, then it remains to assign a significance to the other sort of indifference, namely, that which is indifferent as to which side of the divide it falls under. I think that, in some ways, we have already anticipated this “assignment”, for it seems to be none other than intellect, which, as considered earlier, is indifferent as to its state, either of consciousness or unconsciousness, and yet always seems to be expressed in either one state or the other. That intellect would be “double” in this way, divided across a distinction like this, seems to be confirmed by its general framing in Platonic thought, for Intellect and Being, in their principal sense, constitute one and the same hypostasis, and Being, in turn, is designated “the Mixed” (in that case, specifically in reference to the distinction of “bound” [peras] and “indefinite” [apeiron]). There seem to be a multitude of aspects, then, under which we can view the doubleness of this doubled Intellect-Being. For instance, moving on to the already invoked distinction of act-potency, we can call to mind reflections we have carried out in prior series, and assign to intellect an “eminent” relation to act and to being an “eminent” relation to potency [2]. In any case, Intellect-Being’s flexible indifference to state seems to be a function of its basic doubleness, its being known as intellect and being (being intellected as being-intellect). Figuratively, we could say that being-intellect is an androgyne where the One transcends gender altogether (granting that the androgyne itself can also be taken as a symbol of precisely this transcending of gender). We will have more to say on this doubleness of being-intellect later in this series. Thus, in any case, our intellecting and our manner of being always expresses itself in one or another “state”, but irrespective of which state this happens to be, whether, for instance, consciousness or unconsciousness (of whatever degree or kind), intellect remains intellect and being remains being. The Good, on the other hand, collapses the whole hierarchy of states through its sheer and implacable indifference (quite literally it’s non-difference, for at this “level” there is no relationality or difference—let alone any “level”!).

All that being said, we still have to inquire, in terms of the above, as to what it is that makes a “higher” (and more possibly conscious) form of life closer to the good, more good, than a “lower” (less possibly conscious) one. After all, the distinction in the rank of forms of life is expressed in terms of their possible clarity (or consciousness), but the goodness by virtue of which we designate the more conscious to be “higher” and “better” is indifferent to consciousness and unconsciousness altogether! Here, perhaps, the notion of “image” (eidolon) is pertinent. Their degrees of goodness lie in a resemblance to the good (a tactillective consideration), and this resemblance subsists irrespective of our awareness of it subsisting. “Awareness-of” is a reflexivity which adds nothing (in the double sense [3]) to what it reflects, like a mirror image (see below). Thus, somehow or another, “higher” and more possibly conscious forms of life image the good with a superior degree of clarity. That the term “image” (eidolon) is invoked here rather than, say, “form” (eidos), seems to be of decisive import. For, in the final analysis, even the highest form of life conceivable is but an eidolon, an image and ghostly apparition, a nothing, next to the ineffable splendor of the good. Indeed, a “lower” form is apparition-like for a “higher” one, a mere simulation of life, a sham life, by comparison, not to speak of a comparison with the good itself. This hierarchy of “life” is a tactillective construct. It collapses altogether when its ultimate term is reached. Thus, the answer to our question—what makes a “higher” form of life to be more “good” than a “lower” one?—seems to be “nothing at all”, but a “nothing” which, in practice, and for all intents and purposes, is of decisive importance. And, yet, we have still not really answered the question, for it still remains to clarify just how it is that clarity or dimness image the good, and why it is that clearer forms of life “somehow or another” image the good more adequately, even if this is only “for all intents and purposes”.

Why, or how, is it, then, that more “clear” forms of life image (eidolon) the good more adequately than more “dim” life forms? The answer, fundamentally, is that they do not, but they do for us, for our intents and purposes, and, in this context, “our” means not just “human beings” but also “Platonists”, for it is a question here also of the specific intellective bias of this philosophy. Thus, what is involved here is the already alluded to doubleness of Being-Intellect, and what I have elsewhere called the “ontological symmetry” of the intellects, a symmetry which is the product of a merely virtual split between intellect (= active intellection) and being (= passive intellection), and which ultimately collapses into a unity (what I have called “primordial intellection”). We can, therefore, say the same of the terms of “eminence” which characterize them (insofar as they characterize them)—in this case, the clarity and consciousness which intellect is eminently and the dimness and unconsciousness which being is eminently. In that connection, it would be helpful to consider “clarity” and “dimness” in more broadly symbolic terms. What we want to see, however, is not a juxtaposition between being and intellect, but how it is that the doubled unity being-intellect images the good and, since the “intellective bias” of the Platonic stream of philosophy is eminently intellective, we will frame this, at least initially, as a juxtaposition of intellect and the good, primarily.

On the one hand, then, “clarity” is symbolic of intellect, generally, for it is a kind of luminosity and vision. The “good”, juxtaposed against this, presents itself as a kind of “dimness”, a hyperagnosia—it has a “dissimilar similarity” to the dimness and obscurity of matter [4]. On the other hand, and at the same time, the good is the “sun” (see Republic) beyond being whose light illuminates the intelligible forms, and intellect, as already considered, is intelligible in its operations irrespective of any awareness (= clarity = consciousness) that it is such (important to recall here that “clarity” is not only of degrees but of kinds—the clarity of reflexive awareness is of a different kind from intellective absorption). Intellectivity is just as operative in the inconspicuously “dim” manner of our “everydayness” (and in that connection, it is eminently the being side of intellect-being which is expressed, that is, passive intellection). These polarities of clarity and dimness, one could say, are interchangeable by virtue of intellect (= being), for even in symbolically characterizing the One (as either clear or dim) we are intellecting with respect to it, presenting it as a symbol (that is, an intellective image, which is to say, imaginally), just as, for instance, we might present it as a being above the summit of beings (whereas Intellect-Being would constitute that summit). Thus, the One appears as either clear or dim by virtue of intellect-being’s doubleness, and clarity and dimness collapse into each other by virtue of the One. The imaging (eidolon) of the One is our own tactillective construction, and the way that we effect it, whether through a symbolism of clarity or a symbolism of dimness, is a matter of expediency relative to our context. Both images are equally “valid”.

Before we conclude this, already somewhat lengthy, commentary on the above passage, there are two more questions here that it would be remiss to leave unaddressed (really, there are quite a few more, but these will hopefully be addressed in the general course of this series). Moreover, these questions seem to boil down to a single answer which encompasses them both. The first question is that of individual instances of life, for up to now we have chiefly framed things in terms of forms of life, for instance, in considering the”possible consciousness” of such a form. It is one thing to consider the degree of clarity characteristic of a lion’s form of life and another to consider how this would apply in the case of this or that lion. The other question is that of the ascetical practice of virtue in its connection with the production of differing degrees of consciousness and clarity internally to human life. For, it is one thing to consider forms of life as statically exhibiting a certain degree of clarity, and another thing to consider the changes and variations in degree or kind of clarity occurring within a the life of a living being. We will take this latter question as the setting for resolving the former.

The aim (telos) of an ascetical practice of virtue, then, is the accomplishment (again, cf. “telos”) of a “perfect life” (teleois zoe), at least if we are specifically considering “virtue” in terms of the concept of “life”, which we are certainly at liberty to do. The philosophic practice of virtue, that is, the practice characteristic of the way of life designated by “philosophy” in the Platonic tradition, properly begins at the level of cathartic virtue, that is, at the level of dianoetic virtue. This “level” of virtue purifies (hence, “cathartic”) through a dianoetic ascesis, which is to say, through a reflective and divisive thinking. We “purify” by dividing our initially inchoate and “mixed up” notions, putting each thing in its proper place, notionally and schematically, separating, as one might, the pure from the impure. This is a purification effected in and through reflective thinking, and the scheme of “higher” and “lower” forms of life is itself an instance of such dianoetic division. Such a scheme of ascending forms of life, as a waxing of possible consciousness, an extension of the power of clarity, is both produced by our dianoetic virtue and produced for it as its tactillective support, for the philosopher aims to ascend this ladder of living forms, and the degrees of clarity it presents in the guise of a plurality of distinct and hierarchically arranged forms of life are at the same time degrees of ascent internal to the singular life of the philosopher. Thus, this scheme of life, as a product of dianoetic virtue, is itself one of the immanent (euparchon) elements of a life moving toward its own “accomplished perfection”. We produce this scheme of ascent so that we might ascend by virtue of it, that is, by virtue of intelligibly framing things in terms of “ascent”, to begin with.

Hence, the degree of clarity we ascribe to either a form of life or an instance of it is a projection of the degree of virtue we have realized, the “degree” in question being a dianoetic one, for it is at this level that the “purifying” division of our inchoate thinking begins. One can further surmise that at a theoretic “level” of virtue this same division is apprehended in its capacity as a genuine symbolism, a mandala of living forms for our contemplation. What is more, the final term of this journey of ascent, a journey we initially framed dianoetically, and subsequently contemplated (theoria) “theoretically”, is none other than the origin (arche) and First Principle of things, which collapses the whole scheme altogether. This is not to suggest that such a scheme is therefore arbitrary (that is, by virtue of collapsing on itself “in the last instance”) or a product of mere convention. It is a tactillective construct, and tactillection is not arbitrary. It is an intelligible construct which points at that which transcends intelligibility, as all forms of life circumambulate the good in their desire for it.

What conditions the specificities of such a scheme’s construction is the intelligible context in which we construct it, both in the historical sense and in terms of the pole of intellectivity that we privilege (indeed, this latter, too, has a historical dimension to it—this privileging is not “randomly assigned” at an individual level). We are not obliged to accept a Platonic scheme (I mean, especially, “we” moderns), but we likewise cannot dismiss it as arbitrary (in which case we risk completely misunderstanding it). It is an intelligible construction produced through the immanent conditions of a certain life, that is, the philosophic life (and “philosophy” here is synonymous with “Platonic philosophy”), a life in which the desire for wisdom gives wings to our dianoia, a life in which we are trained to wrestle with every aporia until it submits to dialectic. In brief, we think of life in a manner that conforms to our way of living, and in living well (euzoia or eudaimonia) we think in the best and clearest way toward that which is the most “perfect life” (teleios zoe).

Finally, “individual instances” fit into this scheme in the capacity of “apparitions” (eidolon). For, insofar as we consider them as such, individualizing the form of their life, we presume the form as something from which we depart toward the instance which images it, the eidolon of the eidos. This “presumption”, too, is a function of the philosophic life, an application of purificatory and divisive virtue, an immanently produced expression of this life’s intelligible form. Thinking in terms of the individuality of the instance is, as such, a thinking with a lesser degree of intelligibility (i.e. less intellectively) then the contemplation (theoria) of a form (eidos). As we will see later (Ennead V.7), we are not obliged to reduce particulars to a merely individualized particularity. Particulars also subsist in the “realm of forms”, which is to say that they have their own gnosensiential universality; but more on this later.

1: Naturally, it seems implicit here that one is higher because it is more good, so our separation of these aspects is more virtual than anything—after all, nothing which subsists in any capacity is really separate from the Good, the One, the All.

2: And, in that connection, one could perhaps even argue that qua intellect, this second hypostasis of the Platonists, is “eminently” bound and qua being “eminently” indefinite.

3: It “positively” adds a nothing to that which it reflects, and it does not add anything. We have considered this dynamic elsewhere.

4: The “dimness” of the good is also imaged by the state of deep sleep (sushupti). Yet, it is not this state for this still merely is a state, whereas the “fourth state” (turiya) is not really a state at all but that which always subsists irrespective of state.

*

“Man has perfect life [teleian zoein] by having not only sense-life [aesthetiken] but reasoning [logismon] and the true intelligence [noûn alethinon]...He is not a man at all unless he has this either potentially or actually...Other men, we maintain, who have it potentially, have it as a part [meros], but the man who is well off [eudaimona], who actually [energeia] is this and has passed over into identity with it, is it. Everything else is something he wears”

(I.4.4)

We have another complex heap here whose interlacing threads we need to untangle, reasoning about them and dividing them one from another, so that we might uncover the intelligible whole which they jointly compose—man as he is potentially, man as he is actually, man’s “perfect life”, reasoning and true intelligence, possession and identity, part and (by implication) whole, the real being and the “garments” that it wears, and, finally, this whole heap of elements considered as a heap or considered as an integrally intelligible unity. Potentiality and actuality we considered above, though Plotinus had not yet introduced these terms into his equation of the good life. Intellect, we said, is indifferent qua intellect, as to which side of this divide it falls on. Here we see that the human being, as a “joint entity” composed of sensibility (aesthetiken), reasoning (logismon or dianoia), and “true intelligence” (noûn alethinon), is not, as such, indifferent to this passage from potency to act. It makes a great deal of difference to the well-being of the human being whether or not it has passed from one to the other (and, recall, the intellective bias of this philosophy is a factor here, as well). What is more, this passage is not really complete (or “perfect”) until it culminates in an identity with this “true intelligence”. That this identity pertains to “true intelligence” rather than to “reasoning” is evident from the identity which already subsists between being and intellect—intellect already just is, where the same is not true of reasoning. Intellect’s just being is exempt from having to reason about things. It is from the standpoint of this human “caprigenus” (as we have called it), living a philosophical life, that reasoning effects the passage in question. The aim of this process of reasoning, however, is not merely to engage in a process of reasoning, not a “pure thought thinking itself”, but to rest in identity with a stable “wisdom” which renders such reasoning superfluous. It is, again the human being that must make this passage. That this is a passage to an intellect which, by implication, is all-actuality, is indicative of a certain “philosophical bias”. Intellect itself makes no such passage and is indifferent in its intelligibility to such a distinction—it is not any less intelligible in potency than in act. Reasoning purifies the human being as a caprigenus, divests it of its unintelligible complexity, as one is divested of “garments”, and “elevates” it along an ascending passage from potency to act, into the identity of an integral whole. In this identity, sensibility and reasoning are not lost to the human being. They are incorporated and contextualized. For the “true intelligence” which is the culmination of this process, is at one and the same time the summit toward which reasoning and sensibility [1] tend, the very center around which they revolve, tracing their circumambulatory path, and the whole life of which they are parts, no longer as elements heaped up by addition, but as garments which express a unified meaning. Where before sensibility and reasoning were separate things fused together as if by arbitrary decree, now they both constitute outward expressions of one and the same intelligibility. In other words, they now have a value that is properly “imaginal”.

There is a certain tension here. The “human being”, initially a caprigenus, a heap divided against itself (and in this dividedness it shows itself as eminently the “rational animal”), in order to be essentially what it is must pass into identity with an intelligibility which transcends the merely human. The complexity which constituted its initial humanity is recontextualized as the outwardness of a “garment”. We distinguish the “real being” from the garments that it happens to wear, even if it always does happen to wear some set of garments or another. We do not seem to ever really encounter this being in the nude, though, by virtue of this distinction, it becomes clearly manifest to us that every being is always nude underneath its clothes. This “real being”, identified with intellect, is indifferent to the garments it happens to wear—the garments, though always there, change continually, while the essential being remains the same. This is another way of expressing intellect’s character as a “one many”—a one with many changes of clothes.

The “human being” we are considering here, then, is intellect, or a “joint entity”, a “caprigenus”, purified to its essential element, divided from its dividedness until it stands alone as intellect. It is through logismon that the “human being” is purified and we arrive at an understanding of (indeed, an identity with) what this being essentially is. The human being, as initially given, is itself revealed to be a “garment” for intellect, and the essence of the human being is shown to lie in that which transcends its humanity. It is the essence of the human being to be more than human, and to be merely human is, therefore, to be less than human. This is to say that “man is made in the image of God” or, at the very least, in the image of intellect. The heap of garments that we are initially already symbolize and tend toward the being that we are essentially. Indeed, as already considered, the reasoning portion of this heap, as a philosophical way of life, tends “immanently” toward the realization of this essential identity, whereas the sensible portion tends toward it without realizing it unless a certain method is imported into it (the method of refinement of the object of beauty). The clothes make the man.

In this connection, the “perfect life” (teleian zoein) also seems to signal something superior to intellect, that is, the good itself. And, if we can speak of the “perfect life” as an intellective one, that is because intellect, too, is a garment for this good, a composition (“the Mixed”; Being-Intellect) which images the good towards which it tends. Intellect, too, risks being degraded into something less than itself whenever it fails to be more than itself (and we have a species of such a degradation in any philosophy for which Being is the final term, rather than the One or non-Being—we will have more to say on this later). Indeed, in Platonic thinking, intellect eminently is the “convertive” or “revertive” (epistrophe) hypostasis. It is by virtue of intellect’s character as transcending itself, that the “human being”, considered essentially as intellect, transcends itself. It is one and the same gesture of self-transcendence considered from distinct perspectives (or, more precisely, what we have elsewhere called “tactillective fields”), namely, that of the human being’s “journey of ascent”, on one side, and that of intellect as a hypostasis within a whole metaphysical picture of the real, on the other.

Finally, it would be appropriate here to say something regarding the “intellective bias” of this philosophy, for, as mentioned above, it pertains directly to the way Plotinus frames the passage toward a “perfect life”, a passage also considered in terms of part and whole. This might become clearer when we consider the (implicitly) visual dimension of this framing, its symbolic presentation as a hierarchy. For, each way station on this journey of ascent is but a part of the total passage, whereas the summit is expressly conceived as the whole of which each stage was but an imperfect image. Here we must recall that it is the good life that we are seeking, and by extension the good itself. Thus, it is a question here only of which pole of intellection, of the unity Intellect-Being, we take as eminently imaging the good. That is, it is a question of our intellective bias. This journey could just as well be conceived as a deepening repose in the intelligible potency of being, a divestment of actuality as of that which is mere surface. There will be much more to say on this dynamic later in this series.

1: Indeed, sensibility also, through a desire for the beautiful.

*

“The Transcendent Good is the Cause of the good in him; the fact that It is good is different from the fact that It is present to him...The man in this state does not seek anything else; for what could he seek?...What he seeks he seeks as necessity [anagkaion]...he seeks it for the body...[The body] lives its own life and not that which is that of the good man”

(I.4.4)

The human being considered here as in the state of well-being (eudaimonia) appears divided; on the one hand, in identity with the good and, on the other hand, in a state caused by the good. That we must simultaneously take both of these standpoints as “valid” in their own way, is confirmed in the human being’s own relationship with their body and life. The human being here is in identity with the good that is present as a cause of the good life. In parallel fashion, this human being in its identity with the good is the cause of the good in the body, or rather of the fact that its life is good, whatever the specificities of its fortunes and misfortunes, for the body follows the “outward” course of necessity but the good is indifferent to this. The good remains good irrespective of outward circumstance.

The state of well-being, it seems, is being considered here in two ways, divisibly and indivisibly. In terms of the indivisibility of eudaimonia, the question of “seeking” is entirely inapplicable—what could the human in a state of complete eudaimonia seek? The good is self-sufficient and excludes nothing from its goodness, neither fortunes nor misfortunes. Nor does it exclude a diversity of approaches to the realization of its identity, for instance, those we might broadly characterize as gradual or sudden, sanity and inspired madness. If we bring this up it is because there is a question, in relation to the framing of the above passage, as to what manner of life the body pursues under the influence of this good which is present to it but which is good indifferently to this presence. Just as the fortunes and misfortunes “external” to the body are a matter of indifference to the goodness of the good, the same can be supposed for the body’s manner of living and the “good” man’s behavior, for the good respects no such distinction between externality and internality. After all, “the good” here does not mean the merely “morally good”. Whether or not the good’s presence as a cause imbues the body’s manner of life with typically “moral” qualities is a function of the body, considered divisively, as receptive of the good. Through what manner of preparatory ascesis has the human being received the good as cause and attained identity with it? A gradual path of virtue, of waxing intelligibility, is liable to express itself, from the divisive standpoint, in a manner distinct from the suddenness of the eruption of inspired madness. The good is so sheerly and integrally one that it does not need to integrate anything. Its unity is indifferent to the standpoint of divisibility. The task of integrating the body into a way of life outwardly expressive of goodness belongs to the ascesis of virtue, at its different levels.

*

“This search and willing is not directed to not being in this condition [of suffering from misfortune]...It is our reasoning [logismos] power that avoids and manages to get rid of them...But the real driver of desire of our soul is towards that which is better than itself”

(I.4.6)

“Soul” is both a desiring and a reasoning thing, and it is its desire which raises it above what reasoning can encompass in its merely auxiliary function. Indeed, it is by virtue of such a desire for the good that reasoning itself rises above the level of sophistry and our dianoia acquires wings. Moreover, there is more than one sense here that we can speak of the reasoning power “getting rid” of suffering and misfortune. There is a sense as it pertains to political virtue. Here reasoning power does not investigate the meaning of these misfortunes or the nature of the being to whom they seem to pertain. Here it works through practical problems of suffering in the life of the human being, under the tacit assumption that these are simply a part of life, and that we just do deal with these things as a matter of course. At the level of cathartic virtue, however, one begins to genuinely divide such suffering away from the essential identity of the being. Through an investigation of this being, one gradually sets it apart from misfortunes, purifying its life from what we uncover as being merely incidental to it. Indeed, political virtue is implicitly dependent here, for there would be no sense in practically working toward the exclusion of suffering from social existence if we considered suffering as something truly essential to our life. Thus, political virtue takes the presence of suffering for granted, but proves its inessentiality through its practice, or, one could say, works indefinitely toward this proof without ever finally proving it.

*

“And does his [i.e. the wise man’s] belief that this [i.e. misfortune] may happen prevent his well-being? Then neither does the fact of its happening”

(I.4.7)

In other words, the wise man regards potentiality and actuality as being the same. Which is to say, the wise man is grounded in possibility, which for him is the same as reality. Possibility is the supreme degree of intelligibility, that is, “wisdom”.

*

“It is the business of virtue to raise ordinary nature to a higher level, something better than most people are capable of”

(I.4.8)

Indeed, and it is the business of mania to raise us above virtue—and, if that virtue itself has the aspect of an inspired mania, so much the better! That is, so much the more proximate to the good.

Logos saves from the waters, Sicily 12th Century

“I tell you, no virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments: Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse: not from rules” - William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

NOESIS 2

*

“What, then, is this escape [from the evils of the cosmos]? ‘Being made like a god’ Plato says. And we become godlike ‘if we become righteous’...and are altogether in virtue...Then are we not made godlike by the civic [politikas] virtues?...It is unreasonable to suppose that we are not made godlike in any way by the civic virtues”

(I.2.1)

The continuity considered earlier in the “levels” of virtue is here also affirmed, for the godlike characteristic of the “higher” virtues extends itself into the “lower”, without which these latter could not subsist. Political virtue is nothing if it is not also, at least implicitly, godlike, that is, if it does not somehow refer to or contain the ineffable trace of that je ne sais quoi which makes virtue to be virtue, over and above the intelligible content in virtue available to our reflection. Virtue is recognizable also in its divine taste, its gnosensiential distinctiveness. Virtue is “divinely inspired” (en-thusiastic) and manic, at bottom. Even the framing in terms of “escape” must collapse here, for the “escape” that virtue effects is internal even to our political practice. It is an escape not from a certain place to another spatial locale, but from a certain way of being. We could equally characterize it as an “immanent” transformation of the very place on which we stand, here and now, a transformation not, at least primarily, of that which can be pointed out ontically (though it can include this also), but a change at a more fundamental level, a metanoia in which the aspect under which the being of beings is disclosed to us in advance of any ontic specification is primarily what changes for us. We are the locale that is changed, the space in which and for which beings appear. It is also significant that in these passages Plotinus singles out, among the various senses of “god”, the direct principle of this visible cosmos—the Demiurgus and Soul of the All—as the reference point for a “godlike” virtue. His conception here is clearly not flatly and one-sidedly “world-denying”, even if a pathos of worldweariness is not entirely absent to it. One wearies of a world that is somehow not yet true to itself, or a manner of living in this world that is unheedful of its divine aspect. The power (dunamis) that the world could be and the excellence (arete) that it could exhibit is obscured in proportion to our failure to exhibit the same.

*

“For there is nothing outside the universe...But if this principle [i.e. the universe or world-soul] is in a state of aspiration toward the intelligible realities to which our aspirations too are directed...”

(I.2.1)

Consequently, these “intelligible realities” are not “outside” the universe. It does not necessarily follow that they are inside it either. I would suggest that they essentially are the universe, more than the universe is itself—or, as Meister Eckhart, comparably, puts it “God is in all things as intelligence, and is more truly in them than they are in themselves”. These “intelligible realities” constitute a transcendent (= immanent) degree of the universe, not something which “transcends” the universe in some kind of spatial sense. This “intelligible degree” of the cosmos is either apparent to us or not apparent in conformity to our own adequation to it, to the degree that we evince the same “aspiration” characteristic of the cosmos, as a whole, an adequation which is effected with virtue, through dialectical inquiry, or through whatever other means one might reasonably propose. In any case, this “intelligible degree” truly subsists, whether or not it is made overtly and conspicuously apparent for us. Even our heedlessness evinces it, however obscurely, for this heedless living, too, has an intelligible and symbolic structure, an intelligibility which is not transparent to itself, but is no less intelligible for that.

*

“First we must consider the virtues by which we assert that we are made like, in order that we may discover this one and the same reality which when we possess it as an imitation is virtue, but There, where it exists as an archetype, is not virtue”

(I.2.2)

After this, explaining “likeness” to be of two kinds, he specifies that the likeness characteristic of virtue is of the second kind, as follows—

This second kind of likeness, in turn, as pertains to virtue, also has two aspects to it, both of which we can basically comprehend under the designation, defined by us elsewhere, of “tactillection”. On the one hand, the tactillective character of virtue is of a “ritual” kind, a symbolic image, a conforming of our conduct to an intelligible prototype. But, then, on the other hand, there is another tactillective aspect of virtue which more clearly corresponds to the intended referent of the coinage “tactillection” (or, corresponding to a more supereminent usage of the term), namely, to the intention in rendering the Sanskrit “upaya” (usually “skillful means”) in this way, to begin with. In that respect, while virtue’s construction is certainly intelligible, a symbolic image, it is a symbol which somehow points out that which cannot be rendered in any symbol. For, as Plotinus tells us, “insofar as [virtue] participates in form it becomes like the Good, which is formless”. This is the superior sense of “tactillection”, a leveraging of intelligible construction (e.g. a symbol or ritual) toward that which transcends intelligibility altogether. We have as a type of this relation, for instance, the analogy somehow established by the Word—the symbol par excellence—and the transcendent Godhead that this Word somehow indicates (if not subsists in identity with). This is, properly, a “mystery”. It belongs to the “mustes” (mystics), to those who indicate without speaking. They say also that Dakshinamurti, the symbol of the guru (that is, the “teacher”) par excellence, the quintessential guru (Adi Guru), teaches through silence.

*

“Soul is nearer and more akin to [the Good] than body; so it participates more, to the point of deceiving us into imagining [phantastheisa] that it is a god”

(I.2.2)

This is, more or less, exactly what Rene Guenon means by “counter-tradition”, a substitution of psychicality for intellectivity (if not divinity). It is the mediating, transitional, liminal, and interpretative position of “soul” which facilitates this, and, to state it another way, it is to say that re-presentations are virtually raised to the status of presentations, mediations to the status of immediacy.

*

“Why is the divine itself not in this state [of virtue, as likeness to God]? It has no states [diaketai] at all; states [diathesis] belong to the soul”

(I.2.3)

cf. “station of no station” (maqam la maqam). That “states” are stipulated as belonging to “soul” is also worth commenting on—note that to be in a state is a kind of through-ness (dia-), as in, also, dianoia, the latter, also, being characteristic of this thing called “soul”. Intellection, in practice, always has a “residual” through-ness, for our intellectivity is always, in some degree, imaginal, situated in a “state”, expressed in symbols. That is, in practice, intellection is a topographically complex immediacy. The “pure” hypostasis of Intellect is the same as that of Being, and Being is not, that is, Being itself is not a manifest being (we will broach the topic of the “three primary hypostases” when we arrive at that section, i.e. Ennead V.1). In any case, we have here another “definition” of “soul”, or a reference point for what to understand by this term—namely, “through-ness”, situatedness in terms of a state or condition among other states or conditions. That is to say, we have a reference point for this reference point, this referentiality of points in a symbolically integral arrangement, for “soul” here is understood as a situatedness at a point within a whole, a whole which is not abstractly conceived but imaginally concrete, and a point which has the character of a symbolic center and not a neutrally posited point in Cartesian space, the place in which we move and live and have our being, the center out of which we trace the circumference of our care. Heidegger’s analysis of referential relations in sections 17 and 18 of Being and Time, can itself serve as a useful reference for grappling with the character of “soul” as here conceived, adjusting, mutatis mutandis, for the inversely intellective polarities of these respective philosophies.

*

“Virtue belongs to the soul, but not to Intellect or That which is beyond it”

(I.2.3)

Thus, even e.g. theoretic virtue is a practice of “soul” in its intellectivity, and the paradigmatic “level” of virtue must correspond to what is called the “henad” which is in the “soul”. The significance of this will be considered later (Ennead IV) in connection to what I there call the “multiplication of soul across the real”. It is by virtue of this that “soul” exceeds even intellect in importance.

*

“As the spoken word [logos] is an imitation [mimema] of that in the soul, so the word in the soul is an imitation of that in something else [i.e. in Intellect]; as the uttered word, then, is broken up into parts as compared with that in the soul; so is that in the soul as compared with that before it, which it interprets [hermeneus]”

(I.2.3)

A neat articulation of the dependency of transcendentality on the transcendent, of dianoia on noesis. Here the interpretive function of “soul” is also alluded to, but we will consider this more extensively in Ennead IV. That this imitative aspect of the relation between “soul” and intellect is expressed in terms of “word” is also worth dwelling on. Obviously there is an overtly hermeneutic aspect to this, as just considered, but, more specifically, it draws our attention to a distinction internal to the notion of a word, that is, a distinction between a discursive logos and a symbolic logos. This distinction is preliminary to any meaningful and skillful textual interpretation, and we cannot even understand the thinking of the Platonists if we do not know how to enter into their symbolic topography. Symbolic thinking, which is to say, intellection expressed imaginally, is its own kind of thinking, in comparison to which discursivity is a skeletal re-presentation. Metaphysics, such as of the Platonic variety, is a highly deft fusion of these two logoi. To approach their thinking only in terms of its discursive or conceptual content is to read them like a sophist, to reduce them to eristic disputations over “where” the “realm of forms” “really” is, or “how” participation “really” works (compare Phaedo 100d). We need sophistic deftness, but it must be applied to something concrete. At the level of philosophical exposition, symbolism gives us that concretion. Sophistry is “soul” reduced to itself alone, or, stated another way, sophistry is “thought thinking itself”. The comprehensive intelligibility of the symbol is the soil which renders conceptual thinking fruitful. We should be careful not to take this notion of the symbol for granted, however. It is not prima facie obvious what this means and I have dealt with it more extensively elsewhere .

*

“The virtue in the process of purification is less perfect than that in the achieved state...But being completely purified is a stripping of everything alien, and the good is different from that...[therefore] the nature which is left [after purification] was never really the good; for it if it was it would not have come into evil”

(I.2.4)

Here, first of all, Plotinus is expressing the same principle of “exemption” which we considered earlier. Purificatory (i.e. cathartic) virtue is rendered obsolete in the attained state of purity (which, in the context of this passage, should be assimilated to theoretic virtue, at minimum). The pure do not need to be purified, and, at the same time, nothing hinders them from engaging in purificatory acts—on the contrary, every obstacle to such acts has been removed. The condition of purity, however, is not yet “the good”, to which we can correspond a paradigmatic degree of virtue. At this degree of “exemption” something quite radical seems to occur—the entire hierarchical ordering collapses. For, this “stateless state” of the good is not only exempt from purification but also from purity, and from any kind of expressed virtue. The paradigms of virtue are not virtue, to put it in a way that almost sounds paradoxical, just as the good is not merely a good. The good is indifferent to the status of our purity. While that is not the same as to say that we are or should be blithely indifferent to this status, it would be equally dishonest to sweep the antinomian implications of this formulation under the rug. Indeed, Plato is quite open about these implications of his thinking on virtue when he states, in his Republic (towards the end of book IV), that

“Our principle that the born shoemaker or carpenter had better stick to his trade turns out to have been an adumbration of justice; and that is why it has helped us. But in reality justice, though evidently analogous to this principle, is not a matter of external behavior, but of the inward self and of attending to all that is, in the fullest sense, a man’s proper concerns. The just man does not allow the several elements in his soul to usurp one another’s functions...Only when he has linked these parts together in a well-tempered harmony and has made himself one man instead of many, will he be ready to go about whatever he may have to do, whether it be making money and satisfying bodily wants, or business transactions, or the affairs of state. In all these fields when he speaks of just and honorable conduct, he will mean the behavior that helps to produce and to preserve this habit of mind; and by wisdom he will mean the knowledge which presides over such conduct. Any action which tends to break down this habit will be for him unjust” (Cornford)

If this does not conform to the image of Plato that we are accustomed to, it is not because any far fetched or “esoteric” reading of Plato is involved here, but because the general tendency in reading Plato is to ignore nine out of ten parts of what he states boldly and openly and to construct a caricature out of the remainder. Purification, then, concludes in purity, and purity, in turn, is superseded by a total indifference to purity and purification. The summit of virtue is indifferent to virtue, though virtue is never indifferent to it. We could also bring to mind here the Daoist principle which considers virtue, as much as unvirtue, to constitute a departure from “the way”, a definite regression in our manner of being from its primordial perfection. The good, unqualified, is not merely a (qualified) moral good. Indeed, the Good is considered primarily as the object of desire for all, not as some kind of Platonic ideal of the boy scout, and Plotinus tells us further on that “our concern, though, is not to be out of sin, but to be a god” (I.2.6). Mention of “the Good” should evoke mania and desire, not propriety and affability. If “the Good” were a film, it would not be rated PG.

*

“Intellect is not alien and is particularly not alien when soul looks toward it; otherwise it is alien even when it is present”

(I.2.4)

This accounts for the fact that “intellect” seems to be such a strange notion to those unfamiliar with it, when it is really and fundamentally something ordinary. When we “look toward it”, we know it in its ordinariness. It seems, as well, that there are some who are positively invested in “mystifying” and exoticizing “intellect”, such as all manner of “occultist”.

*

“We might say that the soul [when it practices cathartic virtue] draws together to itself in a sort of place of its own away from the body”

(I.2.5)

“Soul”, of course, does not literally produce a “place” for itself, in any spatial sense, but, without in any way invalidating or discarding this symbolism of “place”, one could equally characterize this situation as a distinct manner of being which is gradually fleshed out in the process of purificatory virtue. It is a transition from heedlessness to heedfulness, from a state verging toward insensibility and oblivion to one of contemplative spaciousness. For, in the pre-virtuous condition, desires and sensations absorb one completely in a successive fashion. It is an exceedingly narrow condition which is closed off to the potential spaciousness of any given situation. Through virtue, passion is re-appropriated from a more comprehensive standpoint, a temporary ripple within a broader space that integrates it [1]. This is simply a more intelligible way of being. Platonic “apathy” (apatheia) is not insensibility, and if it seems to spell an end to passion, that is only because it departs from passion under its customary aspect—not passion as a succession of fragmentary experiences one is absorbed in, but a comprehensive space of which passion is a feature. Our passions and desires themselves attain a more intelligible degree, and, after all, the good itself is approached under the aspect of a supreme object of desire. Love, says Proclus, is a prerequisite for philosophy. Note well that it is not the body as such which is the issue, above, but the clinging of the “lower soul” to it, which is to say, it is a certain dividedness of “soul” to the exclusion of its integrity which is at fault.

1: I think there is something to be said here regarding the previous consideration of “soul” as a “point” within a broader arrangement. Actually, there is a question of polarity here between point and whole, and “soul” in its intellectivity verges more toward the wholeness, where “soul” increasingly reduced to itself verges toward the cramped confinement of its “state” considered merely as a “point”.

*

“What art is there, what method or practice which will take us up there where we must go? Where that is, that it is to the Good and the First Principle, we can take as agreed and established by many demonstrations; and the demonstrations themselves were a kind of leading up [anagoge] on our way”

(I.3.1)

That the art in question is that of dialectic is already evinced by the title of this Ennead. Thus, dialectic, in the Platonic context, is fundamentally aimed at the Good, that is, at that which cannot be circumscribed (circum-scribed) by speech. It cannot be a question of that which is worked out “immanently” to discursive thought, for the symbolism of horizontality would have been more appropriate here. The vertical symbolism which speaks of an upward path is already a significant clue. The First Principle is established and demonstrated in speech, but the content of these demonstrations do not constitute the First (and, neither, for that matter, does the “process” of this thinking). They are means of leading up to that which surpasses them. The demonstrations of Platonic dialectic are anagogical. That is, they are tactillective, intelligibly constructed means that point to that which surpasses intelligibility. It is this intellectivity of the dialectic which makes all the difference, for the sophistic dialectic does not “lead up”. The dianoia of Platonic dialectic is winged, secured by intellect and imaginal reference points (e.g. myth). This is the same as to say that it is a sacred or initiatic practice. Indeed, it is said that Socrates reproduced in his thought and method the form of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and if he, unlike Aeschylus, was never prosecuted for this, it is because he was never initiated into them. Through the practice of philosophy and the revelations of his inner “daemon”, he seemingly reproduced the mysteries from scratch. And, the very form of this method is a “leading up to divinity”, for it is the “sacred” practice of philosophical midwifery which assimilates us to Artemis as a patroness and divine prototype, that unborn which does not give birth (certain resonance of Buddhist thinkers like Bankei here), but inspires birth in others.

*

“The philosopher goes the upward way by nature, the musician and the lover must be led by [method]”

(I.3.1)

Philosophical inquiry leads by its own method to the First and the Good, and it is crucial we distinguish between philosophy and sophistry, in this respect, for the methods are in fact different (eristic as against a “winged”, or anagogical, form of dianoia). The love of beauty, on the other hand, does not, of its own accord, possess an anagogical method. Method must be “imported” into the love of beauty in order to render it winged (that is, anagogical), a method which progressively refines the object of one’s adorations, as described, for instance, in the Symposium. Philosophy, of course, is not just a method, a detached means applied toward a certain end, and it is not reducible to a dispassionate thinking. It is a “love of wisdom” (philo-sophia) which furnishes its own method, for, where the lover is stirred by ravishment and fascination for the object of beauty, the philosopher is “woken from dogmatic slumber” by puzzlement and wonder over an aporia. Just as the initial object of fascination for the lover is not yet “Beauty itself”, just so the philosopher begins not with “Wisdom itself” but with an aporia. Unlike, the initial object of beauty, however, the aporia provides the means for its own overcoming, for in discoursing about beauty we invoke metaphors and superlatives, but in discoursing of an aporia we invoke contradictions and problems in need of resolution. Note, then, that the difference between the philosopher and the sophist is the subtraction of love (philia). The sophist enjoys toying with contradictions but is not moved by a desire to surpass them, to puzzle out what they intimate, to become the intimate of the Wisdom they seem to occlude. One cannot teach someone to be a philosopher, for one cannot transmit an inborn desire through an eruditious survey of philosophical history and concepts. Hence, Proclus says that love is a prerequisite for philosophy. Unless propelled by a desire that verges on mania, how can dialectic lead beyond dialectic? For, mania is also the goal of philosophy. Adapting a dictum of the alchemists—one must have mania to make mania.

*

“There are two stages of the journey for all, one when they are going up and one when they have arrived above. The first leads from the regions below, the second is for those who are already in the intelligible realm and have gained their footing There, but must still travel till they reach the furthest point of the region”

(I.3.1)

In connection with what we said before about Socratic philosophy reproducing the Mysteries of Eleusis “from scratch”, this Plotinian distinction seems to mirror that between the “Lesser” and the “Greater” Mysteries. These latter were the “theoretical” mysteries, that is, the portion of the mysteries in which a vision of divinity was presented for contemplation (theoria), hence these initiates were denominated “epoptes”, as being the “witnesses” of a vision. Moreover, there is a dynamic of ascent described in the above passage that is worth commenting on further, for it is something more than a linear trajectory, as we might have been led to believe from the last few notes. Actually, this dynamic resembles one we already considered in connection with the used-user distinction’s overlap with that between a “lower” and “higher” soul. In the first place, then, we aspire after the “intelligible realm” which, appearing as “higher” to us, we endeavor to attain through the assiduous application of an “anagogical dianoia”, that is, a dianoia which “leads up”, a “winged dianoia”. Having attained to this intelligible condition, finding our “footing” there, a position which once properly attained cannot be lost (for, one cannot be “uninitiated” [1]), the distinction between an “intelligible realm” that is “higher” than a sensible one is abolished. Instead, it produces its own parallel distinction, internal to itself, between a lower portion of this “intelligible realm” and its summit, a distinction which is effectively meaningless to those who have not attained the intelligible condition, just as the distinction between the sensible and the intelligible is no longer pertinent to those who have attained the latter—the intelligible condition is comprehensive and could not possibly exclude sensibility. As Aristotle puts it, to know the principles of things is to know all things. What is more, the just mentioned “summit” of the intelligible is none other than that One and Good in which no distinctions can any longer subsist, not between a “lower” and a “higher” intelligible state, nor between intelligible and sensible. This “station of no station” is characterized as a “summit” for tactillective reasons, a contrivance one can afterwards dispense with, just as in the Buddhist metaphor one no longer needs the raft after one has crossed the stream.

At this point, it is probably worth retracing our steps and reflecting on some of the terms and relations we have invoked, for instance, that of an “intelligible realm”. The spatial symbolism alluded to in this expression is obviously not to be understood literally, and phrasing things in terms of an intelligible “condition” or “state” could also prove expedient, without invalidating the just mentioned symbolism. We will not enter here into the intelligible-intellective (noeton-noeron) distinction, which is particularly emphasized by the latter Platonists. For all intents and purposes, as considered here, the “intelligible” is that which is characteristic of intellect, even if in a principial and superessential sense. By an “intelligible realm”, then we can understand, broadly and without leaning on any overly fine distinctions, a kind of contemplative condition. This contemplative condition can certainly entail a kind of shutting out of the senses, especially if we take into account the distinction between actively intellective thinking and passively intellective thinking (or knowing and being, respectively), as pursued by us elsewhere, and more especially from an ascetical standpoint, that is, from the standpoint of a certain trajectory of philosophical practice. The notion of “intelligible realm”, however, does not intrinsically exclude the specificities of sensible experience (this is a question we will return to in Ennead V), but the contrary. All that which belongs to the horizon of our sensible experience is, as it were, illuminated and elevated, apprehended in its essentiality (or, indeed, its super-essentiality)—that, for instance, which is initially apprehended transcendentally, approaching us in the guise of an “object”, is subsequently known by us as a being, integrated within a broader intelligible context, its “world”. An exclusion of sensibility, then, could at the most, constitute a temporary ascetical prerequisite, and is not essentially characteristic of what is called the “intelligible realm”. This “intelligible realm”, we can justifiably say, in exhibiting beings “essentially”, is something entirely ordinary, for nothing could be more ordinary for a being than for it to be. This is what we have called the “unadorned intelligibility of that which is”. This is a thing so scandalously ordinary that we might be tempted to project “magical” qualities onto it, to “exoticize” and “mystify” it. The schematization of beings and their discursive thinkability is already something much more “exotic”, by comparison (not that this constitutes any kind of objection to it).

The re-presentation of the “journey of ascent” as a continuous linear trajectory, then, does leave something to be desired. It seems to flatten the terms that it compares, and yet, in that respect, is it really so different from Plato’s image of the “divided line”? Our failure to see through the transparency of a symbol is not an objection against the symbol, but against us, inclusive of the failure to see through the transparency of the symbolic hypostatization of being, the re-presentation (or symbolic presentation) of being as a being at the summit of all beings. The reflexive pointing out of the “reification of being as a being” always smacks of a conceited sort of cleverness. It is one thing to found a genuine, and basically very interesting and worthwhile, line of inquiry on the basis of this formula of ontological difference. It is another thing entirely to invoke it by rote like a pedantic schoolboy pointing out trivial grammatical errors. The latter totally fails to appreciate the context and meaning of the formulation. Indeed, that inquiry—I mean Heidegger’s—is itself far from infallible. Repeating its “conclusions” by rote, even the fruitfulness of that inquiry’s errors is lost to us. Though, stereotyped and flat concepts, too, can have their own fruitfulness. In any case, it is not really clear that there even is a way of re-presenting the discontinuity of these “levels” of the “journey up” that would not subject these terms to the same kind of flattening. The problem does not really lie on the side of the re-presentation but on the side of our misapprehension.

Following this thread of the “discontinuity of level” to its conclusion, we arrive at the ultimate discontinuity of the One, the All, the Only, for there is no other to which it could be compared. It is the One, not a One. This “level” not only abolishes the relativity internal to the “level” which precedes it, but all relativity and “level” as such. There is perhaps a question here as to whether this “supreme unity” can be thought of as an abolition of the distinction between unity and multiplicity, or even as an “identity of identity and non-identity”. Entering into questions of this kind prematurely would tend toward mere concept juggling. Developing such “pure concepts” in the course of a virtually isolated “pure thinking” might be a worthwhile task, in that context, but its usefulness is more limited in ours, that is, in the context of an inquiry that wants to ground itself in fundamentally different kinds of thinking—noetic and dianoetic, for instance. The One, in the context of Platonic thinking, is already something superior to both, approached in an “unknowing”, a “hyperagnosia” (a “transcendent ignorance”, as it were), as termed by Damascius. At this point in our inquiry, we have not yet earned the “right” to discourse on the One in this way, to develop the concepts which account for its function in Platonic thinking (not to speak of an approach to the One itself, whatever that might entail, as distinct from discoursing about it), except in the broadest terms. Provisionally, then, “the One”, for us, is, if not something really understood, something obscurely implied in the form and content of our different kinds of thinking, in our positing beings and unities and “levels”. We intimate “the One”, whether we want to or no, as an ineffable trace that we cannot eradicate. It is, in any case, something which is not optional.

There is some caution necessary when it comes to treating of this question of continuity and discontinuity, however. There is a continuity here, in all these “breaks” and changes of “level” (hence, Platonists like Proclus, insist that there is no vacuum at any point in the procession of beings), but it is obviously not a flatly linear continuity, even if it happens to be re-presented in that way. This, perhaps, is why dialectical thinking is the basic form of thinking which Platonism takes up. With dialectical thinking, continuities can be re-presented in a non-linear fashion. Dialectical thinking re-presents the continuity of discontinuity, that is, the continuity of a fabric whose threads are of fundamentally different kind from one another, or, stating this metaphor another way, the continuity between a single thread, and the image it forms together with other threads, and the whole tapestry of which this image is a portion, and the room which this tapestry adorns, and the whole life of which this dwelling is a center, etc. As a general principle of interpretation we can state that the essentially discontinuous is, nevertheless, processionally continuous, a continuity whose integrity is in no small part sustained by certain “intermediate” natures, like that of “soul” (indeed, it seems especially that of “soul”, in ways that will hopefully become clearer as this inquiry proceeds). Thus, there are two dangers that we have to avoid here, namely, that of flattening discontinuities into a linear relation, on the one hand, and of positing “absolute” discontinuities, on the other. We have to fly between this “yes” and this “no”, skillfully handling both, just as “soul” flies between body and intellect.

Parallel to these broad, theoretical points, respecting the One, there is also a broadly practical one to be made here, not necessarily any clearer than the other (after all, “the One”, as just stipulated, is approached in an “unknowing”), but nevertheless just as indispensable here, for it is basic to Platonic thinking. This is the practical implication of what, in the Republic, is imaged as the “return” to the cave. For, to paraphrase Socrates, one who would abandon his former companions in chains is a wretched person indeed. In other words, what we described above as “leaving behind the raft” does not exclude our taking it up again. In the Buddhist context, we could assimilate this to the function of a bodhisattva, and we have already characterized Socrates in these terms elsewhere. Another standpoint from which we might consider this, one more directly and specifically practical, is in terms of the category of “misology” which Plato invokes in the Phaedo. This, sometimes, is misunderstood as entailing some kind of belief that all truth can be contained discursively, but this manifestly contradicts Plato’s explicit statements in many places. Rather, to be a “misologue” is to dispense with reasoning as a means of arriving at that which is superior to discursion, to say that discoursing is pointless altogether, that it is inefficacious as a method. In other words, to posit any kind of “pure thinking”, a thinking that is considered sufficient to itself, is itself an instance of misology! For, this premise supposes that there is nothing superior to discursive thinking which discursive thinking could assist us in attaining. It posits the weakness of discursive thinking, amputates the wings of our dianoia. Misology is an amputation of logos itself, dividing the symbolic logos from its discursive complement, and excluding the former (albeit, only virtually, for this is not really possible). If the “raft” of logos saved us, then would we not be wretched to despise it, even after it has ceased to be directly useful to us? We were drowning, like Peter, and the logos, walking on the sea of our unformed and indistinct life, pulled us out. Will we, also, dare to spit on, to flay, this messiah, because it deigned to serve us, scorning the servant by virtue of an inferiority implied in that relation? Will we deny its very power to save, to raise us above the sea? Misology, then, can be divided in two. The first despises the efficacy of logos, its saving power. The second spurns it after it has ceased to be directly useful to us, abandoning our former companions in chains. Platonism, as a philosophical practice, holds fast to the efficacious link between that which we understand in our discourse and that which transcends intelligibility.

1: The distinction which Rene Guenon makes in Perspectives on Initiation, between certain elevated “experiences” and realization, could be helpful here. A realization entails an identity, where an “experience” is a temporary state from which one returns. A being cannot cease to be what it is most essentially (albeit, this “impossibility” of being what one is not is an impossibility which we can consider as actually occurring, for instance, in the sense of a “revolutionary entelecheia”—but here we are speaking of the Platonic view, not that of the Promethean Ontology, so we can set this “impossible possibility” aside, for the moment). A genuine attainment of the “intelligible realm”, in our “journey of ascent”, in this latter sense, is a permanent condition, and there is no “where” to which we could retrace our steps, our previous condition having been dissolved in this new one.

*

“[Dialectic] leaves what is called logical activity, about propositions and syllogisms, to another art, as it might leave knowing how to write. Some of the matter of logic it considers necessary, as a preliminary, but it makes itself the judge of this, as of everything else”

(I.3.4)

The divisions and comparisons and contradictions with which this Platonic dialectic is concerned, then, are not primarily those which inhere in the discursive content of our thinking. This “winged dianoia” moves about intelligibles, thinking and syllogizing about them, where applicable, but grounding itself in that intellection which apprehends them immediately, comprehending their relations as exhibitions of unity rather than as mediated differences, never putting itself at a distance from what it knows but being it (for the hypostasis of intellect is the same as that of being—but more on this later). This intelligible territory is a “topographically complex immediacy”, and intellect, in the words of the Platonists, is a “one many”, just as Being is “the Mixed”. This is something closer to a “dialectic of nature” than a detached critical method, or, rather, it is a method which adequates itself to what it studies, for, in its intellectivity, it is not separate from what it studies, and if the method is dialectical than so is the subject matter. To imply otherwise would be to concede an unbridgeable dualism, a dualism which can only subsist virtually, for each of its terms is a one which implies the unity by virtue of which it can even appear as a one. In any case, it is precisely because this dialectic is grounded in intellection that it is able to alternately apply or dispense with logic, syllogism, and propositional modes of expression, instituting itself as the judge of their appropriate use and the right moment of their application. This “judgment” is not one that must be thought over, for intellect knows. It does not need to plan ahead as to its deployment of method. It proceeds knowingly, under the aspect of an intelligible presence. Intellect’s “tools” are already ready-to-hand within its workworld, even if its dialectal finesse is sometimes held in check by an aporia or an unanticipated problem. Qua intellectivity, its rule and tendency is a fluid and knowing handling of that which is knowable for it, and the exceptions to this rule are not insurmountable obstacles but stimulants to renewed effort and a revolutionizing of the means at its disposal. Here, perhaps, we come to a crucial difference between the Platonic dialectic and the Marxist one, especially if we radicalize the latter by situating it in the context of a Promethean Ontology, for the former would not dare propose anything like the “terraformation of being”. In Platonic terms, a Marxist and Promethean dialectic entails a certain radicalization of “soul”, but what this means is a question we will set aside to be addressed later, where we can frame it more directly as a response to Plotinus’ own remarks on such a possible “radicalization”.

*

“Intellect gives clear principles to any soul which can receive them: and then it combines [suntithesi] and interweaves [sumplekei] and distinguishes [diarei] their consequences, till it arrives at perfect intelligence”

(I.3.5)

In the first place, these “principles” can be taken as referring to the being of that which is, if taken in a principial and archeimitic sense (that is, at the supereminent degree of non-being). These “principles” are not the product of any calculation, accumulation of experiences, or process of thought. They are a presence which subsists irrespective of our receptivity or lack thereof. Nevertheless, and in the second place, a process of thought, an assiduous inquiry, a skillfully handled dialectic, can clear the ground, as it were, and induce the requisite receptivity. Things do not end here, however, for we bring dialectic in again, both in its non-discursive sense, apprehending the intelligible web of “identity-relations”, but no less that dialectic of discursive finesse. For, a word is also a symbol, and to one for whom words have been made transparent through a prior receptivity, a dialectic of words is no mere “language game”. Intellect grounds dialectic so that it might skillfully handle its terms in step with concretion, stimulating progressive degrees of intelligible apprehension, until, by and by, one arrives at “perfect [teleon] intelligence”. What is more, the framing of this process as a combining-interweaving-distinguishing that culminates in “perfect intelligence” has a notable resemblance to the form of the hermeneutic horseshoe, as reflected on elsewhere, like so—

“Perfect intelligence” is the whole symbol of which all these procedures are but partial “moments”. A skillful transitioning across these moments, in variable sequence (it is not a matter of some stereotyped and linear thesis-antithesis-synthesis), fleshing out the depth of intelligible relations, prepares the ground for an apprehension of their totality. Dialectic is, divisibly, what intelligibility is indivisibly. “Soul” (psyche), then seems to occupy the point beyond the extremes here, and in a number of senses. These procedures have as their raison d’etre the inducing of receptivity in “soul”, toward which they are “bent”, and in conformity with our prior assessment of this hermeneutic figure, the “middle ground” here, namely “sumplekei”, is an image of “soul”, an approximation of it, for “soul” is also an interpretive interweaving, a being bound up with intellect and body, though it is not reducible to a mere “procedure”. At the same time, “soul” is the break in the hermeneutic circle, its redundancy, for intellection is already intelligible and the receptivity of “soul” adds nothing to this. Moreover, there is also a question here of the “analogy of the two nights” or “dissimilar similarity”, which is to say that this “nothing” beyond the extremes of our broken circle of hermeneutic can just as well signify the plenary non-being of the One and this, in turn, is to say that “soul” has a certain privileged relation with this first principle of things [1]—but more on this later.

1: Compare with what we said, above, regarding the “substitution of psychicality for intellectivity”. If soul’s “privileged position is considered here under a positive aspect, there it seems to display a nefarious one, a power of unbounded “phantasy”.

A dancing red Ganapati, 15th-16th century, Tibet

Introduction

“Not to have a correct political point of view is like having no soul” - Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung

This commentary on the Enneads of Plotinus (I am primarily consulting the translation of A.H. Armstrong) is, in the first place, written for anyone who could conceivably be interested in such a thing. In the second place, it is intended especially for communists. I always, and in everything that I write, have a partisan bias. Plato never shied away from the political implications of his thinking. It is a strange thing to stipulate any kind of depoliticization of our thinking on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, or any other putatively non-political domain of inquiry (strange, not only because it imposes an arbitrary limit on our thinking, but because it is not really possible, to begin with). Moreover, this is not a “scholarly” reading of Plotinus, and I am not a scholar. It is a philosophical reading. Like my other series of notes, it would be more accurate to say that I am using Plotinus as a medium for articulating a trajectory of thought that I began elsewhere, namely, that of the “Promethean Ontology”. The purpose of this series, therefore, is not erudition, but an engaged thinking which does not necessarily take everything it encounters at face value.

As suggested in the title, this is a study of intellect and soul primarily, that is, broadly, of intelligibility and what is related to it both in the manner of articulating it and of transgressing it. To understand this interplay is to understand the contradictory form of understanding itself, to understand science, and to understand the structure of any intelligible account whatsoever, for instance, of history or society. It seems that there has been a recent surge of interest among Marxists in the Neoplatonists. I cannot be entirely sure of the reasons for this, but perhaps it has something to do with the just mentioned interplay of intellect and soul. What Marxism wants is an intelligible reading of history and of revolutionary practice, not a virtually posited scheme of atoms colliding in a void. In terms of a more Platonic framing, what we want is an account of how “soul” (whatever that is) is woven into the intelligible fabric of our historical being, and to see the ordinariness (or, if you prefer, “universality”) of what is sometimes called “intellectual intuition”.

In most ways, the reading of the Enneads I pursue here is dependent on the prior series I have written (e.g. on Kant and Heidegger), and the concepts they develop. It is a continuation of my thinking there. That said, I think much of my commentary is able to stand on its own, and even if not everything that I say here is understood right away, at least some of it, I hope, will prove interesting enough to justify the effort.

NOESIS 1

*

“We must also consider intellectual acts and see how they take place and who or what they belong to, and observe what sort of thing it is that acts as overseer and carries out the investigation and comes to a decision about these matters”

(I.1.1)

Back to the faculties! It is not enough to consider the “content” of a philosophical account, we must apprehend by whom and for whom it was composed, that is, by which faculty, through which kind of thinking [1]—through intellection or ratiocination, noesis or dianoia? Which mode of intellection? If ratiocination, then does it have the form of a “winged dianoia” or of a liberated transcendentality? These are preliminary to an inquiry into a body of thought, or should at least be kept in mind in the course of assessing it. We must be familiar with these kinds of thinking, the ways they are related with one another, the ways that they interact with one another. This is the first task which I had set for the Promethean Ontology, which is itself only possible as an interaction of intellection and the transcendental horizon at their maximal expression.

1: In a way, this is the inverse of what is expressed in saying that “the medium is the message”, for “the letter kills, but the spirit gives life”. Spirit (nous), or “intellect”, composes and expresses itself through diverse mediums. Intellection remains intellection despite the medium it happens to express itself in. And, if the faculty productive of a thinking is not quite the message it contains, it seems that the message is, in a way, more closely bound up with it than the medium of expression. For, a written medium can evince a transcendental form of thought as well as a transcendent one. The actual content of the thinking is a more proximate clue as to the form of thinking than the bare fact that it happens to be embodied in writing. In other words, rather than a dualistic scheme that pits medium against message, we need a tripartite one that brings in also the faculty expressing a message through an “external” medium. That said, all things must be given their due here. New mediums of expression have their own profound and wide-ranging implications. A consideration of this fact is no excuse for embracing Pharisaism, however.

*

(Ennead I.1.3): Why is it Plotinus feels impelled to distinguish between a “higher soul” and a “lower soul” and what is it which lends such a distinction plausibility? The nature of this thing designated “soul” [1] is mediator and participator—it mediates between this and that and, at the same time, participates of that which it mediates. “Soul”, in a manner of speaking, has nothing which is its own. It belongs entirely to whatever it participates, and, at the same time, by virtue of its mediate character, it only belongs “halfway” to that which it participates. This is “soul’s” basic contradiction. It belongs entirely and is also free, but this freedom somehow has the character of a defect, for “soul” is never free for itself (except virtually), for the self-nature of “soul” is nothing other than to belong to another. “Soul”, then, in a primary and ontologically vertical sense, is caught up between body and intellect, which is also a way of saying that we posit soul as a way of explaining the transitional region between these poles. The belonging of soul to intellect is “higher soul” and the belonging of soul to body is “lower soul”. This is only a rough sketch. A more extensive discussion of “soul” is reserved for Ennead IV.

1: In this series of notes I will generally put “soul” in scare quotes as a way of putting us at a distance from customary understandings of just what this thing called “soul” is. There is a need to consider this datum with fresh eyes. A more extended examination will have to wait until Ennead IV, however.

*

“Philosophy should turn this lower part [of soul] towards the using part, and draw the using part away from that which it uses”

(I.1.3)

Here, then, is another way of framing the distinction between the “higher” and the “lower” soul, in addition to those already considered (and those we will consider especially in Ennead IV). On the one hand, the relation here seems to be an eminently transcendental one, a strict divide between a using subject and the object it uses. On the other hand, the eminently intellective characteristic of “higher soul” already suggests another way of viewing this relation, for instance, as a distinction between a “providential” (pro-noia) taking-care (in a somewhat Heideggerian sense) and that which is cared for, as the intelligibility of being-with. That is not all. This injunction to abandon the used, to draw away the “part” of the “soul” which is together with the used, and to withdraw into that “part” of the “soul” which is the user, has an interesting upshot. It abolishes the user-used distinction altogether, for by withdrawing the “soul” in this way it ceases to relate as a “user” at all. This withdrawal is called “contemplation” (theoria). It is a distinct mode of the intelligibility of things, not something “thematized”, not a mere “objective presence”, but a kind of intelligible simultaneity. We can broadly classify it as “active intellection” and distinguish it from the passively intellective thinking characteristic of Heidegger (see my series on Being and Time). Moreover, note well that the “used” in this used-user relation refers to body and not the “lower soul”. This “lower soul” is the “soul” (whatever that is) in its being-with body as with a tool, and this “lower soul” is continuous with the “higher”. They are one and the same “soul” and, in a way, the distinction is a virtual one. Indeed, the real distinction here, in terms of the Platonic framing, is between a lower-higher soul distinction, on one side, and the higher soul alone (the relative designation notwithstanding), or the higher soul taken as an emblem of soul as such, on the other. For, in terms of the philosophical practice which underlies the perceived need to posit the distinction, to begin with, what we really have are two states or conditions—the divided state, in which soul’s intelligibility is involved in body, and the state of contemplative withdrawal. “Contemplation”, here, is an abolition of the used-user relation (whether one takes this in its transcendental sense, or an existential [transcendent] one), but it is not a “just staring” as Heidegger would have it, but a kind of concentrated absorption in the integral constitution of intelligible wholeness. At greater degrees of concentrated intensity, one could call it “samadhi”, or as I render it “concentrillection”.

*

“Now if soul uses body as a tool it does not have to admit the affections which come through the body; craftsmen are not affected by the affections of their tools”

(I.1.3)

Indeed, but the craftsman is affected by the intelligible context of his tools, the “work-world” to which they belong, especially insofar as he relates to them in their readiness-to-hand. Likewise, then, the “soul”, if it indeed relates to the body as a “tool”, is ordinarily bound to the “logic” of that tool, its intelligible form and placement in its world. “Soul”, then, would at least habitually conceive both body and itself in terms of this logic. It is only under exceptional circumstances that “soul” would relate to body as sheer objective presence, resulting probably from a deliberately cultivated sense of empirical detachment. These general remarks also seem to corroborate a sort of meeting of extremes between body and intellect, that body is, in a way, more proximate to intelligibility than soul (but more on this later). Hence, bodily “supports” are taken by the Platonists as being effective for the realization of intellective states—ritual, symbols, sacred sites, etc. “Soul” is a bridge uniting body and intellect, but is also that which seemingly pushes them apart and accentuates their distance and difference.

*

It is worth noting that the general form of Ennead I.1, consisting of a litany of problematizing questions and paradoxical relations, is not at all fortuitous. The form of inquiry here conforms to the nature of “soul” as a mediate phenomenon. To be mediate, at a fundamental level, is to induce paradoxes, reversals, inversions, confusion (con-fusion), and separations. It is also worth noting that the question of who it is that “we” are, along this spectrum of intellect-soul-body, is never seriously problematized. Locating our “self” in this territory is a more or less perfunctory affair, and occurs “automatically” (pun intended?) through the process of clarifying the three terms that delimit this space. I-saying is simply not a primary aporia for Western philosophy. Platonism concludes that it is obviously “soul” which “I” am. Descartes concludes that it is obvious that “I” am because of thinking. For Vedantic and Buddhist philosophy, “atman” is an aporia and a mystery. It is precisely that which we do not initially understand (in a way, because it is too obvious), and all our theoretical means must be bent to the breaking point in service to its attainment or its dispelling.

*

“And the soul’s power [dunamin] of sense-perception [aisthenesthai] need not be perception of sense-objects, but rather it must be receptive of the impressions produced by sensation [antileptiken] on the living being; these are already intelligible entities. So external sensation is the image [eidolon] of this perception of soul, which is in its essence truer and is a contemplation [theoria] of forms [eidon] without being affected”

(I.1.7)

A somewhat tricky but interesting passage that we might try rephrasing for some additional perspective. Let us say as follows—“The intelligible potency of sense-perception is implicitly imaginal (in Henry Corbin’s sense), at first an intelligible and meaning-laden image before an objectively-present thing one stares at ‘externally’; sensation in its externality is a flattened image [eidolon] of the imaginal; this latter is sensibility in a contemplative [theoria] register”. In terminology I have employed elsewhere, sensibility is gnosense before it is an objectively present image. Stated in yet another way, sensibility is encompassed in advance by intellection. There is no sensible which is entirely divorced from intelligibility [1], a mere brute fact. The world presents itself to our understanding.

1: And “intelligibility” here has the sense of intellection, “intellectual intuition”—noesis. Explanation and reasoning is a second order intelligibility, a flattened image [eidolon] of intellect.

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“For these forms [eidon], from which the soul alone receives its lordship over the living being, come reasonings [dianoia], and opinions [doxai], and acts of intuitive intelligence [noesis]”

(I.1.7)

Such forms [eidon] as considered in the last note, which we can take in an imaginal sense (intellectively infused images) or as intellections unaccompanied with image—though, given the context of discussion here, namely, “soul”, the former seems more pertinent—are comprehensive of our reasoning about things and our opinions (as well as “external sensibility”, as considered in the last note), and serve as a support and point of departure for our intellection. There is an imaginality implicit to all of our reasonings—our dianoetic thinking—for, no reasoning, however abstracted is ever any kind of “pure thinking” (except virtually), but is image-laden, itself an image [eidolon] of form [eidos], a flattening of imaginal noesis into a conceptual skeleton. This parenthetical provision (“except virtually”) indicates that “for all intents and purposes” one can treat certain kinds of thinking as if they were a “pure thinking” (e.g. Hegel’s Logic), because this sort of virtuality, as I have expressed it elsewhere, has “real claws”, especially in terms of the development of modern philosophy after Descartes, the philosophy of the “transcendental turn” (under this heading I include Descartes). Indeed, virtuality is a basic way of characterizing “eidolon”, which can mean “ghost”, “apparition”, “simulacrum”, etc. Virtuality is neither real nor unreal. We can virtually separate a concept from the metaphor implied in its etymology (for instance, “concept” as “grasping”, concipio), or from any other intelligible (that is, intellective) implications it contains, and reduce it to a pure thinking, but as a virtual procedure it is precisely only for “all intents and purposes”, and “for the sake of argument”, that we do this. We do this, but we do not really do anything in so far as we do this, and this “not doing anything” is a “virtuality with real claws” (an expression which adapts Mao’s “paper tiger with real claws”).

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“But how are we related to the Intellect? I mean by ‘Intellect’ not that state of the soul, which is one of the things which derive from Intellect, but Intellect itself...So we also possess the forms in two ways, in our soul, in a manner of speaking unfolded and separated, in Intellect all together”

(I.1.8)

Thus, there are two aspects under which we can consider the intelligibility of things—the temporalized interpretations of “soul” and the timeless simultaneity of intellect. Importantly, these are not utterly separate but evince continuity—intellection is intellection. Here intellect is considered in the timelessness of its intelligibility, and there under its imaginal, temporal, and reason-prone (its readiness to submit to reasoning) aspects. That which is an image-free contemplation, “superior” to discursion and reasoning, proves no obstacle to expression in an image (an imaginal image, as it were), and the imaginal, in turn, is susceptible of being reduced to the proportions of reasoning and opinion. Intellect retains its continuity throughout, even if we fail to take note of this. The surrounding world in which we move and have our being is intelligible, whether we render that intelligibility conspicuous or leave it in the inconspicuousness of everyday heedless living.

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“The changes and the clamor in us come, as we have said, from what is attached to us and from the affections of the joint entity, whatever precisely that is”

(I.1.9)

This “joint entity” [tou koinou], responsible for the discord of our various elements, our self-contradiction, has the character of what I have elsewhere designated a “caprigenus” (adapting the Sanskrit “skandha”). “Man”, the “joint entity” in question, is a caprigenesis of “soul”, intellect, and body, none of them and all of them, and yet, in a way, eminently “soul”, for “soul” is the mediating nothing which is a qualified something by virtue of its associations, associating with intellect or with body or, indeed, even with divinity (whatever that might be). One can see how Mirandola, drawing on Platonic influences, might have arrived at his conception of the human being in his Oration on the Dignity of Man. Stated another way, the human being is the nothing which encompasses intellect, “soul”, and body, and “soul” is that nothing considered as internal to this caprigenus, the fracture which separates intellect and body, as well as brings them together. More on this later.

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“But the virtues which result not from thought [phronesei] but from habit and training [askesesi] belong to the joint entity [tou koinou]”

(I.1.10)

“Virtue”, in the Platonic sense, is nothing other than intelligibility at work or stably exhibiting itself at “rest”, and it is the effortful ascesis of virtue which must be brought in to render the riven caprigenus an “approximation”, as it were, of the intelligible and integral unity which its contradictory character precludes. Phronesis, which is in fact one of the “four virtues”, is not itself a distinct ascesis. Here, perhaps, I am entering more into my own reading of the virtues, and some caution should be exercised on the part of the reader in attributing these views directly to any of the Platonists, in a one to one fashion. The peculiarity of this reading has at least a part of its basis in my own experience with the practice of these virtues—take that for whatever it might be worth. In any case, I hope you will allow me this digression—

The Platonists number four cardinal virtues—justice (dikaiosune), courage (andreia), temperance (sophrosune), and prudence (phronesis—this last is somewhat less tractable to being rendered satisfactorily in English). We should not consider this arrangement arbitrary, either in number or content. There may, indeed, be many other virtues, and many other classifications of virtue, but these four, from the standpoint here considered are the cardinal ones, the fourfold root of intellect’s sky-piercing tree, the four sides of an intelligibly stable shape. This tree has many branches and abundant fruit—this shape a field for numberless beings—but we begin with a fourfoldness as its basic and symbolic outline.

There is, however, in addition to this numbering of the virtues, another number according to which we contextualize our understanding, a number of “levels” according to which we can consider the scope and meaning of our four virtues. Following Thomas Taylor (see the additional notes to his Select Works of Plotinus), these levels are unfolded and graded as follows—the physical, ethical, political, cathartic, theoretic, and paradigmatic. We can consider virtue, then, not only in its four basic expressions but also according to these six levels of conception, six distinct contexts in which virtue exhibits its meaning and characteristics. Elaborating all of the specificities of virtue at these six levels, comprehensively or exhaustively, is obviously beyond the scope of this digression, but we will refer to each where relevant in a limited fashion.

There is another aspect to this scheme of “levels” which we should mention before we proceed, an aspect we can term “exemption”. Each level of virtue is autonomous with respect to the one below it, that is, “exempt” from it. Political virtue does not need ethical feeling (ethical virtue, in this scheme, is affective—doing what one feels is right, a feeling generally nurtured through education). Politics commands, imposes duties. It can dispense with ethical virtue, though it can just as well inculcate it as a matter of policy. If one gives money to the homeless person on the street out of a perceived duty, that is already a political virtue one is exercising, even in the absence of any specific sense that it feels like the right thing to do. Hence, Aristotle’s “ Nicomachean Ethics” is quite appropriately named, since one of the most basic premises of his thinking concerns the way that ethics is fundamentally bound up with habituation in pleasure and pain, a training, especially in youth, to find pleasure in certain things and consider others repugnant. Indeed, this dynamic wherein “higher levels” of virtue are exempt from the lower is key to understanding virtue as such. Ethical virtue implies and is dependent on political, not only in a practical sense but in its very meaning and content. The training which renders us ethical is implicitly political in its character. An ethical actor is unconsciously following in the wake of another’s politics, as it were. Likewise, political virtue would be dependent on the cathartic. It is the dianoetic character of the cathartic virtues which evince this (for, as ethical virtue is grounded in feeling, the cathartic is thought of as grounded in dianoia). For, political virtue is a matter of duty and obedience, but it has not yet clarified for itself just what it is obeying. The dianoetic practice of the virtues is not only a means of putting them to work but also an exercise in uncovering their thinkable meaning. Thus, cathartic virtue is a coming-to-know what political virtue obeys. The political actor is unconsciously following in the wake of a prior clarification of the meaning of what he commands, and insofar as a political figure acts with considered reflection as to the meaning of his ordinances, he is exercising a cathartic virtue rather than a political one, even if the context of this act is putatively that of politics (in that capacity, I think it would be fair to say that communists are, on the whole, much more virtuous than reactionaries!). Theoretic virtue, being grounded in noesis, is the direct knowing which is implied in the very possibility of a process of coming to know (the noesis implied in dia-noia), a contemplative expression of virtue. Lastly, paradigmatic virtue is grounded in the unity implied in a union of knower, knowing, and known.

We have to begin somewhere, and delimit some domain or another on which to concentrate our attentions, so we will begin with the cathartic virtues, the virtues of purification. It is at this level that philosophical ascesis proper begins, and these virtues can be considered as having a relative autonomy, as we just noted, from the political virtues which precede them (in order of ascent) in the graded hierarchy, a hiero-arche indeed—Taylor writes (in the aforementioned “additional notes”) that “Plato calls the cathartic and theoretic virtues those which are in reality true virtues” and “[Olympiodorus] separates them in another way, viz. that the political are not telestic, i.e. do not pertain to mystic ceremonies, but that the cathartic and theoretic are telestic”. The cathartic virtues are the elements of individual practice, surely benefiting from the outward support of a salutary political environment, but susceptible of being pursued in the relative absence of this supportive embrace. Indeed, for Proclus this seems to constitute one of the “providential” aspects of the Platonic tradition, the significance of its being gifted to mankind. As rendered by Taylor, Proclus declares (somewhere in his commentary on the Parmenides) that “with respect to this form of philosophy, I should say that it came to men for the benefit of terrestrial souls; that it might be instead of statues, instead of temples, instead of the whole of sacred institutions, and the leader of salvation both to the men that now are, and to those that shall exist hereafter”—if, then, in the absence or breakdown of sacred institutions, so nigh indispensable to the the conceptions of the latter, theurgic Platonists, then the positing of a practice of cathartic virtue in the absence or breakdown of supportive political institutions should not entail any overextended stretch of the imagination. After all, as already considered, cathartic virtue is exempt from the political, which, in a way, is also to say that it is more political than political virtue.

The basic horizon of the practice and understanding of virtue at this level is dianoia. The cathartic virtues are dianoetic virtues, a dianoetic ascesis. In that connection, we should return to what was said before, namely, that phronesis (and now we can also see that it is specifically cathartic phronesis which is in question) does not constitute an ascesis. In order to clarify this point, we will need to introduce yet another distinction, namely that of the triplicity ousia-energeia-dunamis. Applied to virtue, we could say that we have the essence (ousia) of virtue, the “energy” or work (energeia)—the ascesis—of virtue, and the potency or power (dunamis) of virtue. My idiosyncratic twist here on the Platonic thinking on virtue is the contention that, at the cathartic level of virtue, there are only two asceses of virtue, namely, courage and temperance—these constitute the energeia of cathartic virtue, the dianoetic work of philosophical practice (I would be sincerely, and pleasantly, astonished if this was a view propounded by any of the Platonists, but to my knowledge it is not). Figuratively flanking these wings we have dikaiosune or justice as the essence (ousia) of cathartic virtue and phronesis as its power or potency (dunamis), represented very simply as follows—

In the first place, we should note that, such a distinction borne in mind, “virtue” is not something intrinsically ascetical or otherwise volitional. It may be something ascetical, in certain contexts and respects, but virtue (arete) is simply an “excellence” exhibited by a being (or institution), an “excellence” which can just as well be expressed effortlessly, a quality “possessed” by the being. In that connection, speaking of the “physical virtues”, Taylor says that “sight and hearing may be denominated corporeal prudence [i.e. phronesis]”, that “strength may be denominated corporeal fortitude [i.e. andreia]”, and likewise that temperance may be corresponded to the beauty of our bodily frame and justice to its health. As an aside, it is curious that there seems to be a parallelism here between the physical and paradigmatic virtues, since both entirely exclude any ascetical components, that is, they have no practice which corresponds to them (for instance, the practice of maintaining health is not a physical virtue, but already, minimally, an ethical one [1]). In any case, and in the second place, we should note that this proposed arrangement is applied to the cathartic virtues, and may not hold at the other levels (the physical and paradigmatic, we have just noted)—that is still an open question. Is justice also the “essence” of theoretic virtue, as (I claim) it is for the cathartic? Perhaps, and perhaps not, but it is not a question we need pursue here [2].

Thus, at this “level”, the practice, the ascesis, of virtue is a practice of courage and temperance. The energeia of courage and temperance manifest the “essence” (ousia) of justice. As considered in Plato’s Republic, the practice of courage, for instance, is primarily a negative one. It is a practice of discernment as to what should not elicit fear. Like justice, which places each thing in the station and role appropriate to it, courage determines the appropriateness of fear to a given situation (it is, again, a dianoetic courage which is in question here), and excludes it from the circumstances to which it does not belong. It is a just apportioning of fear. But fear has an effect of muddling the mind. It is a perturbation, disturbing the placidity of the mind, ripples that obscure its self-clarity. Courage, then, is also a power of clear vision, of unobstructed apprehension, that is, of phronesis (which, at the level of physical virtue, we even assimilated to the clarity of the bodily senses). Courage is a reservoir of phronesis. When we put courage to work (energeia), we open up this reservoir and unleash the phronesis that courage potentially is. Similar considerations apply with temperance (sophrosune). The mind and our desire wander. They fixate on a succession of desires and idle fancies. They go where they should not go and always at the wrong time. Temperance fixes the mind in place—citta vritti nirodha, in the words of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. As a (dianoetic—that is, cathartic) practice, this, too, is primarily negative. We clarify to ourselves the appropriateness of our fixations, addictions, and indulgent fantasies. Determining them to be in-appropriate, fruitless, unreal, we come back to ourselves, like a king returning to his throne. This, too, is justice in a Platonic sense. This, too, reposes on a dragon’s hoard of phronesis, and bringing ourselves back to the central fortress of our mind we can survey the whole surrounding landscape with unlimited clarity. In this connection, one might be tempted to ascribe, say, to practices like sitting meditation, that we find in certain traditions, a “phronetic” character. It seems to be a kind of phronesis. I would argue, however, that these are fundamentally temperance practices. They temper the mind. Phronesis is the outcome of the practice, not its work.

By way of symbolic illustration, we might compare this arrangement with the Buddhist teaching of the buddhakula‘s, a kind of table of associations commonly presented in the form of a mandala depicting five seated buddhas, the “five Tathagatas”. There are some variations on the arrangement of these buddhas, but for reference we will simply consider the table as given on Wikipedia—

Or, as a mandala—

We obviously cannot (and need not) cover every aspect of this table, even briefly, let alone in detail. Rather, I want to propose a series of correspondences in the interest of giving us a clearer image of the virtues and their interrelation. There is obviously nothing definitive about these correspondences, and other ways of corresponding the Platonic virtues to the elements of this table could prove equally plausible.

In the first place, let us correspond courage with the Vajrakula. Courage is a mirror-like wisdom, a clarity which reflects the world back in purity and without perturbation. A fearful mind is agitated, like the surface of water after one has dropped a heavy stone into it, sediment also rising from the lakebed and mixing with the liquid element. Courage keeps the surface transparent and undisturbed, whatever might appear reflected in it. It is an “earth-touching” virtue, which makes us immovable (like an elephant) in the face of danger. Negatively, we can associate it with either ignorance or aversion (the Vajra and Buddha “families” are sometimes switched in terms of which occupies the central position in the mandala). In either case, the ignorant person or the averse (e.g. fearful) one, they display the same immovability in their conduct which we find in the virtuously courageous. The obstinately ignorant will not be moved to learn, or the averse to associate with that which they disdain—fear is a mirror image of courage, the concave to its convex. From that standpoint, we might even suppose that individuals especially preoccupied with and consumed by fears have a kind of privileged relation to and potential for courage, that they especially belong to this “family” of virtues. Fear is the “theme” of courageous people.

Next on our list (we are setting aside the “Buddha family”, for now), we correspond temperance with the Ratnakula. Temperance is the “sound mind” (sophrosune) which stays in itself and does not incline to anything. It does not play favorites. Temperance is the wisdom of sameness. The mind is tempered and reined in from preferential fixations. The greedy person wants to possess everything. For the temperate, it is as if everything was already in one’s possession. One does not need to incline to anything. For temperance, greed is a redundancy. Inclination proceeds (in terms of temperance as a cathartic virtue) dianoetically, according to considered reflection, not as a spontaneous and irrational reflex to grasp at that which is not already one’s own. Temperance, therefore, is generous. It is not so attached to anything that it cannot let it go. Temperance has a horse-like endurance, the virtue of the slow-and-steady (or, rather, as fast as one can reasonably be under the circumstances), the virtue which keeps to its trajectory without indulging in distractions (and we might connect it with pride by virtue of its disdaining such distractions).

After this, we correspond phronesis with the Padmakula. It is the virtue of discrimination, a lucidity of all the fine and beautiful details. It is a perception which is attuned to the unique and singular. Where courage is a mirror that reflects the whole image, phronesis moves by a divine desire to enjoy every detail of the image as possessing its own wholeness worthy of our attention. Firelike, it wants to consume the detail, but as a virtue it is like a fire that does not burn and which already envelops everything. Craving clings to a single detail of its choice. Phronesis apprehends them all. By virtue of this, we can also nominate it “prudence”, for prudence is an intelligence that apprehends the uniqueness of each circumstance, its distinctive requirements and limiting conditions. It is the meditative virtue par excellence since it consists in a power of unwavering concentration, and, as already considered, is a result of the tempering of the mind (in Taylor’s classification, it is the theoretic virtue par excellence). The raison d’etre of meditative practice is to produce the meditative state.

Finally, we correspond justice with the Karmakula. Justice is perfection of practice, the all-accomplishing virtue. It does everything at the right time and in the right way, and with a consciousness of the arrangement of the whole. As unvirtue, it is a “tendency” (samskara) that proceeds again and again to the same patterns of behavior, fixating on their perceived rightness, a relation to rightness we can characterize as linear and “volitional”. As a virtue, it surveys the whole landscape from above (like a soaring Garuda) in every individual act it undertakes. Envy is already a symptom of a basically just temperament, but is still too linear and singular in its attentions. Justice universalizes envy, as it were, and, in doing so, converts it into a virtue, uncovering the intelligible content of this desire. Moreover, the buddha of this “family” is depicted as giving us a gesture of fearlessness because, where courage nakedly faces fear, justice guards against it “in advance” by not disdaining any thing from its providential attentions, by establishing all things as they should be. It relates to all and therefore fears none. Stated another way, by always acting out of principle, justice is never swayed by unprincipled considerations, like trepidation or fascination. Justice is entirely blind to fear, where courage has eyes for it.

Now we come to the root of the matter, to the root of the virtues, the essence of the essence of virtue, the “fifth” cardinal virtue which is not numbered with them for it is more than a virtue. This is the virtue of wisdom, whether we call it “sophia” or “gnosis” or some other thing. All the virtues have their elevated expressions (as theoretic and paradigmatic virtues) as this or that kind of wisdom (e.g. the mirror-like or that of sameness). Now we are arrived at the wisdom unqualified which they imply and express, their unitary principle, the communion of the virtues, the embracing and integral “space” of virtue, and if the Buddha and Vajra kula‘s are sometimes reversed in position, we can perhaps ascribe this to the fact that for us, and “for all intents and purposes”, the ascesis comes first, and proceeding fearlessly on its way, “produces” or arrives at wisdom as its outcome. Courage is first in practice, even if not in principle (and, recall, the cathartic virtues are the proper starting point of individual practice).

In political terms, revolutionary practice precedes and leads to communism (as an established state of affairs), but it is the already subsisting communism which is implicit to the “real movement” of things that the revolutionary endeavors to realize, and not an ideal utopia, not a mental construct imposed on the real. The revolutionary adequates themselves to a concretely subsisting principle, and in practice realizes it as a historical state of affairs. Communism and the revolutionary can be exchanged from the central position of our political mandala, depending on the point of view we wish to adopt (broadly—theoretical or practical). Considering temperance next (for, the “revolutionary” here corresponds with courage, and the theoretician’s apprehension of already-subsisting communism with wisdom), in this political and communistic grounding of the virtues, we could understand it as a kind of revolutionary frugality. Preliminary to this, we need to clarify the distinction between needs conceived as “bare subsistence” and those considered as “social needs”. Marxist theory primarily understands human needs as social needs, needs which are relative to the level of social development and the expansion or contraction of productive forces. The notion of a “bare subsistence” need is an idealist one, for it determines a universal baseline of human need which does not really exist, but is rather an expression of the arbitrary and subjective prejudice of the one positing it. “Bare subsistence” frameworks for conceptualizing human needs, therefore, always end up conforming to a Malthusian tendency. Thus, the “revolutionary frugality”, in question, is not that of reducing our consumption to the “minimum” that we “really need”. Rather, it is a frugality which proceeds from intelligence, a frugality which applies reflection and consideration to our management of resources. The problem with wastefulness is not that it exceeds some imaginary “bare minimum” to which we must conform, but that it is stupid. Communism (or proletarian dictatorship) is the political form which embodies the human capacity for planning, an institutional expression of Promethean foresight. In the words of Mao, “we must treasure our manpower and material resources, and must not take a short view and...from the very first year of our work we must bear in mind the many years to come”. Communism proceeds with cunning and not with unreflective stupidity. It never takes the “short view”, for that would not be cunning. This “cunning” is the communist virtue of temperance. Considered along similar lines, phronesis would seem to constitute the communist virtue of apprehending the unique needs of a historical and social situation, together with an attendant flexibility in our policy. It is a prudence which is able to distinguish between the spirit and the letter of theory, and apply accordingly. It is a realistic sense for tactics and strategy above mere bookishness. Finally, justice serves both as an impetus for our political action, a zealous will to right every wrong, and also as an image of the integral whole of our political aspiration. Justice is the dianoetic image of communism, an approximation of what communism means. In terms of social struggle, communism is justice triumphant, while, “in principle”, communism is the unity implied in a just ordering of things. Justice restores things to their true level, abolishing the alienation of the political order from the order of civil society, in the manner appropriate to the era of social industry. Where communism is the real and concrete order of things, justice is an institutional adequation to this order. Justice is proletarian dictatorship.

There are many other aspects of the question of “virtue” that I would have liked to reflect on here, though I think this digression has gone on long enough. Perhaps the next section of the Enneads, which is precisely concerned with virtue, will afford an opportunity to broach some of these points. Whatever does not come up in response to Plotinus’ thinking on virtue there, will have to be reserved for discussion on some other occasion. There is still much ground we have to cover, even without this.

1: Moreover, I think it is fair to say that the practice of theurgy, which corresponds to the paradigmatic “level”, is not any kind of “virtue”, but framed as something definitely superior to virtue (indeed, even superior to contemplation). Virtue at the paradigmatic level is precisely an ineffable paradigm, and not a practice.

2: Given the way that justice is concerned with divisions and proper orderings, it seems peculiarly appropriate to designate it as the “essence” of a dianoetic conception of virtue, since dianoia itself is an ordered and divisive thinking.

Piero di Cosimo’s The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus, c. 1499

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On the “festival” as an “antidote” to Gestell (57, 58, etc): Firstly, by conceptualizing the festival as a mere antidote, he (either Heidegger or Young, that is) obscures its status in its own right, its own intelligible reality. Secondly, by characterizing it as an antidote to metaphysics, he again flattens the meaning of metaphysics, as well as obscuring his own status as a metaphysician, when, in fact, the festival is nothing other than a pure expression of metaphysics [1]. This affirmation of the festival as an antidote seems, in fact, to constitute a kind of “affirmation of the affirmation”, divesting the festival of its originary purity, and turning it toward the instrumental end of a reactionary weapon or a fence around the sheep pen of being. The festival is turned into the katechon of a doomsday cult, a barrier against the Gog and Magog of modernity. Thus an irreconcilable, and entirely artificial, contradiction is shored up, namely, that of the festival against modernity. The festival, however, is pre-modern, originally, and therefore neither for nor against modernity in its essence [2]—as a species of intellective being, it simply is (in its own symbolic and topographically complex way). Moreover, in this way, the potential integration of festival and modernity is precluded, and by extension the conception of another kind of modernity, a kind susceptible of sheltering its own festivals. The doomsday prophets of reaction exclude this entirely when they preach this self-fulfilling prophecy of Manichean war between festival and modernity, a prophecy which makes them into enemies (whereas, festival is intrinsically indifferent to modernity—even when modernity frequently is not indifferent to it [3]) and ensures that they remain such up until the moment that one destroys the other.

1: Of course, we understand “metaphysics” here as, not only exposition, but the intellectivity indicated by such expository thinking. The constitution of the festival is, in that sense, genuinely “metaphysical”—symbolic, intellective, a pre-expository being-in-the-world.

2: Indeed, in general, the construction of “Tradition against modernity” is already non-Traditional, a departure from Tradition. Not incidentally, Rene Guenon is not particularly guilty of such a construction (his stance consists in a fairly consistent, albeit somewhat affected, indifference), but Julius Evola, the open fascist (or “superfascist”, as he puts it), unsurprisingly is.

3: Indeed, modernity is not indifferent in two senses—firstly, in the sense of hostility toward everything “religious” and “superstitious”, and, secondly, in the sense of “traditionalists” who uphold Traditional forms as against modernity. These latter are also characteristically modern, albeit in a self-defeating sort of way—crypto-moderns.

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“Poets, then, are those who are, qua poets, permanently ‘on holiday’”

(59)

Here we have an essential clue (in the strict sense of “essential”) as to the role and meaning of “poet” irrespective of social form (or the role of “animal” or “satyr”, as I term it elsewhere), and thus we have a basis for effecting a transposition of this role into the eminently modern context of proletarian dictatorship. The poet is the human expression of the intelligible reality of the festival as given in a particular social form. Moreover, as expressed in the preceding passages of text, a festival consists, in part (we cannot wholly identify it with this feature without, at the same time, reducing it to something altogether generic), in the cessation of habitual work, which is to say, of that “work world” which characterizes the everydayness of a particular social form. Thus, in keeping with my conception of the satyr—the satyr is both antinomian and true to the essence of a given social form, at one and the same time, securing the essence of that social form through an outward expression which seems to contravene it.

*

It is indeed curious that Heidegger (Young) connects the function of the poet with the wonder that there exists anything at all rather than nothing (see p. 60). This corresponds with the wisdom of the satyr-like Silenus, who says that it is better “never to have been born at all”, for implied in this is a wonder that the worse condition should be at all, or that we should have somehow departed from the better—from the supereminence of non-being to the being of an existent thing. That this dictum is framed in a moral form, as a “better” and a “worse”, a “should” or “should not”, does not affect its basic content—indeed, it expresses this metaphysics of the real, between being and non-being, in the form of a desire, that is, as a poet might feel it. I doubt very much that a saccharine “life affirmation” could ever produce a poet in the most profound sense (Doctor Zhivago is what vulgar audiences think a poet is “supposed” to be, a triumph of “life” and sentimentality). This satyr’s wisdom is the root of both tragedy and comedy. From this putatively “world denying” maxim, stems the optimism of tragedy, that persists under the violence of fate, and the pessimism of comedy that laughs uproariously at this world that should never have been. Without these dramatic masks, what remains of poetry? Granted, that these expressions are, in certain respects peculiar to the West. Nevertheless, we find parallel expressions in other cultures. For instance, in the karma yoga of India, as expressed in the Bhagavad Gita, we find a conception of duty affirmed in a world in which “nothing remains to be done”. The vacuousness of the world is the plenum of poetic inspiration. The satyr reposes on this plenary emptiness at all times, and dons the dramatic festival masks on all occasions. Thus, the satyr exhibits the plenary emptiness which constitutes the “essence of the essence” of a given social form (its “supereminence”) in the midst of its determinate intelligibility. Thus, the satyr is simultaneously antinomian vis a vis, and an integral expression of, a given social form (likewise the festival—in suspending habitual work it does not suspend the social form, but realizes it supereminently). The poet of “gratitude” is an inferior kind. He is a kind of poet-priest (whereas the satyr is kin to the ascetic, the sanyasin), whose chief function, qua poet, consists in a kind of ritual worship of the gods. This is all well and good. This is essential—but it is not yet the “essence of the essence”. In this connection, it is also clear that not all festivals are equal. Some correspond more to the nature and function of the poet-priest and some to that of the poet-satyr. The Saturnalia is an eminent instance of the latter.

*

Heidegger’s account of “dwelling” (e.g. “in the fourfold”) seems to meet, in a basic (if not merely virtual) way, the criteria of what I consider, in my notes on Being and Time, an “intensified (or concentrillected) condition of Dasein”, something which I proposed there hypothetically and is corroborated in the thinking of the later Heidegger. Nevertheless, Heidegger’s conception of dwelling is “doomed” to, for the most part, remain virtual. Seeing as it is entirely unaided by the the supports of Tradition (indeed, it prefers the reference points of “literature”, such as the poetry of Hölderlin), and is mostly restricted to an individual effort of reflection, or “pondering” as he puts it. Moreover, this general conception of divinity and of “holiness” has a rather boy scout quality to it (or, to take an equivalent from Heidegger’s country, the Hitler Youth). His notion of the Good lacks the “erotic” quality Platonism ascribed to it, and his encounter with divinity lacks all the danger and intensity of the ancient Mysteries. His gods are all too cheery and well-behaved (for the “good” of the Form of the Good is something obviously superior to moral good, the object of desire for all)—surely, such a good boy’s god could never save us from this most dangerous historical impasse. Better, then, to put one’s trust in the cunning of man.

*

The Heideggerian distinction between modern technology (“bad”) and pre-modern technology (“good”) is not completely off the mark, but it does, ironically, miss something essential in the manifestation of these technologies. There is, indeed, evidence of certain modern technological developments showing up in pre-modern (or, in this case, more precisely, pre-industrial) contexts, e.g. steam power, gunpowder, etc, and yet these appear quite sporadically, often in rather trivial contexts (e.g. children’s toys), never attaining “systematic” and wide ranging development. The essential element, missed by Heidegger, is that of social form, the essentiality of a given social form, its intelligible structure. Technology has always had a Promethean stamp in its character, even technology of the most rudimentary kind, and yet technology does not, in every historical context, manifest this Promtheanity in an eminent fashion (although, it does always manifest it, albeit in an otherwise minimal and indirect way). This, technology only begins to do once it is embraced in the sheltering womb of a social form that is itself eminently Promethean, a development that does not come about, in full force, until modern industry takes hold of the planet. Moreover, even modern industry, as we generally find it today, is rather indirect in its manifestation as compared with its expression under the guiding hand of a proletarian dictatorship, which is to say, the social form [1] of modern industry is not expressed fully except through the political form of proletarian dictatorship.

1: “Social form”, here, essentially corresponds to what I have elsewhere called the “polity”.

*

“...in contrast to the authentic homes of our grandparents’ time, modern houses ‘intruding from America’ are ‘empty indifferent things, sham things, dummies of life (not houses but, as one might put it, ‘accommodation resources’)”

(55)

The interesting point here is that any deliberative policy to oppose this course, say, by funding the construction of “beautiful” and “authentic” homes, would in effect consist in the accumulation of “beauty resources” [1]. It would inevitably be a “sham beauty”, a beauty of “aesthetic curations”. Thus, any kind of “reclamation of beauty”, as it were, in the context of modernity, is a much trickier question than aesthetes are prepared to grapple with. We must, to begin with, presume the domination of the “Gestell-society”, though this should not prevent us from inquiring into the possibility of different kinds of “Gestell-society”. Thus, two questions rear their head—what sort of “Gestell-society” is capable of establishing a beautiful world (needless to say, not a sham beauty), and what sort of beauty is peculiar to Gestell? As should be well understood by now, modern society, the society of industry and technoscience, roughly divides itself into two political types—bourgeois and proletarian dictatorships. That bourgeois dictatorship is a mass generator of ugliness, commercialization, and insipidity, is a well established fact. Is it not equally apparent that within the communist bloc, in however rudimentary a fashion, however yet unrealized in its full potential, an austere and industrial beauty was germinating? The key difference, then, in these two situations, lies in the relationship of man to Gestell. Only under a proletarian dictatorship does man become equal to this force and claim it as his own, and in claiming it as his own begin to imbue it with its own peculiar splendor. We begin by having a naked relationship to Gestell.

Gestell must be grasped and developed as beauty, as its own peculiar sort of beauty, the beauty of resourcefulness [2]. It should go without saying that only a proletarian dictatorship is capable of exercising such a naked relationship with Gestell, a direct relationship, because this dictatorship effects Getsell without ulterior motive, as a world transforming power affirmed for its own sake, the project of planetary terraformation (but it should likewise go without saying that it also, so to speak, “liberates” Gestell from the narrow confines in which it originally appears). Bourgeois dictatorship relates to this “power” through a vast array of mediations—exchange value, money, the commodity form, liberal political ideals, alienated political institutions. Gestell haunts the bourgeois dictatorship as an alien force, as natural law. Gestell is the specter of communism (but, nota bene, it is the specter of communism, not its flesh and blood—there is more to communism than this). A naked relationship with Gestell affirms pure resource, not the commercialized resource of capitalist relations, the resource turned toward profit, but the resourceful resource, the deft and un-ostentatious resource, the swift hammer, the cyclopean fortress, the austere tenement, the devil’s foundry. Such an “aesthetic” of proletarian civilization is as inevitable as it is a manifestation of unhypocritical truth. Of course, there is another factor to consider in all this. Presuming that the proletarian dictatorship in question is in the mold of a “second ontopolitanism”, one can further presume that it will incorporate and be guided by intellect and the sacred sciences (metaphysics, divination, anagogy, etc), or rather will seize them and turn them towards its own ends (in the form of what is called the “heroic transcendental subject”). It is this seizure of intellection which has the potential for elevating the rudimentary expression of “communist aesthetic” as found in the 20^th century communist bloc to the level of a fully scientific aesthetics, in a double sense—fully expressive of modern science and at the same time of traditional science, fully an expression of the heroic transcendental subject and therefore fully an expression of intellect.

1: Indeed, that is precisely homologous to the form of a fascist polity—the conversion of the “volk” into an “authentic” spectacle to be viewed through “interior tourism”, that is, a tourism of one’s own Disneylandified nation.

2: The resourcefulness of the revolutionary masses (themselves a “human resource” disposed of by themselves and for themselves), the liberation of man through technological development, the abundance of resources that the industrialized society overflows with, etc etc. The notion that communism will overcome such a conception of “resourcefulness”, that human beings will be ideally freed to just live frivolously, in continual otium, is sentimental drivel unworthy of communism. No, communism must begin by accepting that human beings remain “resources”, but that it is precisely by first accepting this that we overcome the limitations of this manner of thinking about, and of organizing, society. That is, science overcomes necessity by leveraging it. It does not undo it or leap outside of it. Likewise, we overcome mere human resourcefulness by leveraging human resourcefulness, deploying humanity’s labor power to free humanity from a reduction to mere labor power. We overcome our situation by affirming it in excess of itself. We cannot abolish gravity, but we can use it against itself. This should not be confused with “accelerationism”. It is not a letting bourgeois society run amok, but a smashing of the bourgeois state that is involved here. For, this “excess affirmation” is a scientific procedure. This should also be contrasted with what I have elsewhere called the “affirmation of the affirmation”. An “affirmation of the affirmation” is a kind of redundancy—it is conservative (and there we have a clue to the basic character of “accelerationism”—in reality, a kind of reductio ad absurdum of conservatism, conserving a historical configuration at the point one deems it most “problematic”). The “excess of affirmation” considered here, on the other hand, aspires after, and methodically realizes, the transformation of what is affirmed. It is “alchemical”, an “acceleration” of natural processes that can only take place by introducing what nature presently withholds. Acceleration-ism allows an order of appearances to proceed along its (linearly conceived) trajectory. “Communist alchemy” penetrates to the essence behind these appearances, for that essence is the key ingredient of its alchemical mixture. The difference here is really fundamental. Where acceleration-ism merely affirms, communism proactively sublates. Figuratively, the one is a linear trajectory and the other a revolutionary spiral. It is thus “sublation” which must be conceptually distinguished from “affirmation of the affirmation”. One affirmation affirms in order to negate, as it were. The other affirms in order to affirm, and in this way negates what it affirms in the mode of a flattening and a reducing to a ghostly re-presentation (for the original affirmation did not need to be merely affirmed again—we have added nothing to it, and in a way made it into a nothing). Fascism scorns the intensification of what it attempts to affirm, and toward this end it explodes in excess of the means it employs, such as warfare. The fascist war machine expands into monstrous scale in order to protect the precious “authenticity” of its “volk” from the conniving interference of communists and Jews. Indeed, it seems that this place is the only one where fascism really pushes itself beyond its limits. Fascism undoes itself through its own war machine.

*

“The human essence is to be in the world as in a Heimat (homeland) or dwelling-place”

(63)

Actually-existing Heideggerianism (e.g. German National Socialism) can only establish this “homeland”, and thus secure this putative “human essence” of dwelling, by constructing the sheep pen of being under the watchful eye of the guardians of the ethnos. It cannot squarely and nakedly encounter the “rootlessness” of modernity and establish a new kind of dwelling which is adequate to the times. This proletarian dictatorship accomplishes. The manner of dwelling that Heidegger pines after is simply not supported by the intelligible structure of the present social form. It can only be secured (after the fashion of an “affirmation of the affirmation”) through simulating an “authentic environment”, a theater of of authenticity, whose stage managers (e.g. the Schutzstaffel) themselves forego any such share in “authenticity”. This simulated environment, this “lebensraum” carved out for the flock of beings, is shored up over and against the concrete social form of industrial modernity, an abstracted environs (as abstracted as the “ethnos” for whom it is constructed) consisting entirely in stage decoration.

*

That Heidegger actually uses the expressions “guardians” and “shepherds of being” (see e.g. p. 72), categories which have definite political implications, whether or not Heideggerians will admit as much (the honest ones certainly do!), is highly significant. The “guardians of the ethnos” and the “sheep pen of being” have not only a theoretical basis in Heidegger’s thought but an exact terminological one.

*

“In the Spiegel interview [Heidegger] says that the ‘technological world’ will not be ‘abolished’ but rather ‘assimilated’ and ‘transformed [aufgehoben] in the Hegelian sense’”

(76)

Needless to say, Heidegger has no actionable concept of how this can come about—hence, “only a god can save us”. An “actionable concept” would have to be grounded in an intelligible reading of social and historical forces, those forces tending toward this “sublation” of the present order of things. “Actually-existing Heideggerianism” (e.g. German National Socialism) only exacerbates the antagonism without bringing the forces involved any closer to resolution. At best, it temporally fences in antagonistic parties, keeping them at a distance from each other and from an encounter with the reality of their own condition. The “guardians of the ethnos” are an incision which cuts off one region from another, in irreconcilable contradiction. What is needed, rather, is an incision which boldly cuts through to the other side, not a custodian which guards the forces of the present, but a vanguard which guides them to their destined end because, moreover, this vanguard is one and the same with those forces, the quintessence of those forces.

*

“In 1934, during the phase of his brief intoxication with Nazism, Heidegger was himself a Luddite. Holding, at the time, that the Turning required the destruction of the world of modern technology and a return to the agrarian and hand-tool existence of pre-modern times, he called for the depopulation of German cities and the resettlement of former industrial workers on to-be-conquered land in Eastern Europe...Later Heidegger abandons such obvious idiocy (obvious idiocy since a deindustrialized Germany would evidently not be able to defend its conquests against angry neighbors)”

(80)

These views, namely, that modern technology must be dismantled and that such a dismantling would leave said society vulnerable, average out [1] to “actually-existing Heideggerianism”, that is, National Socialism, the political doctrine wherein the guardians of the ethnos stand sentinel over the “authenticity” of the parochially herded flock within the “sheep pen of being”. Under ideal circumstances, all industrial labor in such a society would be carried out by a class of slaves in labor camps so that the “authentic” ethnos can live out their simulated parochial fantasy. In any case, reaction tends toward the destruction of technology (I mean thoroughgoing “conservative” reaction), and yet the existence of the reactionary, as a member of the present social body, depends on the technologies which reproduce that social body and his own individual life. This contradiction always averages out at some form of the “guardians of the ethnos”. Even Ted Kaczynski made use of explosives and the logistics of modern postal service in his primitivist crusade, not to mention the printing press to disseminate his ideas. A similar phenomenon occurs in left utopian circles (and by no means am I implying an equivalent villainy between left [utopians] and the right—obviously, one is much worse than the other here), wherein a “correct” set of institutional and moral arrangements is determined in advance in order to manage the present technological society in lieu of the feasibility of abolishing it altogether (this latter aim is one they may not admit to, but is nevertheless implicit to their conceptions).

1: I feel like this notion of such an “averaging out” is worth delving into in greater depth. For instance, this “average” as a medium between extremes, can be connected to my theory of the political spectrum. The tendency toward the averaging out of extremes, finding this average state riven with contradiction, must explode its means of averaging them out into obscene excess, such as the earlier mentioned fascist expansion of the war machine. Only such a monstrous excess of means can keep the averaging of extremes in place, guard it from exploding. Thus, so far, we have recurred to a basic distinction between the excess of extrinsically alienated “means” and the “excessing” of an essence, a radicalization of the order of appearances and a radicalized science. The linear trajectory considered in our analysis of accelerationism is an averaged trajectory, an averaging of the contradictory poles of a socio-historoical situation. Marxist analysis wants to penetrate behind the facade of this trajectory, to discern of which real forces it is an averaged re-presentation.

*

“Neither machines nor the science they presuppose will be ‘abolished’ by the Turning. Rather, in a way we do not yet understand, they will play a transformed role in our lives”

(80)

It is precisely Heideggerians which do not and cannot understand the role of technology (especially its social significance, i.e. socialized industry), hence this understanding must be offloaded onto a future time where a god will effect the requisite transformation along with the understanding that it entails. Heideggerianism defers the understanding which it could posses even now if it were not so averse to the analysis provided by Marxism—but this analysis obviates that which Heideggerianism desires: parochiality, authenticity, volkishness, and so on.

*

“Since it is not the technological disclosure of being, in any of its forms, but rather the metaphysical misinterpretation that is the root of modernity’s destitution, it is the latter, not the former, which disappears in the turning”

(82)

For a new way of thinking (a mere thinking) to impose itself on reality with sufficient force as to effect this change would indeed demand the intervention of a god—a mere god [1], a Zeus, an Olympian hero. Prometheus, who is no mere god, but equally man himself (man’s divinity qua man, as distinct of man’s divinity qua divinity, as exemplified in Christ), does not effect this change through mere thinking [1], but through “material” forces, and through that class, a real social and historical force, which is the modern Prometheus, namely, the proletariat. It does not abolish the “metaphysical misinterpretation”, but, on the contrary, renders it heroic, incomparably more potent, a dompteur of the intellects, a terraformation of being. It accomplishes this through the real institution of proletarian dictatorship and not merely through a winning of hearts and minds.

1: This is a “god” not considered as a superessential unity conformed to the unity of the social form, but a unity considered abstractly from the latter. It is an ideal.

1: What? And Zeus does? No, Zeus does not, nor does anyone. That is precisely the point. The “god” which is to “save us”, the god which Heidegger awaits, is a fiction. This god never comes, but, in his narrative-dramatic form he is something like a Zeus.

*

“Gestell, says Heidegger, though it is ‘accomplished’ through, is not accomplished by human beings. It is not the product of human intention”

(83)

The Marxist rejoinder to this standpoint (truly a sublation of it) is worth directly quoting—“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances etc”. Moreover, if there is any social form wherein Gestell is proactively seized and “accomplished” by human beings, it is that of social industry under the guidance of proletarian dictatorship.

*

“It is because meditation on the essence of modern technology liberates one from it that Heidegger calls that essence ‘ambiguous’ [zweidutig], Janus-faced”

(86)

Heidegger is very close to the truth here but, in my view, has failed to identify the true source of the “ambiguity” in question, namely, the distinction between technology and technological innovation. It is the latter which bursts asunder the encrustations of the former and liberates us from the prison of technology. Thus, even Heidegger’s ideal of a hand-tool existence is but a technological prison. Only the Promethean fire of innovation can stir chaos under the heavens of technology.

*

“Which four-aspected world is the object of caring-for? First and foremost, Heidegger argues, a local world”

(100)

This “local dwelling”, unfortunately (for Heidegger), is no mere “fact” which “just happens”. It occurs, in its full “authenticity”, under specific conditions, eminently under those of the “first ontopolitanism”. As it presently stands, in the current social and historical world order, this local dwelling is a mere “ideal” [1]. To the degree that it is reclaimable, it is not as something primary but, rather, as a foreground to the background of planetary dwelling, a localism fostered by the internationalism which releases the regimenting shackles of antagonistic nationalisms. Heideggerians pine after a naive locality, but this naive locality simply was and needed no special affirmation. Their “affirmation of the affirmation” inevitably takes the form of a “guardianship of the ethnos”, a perverse and spectatorial [2] herding of the authentic flock within the “sheep pen of being”. To the extent that we dwell in modernity, we dwell at the factory floor of the planet’s terraformation and bask in the holy splendor of the forge of being. Such a technological and scientific framework is, however, intrinsically “cosmopolitan”, or at least premises itself on the already established historical reality of cosmopolitanism (even if it transcends it into what I call the “second ontopolitanism”). Thus, it is objectively impossible to affirm locality in such a way that is to the exclusion of “cosmopolitanism” (granting that this term can be used in more than one sense [3]). Rather, “cosmopolitanism” must be allowed to take the lead in freeing up localities. And, nota bene, this leadership of cosmopolitanism vis a vis locality is exactly the structure of reactionary ideologies like fascism, as in the “guardians of the ethnos”. The crucial difference here is just the same as that already defined elsewhere by the symbolism of Zeus’ eagle preying on Prometheus’ liver. Prometheanity is instrumentalized in service of Olympianity, the future weaponized against futurity, technology against technological innovation. Nazism is cosmopolitanism with a bad conscience. Reaction constructs locality as an ideal theater for cultural spectatorship. It is a form of tourism directed at one’s own nation. Communism frees the development of locality through internationalism—for, the greatest fetter on local identity is the regimenting influence of antagonistic nationalism. And, indeed, these same reactionary ideologies, unable to effect any genuine rapprochement between their cosmopolitan and local tendencies, meet at the halfway house of nationalism, turning every local quirk into a mass produced souvenir. Reactionary cosmopolitanism, aiming at authentic locality, only ever makes it as far as the nation, and ends by congregating every locality into a singular Disney Land of national autovoyeurism, a zoo of cultural idiosyncrasies—the nation is a small world, after all.

1: Whether this ideal is enunciated with a right wing slant, as a call to “authentic” rootedness, or as a left-leaning imperative to “connect with your local community”, in either case it remains but an ideal. The fact of the matter is that, for the vast majority, there is no such thing as a “local community”, just the people one happens to live by, like animals in adjacent pens at the slaughterhouse—that is, there is no ideal “local community” which somehow exists apart from the broader planetary context. A connection with one’s local community which is not informed of international political developments and stands in explicit solidarity with struggling masses in the rest of the world, is doomed to be a flaccid and vacuous thing. The Black Panther Party give us a model of what genuine community organizing is. It is political and internationalist. One cannot “connect with the local community” while setting the questions of political allegiances aside or sweeping solidarity with other communities under the rug. Such a position is concretely and materially unfeasible, not to mention morally disingenuous. The proof is in the pudding here. Such initiatives do really appear to be increasingly feeble apart from explicit politcization.

2: An example of such a perverse spectatorship of “authenticity”, is what has been playfully referred to as the “noble savage theory of the normie”.

3: “Bourgeois cosmopolitanism” of the kind the USSR criticized is not the same as what is meant here. Here, “cosmopolitanism” is roughly equivalent to internationalism. If I insist on using the term “cosmopolitanism” anyway, it is for certain historical and philosophical reasons that I have explored elsewhere (in writings which are still unpublished). Though, my thinking on “cosmopolis” in my Schmitt essay anticipates what I formulate elsewhere. Suffice it to say, the “cosmopolitanism” I have in mind here is not optional. The advent of rational inquiry, technical jargon, coinage, etc, are expressions of this cosmopolitan horizon, a shared cosmos communicable and translatable in speech.

*

“The Black Forest farmhouse, by contrast, conserves its landscape by being placed ‘on...the mountain slope’; it is of rather than ‘on’ the hill, to use Frank Lloyd Wright’s distinction”

(108)

One might surmise that a fully modern architecture, that is, that of an industrial humanism, would reverse this relationship. Whereas bourgeois modernism erects structures that obtrude “on” the landscape, to borrow the phraseology of the quoted passage, and traditional architecture is integrally “of” the landscape, a genuinely industrial modernism would construct in such a fashion that the landscape would be rendered integrally “of” the structure, thus reversing the poles but retaining the integrality of the relation. Construction becomes the meaning of the landscape, rather than the reverse. Architectural style, itself, becomes an exercise in planetary terraformation. The earth is already being terraformed. We only need willingly take this project in hand, actively rather than passively, as it were.

cf. “Garden of Eden”—the term “garden” implied priority of the artificial despite being composed, in bulk, of the natural. Also notable that this garden was surrounded by an artificial structure, a wall and gate, a curious detail in the Genesis narrative given that it is implied that this artificial structure would not have been constructed by human beings.

*

Philosophical psychoanalysis, a demonstration by way of Heidegger: As alluded to in the last section, we will now consider an instance of “philosophical psychoanalysis”, an analysis of the psychological constitution of a certain body of thought, rather than that of the thinker. If we wanted to express it in more jargony terms, we could also call it a “dianoetic psychoanalysis”, that is, an analysis of dianoia in its capacity as irrational psyche, or what we have already called “an irrational topography of Reason”. As considered in a number of places throughout my notes, reason, unsecured by intellect, is itself irrational. This can be understood in a number of respects. Let us briefly review some of them:

• The first sense in which I established this thesis, and what led me to the need for positing it, was through a consideration of the mediating character of reason. Reason establishes common measures, “ratios”, which facilitate comparison, but itself has no common measure with anything else. In this sense, it is fundamentally irrational.

• In its unfettered activity, reason breaks things down to the level of incoherence wherein an intelligible wholeness no longer seems to bind together the parts produced through analysis (i.e. philosophical atomism), that is, provided we do not cut along the “natural joints” of things, as stipulated by Plato through Socrates, but such a method already implies an extra-rational (i.e. intellective) consideration.

• If “soul” (that is, psyche), as per Platonic tradition, is a “vital intellection” (for more on this, see my commentary on Plotinus’ Ennead), then the partition of “soul” (= psyche) from its intellectivity leaves us with nothing but the “vital”, that is, the irrational in the sense of inchoate impulses, instincts, and desires—a fertile field for any psyche-ology!

• Finally, we can also point out that, on the one hand, what reason (unsecured by intellect) compares are various irrationals, and, on the other hand, the criterion for comparison is decided upon irrationally.

Now let us take a specific case, namely, that of Heidegger’s aforementioned theoretical “Freudian slip”, or to borrow Walter Kaufmann’s rendering of Fehlleistungen, his “mischievement” (having the sense of a mistaken achievement, a thing accomplished in conformity with desire but against conscious intention). In aiming to “destroy” metaphysics, Heidegger has resuscitated it after its long slumber. If this “destruction” had been aimed only at the tradition of modern metaphysics, beginning with Descartes (a narrative simplification, to be sure, but not an arbitrary one), that would be one thing, but he projects this destruction backwards into medieval and antique metaphysics—that is, precisely the sort of metaphysics which he has unwittingly revived [1]! Thus, the whole Heideggerian project is a kind of “Freudian slip”, a “mischievement”. This is a psyche-ology internal to his thinking, and which does not need to make reference to any personal motive or idiosyncrasy on the part of the thinker; indeed, it is doubtful that such a reference would illuminate anything about this philosophy. The rational and intelligible structures of a thinking (not to mention its irrational components) remain what they are irrespective of any personal motives we might tack on to them.

Now, toward clarifying this very point, we must also consider the means Heidegger employs to obscure this “mischievement”. Do these means not consist, chiefly, of rationally constructed arguments, arguments intended to demonstrate, more or less rigorously, the very opposite of what they conceal? This seems to be a rationality which is merely rationalizing, in which both the irrational and intelligible content of his thinking is molded into a pre-decided shape, in this case, the shape of a certain narrative about the forgetting of being in antiquity and an “other beginning”. This does bear a certain curious resemblance to Hegel, for whom dramaturgical considerations hold such a central place in articulating his philosophy. In both cases, the storytelling (historia) is still a mere storytelling and not yet the intelligibly anchored and scientific storytelling of historical materialism [2].

But—is there not, perhaps, a personal motive implied in this analysis? After all, it still remains to consider just why Heidegger would be motivated to obscure the metaphysical character of his thinking. Could it be, for instance, to mention just one possibility, a desire for originality, a bid at demonstrating his difference from everything that came before? That may very well be true, on some level, but as already stipulated, identifying such a personal motive, even if it does happen to be true as a matter of fact, does not really do anything to clarify the meaning of a thinking. Thus, irrespective of its factual truthfulness, it functionally has the significance of a proposition merely tacked on, and it still remains to uncover a significance to this “mischievement” which illuminates the thinking itself and does not consist merely in some inference about the thinker. This significance (in the specific case under consideration) has a predominantly political character, and this political dimension of Heidegger’s thinking is not merely some ontically specified motive (e.g. a “political motive” one tacks on), but an integration into a broader intelligible context, a context which not only surrounds Heidegger the thinker externally, but is also internal to the thought itself, for, insofar as thinking in a given domain is genuinely intelligible, it is transposable (e.g. by analogy) into any other intelligible context—intellect is intellect, and intelligibility is intelligibility. This holds apart from explicitly political statements, which are, in any case, certainly not lacking in Heidegger’s oeuvre. In brief, then, Heidegger’s ontology is also a political one, an ontology of parochiality (together with all that we have already considered with respect to the “guardians of the ethnos”), an articulation of what I have elsewhere called the “first ontopolitanism”. Therefore, it also polemicizes itself against the comparatively cosmopolitan metaphysics of antiquity and the middle ages [3]. Moreover, such a political context includes in its ontological broadness also the ontic specification of personal motives. Thus, in this way equipped, we can also assess personal motives without reducing our assessment to them. Indeed, this way of contextualizing allows us to understand personal motive as intrinsic to the thought, and not only the thinker. As politically motivated, one could say that the thought itself here “wants” to win out against its opposition. It articulates a partisan standpoint and is obliged to contradict or in some way supersede its political opposition. We can certainly attribute this motive to Heidegger himself, and we would not be incorrect in doing so, but it is clearly also meaningful beyond the limits of individual personality. It is something we can say about the thought itself. If, then, we identify the personal motive of the thinking at the level of its partisanship, then what is the overarching and impersonal political context? This is none other than the context of social industry with its politicization as the two class dictatorships [4]. It is within this context that Heidegger’ thinking adopts its partisan stance (a fascist one).

Now we can return to the question of Heidegger’s philosophical “mischievement”. Heidegger’s thought needs, as it were, to return to metaphysics, to intellection, in its criticism of the ontic flatness of modern thought, that is, the modern variety of “metaphysics”. As politically motivated, however, it feels obliged to castigate the relatively cosmopolitan articulation of metaphysics we find in the middle ages and antiquity [5]. The urgency and intensity of this political struggle—for the intelligible context of social industry exhibits contradictions of gigantic proportions—guided this thinking toward the most extreme rejections of antique metaphysics, projecting Cartesianism backwards into it in advance of this rejection. After all, Heidegger could have simply highlighted the differences between his metaphysics and that of antiquity—as considered elsewhere, chiefly one of intellective polarity—but the extremity of the political task here tended toward an extremity in the articulation of a philosophical solution. Which is to say, the partisan political stance (a fascist one) which this thinking takes, within its political context, was not one conducive to nuance or compromise on this point. Thus, the very psyche of this thinking is divided in terms of what it “unconsciously” desires and what it consciously believes itself to be doing, and this spills over to the rational (or rationalizing) form in which this line of thinking has expressed itself. We have uncovered, here, something about the psyche of the thought and not only the thinker, the irrational topography of this thought’s reason.

1:—after a fashion. Naturally, we also need to consider here the polarity of the intellects, as well as the caprigenetic aspect of Heidegger’s thinking, but all of this has been dealt with elsewhere.

2: As an aside, let us consider—is the turning of Hegel on his head, which is characteristic of “historical materialism”, in a way, a return to Kant? After all, Marx introduces, through historical materialism, a number of regulative principles for the interpretation of history so that it does not engage in arbitrary flights of fancy, what Kant might term “dialectical fantasy”. Marx disciplines historical reason, in a comparable fashion. If this is “a return to Kant”, of sorts, it is a return after the fact of Hegel, and a return which fully processes the Hegelian contribution. Thus, it is neither Kant as we originally knew him nor any Neo-Kantianism, for it does not flatly reject Hegel but incorporates him. Indeed, Hegel implicitly already allowed for this (this, too, is a kind of philosophical mischievement), for the subject which engages in the thinking of the Logic and the Phenomenology is already, from the beginning, the mediating transcendental subject operating in media res. On these terms, we might characterize Marx’s historical materialism as a Kantian appropriation of the “dialectical method”, an appropriation within limits, for it applies it specifically in relation to “material contradictions”, and one which operates in media res without the bad conscience that needs to fabricate itself a narrative beginning. Which is to say, it applies it only within the limits that are determined “valid” for historical reason (whatever those might be), beyond which its application might be considered mere “dialectical fantasy”. Thus, it regulates dialectical method.

3: Naturally, Heidegger’s thinking also, in spite of itself, has a cosmopolitan dimension to it (and this is, again, connected with what we have elsewhere said about the “guardians of the ethnos”). His thinking and his jargon is translatable, and has been more or less successfully translated, into a number of languages and contexts, as much as he might have liked to root it in the parochial context of a language, especially the German one. His thinking, as an intellectivity, is universal not only in its intellective essence, but also in the general (for generality is a kind of universality, through the junction of generic ambiguity—generality and universality possess a “dissimilar similarity”) applicability of its concepts.

4: Moreover, as considered elsewhere, communist partisanship has a unique status as being adequate to its political context. It is a true partisanship.

5: And, in relation to what was said in footnote 3—and here we introduce another psyche-logical consideration—this thinking, in denial of its own cosmopolitan character, induces a kind of obsession to suppress this dissonance. Heideggerian parochiality, dwelling authentically in its Black Forest hut, quite naturally transitions into fascist war machine.

*

“The It”

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Worth comparing with the psychoanalytic “das Es” (which is to say, “the It”or the “Id”). It is easily conceivable that one might (or that, indeed, in some times and places, certain cultures might) speak of moods and impulses as one speaks of the weather—“it is raining”, “it is angering”. The gods move us hither and thither. Psychoanalysis is (or can be) a study of the “gods” and their varying will—that is, psychoanalysis could be a divinatory science, a hermeneutic of interior constellations. Executed rigorously, this “psycho-divination” would, in the first place, not be primarily anchored in a therapeutic context—the aim of science is knowledge, first of all, not self-improvement, “individuation”, or “integration with the unconscious”—and, in the second place, grounds itself in intelligibility rather than in a reductive psychologism. Which is to say genuine psycho-divination is not a Jungianism. We have surveyed here too vast a field, and altogether too rapidly. Let us tarry, for a while, then, and consider—what exactly is “divination” and in what way is it connected with the psychological unconscious, that is, “the Id” or “das Es” (howbeit, “Id” and “unconscious” are not strictly identical)?

Stating things in ordinary terms—the unconscious, being such that is, which is to say, being that which we are not conscious of, is, perforce, not approached directly. That is simply to say that, in speaking of it or inferring anything about its character and composition, we are divining it. We take that which is conscious and conspicuous as an outward sign and symptom of that which is concealed from view, just as, say, an astrologer takes the outward signs of the celestial bodies as indicating that which is yet to transpire or as emblems of an individual’s inborn character, concealed in their heart but announced openly in the sky. There is nothing extraordinary being expressed here beyond what is straightforwardly implied in positing anything like an “unconscious”. Thus, the general form of what any psychological (or psychoanalytic) inquiry is doing in theorizing, and elaborating the “structure” of, an “unconscious, is almost suspiciously analogous to what is involved in traditional forms of divination. “Almost”, indeed, for there are also crucial differences, some more obvious than others.

We might begin the just implied task, namely, an elaboration of the similarities and differences between divination and the psychoanalytic theorizing of the unconscious, through a consideration of that similarity which is most different and that difference which is most similar. I am here alluding to the conceptual framework of “dissimilar similarity”—which I have already had occasion to employ in a number of other contexts—or what Rene Guenon calls the analogy of the “two nights”. Thus, such an analogy of “dissimilar similarity” seems to subsist here between the psychological “unconscious” and the “superessential gods” whose “will” is divined in the practice of divination. That these “gods” (whatever that might mean) are considered as “superessential” (a basic postulate of the Platonic tradition) is important. With reference to the Platonic tradition—to review the matter as briefly as possible—the One, or the Form of the Good, considered as subsisting beyond being and intellect (terms referring to one and the same hypostasis), “expresses” itself most directly, as it were, in the superessential unities we call “gods”, which as “ineffable specifications” (in a manner of speaking) of that which is primordially ineffable, are considered as the principles of every effable thing. Condensed into more ordinary terms, we might say that every effable sign and entity, every sensible and intellectual reality, has its distinctive “trace” of ineffability, something about it not reducible to words or affects—the je ne sais quoi of living experience. To attempt any kind of inference of this ineffability, to draw from it something effable and expressible, is to “divine”. “Divination”, then, is an interpretation (hermeneutic) of that which most obstinately eludes interpretation, through the medium of that which is effable, and an interpretation of the effable order of things which holds fast to the trace of ineffability in them.

In that sense, divinatory hermeneutic is the first and most basic hermeneutic, that is, by virtue of its comprehensive scope, inclusive of the effable and ineffable, and, what is more, by virtue of its relating to this effability, first of all, in terms of its intellectivity (that is, as genuine symbol). Indeed, in this contradictory structure—effable and ineffable—we have the very form of what we earlier referred to as the “aporetic horizon of disclosure”. In that case, and conforming to the same reasoning employed there, this aporetic horizon as considered here must also possess its transcendental component, that is, that nothing which is in an analogical relation of “dissimilar similarity” to superessential non-being—here, the “gods”. That factor, in the present case under consideration, would seem to be nothing other than the psychological “unconscious”. Indeed, hermeneutic, as a practice, is fundamentally psychical, that is to say, anchored in that intermediary we posit in relation to intellect and body—but, for more on this, see my notes on the Enneads. Where intellect simply is what it knows, “soul” (or psyche) becomes it, continually, in and through a process of interpretation, interpenetrating things with a golden thread of meaning. Moreover, quite significantly, though we cannot really enter into this here (again, see my notes on the Enneads for more), “soul” (psyche) can also be considered a kind of intellection, a “vital intellection”.

With the psychological “unconscious”, then, we have zeroed in on the transcendental component of this aporetic horizon of hermeneutic. The “unconscious” is unconscious for a subject. Insofar as that subject becomes a scientific subject, a subject that wants to inquire into things and produce a rational account, it also must inevitably begin a study of itself, and, insofar as it apprehends itself in the mode of “psyche”, it must come head to head with the unconscious, and desire that this, too, should be accounted for. The scientific subject, therefore, must infer the character of that of which it is not conscious through whatever conscious and effable symptoms are available to its scrutiny. Psyche-analysis must divine the unconscious. In doing so, it seems, it also uncovers the very basis of its inquiry, for this, too, is a desire, the desire to know, which, as per Aristotle, all living beings share. Here, then, we have arrived at the desire to know precisely that which by virtue of its very character eludes knowledge, that which is unconscious. The analogy here, a “dissimilar similarity”, with the Platonic tradition is quite exact, for there the Form of the Good, in principle beyond any knowledge (a kind of profound ignorance—“hyperagnosia”, in Damascius’ phrasing), is the supreme object of desire to all, a desire to know which carries us beyond the summit of being, beyond intellect, beyond what is knowable, into an ineffable silence. Analogously, then, the subject, too, wants to know that which stimulates its every desire, as a subject. The theoretical positing of a psychological “unconscious” (an event belonging to the intellectual history of modernity), then, is a product of this desiring subject becoming a scientific subject that desires to know the origin of its own desire. This suggests that psychoanalysis should begin by inquiring into the scientific subject, the analyst rather than the patient, and that it should first be a science of the scientist, an understanding of the scientific subject and its desires, before it is a therapeutic instrument for the patient. Indeed, considering another aspect of this Freudian-Platonic analogy, we could also note that in both instances desire is foundational to science. We might even say that desire adopts the outward aspect of this or that kind of science in conformity with its object. For, in the Platonic tradition, as we noted, the Form of the Good is the object of desire to all natures posterior to it, among which we count also intellect and the sciences which correspond to it. Metaphysics, then, and its correlative ascetical-contemplative practice, is driven by desire, and the modern sciences, no less, evince their own desire to grasp and leverage the whole of natural necessity to human ends.

It seems, then, that a comprehensive (but never exhaustive) engagement with the aporetic horizon of hermeneutic necessitates precisely the sort of inquiry that Plotinus warned us against in the Enneads (Ennead III.9.3)—the glance of “soul” into itself, that is, as it turns out, an inquiry, transcendental in its form, into the origins of the subject’s desire. This is not to say that such a thing is merely “lacking” in Plotinus’ thought, or in that of the Platonists generally. Such an inquiry had no relevance for them, and would have been tangential to their aims at best. But we, today, are fully modern subjects, living after the fact of the transcendental turn, living in the midst of the Promethean fomentations of social industry. Our desire to know has already carried us this far, and will carry us further still, whether we will or no, for it is something we have pre-willed, as it were, in the very intelligible momentum of our history. It is up to us not to botch this trajectory, so long as we find ourselves on it. Neither communism nor psychoanalysis are “optional”. The choice before us is as to how competently we undertake our historically allotted tasks. The transcendental turn and the inception of social industry have each inscribed their own respective demands into the edifice of our historical being, demands we ignore at the price of catastrophe. History communicates its necessity to us in riddles, and it is up to us to divine its oracular signs.

There is another point that might be of interest here, in connection with the analogical form of “dissimilar similarity”, a point of particular relevance to communist theory. Let us recall that the analogy of the “two nights” is explicitly concerned with what we have called “plenary non-being”, on one side, and the prima materia, on the other. Thus a metaphysics of matter is involved here, a point of access to speculations relevant for any possible materialism. We have considered various aspects of this question, above, in connection with the aporetic horizon of disclosure. We can also consider, then, how this might apply, by analogy, within the transcendental limits of psychoanalysis. From that standpoint, we can designate the unconscious as a kind of matter, not perhaps a prima materia, but a matter-for the conscious life of the subject, the inchoate potency of the subject’s inner landscape. Just as matter in its metaphysical sense is considered as the precondition of the discrete and effable, not only among bodies (what Plotinus calls “matter Here”) but also among intelligibles (“matter There”—for a more extensive treatment of this distinction see my notes on the Ennead), so also the matter which is the psychological unconscious is a relative precondition (“relative” in the sense that it is not a prima materia) of the effable and discrete dimensions of conscious experience. Deepening the analogy here, by noting the already established link between the passivity of matter and that of passive intellect, we can also account for the distinction maintained in Freudian thought between the unconscious generally and the Id specifically (the “It” with which we began this reflection). In that case, if “unconscious” has the significance of a “matter” for the subject, then “Id” would constitute something like a “passive intellection” of the subject, only, by virtue of its “dissimilar similarity”, rather than constituting an intelligible range of the subject’s being (the subject, in its transcendental sense, is ontologically privative), it is a kind of implicit or occluded horizon of irrational desire. As considered elsewhere, the structure of the transcendental horizon is a kind of flattened image of intellection. As for any other analogies we might draw here, whatever they might be, we need not attempt an exhaustive delineation of them just now. Thus, in any case, we have come back around to the starting point of this reflection and established a link between passive intellection (the general form of Heidegger’s philosophizing) and the psychoanalytic postulate of “the It”.

We can add a few more remarks here, by way of conclusion. In the first place, as it turns out, we can dispense with this category of “psycho-divination”. It is entirely redundant. Psychoanalysis already relates to the unconscious in a divinatory manner. In the second place, even supposing that we posit, as a difference between divinatory hermeneutic and psychoanalysis, that the former is intellective while the latter is transcendental in its scope, taking its mold from the modern sciences, nevertheless, there is no reason why psychoanalysis should exclude intellection. This exclusion should be taken as a historical happenstance (though not a meaningless or arbitrary one—it conforms to the general tendencies of the transcendental turn). After all, if the aim of psychoanalysis is a study of the psyche, then understanding the relation between psyche and intellect (i.e. nous) would only further conduce toward that end. We do not need to posit a second kind of study (i.e. a “psycho-divination”), side by side with, or even in opposition to, psychoanalysis, which includes intellection as a factor in its thinking. Psychoanalysis already should include this, by virtue of its own aims, and there is really nothing preventing this inclusion besides contemporary prejudice.

*

As per Heidegger, the “it” in “it is raining” or “it is bright outside” refers to the non-manifest. This is quite a brilliant metaphysical flourish on his part, one which conforms to the everydayness of Dasein, unveiling the metaphysico-symbolic structure of ordinary speech—a metaphysics of nous pathetikos. This way of grounding everydayness in the profundity of non-being is actually astonishing. If it were not for certain drawbacks, like his residual Cartesianism, and his self-undermining hostility to metaphysics, Heidegger could have been a truly first-rate metaphysician, and in a way he was, in spite of himself.

*

Regarding Heidegger’s disdain for the term “culture”—“...a central Heideggerian position is that historical forms of life are never the product of human intention but are, rather, ‘sent’ by Being. With respect to such forms of life we are always receptive rather than creative. Coming from the Latin ‘cultura’, however, ‘culture’ implies, Heidegger thinks, ‘cultivation’, in other words, self-cultivation”

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Another bit of compelling evidence of Heidegger’s basic stance in nous pathetikos, namely, an emphasis on generation through receptivity. Moreover, if we extend this reasoning into the transcendental horizon we find that what Heidegger is rejecting here is not only the poeisis of the sages (that is, nous poetikos), but also the more radical terraformation of being, a “cultural” reality that has been ongoing since prehistory (Promethean gift of fire as mytho-historical origin point), and which now, in industrial modernity, and especially through communism, threatens to explode to a planetary scale. This is the threat against which Heidegger wishes to construct the sheep pen of being, hence his enthusiastic participation in Nazism. The inevitability of this development also means that “only a god can save us”, namely, the guardians of the ethnos, the Schutzstaffel, the Übermenschen on the other side of nihilism (or putatively so). In other words, the terraformation of being is inevitable—thus, says Heidegger, let us enter into it under receptive submission to the gods. The audacity of a human (humanist) “culturation” of the planet, that is, communism, is an unspeakable blasphemy. Again, politics is metaphysics.

*

“Modern technology—[is a] violation of both non-human and human nature...it reduces [them] to ‘raw material’ for the process of production and consumption, a process which has no purpose other than its own self-perpetuation”

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Every social form “perpetuates” and reproduces itself. The key is to discern the intelligible structure of a given social form and its self-reproduction (that is, the entelecheia of that social form, a “revolutionary entelecheia”), a task which, as concerns the modern industrial form, cannot be accomplished without Marxism, and thus a task of which Heidegger must despair, deferring it to the rescuing grace of a coming “god”. The perceived “purposelessness” of the modern social form (or, rather, its circular self-justification) is a function of capitalist domination, that is, of this social form’s failure to be adequate to itself, its imposition of arbitrary (albeit historically explicable) constraints upon its own intelligible concretion, manifesting, for instance, in the domination of exchange value over productive activity, and characterizable, more broadly, as an attempted substitution of “formality”(in the sense of mere “formalisms” and abstractions) for concretion (curiously, such a substitution resembles what Rene Guenon calls a “counter-Tradition”). “Formalisms” are eminently intrinsic to the modern social form, and a thorough grappling with this abstractive-discursive power means to unleash it toward the terraformation of being, not to substitute this or that individual system (cf. “absolutization”) for concretion in toto [1]. Abstraction must be liberated, as a critical power (a “ruthless criticism of all that exists”), rather than definitively frozen into an arbitrary “system”, a putative circle of Absolute knowledge, a la Kojeve’s reading of Hegel. Again, politics is metaphysics.

1: That is, drawing on what we said above regarding Marx’s (inadvertent) Kantianism, we want to take dialectic as a method and apply it toward intelligible concretion, an intelligible concretion which also regulates the method we apply to it insofar as we apprehend this concretion through the (both symbolic and conceptual) principles of a “scientific materialism” (e.g. history as class struggle). Intelligible concretion is not a “system”, nor could it ever be exhausted by or reduced to the proportions of a “system”.

*

Communism, in its full Promethean development, is a Promethean Gemeinschaft, that is, an intelligible grounding of full-fledged an “unapologetic” industrial Gesellschaft.

*

“[Heidegger claims] that ‘no god any longer gathers men and things unto himself, visibly and unequivocally, and by such gathering disposes the world’s history and man’s sojourn in it’, that no god any longer shapes the life of our culture as a whole—and thereby the lives of the individuals who belong to it”

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Clearly Heidegger has never considered the solar halo that graces Mao’s form in a typical propaganda poster, or the mercurial aspect of Stalin’s personality and historical significance (see Elbakyan). Incidentally, the “solar mercury” is a historical and symbolic phenomenon of note [1]. In any case, it is worth reflecting on the role of such “gods” and “godhood”, generally, in the context of socialist theory and the intelligibility of the industrial social form as such. Indeed, this touches on the vague and unsatisfactory debate surrounding so-called “great man theory”. To attribute “godhood” to such figures, in fact, side steps the debate—they are not “men”, at all, but impersonal manifestations of divinity, that is, “disclosures” of the intelligibility proper to modernity itself, emblems of Fame, not mere celebrity [2]. Such an attribution might seem incredible. It is, however, nothing of the kind. We must demystify divinity.

To begin with, we have already considered certain aspects of divinity and divination, above, in connection with the notion of a “psychological unconscious”. The superessentiality we posited there can be taken as a starting point for reflection here. Divinity is the principle of intelligibility and being, transcending both. It is superessential unity. Without this unity, we can neither have anything like being nor anything like intelligibility. To be is to be a one, and to know is to unite, to be one with that which one knows. This unity is neither reducible to knowing nor to being, and seems to be their precondition. Unity exceeds knowing and being, as it were. Unity is more than intelligible. Unity is manic. Unity is divine. Moreover, there is not just the Unity, the One and the Good, there are unities, sharing in its superessential characteristic—that is to say, there are gods. To be a “god” is to be a superessential unity (granting that the limits of language here force us to say “be” of that which we posit as transcending being), to be a principle for knowing and being, a unity that is their precondition [3]. This very brief attempt at summarizing Platonic thinking on the nature of divinities should suffice for our purposes here, the emphasis being on reducing it to more or less ordinary proportions, an interplay of being, knowing, and unity that is roughly comprehensible even without an extensive background in Platonism (in that respect, the generic ambiguity of those terms, it is hoped, will suffice to render them serviceable to our ends). What is more, this account of “communist gods” is in no way intended to correspond one to one with the Platonic account, since it manifestly does not do this. Indeed, the link between these disparate accounts will, again, probably be found by virtue of the generic ambiguity of shared terms, but this, as considered elsewhere, is far from something meaningless or merely equivocal.

The social order and historical time, then, are also intelligible realities. We can consider them in their being and in their transparency to knowing, as, for instance, we did in the previous section with respect to horizons of disclosure. In positing the knowing and being of the socio-historical order, whether in the sense that it is knowable for us or that it exhibits a kind of knowing itself (e.g. “general intellect”), whether we consider its being in a timelessly symbolic manner or as temporally flowing “workworld”, in either case we presuppose it in its “pre-ontological” and “pre-epistemelogical” capacity as unity, as the precondition for these specifications and polarizations. To posit “gods” in connection with the socio-historical order is to posit unities that exhibit the unity of the socio-historical order in diverse and characteristic manners. It is to consider certain knowing and knowable beings, knowledge producing beings, beings whose being-in-the-world are eminent exemplars for our study of history, beings who seem to be living symbols, it is to consider these in their capacity as unities. Moreover, this is why the bourgeois coalition could never produce “gods” (and this in no way means that they do not also produce great figures—”godhood”, here is not synonymous with “greatness”—figures like Napoleon, for instance, exhibit a specifically human greatness, a “Welt-geist” on horseback, indeed, that is, an incarnate manifestation of Reason’s cunning and adaptability), for they re-present the dis-order and dis-unity of the present socio-historical order (taking Napoleon, again, as our example—his various reforms exhibit such dis-order through Reason’s orderliness or, stated more simply, he applied an orderly legal band-aid to the contradictory social form over which he presided).

The “heroes” and figureheads of the bourgeois order are mere personalities, not intelligible emblems in their life and deeds, but rather nothing more than biographies. They are celebrities. We celebrate them for their quirks and idiosyncrasies taken apart from the capacity for such “quirks” to express unity (in that sense, they are also mere ideals, in the pejorative and narrow sense which we counterpose against the “material”), the unity exhibited in the knowing and being of history and the social order, a unity which has an inescapably proletarian charge. The “gods” of the present socio-historical order only manifest in and for the proletarian coalition, whether or not they explicitly identify themselves with this coalition, whether or not they belong to the proletarian class. The “god” is an impersonal exhibition of the intelligibility and being peculiar to our era of socialized industry, exhibiting it in a characteristic manner and with a “personal touch”, to which latter its is not reducible.

Stalin characterizes communism by virtue of his impersonality. This “personal touch” of the impersonal doctrine seems to indicate something ineffable, a divine trace implied in the contradiction, for “divinity” also means “unity“. To characterize communism is to be its divinatory symbol, a unity of its effability and ineffability. Moreover, he also performs a divinatory function, by virtue of uniting communist metanoia and authority (I am thinking here of Vico’s divinatory conception of a ruling class). This invocation of “metanoia” brings us to another such unity, which likewise seems to imply an ineffable trace in its contradiction, namely the contradiction of theory and practice. Their unity is exhibited in that theoretical work is also a distinct practice, and that practical work is implicitly theoretical, that is, it possess (or is possessed in) an intelligible meaning and context. Their distinction can be expressed by noting that theory is constituted as a framework to be applied, and practice, if it is not to be a mere “spontaneity” (e.g. in the sense considered by Lenin in “What Is To Be Done?”), must be reflected on theoretically and guided in conformity with this reflection. Thus, on the one hand, we have a unity theory-practice, a unity which does not need to be brought together because it is already so, and, on the other hand, we have a distinction theory-versus-practice. It is metanoia that bridges the gap. For, one does not apply theory (or rightly apprehend spontaneous practice) by consulting a checklist or plugging variables into a pregiven formula. One applies theory by knowing its proper application, that is, by knowing intimately and fundamentally the “pre-existing” unity of theory with practice. It is this knowing which gives us the requisite flexibility for traversing the distinction of theory and practice, retaining their basic unity even when we transgress the letter of theory in our practice or when we criticize a practice which, putatively, has the appearance of being a properly communist practice. Here, then, we have a more communistic frame of reference for understanding “divinity”, namely, a unity of theory and practice, or the unity implied in their contradiction and interaction, the unity which traverses their distinction when it theorizes practice or practices theory. In figures like Lenin, Mao, or Stalin we have eminent exemplars of such a metanoia, each a distinctive and characteristic expression of impersonal metanoia (together with an investiture of authority for interpreting, that is, divining, the “signs of the times” and needs of a situation). This impersonality, considered historically, is connected with what I have, above, called “Fame”.

In the context of a “Promethean civilization”, godhood has no connotation of cringing abasement and worship. To become a god is to become a perfect instrument of the social body, a servant of humanity. These “gods” of communism are living symbols and loci of concentrated social power and social intelligibility—that is, concentrated loci of the meaning of communism, local disclosures of that meaning, as it were. This possibility, namely, of manifesting divinity, was already vouchsafed as a feature of humanism in the Renaissance—man’s empty essence can raise itself to imitation of the gods. For, man as there conceived has no essence of his own, and that precisely is his essence (this, in Marxist terms, we might call his “species being”). This is not the imitatio dei of pious religiosity, but already a step in the direction of what we would one day call communism—proactive and revolutionary emptiness of essence, the human as a comprehensive social and historical field. Communism pushes humanism outwards to its maximal limits, beyond the boundaries of the individual personality and the worship of the celebrity’s genius. Stalin is a “god” and not a “great man”—he is an emblem of social collectivity, a “servant of the people”. He hardly seems to be a person at all. He is the anonymous “Big Brother” of revolutionaries everywhere, and a terror to reaction. It was said of the prophet Muhammad (salla allahu alayhi wa sallam) that he was a “walking Quran”. Stalin was theory made flesh, the historical struggle concentrated at a point. That is what it means to be a “god”—intelligible anonymity, even in the midst of Fame. Though, neither Fame nor celebrity are a prerequisite for this. Most of our “gods” are nameless to the annals of history, selfless currents of the collectivity [4]. Is it any wonder, then, that a “god” is, for us, neither an object for worship nor for credulous wonder? It is but another fluctuating image in the mimetic field of the human. And yet, is the “god”, as a unity superior to essence, not something entirely fundamental, all-conditioning, comprehending every other reality in its principial transcendence?—but this is the paradox we call the “terraformation of being”. The emptiness of the human essence conditions and revolutionizes its own grounds. Human impossibility, leveraging intelligible necessity, triumphs over divinity. Indeed, so much so, that our history produces its own “gods”, for our own ends. Prometheus was a god against gods—a Titan.

“Godhood” is, therefore, not a universal ideal (or, strictly speaking, not a general one), especially not in the context of industrial humanism (that is, the humanism characteristic of the industrial era—collective and empty “species being”), but an inevitable showing forth of social power in an outwardly human shape. One need not seek it. It comes at its appointed time. Those who are called forth to this task, to the sacrifice of their humanity, know themselves. In more conventional Marxist terms, “godhood” is an eminent manifestation of the base in and through the superstructure (taking these terms rather loosely, for the purposes of analogy), intelligible concretion manifesting through theoretical and political struggle—an avatara (did Stalin not come, like a Vishnu, to “to protect the righteous, to annihilate the wicked “?). In the same way that institutions of divine worship (that is, “priests”) and conquering armies [5] (that is “warriors”) manifest the intelligibility of pre-industrial civilization, these gods of communism manifest the intelligibility of industrial and humanist civilization. This by no means should be taken as a disparagement of the laboring classes of pre-industrial societies—from a humanist standpoint, can it be any disparagement to say that these were no gods [6]? Indeed, in their ferment, their peasant uprisings, they positively manifested a proto-modern devilry, an aspiration toward a labor-centric political order prior to the possibility of its full-fledged and Promethean accomplishment (this required the socialized form of labor characteristic of modern industry)—we commend them for their devilry! We display no cringing preference for godhood, as though it were a superior thing to which we should submit ourselves. “Godhood” is reduced here to ordinary proportions, as ordinary as a stone or the fact that the sky is blue. We exploit divinity when it serves our human ends and trample it under foot when it obstructs our passage.

Humanity, animality, devilry, divinity—theoretical humanism, grounding itself in the empty essence of human “species-being”, encompasses all of these, and industrial humanism, as the socio-historical concretion of this theoretical possibility, guides the manifestation of men, gods, devils, and animals into the social body, each at its “appointed” time and place. Working out the specifics of the industrial variants of these symbolic manifestations (i.e. the kinds of devils, gods, etc specific to industrial society) is also a necessary theoretical task. That is, more broadly, the task consists in transposing pre-modern symbolism into a modern context, not by imposing them transhistorically and without modification, but by uncovering the intelligible structures of the modern social form that genuinely correspond to them, even if in ways that appear sacrilegious to sensibilities enmeshed in pre-modern frames of reference [7]. This symbolic configuration of human-animal-devil-god is but one “test case”. For instance, “animal” can perhaps be taken, eminently, in the sense of a “satyr”, as I have termed it elsewhere, an outside of the social circumference that eo ipso clarifies its boundaries, an antinomian expression of the very same intelligibility indicated by the social nomos. The “devils” can perhaps be discerned in those who, to an eminent degree, manifest that “ruthless criticism of all that exists”, transgressing the boundaries of that which is given as obvious and unquestionably real—that is, those individuals who manifest Promethean audacity (and audacity is not the only quality or characteristic falling under the heading “Promethean) in an exceptional degree, or else a Faustian selfishness. Analogous considerations apply with other “symbolic tableaus” such as those pertaining to astrology. After all, we do already interpret such “tableaus” with a social form in mind, namely, antique and medieval social forms, where, for instance, God is taken to be something like a king and man a servant. In other words, what is necessary is an adequation of symbols to the present social form, an unveiling of their meaning in accordance with the quality of the time [8] and the arrangement of social space (the forms of institutions, political [9] and productive, i.e. political dictatorship and social industry). In order to accomplish such a task, indeed to even begin it, we must apprehend the identity of politics and metaphysics. We must learn to see the political sphere with intellect, and we must learn to ground metaphysical exposition within the ontological horizon of our sociality. It goes without saying that metaphysics is always grounded as such, even the transhistorical variety that so widely proliferates today (by this I mean “Traditional” and transcendent metaphysics as upheld outside its original context, not transcendental metaphysics, that is, “dogmatic metaphysics” as Kant terms it—this second is something else entirely). The metaphysics of antiquity and the middle ages is of one fabric with their political and social arrangements. The transhistorical metaphysics of contemporary metaphysicians, which can do nothing but repeat what the middle ages and antiquity has given to it, is grounded in the formal illusions of bourgeois dictatorship, the equally transhistorical thinking of liberalism—a most ironic circumstance. Sorel’s comments on classicism, as quoted somewhere by Mariategui, are relevant here—this criticism of “classical education”, transposed flatly into modern settings, as “ideological dissociation”, applies quite directly also to the equally flat transposition of “Traditional” metaphysics to that same setting. It is the free floating character of liberalism (or, more broadly, bourgeois rule generally, whatever its ideological form) which supports the free floating metaphysics of contemporary holdouts of “classical” metaphysicians, upholders of a metaphysics which is no longer continuous with the present social form and contemporary life, thus a metaphysics which verges toward mere virtuality, reduced in advance into transcendentality (as opposed to the instrumentalization by transcendentality which is effected by a Promethean historical subject). A metaphysics which is merely an account and reproduction of the metaphysics of antiquity is a decisive failure of metaphysics, a metaphysics divested of life—also note the expression “dummies of life”, below (note for page 55). Even in terms of Rene Guenon’s understanding of metaphysics, it is only tradition with a lower case “t” that is grounded in the past. Capital “T” Tradition is a presence, a living fire which resides here and now. In connection with everything just stated, the notion of Prometheus as an “autochthon of the air” is extremely relevant. The groundlessness of liberalism is not merely abandoned by communism, but affirmed as a real ground, through the only sort of political and social arrangements that can meaningfully effect such a grounding.

1: For instance, in antiquity, the planet Mercury was sometimes referred to as “Apollo” when it appeared in the morning. Rene Guenon also examines certain reversals of Hermes and Apollo (that is, Mercury and the Sun) in the collection of essays titled “Traditional Forms and Cosmic Cycles“.

2: A fuller treatment of the Fame-celebrity distinction is pursued by me elsewhere. In broad outline, celebrity reduces the impersonal intelligibility of Fame, which is grounded in historically and socially meaningful deeds (for good or ill), to the quaint and sentimental proportions of personal biography. I take Goethe as a notable instance of the cultural substitution of celebrity for fame.

3: Moreover, if unity is a precondition for knowing and being, considered principially, knowing and being are preconditions, for us, in our approach to this unity, considered ascetically. For, this unity is elusive, not to speak of knowing and being considered in their proper senses, that is, “transcendently”. Modernity biases us toward transcendental conceptions. If we wish to appreciate what is implied in such a unity, impossible as it is to fully disclose in discursive speech, we must, first of all, understand knowing and being considered intellectively.

4: Fame, then, is not a prerequisite of “godhood”, but it does sometimes attend it, by virtue of their compatibility in their shared characteristic of impersonality. Moreover, even those who are not “gods” can attain genuine Fame to the extent that their deeds have an impersonal value, in a broadly intelligible sense.

5: They do this, particularly, in the sense that they realize, by conquest, the implicit cosmopolitanism of the cities of antiquity through their incorporation into the empire. The priests, and sacred institutions, for their part, express this intelligibility at the level of symbolic presentations—ritual, scripture, myth, doctrine—emblems of the intelligibility of the whole field of life, exhibiting the timeless principles of temporal being-in-the-world.

6: Here there is another important point—clearly agricultural labor is part of the intelligible form of antiquity, and not a negligible part either. Yet, one could say that this part resides in the “background intelligibility” of that period. It does not express it eminently. This criterion of “eminence” may be related, then, to the question of “godhood” here, that is, to the question of where superessentiality fits into this scheme. For instance, we relate to Stalin here, as concentrated emblem of social intelligibility as “god”, though the broader background of the social space and historical struggle is obviously just as intelligible. One could call this “background” a “god”, too, though perhaps not eminently, for we tend to think of a “god” as a kind of “person”. This is an important point as concerns establishing a political metaphysics of communism—here the distinction between passive intellection (as “background intelligibility”) and active intellection (as the “gods” in the foreground”) enters in as a consideration. Our metaphysics should be flexible enough to reverse our conceptions. That, too, is a function of human emptiness, namely, a metaphysical perspectivism.

7: We might even call this a kind of “revaluation of all values”, but not restricted to the narrow limits of Nietzsche’s project. Where his conceptions revolve around a crisis in “morals”, here it is a question of something more fundamental.

8: e.g. in accordance with the manner in which the present social form, that is, the social form of the present historical era, is re-produced across time. State another way, the temporal context in which we consider these symbols is both qualitative (the “spirit of the age”) and quantitative (the measurable features of the social form’s re-production across the extension of time). These facets obviously interesect and affect one another, in the sense, for instance, of the transformation of quantity into quality. For instance, capitalism does not merely reproduce itself in the manner of a fixed kind reproducing its kind. Its history evinces stages, e.g. imperialism.

9: In this connection, the salient thing to point out is not what particular form this or that state happens to take, but the broader fact that political institutions are “polarized in advance” as either possessing a proletarian form or a bourgeois form”. This is the decisive political fact of the day.

*

“Heidegger’s Being is, I have suggested, ‘God’”

(35)

What a dimunition, then, from the Platonism that he rejected—a reduction of “God” to mere Being. Even the plurality of “gods” of the Platonic tradition are more elevated in conception than this Heideggerian “God”. Heidegger’s thinking, therefore, evinces a “loss of the gods” of its own, unsuspected, but not lesser in its implications than that which he laments.

Hiranyagarbha by Manaku, circa 1740

*

“[The later Heidegger tends] to represent himself as engaging in a new kind of post-philosophical, ‘meditative’ thinking...As to Heidegger’s own positioning of himself after the ‘end of philosophy’, what needs to be observed is that he does so only when he uses ‘philosophy’ as a synonym for what he calls ‘metaphysics’”

(2)

This “meditative thinking” is none other than intellection—in other words, the basis and core of the Platonic metaphysical tradition (or, really, of metaphysics generally—it just happens that Platonism is one of Heidegger’s common foils for his own thinking). Incidentally, contra Young, the Platonic tradition is reasonably characterizable as a species of “mysticism”. The supposition, as in the later Heidegger, that such a post-philosophy demands a “poetic turn” in order to express itself, is elided by the Platonic tradition itself. Plato was already a “meditative” thinker, a mystic, and, indeed, a post-philosopher. Philosophy was the dramatic mask (hence the dialogic form) of his post-philosophy. “Post-philosophy”, then, is the beginning of philosophy, not some historical phase which comes after it, but its very intelligible marrow. There is, indeed, no conflict between philosophy and post-philosophy, any more than between the intelligible forms and the supra-intelligible “form” of the Good. Post-philosophy is precisely, and has always been the aim of, philosophy (of the Platonic stream, and those of comparable form). Philosophy, which is the love of and desire for wisdom, does finally wish to terminate in the possession of and identity with this wisdom.

*

“Heidegger calls such a background understanding a ‘horizon’, a horizon of ‘disclosure’. Sometimes, echoing Nietzsche, he calls it a ‘perspective’”

(7)

This brings up a fairly crucial aspect of Nietzsche’s “perspectivism”. The perspectives in question, at the most essential level (that is, essential to the perspectival method “as such”, irrespective of Nietzsche’s limited intentions), are “horizons of disclosure”. One provisionally adopts and sets aside such horizons. Nevertheless, this leaves open the question of a “meta-criterion”, to the extent that there is one, a criterion which determines which horizons one adopts in what order, in what circumstances, or the question of rank (so crucial to Nietzsche), how one orders or privileges this multitude of horizons. Who is it that deploys these horizons? From which state of being (e.g. passive intellect etc)? What kinds of horizons are available to me (e.g. transcendent or transcendental)?

In the first place, there is an obvious distinction that needs to be made between kinds of “horizons of disclosure”. The horizon which surrounds us wordlessly (in a sense, wordless even when it speaks [1]) in the social and historical arrangements of the earth is obviously of a different kind and order to those which are opened up through the writings of philosophers. Crucially, the latter take place within the circle of the former, but they also exhibit it, and not only exhibit but sometimes even contribute to its revolutionizing of itself. Moreover, this wordless social and historical arrangement should not necessarily be thought of as a “physical thing” standing over and against an “ideological thing”. The “materiality”of this basic horizon of disclosure consists, first of all, in its basic intelligibility. It is intellective (indeed, “intellect” has just this ambivalence of “being” and “thinking” [2]). Thus, we now also arrive at a certain split in human thought, namely, between the thinking which is intellective primarily and that which is primarily transcendental. This latter occurs within the circle of the former, and likewise is capable of transforming it.

Superficially, it might seem that we have arrived at a figure of three nested circles, as—

This, however, is something of an oversimplification. After all, the “material base” and “intellective thinking” are both of an intellective character (after all, intellection is just the “unadorned intelligibility of that which is”). There is more continuity (indeed, even identity) between them than the above figure manages to re-present. That is, stated another way, the above figure fails to rigorously express the degree to which politics and metaphysics are the same thing. More modestly, we might say that they are two aspects or “moments” of the same thing, expressions of the same intellectivity. Again, stating this relation in yet another way, we could say that intellective thinking presents the material base, or that the material base presents itself in this thinking.

Now we enter into the transcendental portion of this equation, that is, the re-presentational dimension of this reflection on the perspectivism of horizons. In a way, transcendentality, as such, constitutes a single horizon. Though one could say the same of intellectivity, these propositions are true in different senses. Intellectivity as such constitutes the horizon of any possible disclosure, and indeed of any possible horizon of disclosure—horizons within horizons. While transcendentality, also, constitutes such a horizon (I mean, especially, the historical advent of transcendental thinking, the transcendental turn in philosophy), the putative “horizons” that occur within it are but simulated things, flattened imitations of intellective prototypes. It is through the simulation of our capacity for disclosing (intellective) horizons that the transcendental horizon entrenches itself, perpetuates itself, adapts itself, and, indeed, adapts circumstances (incidentally, the etymology of this word implies the “circle” in which one “stands”) to itself, to its ever changing and yet singularly unchanging horizon. The horizon of transcendentality is chameleonic.

That is all well and good, but if the diagrammatic re-presentation we have been employing to guide our thinking is flawed then our thinking here might likewise be falling short of the mark. We know already, from many prior reflections on the matter, that the transcendental factor is an intermediary one. One would expect this to be reflected in our visual re-presentation of it. Not only that, but it seems we have also left out at least two other important factors, with which we should be quite familiar by now, namely, metaphysical (or plenary) non-being, that factor which stands in an analogical relation of “dissimilar similarity” with the transcendental, and the polarization of the intellects into active and passive modes. And, then, who knows what else we have left out of this picture? The just mentioned analogical key gives us some elbow room to navigate this impasse. If “material base” and intellection are in an analogy which verges on identity, then transcendentality and (plenary) non-being are in an analogy which somehow only exacerbates their difference, pushing transcendentality to the very outer limits of matter, as it were. From this point of view, we have yet another diagram, though not yet the one we are looking for, a Platonic diagram (of the three hypostases and matter)—

Though this is not quite the diagram we were looking for, it has given us a point of entry in the direction we want to head in the form of a contradiction to be resolved, namely, “matter” as intellection and transcendentality. The contradiction internal to “soul” (whatever “soul” is) will have to be set aside, for now, as it is not directly relevant here and, in any case, is treated at greater length in my notes on the Enneads. On the one hand, then, we have a Marxist account of matter as “social and historical intelligibility” and, on the other, we have the “classical” account of matter as the foundation and precondition of measure, multiplicity, corporeality, and becoming. In a word, and for all intents and purposes, it is effectively coextensive with the transcendental horizon (a closer examination of this identification of matter with the transcendental will likewise be set aside for another occasion). Fortunately for us, the resolution of this problem is closely connected with another question that we raised, that is, the question as to the role of the polarization of the intellects in our scheme, allowing us to kill two birds with one stone. This resolution looks something like the following (again, not the diagram we are looking for, but another step in the right direction)—

The heavenly “glance” of actively intellective thinking (that is, “classical metaphysics”) toward the world, the earth, intelligible becoming (entelecheia), must pass through the interposition of transcendentality, as though looking through transcendentally colored glasses. If, then, we designate this lower hemisphere “matter” (a not at all unreasonable thing to do [3]), it will then appear that, for active intellection, “matter” is something unintelligible, while “in itself” it is nevertheless quite susceptible of being envisaged as a kind of intelligibility (indeed, curiously, even in an actively intellective manner [4]—fundamentally, intellect is intellect). Thus, our material base is somehow both “social and historical intelligibility” (i.e. intellective) and “transcendentality” (reason, measure, science, objectivity). Indeed, it is crucial that we affirm both characteristics of matter (stated in another way—that we maintain its generic ambiguity), not because they constitute two entirely distinct points of view that are equally useful though incompatible, but because they are intimately (indeed, dialectically) related with one another. Borrowing a term that Marx makes use of in his Grundrisse, we could say that the aggregated average of matter’s “social and historical intelligibility” is what Marx calls (though he did not originate the term) “general intellect”. “Aggregated average”, here, has the sense of an approximation in thought, that is, a transcendental re-presentation of intelligible sociality. It is the cumulative quantity of human thought transforming into the quality of innovated social relations. Thus, for us, that is, for communists, “matter should have the simultaneous sense of a wordless intelligibility, our “being-in-historical-sociality”, as it were, and our capacity to plumb this wordless being rationally, scientifically, an endeavor which, at an aggregated level, we call “general intellect” (the accidental aptness of this term, combining transcendental “generality” and transcendent intellect, is truly remarkable).

Transcendentality, then, can also be called a kind of privative non-being. How can “privative non-being” be connected with our original topic of discussion? How can “privative non-being” constitute any kind of “horizon of disclosure”? On the face of it, it would seem that it cannot, at least not in any conventional sense. This does not mean, however, that it is in no way related to such horizons. Indeed, its “privative” character gives us the necessary clue as to the nature of this relationship—as a “horizon of concealment”. At the same time we can call it a “concealment of horizons”. And in a way this second attribution seems more reasonable. It is a strange horizon which would not disclose a world in its openness. Nevertheless, we must insist also on this first designation. In historical terms, it seems far more obvious that transcendentality constitutes a kind of horizon of disclosure, even if it discloses through concealment, negation, flattening, and reduction, even if the world that it discloses is a place of shadows cast by the light and bodies of another world made invisible to our sleeping faculties. This world of shadows is not just obscure and inchoate, however. It is a world of scientific precision, of quantity and measure, of fine, threadbare structures and concepts, of “clear and distinct ideas”, and a world of the individual. The scientificity of this horizon, however, is not just happenstance, and the horizon of Reason is as liable to be a place of irrational monsters and romantic delusions, as it is one of levelheaded and dispassionate calculation. Reason, itself irrational, needs to be secured. As addressed elsewhere, it is intellect which secures Reason. What, then? With Reason secured, have we arrived already at science? By no means, for it is precisely rational Reason which indulges in “dialectical illusion”. Securing the rationality of Reason is one thing, it would seem, and securing scientificity another. For that we need “matter” also. It is “matter”, taken as the foundation and precondition of measure and multiplicity, which secures the rigorous constitution of our objects (however abstract and hypothetical these be), and therefore of the sciences which concern themselves with these objects. Thus, the most recent diagram also exhibits what we have elsewhere called the “lawful directionality of the subject”, and we have here also contextualized this “lawful directionality” with reference to “matter” (and if Kant chooses to call this “a priori synthesized experience”, or the like, without any reference to a “material substrate”, that is his affair—the referent is essentially the same, though certain conceptual emphases may shift). Moreover, we have also shown here the dual character of “matter”, its transcendentality and intelligibility (and this may, additionally, be connected with a distinction Plotinus draws between a “matter Here” and a “matter There”—see my notes on the Enneads). Thus, the scientificity of Reason not only needs to be secured by intellect, but secured twice and on both sides, as it were.

Fundamentally, then, we can say there is really only one horizon of disclosure, namely, intellect—and this horizon is two, a passive and an active mode. Likewise, there is, fundamentally, only one horizon of concealment, namely, privative non-being—and this horizon is two, “transcendentality” and “matter” [5]. We have, then, already established the basis for a kind of order of rank as pertains to “horizons”. A simultaneity of the most basic horizons of disclosure is implied. The distinction between active and passive intellect, as addressed elsewhere, is produced through the (impossible) interposition of privative non-being. Presuming each other, in ways that are paradoxical if not impossible, these three horizons are entangled in a Gordian knot of disclosure. The basis of any kind of disclosure is this aporia, a Gordian knot that is “always already” cut, a hermeneutic circle that is “always already” broken. The diagrammatic form of our horizon of disclosure is therefore already extremely familiar to us, a broken circle, the aporetic horizon of disclosure—

There is no pristine horizon of disclosure. Every horizon of disclosure is broken, because the “first” in their “series” is broken. This break, however does not, or need not, signal something arbitrary or irrational. It is the basis for scientificity. No horizon, no matter how much we clothe it in the aura of Heideggerian mystique, is safe from rational scrutiny and scientific criticism—indeed, no horizon is immune to dialectic.

In any case, any more specified sense or instance of a “horizon of disclosure”, a disclosure effected at this or that historical moment by this or that philosopher or poet or what have you, assumes this more basic horizon as its precondition (one might call it “the horizon of disclosing as such”). Disclosure (aletheia) is, first of all, intellection, and not just any intellection, but an intellection that is broken. Indeed, even this first horizon has a certain historical dimension to it, which I have considered elsewhere with reference to Aristotle’s account of Anaxagoras. There is a historical moment where intellect is made explicit, an object of scrutiny for thought. The development of this history, likewise has nothing fortuitous about it. It is precisely an instance of Marx’s dictum that “men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please”. Thought, both in its contents and its forms, does not develop according to the arbitrary dictates of a philosophical sovereign any more than the social form does—neither an Aristotle nor a Plato reasons or contemplates from out of an abyss. In every case, freedom in these domains is a matter of leveraged necessity, a labor that works with what is initially given to it. Metaphysical expressions, whether expository thinking or myth, submit to the horizon of intellection, the form of knowing (and being) which precedes them, and this manner of being is not essentially different from our social being, though we may conceptually distinguish them. Therefore, we can also affirm the Aristotelian principle to the effect that politics is the master science for, he says, it determines which sciences we may study—provided we understand that politics and metaphysics are the same thing [6] (corollary to this, and in conformity with what was just said above, one could also say that history and disclosure are the same thing). Thus, this “determination” which politics makes as to metaphysics is not, as Aristotle tends to frame it, a matter of mere fiat declaration on the part of the sovereign authority (“you are allowed to study metaphysics” or “you are not allowed to study metaphysics”), nor is it produced by a lone “Übermensch” through a “revaluation of all values”. Rather, it is a “determination” consisting in the intelligible form of our social being and institutions—indeed, the sovereign authority itself is bound by these limits, as I have considered elsewhere. A “science of horizons of disclosure”, as it were, would therefore have to be a historical science informed by metaphysics, an intelligible historical science, that is, a “historical materialism”. Marxism, too, is already metaphysics. Metaphysics was never optional.

1: A speaking whose essential meaning is not concentrated at the discursive level but in the shared intelligibility of the situation, that is, approximately what Heidegger, in Being and Time, calls “discourse”.

2: Some caution is needed in this use of the word “thinking”. However, at this stage in these notes, I assume we can do without “training wheels”. Context should be sufficient to determine whether the sense of a term conforms to a transcendent or a transcendental mold. In cases where the meaning has a sense with transcendent import, one could always substitute “knowing”. In any case, the term “thinking” is generic enough to include both senses, though it does tend toward a transcendental sense. Unfortunately, a general tendency to render “noesis”, and variations thereof, as “thinking” has not been consequence free, and it would probably be more prudent on my part not to perpetuate this custom.

A final point—the thinking we have pursued here also must fall within some horizon of disclosure or another. Given its combination of transcendent and transcendental traits, as much allowing the transcendental line of inquiry to be secured by transcendence as it forces transcendence to serve as the instrument of its transcendental criticism, it cannot be any but the horizon of a Promethean Ontology—but this horizon has no other form than the very aporetic horizon of disclosure we considered above, transcendence split by the transcendental. The most basic form of disclosive horizon, then, is “always already” Promethean! It only remains to determine whether, in this or that case, it is Promethean in spite of itself (an Olympian instrumentalization of Prometheus), or whether it is such boldly and openly.

3: In other words, in looking toward passive intellect’s “domain”, seen through “transcendentally colored glasses”, intellect sees the formless “matter” of classical metaphysics—more on this dynamic in my notes on the Ennead. In any case, the remaining trace of passive intellection, after the reduction of its bulk to matter, as it were, is but an aspect or moment of active intellection. Hence from the actively intellective standpoint, passive intellect is always for active intellect. It is not passive intellection, as such, which the actively intellect standpoint negates, but precisely passive intellect’s standpoint, its articulation of itself on its own terms.

4: For instance, as something like a contemplation of the symbolic form of the “material base”, the “ritual orientation” of our institutions (e.g. The qibla of a masjid), and such. That is, the “material base” is taken as a support for contemplation.

5: That is, we have a polarity of subject-object here, with “transcendentality” being “weighted” toward the subject side and “matter” toward the object, though, implicitly, both contain the other. Indeed, “matter”, as we frame it, is clearly meaningfully “transcendental”. The distinction here, then, is comparable to a similar one we made with respect to “immanence” and “transcendence”. That said, could we then say that “transcendentality”, taking, say, Kant as an eminent example of this kind of thinking, is meaningfully “material”? Something to consider

6: “Politics and metaphysics are the same thing” does not have the character of a mere reduction of one into the other. On the contrary, it gives them the space to articulate themselves on their own level, without losing their identity with each other. It is precisely because politics is already metaphysics that we need not reduce it to such, and neither must we convert the language of metaphysics into that of politics and “material interests” and the like—metaphysics, as metaphysics, is already politics. Another clarifying point is necessary here, in order to mitigate confusion, namely, that “metaphysics” means, in the first place, intellection itself, and only secondarily means expository expressions of that intellection. It is in this way that we can say that “metaphysics and politics are the same thing” and, as it were, put them on an equal footing with one another. If it was a question of politics on one side, and metaphysical exposition, on the other, politics would obviously take precedence. Moreover, by “politics” I mean the form and life of the polity, as I explain in my essay on Schmitt.

*

Hardly a clearer case in point could be found of Heidegger as a metaphysician, especially in reference to his later thought, than his crossing out of “Sein” (see below, and page 16 in Young’s text). This has the double purpose of “negating” the hypostatization of Being as a being [1], which by a simple transposition can also be extended to an identification of Being with non-Being (that Being which we cross out is negated, that is, subsumed into non-Being), and at the same time elaborating a symbolic cross. This cross seems to be something like the following:

Consider also the following explanation from Young: “[The world] only shows up as ‘the fourfold’, however, in that moment of ‘insight‘ or ‘in-flashing‘ in which it shows up as a ‘holy‘ or sublime place, in which, according to Heidegger’s analysis of the sublime, it is intuitively grasped as the lighted side of the globe of Being [cf. Hiranyagarbha], a globe the other side of which is the ‘unfathomable mystery’” (16-17). If this is not metaphysics, than nothing is.

The only notable difference between Heidegger and Guenon, here, is that the former prioritizes passive intellection, and therefore primarily encounters this intelligible symbolism “existentially”, whereas the latter prioritizes active intellect, and therefore primarily encounters this intelligible symbolism “contemplatively”.

One notable aspect of the above symbol—the negation of Being here has a double sense. On the one hand, it signifies non-Being with which Being is identical. On the other hand, it also represents the “loss” of pure Being through its polarization (sky, earth) and the dispersion of beings (mortals, gods). This is certainly related with the ritual vivisection of Purusha (even if “Purusha”, together with Prakriti, refers to only one of the polarized aspects of Ishvara—from the standpoint of Hindu metaphysics, which, like Platonic metaphysics, prioritizes active intellect, Purusha is the more eminent symbol of this prior reality [2]).

1: Curiously, one could argue that it just ends up hypostatizing the negation of Being—and thus, undermines any principle which would claim that it is somehow “wrong” to hypostatize Being. Thus, Heidegger returns, in a roundabout manner, to the correct stance—the hypostatization (or reification) of Being is a perfectly valid procedure, provided it remains symbolic. Though, at the same time, nothing should prevent us from hypostatizing Being in “illegitimate” ways—these, too, have their uses.

2: Shaktism excepted. Although, even in that case, the general mold of thinking it employs still conforms to an actively intellective prioritzation. That is, even though it posits Prakriti as primary (and this is not even true of all varieties of Shaktism, some of which still give a basic priority to Shiva, that is, Purusha, or to the combined form Shiva-Shakti), the manner of the thinking in which this priority is established still has an actively intellective form (which, for instance, can be seen in its reliance on the categories of Samkhya). It is not the specific claims of a metaphysics which give away its essential character, but its manner of thinking (or, more precisely, its manner of intellecting). What we need to ask in each case is “what kind of thinking produced this account?”. An account which centers passive intellect can still be exposited from an actively intellective standpoint, and vice versa.

*

On “the draft”

(17-18)

What Heidegger is describing here, after a fashion, is the contemplation (theoria) of Being (and not only a thinking about a concept) which is at the same time an effective realization, a genuine ascent in rhythm with the inbreath (a widely diffused symbolism) of Being (= non-Being). His apprehension of this reality is somewhat hindered by certain polemical dimensions in his thought (against metaphysics), thus leading him to attach this notion to Socrates somehow in exclusion of his chief disciple (i.e. Plato) and his lineage (i.e. “Neo”-Platonism), and likewise attributing a privileged relation to this “draft” to “the poets” (in a more or less “literary” sense). A “scientific” (or initiatic) relation to this “draft” is thereby excluded. It is a matter of some kind of merely personal authenticity. Moreover, it seems that Heidegger likewise excludes the possibility of a final realization of Being, a Supreme Identity. Being seems to withdraw indefinitely in his conception. This is not only a thesis with a practical import (in that it might somehow prevent his adherents from attaining to this realization by theoretically precluding it), but it is also, to begin with, a theoretical error, since the identity with Being is “always already” realized. The condition of separation is an illusion, a virtuality with real claws [1].

1: Are those claws then, qua real (and we can take them as such precisely because there is no such thing as a pure virtuality), a “point of access” to being, symbols of being?

*

“Denken is what Heidegger calls ‘meditative thinking’. It is his own philosophical thinking about, centrally, the essence of truth...which, properly carried out, leads one to one’s ‘openness to the mystery’. Dichten, on the other hand, is what Heidegger calls “poetic thinking”...Thinking of this kind is contrasted with ‘representational thinking’. Whereas the latter always occurs within a horizon of disclosure, the former is, in a certain sense, ‘horizonless”. Thinking of this kind has the task of attending to [the]...concealment in which unconcealment (aletheia) is grounded, the task of ‘founding the holy’”

(18-19)

Two species of metaphysical contemplation are outlined here with rough parallels in the writing of the Neoplatonists (meaningfully analogous but far from identical)—an intellective theoria that comprehends the intelligibility of the real (analogous here to Denken), and a retreat into the fastness of silence, an ineffable contact with “the nameless” (analogous to Dichten). What is somewhat unclear in the above passage is whether “Denken”, by virtue of being contrasted with Dichten, is being filed under the heading of “representational thought” [1]. In any case, and once again, the “late Heidegger” is more of a metaphysician than the Heidegger of Being and Time, not less. He has not closed the door on metaphysics, but reopened it, letting a “draft” in through the opening, as it were, and seemingly restored it to its primordial vigor after a very long slumber (or, at the least, his writing evinces the ambition to do so, intentionally or otherwise [2]). Indeed, as some of the ensuing passages indicate, Heidegger’s thinking here is compromised by his residual Cartesianism, in various ways. His account of Denken/Dichten falls short of its ontological aim, as it were, exactly as does his account of Dasein in Being and Time. The presentational character initially implied by the “Denken” concept is subsequently reduced to its representational appearance. This is a function of Heidegger’s pseudo-drama of the “other beginning”. That discursive exposition might have an extra-discursive (symbolic) dimension, is not to be permitted (this is only permitted for the poets, and never for the expositors of metaphysics—indeed, it even seems characteristic of what Heidegger calls “discourse”, and so it truly seems that everyone but the metaphysician is allowed this). This would disrupt the narrative sequence of the historical drama. Consequently, he also botches his conception of “Dichten”, of so-called “poetic thinking”. Rather than identifying (correctly) this species of thought with the ecstatic declarations of sacred literature—the Quran, the Chaldean Oracles, the devotional poetry of Shankara etc—he takes as its fundamental type the “secular” poetics of a Hölderlin and the like, feeble by comparison with their sacred counterparts. Indeed, one might surmise that Heidegger’s thinking (Denken) about the “Dichten” of these poets has more “Dichten” in it than the poetry he is drawing on. It is Heidegger who “founds the holy” on the foundation of their “secular” poetry, who converts their poetry into the metaphysics of the “other beginning”, subsuming their poetry into a reconstituted Platonism (though, again, quite unintentionally), a Platonism of passive intellect, and at the same time, at the level of shallow polemics, lumping Plato himself with Descartes. There is a fundamental contradiction in Heidegger between what he is trying to do, what he thinks he is doing, and what he is actually doing. This “poetic thinking” is implicitly the poeisis of intellect (or, according to my thesis, what is related to it, via ontological inversion, the intellection of “nous pathetikos”), but explicitly Heidegger makes it into “poetry” in its merely literary sense. This primordial thinking has been reduced to the proportions of European modernity. Thus, Heidegger’s “Dichten” is both of these at once, without the requisite self-clarity to come to a decision as to its status. This is exactly the case with Dasein also. In other words, Heidegger’s “Dichten” is caprigenetic [3].

1: This would be a mistake in my view—it is fundamentally presentational, at least given the terms in which he has represented it (though, it may naturally not concur with the general use of Denken in the German language or with the way it is used by other philosophers), but Heidegger seems to evince a general tendency of flattening presentation and representation into one another, a pattern of thought which is continuous with the caprigenetic character of his “Dasein” in Being and Time.

2: Indeed, as we will see, this accidental revival of metaphysics is a kind of theoretical Freudian slip, furnishing an opportunity for demonstrating a “philosophical psychoanalysis” (that is, an analytical exegesis of the psychological constitution of a philosophical body of thought, as distinct from that of the thinker).

3: The same seems to be the case with his Denken, as well, does it not? His Dichten is a “heap” made of non-Being and discursivity, and his Denken of Being (= intellect) and discursivity. Denken, is both more than discursive and merely discursive. It is intellection apprehended confusedly, premised indeed on a prior identification of noeisis (intellection) with “objective presence”, an identification that is a function of Heidegger’s narrative drama about the history of philosophy. Dasein, in Heidegger’s thinking, is both passive intellection and Cartesian subjectivity. Dichten is at the same time supra-intellective silence, intellectivie contemplation, and literary-sentimental poetry. And so on, and so forth. In every case, his narrative concerns subvert his ontological inquiry; that, and a half finished break with Cartesian thinking (ironic!), though this latter, too, seems to be largely a function of the former.

*

Poesis is mere “poetry”—consequently, it cannot be scientific, rigorous. The classification of “poetry” excludes traditional science (and by extension its offspring modern science), whereas the classification “poeisis” does not. Heidegger’s thinking must be fathomed in this way, by exposing the concrete implications of his dramatic framing.

*

Dichten (“poetic thinking”) is, as it were, meant to be something “primordial”, and yet the kind of “poetry” he has in mind is precisely not the “primordial” kind (e.g. Chaldean Oracles, Orphic Hymns, etc) but mere “literature” (e.g. Hölderlin).

*

“Disclosure is never human ‘handiwork’...Human beings never make their own ultimate horizons of disclosure; conspiracy theories are always false”

(23)

Over and against these arbitrary limits, I forward the Promethean account of the “terraformation of being”, an account that makes more sense of history than the above, an account which can integrate the “wrong beginnings” without issue. The horizon of disclosure, indeed, is prior to human deliberation, but human deliberation terraforms its very grounds, especially through revolutionary developments of technoscientific scope (social + historical + technological). Politics and metaphysics are the same thing. Human beings are always making their own ultimate horizons of disclosure (or remaking them, if you prefer), whether or not they wish to.

*

“...Since [calculative thinking] always presupposes and happens within a horizon of disclosure, conspiring to create one’s ultimate horizon of disclosure would require one to ‘calculate’ before one could ‘calculate’”

(23)

This claim is flawed in significant ways. In the first place, such a production of horizons would not have to occur before a horizon was disclosed. It is the earth which our Promethean deliberation seeks to terraform, the very “nameless” ground which precedes horizons, and this is accomplished after the fact of a disclosure. One could say, borrowing from Engels’ phrasing, that the quantities of our calculative thinking are productive of new qualities, in spite of themselves [1]. A second flaw—Young is intimating here, though rather inexplicitly, that the category of “calculative thinker” is exclusive of the “poet” (that is, expressed more rigorously, the contemplative attuned to the non-manifest, the “earth”). A calculative thinker grounded in the earth—that is exactly Prometheus, whose mother, Themis, as he affirms in Aeschylus’ play, is non-different from Rhea: “the goddess is one, but many-named”. There is no reason to juxtapose the calculative thinker and the “poet” (again, he only does this implicitly here) as irreconcilable types—poeisis is a ground for its own transgression by thought (calculative, discursive-theoretical, etc), the Logos is twofold. The empire of Atlantis is rising out of the sea.

1: “In spite” for, to give but one an example, the aristocratic classes which oversaw the earliest phases of colonialism certainly did not wish to strengthen that class which was to overthrow their rule, by amassing such prodigious quantities of wealth. They mis-calculated the trajectory of their primitive accumulation or, rather, their calculations, still closed within the ideological horizon of an older mode of production, could not anticipate the excess of its bounds and the terraformation of its own grounds produced by the sheer quantity of that wealth which it was calculating. No horizon of disclosure is a perfectly closed circle. This is, indeed, an important point—one reason, implied but not explicitly stated, that Young, Heidegger, et al seem to believe that all thinking must take place in conformity with some horizon of disclosure is due to their unshakeable faith in the circle of hermeneutic. A horizon is, for them, such a circle. But this circle is broken, and fraught with contradiction. The horizon is porous, and also tensed like a bow. The broken circle of the horizon creates spaces within itself for its own self-transgression. That is, even a horizon of disclosure is not always in conformity with itself. Boring into the bowels of the earth for silver and gold, the horizon of the aristocratic social form under-mined itself in its very pursuit of its own fulfillment.

*

“Human cultures are, therefore, receptive rather than creative with respect to the modes of presence [= horizons of disclosure] they inhabit...Heidegger puts this by saying modes of presence are ‘granted’, ‘set’, or ‘destined’ to them”

(23)

Indeed, however, there is another destiny, one which belongs to no horizon and to every horizon—the horizon of the nothing, that is, the horizon of transcendentality. This Promethean destiny haunts the earth before the birth of every horizon. We speak of the horizon of transcendentality, but it should be noted that, due to its ontologically privative status, this “horizon” always manifests in dependence on a horizon of disclosure in its “ontological” sense. The transcendental horizon is a “horizon” in a unique and incomparable sense—indeed, it is the basis for comparison, including the comparison between one horizon of disclosure and another. If the horizon of disclosure is porous, the horizon of transcendentality is nothing but pores. It is a nothing which is dependent, utterly dependent, on the something of every disclosure of being. If those grounded in being tend to see its limits—hence they look toward that which transcends being and intelligibility, “God”, the Form of the Good, Brahman—transcendentality unwaveringly believes in its own integrity and inviolability, its omniscience and omnipresence, even when (if not especially when) it caustically doubts itself [1].

1: For instance, those who doubt reason (that is, those who doubt reason only through reason, without intellect), imputing various limits to it, generally posit something like “nature” outside of reason, possibly conceived in terms of atoms and void, or else a world of objects that we can only represent in the mind, or what have you. Nevertheless, such conceptions are already transcendental in their form. Thus, in positing its own limits, the transcendental subject implies its own ubiquity and invincibility. Only intellect uncovers the limit of transcendentality, because it is that limit. Intellect is what transcendentality is not—indeed, inclusive of the sense that the “not” of transcendentality is an image of the “is” of intellect.

*

Heidegger’s lament over metaphysics is a lament over science. After all, metaphysics, say in the Platonic mold, deals with precisely the same range of “phenomena” that concerns his thinking, even if under entirely different names, and from a different (albeit essentially related) standpoint—the “It”, the “nameless”, Being, etc etc (that Heidegger fails to see this is but a function of his antipathy to scientificty)—only it does so with an aspiration toward rigor, exactitude, and comprehensiveness, that is, it does so “unpoetically” (in his all-too-literary sense). He refuses to countenance the results and methods of expository metaphysics [1] (not that he is any less of a metaphysician) because it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. His palette prefers the sweetness of “literature”.

1: Worth noting, again, that this is not the only mode of metaphysics. Mythology, too, is a metaphysics, as is contemplative and devotional poetry, and so on.

*

“Metaphysics is that mode of disclosure/presence/being which overarches, transcends, the beings of our world”

(26)

Indeed, Heidegger’s metaphysics, like that of antiquity (with Platonism as its characteristic type) discloses beings by transcending—only in his case, one transcends immanently. Beings are disclosed through transcendence, but what is it that is transcended? Contra the above passage, it is not beings that are transcended, since beings in their being are, as such, transcendent. More precisely, then, it is subjectivity and objectivity that are transcended, and thereby one realizes and elevates beings in their transcendence, in the one case (antique metaphysics) transcendently and in the other (Heidegger) immanently—one realizes them insofar as one knows them, in one’s being-with them, and “elevates” them in conformity to one’s degree of “ecstasis”. Put another way, one transcends objects in order to realize them as beings.

*

“The crucial truth metaphysics misses is the dependence of being on human being. For short, the ‘subjectivity’ of being”

(27)

Characterizing this “dependence” as a “subjectivity” is a laughable error on Young’s part (though it does have a partial and threadbare truth by “reflection” [1], as it were). What is really involved here is the ontological inversion of the intellects. The prioritization of the conception of being which envisions it as a kind of “supreme entity” (which is, in reality, but a symbolic presentation of being) is peculiar to the metaphysics of active intellect (nous poetikos). Heidegger’s metaphysics is one of passive intellection (nous pathetikos), considered here as a “suffering” of being, being disclosing itself only through this “suffering”, a receptive passivity to the disclosures of being in time. Characterizing this relation as “subjective” is transcendentally reductive—a valid procedure, but not comprehensively “true” when taken in isolation from its broader (and deeper) “existential” (= intellective) context. In the subsequent passages, Young says a lot of comparably ridiculous nonsense, in a very similar vein to Dreyfus’ “cognitivist” reading of Heidegger. Such readings are, in a roundabout kind of way, the best defense Heidegger can be afforded. One cannot even begin the process of a proper criticism of Heidegger’s ontology if one does not grasp it as a proper ontology, in the first place. Such transcendental reductions of Heidegger are like a fence constructed around his thought, an Anglo-American bulwark around “Fortress Europe” [2]. Again, politics and metaphysics are the same thing.

1: In the sense that the transcendental is a reflected image of the transcendent. Thus, “subjectivity”, in its generic ambiguity, could be ascribed to Dasein, an ascription which is not meaningless even if it happens to contradict the basic undertsanding of Dasein’s constitution, but, in any case, that is already something very different from an understanding of Dasein on its own terms, and Young does not seem to have anything like this in mind here.

2: Anglo-America philosophy as a bulwark of “Fortress Europe”—the theoretical heartland of reactionary mysticism secured along its coasts by the fleet of limpid Anglo-America reason (transhistorical reason, undialectical reason), Nietzscheanism as mystified Social Darwinism. Mateiral complement in NATO infrastructure, German dominance of the EU, offensive posture vis a vis Russia, opposition of “Atlanticism” and the continent as a kind of geopolitical ruse, globally extensive Malthusian policy as external support for the project of European “quality of life” and realizing the Goethean ideal (an IMF bureaucrat with a literary avocation), the prototype of Nietzsche’s “good European”.

*

“[Metaphysics misses] not our horizon of disclosure but rather its horizontal character”

(29)

Precisely—the metaphysics of active intellect is (symbolically speaking) constructed “vertically” and thus distinct from the horizontality of passive intellect and its respective metaphysics (e.g. Heideggerian metaphysics). To construe this as objectionable is, in effect, to say that active intellection is at fault for not being passive intellect, which would be absurd. Heidegger and his interpreters miss the ontological inversion (and hence the “symmetry”) of the intellects because they insist on conflating antique metaphysics and post-Cartesian “metaphysics” under the same heading and especially reading the former through and in light of the latter.

*

“[Metaphysics] elevates a particular disclosure to tyrannical status, a status which allows no other reality-revealing horizon...to absolutize a horizon of disclosure is, to repeat, to drive out every other possibility of revealing...that revealing which, in the sense of poeisis, lets what preserves come forth into appearance”

(29)

This account of “metaphysics” is only possible because the pre-Cartesian and post-Cartesian senses of the term have been flattened into one another. Heidegger’s thinking is not any more “perspectival” (see 29) than Plato’s was. Naturally, maintainers of this Heideggerian account would opt for the academic’s approach of explaining away Plato’s shifting perspectives by attributing it to a “development” in his thinking, the young versus the mature Plato, etc (in other words, perspectivism for me, but not for thee). In reality, what remains relatively uniform in Plato’s thinking, across all his shifting perspectives, is active intellection itself, just as across Heidegger’s various “disclosures”, his preferential stance in passive intellection remains relatively stable. Thus, the manner of disclosure (and of its articulation) is unvarying in both of these metaphysicians, and neither is bound to any one particular disclosure. For instance, consider the radical difference between the “ascending view” in Plato, in which the body is a tomb and the world to be escaped, and his descending view, as in the Timaeus, where the world proceeds from a good craftsman-God and is thus itself replete with goodness and beauty—two distinct disclosures of beings and the world, both grounded in active intellection as the faculty which expresses and encompasses them. Again, Plato often shows himself to be very flexible in his exposition of forms, and anything but a tyrant. To exposit the forms truthfully ranks higher for him than to exposit them uniformly, let alone “systematically”. His treatment of the arts and of poets is no different—in one place condemned, elsewhere praised and upheld. Thus, if anything here is being “absolutized” it is the intellective mode of disclosure, and this holds equally for Heidegger and Plato, and, indeed, it would be much fairer (relatively speaking) to flatten Heidegger into a Cartesian mold than it would Plato, both theoretically and in terms of their respective historical proximity to the transcendental turn. The resemblance of Young’s thinking here to fearmongering about “totalitarianism” is likewise notable as an instance of the identity of politics and metaphysics. That which is a hollow cliché in political matters, does not somehow acquire more substance when applied in metaphysical speculations.

*

The difference between the intellects does not consist in one constituting a “pathos” and the other a “poeisis”, but in a polarity of these functions. There is poeisis also in the operation of nous pathetikos, and pathos in that of nous poetikos. Active intellection is also a kind of passivity, and passive intellection a kind of activity. Their relationship is a polarity projected out of an original identity, an inversion of form and emphasis.

*

“[Through metaphysics] reality is reduced to a flat, illuminated disk”

(36)

Indeed, that is a consequence of “metaphysics”, after the Cartesian mold, and in this connection is it not most curious that Heidegger, too, flattens antique Metaphysics into this Cartesian disk? He, too, is a flattener of thought as much as he is one who points to the “mystery of the globe of Being” (incidentally, cf. “hermenoetic sphere”). He elaborates the globe of his own thinking at the expense of flattening the thought of others, as though it were a zero-sum game—“flatten or be flattened!”. His metaphysics is also a politics of the imperialist scramble for resources and the flattening of any independent power in the periphery (besides, say, those of “honorary Aryans” like the Japanese).

*

“Gripped by metaphysics, in other words, we take it there is no other ‘side’ to our world of beings, that its inhabitants are ‘suspended’ in a ‘complete emptiness’”

(68)

This “nothing” which one takes to be (virtually) on the other side of the flattened disk of being (transcendentality) is nothing other than the transcendental condition itself. The transcendental condition is nothing. It is curious that Heidegger flattens the metaphysics of antiquity and modernity in the manner that he does, given that antiquity knew no such “nihilism”, at least not in its modern sense. That should have been as clear an indicator as any that that his flattening of the two metaphysics was an error. The closest thing to an exception to this rule is the proto-modern thought of the atomists (East or West) for whom all was atom and void—which is to say, a void and another kind of void, for the atom is a pure virtuality, a conceptual nothing. This pure nothingness was rejected as the absurdity that it is by the Platonic and Aristotelian streams of thought. Nevertheless, this antique atomism did not lead to anything like “nihilism”. Nihilism proper only emerges after the Cartesian turn, and especially after Spinoza (I am thinking, of course, of Jacobi and the “Spinoza controversy”). The exclusion of intellect, which characterizes modern metaphysics, had to be expanded to the level of a well-fortified and socially prevalent assumption for anything like “nihilism” to rear its head. In antiquity, the kingdom of transcendentality’s sectarians barely exceeded the limits of an urban garden (the sophists, whatever their flaws, did not quite exhibit the sectariansism we find with the Epicureans—the former were opportunistic salesmen of transcendental thought, not its votaries). Thus, it is not sufficient for transcendentality as such to be prevalent—this antiquity did not lack, nor did the middle ages, in the discursive (grammatical, logical, rhetorical) and the mathematical-scientific fields. For nihilism to take hold, transcendentality must have partisans, and they must rule the day [1]. It is their day-rule that brings on the night of nihilism. Just so, it is the day-rule of intellect that brings on the night-time mysteries of the non-manifest. Indeed, there is a parallelism then between transcendentality-nihilism and intellect-nonbeing (a parallelism and not an identity, for nonbeing is not nothing), and it is well said by Nietzsche that our future must pass through nihilism and can only be found on its other side [2]. Only the most stalwart and worthy (a worth estimated by real criteria) partisans of modernity can take us beyond the impasse of the present. The passage beyond does not occur in the some isolated and individual Übermensch, at least not in any effective manner. The partisans of isolated transcendentality have brought us to this impasse. The partisans of heroic transcendentality will see us through to a new day [3]. “Objectively”, this means proletarian dictatorship.

1: And for this, transcendentality must somehow be recognizable as a cause. A cause for or against what? It seems, initially, a cause against intellection, that is, a cause against what it denies exists to begin with. Intellection is reduced to an image of superstition, cynical exercises of priestly power, forays beyond the limits of reason, meaningless rituals, antiquated institutions, a “night in which all cows are black”. Reason begins its “Protestant” crusade here. And, what is it a cause for, then? Always only for itself. Reason pursues Reason within a horizon that is flattened into all-Reason—it can have no other cause. Reason has eliminated all causes besides itself (or, rather, has eliminated the capacity for apprehending the reality of any other cause). This is the glance of soul into itself that Plotinus warned of (Ennead III.9.3).

2: And, in parallel fashion, stable and immutable being is only found on the other side of nonbeing, in the identification of being and non-being.

3: This can also be connected with the “Protestant-Catholic” dynamic I have noted elsewhere. It is a “Protestant” seed sown in “Catholic” soil which flowers into a new, proletarian age.

*

“‘ta mathematika’ originally meant, in Greek, that which man knows in advance of observation: not the ‘numerical’, in other words, but rather the ‘a priori’”

(78)

Kant’s exposition of the categories and the transcendental horizon generally was simply a rigorous unfolding of the Cartesian project—the lawful and regular structure of res cogitans and res extensa, exposited in terms of their actual appearance, temporally, spatially, logically, mathematically.

Faust and Mephisto by Anton Kaulbach, circa 1900

*

“...arbitrary construction”

(290)

I believe that, in spite of his protestations to the contrary, Heidegger’s theoretical construction here is, in fact, arbitrary, even if for no other reason than the arbitrary narrowness of his conception of death, a conception seemingly limited to a merely human “existential encounter” with death. Death is the guiding light of his construction, and if the splendor of that light is arbitrarily limited in its splendor then the whole construction will participate in that arbitrary limit. This arbitrary limitation is coextensive with another, namely, Heidegger’s choice of interpreting Dasein in terms of its modern everydayness, and of excluding its possible intensity of expression as a factor—however unconscious this choice may have been. In any case, then, and first of all, we must secure a vaster conception of death—death as coextensive with non-being, death as impermanence, death as change of state (including its initiatic sense). In the second place, we must reassess all of these notions from the ontological standpoint of passive intellect. This is what Heidegger’s project should have been, and what it would have been had he exercised a stricter metaphysical rigor—but that would require that he, first of all, admit to being a metaphysician. Barring this, his construction must be considered arbitrary.

*

“Our inquiry must become familiar with the primordial phenomenon of temporality beforehand, so that in terms of this we may cast light on...The reason for the dominance of the vulgar understanding of time...All the fundamental structures of Dasein exposed up to now are to be basically conceived ‘temporally’”

(291)

This is in perfect conformity with the already postulated nature of passive intellection as eminently temporal. Here, Heidegger acknowledges an “eminent” and “ontologically charged” temporality, even if not in so many words, vis a vis the contrast with a vulgar conception of temporality. This also gives us a certain clue for proceeding where the previous note left off. The reassessment of the metaphysics of non-being must proceed by “eminently temporalizing” it. For instance, non-being as a goal-less and freed manner of being (quite the opposite of Heidegger’s “anticipation of death”!—also, cf. “sublime liberty”), non-being as the immutable background of rhythm but also the pauses and changes that suffuse it at every point, non-being as repose in action (wu wei) etc. Of course, these are but words. The emphasis really lies on their “existentiell” reality. It might even be said that the dividing line between active intellect’s appropriation of such notions and passive intellect’s appropriation of the same boils down to a matter of flavor (that is, gnosense). They are, after all, polarizations of a single, primordial intellect, the dividing line effecting this polarization (i.e. transcendentality) being unreal. Effectively, and for all intents and purposes, they are distinct. Ultimately, they are not. “Taste”, however, makes all the difference in the world, and we have no right to disregard it. Ontological inversion, then, is, at bottom, a gnosensiential distinction, but all metaphysics ends in gnosense, and any which does not is simply not thorough enough. He who would disregard gnosense should disregard metaphysics also, and he who disregards metaphysics is not thereby freed from it.

*

“Anticipatory resoluteness [especially toward death] as the existentielly authentic potentiality-for-being-a-whole of Dasein...”
(291)

In conformity with what was suggested in the previous note, a thoroughly authentic “temporalization” vis a vis death, for Dasein, is not at all anticipatory, but rather a repose [1]. One need not anticipate that which, eminently, is already present, and such is death or non-being. It is only an arbitrarily narrow conception of death which misleads us in this regard. Biological death is but an ontic specification of a reality which we already “pre-recognize” in its presence with us at every moment. Freed from arbitrary (and indeed merely definitional) restrictions, it is quite inevitable that death should present itself to us here and now. Anticipation is redundant. Being-toward-death is but a deflection of being-in-death. Death (or “non-being”, if you prefer) has no limits. Even being is no limit for non-being, for being, too, is not—only beings are manifest, never being. Heidegger is certainly not helped by his conflation of “possibility” and “potentiality”. Dasein’s possibility of death does not lie in the future, as something to be actualized. Indeed, it is worth further noting that even the ascription of futurity to “potentiality”, while perfectly valid, is eminently so only from the standpoint of active intellect (and, for that matter, for the transcendental re-presentation of potency-act as concepts). Passive intellect, from its own standpoint, encounters potentiality as a tangibly present intelligible potency, the intelligible mandala of the situation.

1: As opposed to dying, which (for Dasein), as equated with passive intellection, is a kind of tensing of presence.

*

“...the indefiniteness of death...”

(295)

It is rather life and manifestation which are indefinite and mutable. In the Neoplatonic triads, for instance, “life” is understood as indefinitely expansive power (albeit, a power that expresses and crystallizes its indefinite expansion in a multiplicity of finitely bounded forms). Death is immutable non-being in which everything subsists principially (at the same time, death as a physiological fact is very much definite—hence, neither sense of death here is particularly “indefinite”).

*

“The being that we ourselves in each instance are is ontologically farthest from us”

(297)

The implication that the “the being that we are” is a discrete being, an entity, as it were, is, I believe, a mistaken one. Dasein is passive intellection, a manner of being. We can speak of it as a discrete being, and this is a perfectly valid procedure, but this is at best a symbolic anchor, at second best a convenient conceptualization, and at worst a misleading literalism. The being that Dasein is, itself, is ontologically nearest to it, “nearer than its jugular vein”, nearer than nearness. Dasein is being-in-the-world. Dasein is care (Sorge).

*

“The primordial phenomenal parameters of this being are not at all self-evident, even if ontology initially follows the course of the everyday interpretation of Dasein. Rather, freeing the primordial being of Dasein must be wrested from Dasein by moving in the opposite direction from the entangled, ontic, and ontological tendency of interpretation”

(297-298)

Precisely because Dasein, as passive intellection, is a certain manner of being, there is no question of uncovering it by heading in a direction opposite to its everydayness. What such an opposite procedure really uncovers is the caprigenus of “modern Dasein”, a Dasein riven by transcendentality, a Dasein ensconced in highly peculiar circumstances, quite distant from its primordiality. To uncover its primordiality, we would be better served by the method of an exegesis of the symbolism inhering in its everydayness, as well as a familiarity with the traditional practices and structures which support the most intensive and “metaphysically transparent” expression of these tendencies. Dasein’s everydayness is a vestige of something primordial. We would not be well served by heading in the “opposite direction” if our goal is to deepen our understanding of Dasein’s primordiality. Conscience, anxiety, guilt, the narrow conception of “death”—all this belongs to the caprigenus of “modern Dasein”. And, indeed, maybe this Dasein is the “authentic” one, in an equally narrow sense, an I-saying and transcendentally riven Dasein, but this authenticity is as far as can be from Dasein’s intellective primordiality. Obviousness and primordiality are practically interchangeable. Thus, we must descend into the depths of Dasein’s “tranquilized obviousness” (298), in all its excess splendor.

*

“Every ontologically explicit question about the being of Dasein has already had the way prepared for it by the kind of being of Dasein”

(298)

The necessary middle ground here, between “ontologically explicit questions” and the “being of Dasein”, is symbolism. Symbolism both makes explicit, without veering into discursive superficiality, and is intelligibly a way of being, the very topography of our being-in-the-world. Without this middle ground, our understanding is superficially polarized in a Cartesian fashion, a world of bodies and souls (or, indeed, only “bodies and languages”?) without point of contact.

*

“Dasein is not just objectively present, but has always already understood itself, however mythical and magical its interpretations may be. For, otherwise, Dasein would not ‘live’ in a myth and would not take heed of its magic in rites and cults”

(300)

Heidegger was very close here to perceiving the symbolic structure of Dasein, that it is especially through “rites and cults” that Dasein’s primordiality is made transparent. With this dismissive “however” he has thrown himself off track. It is the late Heidegger that seems, at least partially, to find his way back, albeit saddled with much that is extraneous. “Rites and cults” are the key to understanding Dasein, not a merely incidental factor that we can take or leave. Being expresses itself as ritual before it ever expresses itself through theoretical jargon [1].

1: In a way this would seem to contradict the principle that Dasein is a manner of being rather than a particular being. After all, it would seem that a ritual is an activity performed by some being or another, but “existentielly” (we might also say “gnosensientially”) speaking this is not so. In the performance of a ritual, the human being is not present qua human being. The ritual just is. Recall, also, that a “symbol” is not just a literary or artistic contrivance. The sun that we behold every day in the sky is, from this “ontological” standpoint, as much a symbol as any literary motif, if not more so.

*

Some notes on “circular hermeneutic”

(300-302)

The circular hermeneutic which characterizes Dasein, what we might call the circle of ontological difference, like any circular hermeneutic, is a broken one. Since it chiefly concerns being and beings, their mutual presupposition of one another, one can reasonably infer that the break in this circle is none other than non-being itself (what in certain special circumstances might be called “death”). Figuratively, this might be represented as follows:

In case it does not seem, at first, obvious that being would “presuppose” beings, in a manner relatively symmetrical to the “presupposition” of being by beings, it should be kept in mind that the “being” in question here is not any kind of metaphysically purified conception of being. This is not the absolutely simple being of the scholastics [1], but the being which is articulated in Dasein’s being-in-the-world. Apart from beings, such a “being” is effectively meaningless. In any case, that non-being quite inevitably intrudes into this circle is demonstrated as follows—

For one, granting that their relationship is, indeed, circular, no matter how tightly wound this circle might be we do, somehow, in fact, manage to differentiate between being and beings in a meaningful manner. A vicious circle would exclude this, and ultimately reduce one into the other. Indeed, every such circular relation implies a reduction unless such a break is also implicit to our conception, whether or not we acknowledge it. At the same time, it is essential that this break between them be nothing at all, non-being. Otherwise their relation would be merely linear, at best, and not meaningfully circular. A break which is nothing at all is at the same time not a break. The circle remains a circle even while it is broken.

This circle of being and beings (the circle of ontological difference) is not, primarily, that which is described in the referenced passages, but rather the circle between Dasein and the understanding of being which it “presupposes”. That Heidegger connects this circular relation with a virtue of “putting into words” and moreover assigns this circle to the “proof” which discursively establishes Dasein, is significant. This circle is a more nebulous one, a circle attributed retroactively which subsists only at the level of discursion. This is because the “being” which Dasein presupposes is a certain manner of being, namely, passive intellection, and Dasein, too, is nothing other than passive intellection. A distinction between Dasein and “being”, in this context, is a purely discursive one, for the sake of semantic and theoretical utility. Dasein is its understanding of being, which is a certain manner of being, namely, passive intellection.

1: Indeed, one could debate whether in fact, simple being does not in fact presuppose beings in practice. It is particularly a Christian, biblically informed metaphysics which tends to suggest a break between being and beings (creation ex nihilo). In a Platonic (or “Neoplatonic”) scheme, pure Being (= Intellect) “produces” the beings subordinate to it (“intellectual natures”) quite immediately and timelessly. A Being which somehow “chooses” not to do this is inconceivable, for them. It is intrinsic to Being to be related to beings. From our limited standpoint, as well, we could say that without beings we would not posit being at all. It is tactillectively bound to beings in the same way that atman is bound to I-saying. We call this metaphysically “superior” reality “being” on account of our familiarity with “beings”. One could say that on active intellect’s own terms, being is unequivocally prior to beings. It requires the “meta perspective” of tactillection in order to see its dependence on beings. The circle here is produced in combining both perspectives, as complementary halves illuminating an intellective whole.

*

“An existential formula: being-ahead-of-oneself-already-being-in (a world) as being-together with (innerworldly beings encountered)”

(302-303)

This is a formula for the circle of ontological difference, as described in the preceding note. What the formula leaves out is the non-being implied at the juncture “as”, the necessary factor for both differentiating these elements and joining them in a circle. After all, if the “as” were not non-being, the circle would tend towards becoming a vicious one, essentially a tautology. And, as I explain in my series on “Promethean Ontology”, it is not just the space between the extremes of the hermeneutic horseshoe (here “being” and “beings”) which “is” non-being, but, ultimately, the entirety of the space in which the diagram is situated. Being is subsumed in non-being. Being is not itself a manifest being.

*

“Being-in-the-world that is disclosed to itself equiprimordially understands the being of innerworldly beings together with the being of the being that it itself is”

(310)

Another formulation of the circle of ontological difference. Again, the factor of non-being is missing (appropriate, in a way!).

*

“Meaning is that in which the intelligibility of something keeps itself, without coming into view explicitly and thematically itself..., that in terms of which something can be conceived in its possibility”

(309)

Nothing to note here besides that this formulation is far more precise than Heidegger is likely aware. This is metaphysics, pure and simple. This, eminently, is “noein”, rather than Heidegger’s narrow characterization earlier in his book. Or, if we take “possibility” here in a strict sense (as opposed to as “potentiality”, which is often how Heidegger seems to mean it—again, translation choices probably factor in here), one could also say that this passage describes the supereminence of “noein”. The equivalent of such a “supereminence of intelligibility”, as I term it, is a significant component of later Neoplatonic thinking (e.g. Proclus), which locates “intelligibles” beyond being.

*

“Anticipation makes Dasein authentically futural”

(311)

As some of the ensuing analysis makes clear, contra Heidegger’s manifest intention, anticipation and futurity are not characteristic of Dasein qua Dasein, but merely of Heidegger’s so-called “authentic” Dasein, that is, of the caprigenetic Dasein which he constructs theoretically (or more or less faithfully describes). This in mind, we should be better prepared to amend some of his coming remarks on “ecstatic temporality”. We can, in fact, already offer a certain clarification here. Dasein’s futurity, that is, the futurity of Dasein qua Dasein, is but an aspect of its intelligibility of presence. It is potency, the tiger primed to leap. Thus, presence, rather than futurity is primary to Dasein qua Dasein. If this situation is reversed in the case of the “authentic” caprigenetic Dasein that is because of its preponderantly transcendental aspect. It is transcendentality which brings in futurity proper. In my view, the kind of futurity that Heidegger refers to in these passages is neither the one nor the other, a fact which conforms to the caprigenetic character of his “authentic” Dasein. He is quite emphatic that this futurity is not he “future now” of “vulgar time” and yet he insists on the primarily futural character of Dasein (something not true for Dasein qua Dasein). Indeed, that potency which we designate “futural”, after a fashion, is not eminently so but only in consequence of the generic ambiguity of “futurity”. Potency is but a feature of the topography of intelligible presence, but one somehow assimilable to futurity. The future belongs eminently to “vulgar time”, indeed to the time of the Promethean vulgus and its industrial life, with the linear projections of progressive development that entails, a power that reaches the perfection of its form through proletarian dictatorship.

*

“Anticipatory resoluteness discloses the actual situation of the there in such a way that existence circumspectly takes care of the factical things in the surrounding world of action...Only as the present, in the sense of making present, can resoluteness be what it is”

(311)

A serviceable formulation of “potency” in its existential (i.e. passively intellective) sense. If this formulation uses expressions that are somewhat misleading, such as “anticipatory resoluteness”, this is, once again, a consequence of the caprigenetic character of “authentic” Dasein. Nevertheless, in its fundamentals, this formulation is quite apt. Also notable, are the providential overtones of the above passage—existence takes care of the “factical things”, which is to say, stated in reverse, it is part of the existence (= passive intellect = intellect = intelligibility = being) of “factical things” (or, rather, more so beings) to be “taken care of”. The being-in-the-world of beings is a being-taken-care-of.

*

“The future has priority in the ecstatic unity of primordial and authentic temporality”

(314)

Wrong! Even Heidegger’s own account of Dasein’s futurity unwittingly prioritizes presence. Indeed, “primordial temporality” and “authentic (= automorphic) temporality”are not even compatible categories, and it is only for the latter that futurity can be said to be primary, in some measure. The primacy of futurity, however, only fully comes into bloom for the heroic Promethean subject (which is also to say, that other forms of prioritizing futurity exist, though they are only “half formed”, as it were). “Authentic” Dasein is still but a malformed caprigenus, a goat awaiting the day of judgment, the day on which each thing will be sifted into its proper place. Thus, summarily, the primordial priority of temporality is presence, and the “authentic” priority of temporality is futurity. In general, we would be better served by substituting “automorphic” for “authentic”. The former is more direct and has fewer moralizing pretensions. “Authenticity” is nothing but an I-saying that has mystified itself, sanctified itself with the surreptitiously adopted coronal glow of truth (to be “authentic”, after all, is to be “true to oneself”). Nevertheless, for the purpose of assessing Heidegger’s thought, the term “authentic” will more often be preferred to “automorphic”.

*

“Care is being-toward-death”

(315)

Indeed, this is a confirmation of the broken hermeneutic circle of ontological difference [1], which was already identified with care. It would perhaps be even more metaphysically precise to say that care is being-toward-non-being. In practical terms, one might say that care tends toward establishing repose in the being of the beings with which it concerns itself (again, note the providential overtones), just as being itself reposes in non-being. It is the frenetic activity of the transcendental subject which tends toward the agitation of beings. For some, perhaps, this suffices as a moral indictment of the subject. It is something of a cliché, really. It should go without saying that “repose” here has an existential sense, not the sense of an objectively present repose, that is, not a mere otium). It is not to posit beings in a literal state of immobility, but an indication of uninterrupted flow, of readiness-to-hand without breakdown, harmonious functioning and arrangement, an integral wholeness between environment and activity. This is an existential repose in which explicit (and particularly discursive) reflection does not need to intervene. The harmony of the spheres is akin to death. Soma is sema. Being—uninterrupted and perfect being—is non-differentiated from non-being. It is itself non-being, since one can nowhere find being itself manifested.

1: It is also a confirmation of a view that I propounded earlier in this series, namely, that intellection is dying or being-toward-death (given an equivalence, more or less, between “care” and “intellection”).

*

“Far from excluding such a multiplicity [of phenomena], the primordial wholeness of the constitution of being of Dasein as articulated demands it. The primordiality of the constitution of Dasein does not coincide with the simplicity and uniqueness of an ultimate structural element. The ontological origin of the being of Dasein is not ‘inferior’ to that which arises from it, but exceeds it in power”

(319)

This is exactly what I have elsewhere called the “topographical complexity of immediacy”, here explicated from the standpoint of passive intellect as “care” (Sorge). The precision is stunning and an effective counteragent to Hegelian Robinsonade (e.g. the putative “immediacy” of “sense-certainty”). We can dispel this Robinsonade with actively intellected symbol or with passively intellective care. The whole theatrical production is flanked from both sides and cannot possibly sustain its illusion except for the most obtuse and myopic “thinkers”.

*

“With the term understanding we mean a fundamental existential...Understanding constitutes the being of the there in such a way that, on the basis of such understanding, a Dasein in existing can develop the various possibilities of sight”

(321)

An excellent formulation. The ensuing passages, for the most part, develop this notion admirably. It does seem, however, that by “possibility”, in this context, he primarily means “potency”. Passive intellect dwells understandingly in the potency of its present situation. “Possibility” refers to an altogether “superior” level of conception, eminently rooted in non-being rather than Dasein’s existence as such.

*

“Ecstatic temporality clears the there primordially. It is the primary regulator of the possible unity of all the essential existential structures of Dasein”

(334)

I can see why he believes that “ecstatic temporality” (by which he means the “three ecstasies” of past, future, and present) regulates Dasein’s “relationship” with the there, but I feel that some corrections are needed here. Certainly, one can see how Dasein’s “temporal comportment”, e.g. futural, conditions the intelligibility of its being-there, but it does not follow that these “ecstasies” should be treated as equivalents, exchangeable for one another, like a change of temporal clothes to suit the seasons of being, or that each of them is equally characteristic of Dasein qua Dasein (i.e. qua passive intellection). Indeed, Heidegger himself does not seem to think so. His prioritization of futurity was already addressed in a previous note. Hence, a shift from presence, that is, from the genuine presence of intelligible immediacy, to any one of the three phases of time, whether the present as “the now”, the future as the not-yet, and the past as the no-longer, implies a fundamentally existential change in kind of temporal being. Granted, that the futurity Heidegger ascribes to Dasein is not that of “vulgar time”, but even on his own terms, this futurity is necessarily subsumed into presence. Graphically, one could represent such an ontologically differentiated time as follows:

Thus, what we might call , in reference to the above figure, the “three presences”, are eminently “worthy” of the Heideggerian designation “three ecstasies”, and each of these is subsumed in Dasein’s primary temporal comportment of presence. Thus, also, a distinction between presence and the present becomes expedient, the one transcendent and the other transcendental, just as future presence is here transcendent and the future (as an ontically posited point “ahead of us” along the line of quantitative time) transcendental, and so on. Moreover, a distinction of “eminence” is needed within the sphere of presence in order to differentiate levels of intensity. While future presence, for instance, is eminently prophetic intelligibility, it is more ordinarily the futural orientation that guides Dasein’s everydayness—both are futural presences (hence, contra Heidegger, fundamentally presence rather than futurity) but they vary in the eminence in which they are manifest. The really interesting question here pertains to the Promethean turn which genuinely rearranges the above scheme and truly prioritizes futurity, in its transcendental sense first of all, and only secondarily in the prophetic sense of future presence (Prometheus was also a prophet). This rearrangement is, of course, impossible, logically and metaphysically excluded, but “impossibility” is the Promethean watchword. The specifics of this rearrangement, symbolized by the winged serpent and Atlantis, must be worked out as well, but that will have to be a task for another day, namely the task of graphically re-presenting the symbol of the winged serpent. Incidentally, as symbolism is concerned, one could refer to the above re-presentation, in which presence has priority, as a graphical re-presentation of Shiva’s trishula, a kind of nested double trishula that distinguishes between the time of presence and the time of measure, as it were. The inner trishula, in its ordinary sense, is also what Heidegger calls “the temporality of taking care”(335) with its grounding in the “rootedness of Dasein” (334), i.e. its grounding in presence, the “rooted” mode of time, as it were. Thus, “taking care” can also serve as an indicator of non-eminent, lower intensity Dasein, but a Dasein still grounded in the priority of presence. “Ecstatic temporality” is presence.

*

“In order to be able to ‘really” get to work, ‘lost’ in the world of tools, the self must forget itself” (337)

Indeed! “Authenticity” (automorphosis [1]) is not characteristic of Dasein qua Dasein. A self which is oblivious to explicit self-ness is archeimitic.

1: “Authenticity” seems to be narrower in scope than “automorphosis”. The former needs a subject, or a Dasein that already conceives itself as a subject, i.e. a caprigenetic Dasein. Whereas, “automorphosis” can, for instance, simply refer to the posting of a self-nature to any thing whatsoever, such as to say “this table itself”. Authenticity is but one kind of automorphic procedure.

*

“...a retention that awaits”

(339)

Another formula for framing the temporality of Dasein, specifically “taking care” which, let us recall, constitutes the less intensive expression of Dasein. In terms of the graphical representation given earlier—

As per the character of Dasein qua Dasein, all of this “occurs” within the primacy of presence.

*

“...connection between being and truth...”

(340)

The “connection” between being and truth, supposing each is allowed to “speak” for itself and manifest eminently, is identical with the connection between passive intellect and active intellect, respectively. It is in primordial intellect, then, that they attain their supereminence, an excess of themselves, and where they cease to speak altogether, speech having become redundant, and repose in the silence of their effortless perfection. Since the distinction between active and passive intellect is, ultimately, a virtual one, the repose of primordial intellect is “already” intrinsic to their operation as such. That is to say, intellection, of whatever mode, cannot be understood or posited, without presupposing the principial “repose” in which being and truth are indistinguishable, however covert or inexplicit this presupposition remains.

*

“A completely adequate existential interpretation of science cannot be carried out until...”

(340)

An important precondition that he does not enumerate here, for any sufficient understanding of the nature and significance of “science”, is an explication of the distinction between the kinds of science, chiefly “Traditional” (or transcendent) science and modern (or transcendental) science. Without an understanding of the difference and interconnection of these sciences, an inquiry into the “existential concept of science will never be adequate. This is a subject I have touched upon, albeit briefly, in a number of places.

*

“...the way in which circumspect taking care of things at hand changes over into investigation of things objectively present”

(340)

The false dichotomy being erected here is one between science, framed as centered on objective presence, and an “existentiell” condition which is “prescientific”, as it were. The sciences of objective presence, that is, modern and transcendental sciences, are not the only kind of science. Indeed, modern science is dependent on, historically and ontologically, the pre-modern sciences, which are “ontological” (existential, immediate, etc) in their constitution. The framing here is doubly misleading for, in opposition to objective presence, Heidegger sets up only “taking care”, thus excluding not only active intellection, but more intensive expressions of passive intellect (in previously established terminology: “concentrillective expressions of passive intellect”). Nevertheless, the question, even exclusively, of how “taking care” changes over into objective presence, is interesting in its own right, especially for reasons of a certain “alternative historiography”, making possible a sound refutation of any attempt at constituting a sort of “utopianism” out of Heidegger’s “other beginning” (“and we would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for you lousy Platonists/Jews!”). Such an alternative trajectory leads to the same crisis point we find ourselves in today, quite inevitably, a consequence of the ontological symmetry of the intellects.

*

“Theoretical research is not without its own praxis. Reading off measurements that result from experiment...Observing with the microscope...etc”

(341)

This is an excellent point, and is exactly why a fundamental distinction is needed between technoscience and technoscientific innovation. It is the latter which is eminently Promethean (which is also to say that the former is likewise Promethean, albeit in a non-eminent degree)—not technology, but that which disrupts its stability and rigid structure, that which bursts it asunder and forces it to readapt. Technological innovation is the only effective weapon against the iron grip of technology. “Taking care”, for human beings, the technological animal par excellence, is technological capture and, in the context of modern technologies, the dreamless sleep of automatons. Needless to say, “innovation” here means at the most fundamental level, not merely extrapolating on the implications of prior innovations. Real innovation begins at the level of impossibility or, rather, is a kind of impossibility which leverages the determinate possibilities of nature, a leveraging of necessity which impossibly overcomes every determinate horizon and thereby reconfigures possibility—a possibility which, in turn, was “always”, retroactively, possible. Innovation is the production of new impossibilities, not “spontaneously” or in any kind of “absolute freedom” of “the subject”, but through a cunning submission to the configuration of possibility which leverages it against itself.

*

“the idea of the intuitus has guided all interpretation of knowledge ever since the beginning of Greek ontology”

(341)

In this connection it is very much worth noting (though Heidegger will certainly object—his error) that circumspect, absorbed “taking care” is also, itself, an intellectual intuition, in this case of passive intellect. The failure to apprehend this stems chiefly from a misunderstanding of what intellectual intuition is, seeing in it a kind of thematic grasping or “staring”, an instance of objective presence. This is precisely the very opposite of intellectual intuition. The error Heidegger makes here, as noted much earlier in these notes, is in some ways a historical one. He reads Cartesianism backwards into its historical antecedents in, particularly, Greek metaphysics, antecedents which differ fundamentally in kind from the horizon of modern, transcendental thinking (albeit, these metaphysics are inclusive of and embrace various forms of transcendental thought within their broadly intellective context—just as Socrates’ philosophy includes within it the methods of the sophists). This error is also facilitated by his failure to observe the symmetry of the intellects, let alone to note the passively intellective character of what he calls “Dasein”. But I am just repeating things which have already been stated many times throughout these notes.

*

“All manipulation in the sciences is only in the service of pure observation...’seeing’ regulates all ‘procedures’ and retains its priority”

(341)

In other words, even when scientific activity proceeds in the “mode” of “taking care”, all modern science and whatever pertains to it is conditioned in advance by objective presence [1]. That is what constitutes the distinctiveness of modernity generally, namely, the transcendental horizon. The circle of this horizon, in the mode of an enclosing space, is also what sunders primordial intellect, segregating passive from active intellect—

This segregation stimulates the tendency toward preferential relations with one or the other, as with Heidegger toward the passive pole and antique metaphysics toward the active. Not only this—the interruptions of the transcendental condition do not stop there, but go on to the production of further divisions, subdivisions of intellect. Heidegger’s phenomenology, for instance, is not just another instance of passive intellect’s intellectivity, but a discursive articulation of its own structure in a format suitable to itself. Thus, philosophical contemplation, the major examples of which, at least from antique philosophy, have active intellect as their basis, takes discursivity of an intricate and highly technical variety as its preliminary, and Heidegger’s thought constitutes an instance of this same phenomenon from the side of passive intellect. The caprigenus Dasein is itself, therefore, an instance of this subdivision of intellect.

1: And if “in advance” by objective presence then “from behind”, as it were, by intellection. Intelligibility ever remains the background and ineradicable context of every transcendental concept.

*

“The objectifying being together with innerworldly things objectively present has the character of a distinctive kind of making present”

(346)

Specifically, it is a making present again, i.e. a re-presentation. All modern scientific grasping of objects is re-presentation. Traditional science presents being and beings (or, if you prefer, “presences” being and beings).

*

“If the thematization of what is present—the scientific projection of nature—is to become possible, Dasein must transcend the beings thematized”

(346)

Rather, it would be more terminologically apt, in light of our prior reflections and in light of philosophical history generally, to say that Dasein must become transcendental vis a vis the thematized beings. It is these beings themselves (in their being), as well as Dasein in its “purity”, that are transcendent (in the mode of “immanence”, as concerns passive intellection). Dasein must “become” the subject through a privation of being.

*

“The horizontal structure of the present is determined by the in-order-to”

(347)

At the risk of repeating what has already been stated, there is more than one kind of “in-order-to”. There is a thematized “in-order-to”, characteristic of objective presence, wherein one plans the trajectory of one’s action deliberately and explicitly. Then there is the “in-order-to” implicit to Dasein’s manner of being-in-the-world and being together with beings, an “in-order-to” which is subsumed into the primacy of presence. It is presence with a futural flavor, as it were (stated another way, a gnosensientially futural presence). Thus, what Heidegger calls “the horizontal unity of temporality” is presence, and presence is the intelligibile complex of immediacy—in Heidegger’s terms, a complex of “relations” (in-order-to, for-the-sake-of-which, etc). These “relations” subsist “primordially” (though not in the sense of “primordial intellect”—this is just Heidegger’s phraseology) and in integral fashion within “the world” of Dasein. They are not relations in any “thematized” sense, but, one might say, only appear as such retrospectively for our thought—in the terms of the previous note, they appear as such for the phenomenological thinking undertaken by the caprigenus Dasein (hence, a perfectly “valid” thematization, on its own level, as it were).

*

“Dasein is never objectively present in space”

(350)

This is, stricto sensu, true. However, Dasein is and must be generically ambiguous, and included in the scope of Dasein’s generic ambiguity is the there-being of the corporeal human being. Dasein is therefore non-eminently present in space, but eminently prior to space (space being eminently “within” Dasein or, stated another way, included within the intelligible topography of passive intellection). This generic ambiguity which seems to confuse meaning, also secures it, especially for our ordinary speech [1]. We somehow do also mean the corporeal human being when we speak of Dasein, albeit not eminently. Dasein also must be what it is not if we are to secure what it is within our understanding and express that understanding in our speech. Confusion and falsehood (albeit not any old falsehood, but only that which is tactillectively opportune) acts as a secure grounding for the expression of truth, especially in our capacity as social beings (emphasis on “beings”?). As social beings, we could hardly say and mean anything about Dasein at all, communicating our thoughts in books (such as the book “Being and Time” by Martin Heidegger), if not for the generic ambiguity which secures truth in the confused fastness of ordinary life. Socially speaking, unless “Dasein” also means the corporeal human being, it means nothing at all, or, in any case, nothing that could be communicated from one social and historical being to another, in the form of a book or otherwise. Ordinary life is confusion, nonsense, and approximation. Ordinary life, or “appearance”, is not yet science (but is plumbable by science) . Truth communicates itself only when taking on this garb, to one degree or another. No matter how refined the technical jargon, the stupidity of ordinary life remains implied in every formulation, and this stupidity, in fact, helps secure the expression and meaning of truth. Stupidity has a scientific value. Contra a certain “existentialist” cliché, stupidity is not a mute and impenetrable absurdity, that is, stupidity is never just stupidity.

It is obviously needful to connect everything said here with what has elsewhere been stated with reference to “empeiria”.

1: If technical jargon, with its exaggerated emphasis on “precision” (as with Descartes’ “clear and distinct ideas”) took charge of all speech, communication, in large part, would cease to be meaningfully possible. Everyday communication continually traverses and occasionally inhabits the no man’s land of generic ambiguity.

*

“Dasein is ‘spiritual’”

(350)

Indeed—that is to say, Dasein is intellectual, Dasein is an intellect.

*

“Can Dasein be past at all?”

(363)

It can, but not eminently—thus, only in terms of its generic ambiguity. This is also to say Dasein (especially as caprigenus) is past impossibly (likewise for the future—that is, future proper, not futural presence). Dasein qua Dasein is not an objectively present thing such that it could be “located” in the past. Thus, caprigenetic Dasein, or Dasein in its generic ambiguity, is only “located” in the past to the degree that it is not itself, that is, impossibly.

*

“Resolute coming back to thrownness involves handing oneself over to traditional possibilities...The more authentically Dasein resolves itself...the more unequivocal and less haphazard is the choice in finding the possibility of existing”

(365)

Thus, “authentic Dasein” is merely a kind of “cultural conservative” (cf. what I have said elsewhere on ethnos as generic I-saying; also the “cultural entomology” of conservatives) , because it is undoubtedly a most inferior sense of “tradition” that he has in mind here, just as he generally has Dasein’s most inferior possibilities in mind in his phenomenology (and, indeed, “authentic Dasein” is not even really Dasein in an eminent sense, but a caprigenus). Certainly there is validity to his conceptions—the finitude of Dasein, appropriated resolutely, delimits the range of Dasein’s potentialities. However, this skeletal framework is embraced by a narrow ontology, pointlessly hostile to metaphysics (and therefore implicitly hostile to itself) and exclusive of Traditional (capital “T”) reference points. Dasein’s finitude should be appreciated in the light of a more comprehensive and profound illumination of its being. Actually, the work of certain Buddhists seems to aim at just that, and even to do this without veering from the ordinariness of Dasein’s existence (I am thinking, for instance, of Bankei—it would be a stretch to characterize his approach as grounded in active intellection). Neither theoretical sophistication nor contemplative profundity are remote from the everyday.

*

“Fate/Destiny etc”

(366)

Prometheus is the destiny of the earth. Communism is destiny. What more is there to say? It is the destiny we have all inherited vis a vis the socio-histoical junction of technoscience. It does, however, seem to be in conflict with a certain fate. What Prometheus is at the level of destiny, Faust is at the level of fate, and these tendencies are in manifest contradiction with one another. The unlimited selfishness of Faust which would recklessly sacrifice all, including itself, for itself, for knowledge, an ineffable and deep knowledge at the other end of a destructive penetration—this stands in opposition with the selfless sacrifice of Prometheus which arrogantly asserts its self over and against every god and power. There is hardly room in a communistic society for the Faustian kind of selfishness and yet it must inevitably produce them for itself again and again. Indeed who could rigorously and pitilessly think through and articulate the meaning of communism, down to its Atlantean depths and its Babelian heights, but a Faust? Communism has both intellectual arrogance and earth-bound humility for parents. It is the destiny of an anti-community (that is, of society, “Gesellschaft”, as against community in the sense of “Gemeinschaft”), and at the same time of a new community, or a new kind of community (a new kind of “Gemeinschaft”). Minus Fasutian arrogance and presumption, communism would quickly reduce itself to social democratic moralizing and the spirit of mere philanthropy, a communism that apologizes for every inconvenience. The communism of Marxist-Leninist tradition is intellectually cruel, or must be if it is to assert its icy truths. Truth of this kind—a truth which is a revolutionary weapon—must be uncompromising, even where political necessity often obliges us toward the very opposite. We must be sure that our rifles fire straight, even when we are not making use of them. Communism is the destiny which hangs over “communities” as such, their conversion into the new social body of the earth, as instruments in the service of its terraformation. Faust is the distinct form of the individual par excellence that this sort of society produces [1] (the thoroughly individualized individual, as it were). Thus, a contradiction exists for communist society at the level of fate and destiny. It may not be a class contradiction, but it is perfectly real, subsisting in the intelligible marrow of this social form (and therefore also of the present social form—we already reside within the communist horizon—hence we already have our Faustians and Prometheans, for good or ill). In one respect, it is to say that this form of society is never radical enough for itself. It not only seeks a more elaborated development, but also a more quintessential quintessence. This is precisely why communism cannot, and never will, dispense with proletairan dictatorship. Communism is simply never communist enough for itself (in that connection, Cultural Revolutions and purges are inevitable recurrences). Communism needs proletarian dictatorship in order to secure its own adequacy to itself, to push itself further and root itself deeper. Thus, we see that this contradiction at the level of fate-destiny has real, political repercussions. It is no mere “idea”, but an intelligible “projection” that guides communism in advance. Consequently, there is not, and cannot be, a communism other than proletarian dictatorship (I mean, of course, industrial communism, primitive communism excluded). Proletarian dictatorship is that political form which grasps the inner contradiction of communism and converts it into a productive and directed force. Proletarian dictatorship is the political form which encompasses both the one Promethean destiny and the many Faustian fates of industrial civilization. Faustian selfishness, dispersed throughout a multitude of agonically oriented individuals, is a tool at the behest of the Promethean collective.

1: And it is crucial, in this connection, that this communistic society does not primarily produces individuals but the community, first of all. This dynamic is not unrelated to the earlier noted relation between “Protestantism” and “Catholicism” as it pertains to communism.

*

“Repetition responds to the possibility of existence that has been-there”

(367)

The virtue of a cow grazing in the field. It resolves to eat, and it resolves to rest, and then it resolves to tread back into the barn—behold the intrepid heroism of “authentic” Dasein! Even Tradition is not this provincial [1], not to speak of revolution, though one can only imagine how tantalizing the image of this parochial round is to Kojeveans.

1: It is easy to lose sight of the fact that Tradition itself can be a scandal. The aghori sadhu is as Traditional (capital “T”) as the officiator of Vedic rites.

*

“Resoluteness constitutes the fidelity of existence to its own self”

(372)

And if that “self” happens to be that of a cow? The “self-nature” (svabhava, automorph) is determined in advance—by what or whom? The labyrinthine web of automorphosis is unfathomable in its extent. Buddhism teaches that only a fully enlightened Buddha can fathom the vast chain of karma (which is, in essence, nothing other than an automorphic web of causal-conceptual relations). To be “true to one’s self” is indeed a contradiction in terms, for truth, in its eminent sense, lies in pure selfless intelligibility (though, a distinction between “authentic” selfhood and “archeimitic” selfhood, is obviously relevant here). Dasein is near to it. “Authentic” Dasein has already put its self at a distance.

*

Minor note: I have not been totally consistent in my use of the term “existential” in this series of notes. There are essentially two ways that I have used it. Firstly, by simply conforming to Heidegger’s usage, and his distinction between the “existential” (loosely—the “theoretical” sense) and the “existentiell” (loosely—the “practical” or “lived” sense). My preference, however, is to employ the term “existential” as a distinguishing characteristic of passive intellect’s peculiar form of intellection, and thus to include in the scope of this term both the “lived” expression of this intellection and its “theoretical” expression. The term “existential” thus serves, primarily, as a gnosensiential and terminological means of distinguishing passive intellect from the more eminently “intellectual” operation of active intellect. I simply do not find the existential-existentiell distinction to be useful, though I sometimes conform to it in discussing Heidegger’s thought.

*

“...how temporality itself...makes possible something like an understanding of being and addressing of beings”

(386)

If he means establishing some kind of definitive “proof”, then I do not see how this is really possible nor why it is even necessary. Indeed, it would seem to be entirely besides the point. It is rather an articulation, eminently phenomenological in its form (because of the appropriateness of this form of exposition to passive intellection), of the temporality of being and knowledge that is necessary, and he has already begun elucidating the rudiments of such a phenomenology in the foregoing sections of his book—what more can one ask for in this connection? It only matters that this phenomenology be articulated in such a way as to be transparent to our intellection. The ancient law that “those who know, know, and those who don’t, don’t” is as impervious here as anywhere. A key factor here, as pertinent to passive as to active intellect, and which Heidegger has not sufficiently emphasized, is the role of presence, though the division which he theoretically opens up, in a way inadvertently, of the three presences, should be an incredibly fruitful one for such a phenomenology. In addition to this, another distinction will be helpful here, one that Heidegger seemingly does not recognize, namely, the eminent links between active intellect and knowledge, on one side, and passive intellect and being, on the other. The threefold division of presence must naturally intersect, somehow or another, with this second division. As an aside, much is made of Heidegger’s failure to “complete” his philosophical project in Being and Time, but this, to my view, is neither relevant nor interesting when one takes into account the fundamental problems that mar it throughout. That his work peters out toward its end is little worth remarking when its chief flaws and limitations are found in its beginning and middle.

Actually, it occurs to me that one could represent (or present) the double division just alluded to in the form of the “vajra”—

Here the central column as pure presence, “present presence”, as it were, forms a connecting link between the intellects, a trace of their shared origin in primordial intellection. At the same time this column seems to indicate transcendentality, the very reason for the division of the intellects, to begin with, and thus it also seems to bear the sense of “sensuous presence” or “empirical presence”, or indeed even the purely virtual “abstract moment”. Primarily, as symbol, the central column is connected with the former rather than the latter, that is, it is primarily indicative of primordial intellection. Primordial intellection’s “temporality” is a pure presence, an “eternal presence”, not over and against any future or past, but a presence in which such distinctions are made redundant.

*

“...astronomical and calendrical time reckoning. This reckoning is not a matter of chance, but has its existential and ontological necessity in the fundamental constitution of Dasein’s care”

(392)

It is worth noting, in this connection, that our basic time measuring conventions were sacred and priestly in origin—indeed, more astrological than astronomical. Dasein, as intellect, contains within itself, eminently, that which is explicitly unfolded in the symbolism of time-reckoning, the qualitative dimension of time, as it were. This symbolism is already basic to Dasein’s “existentiell” structure. Indeed, Dasein is already “astrological”, a certain intelligible relation to sun and moon, perhaps even a divinatory relation. Dasein interprets the hidden intentions of the “gods” as messaged by its own intelligible relation with time. Dasein’s sense of time and its place in it conveys, immediately, a “message” as to the appropriateness of its tasks and its life, its sense that certain things are coming to their natural conclusion, that others are ripe for beginning, that one enterprise is surely doomed and another blessed. Dasein is a divining, an interpreting, of time, and not just a “subject” that “experiences” it.

*

“Sunrise, sunset, and noon are distinctive ‘places‘ that this heavenly body occupies”

(393)

Indeed, distinct houses—the first, the seventh, and tenth astrological houses, respectively, each bearing its own portentousness for Dasein. Time is not just measure, and not even so primarily, but also meaning, an intelligible symbol.

*

“Looking at the clock and orienting oneself according to time is essentially a now-saying”

(396)

Again—the priority of presence for Dasein, and intellect generally. “Now-saying” is a rather potent expression. Contra Heidegger, the “now” of now-saying is not necessarily that of objective presence, though, especially as facilitated by modern forms of time measurement, e.g, the clock, and modern ways of thinking about time, e.g. a sequence of qualitatively neutral atomic moments, it is easily convertible to such. This now is, at minimum, anchored in the most basically intelligible relation to time as presence. It is presence which eminently contains and secures the intelligibility of temporal schemes. With only presence, divorced from past and future, we still have a kind of primordial “time”. Past and future divorced from presence have no subsistence or meaning as “time. The radicality of future does not lie in its ability to somehow stand on its own, but in its capacity for determining and mastering presence, for terraforming the face of intelligible presence. Genuine futurity is not any kind of freedom from presence but the leveraging of presence against itself.

Still from The Fall of Berlin (1950)

*

“When Dasein thus brings itself back from the They, the They-self is modified in an existential manner so that it becomes authentic being-one’s-self”

(258)

This represents a total failure to take up the revolutionary task (which I have already had occasion to mention in a previous note) of repairing or, at least grappling with, the world fracture. “Authenticity”, here, barricades itself on one side of this fracture, disavowing the public domain of modernity as irreparably tarnished—but if this public domain is tarnished then so is your petty “authenticity”. “Authenticity”, then, amounts to little more than a passive, defeated, hiding from the public, in the Black Forest of pseudo-provinciality. This is a perfectly appropriate stance for a coward, but for those of a more heroic temper only the revolutionary task of integrating the divided social landscape is adequate to their nature and destiny.

*

“Conscience...being-guilty”

(259)

The continual return to notions of perennial lack (“outstanding”) and guilt suggests a certain metaphysics in the background of Heidegger’s thought, a metaphysics premised on a debt whose repayment would necessarily lead to obliteration (“the impossibility of existence”) because existence itself is identified with this debt. Heidegger’s philosophy is constitutionally Malthusian. (Caprigenetic) Dasein’s very being is a debt owed to non-being [1]. Taking care is always toward this non-being which Heidegger erroneously thinks of as an “impossibility of existence” rather than a plenitude of possibilities, including all existential possibilities. Dasein is always toward its death (= “impossibility of existence”) and it is the part of the “authentic” Dasein to face up to the anxiety of this situation—a rather solemn variation on the Kafkaesque. In that regard, what really is the difference Heidegger and Kafka? Did Kafka, too, live in this universe of debt? What was his stance toward it? It does not, in any case, seem to have been one of “resigned” authenticity. Kafka (or, rather, his typical protagonist) was considerably more cunning, and considerably less solemn. In this case, a sense of humor seems to have resulted in a considerable difference in outlook. Humor, too, is a metaphysics, and solemnity is not the same thing as tragedy.

1: And, it stands to reason that the meaning of “non-being” is rather case dependent here, that is, generically ambiguous.

*

“The selfhood of Dasein was defined formally as a way of existing, that is, not as being objectively present. I myself am not for the most part the who of Dasein [“but I should be”, Heidegger means to say], rather the they-self is. Authentic being-a-self shows itself to be an existentiell modification of the they”

(257)

By defining the selfhood of Dasein as a function of a certain manner of being, Heidegger distances himself from a transcendentally reductive selfhood, and by then positing a sort of struggle for authenticity with “the They”, a contest as to who constitutes the “I myself” of Dasein, he again approaches the transcendentally reductive domain of automorphosis. He teeters and totters on the edge of these commitments, aggregating them into a heap—that is, constituting Dasein as a caprigenus. In any case, what is of particular interest here is the negative (indeed, one might say apophatic [1]) character of “authentic selfhood”, a mere subtraction of the They (albeit, a subtraction with particularity, i.e. a transcendental apophasis), a They taken to be a default of Dasein’s everydayness, and this everydayness, in turn, the ontological benchmark of Dasein’s existential phenomenology (Heidegger’s “secularity”, in other words, is exhibited here). What is further implied here in this “negation of the negation” [2], is a transhistorical and unreflective grasp of “the They”, a mere obstruction to be swept away in the interest of securing “my own” authentic selfhood. The task which such a conception of “the They” sweeps under the rug is that of a thorough investigation into the “material” [3] substrate of “the They”, the actual social and historically constituted structure (incidentally, a “dialectical” one) of the public sphere of which this public consciousness we designate as “the They” is but an expression [4]. The political expression of this failure to investigate “the They” is the divided politics of “guardianship of the ethnos”—a class of “Übermenschen” (e.g. a Schutzstaffel) dispensing with the scruples of their own authenticity in order to impose authenticity on the “herrenvolk”, each fragment of this ethnos herded into its proper sheep pen, one pen for the herr professoren, another for the day laborer, and one also for the soldier, each an authentic display piece of cultural memorabilia, giftshop souvenirs. This class of “guardians” are to stand guard over “the They” as instantiated in the human mass, devising an authentic simulacrum of life for them within the “sheep pen of being”. To investigate “the They” means to plumb the positively intelligible structures which undergird this form of consciousness, and to fathom its social and historical contingency. In other words, we must also reject the aforementioned “secularization” which treats the conditions of this age as eternal verities. This is a stupid and narrow “secularity” which cannot extend beyond its own temporal circle, as evinced in the transhistorical thinking typical of liberalism. In Heidegger’s thinking, this “secularization” reads the Cartesian turn backwards into antique metaphysics and gives undue emphasis to Dasein’s present (modern) everydayness as the benchmark of its existential phenomenology. To make use of the present day form of everydayness as a benchmark for the existential phenomenology of Dasein is by no means an entirely inadmissable procedure. Rather, it is to do so without, at the same time, conducting a thorough inquiry into the “material substrate” of this form of life, an inquiry which both arrives at the intelligible contours of this “substrate” and is sufficiently critical as to avoid being taken in by mere appearances—it is this failure which is liable to produce errors and misdirections in the phenomenological task Heidegger sets for himself. The “poetic thinking” of Heidegger’s later phase is insufficient, on its own, to remedy this oversight, though it has merit as an overture in the direction of Dasein’s basic, intellective constitution, away from the caprigenetic construction. Critical science is just as necessary.

1: Here we would be forced to make a distinction between a “transcendent apophasis” and a transcendental one. What, then, is the difference between a transcendent apophasis and a transcendental apophasis (we might even call this second apophasis a “negation”, like Hegel, expressing it in the most generic terms)? In the first place, transcendental apophasis constitutes nothings with particularity, which is not the case with transcendent apophasis. This is not, however, to say that transcendent apophasis is somehow “general” in scope, as opposed to the particularity and individuality of transcendental apophasis. Generality, after all, still belongs to the individual order of things, and so we can ascribe it, too, to the same horizon of thought to which transcendental apophasis belongs. Moreover, in its capacity as “handling” the particularity of nothing, it also follows that transcendental apophasis is performed “empeiriacally” (note: not to be confused with “empirically”—another note on this, to follow), and it therefore also stands to reason that transcendent apophasis is not a matter of such a “knack”. Transcendent apophasis follows an intelligible guideline, even if it happens to terminate in something that transcends intelligibility itself. Perhaps the most basic way to characterize the distinction is as follows—where transcendent apophasis consists in the demolition of limits, transcendental apophasis consists in their construction, that is, the construction of nothings interposing between things. Transcendental apophasis “demolishes” things by breaking them down into smaller segments. The Platonic dialectic employs both forms of apophasis (or, more precisely, employs the “sophistry” of transcendental apophasis toward the ecstatic break of transcendent apophasis—for more on which see my series on Promethean Ontology). That should suffice for now, as concerns the distinction between transcendent and transcendental apophasis, though, unfortunately, I am now forced to resort to the inelegant device of inserting a note within a note in order to address the question of “empeiria” [1.1].

1.1: [This note excerpted from my notes on Plotinus’ Enneads] “Empeiria”, commonly rendered as “knack”, the central topic of Plato’s Gorgias, can be thought of as a kind of “sensuous induction”, that is, not an induction one performs in reference to “sense data”, by reasoning about what the senses give us, but an induction performed by the senses themselves, non-discursively (even, as we will see, when it is a question of skillfully employing words). One gets a general sense of how things are done through an experience of doing them, an education of sensibility by sensibility. It is a generalization of sense, a sensuous generalization of sense, not an induction of discursive principles from sense, but a pre-discursive generalization of sense itself. This still leaves open the question of empeiria as it pertains to discursive cleverness. We find in Nietzsche already an articulation of this, of what it consists in. He converts the “delicacy” of his senses into discursive cleverness. His ideal philosopher must have a sensitive and subtle nose, a refined taste palette, fastidious habits. He isolates himself for reasons that are very different from the “spiritual” ascetic—it is from sheer choosiness as to the stimuli he takes in. His thinking, qua philosopher (or, more properly, sophist), is an articulation in words of his sensibility. The conversion of sensibility into speech is itself a “knack”, that is, empeiriacal. Our knack for clever speech—or, indeed, even for poetry and metaphor—is coextensive with the generalization of our sensibility. Words, themselves, are also sensuous, not only in terms of their sonority, but their imaginal content, as metaphor. Sensuous induction (i.e. empeiria), therefore, also philosophizes (if we employ this term broadly enough to be inclusive of sophists). In connection with the above note, when empeiria reasons, it reasons spuriously (notho logismo), that is, it is a form of reasoning which follows irrational guidelines (for instance, of the senses), a reasoning that is effected through a knack rather than regular processes and regulative principles None of this is to condemn empeiria, since it precisely establishes its necessity. We cannot apprehend matter otherwise than spuriously, or skillfully employ generic ambiguity otherwise than empeiriacally. The term “sensuous induction” also aptly expresses an inverse relation with tactillection. Where tactillection is “universally tactile”, sensuous induction is “sensuously generalized”. Thinking the generic ambiguity of concepts is a knack. There is also very clearly a connection here with Vico’s “poetic wisdom” which is not quite a contemplative symbolism, but a quasi-symbolic sense for metaphor. His counterposing “poetic wisdom” against “revelation” is, therefore, quite appropriate. Revelation is obviously not a knack. It is wisdom immediately manifest, a theophany. Poetic wisdom is a knack, as is poetry generally; though some poems lend themselves to both readings, like the Homeric poems which, in terms of their broadly “literary” influence, generally fall into the category of “poetic wisdom”, but which nevertheless lent themselves to “revelatory” readings by e.g. the Neoplatonists, as the symbols of immutable realities. This doubleness is itself an instance of generic ambiguity, for “symbol” also has the sense of “metaphor”, in a sense that is not merely equivocal.

2: That is, the They has a negative value for Heidegger, and he subtracts it with the negative entity of automorphic selfhood.

3: The “materialism” in question here is that which Marxism has always effectively consisted in, in practice, whatever this or that Marxist theorist, even Marx himself, might put on paper—a “historical and social intelligibility”, subject to dialectical tensions (yes, even at the scale of “nature”). The “materialism” which posits atoms, or any other kind of abstracted scheme of “physical things doing physical stuff”, is a pointless exercise by comparison, a redundant mass of speculation whose absence would not even be noticed at the tribunal of history, neither a witness nor an actor to any event of note.

4: Moreover, the factor of “class consciousness” does not seem to enter Heidegger’s thinking here at all (unsurprisingly). That the “public consciousness” of the They could be modified, intensified, concentrated in its contours through mass political agitation is probably too “vulgar” a notion to his kind of thinking. The mass, at best, is to be herded into the sheep pen of its destined authenticity, a “volkisch” cultural spectacle for us to gape at like tourists.

*

“Conscience”

(258 etc)

“Conscience”, as Heidegger employs this term, is the dividing line between the “Übermenschen”, the “guardians of the ethnos”, and the mass men in whom the existential condition of “the They” is never surpassed. The historical appropriateness (however inadvertent) of Heidegger latching on to this concept of “conscience”, an eminently Protestant conception of the “personal conscience”, is worth noting here, in light of what the Protestant Reformation signifies in world history. The “guardians of the ethnos” Protestanize themselves so as to secure the Catholicity of the “sheep penned” masses, as it were (there is a curious resonance to Dostoevsky’s “grand inquisitor” here). There is a certain internal contradiction To Heidegger’s notion of “authenticity” which I am obliged to address, namely, that Dasein’s deliberative task of reclaiming its own authenticity is itself presented as something authentic when really it should be the very opposite. To deliberately “engineer” one’s own authenticity, a kind of “affirmation of the affirmation”, is in a way the very antithesis of “natural” authenticity, a kind of “inauthentic authenticity” [1]. This is an authenticity which, first, steps outside itself in order to secure itself, and then steps out of the human mass in order to fence it in. Thus, the relation of reactionary politics to the fractured social sphere of the present can be thought of as an “inauthentic authenticity” which engineers “authentic authenticity” for its political subjects.

1: An “authentic authenticity”, as it were, would be carried by the momentum of a culture’s already existing “automorphic currents”, established habits of I-saying and identity, automorphic grooves in the soil of they-being made ready for easy passage. If they-being, at present, seems hostile to authenticity, a putative deluge of mediocrity and idle chatter, then it is equally true that authenticity is hostile to they-being, and it is characteristic of an I-saying concerned first and foremost with its own I-saying to divest itself of any sense of responsibility to its own ground (Heidegger himself admits they-being as the ground of authenticity). Heideggerian authenticity heaps scorn and insult on its own mother, which seems in rather bad taste. This “inauthentic authenticity” which is concretely dependent on the very they-being it scorns, continually simulates for itself a sense of independence from its ground. Precisely because it is a mere simulation, its reproduction must be constant, punctuated by crises, lacking in regularity, natural rhythm, harmony. It lacks any intrinsic stability or staying-power. This “inauthentic authenticity” is a heedful and anxious effort, day to day, at an individual scale not too difficult to maintain—it might even seem to express itself in the outward shape of a mild mannered professor of philosophy—but at larger scales it becomes frantic, a war machine, a constant battle against life and reality itself. It is an illusion, a paper tiger, albeit one with real claws.

*

“Losing itself in the publicness of the They and its idle talk, [Dasein] fails to hear its own self...This listening [to the They] must be stopped...The possibility of such a breach lies in being summoned without any mediation”

(261)

There is, indeed, a kind of obstruction that occurs for Dasein when it heeds “the They”. Dasein is obstructed qua Dasein, in the intelligible character of its being, through the mediation of public discourse. What Heidegger fails to perceive, however, is that “its own self” is as much, nay more, of a mediating factor and obstruction, as any “They”. This “hearing itself”, in the sense of mere authenticity, is extrinsic to Dasein qua Dasein (that is, Dasein as passive intellection), a paltry substitute for archeimicity where “the They”, at least, is an inconspicuous intelligibility, however compromised it is by comparison to a genuine social integrality. Indeed, Theyness only fails, in respect of Dasein’s uninhibited expression of that which it is, precisely because mere authenticity is implicit to it—it is authenticity which is culpable for the inadequacy of “the They” (and, by extension, also inauthenticity)! Thus, confusion inevitably mars his account because “self” is generically ambiguous. Heidegger’s caprigenetic construction of Dasein fails to rigorously distinguish between the transcendent sense of “self”, namely, archeimicity—that which is truly proper to Dasein qua Dasein, supereminently—and the transcendental I-saying which he heaps onto the caprigenus Dasein. A similar consideration may be extended to the publicness of “the They”. Indeed, there is a trivial “Theyness” which can be characterized as incessant idle talk, but there is also an intelligible “They”, the symbolic constitution of the social body, namely, what has been expressed by the term “social integrality” (or “integral sociality”, and other variations thereof). Heidegger’s caprigenetic speculations produce misleading oppositions. Against the triviality of “the They”, Heidegger buttresses an equally trivial “self” [1]. Basking in the intelligible glow of Dasein, identifying itself with this glow (and thereby reconstructing Dasein as a caprigenus), this “self” masks its own triviality and passes itself off as something profound (an entirely borrowed profundity), a weighty task for “moral heroes”, the idol of “authenticity”, the call of conscience. The intelligibility of Dasein is converted into an instrument of propaganda, its operation qua Dasein obstructed in order to facilitate the suppression of a deliberately distorted “public”. Here, once again, Heidegger’s activity as a philosopher resembles the form and methodology of a Promethean ontology. He is Promethean in spite of himself, a Promethean with a bad conscience, a “guardian of the ethnos”, a “grand inquisitor”—Heidegger, in other words, is not Heideggerian enough. Like Zeus, he instrumentalizes Prometheus against Prometheus. He instrumentalizes Dasein’s intellectivity not in order to terraform being, but in order to arbitrarily confine that power within narrow limits.

1: Really, it is the way he employs it, and the manner in which this “self” is idolized, that renders it trivial. As a power, as automorphosis unbound, it is anything but trivial. It is a terraforming power at the disposal of humanity. This is to say, again, that rather than free Prometheus from his shackles, he turns Prometheus against Prometheus.

*

A consequence of some of the preceding reflections—the call of conscience, in its most genuinely “existential” sense, is not an expression of “self” in opposition to the “They”. It comes from the place where superintelligible “Self” (archeimicity) and the intelligible “They” (that is, the intelligible form of the social sphere, to which “das Man”, taken in its inferior sense, corresponds; the symbolic structure of the social body) are integrally bound up with one another. Conscience is, initially, a public phenomenon, not the property of the “individual” moral agent that takes its courageous stand against the mob. Even at the level of “common sense” this should be quite obvious. Conscience is the faculty of a social being. At the same time it seems to penetrate into the deepest recesses of our own “selfhood”, a “two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit”. It is only a question of which selfhood is in question, of which kind of selfhood is in question. “Selfhood” is generically ambiguous. The selfhood of conscience in this genuine sense is a much closer kin to an intelligible publicness than it is to any individualistic moral agency. If Heidegger avoids the reproach of thinking in terms of a rather trivial conception of “individual moral agency”, it is not because he does not think in this way but because he successfully conceals it. He conceals it by bathing his narrow concept of “self” in the intelligible light of Dasein or, what is the same, constructing Dasein as a caprigenus.

*

“The call [of conscience] reaches the they-self of heedful being-with others”

(262)

I must qualify some of my above criticisms of Heidegger. To the extent that he does enter into a relation with the intelligible They, it is one parochially conceived—a particular fragment of the total social body which, in the present era, is inescapably industrial in form and planetary in scope. One could argue that he instrumentalizes the intelligible light of his parochial “They” in precisely the same way that he does with Dasein generally. In any case, he fails to take up the scientific task of plumbing the real contours of the present social body, preferring instead to buttress a parochial conception of sociality. Is this choice, on his part, not precisely coextensive with the project of constructing the sheep pen of being? This parochial being-with-others must be engineered and imposed on the presently subsisting social body of industrial society, a social body which, incidentally, is better adapted to engineering its own circumstances than any other, for better or for worse, towards its own liberation or into the narrow limits of a self-imposed parochial slavery.

*

Some of the subsequent passages corroborate the views I propounded in the last note. For instance—“And to what is one summoned? To one’s own self. Not to what Dasein is, can do, and takes care of...Because only the self of the they-self is summoned and made to hear, the They collapses”

(262-263)

*

“The They-self is summoned to the self. However, this is not the self that can become an ‘object’ for itself...The summons of the self in the they-self does not force it inwards upon itself so that it can close itself off from the ‘external world’. The call [of conscience] passes over all this and disperses it, so as to summon solely the self which is in no other way than being-in-the-world”

(263)

Here, again, Heidegger teeters along the edge of the generic ambiguity of “self”. “Self” is integrally bound with world. At the same time it is “mine” and says “mine”. If indeed self is “in no other way than being-in-the-world” then it need not, and perforce does not, separate itself from the intelligible Theyness of the social body. This social body is the real one of the industrial present, not any parochial ideal, not any destiny-bound “volk”. The call of conscience is as much the voice of this industrial social body as it is the voice of the superintelligible “self” (archeimicity)—indeed, in its integral intelligibility, the social body is archeimitic. Archeimicity is not the kind of “self” which belongs to an individual qua individual (it would be more correct to say that the individual belongs to it, in its capacity as a unity). One is summoned to the social body as much as to “self”. Indeed, in the most tangible terms, the former generally predominates over the latter in the phenomenon of conscience. Because in the phenomenon of conscience “self” and social body are bound up, one could further posit two general expressions of conscience depending on which pole in this relation predominates. In cases where “self” (crucially, in the sense of archeimicity [1]) predominates, one encounters antinomian expressions of conscience (of which mania, in the Platonic sense, can furnish typical example, or likewise the “holy fools” of Christian tradition). We should not lose sight however, of the essential point here. Even in such seemingly “antisocial” expressions, presuming they are genuinely grounded in the superintelligible self, qua phenomenon of conscience, they are no less social than nomian expressions of conscience. Through such “antinomian” expressions the social body transgresses itself, or rather transgresses its own superficial encrustations—again, and crucially, provided it is “self” in its archeimitic sense which is in question. The social body attains, through the radical procedure of such “antinomianism”, to its own quintessence. Thus, (archeimitic or socially intelligible) conscience is always to be understood as a social phenomenon, even when this sociality expresses itself as the sword dividing father from son, mother from daughter, the sociality which converts members of a household into bitter enemies. When the outward expression of the social body fails to be adequate to its intelligible form, such conflict and contradiction is inevitable. Then, in the figure of the antinomian (of which the “revolutionary” is a type [2]), the social body rises up in revolt of itself, scandalizes itself, defiles itself, abuses itself, does violence to itself, and through all this tends toward the restoration of itself in its own truth. The predominance of (archeimitic) “self” , in the phenomenon of conscience gives expression to the lawlessness of the social body’s truth, then, where the predominance of the intelligible sociality of Theyness gives expression to the lawfulness of the social body. Under a proletarian social order, the revolutionary becomes the satyr (since, that is, the revolutionary is no longer called upon to make revolution—in conformity with the change in circumstances, the function of the revolutionary also changes). Naturally, the “self” which I primarily have in mind here is the impersonal and superintelligible kind, but this “self” is not unrelated to that narrower sense of “self” to which Descartes gave utterance in the cogito, that “self” which guides the self-interest of the capitalist, that “self” in reference to which revolutionary coalitions assert their own rights. It is especially under the eminently transcendental conditions of the modern social form that this latter, narrower “self”, leaps into the heavens of archeimitic sociality, brings down its heavenly fire, and affirms the prerogative of the social body to revolutionize itself. Proletarian dictatorship is the transcendental self of the communistic social body.

1: Albeit, when it is a matter of the automorphic “self”, one can find a wide range of expressions, yet somehow narrow, like a flat plane, ranging from antinomian hedonisms (which is, indeed, an expression of conscience—hedonism follows an inexorable moral logic) to the nomianism of the idée fixe, typified in Protestant fanaticism. Sternerian “egoism” can also be taken as a typical expression of a conscience “purified” of virtually all its non-automorphic content, that is, purified of anything social and intelligible. That such a purification is merely virtual is an inevitability. The total vacation of all intelligibility is not a genuine possibility, but it is possible to vacate just enough for one to be able to say that, for all intents and purposes, nothing is left but naked transcendental self-hood. The simulation not only simulates the real (that is obviously its function, qua simulation), but simulates its own simulatedness, producing an exaggerated sense of its independence from anything real. Only a fool would take this stage decoration at face value. Everything simulated and illusory always has the real for its basis. There is no such thing as a “pure illusion”, stricto sensu, only that which is approximately a “pure illusion”.

2: The distinctiveness of the revolutionary, in this respect, especially of the socialist revolutionary, lies in the way that the revolutionary is able to already articulate the nomos of the intelligible form that is rising up against the nomos of failing social institutions. The socialist revolutionary makes it a matter of duty and discipline to already prefigure another order in the form of rebellion they adopt, in the structure of their revolutionary organizations (e.g. Soviets, democratic centralism, etc). At the same time, they are linked to the more directly antinomian conflagrations of popular revolt (i.e. “spontaneity”, in the Leninist sense), by virtue of expressing the same intelligible reality overflowing in spontaneous revolt and in adventurist outbursts, but in a rational form, a form especially adapted to modernity.

*

“Conscience calls the self of Dasein forth from its lostness in the They” (264) + “Dasein flees from thrownness to the relief that comes with the supposed freedom of the They-self” (266)

Given what I have already stated about the nature of “conscience” in the preceding notes, it remains to be stated by way of conclusion what the function of conscience is for Heidegger, since it manifestly does not function there in its genuinely integral form. The sense of conscience here, then, is connected with what I have already written elsewhere in these notes respecting the “world fracture” and the fortification of its regions. Conscience is a fleeing from one fractured region (the fragmented “They”) into another fragmented region (a fragmented sense of “self”. In this “fragmented self”, a caprigenetic Frankenstein composed of parts intelligible and parts transcendental [1], teetering along the generically ambiguous edge of “selfhood”, Heidegger finds a temporary safe harbor, a refuge from the disquietude of modernity, and a hiding place from the imperious gaze of the task which calls us forth to a naked confrontation with modernity. It is within this temporary refuge that Heidegger awaits his savior god.

1: Is there any trace in this “conscience” of the superintelligible? Perhaps through the connection of conscience with thrownness. The sting of conscience, followed through, can bring us into the sheer presence of superintelligible thrownness—see second quote above

*

“Uncanniness is the fundamental kind of being-in-the-world”

(266)

He evinces here his typical unwillingness to investigate beyond the everyday conditions which prevail at the time and place he occupies, to inquire as to the conditions under which uncanniness becomes the “fundamental kind of being-in-the-world”. At which point, and through which social conditions, is uncanniness displaced from the periphery, a state experienced only in exceptional circumstances, and relocated to the “ontological center” of our being-in-the-world? I would argue that uncanniness is a special mode of thrownness. Potentially, it is a mode of thrownness which becomes most prominent in modernity, though by no means unique to it. Uncanniness seems, possibly, to be thrownness flattened to transcendental proportions. It is thrownness for me (thrown at me, as it were). This seems to be corroborated later on in these notes—e.g. Uncanniness as “onticality out of season”. From this standpoint, it seems uncanniness is not eve really a way of “being-in-the-world”, as such, but rather a mode of the privation of being. No wonder, then, that it is so characteristic of the caprigenus Dasein.

*

“...at bottom conscience is, in its essence, in each instance mine...the call [of conscience] comes from the being that I myself always am”

(267-268)

Again, teetering along the generically ambiguous edge of selfhood. Likewise in evidence here is the residual Cartesianism that subsists in Heidegger. What is this if not a modified cogito? I am guilty, therefore I am. Dasein is cobbled together as a Cartesian caprigenus in this way rather than being uncovered in its pristine integrity, in its being what it is without extraneous admixture.

*

“...the uncanniness of thrown individuation...”

(269)

In virtually identifying “uncanniness” and the “thrown” condition generally with “individuation”, he has given away the game, as it were. Individuation as primary phenomenon (and Heidegger indeed identifies uncanniness as ontologically “fundamental”) is typical of modern thought, thought in the Cartesian mold. Uncanniness is also unquestionably “ontic”, an onticality out of season, as it were. It would not be unreasonable at this point to conclude that the reason Heidegger projects Cartesianism backwards into antique philosophy is not only in order to flatten it and render it easier to overturn, but because he is himself a Cartesian (or rather quasi-Cartesian), and consequently looks out at the world with Descartes-colored glasses, as it were.

*

“Dasein is its ground by existing, that is, in such a way that it understands itself in terms of possibilities, and thus understanding itself, is thrown being. But this means that, as potentiality-of-being, it always stands in one possibility or another, it is constantly not other possibilities”

(273)

This form of thinking is, ironically, ontic as pertains to the nature of possibilities (and also demonstrates why we must clearly distinguish between “possibilities” and “potentialities”). Thrownness, or facticity, is here considered but a manner of characterizing the “there-ness” of Dasein, as a there among other optional theres, rather than an integrally plenary there, a there which is all there is. The hypostatizing of “options” already represents a departure from “pure”, intellective being-in-the-world. Moreover, possibility qua possibility is never exhausted or unavailable—it is simply possible. But this goes back to a point I have already raised several times before, namely, that Dasein, as intellection, exists at varying levels of intensity. “Everyday Dasein” (especially in a caprigenetic capacity) is by no means a benchmark by which to judge Dasein qua Dasein, but at best an expedient starting point for beginning our researches. A statement which is true with respect to caprigenetic Dasein is, at the very least, true, but in being applied to the question of being “as such” it inevitably produces falsehoods. Heidegger generally produces an incisive analysis of caprigenetic Dasein—his problem is that he does not know that this Dasein is a caprigenus. This mismatch is at the root of his fascist politics, that is to say, in words that may seem a mite innocent in their simplicity, fascism is necessarily premised on falsehood whereas communism expresses truth.

Sarcophagus of Tutankhamun

*

“Eliminating what is outstanding [in the sense of an “outstanding debt”] in [Dasein’s] being is equivalent to annihilating its being”

(227)

It remains to be seen whether, in the explanations that follow, Heidegger can justify his characterization of the condition described above. “Annihilation” is a rather loaded term. After all, why not “fulfillment” (even in its teloic, or “initiatic”, sense—“tetelestai”)? It seems more than obvious that he needs a characterization like “annihilation” in order to set up this line of inquiry in such a way that it inexorably ends up at his doctrine of “being-towards-death”—but this all seems to hinge on a truism, namely, that in lacking “potentialities-to”, Dasein ceases “to be”. Naturally, a passive intellect which no longer “passively intellects”, effectively, “is not”. However, it remains a possibility, in a metaphysical sense, and thus remains eminently real, indeed even “supereminently” so. But what is the real significance of such a cessation? It certainly has little to do with “death”, in a merely physiological sense, which is in no way the end of the mode of being called “passive intellect”, and is, at most, the end of a singular individual “man”. In light of our own preceding speculations, this “elimination” (another loaded term) of Dasein’s potentialities seems to imply something like a restoration of primordial intellect, or at least a reversal which prioritizes active intellection (which is bound to “feel” like the exhaustion of such potentialities). Why, then, this preoccupation with “death”and “anxiety” and the like? It would seem that Heidegger’s being-in-the-world is a being-in-seclorum, that is, “world” here has an eminently “secular” and “humanistic” sense concealed behind its aura of “mystical” profundity. It is a being of Dasein in the age (“seclorum”) of modernity, down to the very manner of its being, that is, the manner of a caprigenus. Heidegger simply takes for granted something like Nietzsche’s “death of God”, an axiom that every “brave thinker” feels bound to take up as a test of his fortitude. That is, one takes it up for entirely superficial reasons. If God, that is, something approximately like “active intellect” [1], is dead, however, then passive intellect, which is nothing but the same in a polarized sense, is dead too. Consequently, Dasein is a caprigenetic corpse, a transcendental subject that merely parasitizes its own intellectivity. Thus, it is this Dasein, a caprigenus, which is always toward its own annihilation, since it is always already annihilated in advance, a dead thing marching toward its own death. Dasein qua Dasein, on the other hand, that is, “pure” passive intellection, is never dead and never dies [2]—it simply is—except, that is, when “death” is taken in the sense of a repose in non-being, but in that case one might even say that Dasein is in a heightened degree, for non-being is the supereminence of being. There seems to be in question here the division of, on the one hand, a Dasein which submits to the criterion of physiological death as a conceptual limit, that is a caprigenetic Dasein, and a Dasein which is indifferent (indifferent in an ontological sense, not a psychological one) to physiological death, and therefore also a division between an inferior and physiologically grounded (even if not reducible to physiology) death, and a “death” which has the significance of “non-being” in its metaphysical sense. Heidegger says “Dasein” when he wants to talk about “man”, and thus produces this caprigenus.

1: It goes without saying that one can attribute more or less profound conceptions to this term “God”. It can signify any number of things, from something like a “powerful being” to a demiurgic intellect to an unknowable divine essence.

2: What I say here about intellect never being dead seems to be in contradiction to my later characterization of intellection (see below) as being equivalent to dying—but this hinges on an equivocation of “death”, a term that can have more than one sense. It seems to be a question, at bottom, of precisely what one is dead to, as well as what sort of death is in question, that is, which sense of the term one has in mind. Intellect is dead to “the world”, to subjective sensibility, to “clinging”. Indeed, as I establish later, death, in its most essential sense, is immortality.

*

“No one can take the other’s dying away from him..death is always essentially my own”

(231)

In other words, death, for Heidegger, is an anchor of individuality (maybe, for him, even the anchor, par excellence), an instrument of “individuation”—“I die, therefore I am”. It is somehow by virtue of death or dying that I am empowered to say “I” and “mine”. That such “being-toward-death” is an indispensable factor in individuation and “authenticity” (the conspicuity of I-saying) is tenuous, but it is, especially psychologically [1], an extreme instance of finitude and delimitation, carving out a temporal space for I-saying. The anxiety of being-toward-death is not any kind of prerequisite to “individuation” (the “achievement” of which is trivial [2]—it is nothing but an elaborated habit of I-saying, an automorphic finesse), but it does help drive the point home with greater force. There can be no doubt, then, that, despite Heidegger’s insistence on distinguishing between physiological death and “existential death” (his concern, so he claims, is obviously the latter), that his thinking on death here is very much grounded in the former, for it is obviously physiological death which is fundamentally individual in its character. “Death” taken in an existential sense, whatever that might be, by virtue of its intellective character (“existential” being roughly equivalent to “passive intellect”), has a universal and not an individual significance. Here, as elsewhere, then, Heidegger is thinking in terms of a caprigenetic Dasein, partly intellective and partly transcendental, combined into a heap.

1: And “psyche” is, roughly, equivalent to “transcendental subject”, though with some reservations. Context is crucial here. In Plantonic thinking, psyche has much more intellectual meat on its bone, and indeed is a kind of intellect, as it were, albeit less potently and essentially so than “intellect as such”. Transcendental subjectivity is but psyche stripped down to a bare skeleton.

2: Indeed, the specific framing of “individuation” as some kind of “heroic” task, the fruit of “self-actualization”, seems to be little more than a palliative for boredom. “Individuation” occurs constantly, whether one likes it or not, though the form it takes in this or that instance does not always conform to the proportions of one’s romantic narrative fantasies. So, one pushes individuation into the distance, ignoring the forms it is already taking here and now (forms which may not be particularly “interesting”), and setting up a more “romantic” image to be achieved later through an effort at “working on oneself”.

*

“Coming-to-an-end implies a mode of being in which each and every actual Dasein etc”

(233)

—but Dasein itself is, fundamentally, a mode of being, not an “entity”, not such that one could really speak of “each and every” Dasein. This perhaps is Heidegger’s fundamental error, the most basic error at the root of his philosophy—to treat Dasein as a being rather than a mode of being [1] (most ironically). Dasein is not, first and foremost, the being for whom being is a question (although, this is a neat and compelling little formula), but the mode of intellection in which being takes priority over knowledge. This second formula is not merely an “alternative” to Heidegger’s, but is implicit to many of Heidegger’s most pointed theoretical reflections on Dasein. It is a thoroughly Heideggerian formulation of Dasein in spite of Heidegger. We need the understanding of Dasein as a mode of being, in the first place, if we are even to posit another understanding of Dasein as a being. The latter is but a specification which implies the former.

It also follows, then, that Dasein need not be taken in its most basic and most universal sense, that is, as passive intellection pure and simple. One could just as well take it in a more specified sense, as the there-being of man (this is in no way an objectionable thing to do, provided we do not lose sight of the fact that this sense of “Dasein” necessarily must be secondary, a specification of the more universal sense), which is more often than not how Heidegger means it, intentionally or otherwise. One might say that, in this capacity, Heidegger is something of an inadvertent humanist—another rather severe irony of his thought (see particularly his Letter On Humanism)—a kind of crypto-Renaissance-humanist [2]. Thus, Dasein can mean something like “man”—the central being, the being who has no essence of his own, the rational being who is also, in the same measure, a space for intelligibility, because rationality itself is an emptiness. It is precisely because man is a rational being that he can intellect (verb), whereas a flower, a bee, a stone, always is intellective—an animal does not contemplate, nor does it “take care” of things (“anxiously”) within a workworld [3], but rather simply is within its world. If man is “made in the image of God” (taken, for instance, in the sense of “the divine darkness”, plenary non-being), then the animals, vegetation, and stone are made in the image of the angels (plenary intelligences). Man’s rational-transcendental darkness is an image of the darkness of the non-manifest, a kind of prima materia. Indeed, every concept, in itself, is a prima materia out of which an indefinite multitude of concretions (whether pragmatically concrete applications or metaphysically concrete transpositions) can be extracted, and, moreover, it is through the transcendental mode of being (or privative non-being) that intelligible realities can be emptied and made into the prima materia of an indefinite multitude of concepts (mere concepts). Likewise, this “rational darkness” is an image of the “divine darkness” insofar as it births beings and modes of being. After all, it is the scission of primordial intellection by transcendental subjectivity which births the modes of being (and knowing) that we call “active intellection” and “passive intellection” (Dasein), and thence, through a further “analysis”, to the production of individual beings in their sheer individuality. Man, therefore, is the reservoir and terminus of the manifestation of beings, just as God is, but on the opposite “metaphysical pole”. As Guenon represents it (see The Great Triad):

We have said, above, that Dasein may be taken as the mode of being of a being (though, not its only mode) called “man”. This must be qualified in a certain way. Man is a being who at bottom is not, and man’s essence lies in his lack of essence (his positive and revolutionary lack of essence—his “species being”, in a Marxist context, a social mutability that evinces a lack of essence). Thus Dasein (in this secondary sense) is a mode of being for this not-being that is man. This is analogous to the metaphysical standpoint for which being (or manifest being) is a peculiar “possibility” or “portion”of non-being.

1: In all this we should not lose sight of the generic ambiguity of “Dasein”—namely, that Dasein fundamentally, indeed eminently, is a mode of being (passive intellection), but at the same time is a being, non-eminently. That Dasein is generically ambiguous is something which I have touched upon previously, I believe in connection with Dasein also being a “subject”. Moreover, Dasein’s being a being, is also generically ambiguous, and splits into the sense of a genuine being (a being in its being) and the sense of an object (a being vacated of its being). Indeed, nothing should prevent us from speaking of Dasein as a thing objectively present, even if this is never the primary sense of Dasein, or indeed even a secondary sense. All of these senses are included within the generic ambiguity of “Dasein”, in its generic ambiguity, that is, as an empty concept with definite contours, and they are present in it simultaneously, even if exhibiting a certain priority of “eminence”.

2: I have much to say on the significance of “crypto-humanism”, especially of the Enlightenment humanist variety, elsewhere, and likewise on the distinction between the Renaissance and Enlightenment variety of humanism.

3: That is not to say that animal life (or insentient matter) is unconnected with care, in any sense. Care is present with and in animal life in the form of “providence”. It is the manner of being of animal life (and indeed, also of insentient matter) to be “taken care of”. This is implicit to their intelligibility. All scientific accounts presume it, whether this is openly acknowledged or not.

*

“But is the death at which Dasein arrives a fulfillment in this sense?...Has it thus necessarily exhausted its specific possibilities? Rather, are these possibilities not precisely what get taken from it?”

(235)

That Heidegger has such difficulty conceiving of “death” as a fulfillment and exhaustion of Dasein’s possibilities (or, rather, potentialities) demonstrates that, despite all protestations to the contrary, the “death” in question for him is not an existential one but, primarily, death in a merely physiological sense. He halts before this physiological phenomenon with a superstitious awe, ascribing to it a terrible primacy to which all thought must defer, a “naked fact” for a “brave thinker”. That he can make such an error, at all, probably follows from the more basic error according to which he considers Dasein a sort of being (though, one somehow different from other beings—“the being for whom being is a question”) rather than a mode of being (the mode of intellection for which being is prioritized over knowledge). If Dasein is primarily a being (however “special” that being might be), then to “die” cannot have a fundamentally ontological meaning. It becomes a somehow “special” mode of mere physiological “perishing”, the brute degradation of a special something that reduces it to the cold insentience of all those non-special things that clutter our existence. If, on the other hand, Dasein is a mode or state of being (it is always both, i.e. a mode situated in a certain state, e.g. the passively intellective mode situated in corporeal existence or psychical existence or whatever other state), then to “die” cannot primarily refer to the “brute fact” of physiological death. In that case, to “die”must not mean anything at all, in which case we can validly say that Dasein, in this primary sense, does not die at all, or we must attribute another sense to “death”, however figurative or symbolic. For instance, we might equate “death”, here, with a repose in non-being, which, being roughly equivalent with pure possibility (as distinct from potentiality), would entail a fulfillment of Dasein’s potentialities, their realization (presuming an equivalence between “possible” and “real”—see Guenon’s The Multiple States of the Being). A mode cannot perish, only a certain sort of being can (a mutable one). Both a mode and a state can “die” (one dies to a state, or exhausts the range of possibilities that a mode is susceptible of manifesting).

*

“The ending that we have in view when we speak of death does not signify a being at an end of Dasein, but rather a being toward the end of this being...Let the term ‘dying’ stand for the way of being in which Dasein is toward death”

(236, 238)

With these perfunctory remarks, “when we speak of...does not signify” and “let the term...’stand for’”, Heidegger rather unsubtly evades the question of death and substitutes for it the question of dying. He takes away the at-an-end and puts in its place a toward-the-end, as though these were somehow equivalent, or as though the former had to be subsumed into the latter. With an ontological hocus pocus he tries to convince us that death, for Dasein, existentially is “dying”. This is nothing but an evasion, the intention of which is to obscure the fact that Heidegger has no ontological account of death, only an ontology of dying (being-toward-death), and that therefore death is still, merely, a physiological fact for him (hence, its value is purely ontic, of a secondary character, not requiring an ontology of its own). It is this “physiological fact”, in turn, which covertly conditions his ontology of dying. Being-toward-death is a being toward the naked, physiological fact of death, that is, a being toward the privation of being (since an objectively present fact is, in a sense, ontologically privative). Again, Heidegger takes up the pretentious stance of the “brave thinker” who faces up to the “naked fact” that the hoi polloi are too cowardly or too coarse encounter in an “authentic” way. An ontology of dying, however, is meaningless without an ontology of death (and vice versa). Death, as remarked in the last note is, in an ontological sense, either death to a state or death to a mode or both. There is also death of the being which, ontologically, signifies “total metaphysical realization”, a “return to the unmanifest”. To die to one mode (or state) is to exhaust its possibilities and be born into another, or to repose finally in plenary non-being.

*

“Being-at-an-end means existentially being-toward-the-end”

(240)

This is, of course, pure sophistry, and is only a more extreme formulation of the sophistries addressed in the last note. Being-at-an-end, existentially, means being-at-an-end. However, in the same measure, we can also say that being-toward-the-end, existentially, means being-toward-the-end. While we should not avoid the question of death (being-at-an-end) by substituting for it the question of dying (being-toward-the-end), this does not mean that the question of being-toward-the-end is not also a worthwhile question in its own right. Both the question of death and the question of dying should be raised, each addressed on its own terms, without substitutions.

First of all, we need to distinguish between the existential (ontological, intellective, etc) significance of the above terms and their caprigenetic significance. The latter is the question of formal identities, of imputed identities, and their dissolution. The primary ontological meaning of death, on the other hand, seems to be “non-being”. Naturally, “identity” is susceptible of more than one sense. Indeed one might even say that it is generically ambiguous. If, then, death in the caprigenetic sense, is the death of an imputed identity, then how is identity situated in relation to existential death?

Caprigenetic death, then, is the death of a “formal identity”, but of a very specific kind. It is the identity which says “I” and “me” and “mine” (and “ownmost”). After all, purely physiological “animal death”, that is, the death we account for as an objectively present fact (which is not to say that we cannot also, if not primarily, account for the death of the animal being in an existential way), is also a matter of the death of an identity—“this living being which is the same as itself is no longer itself—it is dead”. Caprigenetic death (of Dasein) belongs to the same “order” of things as this physiological death, but somehow borrows the existential lustre of the ontologically situated conception of “death”

Caprigenetic death, then, is an animal death, which is why a philosophy of caprigenetic Dasein cannot speak of it—for this death no longer says “I” (on the other hand, death in its purest ontological sense is “I”, in an archeimitic sense). In lieu of admitting as much, this account is forced to substitute dying in place of death. In essence, caprigenetic dying is no less “animal” than its death—but it retains the capacity to say “I”. This I-saying is nothing at all, but it is a nothing which images an existentially plenary something. It is a nothing with an “aura”. This “aura” casts a spell over us, but its effect is variable. It can be a source of comfort and security, or of uncanniness and anxiety. In either case it is one and the same “aura” of I-saying caprigenetic Dasein (of “man-becoming-Dasein”, as will be seen below). Incidentally, one of the original meanings of “aura” is “steam”—in other words, it’s just hot air.

Death in its most profound and exalted sense is also called “the Supreme Identity” (al huwiyya, in sufi literature) or, as expressed in Vedantic terms, the identity of “atman” (archeimicity) and “brahman” (plenary non-being). Naturally, archeimicity already is a plenary non-being, but that is just the point—their identity “always already” subsists. It is not a merely imputed identity. Thus, we have an identity which is imputed (I-saying—an automorphic identity) and an identity which is realized, an identity which only appears to really subsist and one which somehow appears not to subsist. Indeed, it is by virtue of the identity that merely appears to subsist that the other appears not to. That which is imputed (or, put another way, that which is not) acts as a veil over that which just is. Primordial intellection is ruptured by the transcendental horizon, a rupture which is merely virtual, or rather which is virtuality itself.

One could then argue that, if “death” in its existential (= ontological, roughly speaking) sense is none other than non-being, then (existential) “dying” is none other than intellection itself. Intellection, or more precisely, its progressive concentrillection, is the path traced toward “death” (for the philosopher, after all, all life is but a preparation for death). It is an image frequently employed in the writing of the “Traditionalists” (Guenon et al)—

A distinction is made between the circumambulatory path (the circumference of the circle) of “exoteric” religiosity, and the initiatic path (the radius traced toward the center). In terms of the above figure, one could say that the circle of daily existence does not go on indefinitely. Eventually, we all find our way to our final resting place, the “rest” of an immobile center. The “philosopher” traverses this path while still alive. In the contemplative life, one is really dying, in a way that is more than just physiological. But here, just as with its caprigenetic complement, dying is dying and never death. There is no common measure between intellection and non-being. The path traced toward it cannot really terminate there (like in Zenos’ paradox, we trace, at most, half the distance, and then half of the remainder, and so on), but it can prepare one for the fundamental break, a “break” which consists in the realization of an identity which always already subsists, the realization that there is nothing whatsoever that needs to be accomplished, that the path we so indispensably traced need not have been traced at all.

There is also a kind of inversion of comfort and anxiety that occurs here. While, for caprigenetic Dasein, they-being appears as a kind of contemptible comfort, an abdication of the “authenticity” of anxious and heedful dealings, this same anxiety, from the standpoint of a “pure intellection” (albeit, one that is still polarized as active or passive) is but an obstacle to the superior comfort (parakletos—intellect is also “spirit”) conferred by integral intelligibility (or, rather than “conferred”, which is simply inseparable from it). The comfort of they-being is the preliminary to (caprigenetic) Dasein’s authenticity, and the mere anxiety of caprigenetic Dasein is a kind of “fall” from the integrity of purified intellection. We can represent this ontology of comfort and anxiety as follows—

This last “anxiety” is only such in an analogical sense, just as “primordial intellection” is only “intellection” by analogy, having no common measure with “intellect” in any typical sense; or, again, just as the essence of God (adh-dhat) is not really an “essence” in the usual sense. This anxiety is a kind of pure freedom (cf. the “sublime liberty” we discussed in connection with providence). It is not really any kind of anxiety, but is analogous to such. Borrowing a term from sufi literature, we can call it “hayra”, a bewilderment that surpasses affirmation and negation.

In summary, dying in its “existential” sense is intellection and in its caprigenetic sense is an “aura” borrowed from intellection (parasitzied, if we consider it more cynically); death in its “existential” sense is the dissolution of identity in the “Supreme Identity”, and in its caprigenetic sense it is the loss of I-saying as it succumbs to the objective presence of a physiological fact. Not only, then, is death not the same as dying but (and, here comes the coup de grâce)—death is precisely the death of dying (or, to rephrase Heidegger, above, “being-at-an-end is the end of being-toward-the-end”). In its superior sense, then, death is immortality, life everlasting, a condition from which all mere dying has been banished. Everything connected with dying disappears within the sacred bounds of death. The I-saying of caprigenetic Dasein ceases in the objective presence of physiological death, and the motions of intellect are swallowed up in the permanence (baqa bi’llah) of “the essence” (adh-dhat).

Now, let us consider things all over again, from scratch, tracing our way back to the beginning. Dasein (passive intellect), says Heidegger, as long as it has not exhausted its potentialities, is in a condition of “being-toward-death”. This characteristic of being-toward-death is emblematic of the essential lack that Dasein, as “anxious” care, always exhibits. There is always something “outstanding” that Dasein is taking care to remedy—and this will always be the case, as long as (the caprigenus) Dasein is Dasein. In terms of passive intellection (which is Dasein, conceptually purified from its accretions), we can point out that as long as passive intellect remains itself it cannot but consist in the continual procession and self-perpetuation of a certain range of potency [1]. Now, death (of Dasein), if “death” is taken in its most profound sense, is not the actualizing of just any potentiality, but the exhaustion of the whole range of potentialities which characterizes passive intellect as such, an exhaustion which is transcendent and “instantaneous”—and this also means that the being which falsely identifies itself with the mode of passive intellection, that is, the caprigenus Dasein, “man”, dies to this mode and hence appears to die to “itself” (or what it presumed itself to be). Thus, “death” is also the death of a presumed identity, an identity one takes for one’s own.

One can make a certain distinction here. On the one hand, we can speak of “identity” in a purely discursive sense, as that which one calls oneself, that formal designation that circumscribes a region of the real that one calls “me” and “mine”. Such an identity is trivial, and an experience of its death, however emotionally traumatic, is not a death in any fundamental sense (emotional intensity is not a measure of ontological priority). If the death we are concerned with is of an ontological character, then that identity which dies must itself consist in an ontological procedure (identification is a “procedure”, first and foremost—for instance, in transcendental terms, “ahamkara” or automorphosis). This ontological identity is not the formal designation of “sameness” (“identity” from “idem” or “same”) which says “I am the same as that”, where “that” is a profession, culture, nationality, or what have you. It is a being-the-same-as, such as an intellectual identity (i.e. the identity wherein intellect is what it knows). When a “being”, such as “man” (“man” here means “caprigenetic, I-saying Dasein”) so thoroughly is in a certain mode of being (such as the mode of passive intellection, i.e. “pure Dasein”) that it becomes in all respects (of which it is basically aware) just that mode and nothing else, then one can say that the being has in a sense “died” to what it was formerly. The being has become a mode of being. Man has become Dasein and has died to his “humanity” (in a humanist sense, not a merely biological one). What then of an ontology like that of Heidegger’s, that is, an ontology where, as he himself attests (implicitly), death is never accounted for (except in an ontic manner), and only dying has a place? Here man is always becoming Dasein, but any conclusion to this process is precluded in advance. One never dies here because dying is fraudulently passed off as death itself—to be sure, death still happens but, as it were, it merely happens, fortuitously. Therefore, one never becomes Dasein for, to fully be Dasein, “man” would have to die, and in the thought of Heidegger one rarely if ever encounters Dasein as such but always the caprigenus Dasein, a perpetually dying being precluded from the satisfaction of its own death. Man-becoming-Dasein (as we might call this caprigenus) is always dying—until the day that it perishes like an animal. Man-becoming-Dasein, then, as a caprigenus, consist neither in a merely formal identity (an I-saying vis a vis Dasein) nor in an ontological identity with Dasein, but a kind of half-formal-half-ontological identity—that is, a caprigenetic identity. Man-becoming-Dasein, therefore, can be summed up as the basic form of Heideggerianism, and of what he calls “Dasein”, as well as the mark of its crypto-humanism, a humanism in denial, as it were, a humanism secured in advance against its own solemn self-disavowals.

1: Whether this range of potency is that of a singular being in its being-in-the-world, or it is the range of a whole world. Passive intellection is passive intellection, at whatever scale one takes it.

*

“[Dasein’s] death is the possibility of no-longer-being-able-to-be-there”

(241)

A revealing conceptual slip-up, on Heidegger’s part. Dasein’s “there-being” was never, in the first place, a matter of “ability”, as if it were exercising a free and arbitrary choice to be this way. Dasein never had the ability to be-there, it simply is (or is not) there. This covert intrusion of an extraneous volitional consideration accomplishes two things (at least). Firstly, it helps to preclude non-humans from the mode of being that is “Dasein”. These non-humans lack any “volitional” element, in a transcendental sense, and, therefore, if this element is identified with Dasein (“aggregated to its heap”, i.e. assimilated through caprigenesis), as inevitably becomes the case for “man-becoming-Dasein”, then non-humans are, perforce, excluded from having a “being like Dasein”. Secondly, and proceeding from what was just said, the exclusion of non-humans helps secure this identification with Dasein, secure this supposition that Dasein is a being rather than a mode of being, is that being which we “always already are” rather than that mode of being with which we have become identified. Moreover, if one always just is a being called “Dasein” (rather than a being in this mode called “Dasein”, namely, the being called “man”), then one cannot transcend Dasein, and therefore death is merely an end and nothing more (i.e. it is not also a transition to another mode or state of being). Dasein, here, is the being, and “man” is merely a physiological or sociological “fact”. Hence, one’s attitude toward death can only be fundamentally passive—“the courage to anxiety over death”, as Heidegger puts it. No matter how “resolute” this stand toward death is, it is always no more than the “resolution” of one who actively consents to passivity. Such “anxiety” is merely the passive symptom of a “world-fracture”, a fracture which is “just there”, which is a horizon beyond which “nothing exists”.

Indeed, one could argue that it is precisely caprigenetic Dasein which exhibits “there-being” in a quasi-volitional manner, that it is caprigenetic Dasein which either has or lacks an ability to “be there”. At an individual level, caprigenetic Dasein anxiously, heedfully, “submits” to its fate, and at a larger scale, it engineers a sheep pen for the destiny of a “volk”. That is because caprigenetic Dasein is man-becoming-Dasein. It never just is Dasein, but always falls short in its continual approach, a falling short that it makes up for through a variety of contrivances. For caprigenetic Dasein, being no longer just is, but must be propped up and artificially stimulated, like an addict needing increasingly larger doses in order to maintain the same high (more than just an analogy, when one considers the Nazi war machine). On the other hand, a Dasein which just is, at the present historical and social juncture, can only subsist through individual and fragmentary expressions, like a sufi tariqa in the midst of a modern metropolis, a last holdout without the ambition to “terraform” the world in its image [1]. As soon as such traditional holdouts aspire to change the world in their image they cease to “be”, placing being at an unbridgeable distance from themselves, forming themselves into “guardians of the ethnos”. Thus, there is only one expression of caprigenetic Dasein which is both equal to the task of terraforming the earth and coextensive with the real character of the present world, namely, an unapologetically Promethean Dasein, a (caprigenetic) Dasein which does not experience its capacity for rational thought and technology as a shame. For this Dasein, traditional ontologies are not approached nostalgically, an idyllic state of affairs to be re-engineered. Traditional ontologies have the value of an opportunity, a fire to be seized for humanist ends. Communism does not guard this fire, as though it were precious and delicate, nursed within a hidden sanctum [2]. It unleashes it in all its power—not against the world, but by and for it [3].

By the by, if Dasein is a mode of being, then an animal, as a being, participates in this mode, just as it participates in the mode of active intellect via the “Platonic form” which corresponds to it, but it can never identify itself with this or any mode—indeed, even its participation, as a being is only possible via the being, the central being (“man”), for more on which see Guenon’s “Symbolism of the Cross”.

1: This is comparable to what has been called the “Benedict option”, though by virtue of its framing, this latter has the quality of being engineered as a sheep pen of being, albeit one less ambitious in scope than fascism’s global sheep pen—for this it substitutes a thousand smaller ones, little theaters for viewing traditional species, a multitude of small scale exhibitions. Genuine holdouts of tradition need no such guidance. As holdouts, they already occur more or less spontaneously. Socrates, in the Republic, represents the standpoint of such “last holdouts” well. In his words—

“...for all these reasons I say the philosopher remains quiet, minds his own affair, and, as it were, standing aside under shelter of a wall in a storm and blast of dust and sleet and seeing others filled full of lawlessness, is content if in any way he may keep himself free from iniquity and unholy deeds through this life and take his departure with fair hope, serene and well content when the end comes”

So little was his ambition to “terraform” the world around him, that he gladly accepted the imposition of a death sentence from a “lawless” tribunal. Plato himself was disabused of such ambitions after his failed attempt to induce an ideal republic in Syracuse.

2: One could say, as well, that the above mentioned “last holdouts of tradition”, guard this fire by being it, living examples of tradition. The “guardians of the ethnos” set it up within an enclosure, as an object to be viewed. Fascism is the voyeurism of Tradition. Fascism is a zoo of traditional and quasi-traditional species.

3: Or, rather, to the degree that it does act against the world, it is in such a way as to simply express the world’s own capacity at transgressing itself, acting together with the world against itself.

*

“Truth means discoveredness of beings. All discoveredness, however, is ontologically based in the most primordial truth, in the disclosedness of Dasein”

(245)

In parallel with considerations undertaken in the last note, regarding non-human Dasein and man-becoming-Dasein, how does the discovery of truth pertain to non-human Dasein? Does the animal or stone also discover truth, or is truth peculiar to man-becoming-Dasein (or man-becoming-intellect, generally)? I would argue that it is peculiar to man (man-becoming-intellect). The animal, or vegetable, or stone is a disclosure of truth, but truth is not disclosed for it. It is not the space in which truths are disclosed. Man-become-Dasein is such a space (not yet a “subject”, unless in a generically ambiguous sense) in which truth is disclosed for and together with the being (man), but, of course, not as an object is viewed by a subject. This helps us to also appreciate something of the nature of the “witness”, the atman of Vedantic philosophy (or archeimicity). It is tempting to see this as a “subject” (since “witnessing” is generally evocative, for us, of subjectivity), the subject for whose sake world, as object, appears. Atman (or archeimicity) is rather more like the “space” in which all manifest being is. At the same time it is primarily the principle of the intelligible unity of any being; but it is precisely in that sense that it is a kind of “space”, in the sense that it is the principle which allows for and accommodates the being-what-it-is of any being, just as a being is spatial by virtue of being situated in space. The unity of any being presupposes a principial unity.

A digression here on the actively intellective equivalent of “man-becoming Dasein” could be appropriate. Something like the academic study of antique philosophy is involved generally. A kind of appreciation at a distance of intellection, as a theoretical possibility, that defers ever actually “doing” it, or engaging with it thoroughly, realizing it in oneself conspicuously. Indeed, one of the chief obstacles for many such people, and we can also classify many “occult enthusiasts” under this heading, is the exoticism of intellect that they generally promote. It is as though they defer a real encounter with intellect out of an obscure fear of its utter ordinariness, a fear that it will fail to live up to their borderline “magical” expectations. A more positive example of the distinction in question here could be found in that between the philosopher and the sophos, the wise man. The philosopher approaches wisdom, and the wise man possesses it truly, is it. This is a “man-becoming-intellect” with a very real possibility of transcending the first term and resting in the universality of intellect. This possibility is not indefinitely deferred, as in the case of the example of an academic above, or as in a Heideggerian account of Dasein (= man-becoming-Dasein). That is not all, however. There is an even more curious possibility here. In my series on Promethean ontology I propose that Socrates was a wise man (a sophos) who made himself into a philosopher (philo-sophos), as it were, for our sake. He effected a reverse procedure, a “return” from wisdom to ordinary understanding, from sacrality to profanity. This is not an unprecedented notion. In Buddhism, it is comparable to the notion of a “bodhisattva”, which, incidentally, is framed in terms of a deferral of enlightenment (a kind of “man-becoming-buddha”, as it were—which we should likewise point out is related with the term “buddhi”, one of whose meanings is none other than “intellect”). It might also be worth comparing this line of thought with one that I pursued in an earlier installment of these notes, in relation to “backwardly progressive liberation”. A “backwardly progressive” movement that reclaims intellect also, perhaps, brings with it a forward development. For a more “metaphysical” treatment of this dynamic, see the final chapter of Guenon’s Initiation and Spiritual Realization, entitled “Ascending and Descending Realization”.

*

“Death is postponed to ‘sometime later’...Thus, the They covers over what is peculiar to the certainty of death, that it is possible in every moment”

(247)

Ah, so you are speaking of merely physiological death. It is only dying, in Heidegger’s speculations, which attains to an “existential” status. The task of an ontology of death has been evaded by Heidegger, as I have already pointed out.

*

“Taking care of [something] has the tendency of annihilating the possibility of the possible by making it available. The actualization of useful things at hand in taking care of them is, however, always only relative...it remains possible for”

(250)

If we substitute the awkward usages of “possibility” (very awkward) and “available” (less awkward) here with “potential” and “actual”, respectively, then Heidegger has more than adequately characterized the nature of passive intellection. In human Daseins, this continual, temporal, and successive actualization of potentialities (or, more essentially, and from the “perspective” of passive intellect, the preservation of a range of potency) has the character of “taking care”, though other characterizations might be more suitable to other Daseins. As an aside, it is quite amusing that in only according human beings the privilege of such a mode of being (indeed, to the extent that he characterizes it as a being, that being which human beings “always already are”), Heidegger is really a sort of covert humanist [1], and really much more humanist than, say, scholastic philosophy, which considers this mode of being as universally applicable to all of temporal “creation”, generally. Heidegger privileges an eminently “human(-ist)” perspective—he simply does not call it that. Though, this “humanism” should in no way be considered a fault, but, on the contrary, a theoretical merit. The human being, as man-becoming-Dasein, actually does stand out, does passively intellect in a manner distinctive from other Daseins. Only man (...-becoming-Dasein), amphibiously, steps in and out of the workworld, changes the workworld, reconstitutes it when it breaks down—and therefore takes care of the workworld anxiously and heedfully. Even passive intellection, for him, is never merely “natural” but always also technological—it is always already enmeshed within man’s world of artifice, within an “equipmental whole” that breaks down, a work flow that disrupts. Even man’s most “natural” functions always happen within this artificial (as in art and artifice, as much as its more modern connotations) world—everything from language to social mores to microchips is included here under the title of “artifice”. Even man’s intellection is always already Promethean. Man can never contemplate God with the natural simplicity of a flower or a stone—and to the degree that he does, he ceases to be “man”, in any meaningful sense. His worship is always technological (that is, employing the artifice of ritual and other symbolic supports), and his revelations are successive—in every climate religiosity adapts [2]. Man has always already mastered God as his technology. This all follows from the constitution of man-becoming-Dasein, that transcendental nothing that swallows up transcendence into its bottomless belly.

1: More specifically, as I consider it elsewhere, a crypto-humanist.

2: Naturally such adaptation and change occur within the natural world, as well. It is the alchemical speed with which they occur in the human world that is really distinctive. This is no mere difference in quantity. Or, rather, to paraphrase Engels, it is a quantity that transforms into its own uniquely human quality. Humanity is not alien to nature as such, but that part of nature which is alien to itself. Every change humanity effects is a natural one. On a universal timescale, perhaps, humanity might appear to be the most normal, the most “natural”, of nature’s many parts, rivulets of a vaster natural stream, elegant frames that give structure to forests, mountains, and stars. To quote Blake—“Where man is not, nature is barren”.

*

“Death as something possible is not a possible thing at hand or objectively present, but a possibility-of-being of Dasein”

(250)

For once, and by “accident”, as it were, Heidegger seems to be using the term “possibility” in a proper way (though, this may turn out to be a mere accident of translation, in all likelihood). Indeed, “death”, taken in its profound and ontological sense (a sense in which Heidegger never takes it, reserving an ontologically profound status for “dying” only), can only be characterized as a possibility of the being and never as a mere potentiality, for it necessarily consists in a leap beyond any given range of potentialities, a leap which, in a sense, exhausts those potentialities. Dasein has no “potential for death”, ontologically speaking. Dasein’s death is also the death of the range of potentiality which characterizes it. Thus, possibility is not a temporal notion, while potentiality is, for the most part, temporal, or at least implies a successive range of “moments”, even if they are “metaphysically instantaneous”.

The Spitzer Cross, 12th Century

*

“The basic ontological constitution of ‘life’, however, is a problem in its own right, and can be developed only reductively and privatively in terms of the ontology of Dasein”

(187)

This is a second-order error of Heidegger’s which follows from his more basic error of the “covert return to Descartes”. In a sense, this is Heidegger’s variation of the “animal machine”. In fact, “animal life” and even vegetable life are beings like Dasein—that is, intellective beings. Their intellectivity, however, is not mediated by transcendental mentation. It is (transcendental [1]) men-tation, mind (manas plus ahamkara), that is distinctive of the Dasein we call “man”. In the same way that Descartes constitutes the notion “subject” (the thinking subject, the res cogitans) from a complex of disparate notions, just so Heidegger has made the intellective notion of “Dasein” into a complex of disparate notions, notions which are not unrelated, but which are nevertheless distinct—that is, a caprigenus. “Anxiety”, for instance, is a symptom of a fractured world which, in turn, is distinctive of the human Dasein—that is, an intellection mediated by mentation. The world of non-human Dasein (that is, what I have previously called “herded beings”) is not fractured. Thus, anxiety is not constitutive of Dasein “as such”, nor are other such disparate notions as “the They”.

1: After all, sensibility as such is mental, that which is sensed or sensible as much as that which senses, and this is, needless to say, not unique to humanity.

*

“The understanding self-projection of Dasein is always already together with a discovered world. From this world it takes its possibilities, initially in accordance with the interpretedness of the They. This interpretation has from the outset restricted the possible options”

(188)

Dasein’s self-projection (as Heidegger conceives it), in other words, is not Promethean (that is to say, it does not conform to a Promethean ontology, as I conceive it, unless inadvertently). Possibilities are given to it, their range circumscribed in advance. If this were a matter only of Dasein qua Dasein, that would be one thing, but, as usual, Heidegger has in mind his caprigenus Dasein. Dasein, as simple passive intellection, naturally, is integral intelligibility—a whole of possibilities. The caprigenus Dasein is a mixed thing, transcendent and transcendental. It is transcendentality which transgresses mere possibility. Thus, if the caprigenus Dasein is entirely given to us, in terms of its possibilities, restricted in advance, this is to say that its transgressive power is turned against itself—in mythic terms, Zeus uses Prometheus’ liver to prognosticate against Prometheus. Dasein qua Dasein just is a certain range of intelligible possibilities. The caprigenus Dasein must maintain this range of possibilities, fence it in with cunning, sustain its own “authenticity”, surreptitiously submit to its own fate. This is the general structure of reactionary thought. This is fate affirmed, destiny herded into the sheep pen of being, the guilt and anxiety of modern Dasein, the logic of Malthusianism, Naturphilosophie, and the spirit of Goethe. This is the stewardship which “protects” Nature against itself, against those manifestations of Nature which we exclude from Nature, namely, human technology—especially through the use of technology. Technology turns against technology in order to safeguard a Procrustean “Nature” [1].

Thus, we must take “self”-projection as equivocal (or, better yet, generically ambiguous)—the archeimitic projection of “simple” Dasein, in which intelligible wholeness projects intelligible wholeness, on the one hand, and, on the other, the automorphic self-projection of the caprigenus Dasein in which delimitations are imposed on archeimitic wholeness and intelligibility, in which intelligibility is diminished precisely to the degree that it is zealously affirmed [2].

1: Whereas, Prometheus is that power which liberates from technology by developing technology. In this case, the developmental and technoscientific character of Nature is affirmed, the power of Nature to transgress and develop itself. Nature need not be protected from the forces which transgress it—it is Nature that transgresses Nature, and nothing else, a succession of fixed horizons unbound.

2: Because genuine intelligibility does not need to be affirmed or defended. It just is. To defend the integrity of intelligibility is, therefore, in a sense, to transgress it, but it is a transgression with a bad conscience, a transgression which masquerades as custodianship. That is what was meant by the parenthetical aside, above, to the effect that Heidegger “inadvertently” affirms a Promethean ontology. Indeed, all reaction is an inadvertent affirmation of revolution, revolution turning against itself. Reaction is no longer the world of traditional institutions that it nostalgically aspires after, and it proves this precisely to the degree that it affirms those institutions, raises them up as battle standards and weapons in its fight against revolution. That world of Tradition no longer just is. Reactionaries stand outside of it as much as revolutionaries do.

*

“Wishing is an existential modification of understanding self-projection which, having fallen prey to thrownness, simply indulges in possibilities”

(188)

At the same time, however, it does seem that the wish, when translated into “materially” actionable content, is the basis of Promethean striving. The wish projects the unattainable (this is the wish in the most “eminent sense”, though, naturally, we frequently wish for things that are quite attainable), and our pre-theoretical technological cunning finds a way, by hook or by crook, to attain it. This is “technological innovation” as the Promethean transgression of a pre-given technoscientific horizon. Prometheus, the force behind our scientific and technological development, in order to be thus, must be anything but a “scientist”, in the most staid sense—an artist, a dreamer, a prophet, a madman. He has the cunning of reason without suffering its burdensome limitations (or, rather, suffering them tragically [1]). Prometheus is science under a banner of passionate red.

1: See my short collection of aphorisms on tragedy—tragedy as a reduction to quintessence.

*

“The fable of Sorge”

(191)

This fable has an “authentically” symbolic character. That Heidegger finds it, in some measure, to provide an adequate expression of his doctrine, is therefore worth noting. Firstly, then, in considering this fable, we should familiarize ourselves with its dramatis personae. To begin with, we have Care and Earth. Care is crossing a river where she spots some clay, some earth, and begins to form it. Care seems to be an earthbound thing. She belongs to the earth, over which she wanders, crossing rivers and the like, not the heavens. Perhaps Care, too, was extracted from this earth, like the man she fashions out of clay. Care and earth are, then, somehow analogous. Care is earthly, just as man is later confirmed to be when he is called “homo” from “humus”. Over and against earth we have Jupiter, and over and against earthly care we have spirit (though, in another sense, spirit is the antithesis of body here, spiritum the antithesis of corpus). Care, Earth, and Jupiter enter into dispute with one another. They are thus not in perfect accord. They are divided. It is with Saturn that we associate this division. If he is invoked in order to adjudicate, it is precisely because he has some “privileged” relation with division as such, and justice, the principle which consigns each thing to its proper place and secures a concession and compromise between these elements, also at the same time and in the same way affirms their division. Moreover, these divisions are expressed temporally, as periods of life, its duration and termination. It is doubly significant that Saturn adjudicates between Earth and Jupier, the latter a stand in for the Heavens, here when we recall that mythologically he is credited with first separating the Heavens (Ouranos) from the Earth by castrating the former. Having divided them in the beginning, he now presides over their disputes, even if, in this case, the throne of Heaven seems to be occupied by his own son. Nevertheless, it is one and the same “political office”, and its holder becomes equivalent to it, subsumed into the anonymity of its function. Finally, then, and in the last place, we have the human being, the point where all these lines of force converge. We can represent this cast of characters as follows:

Care, Jupiter, and Earth are in contention, then, and Saturn is invoked as judge between them. Upon closer examination, however, it seems that the ruling he gives in this case is not a resolution of the conflict, but a deflection, a pseudo-resolution. He says “you, Jupiter, will receive this creature’s spirit, and Earth will receive its body”, but the conflict was never about receiving this or that. The conflict, to begin with, was over the name of this new creature, its “nomen”. For ancient peoples, a name seems to indicate something about the essence of a being, so we could also say that this is a conflict over the determination of this creature’s essence. There is even an etymology sometimes given for “nomen”, probably spurious, which connects it with “gnosco”, that is, to “know” or “recognize”, not unlike the Greek “gnosis”. But, then Saturn adds “we shall call this creature ‘homo’”. If the allotment of portions was a deflection then here is the pseudo-resolution, for he says “vocetur”, from “voce” or a voice, as if to say “we shall agree by convention to utter such a series of syllables by which to indicate this being”. We have not arrived at a “true name”, but one agreed upon by mere convention. If Saturn’s eternal office is concerned with division then it would seem to be outside of his purview to grant such a “true name”, for that would imply a kind of synthesis of the being, an apprehension of the indivisible unity of its essence, and uniting a name to this essence, as its inseparable symbol. For the work of effecting a compromise, Saturn is eminently qualified, but a compromise is the exclusion of essence.

This fable is a dispute over the formation of man, and man himself is a dispute of his own elements. Man, eminently, is a caprigenus, and even one of a very special kind, for essentially he is nothing at all, but an accumulation and discarding of this or that essence, successively, an imitation of diverse essences. This is the “humanist” conception of man which we addressed earlier in the interlude on Providence. In this fable it is only hinted at, indirectly, even inadvertently, as it were, through an externalized dispute over his essence. This dispute also rages within man and his institutions. If the Renaissance tended to view this in more or less “static” terms, a kind of ascent and descent across the fixed ladder of being, man at one point taking on the essence of a beast and at another of a god, (see Pico de Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man) Marxism, its own humanism forged especially in the image of the Renaissance variety (and only in an auxiliary sense of the Enlightenment variety—more on this elsewhere), makes this same dispute into something dynamic and dialectical, in which each element assumed by man transforms the other, and thereby the whole, through successive historical developments. In the one view, the no-essence which is man’s essence has the fixed reference point of a cosmic (and, indeed, divine) hierarchy, and in the other, whether or not we posit any kind of fixed reference point (e.g. such as a set of natural laws) is immaterial, for man somehow, maybe even impossibly, liberates himself from every essence and reference point, transforming them within the alchemical furnace of his social institutions, bending nature to his science along its natural joints and leveraging it against itself. Man, then, is not only himself a lack of essence, but he seemingly turns every essence in nature against itself, down to the splitting of the atom.

Another fundamental reading of the fable centers on intellection. Broadly, we can take Earth and Heaven (Zeus’ habitation, with which, as we have just noted, he is functionally identified) as symbols of passive and active intellection, respectively. More specifically, however, we have Care and Spirit representing these functions, or rather directly representing themselves, “Spirit” being another term for “nous” or “intellect”, and “Care” we have already established as connected with passive intellection. What is interesting is that “Care” is already understood here as caprigenetic in character, as “anxious effort” (at least according to the philologist Burdach, whom Heidegger cites). It is not pure passive intellection. That should not come as a surprise. Antiquity had a definite bias in favor of active intellect, with virtually no exceptions. It is Heidegger, ironically, who seems to be the first, in the history of Western thought, to truly allow passive intellect to speak for itself—“ironic” because he, too, as we have seen again and again, ends up by compromising the purity of this passive intellect in his caprigenetic construction of Dasein, and moreover because he generally situates himself in opposition to “classical metaphysics”, obscuring his own kinship with it. If, then, we have thus identified the symbols and “direct representatives” of intellection in the poles of Heaven and Earth, we can identify in Saturn a rudimentary articulation of what modern thought terms the “transcendental subject”, the rational subject with its divisive and classificatory functions, in a word, “justice”. In that connection, if Care is ambivalent, its purity compromised and mixed with transcendental deliberation and anxiety, split off from Earth by the justice of Saturn, so is “Spirit” split off from its home in the Heavens, in its identity with Zeus. While in its antique connotations it is primarily anchored in its intellective signification, it also has a secondary sense of Reason (this is especially salient in the modern uses of “Geist”). This ambivalence of “intellect” is something I have discussed elsewhere in connection with Hermes. These intellects, then, are the various “essences” over which the dispute rages. Which of these essences are to be the real essence of man? On this question, Saturn is given the final word, and through a kind of trick he assumes the dominant position. For, by deflecting from a resolution, he affirms man as something splitting and split himself, divided in his being across time. All of these elements are his, and none of them are. Man does not belong to himself and to him belong all things, but only for a time, only through time does he assimilate them to his being. If time here is understood cyclically, life and death, seasons, and recurring ages, it can also be understood historically, as an assimilation of the planet to man’s being, his no-essence, through historical struggle.

Lastly, we should consider the providential implications of this fable. If Zeus-Heaven is the figure of providential care par excellence, the lord who guides the herd of beings, then Earth is an image of that which is taken care of par excellence, the receptacle of providential attentions. Relative to the herd beings that it embraces, however, Earth, too, seems to constitute a kind of providence, a passive and “gentle” kind of providence (though, perhaps such “gentleness” is only a approximate and initial impression) which guides beings by “letting them be”, the complement of “transcendent providence” which we have earlier referred to as “immanent providence”. This role as immanent providence is one that Earth may exchange with Care, which is to say, we could attribute it to either one. In the context of this fable, it seems to be primarily invested in Earth, since Care is depicted as occupying an intermediary position, squeezed between the providential forces of Earth and Heaven, externally determined in her anxious efforts by the guidelines she receives “in advance” from these two cosmic poles. This power of determination we can call “necessity” and it seems, in this fable, to be connected with Saturn, the figure of “justice”, who is invested with the authority to determine what measure of force each thing may exert, when it may exert it, and where. If Saturn represents submission to and determination by necessity, as to a law (one which, moreover, purports to be “just”), then we can posit another figure, absent from this fable, though in a way concealed within Care, namely, the figure of Prometheus (for instance, Prometheus is also mythologically credited with forming man from clay). If Care, squeezed between two providential powers, concerns itself with an anxious involvement in things that submits “authentically” to its fate and the “destiny” of its “volk”, we can consider another “mode” of such caprigenetic care which rather than enclosing itself within the magic circle of “authenticity”, plans and projects “transgressively”, as it were, leveraging the forces of providence against themselves, accomplishing impossibilities continually, in conformity with its own impossible nature, but always doing so in conformity with law and possibility, turning necessity and history against itself, developing them, alchemically amplifying their innate processes. Stated another way, Prometheus submits to necessity cleverly, not authentically but with cunning, not with parochial stupidity but with cosmic hubris. Prometheus reads the fine print of nature’s law. The fire of heaven was simply there for the taking. The price of its theft, though terrible, could be borne, and Prometheus, that farsighted being, prophetically anticipated the consequences of this deed far, far into the future, to the eventual triumph of its liberatory power. What guilt circumscribed in taboo for ages, could only be contained for so long, and today, at the temporal junction of industrial modernity, these forces can scarcely be contained any longer. Prometheus has overthrown fate and become a kind of fate himself, fating us for liberation [1].

1: It is worth contrasting this sense of “liberation”, a “Promethean liberation”, if you will, with that mentioned previously in these notes, namely, the “sublime liberation”. There are certain parallels in their structure, and, in historical terms, they must eventually come to a head. For instance, just as sublime liberation as an end of ascetic practice has its corollary in sublime liberty, as a condition which subsists perpetually, just so “Promethean liberation” as a goal of historical struggle has its corollary in the perpetually subsisting Promethean character of mankind, its relation with technology, the no-essence of the human, the presence even through absence of transcendental subjectivity. Just as the sages of metaphysics say that one is always already liberated, and suffering and contingency are illusion, just so, from a Promethean standpoint we can say that “God” is always already captured as a technology. The historical point at which these streams come to a head is that in which one adopts the other as its mask. Whether it is Prometheus that wears God as a mask, in his most audacious act to date, or it is God that adopts a Promethean mask in adapting himself to industrial modernity, seems to me increasingly immaterial. It really amounts to the same thing.

*

“Earlier than any presupposition that Dasein makes or any of its ways of behavior, there is the a priori of its constitution”

(198)

Heidegger does seem too timid to express definite presuppositional statements as to what Dasein is, integrally and quintessentially. “Timid”, indeed, for it is obvious from how precisely he articulates Dasein, in its intellectivity, at various points, that he could make quite definite statements, “presuppositions”, if you will, if he had a bit of temerity. These presuppositions are there for the taking—he has already presupposed them! As it stands, the “rigor”, so called, of his “method”, compels him to, putatively, let his phenomenology resolve itself as it will. One might presume this to be an “unbiased” method, but really it is the most biased of all—whether or not the bias is properly “his”, is immaterial. A bias is a bias, even if borrowed. His construction of “Dasein”, then, is captive to the conditioning factors of “the zeitgeist” without clearly differentiating between the special conditions of the time and the being which has been modified in some way by those same conditions. In other words, as I have already expressed it, earlier in these notes, it is Dasein under very specific conditions that Heidegger examines, and he seems (at least in this text) to take the “naturality” of these conditions for granted, to find them definitive of Dasein as such. He has confused this caprigenetic image of Dasein with the “a priori of its constitution”. At the same time, he has clearly grasped both—the former borrowed from the “bias of the times”, and the latter intuited quite directly. If he, and others who share this philosophical preference, would prefer not to nominate this intuition a “presupposition”, but prefer to designate by this term that same intuition expressed in a kind of principled speech, the speech of metaphysics, it does not follow that in the absence of that presuppositional speech an intuition of a very definite kind has not occurred. Moreover, as it happens, a very precise kind of speech has been crafted precisely in order to speak of such intuitions, indeed, a number of distinct varieties of such speech, a kind of speech which is, one could say, constructed tactillectively, and this is the speech of “classical metaphysics” [1]. The material I have written on presuppositionality, in my notes on Houlgate’s introduction to Hegel, could be a useful reference for this note. In any case, then, Heidegger is conditioned by something like a presupposition, a pre-articulated presupposition, as it were, hence his invocation, throughout this work, of what he, in my opinion, rather pretentiously calls the “pre-ontological”. This category strikes me as more of a bid to differentiate himself at any price, comparable to his equally pretentious invocation of the Presocratics, than as a category marshaled with a real, substantive purpose in mind. The basic thrust seems to be the intention of driving a wedge between intuition (that is, intellection) and the speech which has been tactillectively fashioned to articulate it. Hence, he nominates one “pre-ontological” and the other “ontological” (or “metaphysical”). Such a distinction is not intrinsically worthless. Indeed, it is obviously meaningful, but when it is given a polemical thrust, as it does, implicitly or explicitly, with Heidegger, it vacates this significance and turns out to be outright misleading.

1: There are, indeed, a multitude of articulations of so called “classical metaphysics”, and in diverse languages. In addition to this, we also have the language of myth, which serves a similar purpose. In this connection, I have sketched a basic outline of the link between these two varieties of tactillective speech, myth and metaphysics, in the fifth part of my series on “Promethean Ontology”.

*

“[Existential phenomenology] seems to agree with the thesis of realism that the external world is objectively present in a real way...But what completely separates it from realism is the lack of ontological comprehension in realism. After all, it tries to explain reality ontically by real connections of interaction between real things”

(199)

It does, essentially, agree with the thesis of realism (if we are intent on using this somewhat unsatisfactory term), though not with Heidegger’s mischaracterization of it as a philosophy centered on mere “objective presence”, which, of course, it is not. In reality, it is centered on the faculty of intellect, chiefly active intellect, just as Heidegger’s realism is chiefly centered on passive intellect. It seems that he does his typical move here of subsuming antique metaphysics into modern metaphysics in order to set himself apart from both in a singular gesture.

*

“Thus, unconcealment, aletheia, belongs to the logos...It is the business of philosophy to preserve the power of the most elemental words in which Dasein expresses itself and to protect them from being flattened by the common understanding to the point of unintelligibility”

(211)

That is, the symbolic properties of language (i.e. its intelligible properties) must be preserved. In this, we are in full agreement with Heidegger. Indeed, we would extend this defense of the symbolic to social structures, institutions, practices, and the like. At the same time, we do not exclude unintelligibility from our scheme, but its value, as we understand it, is expanded tremendously when conjoined to the unhindered force of intelligibility, as for instance in the symbolic. This union is, again, what he have previously called the “winged serpent”.

*

“Before there was any Dasein, there was no truth; nor will there be any after Dasein...All truth is relative to the being of Dasein”

(217)

The main flaw in Heidegger’s conception of truth and its relation to Dasein is that he does erroneously treat Dasein all-too-much like a “subject” (hence his continual recourse to expressions like “ownmost”), though he likes to claim otherwise. Dasein, however, is intellect, buddhi, not ahamkara. Thus, no less than truth itself, Dasein, as intellect, is universal. Intellect is shared equally among the beings “unlike Dasein” (as Heidegger would have it) as it is by “Dasein”, by the latter of which Heidegger really means the human being, the human Dasein, though he will not say it—this is evident from the complex (that is, the caprigenus) that he has constructed around Dasein, a peculiarly human complex. Thus, to say “before Dasein” (=before intellect), if this is meant in a merely temporal sense (as opposed to “ecstatic temporality”, for instance), is meaningless, and thus to insist on a “before truth” is equally meaningless.

*

“The being of Dasein is contained in care”

(221)

Care should be divided into two “kinds”. Care as “anxious effort” is almost certainly part of the complex which has been imputed to Dasein as a result of Heidegger’s speculations, and not intrinsic to Dasein “as such”. That is, if we take “Dasein” to be the same as “passive intellect” which, in terms of literal meaning, we should—“there-being” is virtually a definition of “passive intellection”—then this caprigenetically conceived variation on “care”, this peculiarly “human” care, cannot be considered as intrinsic to Dasein’s being. Thus, by Heidegger’s own criterion (“the power of the most elemental words”), the meaning of Dasein should be refined in the way just suggested. This kind of care is distinctive only of certain Daseins, such as human ones, but not of all Daseins, not of all instances of universal there-being. Care is a peculiar way of “there-being”, which, as already expressed above, in its broadest sense can be understood providentially, as being taken care of intelligibly. Of course, to even isolate individual beings (this Dasein, that Dasein, this sort of Dasein, that sort of Dasein) already poses certain problems. The universality of Dasein itself is prior to such ontic specification. Dasein is the passively intellective intelligibility of things which, after the fact, we can locate in and as individual beings.

*

“The existential analytic of Dasein up to now cannot lay claim to primordiality. Its fore-having never included more than the inauthentic being of Dasein, of Dasein as less than whole”

(223)

He is certainly correct that his “analytic” has so far fallen short of “primordiality”, but this has more to do with its account of a Dasein which is “less than whole”, as he puts it, than with any “inauthenticity”—and these are not identical distinctions. “Authenticity” is almost certainly peculiar to human Daseins, and requires I-saying as its precondition. The wholeness of Dasein, on the other hand, requires the exclusion, or at minimum the inconspicuousness [1], of I-saying. Moreover, an examination of Dasein, in its primordiality, should entail not only wholeness but an intensity of its expression—that intellect operates concentrillectedly, in a high degree. That is to say, an examination of Dasein in its contemporary everydayness still fall short of an examination of Dasein in its primordiality—here we have it in its wholeness (more or less), but the full intensity of its characteristic expression is lacking. Of course, we have to make some reservation for the possibility of “authenticity” making reference to the Self (which is to say, archeimicity rather than authenticity stricto sensu), but this is obviously not what Heidegger means.

1: An I-saying which occurs inconspicuously, in the context of intelligible or symbolic speech (“Discourse”, as Heidegger basically terms it), speech which is integrally bound up with an intelligible context, is gnosensientially distinct from I-saying which is explicit, which draws attention to itself, painfully self-aware of its own conceptual isolation.

*

“Care...contradicts a possible being-whole of [Dasein]...Up until its end, [Dasein] is related to its potentiality for being”

(227)

Caprigentic care contradicts the being-whole of Dasein. Anxiously, it subverts the whole implied in itself, for care is intelligible union in world (considered temporally—that is, care is entelecheia considered from the standpoint of passive intellect), a union which is the preservation of a range of potencies, but caprigenetic care desires this union, anxiously works at preserving it. The difference between these is precisely nothing at all, but it is a nothing which makes all the difference. In anxiously preserving what it already possesses, intrinsically, caprigenetic Dasein sets itself at an unbridgeable distance from it, and therefore also from itself, a distance which might be as little as a hair’s breadth, a hair’s breadth that might as well be an abyss. Potentiality, which is the very form of Dasein’s (i.e. passive intellect’s) intelligibility, becomes a limit, a mere potentiality-for-being rather than the range of intelligible potency inhering in its situation, the deferral of a not-yet rather than that futurity which is already here as the tension of presence (the tensing that could leap at any moment). There will be more to say on the role of time (e.g. futurity) in the structure of Dasein later. In any case, this explanation, provided by Heidegger, corroborates the interpretation of Dasein as passive intellection. Passive intellect is precisely such a perpetual toward-fulfilling-potentialities that characterizes the “stream of Becoming”, albeit this is a way of characterizing it which accords more with the standpoint of active intellect. That is, “becoming” refers to the continual actualization of potentialities without ceasing, to put it into Aristotelian terms.

What, then, of Dasein’s “being whole”? Certainly, in any final sense, caprigenetic Dasein, cannot be whole. That is practically a truism, not only for the reason that passive intellect, generally, consists in a perpetual potentiality-for-being (this does, after all, have a sort of wholeness of its own, as ecstatic temporality—again, more on this later), but also doubly in a more fundamental, structural sense, namely, that passive intellect itself is the “result” of a prior scission in primordial intellection, a scission which produces the division between passive and active intellect. That is, before passive intellection is even expressed in a caprigenetic form, it is already a kind of broken wholeness [1]. Moreover, this scission of primordial intellect by “the nothing” is eminently present in and characteristic of man (that is, of caprigenetic Dasein) in the mode of “transcendental subjectivity”. There is, in other words, no Dasein without transcendental subjectivity (or something like it—a “nothing”), in the same measure as there is no transcendental subjectivity without Dasein—Heidegger, unfortunately, only appreciated the latter relationship, namely the derivation via interruption of objective presence from out of Dasein’s being-in-the-world. Dasein’s “authenticity” is always haunted by the specter of transcendental subjectivity. “Pure authenticity”, uninterrupted being-in-the-world [2], is a reactionary fantasy, a fantasy which is dependent on the continual intervention of transcendental subjectivity (politically, as “guardians of the ethnos”) in order to prop up its illusion. Consequently, even active intellect would not be constituted by any wholeness in a final sense, and the “divine states” that it engenders would constitute only so many more illusions to be divested. Indeed, the rather “lopsided” development of “monotheism” can be explained in terms of a religious (in a narrow sense) adaptation of that prioritization of active intellect which is the distinguishing feature of pre-Cartesian metaphysics. This prioritization of active intellect tends to become “demiurgic” in the religious sphere, and, what is more, a criticism of this demiurgic tendency, undertaken from the standpoint of this same prioritization, results in the tendency we designate under the umbrella of “gnosticism”—in other words, the demiurgic-religious standpoint and the gnostic one (chiefly in the sense of a “gnostic dualism”) proceed out of the same metaphysical bias, namely, the prioritization of active intellect.

1: That is, a broken portion of a prior whole which is itself a whole, an image of the prior whole—a portion of the “world fracture”.

2: Pure authenticity is not “uninterrupted being”! Rather, it is an engineered “uninterrupted being”, engineered by and for the I-saying that submits to fate and the destiny of its “volk”. This confusion is not an error pure and simple precisely because of the generic ambiguity of “authenticity”. Authenticity is both the I-saying of the subject, and at the same time referable to archeimicity. This is no mere equivocation. These functions are deeply bound up with one another, imaging one another. Thus, Heidegger’s deployment of “authenticity” is an engineered “uninterrupted being” after the prior model, obscurely implied but never made explicit, of archeimicity’s “uninterrupted being”, its integral unity which just subsists without any need of being engineered. In that sense, what Heidegger proposes is fundamentally fraudulent, but it is a fraud which profits from a relation established with a concrete reality, and thus not a pure and simple error. Heidegger prices his I-saying at the going rate of archeimicity, and advertises it as the genuine item. He is, seemingly, as taken in by his own fraud as anyone, at least at the level of its basic causes. On the other hand, the reactionary consequences of his thought were as apparent to him as to anyone. He was no innocent. The blind should know better than to lead the blind, and a pharisee that locks the door to knowledge is as guilty of his own ignorance as he is that of his followers.

Sienna Cathedral, interior

*

“It is in the nature of every kind of attunement to disclose complete being-in-the-word in all its constitutive factors (world, being-in, self). However, in anxiety there lies the possibility of a distinctive disclosure, since anxiety individualizes. Individuality fetches Dasein back from its falling prey and reveals to it authenticity and inauthenticity as possibilities of its being”

(184)

A highly revealing passage, as far as Heidegger's metaphysics is concerned. In outlining a “doctrine” of passive intellection (vis a vis “Dasein”), Heidegger, in a sense, began a movement of return to the pre-Cartesian metaphysics (e.g. Platonism, or something analogous to this metaphysics, its ontological inverse). Here, on the other hand, vis a vis his doctrine of “anxiety”, he effects a covert return to the Cartesian turn, to the merely individual order of things, whereas Dasein, as passive intellect, should pertain to a universal order. Again, whether it really is the case that “anxiety individualizes” or rather that “individuation brings on anxiety”, in either case the disclosure of both authenticity and inauthenticity here, in a singular sweeping gesture, should clue us in to their basic ontological identity—both are expressions of the caprigenus Dasein. Authenticity is implicitly inauthentic, guilty because at any moment it could choose inauthenticity, and inauthenticity is implicitly authentic, the very same caprigenetic soil in a state of automorphic latency [1]. Heidegger re-discovers genuine intelligibility (after its loss to Western philosophy), in the form he calls “Dasein”, only to retreat from it, into a caprigenetic conception of this same “Dasein”. This retreat, however, is not a mere recapitulation of Cartesianism. What it does is recontextualize it with reference to the intelligibility of passive intellect. That much, at least, should be appreciated. Thus the end result is not a new Cartesianism, so much as an incomplete “Platonism” (of passive intellect), incomplete because a Cartesian void has been forcefully inserted into its center [2]. As I have said—Heidegger was not Heideggerian enough. He does not push his thought toward its fundamental conclusions, neither constituting Dasein in its unobstructed integrality, nor setting the up the radicality of Reason, in its disrupting and uprooting power, in the light of its revolutionary historical significance, its significance for Dasein (or intellect, generally), when both confront one another without compromise. Both of these tendencies are cut off at the border of caprigenetic Dasein's authentic individuality, their natural (and technological) motion frozen in order to produce an ideal configuration. All thought is only half-thought out in the half-and-half composition of authentic Dasein.

Both “individuation” in the narrower sense and the indefinite individuality of “the They” have a transcendental character, but, in the era of socialized labor, it is the latter which has an especially revolutionary potential. The indefiniteness of the They is isomorphic with the indefiniteness of historical progress, dialectical transformation, technological and social development. Narrow individuality is an icy lake wherein the devil (= Prometheus) freezes over, at the center of Dante's hell, that infernal region where the errors of the past are merely repeated, again and again. Mere individuality is stasis, a mocking imitation (or, more precisely, a fraudulent copy [3]) of the eternality of the universal order. Historically-charged generality, on the other hand, is genuinely mimetic, in a productive and proactive sense—a temporally flowing conceptual imitation that re-produces intellectivity in thought, and in all that which is done thoughtfully (even if it only the lackadaisical and undisciplined thoughtfulness of the They, in its most degraded sense). Disciplined into transcendental-scientific rigor, the generality (that is, the populace) is converted into an army of labor, the class-conscious masses, the vanguard of the party, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and an indefinitude of other possible expressions [4]. The generality is conceptually plastic, but not arbitrarily so (“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please”). Its movements and transformations are grounded in the intelligible contour of history and social forms. Historical communism, then, is, in a sense, a struggle to affirm the scientificity of this movement, to render it adequately mimetic by removing from power the class which merely individualizes, appropriating the mediating power this class has reserved solely for itself (“expropriating the expropriaters”), and, naturally, it does this actually and not through merely theoretical denunciations. For more on this angle, see my essay on Schmidt.

1: —a state of inconspicuous automorphosis. The “they-saying” of das Man (in the sense of appeals to public consensus, and the like—“one [= they] does not do that sort of thing”) is, functionally, identical to the I-saying of “individuated” Dasein, and when inauthentic Dasein says “I” it is, in terms of its intelligible content, equivalent to saying “they”. In reality, both are expressions of the individual order. “Theyness” is generic, the generality, while I-saying is more “reductively” individual. Generality is not universality, but the indefiniteness of the individual order of things. At the same time, the authentic-inauthentic distinction as pertains to caprigenetic Dasein is parallel to the rational-irrational distinction as pertains to Reason or the transcendental subject. Just as reason itself is irrational, taken apart from intellect, just so the I-saying of Dasein is never really more intelligible or significant than any absence of I-saying, though it presumes, as through Heidegger, to elevate itself to a more privileged position of sorts. Is this not directly comparable with psycho-therapeutic babbling about “individuation”? What such individuation achieves, just as authenticity does, is precisely nothing at all, nothing at all with a flat, simulated veneer of something definite. For, the psycho-therapeutically individuated (whatever that means) has merely put a bare stamp of approval on the inchoate drives which he has putatively “transcended” or “reordered” or “resolved” (or what have you). Authentic Dasein has accomplished little more than engraving a few more lines of demarcation into the printing-plate of his they-saying—a potentially helpful analogy, since the individual, in this sense, is something eminently reproducible, as generic as the generality out of which it is forged. If we understand, with Florensky, that printmaking is a distinctly Protestant art, things begin to fall into place. We have in the caprigenesis of Dasein, that is, in the imposition of the authentic-inauthentic schema onto Dasein, a kind of Protestant Reformation within its ontology, and if, therefore, Heidegger's ontology in Being and Time is a kind of Catholicism with Protestant characteristics (“Catholic”—literally “universal”—by virtue of its intellective character), then in Marxism we have the inverse, namely, a Protestantism with Catholic characteristics. For, in Marxism, the reverse procedure occurs. Through rigorous and merciless analysis we arrive at collective historical and social intelligibility. In the one case (of Heidegger), individuality is imposed onto intelligibility, and in the other an “individuating” analysis (in the sense of breaking things into their constituent parts and interrelations) arrives, through sheer force of incision, at the real intelligible core of things. Marxism, indeed, theoretically reproduces what it posits historically, for it is the relentless “individuation” of capitalism which is supposed to lead to the “collectivity” of communism, preparing the way for social integrality through an unleashing of the uninhibited forces of individual self-interest. Marx's method, then, seems to be in no way arbitrary, for finding himself in a Protestant age, a world epoch in which the implications of the Reformation have, in one form or another, seeded themselves in nearly every corner of the globe, he begins there, and from thence anticipates another universality. Heidegger's sense of universality, on the other hand, is necessarily backwards looking, a nostalgia for some “volkish” and agrarian ideal already gone. His imposition, therefore, of individuality onto this memory of intellective roots is little more than an acknowledgment of that which is the case whether he wills it or no, for he begins by looking at they-saying Dasein as one finds him in his (contemporary) “everydayness”. Thus, stated another way, in Heidegger we have an intellective nostalgia wedded to grudging acknowledgment of necessity, where in Marx we have a ruthless leveraging of necessity wedded to a revolutionary universality (= intellectivity)—that is, stated simply, we have reaction here and revolution there.

2: If Heidegger's intention was merely to chronicle the caprigenetic condition of Dasein in the present historical period, that would be one thing. Here, he has not merely described a state of affairs, but imbued it with a theoretically binding status, crediting it with an ontological stability that it does not actually possess. He has occluded the contingency of the caprigenus Dasein—that is contingent upon, firstly, the intellective ground that is “pure” Dasein and, secondly, certain historical and social conditions that have molded the specific forms of the I-saying and they-saying habits of Dasein at present.

3: Briefly—a copy is inert, whereas imitation (mimesis) is productive. See my (incomplete) series on Promethean ontology (“communist metaphysics”).

4: For instance, national liberation movements, even when not explicitly couching their identity and ambition in Marxist terms, are objectively an expression of disciplined generality asserting itself against the historically specific individualizing tendency of bourgeois and imperialist domination (as opposed to, say, mere “individualism” in the abstract). Their “qualitative position” in the field of historical tensions is of more import here than the generic structure of the institutions through which these movements constitute themselves (although it will also be found that there is nothing arbitrary there either—there is no institution like the Basij in imperialist nations, and cannot be), or the rhetoric they employ in their official statements.

*

“The referential totality of significance, which is constitutive for worldliness is 'anchored' in a for-the-sake-of-which. The fact that this referential totality of the manifold relations of the in-order-to is bound up with that which Dasein is concerned about does not signify that an objectively present 'world' of objects is welded together with a subject. Rather, it is the phenomenal expression of the fact that the constitution of Dasein...is primordially a whole. Expressed differently: existing is always factical. Existentiality is essentially determined by facticity”

(185)

Expressed in two words—“existential teleology”. Here the “telos” occupies a “central” place, rather than the “final” place that it is usually accorded. But, then, is its place within the pre-Cartesian metaphysics really straightforwardly “final”, a “goal”, as it were? Is it not, rather, something central to the being (in this case, it seems, both to beings like and unlike Dasein [1]), and which is constitutive for the way a being develops? Telos is not a law imposed from outside. It is more like an immanent tendency (a being-at-work-staying-itself, as Joe Sachs characterizes it), though it is symbolically presentable as a goal. Nor is the doctrine of teleology “counter-Promethean” as some might suppose. The Promethean simply adds the provision that teloi are subject to re-engineering, as well as chaperoning, through relatively extrinsic means. Dasein's existential telos is a center outside of itself, in the ecstasis of being-in-the-world (cf. “God is an intelligible sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere”). Thus, existential telos is an intelligible property of worldliness as such, of its temporality chiefly. Entelecheia is the intelligibility of the temporality of beings. Through Promethean world-construction, the topography of significance and its teloic anchors can be modified.

In any case, what the term “existential teleology” indicates, if anything, is simply the doctrine of entelecheia reproduced from the standpoint of passive intellect, i.e. the standpoint of Dasein. It is the same metaphysics in an ontologically inverse form, and much of Heidegger's thinking in Being and Time is an articulation of precisely such a “teleology”.

1: But what is a “being unlike Dasein”? Is the universality of intellection not inclusive of all beings, as stated previously? More on this to follow.

*

“As a primordial structural totality, care lies 'before' every factical 'attitude'...[Care] by no means expresses a priority of 'practical' over theoretical behavior...'Theory' and 'praxis' are possibilities of being for a being whose being must be defined as care...The phenomenon of care in its totality is essentially something that cannot be split up” (187)

Important observation here as regards the nature of “theory” and “praxis”—namely, that they should be situated with reference to ontology. Naturally, to situate them in a way consistent, more or less, with Traditional metaphysics, is one thing, and to situate them in the context of a Promethean ontology is another. In the first place, it is clear that both “theory” and “praxis”, as used here, are characteristic of the caprigenus Dasein and of the transcendental subject. “Theory” here, clearly, is not theoria (intellective contemplation—indeed, originally “theoria” means a vision of God or the gods, such as in the rites of Eleusis), and “praxis” is not tactillectively integral thrownness. Care, as the symbolic structure of Dasein qua Dasein, precedes these transcendental specifications. It is a whole which includes them, especially retrospectively, since, initially, and from the standpoint of simple Dasein, they are impossibilities—but Heidegger, does not, for the most part, deal with simple Dasein, but with the caprigenus Dasein. Hence, these specifications are “always already” possibilities for this Dasein. Hence, Heidegger's Dasein is guilty always, guilty of being capable of being a “rootless” theoretician and political actor, guilty of being capable of revolution.

Care, therefore, for the caprigenus Dasein, is inclusive of that which is inauthentic for it. Care, as integral wholeness, the symbolic intelligibility of passive intellect, cannot be split up, but it is, itself, the result of a prior split, namely the split between the intellects. Just as this prior split was impossible but does, somehow or another, occur, just so care, though it may not be split, is continually subjected to division and fracture. Indeed, every specification of care, whether as “just staring”, or ratiocinative reflection, is a kind of split, an impossible diminishment of care's intelligible wholeness. If Heidegger denies this, that is because he is dealing with the caprigenus Dasein, for whom these specifications are “always already” possibilities and thus never encountered in their initially impossible character.

What, then, we call “Care” for passive intellect (that is, Dasein), must also have its equivalent for active intellect. This is the subject addressed in the next note, an interlude on “Providence”

*

On Humanism and Providence: What is called the “insan al kamil” (that is, “man” in a principial sense) obviously has an originary, primordial, and metaphysical value vis a vis the notions of the human and humanism. Indeed, it is a “symbolic avatar” of primordial intellection, taken from the reference point of the human being, just as atman (archeimicity) is such a “symbolic avatar” from the standpoint of I-saying. I do not mean to suggest that primordial intellection is primary here (as in primary over acheimicity, or primary over the “insan al kamil”). It, too, is a “symbolic avatar”, with intellection constituting the reference point. That which these avataric symbols incarnate is utterly nameless, but goes by many such names—primordial intellection, atman, insan al kamil, the One (or, as expressed by some Neoplatonists, the ineffable silence which is beyond even the One), the Form of the Good, the Godhead.

Insan al kamil intersects not only with the human, but also with humanism, and it is in that connection that it interests us here, as communists, as humanists. To that end, adapting the term from Arabic, we call it the “humanesse”, the essence or being (esse) of the human (it is the essence, not an essence, in the same sense that the Form of the Good is not merely a form), at the same time suggestive of a certain femininity, for reasons connected with what I elsewhere call the “female androgyne”. In brief, the “female androgyne” expresses the overcoming of the antagonism of gender through the oppressed gender, through feminist struggle, just as a particular class, the proletariat, represents, in and through its own struggle, the overcoming of class antagonism. At the same time, as a notion with a metaphysically principial value, the humanesse is evocative of “the second night”, non-Being in its analogy with the prima materia (that is, because the prima materia is, symbolically, associated with femininity, the “female” pole of manifestation, prakriti—stated more crudely, “matter” is “mother”).

Mirandola's conception of Man, though obviously charged with metaphysical, theological, and cosmological significance, is not a 1:1 reproduction of the insan al kamil, but rather its extension into indefinitude, accommodating it to humanist striving—progress, desire, development, the production and reproduction of a human world. The plenary no-thing of the original “concept” becomes a proactive and productive nothing with a definite transcendental twist. The human and the humanist are not the humanesse, but they are related with it.

Which, then, is the eminent sense of the “human”, the sense in which the human is at its most human, as it were? Is it not, precisely, the humanist one?—and is this humanist human not, also, a caprigenus, that is, a thing not integrally and eternally constituted, but a Protean heap? That would prove an intriguing circumstance. The eminent constitution of the “human”, qua human, is caprigenetic, of mixed parentage, like Love in Plato's Symposium, born of Poverty and Plenty. Humanity is Love, in this sense, a hungering absence. Humanity is historical Eros. “All things are dear only for the love of the Self”—here, Indian philosophy constructs a doctrine of Love out of its own central aporia (namely, the mystery of I-saying [1]), analogous to the doctrine of Love constructed out of the central aporia of the West, namely, the mystery of the possibility of knowledge, chiefly as exemplified in the Platonic stream. This latter is a Love that longs to know and be filled. This it finds only in the One, above the summit of knowledge and being. Curiously, one could reasonably characterize the philosophical tendency of the West, in its historical development, as a tendency toward the aporia of India, a tendency toward “self”, which particularly comes to a head with Descartes (though, indeed, even for Descartes I-saying never becomes a genuine aporia—on the contrary, it is taken as the obvious solution to his theoretical problem!), but in an inferior sense, particularly, that is, the automorphic “self”. This tendency toward the aporia of I-saying epitomizes itself as “individualism”. Likewise, something parallel to this seems to occur with the East, generally. A tendency is aroused, through the widespread contacts engendered by modernity (beginning in the colonial era), toward the Western aporia of knowledge, but likewise in an inferior sense—fascination is aroused with the knowledge characteristic of modern science, with everything that presents itself as cutting edge, inclusive of the social and political “knowledge” that informs the construction of Western institutions. Love brings the East and the West together, entangles them in a singular aporia which is both one and the other, an aporia whose question concerns who we are, individually and collectively, and what the role and destiny of science in history may be, an aporia whose working out is the construction of communism, the culmination of humanism, and the radical instantiation of the humanesse. Indeed, the “species being” that Marx posits for mankind is not, in essence, different from the Renaissance humanist conception of Man we find in Mirandola, for this species being is not a definitive essence at all but precisely a lack of essence, that is, species being is man's historical sociality and this historical sociality is never a fixed essence but an ever-changing development. The human essence (the humanist human essence, as it were) is a historically and socially plastic (and mimetic) absence of essence.

In terms of what has just been stated, the supereminence of the human being (namely, the insan al kamil, the humanesse) would seem to constitute a “negation” of the eminent sense of humanity! Is it really such a “negation”, or is this antagonistic relation only such in a historically contingent sense (in which case, the eminent sense of humanity, takes the lead in producing the antagonism, since it is humanity in a historical sense)? How and why have they heretofore related antagonistically [2], and under what conditions does this antagonism cease? In brief—it ceases when humanist humanity seizes its own primordial roots as a “technology”. This seizure is what is indicated by the above reference to a “radical instantiation of the humanesse”, which is to say that it means something like radical humanism plus fundamental ontological grounding, indeed ontologically grounded by virtue of its radicality, a radicality that will not rest until it has stormed the Bastille of being or stolen the fire of Heaven. Such a relation may sound antagonistic, in terms of its semantic framing, but it carries with it the prior acknowledgment that humanity qua humanity have “always already” captured their own origins, that “God” is already a technology. That is the difference between Prometheanism and the exhibitionist theatrics of mere “Satanism”. The former has the audacity to already know what the latter seeks continually to “prove” through its merely dramatic deeds.

At this point, the key question, terminologically, is to define “Dasein” in terms of its relation to the human, the humanist, and the humanesse. Dasein, in its simple sense, is a product of the polarization of the humanesse—that is the same as to say, passive intellect is a product of the polarization of primordial intellect, which at the same time produces active intellect (cf. purusha and prakriti as polarizations of ishvara). In like manner, then, the polarization of the humanesse must resolve itself into two poles, of which Dasein is analogous (in a sense that is also an identity) to one pole. Moreover, “Dasein”, terminologically, is not yet specified in terms of the human. Thus, in terms of this human equation, we have a missing variable (“x”) and one whose human value is not yet known (“Dasein”).

What produces this split, then, is something analogous to (again, in the sense of an identity) humanism, since this is the transcendental variable in the above equation, just as transcendental subjectivity itself is taken as this variable in the splitting of the intellects. For all intents and purposes, we can consider the simple category of “human” and caprigenetic Dasein equivalent, whatever Heidegger's objections. In terms of the tactillective field of “humanity”, then, we might call Dasein “homo existentialis” and its polar complement (analogous to active intellect) “homo essentialis” [3].

Or, alternately:

Homo existentialis is not a humanist category. It is, indeed, (ontologically) pre-humanist. The “existence” which qualifies this polarization of the humanesse is the inconspicuous round of parochial existence, being-in-the-world—which is, again, to say that homo existentialis is simply an equivalent of Dasein, only anchored with reference to the tactiellective field of “humanity” and its supereminent principle of the humanesse (the insan al kamil). In political terms, Dasein, or the homo existentialis, is a parochial trap for the homo humanus, the humanist human. From the standpoint of the humanesse, Dasein represents a mere conservatism against Tradition [4], and from the standpoint of humanism, a provincial fetter on humanity's expansion and development—arbitrary, petty, and tyrannical.

In speaking of “beings unlike Dasein”, Heidegger is already anchored in a human conception of Dasein, not only the being who is or the being that contemplates, but the being which questions being. Every being, qua being, is, and every being contemplates (when contemplation is understood in its pristine simplicity, more obvious than obviousness). Dasein qua Dasein does not question, does not say “I” (or, when it does, these utterances do not penetrate beyond the outer shell of inconspicuousness). It is passive intellection, pure and simple, in its “indifferent” universality, being-in-the-world, the being of beings, of all beings whatsoever and without exception, qua beings, simple there-being, prior to anything like “authenticity” or “inauthenticity”. If, then, Dasein becomes unlike those beings which, in the same measure, we affirm as “unlike Dasein”, we have a need and a space for further inquiry into this difference.

General formulation—what “care” (Sorge) is for Dasein, “providence” is at the scale of the cosmos of beings. Thus, a microcosmic-macrocosmic distinction is implied here, and, related to this, an ishvara-jiva distinction, the circle of providence as the Lord who takes care and the beings taken care of.

Stated in Heideggerian terms, the basic meaning of “providence” is that the intelligibility of beings and the cosmos, in general, consists in the manner that they are taken care of. This “being taken care of” can both be conceptualized as instrinsic to them, and as issuing from a principial or individually specified “caretaker”. This “principial caretaker” is traditionally called “God”, “the Lord”, “ishvara”, “Pashupati”, and so on. “Pashupati” (that is, the “Lord of Animals”) is an interesting expression, in this connection, since, relative to “ishvara”, it tends toward the sense of an intrinsic principle of beings, an immanent providence. Shiva Pashupati is the animal-like god that herds the animals (=beings), the hunter that stalks the forests, not the Lord on his heavenly throne.

The “jiva”, then, is the “living being” (and not only the human being). For our purposes, it means the being taken care of in providence, whether in an immanent sense, the principle of providence conceived as residing in the being or, transcendently, the principle of providence located, symbolically, as residing “above” the being. Adapting this term, namely “jiva”, to our purposes, we can speak here of the “herd of beings” (cf. the “sheep pen of being”, elsewhere). This “herd of beings” is divided into “herded beings” and “herding beings”, the latter constituting a subsection of the former. That is, the herd of beings is divided into beings taken care of, and beings taken care of that also take care (i.e. Daseins, human beings). Providence, then constitutes, the intelligible space and structure of taking care, regardless of the scale at which care is conceptualized—albeit, we can reserve the term “providence”, as a matter of convenience, for the cosmic scale, and speak simply of “taking care” with reference to Dasein. In the Quranic sense, from a providential standpoint, Dasein is the kilafa, the vicegerent of providence, the providential being that participates in providential activity (a conception that is also consistent with Christian theology and Iamblichean Platonism), or the being with an authority to “name the animals”, as in Genesis.

It is tempting to exclude the notion of “providence” from all thinking on the grounds of its being “merely religious”, a kind of primitive notion that we can simply do without, but providential thinking of some kind is inevitable if we are to treat of the cosmos as an intelligible whole, or to deal with beings in any capacity whatsoever. We “always already” think providentially, in a variety of ways, and to varying degrees. An “exclusion” of providence is tantamount to a transcendental reduction of the being (in its being) into an “object”—a perfectly valid procedure, a procedure that facilitates ratiocinative thinking and model building, but a procedure that is not actually any kind of exclusion of providence. It is a departure from providence, and thereby always remains dependent on providential thinking as its origin point. Such schematic thinking always resembles providence, in spite of itself. We must grapple with providence rather than offering imaginary exclusions that we cannot make good on, and if we are to challenge providential thinking at all, this challenge must issue from within the concept. A Promethean challenge to providence (and any real challenge to providence must, of necessity, be “Promethean”) does not consist merely in a flat denial of the subsistence of any kind of providence. And, after all, once we have “demystified” the notion of providence, we see that it consists of nothing really remarkable at all, nothing extraordinary (indeed, it is splendorously ordinary), even if it has often been framed in symbolic and mythological terms.

In any case, one could essentially say that “world” in the Heideggerian sense is “microcosmos”, the intelligible microcosmos, since “world” is not really separable from Dasein. Thus, Dasein is world is microcosmos. But, we are getting ahead of ourselves. Why introduce this notion of a “microcosmos” at all? In a basic way, we can put things as follows. The macrocosmos-microcosmos distinction has a hermeneutic value. Every interpretation, every kind of knowledge of beings, implies it as a background, and is somehow “filtered” through this distinction [5]. It is basic to the construction of any kind of intelligible image of things. Moreover, as genuine expressions of intelligibility, microcosmos and macrocosmos are essentially the same—this is the basic thesis of the identity of microcosmos and macrocosmos. The split between microcosmos and macrocosmos is impossible, in the same manner as that between the intellects—but it occurs, nonetheless. Moreover, the distinction between them is indispensable in spite of their identity. Indeed, like the intellects, they are symmetrical, and this symmetry (or ontological inversion) is expressed “occultly” in the dictum “as above, so below” and the symbolism of the “Seal of Solomon”.

Roughly speaking, then, the microcosmic standpoint seems to correspond to that of Dasein or passive intellect, and the macrocosmic standpoint to that of active intellect—but is that really right? After all, active intellect also has its own microcosmic thinking, that is, active intellect thinks about the microcosmos, seeking to fathom it, together with its correspondences to the macrocosmos—what, then, since is its concerned with both cosmoi, makes active intellect especially related to the macrocosmic perspective? Let us go back to basics, for a moment. Microcosm-macrocosm are, firstly, a matter of analogy and inverse relation (“as above, so below”). In the “classical” metaphysical conception, Man is like a reservoir at the opposite end of manifestation from its summit (“God”), a reservoir into which are collected all the powers unfolded out of that summit, represented by Guenon (see The Great Triad) as:

In other words, we are, after a fashion, back to the distinction, just posited, in which microcosm, as a reservoir of powers, that is, as potency, is roughly analogous to Dasein as passive intellect, and thus correspondingly for active intellect. Just, then, as the philosophies of active intellect speak of passive intellect but never from its standpoint, just so they speak of microcosmos but always with a macrocosmic bias. One could say that there is a kinship and familial bias between microcosmos and passive intellect, on one side, and macrocosmos and active intellect, on the other. Which is to say, active intellect has a vast and heavenly tincture to its contemplation, whereas that of passive intellect tends to be more earthly and parochial.

How, then, does all this connect with immanent providence and transcendent providence? It would not be right to say, for instance, that immanent providence is the providence of the microcosmos—it is as much a providence of the microcosmos as of the macrocosmos—but it does have a microcosmic hermeneutic bias. As terms, however, which do appear roughly equivalent, and not only analogous, we have microcosmos and homo existentialis, and, by extension macrocosmos and homo essentialis. Here, the difference seems to be only one of emphasis, a shift in perspective from the tactillective field of “cosmos” to that of “humanity”. Thus, so far in this interlude, we are dealing with intersecting and analogous concerns from the standpoints of three distinct tactillective fields—that of “humanity”, that of “cosmos”, and that of “providence”. A “tactillective field” is simply to say that a central symbol becomes a useful to us as a key through which we skillfully induce things to unveil themselves to us in their intelligibility. In a sense, a “tactillective field” is for intellect what the idée fixe is for the transcendental subject.

Another standpoint from which to consider the significance of the notions of “humanesse”, “homo existentialis”, and “homo essentialis”, is that of the distinction of “theory” and “praxis”. This will help us appreciate what is at stake in positing such a distinction between “homo essentialis” and “homo existentialis”, to begin with. In a general way, for instance, one could posit homo existentialis as better adapted to “praxis” and homo essentialis as better adapted to “theory”. In the humanesse, both “theory” and “praxis” are exhausted and rendered redundant, as it were. At the same time, they reach the summit of their development and their fullest expression, effortlessly. In any case, homo existentialis is “practical humanity” ontologically conceived and thus also homo essentialis in reference to “theory”. Which is to say, here we conceived both humanity and the dual theory-praxis in non-humanist terms, and a non-humanist conception of “theory” and “praxis” is the same as to say a providential conception of these, “theory” and “praxis” as uninterruptedly bound up with the fabric of care, “theory” and “praxis” without revolutionary significance (unless in spite of themselves, their historical development unfolding through contradictions they engender), as integral features of social and political presence [6].

In addition to everything that has been said, thus far, it could be worth briefly noting what might constitute the supereminence of these tactillective fields. That is to say, what might constitute relative to the tactillective field of providence what “archeimicity” constitutes relative to the tactillective field of “self”? One could argue that the concept of “moksha” (“liberation”) refers to the supereminent degree of providence, since moksha is often traditionally framed as a transcending of the duality of ishvara-jiva, that is, a transcending of providence, and this is, at the same time, precisely to say that moksha is specifically framed, as a notion, with reference to providence. From the standpoint of this “moksha”, providence is negated and affirmed—negated as constraint, affirmed as lila (a “free play”). “Moksha-lila”, therefore, is providence, supereminently, the plenary non-being of providence, the being-itself-by-not-being of providence. We could also refer to the Buddhist principle of the identity of samsara and nirvana. Rendering this notion into our own terms, we could call it the “sublime liberation”—liberation within the limits of the contingent order (sub-limes) but also liberation from that within-the-order. That is, the “sublime liberation” exhausts the providential order comprehensively, up to its upper reaches (limen), but also is a liberation from enclosure within the limits of this order, abolishing the very reality of any such limits (we could say, in Buddhist fashion, that it reveals them to be “empty of essence”). At the same time, of course, in more ordinary terms, it is a liberation in a “sublime” or exalted sense. It is crucial to note that this notion refers to something basic and ontologically ordinary, not only a thing to be attained at some time in the future. It is only from a certain relative standpoint, and in the context of certain ascetic disciplines, that it appears as a thing to be attained, rather than that which “always already” subsists. We could therefore distinguish between “sublime liberation”, as a thing to be attained (chiefly, ascetically), and “sublime liberty” as a condition that perpetually subsists. The insinuated political connotations of the term “sublime liberty” are also worth considering. In conformity with the way the notion of “sublime liberation” was outlined above, we could also say that this “sublime liberty” is, politically, a liberty which “always already” subsists and acts within the limits (limes) of necessity, necessity never really constituting any obstacle to freedom (only apparently constituting such an obstacle) but rather serving as the grounds of the playful (lila) expression of human freedom. In other words, “sublime liberty” (again, taken in a more specifically political sense) is the secret meaning of history—namely, communism. For, whenever limits have shown themselves, politically and socially, as mere limits, history has always “refuted” them, and shown them to be nothing but a fleeting play. The limit of oppression inevitably overthrows and refutes itself by engendering revolution in its own bowels. Communism is a culmination of this process, a society in which necessity is actively taken up as the free play of development, realized at a planetary scale. Thus, communism is at the same time the radical instantiation of the humanesse (the supereminence of the human) and of the supereminence of providence. So much, then, for the supereminence of providence [7].

1: In this connection, it is immaterial whether one affirms the Self, as in the Hindu tradition generally, or denies it, as in Buddhism. The aporia which constitutes their starting point and bends back the bowstring of their thought is one and the same.

2: The antagonism of the humanesse and the humanist, stated in more relatable and ordinary terms, is the antagonism between sacral and religious conceptions of man and secular ones.

3: The homo essentialis, above all, concerns itself with the plurality of essences, with the contemplation of forms, but there is no equivalence between forms and the form (of the Good)—they are situated on different “planes” entirely. There is no equivalence between essences and the essence (cf. adh-dhat). The semantic similarity—forms and the form, essences and the essence—is symbolic and tactillective.

4: —that is, if we take Dasein, or passive intellect, seperatively, apart from its relation to primordial intellect. Likewise, active intellect taken apart from its relation to primordial intellection, or the Form of the Good, degrades into an indefinite contemplation, a philosophy merely of being without reference to non-being, an incomplete metaphysics.

5: However, in a manner analogous to what has already said respecting the “exclusion” of providence, one can posit an “acosmic” perspective. The “acosmic”, or transcendental standpoint, is not a third autonomous standpoint, but neither is it not a third—it is the third which is not. An acosmic standpoint is grounded in one or the other cosmic hermeneutic, one or the other providential framework, as a modification and departure. At the same time, we cannot say, without qualification, that it is not autonomous. It is and has the freedom of a nothing, and it is nothing if not auto-nomous, a lawful imposition of I-saying. In that case, we should understand the acosmic not as a negation of cosmos, but as an affirmation of the acosmos, the not-cosmos, the nought-cosmos, the simulated cosmos, the rational cosmos, the transcendental cosmos.

6: On a purely human, even specifically humanist, order of things, pronoia (that is, “providence”) becomes Prometheus (pro-manthano) which plans and anticipates, leverages necessity and develops it, rather than enfolding in the embrace of timeless intelligibility. Indeed, one could almost say that Prometheus “plays” with necessity, a play which in certain ways has something “tragic” about it.

7: What, then, of the supereminence of “cosmos”? One might tentatively propose something like ibn Arabi's “nondelimited imagination” or the “Supreme Barzakh” (al barzakh al-a'la), but we need not dwell on this question at present. It is sufficient, for now, to have simply raised the question.

Harihara, 18th century

*

—Summary of insights, aka tl;dr:

1. Heidegger’s “They” (das Man) has a certain analogy with Plato’s form of the Good, as a stupidity that exceeds intelligibility. Transcendental subjectivity is a specification of this stupidity.

2. The obscuration of intellect begins with the theoretical exclusion of non-Being. This historical enfeeblement of intellect lends strength to the rise of (modern) science.

3. When fully radicalized, the liberatory political project involves a return to intellective origins, claiming them for itself. This stage of liberatory politics is represented by the symbol of the “winged serpent”.

4. Behind Heidegger’s anti-semitism and his misgivings about technology lies a very real fear of proletarian dictatorship, the institution which actualizes that which is most problematic for him about both of the former.

5. Any symbolism which is applicable to active intellect is also valid for passive intellect, and vice versa.

6. What Heidegger calls “being-in”, for Dasein, is none other than “noeisis” or intellection.

7. Perennialism is both the truth of Tradition and that which undermines it. This dialectical contradiction has its symbol in the myth of Atlantis.

8. Heidegger’s account of everydayness does not possess the normative scope he accords it. It is merely one variety of everydayness, occurring under “special” historical conditions.

9. The “authenticity” of Dasein is fundamentally self-undermining, and “inauthentic” Dasein is alaways basically more “grounded”.

10. Over and against mere “authenticity” we must posit “archeimicity”. What the former is for caprigenetic Dasein, the latter is for Dasein “as such”.

11. Preoccupation with “authenticity” is a flight from the more pressing task of reconstituting the intelligible unity of the social space. For Heidegger, this flight is quite inevitable since this task, in the present historical moment, necessarily belongs to communism.

12. Anxiety is a disclosure of the fracture character of caprigenetic Dasein.

*

“The average understanding of the reader will never be able to decide what has been drawn from primordial sources with a struggle and how much is just gossip...The average understanding will not even want such a distinction, will not have need of it, since, after all, it understands everything...[it] not only divests us of the task of genuine understanding, but develops an indifferent intelligibility for which nothing is closed off any longer”

(163)

This “indifferent intelligibility” is precisely what Socrates, “the gadfly” of Athens, sought to expose—but what exactly is this superficial sort of understanding? “Superficiality” is equivocal. The “superficiality” of the transcendental subject's conceptual thought cannot be the one in question here. It is superficial, yes, but it certainly does not, from the outset, pretend to understand everything. It is constantly assailed by doubts, continually refines distinctions, and it certainly cannot be justly equated with mere “gossip”. Indeed, the philosophical tendency which begins with Socrates is simultaneously characterized by such “transcendentality” as it is by the transcendent (the Presocratics were, comparatively, weighted more heavily on the side of transcendence alone). Descartes did not originate a transcendental turn in philosophy, “as such”, but an exclusively (more or less) transcendental turn—that is, his contribution was primarily negative (though no less profound in its impact, for that reason). What, then, is this “indifferent intelligibility”? Heidegger seems to identify it with “the They” (das Man). Plato identifies it with “shadows”, and it seems worth noting that, in his allegory, the “shadows” are socially mediated through language. The prisoners compete in naming the shadows, and their identification of these entities seems to hinge on confirmation by their peers (who would dare name them in isolation but a madman? Everything must be corroborated by “the They”). Their relation with the “shadows” is socially mediated, and their relation with each other is mediated by shadows (they encounter each other through their “shadow games”; cf. “language games”). Heidegger's expressions “average intelligibility” and “indifferent intelligibility” clue us in that we are dealing with a mode of being (i.e. because it is a genuine kind of intelligibility which is in question), and not so much with the ontologically privative character of transcendental subjectivity (is it any wonder that Kant excluded “being” from predication? [1]). Both the “transcendental scholar” and the metaphysical sage will tend to feel contempt for the lackadaisical self-satisfaction of this “indifferent intelligibility”. And yet, one is nevertheless tempted to associate this “indifferent intelligibility” with transcendental subjectivity—not, however, to locate its origin in transcendental subjectivity, but just the reverse. It is transcendental subjectivity, as a type of nothing, which has its origin in this vaster sort of nothing—in victorious and all-conquering stupidity. Transcendental subjectivity (I mean transcendental subjectivity, particularly, at the acme of its development) is a specification of stupidity, a type of stupidity, a cunning stupidity, scientific stupidity. It is fire, harnessed and controlled by Prometheus, not the all-potent source beyond the heavens (“Form of the Good”). Among “the They”, stupidity does not yet become specified. In being specified, transcendental subjectivity mediates the “higher and lower waters” (that is, active and passive intellection). “The They” also “mediates” something. It mediates the unintelligibility of the Absolute (“Absolute”, here, in the sense of “the Form of the Good”, not the Hegelian Absolute—the latter is really just the acme of specified stupidity, i.e. of transcendental subjectivity). This is one meaning of “the masses are God” (Mao: “Our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese people”), for Promethean socialism. The masses are emblems not of the mere Heavens, but of that which lies beyond the Heavens, the very Form of the Good. The masses are a mystery, the sirr al asrar. One can never understand them, because they are beyond understanding (para-dox)—as all stupidity must be beyond understanding [2]. The Form of the Good, too, is a shadow, a divine darkness obscured by the light of the sun—beyond the sun is a second cave.

One could say, then, that this “indifferent intelligibility” is an indifference to intelligibility. It circumvents intelligibility, dances around it like a mocking imp, handles it playfully and carelessly. Transcendental subjectivity, on the other hand, is specified in the way it handles intelligibility, and this specification has the character of a mimesis of intelligibility. It imitates intelligibility's outward forms, takes it seriously. If stupidity is an imp, then transcendental subjectivity is a gargoyle—it broods. Indeed, fear is a specification of joy, the concentration of vital energies, as opposed to its dissipation through joy. The Upanishads tell us “Thou art That”—one could equally say “(the) They art That”. “The They” are the divine mystery in the mode of obscenity, the witch's sabbath. The aforementioned connection with “language” seems to be that “the They” handle language with a characteristic laxity. “Discourse”, which for Heidegger is the structuring factor in the world's intelligibility, becomes the instrument through which intelligibility is mocked and circumvented. Language becomes a game, a playing with shadows. Games, then, are also the characteristic activity of the They. It is playing and joking which links us to “the They”, above all. Science is grounded in stupid witticisms. The earliest natural philosophers were laughed at.

1: Predication is, at first glance, a grammatical function. In a philosophical context (let us say, of lowercase “p” philosophy), it pertains merely to the way we can speak about things, and seemingly presumes the total adequacy of discursability to all that which is (= being). When we ascribe being to that which is, we have not said anything about it that we have not already presumed. Looking beyond mere grammar, there is a whole metaphysics implied here. This metaphysics states—“only being is the real, and nothing else”. This metaphysical commitment is the preliminary to the transcendental turn. The beyond-being (or non-being, which is effectively the same) of Plato's Form of the Good is excluded here. Possibility is narrowed to an identification with potentiality and then, after the transcendental turn, reduced to mere virtuality. The actual, in turn, is somehow neither possible nor impossible—it just is, and being is no longer a predicate of the possible, but the ever narrowing horizon of discourse. We have elbowed out the “Neoplatonists” and consigned them to the category of mere “mysticism”. Of the Proclean reality-spanning Triad, all that remains is the narrowest sliver at the edge of corporeality. The super-intelligible ecstasy of the One is no more, and if that upon which intelligibility subsists is no more, then intelligibility itself must grow feeble.

It is a curious thing that the historical enfeeblement of intellect has lent nigh unconquerable strength to human science. A phase, however, is not a permanent state of affairs, but a dialectical moment. That which acted in a certain way at a certain time is not bound to effect itself in the same way at all times. If, in the lead up to the present, the disappearance of intellect has meant the appearance of modern science, in the fullness of its vigor, it does not follow that this correlation holds good for the future. The positioning of these elements in the dialectical movement must be accounted for, and the intelligible context of history as a whole—yes, intelligibility itself takes the lead and returns like a deus ex machina. Intelligibility never really “disappears”, but fades into the background (and, as a background, intelligibility is still as fully operative as ever). It obtrudes into the foreground when we least expect it.

Whether or not the gods will be “allowed” in our communist republic is a question for utopians. Their presence or absence is a function of their position in the dialectical movement at any given historical moment. The question of atheism or theism, too, is but a movement and a series of overturnings, in the course of which their very meaning changes. One cannot hold fast to either in ideal permanence, and the theism of one era can be more of a scandal to the theism of another than any atheism. The “scientific” atheism of the 19^th century was but an intellectual fad—communism is a real movement.

2: It is proletarian dictatorship which disciplines and specifies them, amplifies their scientific cunning. This process begins already with class struggle, and so on.

*

“Idle talk is a closing off since it omits going back to the foundation of what is being talked about”

(163)

It seems that the whole Cartesian tradition consists in a comparable “closing off”, and in Hegel this closing-off “doubles” when the circle of the so-called “Absolute” closes in on itself. The closing-off accomplished by the Cartesian tradition is precisely a closing-off of “foundations”, in this case of “intuition” (intellect), from which foundation the modern philosophical tradition's concepts (e.g. substance, being, etc) were originally derived. Nonetheless, this closing-off did not originally result in total inertness, but in a “line” capable of directed inquiry. Moreover, through Kant, this “line” acquired self-clarification (through the “transcendental deduction”), and through this clarification a greater precision in its concepts and thus also an amplification of its powers of directed inquiry. Through Hegel, the power of directed inquiry is, initially (see: Marx), lost. The Hegelian line of inquiry turns in on itself and forms a closed circle (or a seemingly closed circle—every hermeneutic circle only seems to be closed). That which, initially (through Descartes) was only closed to intellect is now also closed to further progress in inquiry (unless, like Kojeve, we willfully amputate philosophy into natural science and historical philosophy). With Marx, this Hegelian circularity is overcome, (though, to an extent, the idea of “full communism” constitutes a regressive residue). Marx liberates dialectic by converting it into a method, a double method—both for inquiry and for political action. The circle becomes a sort of “fractal” spiral with dual directionality—it can burrow inwards, through analysis, and expand outwards through “praxis”. The full consequences of this liberation of dialectic have not been adequately worked out. Moreover, it leads to an inevitable question: keeping to the just adopted figurative language, if a liberation of the line from the circle is possible (a liberation which is an “aufhebung” since the line now possesses the “power” of circularity in the form of spiralation [1]), then why is not a liberation of the spiraling line from the narrow limits of the plane also possible, that is, a liberation of science from Cartesian-imposed limits (i.e. the foreclosing of intelligibility)? Incidentally, this “backwardly progressive liberation” (here we go back to pre-Cartesian intellect) has the same form as the “revolutionary return to tradition” (see my short essay “Marx's Retvrn to Tradition”). Thus, the next stage in this “backwards liberation” consists in the acquisition of intellective powers by the spiral of dialectical inquiry. The spiral of dialectic is, initially, flat, that is, situated on a plane. It is a spiraling around on the surface. The next stage in the process of “backwards liberation” returns to the level of the hermenoetic sphere, and thus acquires the power of spiralation in three dimensions, which is to say that it acquires intellective flight. The spiral has become a winged serpent. Marxism (or communism) becomes none other than the process of mankind liberating its own liberator (Prometheus, the serpent of Genesis) in the process of its own liberation. Returning to the initial topic of “idle talk”, it becomes clear that it is Hegel, especially, whose philosophy consists in “idle talk”—it not only cuts itself off from intellective sources (as do Descartes, Kant et al), but also willfully aims at going nowhere because it already “knows everything”. A further question should be posed here: is there a further step in the process of “backwards liberation”, perhaps corresponding the true Absolute (in the original, metaphysical sense)? Possibly, but it belongs to a quite distant historical stage, and one can only speculate as to its practical content. Hypothetically, one might also wonder whether this process of “backwards liberation”, once it reaches its metaphysical terminus, might then inaugurate a process of “forward development” which, in turn, will lead to another process of “backwards liberation”, and so on, ad infinitum. This is all very speculative, but worth thinking about. Also worth speculating as to where the “indifferent intelligibility” explored in the previous reflection fits into this scheme (arguably, the “space” in which this “winged serpent” flies is always, initially, “indifferently intelligible”; “initially”—i.e. because, through flight, it creates intelligibility in its wake).

1: Cf. Marx's dissertation on Epicurus: “Just as the point is negated [aufgehoben] in the line...”

*

“All genuine understanding...Come about in [the They], out of it, and against it...The They prescribes that attunement”

(163-164)

This confirms the above hypothesis, i.e. that “indifferent intelligibility” (which is, functionally, the same as to say “the They”) is the space in which an intellective “subject” moves. The They is inconspicuously intelligible sociality. We should not, like Heidegger, suppose that the model of such a sociality furnished for us by our present environment is exemplary of such a sociality as such. Just as Heidegger's Dasein is, for the most part, caprigenetic, so is the They, as he accounts for it. This particular instantiation of what Heidegger calls “the They” is a highly peculiar qua “inconspicuously intelligible sociality”—but more on this later.

*

“Being is what discovers itself in pure intuitive perception, and only this seeing discovers being. Primordial and genuine truth lies in pure intuition. This thesis henceforth remains the foundation of Western philosophy. The Hegelian dialectic has its motivation in it...What is this tendency to just-perceive about?...Taking care does not disappear in rest, but circumspection becomes free, it is no longer bound to the work-world...it tends to leave things nearest at hand for a distant and strange world. Care turns into taking care of possibilities, resting and staying to see the 'world' only in its outward appearance”

(165-166)

This view which he attributes to antique philosophy, here with reference to Aristotle or Parmenides, seems, initially, to be straightforwardly accurate . That is, the initial formula, given above, as pertains to the relationship between being and intuition, seems to be perfectly correct. It is, however, the interpretation Heidegger gives this formula which is crucial. This interpretation is par the course for Heidegger—intuition is “just-perceiving”, a seeing of the world only in its “outward appearance”, and philosophical modernity is to be read backwards into antiquity. A valid point about Hegelian dialectic becomes an invalid one about ancient metaphysics. There is room, then, to say something here about the Phenomenology and the Logic. After all, as Heidegger carefully stipulates, this “just seeing” does not only refer to the faculty of sight, even if a certain preferential connection with sight persists from antiquity. This manner of just seeing could be legitimately extended to include the “just-positing” or “just-thinking-about” being and nothing of the Logic. Both are expressions of the same kind of “curiosity”, as Heidegger terms it, the products of the subject's otium (or that of caprigenetic Dasein).

A more precise delineation of the kind of “otium” that Heidegger uncovers here, and an explication of its ontological significance, would be appropriate. This otium is attended by boredom. It looks around for something to do, anything at all. It is not a genuinely contemplative rest, but the rest of the thinker (or, really, any kind of busybody). It is not a rest which abides in its own being, that is, a rest which rests. Indeed, inconspicuous being-in-the-work-world is ontologically closer to genuine rest than this otium of the busybody. This otium is an interruption of the rest which abides in being, including that “rest” which abides as inconspicuous taking care in the work-world. Hence, such an otium is directly analogous to the breakdown of the tool, in Heidegger's ontology. It is, thus, a kind of proto-transcendental condition (at minimum). In that case, this otium is that of the natural philosophers, and of their descendants in modern science. Otium, then, turns around and becomes its own opposite—otium, which is initially the recreation of aristocrats (see Nietzsche's philosophical panegyric of this “virtue”), becomes the union of science and labor, the thoughtful inquiry of busybodies, repudiated by Nietzsche's latter day disciple Heidegger.

*

“[Curiosity] seeks novelty only to leap from it again to another novelty...Curiosity has nothing to do with the contemplation that wonders at being. [It is essentially characterized as] never dwelling anywhere. Curiosity is everywhere and nowhere. This mode of being-in-the-world reveals a new kind of being of everyday Dasein, one in which it constantly uproots itself”

(166)

There is a severe moral reprimand implied in his assessment of “curiosity”. It is not only such and such a thing, which exhibits such and such characteristics—it is most definitely also bad. It is bad twice over, bad like the Jews and bad like Prometheus. Heidegger is anti-Promethean because he is an anti-Semite, and an anti-Semite because he is an anti-Promethean. These two are either identified here, or so closely entangled as to be inseparable. This is in itself most curious—is Prometheus, then, a Jew? Is Jewishness the same as Prometheaness? In fact, the “Jew = Prometheus = bad” equation can be reasonably extended as “Jew = Prometheus = Communism = bad”. Communism is the real movement of these forces, the uprooting power of modernity and the trajectory of scientific inquiry that uncovers novelty after novelty. Communism is “rootless”, internationalist, like the Jews, and inquisitive to a a fault, like Prometheus. Proletarian dictatorship, in turn, is the dread institution that asserts and realizes these forces in history, as a matter of deliberate policy, through and for the class that embodies these forces in the social field.

Heidegger's implied moral reprimand, obviously connected with a fear of real historical forces, is also premised in a refusal to wonder. Indeed, he does not err in pointing out that curiosity of this kind does not consist in a contemplation that wonders. Nevertheless, curiosity can be quite a disciplined thing, even when, at bottom, what it seeks is novelty. This is not prima facie something trivial. It can be dangerous, world-shattering. Heidegger seems not to be particularly astonished here at this world-shattering (and world-constructing) power [1], this force of liberatory impossibility. Indeed, it, too, is worthy of wonder! This power which uproots and is somehow everywhere and nowhere is, as such, awe inspiring—especially to the degree that it is constituted in such a way to exhibit these tendencies efficaciously. Where does it do this? It is through the aforementioned “dread institution” that these tendencies are exhibited most efficaciously. Proletarian dictatorship is something to wonder at.

1: This assessment obviously has to be modified, somewhat, in the case of Heidegger's later work. See especially “The Question Concerning Technology”.

*

“The falling prey of Dasein must not be interpreted as a 'fall' from a purer and higher 'primordial condition'”

(169)

Another instance of Heidegger taking Dasein's “everydayness” as ontologically normative, whereas it is really only ontically normative of certain historical and social contexts. That is, the state of “everydayness”, as Heidegger understands it, is accorded the privilege of serving as the benchmark or baseline of Dasein's way of being-in-the-world—this special privilege has not been justified. Indeed, as soon as one grasps what the faculty of “passive intellect” is, it becomes clear that such everydayness does not represent its functioning par excellence, that is, it does not represent its optimal functioning, its most characteristic functioning, its functioning as itself to the highest degree possible. How, then, can everydayness be taken, ontologically, to be “what is nearest to Dasein”? The term “higher”, in the above passage, can be misleading. Representing states of being in terms of height is more characteristic of active intellect. Passive intellect is better characterized by degrees of absorption or intensity of ecstatic being-in-the-world. In the case of passive intellect, a retreat from a primordial condition might more aptly express it, or a distraction, a forgetting (cf. the “forgetting of being”), a dulling. Regardless, Dasein's everydayness and absorption in the They can validly be described as a “fall” [1] from a purer condition, provided we do not understand this “fall” in an ontic sense. That which was not intended ontically, to begin with, cannot be faulted for a merely ontic imprecision. The symbolism of a “fall” is meaningful, ontologically, for active intellect, and the symmetry of the intellects ensures that what is meaningful for one intellect is also meaningful for the other, even if not eminently. The symbolism of the intellects is a universal currency of interpretation.

1: A fall from what? A fall from what we might call an “integral sociality”, to be distinguished from the sociality of caprigenetic Dasein in “the They”.

*

“Being-in is quite different from...a concurrent objective presence of a subject and an object” (170)

Clearly expressing the intellective character of Dasein. This, and not “staring”, not objective presence, is noesis [1]. That is, noesis is, from the standpoint of passive intellect, none other than integral and intelligible being-in. If, then, passive intellect is an “intelligible-being(-in)”, then active intellect can be characterized as an “existential knowing”, a phenomenology of contemplation, a flowing gnosensiential tapestry of identities. More specifically, we might say that it is an “existential knowing-as”, with “as” indicating the function of identity of knower and known (the knower knows as the known), the existential flow of adequational contemplation, a seamless succession of absorptions in the varied “objects” of knowledge.

1: Nous and intellect are, of course, equivalent. I use “noesis” here because Heidegger makes explicit reference to this term in this text.

*

“The self-certainty and decisiveness of the They increasingly propagate the sense that there is no need of [authenticity]...Entangled being-in-the-world, tempting itself, is at the same time tranquilizing”

(171)

Rather ironically, one of the means at our disposal for bursting through this tranquility of the They is the skilled and audacious deployment of our “Reason”, of those “inauthentic” [1] faculties that bring us to lucid (uncannily lucid) and objective presence, that cut through being and bring us to the possibility of restructuring that very world which one can relate to in the mode of being-in. The intelligible topography of worldly being can be terraformed. This requires as much “aesthetic inspiration” as it does audacious and naked reasoning. Dasein is in the world—but who has made this world for him? We do not live any “naturally” given world, but one that has been made and remade again, in the furnace of history. Prometheus is our world-maker. At the same time, however, it should be kept in view that such a terraforming activity always proceeds from out of some ground or another, that is, ontologically speaking, that activity which restructures the world for our being-in is itself already grounded in some manner of being-in. Promethean Reason determines its own grounds, but only after the fact. First, it already has a ground, and then it determines it. A truly deliberative and fundamental world-making project demands that we establish contact with these ontological origins—this is precisely the meaning of the “second ontopolitanism”. Technology or, rather, technoscience (i.e. the intersection of social being, theoretical reasoning, and technological use), itself becomes the “skillful means” (upaya, or tactillection) of the communist bodhisattva. As with the original Buddhist context of this concept, the “skill” in question is that exercised by the “enlightened” being instructing the unawakened. It is the skill and the cunning which he employs in devising methods whose aim is to establish contact with the wakeful being of those who presently sleep in samsara, not the skill they employ in following his instructions. The modern, communist Prometheus, too, must devise means which, taking advantage of the prevailing social and technological situation (chiefly, socialized production and advanced technological development), does not lose contact with those ontological origins that are, in reality, the sole source of all power and volition.

1: Some clarification on “authenticity” is needed here. One must not forget that Heidegger's “authenticity” pertains to the caprigenus Dasein, and hence is certainly related with Reason. Indeed, one could say that Dasein is implicitly culpable for inauthenticity, in and through its authenticty. This is connected with Heidegger's reflections on “guilt”, defined by him in relation to Dasein's unrealized possibilities, later on in this book. “Authentic”, I-saying Dasein is already a caprigenetic Frankenstein, and there is inauthenticity in its marrow, by virtue of its authenticity (and vice versa, authenticity is implicit to inauthentic Dasein). It is because “authentic” Dasein says “I am this finite and fateful being, rooted in the destiny of my volk” (let us not efface the racialist implications of Heidegger's notions) that it recalls every other possibility for I-saying that it has pushed aside as unfateful and inauthentic to its own destiny. Dasein is intrinsically guilty of being able to be rootless, culpable of being able to choose something other than its fate, and it is eminently reason that allows Dasein to extract itself from the integral embrace of its destiny. In this connection it is also crucial that this is a destiny and a fate that is appropriated by its I-saying, that is, an automorphic fate and an automorphic destiny, a fate and destiny belonging to the caprigenetic Dasein, and not to “simple” Dasein qua Dasein. Caprigenetic Dasein, then, is neither the end nor the beginning of this story, and neither authenticity nor inauthenticity have anything fundamental about them, ontologically speaking.

If, then, we wish to retain I-saying as a theoretical reference point, imbuing it, instead, with genuine intelligibility, and anchoring it in the aforementioned “simple” Dasein (that is, if we wish to retain I-saying tactillectively), we will need to furnish ourselves with new concepts. A term for designating “atman-centricity”, as it were, will be needed so as to distinguish it from the ahamkara-centric character of “authenticity”—tentatively, archeimicity and eimimorphosis—“arche” as indicating the principial character of the “phenomenon” in question, and “eimi” as in the “ego eimi” of the Gospel of John (“before Abraham was, I am”). Thus, archeimicity is the “prinicipial I-am-ness”, and eimimorphosis indicates the tendency of subsumption into the intelligible embrace of this principial “I am” (like Plato's Form of the Good, it bestows intelligibility, but lies beyond it). Archeimicity is principial unity and wholeness, established tactillectively with reference to our I-saying activity. The same notion, taken apart from this reference point of I-saying, is essentially what the Neoplatonists call the “henads”. In the case of the henads, and of philosophizing in the Western-Platonic mold generally, the reference point is intellective contemplation. If the central aporia of the Indian philosophical tradition is the mystery of I-saying, then that of the Western-Platonic tradition is the mystery of the possibility of knowledge, and the henads are an exceptionally refined distillation of that problem.

*

“...understanding the most foreign cultures and 'synthesizing' them with one's own...Versatile curiosity and restless knowing-it-all masquerade as a universal understanding”

(171)

A basic antipathy here between Heidegger and Guenon—passive intellect is provincial intellect or it is, at least, within a certain “provinciality” that passive intellect finds its most comfortable expression. While, strictly speaking, both active and passive intellect, as intellect, are characterized by universality, one could say that active intellect is universal par excellence, and one might, correspondingly, associate passive intellect with a sort of “ecstatic particularity” (cf. thrownness, facticity etc). This universality, at least, is a feature of intellect in our historical era (harking back, in our collective imagination, to the legendary period of “Atlantis”, which mythically represents a “scientific universality” of intellect par excellence), that is, it may be a specific kind of universality which is in question here, a historically specific manner of expressing and understanding “universality”, one that tends toward and supports something like “scientificity”. In any case, one curious feature of perennialism, a la Guenon (albeit, going back as far as Platonism), is that it is not only universal in its most basic constitution but, just as significantly, cosmopolitan in its mode of expression, and “cosmopolitan” is, socially, the equivalent of generality rather than universality. In a time like our own, where “universality” and “generality” are confused, it is tempting to conflate them and hence to misunderstand the nature of the cosmopolitan phenomenon as well as the significance of “universality” itself. Universality is a feature of intellect's operation, not a cross-cultural or historical phenomenon. Universality can (and frequently is) immanent to a tradition without spilling over to any cosmopolitanism, without expressing itself in any form that lends itself to cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism is a special “addition”, mythically prefigured in Atlantis [1], which requires an advanced development of discursive Logos (though without losing sight of its symbolic dimensions). I mean, of course, “cosmopolitan tradition”, which is to say, expressions of metaphysical universality which lend themselves to cosmopolitan cultural and social forms, that is, to expression in terms of general concepts or philosophical jargon (something which seems to be connected with the rise of coinage at about the time designated as “the axial age”), not cosmopolitanism “as such” (modern cosmopolitanism, for instance, is grounded almost exclusively on the discursive and ratiocinative side). It requires such a “cosmopolitization” of tradition (which is to say, perennialism) in order to make fruitful cross-traditional contacts possible, at least on an extensive and highly communicable scale. It requires a further rootedness in the ontological or metaphysical (concerning the precise basis for the distinction between “ontology” and “metaphysics” see Guenon—in brief, whether or being or non-being is taken as primary, respectively) dimension of Tradition to prevent superficial syncretism. In that sense, perennialism is always risky. It is characteristically “Greek” (even if only in the retrospectively stereotyped sense given to us in the Renaissance) in that it requires a sense of balance and moderation, and is at the same time driven by a kind of colonizing wanderlust (though, not in the sense of the “colonial era”), or even by “curiosity” in Heidegger's sense. Perennialism, as a historical tendency, conceals a Promethean core. The “Atlantean thesis” is meant to explain why these diverse traditions already are susceptible of being identified by the category “cosmopolitan”—in a sense, they are already susceptible of being cosmopolitanized in advance. This thesis posits an “identical origin”, in some “primordial tradition”, which, subsequent to the destruction of Atlantis, was dispersed throughout the earth (considerations related to a “Hyperborean tradition” also enter into this rather nebulous “occult history”, which has a certain symbolic interest whatever the degree of its literal truth value). It is never quite clear if Atlantis is primarily intended as myth, history, or prophecy, but the last of these approaches should not be underrated. It would have been clear to any truly discerning mind (as was Plato's), that the cross fertilization, in history, of the discursive and symbolic modes of Logos, each having been autonomously developed to a high degree, was bound, at some point or another, to produce something like the world-spanning “Atlantean civilization”. Guenon was, in spite of himself, the shaykh al-akbar of the awliya ash-shaytan, the true awliya ash-shaytan, not the psychically reductive formulation of them that he presents in his own writing [2]. His work is the seed of a coming Atlantean civilization. He perfected the cosmopolitan vessel of universality, or at least laid the groundwork for this endeavor, namely, the endeavor of expressing symbolic and intellective universality in the form of a science of general concepts. Guenonian perennialism is perennialism par excellence. It is not just any kind of perennialist thought, but the attempt at rendering a generic meta-language for discussing Tradition and metaphysics, not for the purpose of scholarly survey, but in such a way as to facilitate an efficacious contact with the content of Tradition—and what is decisive is that this is actually executed skillfully (even in the tactillective sense).

On political and practical grounds, within the present social context, neither Guenon's cosmopolitanism nor Heidegger's provincialism can be realized without severe compromises, however. Guenon's perennialism can only become the preserve of a social elite, within capitalist civilization (see: King Charles), since no other civilization presently exists. It becomes a thing discussed at exclusive ecumenical conferences (see: Seyyed Hossein Nasr) among those with the wealth and leisure for such “hobbies”. Heidegger's provincialism, in turn, within the present capitalist context, can only become an understanding of being which is enforced upon the masses, while an elite caste of “guardians of the ethnos” sacrifice their “authentic being” to a cosmopolitan mode of existence (see: Schutzstaffel)(—this is a topic which I plan on addressing in greater depth elsewhere)—mirror images of of a broken Tradition and the sundering of intellection. Only Promethean socialism can unite the two intellects within an integral (or, better yet, integralizing) civilization, a civilization of scientific reason wedded to the Promethean audacity which steals fire from heaven.

1: That is, the myth of Atlantis prefigures scientific universality, which is at the same time cosmopolitan universality, that is, the intersection of generality of concepts and universality of intelligibles.

2: Briefly, in Guenon's writings the awliya ash-shaytan (or the “anti-tradition”, as he usually calls it), effect a substitution between intellectuality (= spirituality = nous) and psychicality. If, however, we identify “Shaytan” with Prometheus, the thief of heavenly fire, then it is not the exclusion of intellect that would characterize such an “anti-tradition”, but the seizure of intellect as a technology at the disposal of the rational and modern subject. This is what Guenon's writing unwittingly facilitates, on the side of active intellect, as expressed above. Indeed, in that respect, characterizing this tendency as a mere “anti-tradition” seems insufficient. It is something more like a neo-tradition, a post-tradition, a hyper-tradition—a sacreligion. Double entendre—from “sacrilege”, the stealing (“legere”) of sacred (“sacri—”) things, and the binding (“religio”) of the sacred toward human ends.

*

“Dasein plunges out of itself, into the groundlessness and nothingness of inauthentic everydayness”

(171-172)

That everydayness is somehow necessarily “groundless” is a faulty supposition [1]. When Dasein's environment (including social mores and the like, e.g. adab) is constructed intelligibly (i.e. symbolically), everydayness itself “defaults” to a grounded and “meaningful” mode of being. The groundlessness of the everyday is a result of the lack of integrality in the intelligible constitution of the social and political environment or, what is the same, the preponderance of transcendental factors in the structuring of the modern environment (as opposed to the pervasiveness of transcendent influences). Put yet another way, the present environment is not structured skillfully, that is, tactillectively. This present situation does not represent the normative or eminent ontology of Dasein, the default conditions of ontological inquiry into Dasein, but specific historical and social conditions which necessarily modify the nature of that inquiry, biasing it in a caprigenetic direction, if not in that of an outright objective presence. Thus, Heidegger's inquiry has an unacknowledged “historical bias”. It takes a certain species of everydayness as the exemplar of everydayness par excellence (if not the only species of everydayness).

1: Indeed, the caprigenus Dasein, whether authentic or inauthentic, is always caught up between groundedness and groundlessness—authentic Dasein is always “resolutely” trying to ground itself in its own fate, and in that very gesture proves its groundlessness. On the other hand, inauthentic Dasein, which is carried along inconspicuously in the They—the modern They, particularly—may, by virtue of the manner in which the social space is constituted at present, participate in some degree of groundlessness, but, comparatively speaking, inauthentic Dasein is more grounded than authentic Dasein (so long as we have the caprigenus Dasein in mind), and this by virtue of the inconspicuous intelligibility that characterizes Dasein qua Dasein, its most basic, immediate and “metaphysically concrete” (grounded) character.

*

“We have not decided whether human being is 'drowned in sin', in the status corruptionis, or whether it walks in the status integritatis, or finds itself in an interim stage, the status gratiae”

(173)

The practical limit of Heideggerianism is the “status gratiae”. It cannot effect a full integrality in the world (“status integritatis”) because its relation to being is fundamentally nostalgic and pessimistic. It either pines for a lost state of being (the “first ontopolitanism”) or else “stands resolutely”, true merely to itself (that is, authentically rather than archeimitically), in an environment that, at a basic level, is felt to be “ontologically foreign” (namely, the environment of modernity). The most it can hope for are moments of “ontological grace” that, for a time, allow it to experience a brief window of uninhibited authenticity, or else it can seek out some isolated space where such grace is more “ready-to-hand” (e.g. through a retreat into rural solitude). Indeed, Heidegger himself admits that “the They” is not an objectively present entity, but a manner of being that occurs “within” Dasein. If, then, this “They” is experienced as a site of inauthenticity that must be overcome, how can Dasein attain an integral being? “The They” are not going anywhere anytime soon. “The They”, too, must be sanctified. That is, Dasein requires a fully integral sociality, and the fabric of sociality gets its warp and its woof from the symbolic structure of class relations, from the “material” situation. Because the capitalist class is, intrinsically, a mediating class, integrality cannot be established under their rule. Communism is the precondition of Dasein's social integrality under the social and technological conditions of modernity.

*

“Ontological unity of existentiality and facticity”

(175)

This is about as good as a “technical definition” as one could ask for of passive intellection as a mode of being. “Facticity” can also be connected with tactillection, since it is a skillful handling of and integration with the factical situation, such that Dasein's being-in-the-world retains its unbroken and inconspicuous flow, which constitutes tactillection. A corresponding definition of active intellection might run something like “the gnosiological unity of essentiality and concentrillection—that is, the mode of being (or, in this case, primarily of knowing) in which the what-it-is-ness of that-which-is retains its constitution integrally and uninterruptedly in the concentrated absorption of knowledge [1]. The compound “gnosio-logical” is particularly apt because the “logos” here also suggests a symbolic mediation, and “unity” further highlights the fact that symbol is, ultimately, not really distinct from symbolized. With respect to the term onto-logical, we might similarly note the significance of “discourse” in Heidegger's account, as well as the basically symbolic structure of Dasein's being-in-the-world.

1: Essence is “always already” essential, but it is not always so concentrillectedly. In concentrillection, essence is realized in its essentiality, its “ownmost” (in an archeimitic sense) essentiality.

*

“Can the being of Dasein be delineated in a unified way so that in terms of it the essential equiprimordiality of the structures pointed out becomes intelligible, together with the existential possibilities which belong to it?”

(176)

The most obvious way to fulfill the conditions in the first part of this question is through the use of symbols. It is only a symbol that can “instantaneously” evoke the whole structure of that which is “equiprimordially partitioned” in a fully intelligible way. As for the second part of this question, an enumeration of possibilities obviously requires a metaphysics. A certain reservation is also necessary here, in as much as Heidegger has needlessly limited himself to existential possibilities, whereas a complete metaphysics must also refer to non-existent possibilities. If such a complete metaphysics is possible from the standpoint of active intellect, then it mus also be possible from the standpoint of passive intellect. The question then is—at what point, in what way, and through what means does passive intellect “make contact” with such non-existent possibilities? This has been touched on in the last installment of notes. There may be more to say on this later on.

*

“The absorption of Dasein in the They and in the 'world' taken care of reveals something like a flight of Dasein from itself as an authentic potentiality for being itself”

(178)

Likewise, Dasein's pursuit of merely being itself, in the present historical and “material” situation, is a flight from the broader task that makes a fully integral being possible for Dasein—and such an integral being, needless to say, is not found within the limits of modernity “taken at face value”, nor in a retreat, impossible to accomplish, to antique tradition. In order to merely be itself, Dasein must run away from this task, as Heidegger did when he fled to the petty authenticity of his Black Forest retreat, or, as he attempted with more sincerity, when he adopted the Nazi ideology—although this latter consists merely in a large scale enforcement of the former [1]. The realization of a fully integral being, for Dasein, requires an integration of the They which, in turn, requires a broader socio-political infrastructure. Such an infrastructure would need to be structured intelligibly, and in such a fashion that “They-ness” itself is seamlessly converted into integrative sociality. Thus, because a certain form of integral sociality—namely, communism—is materially necessary but politically excluded, Dasein's task, in the present, is necessarily revolutionary. A fully integral “authenticity” (or what is rather an archeimicity) is only possible to Dasein to the extent that this task succeeds. Moreover, socially speaking, such “social archeimicity” can only belong, in the most eminent way, to a member of the working class. The other classes, participate in social archeimicity to the extent that they defer to this class' rule—that is, they have a second hand social archeimicity to the degree that they are ritually oriented about the social center. Needless to say, under the present socio-political arrangements, there is no openly established center. One could therefore say that Dasein's flight toward mere authenticity is a flight from the task of reestablishing an integral social center, a flight from archeimicity as well as from that which would practically realize it in the present historical situation.

1: The resolute decision to retreat (to that metaphorical “Black Forest”), and submit to fate, incarnated in the upper echelons of the Nazi party and the Schutzsaffel, and the “experience” of the retreat, the volkisch life within destined boundaries, incarnated in the “racially pure” majority—the psychological and ontological split of the caprigenus Dasein repeated at the social scale. The upper echelons of the Nazi party made the decision of “retreat” on behalf of the racial majority. That “Black Forest” could, in such a case, just as well be a “futuristic” cityscape. It is a lived simulacrum of life for the “racially pure”, a theater of volk-kitsch experience managed by the stagehands of the Nazi party—it is auto-voyeurism, auto-tourism, auto-eroticism, facilitated by cosmopolitan construction projects like the auto-bahn.

*

“[Through anxiety], the world in its worldliness is all that obtrudes itself”

(181)

That it can obtrude itself in this way, at all, implies a loss or absence of integrality. The world has split itself, doubled itself—it is both that which I am in, and that which obtrudes itself before me. Thus, anxiety requires a loss of integral being as its precondition (or, in a sense, a displacement of integrality, enclosing it within a surveyable sheep pen). From whence this loss? That must be investigated. The aforementioned substitution of Theyness for integral sociality factors into this, but we should be careful not to fall into the trap of supposing that integral sociality on its own, abolishes all the “fractures” in being. In the broadest sense, a really completed integrality requires something like a “metaphysical realization” (in our just established terms, an “archeimitic realization”). Nevertheless, integral sociality will preserve a relatively adequate integral way of being for most “Daseins” (but most eminently not for a category of persons we might call the “satyrs”—but more on this later), and, in any case, it will serve as a support for further “metaphysical realization” (in the case of those who choose to pursue it). One can further surmise that the world becomes ever more obtrusive to the extent that a lack of social integrality predominates. If no center maintains the world in a unity, it becomes split and continually splits itself. Thus, anxiety is not a passage leading to Dasein's possible authenticity (or, rather, leading to its archeimicity), in a fully integral sense [1], but only in a fractured sense, revealing only the possibility of an “authentic escape” into the Black Forest of pseudo-provinciality. Anxiety shows us the possibility of being in a split-world, of barricading ourselves on one side of this divide (barricading ourselves “authentically”). Unless, of course, we take upon ourselves the revolutionary social task of repairing this divide at the “material” level, the task of rendering social integrality possible within the conditions of social and technological modernity. Anxiety, in other words, is a symptom not of worldliness “as such”, but of fractured wordliness, of a being-in-the-world which has been “split in advance” at the “material” level.

Moreover, in a somewhat paradoxical fashion, a total integrality in the context of modern technologies and the present social form, is an integralizing sociality, not a merely integrated sociality. This is a sociality which expresses at its own scale the split which has occurred within primordial intellect, and which has reached the acme of its development in modernity—philosophically, in the apotheosis of transcendental subjectivity through Kant, and the subsequent expression of radically isolated intellects through Heidegger and Guenon. The political institution of proletarian dictatorship brings the intellects back together, but not as simple identity, a reunion identical to their condition at the first, but directed and seized by the heroic embrace of the Promethean subject—symbolically, the winged serpent and, mythologically, the raising of Atlantis. The rupturing power of rationality is retained as the stimulus of integrality, and the integrality of the intellects as the world-forming power of the rational subject.

1: That is, archeimicity is integral authenticity, and authenticity, in its privative sense, is a shadow or echo of archeimicity.

*

“Anxiety individuates Dasein to its ownmost being-in-the-world...Anxiety discloses Dasein as being-possible, and indeed as what, solely from itself, can be individualized in individuation...Anxiety individualizes and thus discloses Dasein as 'solus ipse'...existential 'solipsism'...In anxiety one has an uncanny feeling...Uncanniness means...not being at home...Anxiety...fetches Dasein back out of its entangled absorption in the world” (182)

Individuation, like objective presence, is an expression of the transcendental nothing, a “species” of nothing [1]. It is, indeed, from any strictly causal standpoint, quite impossible to say whether anxiety individuates Dasein or whether individuation (or that nothing from which it is both distinct and indistinct) is the origin of anxiety. To reduce anxiety to a psychological phenomenon is perhaps a bit reductive, but to treat of it exclusively in ontological terms would be misleading. It is something like a psycho-ontological phenomenon—that is, of a mixed character, like the caprigenus Dasein whom it “afflicts”. Indeed, anxiety is nothing other than an acute psychological expression of the irrationality of reason in its sharp divorce from intellect—it is the irrational and silent scream of reason, its terror at the unreason it discovers in itself. That is to say, it is a psychological expression of the ontological structure of caprigenetic Dasein. In a word, it is authenticity—mere authenticity, erected as a barricade against archeimicity, universality, social integrality. The caprigenus Dasein generally (in its everydayness) encounters universality (social integrality etc) merely as “the They” (das Man), an echo of universality, as it were. “The They” already expresses archeimicity—non-intensively, “sub-eminently” (in the sense of a lesser degree of eminence), as it were. A kind of gradation can be established:

As expressed in the previous installment of notes, possibility for Dasein (passive intellect), is to be located, supereminently, on the side of “act”, in the plenary non-being of thrownness, of which anxiety (uncanniness, objective presence etc) is an inferior expression. Thus, we could say that anxiety, as a psycho-ontological phenomenon, is, at best, a semblance of that which discloses possibility supereminently for Dasein, namely, thrownness in its most plenary and intensive expression. Once again, Heidegger's caprigenetic conception of Dasein is holding him back from grasping Dasein as it really is, both as it is eminently and supereminently. Indeed, more than this, one could further distinguish between a conceptual semblance and an essential semblance. Anxiety, here, is a mere conceptual semblance of Dasein in its supereminent possibility. It is inconspicuous being-in-the-world which possesses an essential semblance, a genuine image of Dasein in its pure possibility. It is, after all, Dasein's being-in-the-world which is tactillectively constituted, whereas objective presence consists in the interruption of tactillection—but on the “other side” of this interruption is the condition of thrownness, in its purity, wherein tactillective flow is unconquerable. There is, therefore, an intelligible semblance between Dasein's inconspicuous being-in-the-world, its everyday dealings in “the They”, and its supereminent condition of “pure thrownness”[2]. Moreover, the difference between the eminent expression of Dasein's being-in-the-world and its “sub-eminent” expression, as given above, is merely one of degree, a matter of intensity. They are essentially the same. It is through supereminence that one crosses over, beyond essence, beyond intelligibility, beyond being. Between this supereminent condition and the transcendental anxiousness of caprigenetic Dasein there is a “dissimilar similarity” (see the third part of my notes on the Prolegomena), and a generic ambiguity of a special kind—that is, the generic ambiguity between that which is the same as generic ambiguity itself, for all intents and purposes, namely, transcendentality, and that which transcends being and intelligibility. Again, this is what has been referred to elsewhere as the analogy between the “two nights”. Here, I also call it a “conceptual semblance”. Another crucial point, clearly implied in the diagram above and by the discussion thus far, is that even authenticity is, basically, an expression of archeimicty—a barricade against it, yes, but one that expresses that which it spurns, in spite of itself. I-saying (automorphosis) is a shadow of archeimicity. What automorphosis does succeed in postponing is not archeimicity as such, but eimimorphosis. It is an effective barrier only against subsumption into, or realization of, that which is “always already” the case.

Anxiety is the fear of the loss of authenticity, which is to say, the fear of archeimicity. Thus, one can characterize it both as an obstacle to archeimicity and as the passage leading to it (or the sign which indicates it). Anxiety is the urgency of I-saying—it says “what will you do without I—you will flop around like a fish out of water. I will safeguard you. I am equipped to handle every situation you come across”. You-saying is the defensive barricade of I-saying. It is a hostage situation and a bluff, a gun without bullets. “Solus ipse” is always already divided against itself—it is always you and I. Above all, it is nobody at all. Solipsism is a gallery of masks without faces, an extremely crowded situation. Indeed, what could be more “uncanny” than this? Uncanniness is the flavor of worldliness for caprigenetic Dasein, for that Dasein for whom merely being Dasein is no longer sufficient. It needs authenticity, as well, and the price of authenticity is anxiety and uncanniness.

Heidegger, then, considers anxiety to be a “fundamental mode of being-in-the-world” for Dasein. To the extent that such anxiety can reveal fundamental fractures in the Dasein's world which spur one toward an “archeimitic realization”, it is hard to dispute this contention. Consider, for instance, the anxiety that launched al-Ghazali on his path to realization, his transition from the disputation of philosophers to the contemplative rigor of tasawwuf. In that sense, it is “fundamental”. It is fundamental to Dasein attuned to the “screaming silence” of reason, Dasein confronted by the uncanniness of its own I-saying. However, for Heidegger, this constitutes a revelation of “world in its worldliness”, rather than world in its fractured character. Such an approach can only terminate in a sort of embarrassing and limp resignation (from whence Nazism, then? Nazism is that militant cosmopolitanism ranging abroad that safeguards the security of spiritual laziness “at home”). Neither the task of repairing these fractures (“archeimitic realization” or restoration of social integrality) nor the the possibility of seizing upon the fracturing power as a technology (Prometheanism) can reveal themselves to this closed mindset. Nazism, then, as I have suggested in my essay on the political spectrum, seeks to freeze the current world configuration, i.e. the current configuration of fractures in the world—it naturalizes and mythologizes this arrangement, with the “guardians of the ethnos” standing sentinel on one side of the divide, and the “volk” securely resting in the other, at the comfortable middle ground of the spectrum of oppositions.

1: Individuation is that nothing which marks off the individual from the species. It is precisely a nothing because the individual remains of the species in spite of the incision. It is cut off and not cut off. It is nothing at all which marks it apart, and therefore allows it to retain its togetherness.

2: It is worth noting that Heidegger does not use “thrownness” precisely as I do. He does not mean a condition that Dasein sometimes occupies and at other times does not, but indicates only a general feature of Dasein's manner of being. Our usages here do differ, but they are not unrelated. One could say that “pure thrownness”, as I use it here, is thrownness realized, a transcendent repose in passively intellected non-being. Put another way, Heidegger speaks of thrownness as the general “flavor” of Dasein's being. I am indicating the possibility of fully tasting it, imbibing it—drowning in it.

*

“Being-in was then made more concretely visible through the everyday publicness of the They which brings tranquilized self-assurance”

(182)

There is a definite tension in Heidegger between a “provincial authenticity” (fate) and a contempt or almost extreme “skepticism” toward the same. This tension is not a tension between two “alternatives” placed side by side, but the tension between a certain state of being and its origins. “The They”, for Heidegger, constitutes Dasein's initial mode of being, and only from out of it or through it is something like “authenticity” possible. Thus, only one who belongs to a “public world” can attain authenticity. Translated into reactionary political language: only a man of the volk can become a “guardian of the ethnos”. Authenticity ferrets out the “destiny” of “the They”, and resolutely seizes upon it.

*

“Tranquilized familiar being-in-the-world is a mode of the uncanniness of Dasiein”

(183)

In other words, tranquility (found in the “the They”, primarily) is only sought because of “uncanniness”, in order to flee this “uncanniness” (or anxiety). Here, Heidegger is attempting to subsume inconspicuous being in the They into authenticity, as if to say that the former is merely an inferior expression of the latter—hence, why settle for the inferior and “inauthentic” expression? It is fear that prevents this. Hence, the one who squarely faces uncanniness is a kind of “moral hero”. This Heideggerian framing of the situation is to be rejected since, in fact, he misses the distinction between caprigenetic Dasein and Dasein qua Dasein. Anxiety (uncanniness, etc) is a property of the fracturing of the world, not of “world as such”. One who primarily lives within world, in an intelligible way, has not necessarily encountered a fracture from which to flee [1]. There is a sense in which living within the intelligibility of some fractured portion of world is sufficient, an icon of the world in its full integrality. At the most basic level, the simplest and most primordial of fractures is that which occurs for primordial intellection through the intervention of the nothing, and the most primordial of “portions” of the fractured world in which one might dwell, therefore, are none other than the intellects themselves. Thus, the most basic world fracture looks something like this, if one were to express it as a figure—a circle divided into two broke circles (“horseshoes”), a kind of suspended cellular mitosis:

Is one, then, who lives exclusively within one such portion, scrupulously avoiding the points of fracture (whether deliberately, or simply through sheer obliviousness), simply fleeing? The task of transcending this fracture (“archeimitic realization”) has no relevance for most, and the task of repairing it (social revolution) is a Herculean one—neither of these tasks, by the way, are recognized by Heidegger. The Heideggerian task of merely “facing” this anxiety, that is, the task of “fateful authenticity”, is thankless, and frankly rather pointless. Is the one who is content with his portion of intelligibility really just “fleeing”? Only if we choose to frame uncanniness as the primordial phenomenon here, but that is ontologically absurd (the thinker like Heidegger who has hit upon the experience of uncanniness tends to believe that they have, at last, come face to face with the “real thing”—naturally, only a “moral hero” could be equal to this hard “truth”). In a sense, then, what Heidegger considers mere “fleeing” is a genuine solution to the problem of the “world-fracture”. It discovers a portion of this world in which intelligibility can still reside [2]. Perhaps, “fleeing into the “idle talk” of modernity is no adequate substitute for a fully intelligible and integral dwelling, but—and this is the crucial point—Heidegger's proposal of “facing up” to such anxiety is a pseudo-solution, a solution which itself “flees”, as it were, from the Herculean task of social revolution, or from the “scientific” and ascetical rigors of “archeimitic realization”.

1: Theoretically speaking, that is. Practically speaking, in the context of modernity especially, it is exceedingly unlikely to not encounter such a fracture, to say the least. Hardly anyone slumbers in “the They” that deeply. Nevertheless, from a theoretical standpoint, it is a mischaracterization of Dasein qua Dasein to attribute to it things which are characteristic of it only under certain “special” conditions and which, in terms of ontological structure, are merely caprigenetic.

2: Is this not what Heidegger has in mind in connection with fate? Yes and no. Fate is faced resolutely and authentically, and it is precisely this manner of submitting to fate which is characteristic of the caprigenus Dasein, rather than Dasein qua Dasein. Dasein qua Dasein simply is its own fate and requires no resolution or choice. It is its fate inconspicuously, whether it finds its fate in “the They” (horror of horrors!), or it finds it in an integral social environment. Heidegger desires the drama and moral heroism of a choice. This resolution, in paradoxical fashion, makes the “natural born son” of his nation, the “volkish” ideal, into a tourist of his own people. Volkishness is made into tourism, by virtue of attempting to be its opposite—even when it has every right to assert itself as its opposite, even when one's “volkishness” is fully credentialed and certified. It is the most perverse kind of tourism, a kind of union between masturbation and incest. The provinciality of the “first ontopolitanism” is a species approaching extinction, whether we like it or not. Attempting to re-engineer it into existence is product of the perverse will of all such reactionaries—the attempt to preserve the naturalness of nature, as though it needed any such assistance.

*

—Summary of insights, aka tl;dr:

1. Metaphysics is more concrete than ethnos.

2. Ritual clarifies and realizes the being of Dasein, “raising” it from everydayness into a more essential and intensified expression of itself.

3. “The They” is a deficient expression of Dasein’s sociality, and should not be taken as any kind of theoretical benchmark to be contrasted with “authenticity”.

4. “Thrownness” has a significance comparable to metaphysical non-Being.

5. The question of the real structure and nature of hermeneutic is a political battleground. Heidegger’s stance, in this domain, unsurprisingly, has an emphatically reactionary character.

6. The Marxist dialectic does not terminate in any Absolute. It transgresses Absolutes.

*

“At the same time, it contains an ontic indication, that an I is always this being, and not others”

(112)

This gives an indication of what atman is for passive intellect (Dasein). While atman [1], “in itself”, is beyond the differentiated modes of intellection, nevertheless, it “appears” in a certain way for these modes, e.g. as the summit of knowledge for active intellect. In the case of passive intellect's “perspective”, atman might initially appear as the most intimate and “authentic” core of Dasein's being-in-the-world, although the term “authentic” (while etymologically relevant) feels inadequate here. Indeed, this is really only the case for the caprigenus Dasein, and not for Dasein qua Dasein. Rather, what is involved in an approach to atman for passive intellect, the “radicalization” of its own peculiar manner of intelligibility—that is, an intensification of its “ecstatic temporality”. Atman therefore appears as the most “real life”, as the most ecstatic absorption in world, as the most undifferentiated unity of Dasein and world. This ecstatic unity is obviously something very different from the anonymity and conformism of “the They”.

1: For all intents and purposes, “atman” can be taken as propositionally equivalent to “primordial intellection”. It is “primordial intellection” as it appears from the standpoint of an inquiry into I-saying. Hence it is designated a kind of “real Self” behind the empty verbiage of I-saying. This kind of inquiry, as suggested above, assumes a caprigenetic origin point for itself.

*

“The phenomenological statement that Dasein is essentially being-with has an existential-ontological meaning...[namely,] that others of my kind also are...Factical being alone is not changed by the fact a second instance next to me...Their Dasein-with is encountered in the mode of indifference and being alien”

(117)

Heidegger's ethnocentric tendency is displayed here in his supposition that Dasein needs others of “his kind”. However, if Dasein's constitution is truly intellective, then the glue which brings together his “Mitwelt” is not ethnos, but a shared metaphysics, as a shared symbolic and ritual matrix (presuming, that is, that we are dealing with a “human Dasein”, and not Dasein in its pure intellective universality). Islam is a good case in point—a “multi-ethnic” civilization premised on a shared metaphysics (as well as its embodiment in a shared symbolic and ritual matrix). Comparatively, ethnos is something abstract next to metaphysics, the mere genera of a people during a given time and in a given place. Ethnos is not being, but its detritus. We can think of “ethnos” as the generic extension of automorphosis (“ahamkara”) on the scale of a whole people, the I-saying imputed to an abstract genus (the genus itself never says “I” of itself). Thus, ethnos only “exists” virtually. Ethnography is a study of intersecting abstract genera, not of that which is concretely real. Naturally, abstraction and virtuality are no real objection from the standpoint of (modern) science.

Communism, then, must provide the metaphysics, not of this or that civilization, but of the earth [1].

1: Not in the sense of the soil, primarily, but of the planet. “Soil” also has, of course, the significance of the integration of country and peasantry (with town and industrial proletariat), but under communism even country is disciplined, industrialized, planetized.

*

“The world of Dasein is a Mitwelt”

(116)

The perpetual being-with (even in its deficient modes) that characterizes Dasein's existential condition finds its complement, on the side of active intellect, in the intuition of the identity of all “selves”, the universality of the Self. It must be remembered that Dasein's everydayness is itself a deficient mode, and does not represent the peak of its ecstasy, that is, of its being what it is. Under the influence of such an “ecstasy”, Dasein's “care” must seem more like an inspired frenzy, a Dionysian communion, a mania that exceeds being and intelligibility.

*

“Being-with-one-another is based initially and often exclusively on what is taken care of together in such being”

(119)

The exemplary “what” which being-with-one-another takes care of is the ritual, that is, an activity which, like Dasein, has an intellective constitution. The shared participation in ritual (and it bears recalling that Dasein's shared being, his Mitwelt, does not require the ontic presence of another “next to him”) is the precondition for a seamless co-operation in more “profane” activities (in the sense of the ordinary “everyday” things, which, strictly speaking, are not really profane “in themselves”). Such ritual “lubricates” Dasein's intellective co-being (being-with-others). Even better when such “profane activities” are themselves ritually constituted (e.g. when ritual regulations lend a structure to the most ordinary activities like eating, bathing, sleeping, and so on). It is precisely through the aid of ritual that Dasein's “everydayness” can be surpassed through more eminent degrees of ecstasy, that is, by constituting everyday activities in an eminently intelligible manner. One of the real novel insights here is that passive intellection is equally susceptible of degrees of intensification, not only active intellection, and that ritual can equally serve as a support for both.

*

“This understanding...is not a knowledge derived from cognition, but a primordially-existential kind of being”

(120)

From the standpoint of passive intellect, “knowledge” tends to acquire its secondary meaning of “cognition” (whose basic form is the subject's perception of its object), and for active intellect , being tends to acquire a secondary significance of individual beings, that is, the ontic sense of “being”. Moreover, being and knowledge also acquire supplementary significations, as supports for the characteristic modes of intellecting which characterize the two intellects. Thus, in the case of active intellect, being acquires the supplementary significance of “the identity produced through knowledge”, that is, a stable and pure sense of being is attained through profound contemplation, as well as the unity and integrity that constitutes knowledge as knowledge. In the case of passive intellect, knowing also must acquire a supplementary role with respect to the primacy of being, as the support of being-in-the-world. What role is that? It would seem to be what Heidegger calls “the project” or “projection”, that knowledge-in-advance which constitutes being and beings and world for Dasein so that Dasein might be in a certain way, be with certain kinds of beings, and be-in relative to a certain kind of enclosing context. Knowing, in this higher sense (for passive intellect), while basically still performing a supplementary role relative to being, secures a certain worldliness for Dasein to be with reference to. Dasein always already knows being in a certain way, and this understanding constitutes, in advance, a certain kind of world for it to be in.

*

“The They”

(122-126)

“The They” is the perfect example of why Dasein's everydayness (in the context of “cosmopolitan modernity”) should not be taken as the exemplary instance of what Dasein is. This is a deficient expression of passive intellect (Dasein). This is not passive intellect “doing what it does in its own way”. When passive intellect is “fully operational”, being-with-one-another is more of a “being-with-God” or something like “God”, if we were to express this in religious terms. It is a highly conscientious way of being. The “guest right” is an instance of this sort of consciousness, as, by extension, is the culture of hospitality in general. Any and all other forms of “divinely permeated” forms of sociality can be included here, that is, those forms which, in a manner of speaking, divinity is given full breadth to socialize with itself. Divinity is allowed to to take the lead in bestowing gracious gifts upon itself in the form of “an other” (though, on a fundamental level, all such “otherness” is abolished, or at least partially dissolved). Adab as a “social instinct” is a prominent example. Contra the deficient everydayness, which Heidegger characterizes as “Everyone is the other and no one is himself”, through adab “everyone is the Self, and no one is other”. This conforms with the more profound meaning of the “Golden Rule”, which is liable to seem like a cliche due to the way it has been sentimentalized. It is quite apt that Heidegger refers to “the They” also as “the nobody”—it precisely entails the (apparent) absence of the personality, in the metaphysical sense of that term (see Guenon's “Man and His Becoming”), namely, the reality behind the persona. That is, perhaps, exactly the deficiency in question when this “modern everydayness” is called deficient—the deficiency of Self, in the metaphysical sense, the deficiency of a primordially intellective ground. Herein lies the only truly “metaphysically concrete” meaning of “authenticity” (from “auto” or “self”)—a way of being in which the Self (again—for all intents and purposes, equivalent to primordial intellection) is neither obscured (“the they”, “the nobody”) nor confined as mine alone (“ahamkara”, “egoism”). The Golden Rule, understood in its full implication, is “authenticity” (with due reservations regarding this term), or, more precisely, an intellectively permeated sociality.

*

“the equiprimordiality of constitutive factors”

(128)

Such an equiprimordiality seems eminently (note—eminently, not exclusively) characteristic of Dasein, as opposed to active intellect, due to passive intellect's “horizontal” structure. Apart from its center, passive intellect is all flow without beginning or end. Active intellect, on the other hand, is better represented as a hierarchical series of metaphysically successive states, though these states are, in a sense, simultaneous, and therefore also, basically, equiprimordial. However, symbolically speaking, a vertical simultaneity is comparatively less suggestive of equiprimordiality than a horizontal simultaneity—the former has the flavor (gnosense) of a genealogy, that is, of a sequence or succession, even if not strictly such.

*

“Mood”

(130-134)

Moods seem to be analogous (“ontological inverse”) to the “divine attributes” of traditional metaphysics. Each mood (which has a fully ontological value, and not merely a psychological one) discloses a specified possibility (inclusive of the potential and the actual) of being-in-the-world at the same time that it grants access to its “totality”. A science of invoking moods is conceivable, comparable to divine invocations (e.g. through symbols, ritual, music etc). That aforementioned “totality” is, presumably (judging by Heidegger's own pronouncements), none other than the condition of thrownness, or Dasein's awareness of it, which is, in a sense, an awareness of “pure being”. Producing a heightened awareness of thrownness must surely form a part of any passively intellective ascesis. There is something rather Zen-like about it. Thrownness while, from an ontic standpoint a kind of barren and uncanny wasteland, a “cremation ground”of being, is ontologically (or “existentielly” and existentially) plenary. Indeed, one might propose that thrownness is more ontologically plenary than being—that is, thrownness is effectively non-being for passive intellect. It is not non-being in an unqualified sense, but relative to a certain “state”, namely, that of passive intellection, thrownness functions as plenary non-being.

*

“[Dasein] is primarily being-possible...The being-possible, which Dasein always is existentially, is also distinguished from empty, logical possibility...[Ontological] possibility as an existential is the most primordial the ultimate positive ontological determination of Dasein”

(139)

This is aptly stated, albeit too general of a “definition”. Active intellect, like Dasein (or passive intellect), is also “being-possible”. One might be tempted to suggest that active intellect could be “eminently” characterized as “knowing possibility”, but a more precise point of differentiation between them still somehow feels wanting here, in terms of their relation with “possibility”. We might, then, refer to the distinction between act and potency, as providing an additional “axis” of differentiation—as follows:

What, then does the above, figured instance of ontological inversion tell us about “possibility” and its relation to the intellects? Really, the term “possibility” does not seem to add much to that figure that “knowing” and “being” on their own would not already communicate. However, in the first place, it should be recalled that possibility is “indifferent” to the act-potency distinction. Secondly, possibility eminently resides in non-being. This “non-being” in which possibility eminently resides, however, is not the transcendental nothing, but a “transcendent non-being”, as it were, analogous to the first perhaps, but nevertheless conceptually and ontologically distinct. It is this “higher” non-being which is absent from the diagram—thus, amended, it would look as follows:

Thus, we have a kind of ontological inversion within an ontological inversion. For instance, knowing eminently “resides” in act, but supereminently in a kind of “higher ignorance” analogous to a potency, which Plato calls “The Form of the Good” beyond being and intelligibility. The supereminence of knowing, therefore, “approximates” the eminence of being, and vice versa. Thus, it is especially qua possibility that each intellect is grounded in the other, or in their origin point of primordial intellect. Stated another way, it is by nearing its “opposite” intellect, as approximated by its own interior polarization (as potency-act), that each returns to the primordial condition wherein the intellects were not yet separated.

For more on “possibility”, see Guenon's “Multiple States of the Being”. On the metaphysical analogy of the “second night”, see the chapter titled “The Two Nights” in “Initiation and Spiritual Realization”, by the same.

*

“[Dasein] is never more than it factically is because its potentiality of being belongs essentially to its facticity”

(141)

Stated another way, for passive intellect it is precisely within the facticity of its present situation that the fullness of possibility (albeit, Heidegger here refers to “potentiality”, which, as a term, should really be considered distinct from possibility) is contained and nowhere else. Metaphysical “All-possibility” is unveiled, for passive intellect, through the thrownness of being-in-the-world.

*

“Interpretation is not the acknowledgment of what has been understood but rather the development of possibilities projected in understanding”

(144)

In other words, the intelligible already contains as a “synthesis-in-advance” that which can be “interpreted”. The possibilities of interpretation are intuited as intelligible plenitude, and only later is that plenteous intuition divided by the faculty of discrimination into specified interpretations. So, we should really distinguish between two sorts of interpretation. That just described can be termed “discriminatory”. Here, one only unravels what was “gifted” in advance by “the gods” (intuition). Another sort of interpretation is possible, however, one that I have begun to elucidate in my series on “Promethean Ontology” (or “communist metaphysics”). This form of interpretation, which is nevertheless implicit to the other (since every circle of hermeneutic is broken), centers not around plenitude, but privation and “mystery” (not taking this latter in its initiatic sense)—around the unknown, the capacity for rendering questionable. If the former hermeneutic is “divinatory”, then this one is human (in the Renaissance sense a la Mirandola) and Promethean, as well as, in a sense, eminently Mercurial (though, the divinatory hermeneutic is also Mercurial, albeit perhaps not in an eminent sense). In the former, Mercury is a mere messenger for the gods. In the latter, Mercury is unleashed in all his cunning and dissimulation, as he was from the first. The divinatory hermeneutic is also symbolized by Zeus' bird—incidentally, that same bird which pecks at Prometheus' liver, in some versions of the myth. That Mercury's cunning is nevertheless implicit in every divination, is exemplified, for instance, in the dark and sometimes misleading sayings of the Delphic oracle. Every oracular proclamation is questionable, and perhaps more open to interpretation than the dictate of divine authority would like. For the most part, I have already explained what this questioning hermeneutic entails and need not review it at this time. What Heidegger makes apparent here is that the divinatory hermeneutic itself can be divided into passively intellected and actively intellected portions. In a rough sort of way, these can be corresponded to Vico's distinction between the divination of the gentiles (passive), which he also calls “poetic wisdom”, and the revelation of the Hebrews (active), but this is far from exact, and it is the strange example that Vico highlights, of the messenger sent from the Scythians to the Persians that most fits the form of a passively intellected divination (though, not quite in a Heideggerian sense).

*

“But to see a vitiosum in this circle and to look for ways to avoid it, even to 'feel' that it is an inevitable imperfection, is to misunderstand”

(148)

In this sentimental resignation, Heidegger submits to a “closed cosmos” as the horizon of human being, a hermeneutic-cosmological circle without elbow room, enclosed by the threshold guardians “destiny” and “fate”. The hermeneutic circle is, however, “always already” broken. If it is to, nevertheless, somehow remain closed, something or another must sustain that impression. Below, this “something” has been given the form, for “symbolic” reasons, of the Niō deities that guard the entrances to Buddhist temples:

The hermeneutic circle is “always already” broken—qua circle, something or another must sustain it in its circularity. That “something” has an imperative value, implicit or explicit, and seems to say “the circle must not be broken” [1]. Even within a singular philosophy, this “something” can adopt a multitude of guises, but it is always the function that it performs, vis a vis the hermeneutic circle, that gives it away. In a general way, we can call this something or somethings the “guardians of the (hermeneutic) circle”. Within Heidegger's philosophy, they most characteristically appear as “destiny” and “fate”, but more on this later. Elsewhere I have referred to this same “something”, in the context of reactionary politics (including those of Heidegger), as the “guardians of the ethnos”. Functionally, they are the same and, indeed, the guardians of the ethnos are merely an instance of the guardians of the circle [2].

In this case, the circle, or cosmos, in question is one which primarily takes its reference from Logos in its symbolic mode, not its discursive mode as with the “closed cosmos” of the Enlightenment-era rationalists and empiricists. This is another commonality Heidegger shares with the Traditionalists—it is only the intellective polarity which differs. Indeed, if there is any piece of “evidence” which one can cite as proof that communism fundamentally surpasses Hegel, and the rational, generally, it is that no one, in all honesty, can call the Marxist-communist cosmos a closed one, that is, if we have in view communism as a “material” form of social revolution and organization. At an ideological level, many a hard-nosed Marxist materialist, in the most narrow sense, could stand in as a counter-proof of the claim, but that is merely a matter of intellectual fads, and not of anything necessitated by communism as the “real movement which abolishes the present order of things”. The Marxist dialectic (whether or not Marx was aware of it), does not terminate in an Absolute (e.g. “full communism”)—it transgresses Absolutes, a transgression which is not merely conceptual, but concretely historical and social (and, arguably, also metaphysical—more on this later), tangibly instantiated in the political form of proletarian dictatorship. This holds as much for the pseudo-Absolute of Hegel, as for the true Absolute of the traditional metaphysics.

1: Render the imperative too explicit and it might say something truly idiotic like “ethics is first philosophy”.

2: To give an even more historically specific example, within the history of the Americas, the aptly named “Knights of the Golden Circle” can be understood as an attempt at imposing the “ideal circle” of WASP hegemony on the expansive and evolving plurality of Latin America, an extension of similar efforts instituted within the United States.

*

“...grasping of what is objectively present in its essential unintelligibility”
(148)

What Heidegger fails to appreciate is that this transcendental unintelligibility, the transcendental nothing, is the passage leading out of the closed circle of interpretation. That is, it is precisely unintelligibility (of which “objective presence” is a species, especially as “staring”), that facilitates the productive hermeneutic of the broken circle. He traps himself within this circle by interpreting unintelligibility as mere unintelligibility, which allows him to dismiss it as a mere terminus for being and thought. Unintelligibility also has its hermeneutic, the hermeneutic of paradox.

The dismissal of “the nothing” is the flip side to the institution of guardians of the circle. The nothing must first be merely nothing, in order to make “space” for that which is to take its place within the circle. Granted, Heidegger has much to say about “nothing”, in a variety of capacities, but not in terms of its function within the broken circle of hermeneutic. It is the hermeutic function of the nothing which remains unappreciated.

*

“What is decisive is not to get out of the circle, but to get into it in the right way”

(148)

That is, what is decisive, is conforming to proper ritual orientation, integrating into the seasonal festivals, submitting to divine law. What is decisive, here as with the Traditionalists, is to circumambulate, that is, to complete the circle, an activity which likewise sustains the impression of its completeness. In the one case, passive intellect is the ontological point of reference in constituting the circle of ritual orientation, and in the other active intellect, but the symbolic-ontological structure is the same in both cases. One must get into the circle rightly, fatefully, resolutely submitting to destiny.

*

“There are many interim stages between an interpretation which is completely wrapped up in heedful understanding and the extreme opposite case of a theoretical statement about objectively present things”

(153)

Heidegger essentially affirms here that considerations pertaining to “degrees of being” apply equally from the standpoint of passive intellect. However, as I have already indicated elsewhere, these degrees should be thought of in terms of intensity. Another way of representing the degrees of being, from the standpoint of passive intellect, if we follow certain “clues” given by Heidegger (in describing objective presence as a “narrowing of vision”), is through the figure of a circle that is progressively segmented—circumspect heedfulness as a full circle becoming a half circle, a quarter circle, etc, until it narrows down to a line of the pure “theoretical” cognition of a “virtual” object by its detached subject. The main drawback of this figure is that it does not capture the aforementioned degrees of intensity. The “full circle” could just as well represent everyday circumspect being-in-the-world, that is, a “full circle” expressed at a low degree of intensity, as it could represent a “Dionysian” condition, the same expressed at a high degree of intensity.

*

“Discourse is the articulation of intelligibility...Discourse is the 'significant' structuring of the intelligibility of being-in-the-world”

(155-156)

Discourse is the “ontological inverse” of the symbolic (in the “Guenonian” sense), or, rather, another expression of this ontological inverse—that is, Dasein's symbolic structure includes “discourse” as part of its symbolic-world-structuring “function”, among many other aspects of its constitution [1]. Here the symbolic intelligibility of the world is unveiled through the temporal process of social relations. A matrix or net of meaning is built up out of these relations. Moreover, one could think of various social conventions (eminently, ones which are sacred) as the nexuses of this net, which anchor and orient its topography. The various Islamic “habitual expressions” which are so essential to “adab”, are an instance of such nexuses of meaning that constitute “existential discourse”. Worth noting that “discourse” is a rather poor choice of terminology. Traditional “etiquette” related to preference for listening over speaking, and preferring brevity and simplicity in speech, and so on, also constitute such “nexuses” of meaning in “Discourse” (the existential dimension of communication), structuring the social space of discourse “in advance” even when they are not adhered to.

1: Indeed, on the side of active intellect, symbols can take a variety of forms—visual, auditory, ritual, and in the form of both written and spoken word. Likewise, Dasein's symbolic structure can express itself through its participation in the work-world, in its being with others, in its speech, and so on.

*

“Dasein ex-presses itself not because it has been initially cut off as 'something internal' from something outside, but because as being-in-the-world it is already 'outside' when it understands” (157)

Here we see another aspect of the “ontological inversion” between passive and active intellect. Passive intellect externalizes being and intelligibility as a “way of living” or, rather, is the externality of being and intelligibility. Active intellection primarily has the character of an interior contemplation, even when it takes for itself external supports (e.g. ritual). Other instances of “ontological inversion” include ecstatic temporality (passive intellect) and ecstatic atemporality (the “eternal presence” of active intellect).

*

“Only one who already understands is able to listen”

(159)

An exact correlate of the way intelligibility “works” in the case of active intellection. The sage primarily communicates to those who already know. Moreover, this also clearly parallels the doctrine of anamnesis. One can only “learn” that which one already knows but has somehow “forgotten”. Intelligibility is basically constituted in the same way, irrespective of which of the intellects is in question.

*

“The person who is silent can 'let something be understood', that is, one can develop an understanding more authentically than the person who never runs out of words”

(159)

The silence of “mu—”, “mustikas”, the initiatic vow of silence, or else the receptive silence of “adab”.

*

“Language harbors in itself an interpretedness of the understanding of Dasein”

(162)

Hence, the continual recourse to etymology which characterizes both Heidegger and the Traditional metaphysics (though, the mode of etymology sometimes differs, i.e. greater “latitude” is given to metaphysical and folk etymologies in the Traditional context, from a philological point of view). Language, in both cases, is understood to be non-arbitrary—indeed, ontological, rooted in the most concrete (metaphysical) reality. Language comes not from mere convention but from being (eminently, in the sense of being-in-the-world) and from knowledge (eminently, in the sense of “jnana” or “gnosis”). In the traditional metaphysics, a certain primordiality is granted to speech (“shabda”). Is there an equivalent (“ontological inverse”) to this in Heidegger's existential ontology? The functions do seem similar since, for Heidegger, it is “discourse” itself which structures the intelligibility of the world. Moreover, as indicated above, both consider silence to be a more profound “mode” of speech.

The asmāʾal-ḥusnā (Iran, 19th century)

*

—Summary of insights, aka tl;dr:

1. “Being-in-the-world” and “Dasein” are one and the same reality, expressed from different standpoints, and with differing emphases.

2. “Facticity”, for Dasein, is a fabric of distinctive unities (unique-ness) within integral Unity.

3. An apophantic approach to Dasein would both theoretically clarify its structure and amplify its expression. That is, apophansis has both a theoretical significance and the practical significance of an ascesis.

4. Given Dasein’s intellective universality, there are no “beings which Dasein is not”, unless “Dasein” is taken in the sense of a caprigenus.

5. Because of its dependence on symbolic speech, one could say that any rigorous phenomenology has already been carried out in advance by our language.

6. The interruption of the flow of work that occurs when a tool is made “present at hand” has a Promethean significance. In this capacity, Prometheus is unveiled as the force that liberates us from technology, by means of technology.

*

“being-in-the-world indicates...a unified phenomenon...must be seen as a whole...[and] gives us a threefold perspective”

(53)

Another passage that, for the most part, requires no further comment. It all too clearly indicates the intellective character of being-in-the-world. One could also say that, if Dasein is passive intellect as “subject” (with all due reservations respecting the limits of this expression), then being-in-the-world is passive intellection taken in its operational character. That is simply to say that Dasein and being-in-the-world constitute the same phenomenon taken from different standpoints—Dasein as the “subject” (but only in a manner of speaking) of which being-in-the-world is the “experience”. In reality, these two are not divided one from the other, but constitute one and the same phenomenon. The “threefold perspective” here seems to mirror the triplicities with which the metaphysics of active intellect is often associated. In this case, the primary emphasis of the triplicity is on being in its “existential” sense (or “existentiell”, for the pedants), whereas in the metaphysics of active intellect the primary emphasis always relates to knowledge. Active intellection is (representable as) a union of the knower and the “object” to be known in the “act” of knowledge. Here, in what amounts to a metaphysics of passive intellection, we have a union as a “being-in”, a here-being, of the being for whom being is a question, with the world that constitutes the horizon of the being in question.

*

“facticity”

(56)

It is through notions such as “facticity”, among others, that Dasein's metaphysics of possibility shows up. Tentatively, one might propose as a definition of Dasein “the totality of possibilities (or, perhaps, better yet, the horizon of possibilities) which circumscribe the passively intellective pole of manifestation”—thus, even more concisely, Dasein is All-passively-intellective-possibility. Within that horizon, there are yet other metaphysical “aspects” which render intelligible certain regions of possibility within Dasein—facticity, for instance, which is none other than Dasein's possible factualness (and, it should be stressed at this point that “possible” is inclusive of “actual”, not its opposite which would be “potential”). The “number” of such “aspects” might, in theory, constitute a “multitude that surpasses all number”, as Guenon puts it (see the third chapter of “Metaphysical Principles of the Infinitesimal Calculus”), though, like the “ninety-nine names of Allah” (the asmāʾal-ḥusnā), a certain symbolic figure might prove adequate to a circumscription of the totality of such aspects—that is, a certain symbolic number may prove tactillectively appropriate.

*

“With its facticity, the being-in-the-world of Dasein has already dispersed itself in definite ways of being-in, perhaps even split itself up. The multiplicity of these kinds of being-in...”

(57)

The specifics of the parallels between the metaphysics of active intellect (i.e. antique metaphysics) and the metaphysics of passive intellect (i.e. Heideggerian ontology) are important to map out, not necessarily in order to be exhaustive, but for the sake of deepening the comparison. Here we find one such structural similarity. “Facticity” seems to act for Dasein as the numerical “1” which is the basis of all subsequent multiplicity. This facticity, through a sort of “repetition”, is productive of all diverse “factual situations” which constitute Dasein's manifest actuality (or, rather, its specifically passive character in mind—that which constitutes its “inconspicuous potency”). One might characterize “facticity” as the gnosensiential specificity of Dasein's situation, or the factual diversity internal to any situation. It is not simply a matter of objectively present “facts”, but of their intelligible relevance and “innerwordliness”. Each “fact” is an intelligible whole within and inseparable from the intelligible whole of the situation—so many “ones” within “the one” of the surrounding world, gnosensientially specified expressions of “the one”, each distinctly and indistinctly “one”, distinct because of its “one-ness” (which is to say, “unique”) and indistinct in its “one-ness”. Facticity is intelligible unity multiplied in unity, and not mere numerical unity, but that unity which is more truly a unity by virtue of its distinctness, i.e. that which is unique. To enumerate these unities is to enter into objective presence. Dasein's facticity is the integral tapestry of the unique.

*

“The phenomenological demonstration of being-in-the-world has the character of rejecting dissimulations and obfuscations”

(58)

This methodology for accessing Dasein is apophantic—“neti, neti” [1]. Here, its deployment is only toward (or, primarily toward) producing an account of Dasein, but presumably, this should be convertible into an “ascesis” which realizes Dasein (passive intellect) in its profounder possibilities—that is, theory should be convertible into practice. Indeed, it is quite likely that many readers of Heidegger have experienced such realizations in the course of their study, that his writing has induced them to see in a new way (only really “new” for one who primarily identifies with the subjective-objective states characteristic, eminently, of modernity), since, in order to really be understood, that which Heidegger discusses must be seen and not only thought about. At the same time, this effect of his writing undoubtedly also explains the tendency towards sycophancy among his followers. This apophantic approach obviously also dovetails with his insistence on a “destruction” of traditional ontology. What seems to really be in question here is the banishment of transcendental subjectivity as limit, and only insofar as it enforces itself as limit, not “in itself”. That the transcendental horizon constitutes the limit of possible ways of being and knowing is the “illusion” which this method aims to dispel. This illusion has taken for itself diverse historical forms, such as scientism, and continually invents new ones for itself. Because Dasein's real “content” is basically “positive”, to negate (a negation “aiming” at passive intellection rather than active) these limits suffice to render Dasein phenomenologically transparent. Thus, while apophaticism, in an unconditioned sense, tends toward the realization of the Unconditioned “as such”, there are also subsidiary apophaticisms corresponding to the two intellects, ways of negation aimed at removing the (predominately “subjective”) obstructions standing in the way of intellection, whether of a passive or active modality.

1: A cataphatic approach would be just as legitimate. Such an approach would be most appropriate when Dasein is studied in a “traditional” context, in ritual life, even in the “primitive world”. To study Dasein cataphatically is, optimally speaking, to study it in its intensive expression, though the cataphatic stuff of everydayness is also serviceable for such a study.

*

“Dasein understands itself ontologically...initially in terms of those beings and their being which it itself is not”

(58-59)

Given the frequency of Heidegger's use of the expression “those beings which Dasein is not” (or variations thereof), it is worth noting that, insofar as Dasein truly is itself, there are no beings which Dasein is not, and this follows necessarily from the intellective nature of Dasein, the intelligible unity of its constitution. Moreover, this contrastive understanding (Dasein over against beings), while regular for Dasein, is not, existentially its eminent state of being, nor its metaphysically (or principially) initial understanding (though, in the history of any given Dasein, this understanding may be more or less temporally initial). The intellectively unitary understanding is necessarily (ontologically) prior to, and acts as the ground of, any contrastive way of being. The inconspicuousness of the everyday, when expressed intensively, is also the indistinction of Dasein and its world with all its innerworldly beings.

*

“being-in has for the most part been represented exclusively by a single exemplar—knowing the world”

(59)

Here Heidegger intimates, though I am not sure that he ever fully elaborates, the problem that I have previously referred to as the “Gordian knot of knowing and being”, as well as its relation to the eminence of knowing and being for active intellect and passive intellect, respectively. In the sentences that follow, Heidegger makes it clear that he only recognizes “knowing” in the most secondary sense, a knowing which is “theoretical” and of which the subject-object relation forms the horizon. To the extent that a more primary mode of knowing is possible, it is usurped by Dasein and identified with being-in-the-world. In this way, Heidegger skews the metaphysical symmetry of knowing and being in favor of the eminence of being through passive intellect, just as the traditional metaphysics skews it in favor of the eminence of knowing through active intellect.

*

“Knowing is a mode of being of Dasein as being-in-the-world”

(61)

This, of course, is a perfectly valid derivation of “knowing”, depending on the sense that one takes it. That “knowing” which is derivative or subsidiary to the being of Dasein is either that way of understanding that it has through being-in-the-world (which is indeed a knowing, but not in an eminent sense), or is that which is characteristic of transcendental subjectivity, the latter of which follows through the narrowing or specification of Dasein's being. At the same time, this “second knowing”, that which characterizes transcendental subjectivity, is just as plausibly derivable from knowing in a “higher” and more eminent sense—that is, from gnosis, jñāna, active intellection. In the first case (derivation of knowing from being), transcendental subjectivity is the possibility [1] for specification, for rendering as presence-at-hand a world that is all continuous flow, an unbroken Dionysian circle of bacchants. Here, the preliminary stages of “knowledge” consist in the world's leaping into our awareness piecemeal. Each thing, leaping out of its context (with which it previously seemed indissolubly united), comes before us encircled in mystery, and that “mystery” is none other than the privation of context which now surrounds it. Thought rushes in to thread this open wound (interpretation as interpenetration). In the second case (derivation of “knowing” from knowing), transcendental subjectivity is the possibility of constraining intuition within the structures of discursive thought or “transcendental categories” (e.g. res extensa). In the first case, we have a “greater and a lesser phenomenon”—phenomenon as that which unveils itself within the womb of the world, and phenomenon as an appearance which I, as subject, behold (“stare at”). In the second case, we have a “greater and lesser logos”—Logos as the symbol mysteriously identified with the symbolized (that is, intelligibility manifest in, as, and through the symbol), and logos as the proliferation of discursive concepts (whose proper order and structure depends on the previously established intelligibility which has now been “translated” into conceptual thought). Next to these two derivations is a third derivation [2]—the paradoxical derivation of transcendental subjectivity from out of itself. That is, first transcendental subjectivity (or that nothing which later “becomes” transcendental subjectivity) intrudes into primordial intellect, and only then is it born. This indicates the Promethean character of the transcendental subject—not only its capacity for making provision for the future, but that it seems to reach into the present (indeed, even to the past) from out of the future, to such an extent that one can say that it is its own son before it is its own father, that its not-yet is the cause of its presently-is. The transcendental subject is not only toward the future, it is from the future.

1: A possibility for a world already sundered and polarized along the two intellects, but an impossibility in itself, as it were.

2: Also worth considering here the derivation of being from knowing, knowing from being, and being from being, in the cases of passive and active intellect. Otherwise, the above account is incomplete. At present, I think it suffices to leave this as a suggestion.

*

“We can describe the 'outward appearance' of these beings...but that is obviously a pre-phenomenological business...it is ontic”

(63)

On the contrary, it is precisely a post-phenomenological affair. Unless phenomenology, as essentially a mode of intuition [1] (or a mode of expression adequate to passively intellective intuition), assumes its own priority over all merely ontic specification, it loses its whole meaning and raison d'etre. Indeed, it is not only the phenomenon “itself”, in its initial unveiling, which is prior to any particular ontic specification, but the original logos of phenomena, as well. This rudimentary phenomenal-logos inheres in the metaphoric basis of language, hence Heidegger's continual recourse to grounding his speculations in etymology. The real “work” of phenomenology has already, effortlessly, been carried out in advance by the very language we speak. This metaphoric (not in a trite, “literary” sense) and poetic dimension of language finds its complement in the simultaneously present symbolic dimension of language. In Greek antiquity, these complementary dimensions of language find their exemplars in Plato the metaphysician (symbolic dimension; explored throughout his dialogues, most eminently in the “Cratylus”), and in Homer the poet who Plato, somewhat unjustly, banished from his Republic. Nevertheless, in spite of this literary banishment, Plato's body of work as a whole evinces a deep reverence for Homer.

1: That is obviously only one kind of phenomenology, but, in the first place, one could say that it is phenomenology par excellence since it not only shows beings but shows beings in their being, and, in the second place, it is, for the most part, the kind of phenomenology pursued by Heidegger.

*

“The Greeks had an appropriate term for 'things': πράγματα, that is, that with which one has to do in taking care in dealings” (πρᾶξις)”

(68)

Here one can find the point of access from Heidegger into the theory of “pragmapathy”. If “praxis” is understood as the unity of theory and practice, then here we find a more primordial form of “praxis” (with its roots in the “first ontopolitanism”) wherein a pretheoretical disposition is united, integrally, with “practice”, here understood as a seamless integration into the already-present equipmental whole, the integrally constituted work-world. This is not yet an “authentic” pragmapathy, which implies the possession of an eminently theoretical disposition. Thus, pragmapathy can be more adequately contextualized as a mode of human activity which is most eminently characteristic of the “second ontopolitanism”, and therefore necessarily associates itself with a communistic form of social production. Pragmapathy is not free-floating ideology, which can be applied just anywhere and anyhow, but a definite social and historical stage of human activity. While it may have had various precursors “before its time”, its widespread proliferation as a mode of activity depends on very definite social and historical factors (i.e. primarily the advent of communism).

*

“What we encounter as closest to us, although we do not grasp it thematically, is the room...A totality of useful things is always already discovered before the individual useful thing”

(68)

Here, that which is symbolically primary for Heidegger demonstrates itself with a specific illustration. Already, Heidegger has highlighted the importance of “Umwelt”, and here a specific instance of the “Umwelt” (the room) demonstrates its own “position” vis a vis Dasein's being-in-the-world. Enclosing space is that which is symbolically (symbolically = intelligibly) nearest to Dasein, the primary factor in the intelligibility of any “thing”. Therefore, even if unstated, any specific determination Heidegger makes can always be presupposed to have, as the ground of its intelligibility, some sort of “Umwelt” lying “behind” it. This priority of the “Umwelt” in Heidegger's metaphysics may lead one to wonder whether his emphasis on passive intellection might find its support in a metaphysics which treats Prakriti as primary (and, moreover, allows it to speak “from its own point of view”). Furthermore, how does this priority on “the feminine” differ from that found in Shaktism?

*

“The kind of seeing of this accommodation to things is called circumspection [Umsicht]”

(69)

Another very curious parallel to the traditional repository of symbols here. The primary way of acting in the world, for Dasein, has a “circular” form (circum-spect; the “Um” in “Umsicht” also suggests a sur-round-ing). Likewise, the symbolic character of traditional activity (when it is not specifically initiatic) consists in traversing the periphery, in circumambulation, which can be ritually instantiated in keeping to the cyclical and yearly festivals, or in ritual orientation (qibla), etc. That is, it consists in a movement oriented with reference to the “center”, without necessarily moving toward it (which would be characteristic of specifically initiatic activity). This traditional symbolism, then, seems even to invisibly condition Dasein's everydayness. Thus, the thesis that passive and active intellection have analogous structures finds confirmation here, even as pertains to the non-intensive expression of passive intellection in the form of everydayness”.

*

“What everyday dealings are initially busy with is not tools themselves, but the work”

(69)

In a sense, then, Dasein's “authentic being” is a remnant of the shadowy mytho-historical era of man's slavery to the gods, and reactionary thought, especially to the extent that it draws on or resembles Heidegger's rubric, is a nostalgia for the more “comfortable” era in which man, as divine slave, was exempt from all real responsibilities, in which life nothing but the seamless integration into all that which was determined-in-advance for man by the gods (as expressed later in this text, Heidegger only fully affirms this integration when it, in turn, is affirmed “resolutely” and “authentically”—no matter, the end result is the same). In this nostalgia, therefore, there is also regret for the Promethean deed that interrupted this “integral” slave-existence, this paradisal dream of heavenly custodianship. The interruption, in question, is that which brings the tool, a divine gift from a divine rebel, into sharp focus, and makes it accessible to man's manipulation. Thus, it is not purely and simply that Prometheus gave us tools, as in the Greek myth, but just as crucially, as in the Biblical myth, he “opened our eyes” so that we saw the distance between tool and work, assessing it, and its possible ends, for good or evil. It is this distance, according to the conventional religious view a terrible curse, which allows us to modify both the tool (technological development) and the work (social revolution, which also entails determining new avenues and contexts for work). There is no question whatsoever of a non-technological state of being, for man. Paradisal existence, too, was thoroughly technological. The Promethean rebellion liberates us from technology in the only way possible—by continually innovating and modifying the “work-world” of technological implements, by disrupting the integral fabric of being-in-the-world. Paradise is a work-world so closely bound together that the possibility for innovation of any kind is inconceivable within its horizon. Hence, the need, exemplified in the myth, for an outside intervention into the human domain by a divine rebel. What the actual character of this “outside intervention” was, in a historical sense (for instance), can only be a matter of speculation, more or less groundless.

*

“The simple conditions of craft contain a reference to the wearer and user at the same time. The work is cut to his figure; he 'is' there as the work emerges”

(70)

Here, the fundamentally social character of intellect is unveiled. Work, especially (but not only) in the mode of passive intellection, acts as the real , “metaphysically concrete” nexus which unites producer and society here and now, in a sort of ecstatic temporality, whether through the “ecstatic becoming” of passively intellected being-in-the-world, or through the “eternal presence” of actively intellected ritual work. This is why the fruition of communism cannot be realized within the exclusive limits of its “Protestant” origins, namely, because Protestant religiosity is, for the most part, intellectively privative. Communism begins there (in “theoretical Protestantism”), establishes its “theoretical freedom” (the freedom of the “transcendental nothing”) there, but can only find completion, socially, in the integral sociality of the intellective (that is, on “Catholic soil”, as it were). Naturally, the union of these two streams, transcendental and intellective, “Protestant” and “Catholic”, acquires very distinctive qualities as compared with either taken separately, and cannot be reduced to their mere sum. This union, of course, is the “second ontopolitanism” which, in more historically concrete terms, is communism or proletarian dictatorship, and in mythic terms is Atlantis or the Tower of Babel.

*

“Here the world is encountered in which wearers and users live...The work taken care of in each case is not only at hand in the domestic world of the workshop, but rather in the public world. Along with the public world, the surrounding world of nature is discovered and accessible...Nature is discovered as having some definite direction on paths, streets, bridges, and buildings. A covered railroad platform takes bad weather into account, public lighting systems take darkness into account, the specific change of the presence and absence of daylight...Clocks take into account specific constellation in the world system”

(70-71)

This shows some of the limitations of Heidegger's method, alluded to elsewhere, in which he takes Dasein's everydayness within modernity as the exemplary case of Dasein's manner of being. While this elucidation of Dasein is certainly illuminating, it fails to capture Dasein at its most essential and primordial (worse yet, Heidegger mistakes Dasein's “authenticity” with its essence and primordiality—but more on this later). Nonetheless, even here we can see the symbolic character of Dasein's way of being, in which each symbol's intelligibility is the plenitude of the intelligibility of every other. Here the various “tools” that surround us have the character of symbols, though Heidegger, only dealing with these tools in a “profane” capacity, reduces them to mere “references” and “signs”. A fully symbolic account of roads, to take one example, would look toward the multitude of their antique associations, e.g. the “herma”, Hecate, etc, and then situate them in the context of passive intellection. Heidegger's later philosophy attempts to come to grips with this, situating Dasein in the context of “the gods” and sacrality, after a fashion.

*

“Handiness is the ontological categorial definition of beings as they are 'in themselves'”

(71)

This is particularly true, of course, chiefly from the standpoint of passive intellect. This is, indeed, a highly appropriate way of representing passive intellect, of conceptualizing the “in itself” of things viewed in terms of passive intellect. It is at the level of the resultant split between active and passive intellect, from “out” of primordial intellect, that being and knowing take on the appearance of a polar relationship, with one mode of intellect tending toward being (passive intellect) and the other toward knowing (active intellect). In either case, unions between being and knowing are achieved, but these unions evince “inverse” constitutions in relation to one another. Put another way, passive intellect unites knowing and being in such a way that being is prioritized, and active intellect such that knowing is prioritized. The prioritization of being shows up as a being-in-the-world, and that manner of being-in is essentially inseparable from a manner of living, of dealing with things, of handling things, and so on—and in such a way that an understanding (read: “knowing”) of being is projected, determining the character of beings in advance. Thus, “handiness” is that manner of being in which things are known to passive intellect. In a manner of speaking, one could say that passive intellect is “active” (oriented toward activity), as paradoxical as that might sound. Active intellect, then, is contemplative (which, incidentally, is a sort of “passivity”). The beings which active intellect encounters are not handled, but noetically penetrated, or, better yet, allowed to noetically penetrate oneself, presenting themselves in their most interior quality to our interiority. Beings (in more than a merely “ontic” sense) are merely the icons of knowledge. The union of knowing and being, as effected by active intellect, means the transparency of beings to knowledge, or, again, to put it another way, that one (or the mirror of one's “mind”) becomes clear and transparent, like a pool of water wherein beings show themselves. For passive intellect, knowledge is being, that is, a way of being-in-the-world. For active intellect, beings in their being are known in knowledge, that is, beings are “doorways” leading onto knowledge, as well as the icons exemplifying that knowledge, being that knowledge. Granted, such discursive formulations of the symmetry of the intellects have a certain awkwardness to them, and they can never serve as a substitute for the gnosense of this distinction.

*

“The whole workshop...as a totality that has continually been seen before and in our circumspection. But with this totality, world makes itself known”

(74)

If this “world = workshop” equation is extended in an initiatic direction, one is tempted to make comparisons with the craft-based and demiurgic symbolism of Freemasonry. If one furthermore considers that the initiatic structure of Freemasonry primarily centers on the exercise of active intellect, as do all hitherto initiatic structures (or so it would seem), then one is confronted with the rather tempting prospect of integrating the theoretical findings of Heidegger, which approach craft from the standpoint of passive intellect, into this prior framework. The union of these two standpoints could facilitate the reinvigoration of that same tradition, and at the same time help it break out of the degraded “organizational” and needlessly “secretive” framework with which it is saddled. Indeed, it could be the precondition of an “esoteric populism”, of the kind I have alluded to elsewhere. More generally, such a passively intellective “reconceptualization” of work could support an integral and initiatic appropriation of craft and labor in a broader sense, including, most crucially for our period, industrial labor. We have a template for such a form of organization, albeit adjusted to the proportions of artisinal labor, in the futuwwa guilds of the Middle Ages. These guilds merit closer study, with the preceding considerations in view.

*

“Thus the formal, universal character of relation becomes apparent...Finally, we must even show that 'relation' itself has its ontological origin in reference because of its formal, universal character”

(76-7)

In a sense, then, reference is the “ontological inverse” of the symbolic, on the side of passive intellection. That is, reference is for passive intellection what the symbolic is for active intellection. Naturally, it is only a matter of Heidegger's peculiar terminology. There is nothing preventing us from referring to passive intellect's “referential structure” as a “symbolic structure”, even if we understand the “symbol” somewhat differently in the case of passive intellect as compared with active intellect, and, in fact, the term “reference” is rather sterile and awkward by comparison. In either case, “reference” (more precisely, “referential totality”) or “symbol”, an integrally intelligible structure is indicated, a structure one knows and is “embraced” by. In any case, if this hypothesis holds any water, then the various existential structures of Dasein should be comprehensible as “reference” or “symbol” (e.g. dwelling, taking care, etc). We shall have to wait and see if Heidegger makes this connection between existential structure and referential totality explicit. As an aside, it is also worth noting that Heidegger's use of the term “universal”, above, conforms more to the sense of “generic” or “abstract” rather than intellective universality. In any case, it is clear that “reference” has precisely the same function as the symbolic, namely, of drawing things into intelligible and integral connection with one another (in the case of the symbolic, in the usual sense, this can be termed a “qualitative affinity”) and at the same time drawing them into connection with “the essential” (for the “symbolic”, this is knowledge, eminently in the contemplative sense; for the “referential”, this is being as being-in-the-equipmental-whole = world).

*

“Signs...are useful things which explicitly bring a totality of useful things to circumspection”

(78)

—in brief, passively intellected symbols, “relations” which integrally anchor us in an intelligible context and, vis a vis the passively intellective mode that we are prioritizing here, facilitate “heedful dealings” with beings, securing the uninterrupted flow of our being-in-the-world.

*

“Signs indicate what is actually 'going on'. Signs always indicate primarily 'wherein' we live, what our heedfulness is concerned with, what relevance it has

(79)

Heidegger's reflections on sign and reference help clarify the essential character and shortcomings of the surrealist movement. Indeed, they help in unmasking the basically “hyper-rationalist” character of the surrealists. Their task, fundamentally, presupposes the sign as an obstacle to being (or being-in-the-world) rather than an access point or nexus of our “heedful living”. Being, for the surrealist, can only be broken into through the accumulated derangement of signs, as though the more signs one distorted the closer one were to get to “real” being and essentiality (it should come as no surprise that in a late surrealist like David Lynch this “real being” is reduced to sex and violence). In the first place, therefore, they presuppose a purely formal meaning for all signs rather than an ontological one. Since rationality, as the sign-saturated world, is primary for them, being can only be the privation of this rational order of things. All that which is not rational is taken as less than rational and proceeds by a subtraction of the rational. At no point, however, is intelligibility ever evaded or excluded. Intelligibility is implicit in every expression whatsoever, no matter how indirectly. The method and tendency of surrealism, however, is from a starting point in hyper-rationalist presupposition toward a telos of sub-rationality. It aims, implicitly, at the exclusion of intelligibility, an exclusion it can never actually accomplish. Such “hyper-rationalist irrationalism”, or the rudiments of it, can also be found in a variety of intellectual currents, without necessarily resulting in anything “surreal”, such as the work of Nietzsche.

*

“But the character of not emerging and keeping to itself, which we described, belongs to the being of innerworldly beings at hand closest to us. Thus circumspect dealings in the surrounding world need a useful thing at hand which...takes over the 'work' of letting things at hand become conspicuous [i.e. the sign]”

(79)

That is, the sign has the function of manifesting the “hidden” portions of being, and it bears recalling that for Heidegger “being” means, primarily and in a grounded and “practical” sense, being-in-the-world. That which is hidden for passive intellection, is hidden within the flow of temporal existence (especially, perhaps, within the “work world”), hidden in the inconspicuousness of everyday taking care, not in the inaccessible heights of initiatic knowledge. An intensification of passive intellection, e.g. through ritual means, would tend in the opposite direction of objective presence, an entrance into the depths of the inconspicuous, to become inconspicuous oneself, to accomplish all “effortlessly”. This is Dasein at its most essential, at the opposite pole of its “authenticity”—less conspicuous than everyday dealings in the They, less “authentic”, not more, not the Dasein which says “I” but the Dasein that wanders eyeless in the cavern of the world, more anonymous than any crowd, invisible to itself, plainer than a clod of dirt. Being is unremarkable. Through the tactillection of a sign (or symbol, ritual), that which stands forth “skillfully”, intelligibly, integrally—through this bright opening we enter into the obscurity of being.

*

“The narrowness of intelligibility and use corresponds to the breadth of what can be indicated in such signs”

(80)

“Signs” delimit regions of being (albeit, not in such a way as to render objectively present), a function which is exactly parallel to the symbolic with respect to active intellect. Moreover, the “skillful” constitution of such “signs”, the “breadth of what they can indicate”, corresponds to what I have elsewhere termed “tactillection”, an adaptation of the Sanskrit “upaya”. “Use”, in the above passage, means inconspicuous and circumspect taking care, and thus is roughly equivalent to “intelligibility” as taken from the standpoint of passive intellect. This might imply that tactillection is eminently a function of passive intellect. At its most intensive expression, tactillection is for passive intellect what uninterrupted flow of contemplation is for active intellect, or what is otherwise known as “samadhi” [1]. The skillful presence of tactillection retains skillful absorption even in the event of a breakdown of the equipmental whole, adapting itself instantaneously, converting obstacles into instruments. A condition of insconspicuous dealings is obviously in question here which is not that of Dasein's mere conformity to the everyday “publicness” of the They, though also obviously related to such, similar in kind to this “publicness” and different in kind from “authenticity”. To be clear, active intellect's relationship with the symbolic can equally be characterized as “tactillective”, but not eminently so. Tactillection is not something which is merely constituted as useful for Dasein (passive intellect), but is its very manner of being—skillful dealings which never rupture the anonymity of inconspicuous taking care. The anonymity of this condition is sagacious, as astonishing is it is ordinary. This is Dasein at its most intensive and essential, qua Dasein.

1: As an equivalent rendering of “samadhi”, over and against “tactillection”, we might provisionally forward “concentrillection”—both the intact preservation of the concentric sphere of intelligibility, and a concentrated absorption in contemplation (naturally expressing itself in varying degrees), a term signifying integrity and intensity. Concentrillection is for active intellect what tactillection is for passive intellect, and just as tactillection can be equally applied to active intellect and its operation, but not eminently, just so with concentrillection vis a vis passive intellect.

*

“Primitive world, signs etc”

(80-81)

I only wish to mark these passages down as providing some of the most explicit indications of the parallels between the traditional metaphysics of symbols and Heidegger's philosophy. In light of such passages, it could not be more abundantly clear that Dasein is, in fact, an intellect, and that the phenomenology of Dasein, when carried out rigorously, is inevitably a metaphysics.

*

“This discussion should tell us on what fundamentally undiscussed ontological foundations the interpretations of the world after Descartes, and especially those preceding him, are based”

(87)

An absurd methodology, and precisely what I have elsewhere accused Heidegger of. He works backwards from Descartes toward the ancient (and medieval) ontology. He assesses the ancient ontology as though it were a proto-Cartesianism. This is why he fails to see his own structural parallels with the traditional articulations of metaphysics.

*

“Medieval ontology left the question of what being itself means just as unquestioned as did ancient ontology”

(92)

To the extent that this is true, it is because ancient and medieval metaphysics takes its point of departure from active intellection and this places an emphasis on knowing rather than being. Heidegger is derelict toward knowing in a manner symmetrical with the ancient ontology's dereliction toward being. He leaves unexamined how and what knowing knows, or how knowing knows being, what kind of a “knowing” the knowing of being is. Heidegger, in essence, “reduces” knowing to a “mode” of being, just as the ancient metaphysics “reduced” being to a mode of knowing (an identification that occurs in and through intellective contemplation, or else the summit of intellective contemplation when it is a question of “pure Being”).

*

“Descartes explicitly switches over philosophically from the development of traditional ontology to modern mathematical physics and its transcendental foundations”

(94)

The “transcendental turn” in philosophy is the mother of modern theoretical science. Credit should be given where credit is due. At the same time, we should not lose sight of the fundamental problem which Heidegger has set upon addressing, namely, the fact that being has been forgotten as a consequence of this “transcendental turn”. Heidegger, however, imputes this forgetfulness to Plato, Parmenides, Aristotle etc by projecting Cartesianism backwards to antiquity. There is a limited truth to this interpretation, in the sense that this stream of philosophizing prioritizes knowing over being. We should forget neither being nor knowing. However, if we approach the recollection and repossession of being as a sort of “imperative”, we are then in danger of forgetting the “transcendental turn”. There is no reasonable justification for discarding this development. It is only as a limiting horizon that transcendental subjectivity is really objectionable. “Authenticity”, too, is a limiting horizon. “Authenticity” is none other than the idolatry of being, the imperative to make being into a limiting horizon. It is not being pure and simple, being as it just is, but being plus the imperative of “resolute fidelity” to being (as though being “required” that of us!). Moreover, there is no reason to suppose that a sort of parallel development would not have resulted had this forgetfulness of being never occurred and, instead, the development of metaphysical thought (and, let there be no doubt, Heidegger's existential ontology is a metaphysics) had proceeded through a forgetfulness of knowing wherein being was emphasized. Undoubtedly, different sorts of deviations would have occurred socially, culturally, and philosophically, just as rueful as those which the forgetfulness of being has produced. Transcendence turns to the transcendental, by the grace of Prometheus. Revolution is the destiny [Geschick] of the earth, and emancipation is the fate [Schicksals] of earth-born humanity.

*

“Spatiality”

(99-110)

Extensive discussion of spatiality, directionality, etc, with far reaching parallels to the traditional metaphysics of space, ritual orientation, etc. Like the already mentioned passages on the “primitive world” of Dasein, these are worth revisiting with the intellectivity of Dasein in mind.

Byzantine mosaic depicting the parable of the separation of sheep and goats

*

—Summary of insights, aka tl;dr:

1. Marxism is indispensable in the task of articulating a thorough and comprehensive social ontology of modernity. The indications given by Heidegger, toward this end, are insufficient.

2. Proletarian dictatorship is the institution which integrates the fractured pieces of modernity into a historically meaningful unity. Heideggerians can only provide pseudo-solutions.

3. The “social ontology” of communism does not only have the sense of a theoretical elaboration, but also of a “conversion experience”, a communist metanoia that modifies own being.

4. Symbolism is a necessary support for technical jargon, but a technical jargon divested of such support also has its own significant role in the development of modern science.

5. The “I” which Heidegger makes central to Dasein is no more characteristic of Dasein then of active intellect or transcendental subjectivity. It cannot, therefore, be distinctive of Dasein qua Dasein. Dasein as constructed by Heidegger, then, is an “aggregate” or “caprigenus”.

*
“Philosophy is universal phenomenological ontology, taking its departure from the hermeneutic of Dasein, which, as an analysis of Existenz, has fastened the end of the guideline of all philosophical inquiry at the point from which it arises and to which it returns”

(36)

Herein lies one of Heidegger's fundamental errors, which is really more of a partial truth. For, while it is perfectly true that Dasein lies at the origin of philosophy, it is not only Dasein, by itself, which lies at this origin, but equally and simultaneously sharing in this original condition is active intellect—for, this origin precisely consists in the historical rupture of primordial intellect [1] during the aptly named “axial age”, just as, figuratively speaking, an axis connects the operation of two parallel wheels of self-same structure but opposite position. Just so, the two intellects operate at distance which is measured out by transcendental subjectivity:

Thus, philosophy takes a simultaneous point of departure from Dasein (passive intellect) and active intellect. That is, it takes its point of departure from intellect, generally. Its departure from the passive pole was heretofore unappreciated (that is, before Heidegger [2]), but its departure from the active should not for that reason be forgotten [3] (this second departure has often been abbreviated by the expression “philosophy is the handmaiden of theology”, but that is by no means the only manner of indicating this relation). So much for “departure”—what then of the “return” intimated by Heidegger in the passage above. The “return”, when effected by active intellect, is the “initiatic path” which culminates in (the state of) “yoga” (union). When effected by Dasein (passive intellect), it settles into something like the “authentic existence”, the sense of which Heidegger endeavors to elucidate in his philosophy, though one can also (preferably, in my opinion) think of the intensification of this same tendency as a sort of “Dionysian ecstasy”. The pursuit of this point of origin by transcendental subjectivity, which can only result in a perpetual movement, and never in any final attainment, is productive of increasing sophistication and continual revolution in philosophy (which includes all “natural philosophy”, i.e. the modern “sciences”). What, then, when the heroic transcendental subject masters the two intellects (or “weds” them, depending on your point of view—this latter standpoint is comparable to the “Olympian” reading of the Promethean ontology which I propounded in the last installment of notes)? Perhaps it is then, and only then, that revolutions in the intellective domain will, for the first time (though perhaps prefigured in the myths of Atlantis and Babel), be rendered possible, or rather made into a matter of deliberate policy—namely, the policy of the “terraformation of being”. Only then can one truly say “the Sabbath was made for man etc”.

1: We can distinguish between this rupture understood in historical terms and understood in ontological terms. The historical rupture refers to the period in which this rupture becomes conspicuous at the level of culture, in the form of thought characteristic of an era, with its attendant correspondences at the level of the social formation (in that connection, the rise of coinage in this era is significant).

2: Granted, there is a case to be made for certain instantiations of non-Western philosophy.

3: In Heidegger this is accomplished by “flattening” the antique metaphysics (of active intellect) and the metaphysics of modernity onto one another, projecting the Cartesian turn backwards to antiquity. This accomplished, he presents his “other beginning” in the guise of a salvific power.

*

“Higher than actuality stands possibility. We can understand phenomenology solely by seizing upon it as a possibility”

(36)

Even without further comment, this passage is worth noting for its stunning parallels to Guenon's account of metaphysics. “Possibility” is the metaphysical category par excellence. That Heidegger accords it a central position in his account of Dasein is truly remarkable. To say that “possibility” is fundamental to “phenomenology”, in this context, is to say that it is fundamental to ontology, and to say that it is fundamental to ontology is to say that non-Being is fundamental to ontology. This means, of course, non-Being as a genuinely and principially metaphysical category rather than the merely enunciated non-Being of Hegel's Logic. It is ineffable non-Being which is in question here, a plenitude of possibilities, not a mere “nothing”—on the contrary, it is transcendentality which introduces “nothing” into the Being-and-non-Being equation and thereby facilitates their differentiation, for Being is, at the first, fully non-differentiated from non-Being (and, principially, always remains so). Indeed, when Hegel speaks of Being as well as of non-Being, in either case he deals with nothing at all. His Being is as vacuous as his non-Being. Non-Being, in reference to Heidegger's thinking, by virtue of its identification with “possibilities” (that “possibilities” here are implicitly connected with Non-Being is established more explicitly through the symbolic “Earth” in his later writing), has a plenary and eminently intelligible value. One could say that it is by virtue of this implied “baptism” of Being in non-Being, that Dasein, as herein conceived, possess an ecstatic temporality. The ecstasis of Dasein's being-in-the-world is a function of its contact with supra-intelligible possibility, its “grounding in the Earth”, to revert to Heidegger's later phraseology.

It is all well and good to speak of such “options” at the disposal of Dasein, in the abstract, as though the choice of being “grounded in the Earth” were available for purchase at the supermarket of Being, but, in reality, there are historical and social realities to contend with. A distinct consequence of failing to grapple with the intelligible properties of these historical and social contexts seems to be the attempt at “brute forcing” this grounding, as exemplified in reactionary currents like Nazism. In Marx's words—“Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past”. A thorough comprehension of these social and historical realities that have been “transmitted” to us is necessary. A half-way understanding is arguably more disastrous than a refusal to understand altogether, and in the Heideggerian account of “enframing” we have a species of such half-comprehension, a trans-historical assessment of “technology” which fails to specify itself with reference to changing social and historical dynamics, a hermeneutic key to which Marx discovered in class struggle, among other intelligible reference points. This should be understood—Marxist categories, class struggle chief among them, give us a basis for elaborating a specified and historically concrete social ontology [1], and drawing from it the distinct consequences of such “enframent” beyond the vague postulation of a saving deity—for instance, as a historically specific confluence of technology and the socio-historical trends of our period, we have the political formation of proletarian dictatorship, a reservoir that gathers these tendencies into itself and realizes their diversity in an integral capacity, constituting them as a historically meaningful unity. That is to say, the divisive power of “enframing” finds a comprehensive, collective, and integrally unitary expression in the political form of proletarian dictatorship. A diversity of wandering tendencies, in exile from the unity of pre-modern social bodies: the “anti-social” vocation of the scientific thinker, the contemplative solitude of philosophers and critics, the dangerous and disequilibrating forces of technological development, the discontent of social masses—forces seemingly disconnected from one another, for most of human history, a multitude of specters haunting every sufficiently developed social form, now, in the context of industrial modernity, and through the receptacle of proletarian revolutionary struggle, find an end to their exilic life as the very meaning of a new kind of society, a scientific social body which unites these diverse tendencies as expressions of a single reality. The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner. That which was once taken for divisiveness itself has become the indispensable precondition of social integrity. Dasein is not, therefore, in the context of industrial modernity, grounded by purchasing its integral Being at any supermarket, nor are the conditions for this integrity “brute forced” by the archontic overlordship of a caste of Schutzstaffel. The resolution of real social and historical forces is the prerequisite of reaffirming anything like an integral form of existence, and it is not we who decide what the nature of these forces will be. They are “transmitted” to us by our past in socially specific forms, forms which are susceptible of being plumbed through judicious scientific inquiry, and therefore also susceptible of being mastered through real means, through organized collective action. In the context of our period, it is this integral social form, namely proletarian dictatorship, which, through reconstituting Being in and through the social body, renders possible the baptism in non-Being, effecting contact with the field of supra-intelligible possibilities. If we do not even have intelligibility, supra-intellegibility is out of the question, and one does not possess intelligibility in the abstract, but always in conformity with the real circumstances that one inhabits. It is communism alone (that is, proletarian dictatorship, which is “actually existing communism”) which organizes the intelligible contours of modernity such that they stand out in their intelligibility. It is bourgeois dictatorship which muddles these contours, through its formalistic idealisms (e.g. abstract “rights”) and the ideological monstrosities to which it continually gives birth in its own defense. The concrete nexus which unites these twin tendencies is industrial modernity itself. This is the real context in which one either muddles or clarifies, in which one grounds in the integral solidity of Being or in which “all that is solid melts into air”. We either grapple with these transmitted circumstances by establishing a proletarian dictatorship or we perpetuate the present rule of the bourgeois class. There is no “third option”, not to speak of a putative “fourth political theory”. These real social struggles, therefore, are intimately bound with the most “abstruse” reaches of metaphysical speculation. The question of Being finds its answer in historical struggle.

1: This “social ontology” should not only be understood in the sense of a theoretical elaboration. Just as crucial is the metanoia, the “conversion experience” and “change of mind”, experienced by the revolutionary, through which revolutionary theory becomes a matter of second nature. Indeed, without such a “conversion experience”, a communist metanoia, any attempt at undertaking theoretical reflection is bound to be stilted and awkward. One can be assured that the pedants have not yet been converted in mind. They think about communism but they do not know it yet.

*

“...it is one thing to report narratively about beings and another to grasp beings in their being. For the latter task, not only are most of the words lacking but above all the 'grammar'...Since the area to be disclosed ontologically is far more difficult than that presented to the Greeks, the complexity of our concept-formation and the severity of our expression will increase”

(36-37)

The relative difficulty of Heidegger's task results from the paucity of symbolic expressions at his disposal, or from the lack of recognition, on his part, of the need for such symbolic expressions, a shortcoming that he attempted to remedy, later on, during his “poetic turn”. This latter phase of Heidegger's works also shows a certain glaring inadequacy insofar as he failed to recognize the development of “concept-formation” from out of the symbolic”, and, more fundamental than this, that symbolic expression is something of a “science” and not so much “poetic” in any whimsical sense (put another way, rather than taking Hölderlin as his exemplar, he might have, for instance, taken traditional Catholic liturgy, the Quran, or the hymns of Shankara, that is, a scientific poetry rather than a literary one). Thus, he treats poetry and myth as an alternative to concept formation, rather than its preliminary ground, a ground susceptible of scientific cultivation. The development of a symbolic language is necessary as the only adequate manifest means of access to the domain of Being, and such a symbolic language, in turn, makes possible the development of a more “grounded” technical language (“concepts”) in order to deal with this same domain along discursive lines, as opposed to the (relatively) “groundless” language of “pure” abstractions (which increasingly comes to characterize the Cartesian trajectory of philosophy). It goes without saying that the technical language of Greek ontology (Plato-Aristotle-Plotinus) was itself grounded in a previously established field of symbol and myth. Note that, above, I am not saying that technical language is more grounded than symbolic (on the contrary), but that it is symbolism which grounds the former. That is, a technical language without a previously established symbolic support will be a less grounded sort of technical language than one that does have such a support—but, indeed, is there such a thing as a technical language without such a previous grounding? We can only posit such a language hypothetically and virtually—but as as we well know by now, the virtuality of the transcendental subject has real claws. Thus, our abstractions today tend to be virtually groundless, even if not actually so (as demonstrable through a history and etymology of the concepts in question), and the vehemence with which their groundless conceptuality (virtual) is asserted lends force to the violence that they exert, whether for good or for ill. In such pure conceptual force, as vacuous as it is incisive, modern science reaches the zenith of its development. We have slain the Titans of yore, and now they wander the earth as mighty spirits, ghosts in the machine of modern industry.

It is also worth noting that “report narratively about beings” is a fairly accurate characterization of the Hegelian phenomenology (more precisely, given that it takes place entirely within the transcendental horizon, one might say “report narratively about objects”), as distinct from the Heideggerian. It is also worth noting that a narrative can conform to one or the other of the modes of logos. “Narrative” is generically ambiguous. In dictating a narrative one can never be sure that one is not, covertly, transmitting a myth, even if the narrative in question is a historical one, and myth, too, may be little more than a covert history.

*

“The being whose analysis our task is is always we [Heidegger's note: always 'I']”

(41)

Note that for Heidegger, this “I” is not, as for Descartes, identical with thought or that entity which primarily thinks. Something absolutely central is indicated by this “I”, and, moreover, something intimately bound with the question of being—in other words, the “I” in question here is something profoundly, if not suspiciously, similar to that which goes by the name of “atman” in Hindu metaphysics. It should, however, have been clear to Heidegger that, insofar as the realization of the “question” of being is but one of this I's possibilities, that this I lies beyond being, and, therefore, that this I is also conceptually distinct from Dasein (though, they also “overlap”, particularly in the sense of this I's “omnipresence”), and, indeed, a metaphysical precondition for the possibility of Dasein. The conceptual distinction between Dasein and this I is fairly simple to demonstrate. If, indeed, Dasein is but one mode of intellection, are we then to suppose that the other modes (active and primordial) lack such an I? If not, then this I is both shared by and distinct from all of them. Indeed, does not the transcendental subject, too, say “I”. The doctrine of “anatman”, in a rather complementary fashion, takes the vacuity of this latter “I”, that is, the merely asserted “I”, and subtracts it from the real, leaving behind a plenary field that is as concrete as it is ineffable. This is but the “atman” of Vedanta by another name, or, rather, without a name.

A certain proviso is necessary here, however. Whereas, Heidegger's invocation of the “I-ness” of Dasein would, at an essential level, imply something along the lines of what was just said above, his usage, in practice, teeters on the edge of the generic ambiguity of selfhood, sometimes dipping its feet into the fresh water stream of transcendentality and at other times into the salt water of its genuinely metaphysical complement, the I-ness of “atman”, the ontological reference point of Dasein's unity, as it were. Here we have, then, another instance of Dasein's constitution as a skandha, parts transcendent and transcendental, cobbled together rather haphazardly. There are, after all, more “organic” ways of aggregating these “parts” together, for instance, in terms of the development of one into the other. As it stands, they are cobbled together indifferently as to the “level” they exhibit, as though transcendence and transcendentality were of one and the same plane. We might attribute this aggregating tendency to Heidegger's “bad conscience” as a metaphysician, that is, that he will not acknowledge himself as such, with the attendant narrative construction through which he projects Cartesianism backwards into antique metaphysics (of Plato et al). Then again, we cannot be sure that these are not just more symptoms, expressions of some other, deeper cause. In any case, any opportunity was lost here to establish contact with non-Being through another juncture, namely, the “atman” (which is necessarily, in itself, non-manifet). By aggregating in this manner, the I-saying of Dasein is depicted as a messy confluence of psychology and ontology, the psychological dimensions of which are evident, later on, in the overestimation of “anxiety”, being-toward-death, and other “secularizations” of more fundamental notions (recall what has already been noted about the “secularity” of Heidegger's thinking). In that connection, the transition from the “secularity” of his early thinking (e.g. as here, in “Being and Time”, or “Being and Saeculum” if you prefer) to the pseudo-sacrality of his later thought, could be compared with the sacrilegious character of the Promethean ontology. Heidegger merely simulated that which he lacked the courage to steal for himself. No wonder, then, that transcendental virtuality enters his thinking out of season. The project which he inaugurated needed both profound insight and audacious courage, and it is in the latter which he was lacking. A profound thinker he may have been, but he could not carry his thinking through. He was too busy reporting his peers to the Gestapo.

*

“The being of this being is always mine”

(41)

Here Heidegger has effected a “confusion of levels”, so to speak, and in this inadvertent reversal (substituting transcendentality for transcendence) he has produced a semblance (and it is, effectively, just a semblance) of a certain Promethean trend in human philosophy, history, and social development. The reversal in question is between “ahamkara” (or that reflexive tendency instantiated by the expression “mine”, which I also designate “automorphosis”) and being (or, rather, that faculty which unites it to knowledge, namely, intellect). That is, he conflates Dasein (passive intellect) with an I-saying which is, basically, incidental to it qua Dasein (that is, qua passive intellect), and, on top of this, a confusion between the transcendent sense of “I” (atman) and its transcendental-discursive sense (ahamkara, or automorphosis) is perpetuated. Certainly, this reflexive tendency (“ahamkara”) is at liberty to say “mine” with respect to being or Dasein, or whatever it so desires, but nothing whatsoever truly ever just is (“is” = being) “mine”. For, “mine” does not pertain to being, at all, but to its conceptual privation (furthermore, it is the transcendental reduction of atman to the level of abstraction). Thus, it is closer to the truth to say that this “mine” belongs to Dasein, and not the reverse—for, Dasein is ontologically prior to any claim of “mine”. On the other hand, insofar as this “mine” is characteristic of transcendental subjectivity, and this transcendental subject becomes “heroic”, being can be made (interesting resonance of “becoming” there) “mine”, not in an ontological sense but in a technological one. This technological sense is an audacious one, the very essence of “hubris”. To capture being is impossible, ontologically precluded. Technoscience says “we will do so anyway”—and, in a sense, it does—virtually, and with real claws.

Atman is an “I” which does not say “mine” (but which is, nevertheless, indirectly pointed out through the virtuality of I-saying). It is non-Being as glimpsed in the intellectively polished mirror of ahamkara, or the intellectively polished mirror of “mind” (manas) as polarized into subject-object by this I-saying. In this mirror's folds and contours, non-Being looks like a kind of “I”, and indeed as the basis of I-saying, guaranteeing a certain degree of intelligibility to the productions of our I-saying activity.

Naturally, the above passage is likewise an instance of the constitution of Dasein as a skandha. In this case, it occurs through the “confusion of levels” which identifies an ontological “I-ness” (to be more precise, an I-ness grounded in non-Being, albeit one which “gifts” unity of being) with the psychological “mine-ness”. To show the development of one into the other, would be one thing, and to treat them as ontologically coextensive is another.

*

“The whatness (essentia) of this being must be understood in terms of its being (existentia)”

(41)

If this is the case with Dasein, then one might posit the inverse (i.e. existentia in terms of essentia) as the basic “structure” of active intellect and its operations (which is to say, we posit the ontological inversion of active and passive intellect). That is, from the actively intellective standpoint, the intelligible timelessness characteristic of essentia conditions the temporality of the existent being (or something of that nature). In the one, timelessness takes priority over the temporal (active intellect) and, in the other, temporality (in an ecstatic mode) takes precedence over timelessness (passive intellect, or Dasein), though it by no means excludes it (indeed, it is precisely that ecstasy which allows for the infusion of timelessness into time, so to speak). In either case, what is fundamental is transcendence. The temporality of Dasein and the timelessness of active intellect are equally ecstatic (= transcendent) in nature. That temporality, too, can be transcendent (in the mode of “immanence”) is an insight that only fully unveils itself (as opposed to an unveiling by active intellect) once passive intellect is allowed to speak for itself, a seemingly rare occurrence in the history of philosophy, East and West, though Heidegger's phenomenological ontology is probably not the only instance even if it has certain unique characteristics. One could also characterize this inverse relationship as follows: for Dasein, eternity unveils itself within the womb of ecstatic time, and, for active intellect, time is but the flimsy outer covering of eternity, foam over the boundless ocean, a symbol pointing to eternity (especially the regularities of time, e.g. the movement of the celestial spheres as image of eternity, the symbolism of the seasons and the “great year” etc). It should be noted, with respect to the above, that “existence” by no means implies “temporality” in a necessary way; they are not “synonyms”, though certain highly degraded philosophical streams might tend to see them that way. Nevertheless, temporality is one of the characteristic conditions of manifest existence, at a “certain level”, and it is at this “level” that the split between active and passive intellect is effected, and thus the partitioning of manifestation into its temporal and timeless portions. Thus, something like Dasein only has relevance in the context of an existence which has acquired temporality as one of its conditions. In this connection, we should be wary of uncritically adopting the actively intellective prejudice which sees timelessness as intrinsically superior to temporality. At the same time, we should avoid the corollary prejudice which is liable reduce itself to the modern cliché which finds reality as such only in temporality and identifies timelessness with some kind of “dead abstraction”. Timelessness and temporality have an equal “right” to claim ontological primacy and reality to themselves. It is entirely a matter of which intellect is distinctly operative.

Note the wording which Heidegger employs in the above passage: “understood in terms”. This implies that it is a matter of hermeneutic. For Dasein, existentia is the hermeneutic master-key of essentia, and the reverse is the case from the standpoint of active intellect. That is, in the one case essentia is understood when Dasein grounds itself in the world (or the “Earth”), and in the other existentia acquires meaning, unity, and integrity when it grounds itself in reference to actively intellected essentia.

One could further postulate that from the “standpointless standpoint” of primordial intellect, time and eternity, essence and existence, are in no way distinguishable.

*

“According to the [metaphysical] tradition, existentia ontologically means being present [Vorhandensein]...We can avoid confusion by always using the interpretive expression objective presence [Vorhandenheit] for the term existentia, and by attributing Existenz as a determination of being only to Dasein”

(41)

In order to make his case, Heidegger mistakenly feels the need to distort that tradition which preceded him. That tradition, in all essentials, is strictly analogous, if not identical, to Heidegger's account. “Existence”, in its “traditional” sense, is the manifestation of being, its “standing forth" (ex-sistere), a manifestation which is primarily timeless and simultaneous, temporality and succession constituting a sort of “second order” interpretation [1] (note: “interpretation” = hermeneutic). The timelessness in question is generally taken in the sense of intelligibility. Things exist in an intelligible manner, in wholeness, integrally (and therefore not as mere “objective presence”), and thus, even while subsisting in time always have one foot in eternity. “Presence” is, first of all, eternal presence, not “objective presence”. “Presence” in the “objective” sense (Vorhandenheit) is derivative. Indeed, “objective presence” demands transcendental subjectivity as its precondition, a state of being (or, better yet, a privation of being) which is marginal to the traditional metaphysics (and correspondingly central to the “Cartesian era” in metaphysics). To presume “objective presence” as the primary meaning of “existence” is to place transcendental subjectivity as the centerpiece of the traditional metaphysics, which is absurd in terms of the explicit doctrines of that metaphysics and anachronistic in terms of the actual historical advent of transcendentally-centric philosophy in modern Europe. Naturally, this is compounded by the fact that for Heidegger “traditional metaphysics” is one continuous entity that includes, in the same breath, both antique and Cartesian metaphysics, a characterization which he adopts for seemingly polemical purposes, a foil for his own account of ontology. It is also worth noting that “Cartesian metaphysics” is only a “metaphysics”, at all, in the sense of generic ambiguity, and not a “true” metaphysics, not metaphysics in an eminent sense—that is, through the Cartesian trajectory, metaphysics has been transposed onto the abstract domain of the transcendental subject, beginning with the preliminary transformation of notions like “substance” and the like by Descartes.

1: It goes without saying that this characterization of “existence” is peculiar to active intellect. This is what is in question in the above passage, namely, the “traditional metaphysics”.

*

“Dasein is never to be understood ontologically as a case and instance of a genus of beings objectively present”

(42)

The emphasis here should be on “beings objectively present” rather than “genus”. After all, nothing just is a genus (is = being). Nevertheless, to suppose that “genus” is in no way applicable to Dasein would equally be an error. The power, or capacity, of generalization, having a fundamentally privative character, can in no way be obstructed by being (how can one obstruct nothing?). The notion that Dasein is so “potently”, as it were, that it somehow obstructs the onslaught of generalization, is pure wishful thinking. Of course, one may generalize Dasein, though it should go without saying that this generalization does not exhaust or comprehend Dasein in its entirety. The genus to which Dasein can be consigned is that of “states of being” or “intellects” [1]. The privation which is characteristic of genera is that of the paradoxical and heretofore unrecognized category (that is, genera!) of “particular nothings”. It is the state of transcendental subjectivity which allows us to specify nothing (specify = species), indeed even to specify no-things (i.e. to consign universals to various species).

1: Naturally, a “state of being”, no less an “intellect”, is not “as such” a genera. We can, however, treat them as such. Even “intellect” is generically ambiguous, and the modern usage of this term (namely, “intellect” as ratiocinative thinking) is not reducible to a mere semantic error.

*

“...the inauthenticity of Dasein does not signify a lesser or a lower degree of being”

(42)

Indeed, passive intellection, unlike active intellection, is not characterized by a hierarchy of states (degrees of being), but by intimacy and distance, dwelling and wandering, concentration and distraction. Nevertheless, this dwelling or concentration in the center, and its corollary wandering in the periphery, is strictly analogous to the meaning of the hierarchy of states found in the traditional metaphysics. Indeed, symbolism of centrality and periphery occupies a central place in the traditional metaphysics. So, in a manner of speaking, the “inauthenticity of Dasein” does signify a lower degree of being, or may be tentatively characterized as such. The real question is—why is it that Heidegger does not think so? For one, Heidegger, who neither has an attachment to any tradition nor even an appreciation for metaphysical tradition from a distance. This is commensurate with his emphasis on the everydayness of Dasein, as he finds it. What is, is—or, rather, what is obviously the case now (in our present “secularity”) is the limit of what is. He penetrates into the obvious to reach its less obvious core (otherwise, his investigation would be superfluous), as it were, but does not push beyond the external limits of this obviousness into regions strange. In fact, the only way such a thing could be accomplished would require, at the minimum, an acknowledgment of Tradition. Tradition, whose origin is “superhuman” (in the sense that intellect is not specifically human, as reason is), unveils things that in no way appear obvious to the eye of everydayness, and unveils these things in their totality, in all their interrelations. Without making reference to Tradition, truly thorough metaphysical investigation would not be possible (and, in that connection, it bears repeating that our “secular” metaphysical concepts implicitly possess a symbolic imprint). Such an investigation requires points of reference from outside the circle of everydayness. This is not something which in any way should be peculiar to active intellect. Tradition is just as pertinent to passive intellect, i.e. Dasein. Dasein can, and must [2], be re-envisaged from an initiatic standpoint—that is, with a superhuman telos in mind (the initiatic connotations of “telos” are significant in this respect), with more profound ontological and metaphysical possibilities in view. Heidegger's account of Dasein is lamentably small, provincial, parochial. Dasein, in reality, possesses far more expansive vistas. The sum total of Dasein's initiatic possibilities can be termed “Dionysian”, in an eminent sense.

1: Given the symbolic character of this way of speaking, I suppose one could equally speak of Dasein in terms of “hierarchy of states” (Heidegger's aversion to doing so, notwithstanding), but one might say that this way of speaking would be inopportune, or, better yet, tactillectively (on this term, see the first part of my notes on Aristotle's Metaphysics) inadvisable.

2: That is, provided we wish to elucidate Dasein thoroughly and comprehensively.

*

“...when we speak of Dasein, we must always use the personal pronoun”

(42)

Here, Heidegger has transposed the Cartesian error (identifying the “I” with apperceptive thought, is one way of characterizing this error) to another ontological “plane”, as it were, and, at this “level” of reality, it is still an error. The true personality, in the strict sense (see Guenon's “Man and His Becoming According to Vedanta”), is not reducible to a mere mode of being (neither Dasein nor active intellect). The Atman is prior to any rupture in the fabric of being, or, rather, the positing of the metaphysical datum “Atman” is a tactillective employment of “ahamkara” vis a vis the condition prior to any rupture. Certainly, from a certain standpoint, Dasein is more proximate to this “Atman” than Descartes' apperceptive subject and, in that sense, it is not entirely illegitimate to refer to Dasein with the personal pronoun. However, there is neither a need to use the personal pronoun with reference to Dasein, nor should Dasein by any means be identified with any “I-saying”. There is something which is becoming increasingly apparent here, namely, that Heidegger shares with Descartes (or the Cartesian trajectory, in general), a certain tendency toward a “confusion of levels” and a “conflation of distinguishables”. For instance, in the Cartesian subject we find a multiplicity of distinguishable notions treated as a singular, Frankenstein-like construction, e.g. self-reflective “I-saying” (ahamkara), conceptual thought, sensation, etc all squeezed into a single notion, namely, “the subject”. That is, the so-called “subject”, the Cartesian subject, is a skandha [1].

1: I might tentatively propose as an equivalent for the Sanskrit “skandha”, generally rendered as “aggregate” or “heap”, the term “caprigenus”, a Latin term literally meaning “sprung from a goat” or “of the genus of goats”. “Caper”, or “goat”, is the root of the term “capricious”. Thus, a “caprigenus”, in this proposed usage, is a “capricious or arbitrary genus”, a heap, an aggregate lacking in integral unity, a simulated unity. Moreover, there is a kind of evocation here of the gospel parable of the sheep and the goats. One herds (the sense of the Latin “aggregare”, from which “aggregate”) disparate species into a single flock. This flock can be sifted, separating the sheep from the goats, thus restoring the intelligible unity of kinds. Naturally, there is no imperative to effect such a separation. Caprigenesis is a kind of conceptual technology, our power of aggregating indifferently to the “natural” boundaries of intelligible kinds.

*

“ontic immediacy”

(43)

“Ontic immediacy” is an oxymoron. Incidentally, something like this concept forms the basis of Hegel's investigation in “The Phenomenology of Spirit”, as “sense certainty”. The rather primitive myth of “sense certainty” (a modern myth with analogous form to the tale of Robinson Crusoe) has been naively transported into Heidegger's phenomenological ontology. The ontic, as ontic, however, is always necessarily mediated (e.g. by “transcendental categories”, the forms of possible experience). What, then, of gnosense (my rendering of “dhawq”)? Gnosense, in its metaphysically transparent sense, does not refer to the sort of sensation of which one is “self-conscious”, but to that imaginally potent and ecstatic sensation that draws one out of oneself, an “odor of the sacred” that transports one out of worldly preoccupation, if not to the pure immediacy of exalted spiritual states apart from any “imaginal garments”—in brief, an intelligible sensation, if not pure intelligibility and transcendence. This, and only this, is sensation in an immediate mode. Gnosense, in other words, is not ontic (though we may characterize it as such in retrospect). The only real “sense certainty” (or, rather, “sense immediacy”) is that sensibility which does not belong to a subject and whose content, subsequently, is not “objective”.

*

“As the exemplary basis of its interpretation of being, ancient ontology takes the beings which we encounter within the world. Νοεῖν or λόγος was regarded as the manner of access to beings”

(44)

On the contrary, for the ancient ontology (especially the Platonic and Aristotelian streams), those beings were merely the way of access, the outward supports, to that faculty which knows them (nous or intellect) and which, through knowing them, enables itself to know itself. This interior contemplation was the explicit object of both Platonic (knowledge of eternal ideas) and Aristotelian (contemplation of the first cause and the knowledge of that which is most knowable) philosophy. Neither for Aristotle nor for Plato was their any stated need to “access” beings in the world “for their own sake”. The encounter with such beings was always taken as the occasion for the exercise of man's highest faculty. With Aristotle, in particular, this entails a full elaboration of the various sciences (e.g. Politics, Ethics, Physics) as an instance of man's noblest activity (a “descending application” of intellect). That is, the world's various beings held no value “in themselves” but only insofar as they allow man to realize that which is most essential in him, to engage in that activity which is most characteristic of him.

*

“Person, act, psyche etc”

(46-47)

Many errors and confusions in this section, the sort typical of the “rootless” speculations of modern philosophy. In conformity with the terminology we established above, we might also refer to them as “caprigenetic speculations”, drawing capriciously constituted genera out of the aether. In the first place, the concept of a “person” forwarded here is actually admirably close to the mark, but no cigar. If this same account is radicalized, and followed to its ultimate and inevitable conclusion, something like the doctrine of “Atman” would have to result. Instead, the “person” is taken up merely as the Trojan horse of the fetish for “acts”, typical of 19^th and 20^th century German reaction. Moreover, this fetish distorts the nature of acts to the point of granting them some kind of special, “non-physical” provenance; something curiously analogous to the most vulgar accounts of the “divine right of kings” (also worth drawing comparisons with the thought of Carl Schmitt, on this point). Evidently, for German thought in this period, nothing is sufficiently hallowed until a proper genealogy has been forged for it. Compare this with the far more rigorous and plausible account of the constitution (and not only the origin) of acts in the theory of the “tattvas”. Indeed, “metaphysical genealogies”, such as that of the “tattvas”, are always, at the same time, descriptions of the constitution of things—the intelligible constitution of things. Until this is understood, such genealogies are bound to appear strange and arbitrary.

*

“The interpretation of Dasein in its everydayness, however, is not identical with describing a primitive stage of Dasein...Rather, everydayness is also and precisely a mode of being of Dasein, even when Dasein moves in a highly developed and differentiated culture”

(49)

This contrast between Dasein's everydayness and its manifestation in “primitive” contexts should, if we do not fall into the superstition which equates temporal succession with sophistication or development, render plausible another possible hypothesis—namely, that Dasein's constitution within the so-called “developed and differentiated culture” of modernity might itself be something primitive, degenerated, the fragmentary refuse of a once fuller expression. Thus, a fuller account of Dasein would have to take into account the possibility of an “eminent everydayness” in contrast to that “fragmentary everydayness” which prevails at present. Such an account must ask: what does the fullest expression of passive intellect (Dasein) look like? Such a full expression must occur when the smooth functioning of Dasein's own symbolic structure is facilitated by a symbolic environment (chiefly, “social”) with which it is congruous. This goes much further than a mere parochially conceived “cultural compatibility”. In this respect, the aforementioned “primitive stage” should be given a higher priority over “modern” contexts, as constituting a more developed expression of Dasein than the relatively vitiated one characteristic of modernity. This degraded character of Dasein in modernity is not invoked as a moral reproach. The intention here is only to highlight its shortcomings from the standpoint of ontological research. The de-development of Dasein, in modernity is compensated by other developments, especially in the “region” of transcendental subjectivity, developments with tremendous value for the human future. Moreover, the ontological vitiation characteristic of the present time is, in my view, a temporary situation. Communism possesses the hermeneutic key, as it were, which uncovers an integral modernity encrypted in the present chaos.

Icon of Christ as carpenter

*

—Summary of insights, aka tl;dr:

1. The primary symbolic structure which constitutes Dasein’s manner of being is the relation of center and periphery.

2. Where Heidegger endeavors to account for Being on its own terms but neglects to do the same for knowledge, the inverse is true of the Traditional metaphysics.

3. Whether philosophy begins in active intellection (antique or medieval metaphysics) or in passive intellection (Heideggerian ontology), the result is the same terminus of Modernity. The intellects are mirror images with a shared origin.

4. The Promethean ontology resolves itself into two interpretations—a “Titanic” reading, in which divinity is a mask for Prometheus, and an “Olympian” reading in which Prometheus is the mask of divinity.

5. Phenomenology is not merely one method among others, but is the method through which passive intellection rigorously expresses its own structure and content. It is the privileged expository method of passive intellect.

*

“...if we reserve the term 'ontology' for the explicit, theoretical question of the being of beings, the ontological character of Dasein referred to here is to be designated as pre-ontological”

(11)

That is, onto-logy, as the discursive-conceptual logos (and that is not the only kind of logos) of being, is of a secondary order. Thus, Heidegger, like the metaphysical Traditionalists, gives the central place in man's existence to a more profound sense of knowing and being, of which mere discourse is a shadow. Nevertheless, both he and the Traditionalists posit the need to develop such a “theoretically explicit ontology” (or, in the case of the Traditionalists, a metaphysics which extends also to non-being—incidentally, Heidegger, especially in his later work, also extends his thinking into non-being, vis a vis, for instance, his notion of “the Earth”). Beginning at the opposite pole of intellect (that is, giving priority to active intellect as distinct from Heidegger's prioritization of passive intellect), the Traditionalists elaborate a metaphysics on the basis of Traditional data (foremost of which is the repository of inherited symbols), and Heidegger elaborates an ontology whose initial basis is the everydayness of Dasein's being-in-the-world (the qualification “everydayness” is a crucial one, as we will see later [1]). This second pole of metaphysics constitutes a new approach, but one which even the Traditionalists might be compelled to acknowledge as possessing at least some theoretical legitimacy. “As above, so below”—we already have the heavenly metaphysics, and now we also need its earthly complement. There is the further question, then, of whether the Heideggerian ontology can also be converted into a complete metaphysics [2] (since it already is a partial metaphysics, i.e. an ontology)—that is, can we also find a theoretical access point to non-being through the everydayness of Dasein? This will have to be seen [3].

1: This is what we might call the “secular” (the etymology of this term is interesting, in connection with the title and subject matter of Heidegger's book) component of Heidegger's thought. This “everydayness” is not a background condition of Dasein that we should take for granted. It exists only under the special circumstances of modernity (that is, it is secular, “of the age”), which are precisely the circumstances under which Heidegger studies Dasein. They are not identical with Dasein as such. Some of the “special features” which emerge from Heidegger's identification of Dasein with these circumstances will be seen later.

2: And “complete”, in this context, does not mean “systematic”, or “conceptually exhaustive”, but rather something like “symbolically comprehensive”.

3: There are some indications of such an approach already, here, in “Being and Time”. This aspect is much more evident, however, in the “late Heidegger”. As against the usual appraisals, it is the “late Heidegger”, especially, who stands out as a thoroughgoing metaphysician.

*

“...Dasein tends to understand its own being in terms of the being to which it is essentially, and most closely related—the 'world'”

(15-16)

In this primary relation which is definitive of Dasein we just so happen to find the primary symbolic structure which constitutes Dasein's “passive intelligibility”—the relation of center to periphery. Dasein, here, occupies the center, and world constitutes its horizon or periphery. It is in this way that Heidegger first (unintentionally) discloses the intellective character of Dasein, and thus reveals himself to be, at bottom, a metaphysician—metaphysics, in its “Traditional” sense, is nothing but an intelligible and lived relation with the symbolic. That is, Heidegger unveils the intelligible symbolism of Dasein, a symbolism which is not merely textual or discursive (though it is inclusive of these), not only a matter of the way we speak about Dasein, but which inheres in its existential structure. It lives and is centrally in relation to a periphery, a center and periphery in a genuinely qualitative (it has the genuine whatness of center and periphery, and not just some accidental figuration, a simulated semblance of center and periphery) and symbolic sense (like a ritual orientation), rather than the ad hoc and merely relative center and periphery of neutralized, measurable, Cartesian space. Dasein is gnosensientially central. The “world” is Dasein's primary symbolic circle (but not its only one, as we shall see, or, better yet, worldliness alone is not the only aspect under which this worldly circle appears). It is also worth remarking that the symbolism of center and periphery is given central place (pun, of course, intended) in Rene Guenon's writing on symbolism.

*

“Not only does an understanding of being belong to Dasein, but this understanding also develops or decays according to the actual manner of being of Dasein”

(16)

The character and operative reality of Dasein's knowing (and being), in other words, is contingent on its state of being—another instance of parallelism between Heidegger and Traditional metaphysics. Here, however, we have a concept of “states of being” in reference to passive intellection, whereas, generally, such states of being are conceptualized as the degrees of “wakefulness” or “ascent” attained by active intellection [1]. How such states (of passive intellect) unfold and develop has to be worked out. That is, a sort of “symbolic map” of these states should be outlined, comparable to the symbolic map considered by Guenon in “Symbolism of the Cross” (hardly the only example that can be given of such a scheme, but one which is duly adjusted to the sensibility of modern readers). A third parallelism also exists in the region “between” passive intellect (Heidegger) and active intellect (Traditional metaphysics). This consists in Kant's attempt at ferreting out the fundamental structures of transcendental subjectivity [2], structures which are rational and abstract, rather than symbolic and intellective. Such structures cannot be definitively pinned down to any particular state of being, and, yet, neither can they be considered “universal”. In that sense, they are the specters haunting every state of being, abstractable from out of any state, because they are “merely” virtual—but this is a virtuality with technoscientific claws and real world-shaping power.

1: Needless to say, my usage of “active intellection” and “passive intellection” does not conform, in every respect, to what every philosopher of antiquity and the middle ages has said of them (obviously an impossibility, since they frequently contradict one another), nor does it present itself as a faithful reproduction of such usages. I take these notions, as presented in antiquity in the middle ages, as a theoretical basis rather than a limit, on which basis I develop them in conformity with what I perceive to be the theoretical needs of modernity and in light of the transcendental rupture which begins with (in an eminent sense, even if not true in a strictly chronological one) with Descartes and attains its apotheosis in Kant. One might say that my uses of these terms are neither the same nor distinct from their established and traditional usage. Rather, my usage depends on and at the same time exposes the generic ambiguity of active and passive intellect.

2: This “third parallelism” can be extended to transcendental thought generally (and, indeed, its irrational complements—what I have said about psychology as the “topography of the rational”, elsewhere, is relevant here), but it applies to Kant eminently, since he expressed its rational structure in an exceptionally rigorous fashion.

*

“Dasein is in such a way that, by being, it understands something like being”

(17)

No clearer indication could be asked for respecting the intellective character of Dasein. It knows by being, and its being(-in-the-world) is a knowing. At the same time, one of Heidegger's chief flaws is exposed here—he aims to undertake an investigation into being without, at the same time, investigating knowing (or, indeed, he takes for granted that an investigation of knowing begins by reducing it to a manner of being). Herein, too, lies one of the chief flaws of the Traditional metaphysics—they unveil knowing in all its resplendence, but neglect to elucidate being “on its own terms” (as an “existential activity”, as “being-in-the-world”). These accounts of knowing and being provided by the Traditional metaphysics and Heidegger, respectively, are in reality complementary halves of the self-same divided faculty called “intellect”—namely, its passive and active portions. That is to say, passive intellect is being, eminently, and active intellect knows knowledge, eminently. Naturally, passive intellect also knows, and active intellect also is—but not eminently. This mirroring is, of course, an instance of ontological inversion. At the same time, such an account could not really be completed without taking into consideration the break between being and knowing effected by transcendental subjectivity. These three accounts logically, naturally, and necessarily make up a whole picture.

*

“The atemporal and supratemporal are also temporal...The being of Dasein finds its meaning in temporality”

(18-19)

If Dasein (passive intellection) finds its meaning in temporality, then active intellect is bound to find its meaning in supratemporality. Active intellect, therefore, from its own “standpoint”, also says “the temporal and atemporal are also supratemporal—all is eternity, all is Brahman”. Here the transcendental subject chimes in “nothing is atemporal, and I am that nothing—nothing, nothing, nothing”. One might surmise that if passive intellect could speak it might, too, contribute its own view on the matter—“the supratemporal and the atemporal, all these are temporal, all these flow together, an ecstatic motion in the river of time—Nirvana and Samsara are one [1]”. Moreover, just as the temporality of Dasein is “ecstatic”, so, too, the supratemporality of active intellect. The atemporality of the subject, on the other hand, is not only, “in itself”, non-ecstatic, but it extends this to its conceptualization of temporality and supratemporality. The transcendental subject intrudes itself into all things and gives them the distinctiveless stamp of its own character, saturates them in its own flavorless generality (a pseudo-universality).

1: With a definite emphasis placed here on the pole of samsara. Incidentally (or, perhaps, not so incidentally), nous pathetikos, in thus being characterized in terms of “pathos”, can be thought of as a “suffering”. One suffers the intelligible motion of time, passively, receptively.

*

“tradition”

(20)

Heidegger's invocation of “tradition” here is most intriguing. Giving a central place to “tradition” in his account of Dasein's temporality, in this way, parallels the place of (metaphysical) Tradition with respect to active intellect, though it should be quite clear that Heidegger means something quite different by “tradition” as compared with the metaphysical Traditionalists. This difference, however, follows quite naturally from the character of passive intellection. “Lower case” tradition (as it were), from the standpoint of passive intellect, is not quite the same as Tradition taken from the standpoint of active intellect, though they intersect at many points. This difference quite prominently manifests through their respective emphases on temporality and supratemporality. In a general way, “tradition”, in this context, is much closer to the conservative’s notion of it (a sense which Guenon does not hesitate to denigrate). As an aside, it absolutely must be emphasized that Dasein's temporality is an “ecstatic temporality”, not the temporality of successive moments in measured time (the latter being characteristic of transcendental subjectivity, the “Cartesian subject”, the modern scientific and scholarly subject).

*

“...these original wellsprings out of which the traditional categories and concepts were in part genuinely drawn”

(20)

In seeking the “original wellsprings of tradition”, as opposed to its most superficial and external strata, Heidegger again mirrors the metaphysical Traditionalists who indeed locate the authentic core of Tradition in its original wellsprings rather than in this or that particular manifestation of Tradition. The character of this “wellspring” will differ in each account in a way conformable to the faculty, passive or active intellect, respectively, which seeks it out. In one case, this wellspring will be a way of being-in-the-world which has been lost and obscured (cf. “the other beginning”), and, in the other, a supratemporal repository of metaphysical knowledge accessible only to an “elite” and implying the presence, theoretical and historical (really “pre-historical”), of a “primordial Tradition” [1].

1: This notion has an especial theoretical importance for Guenon, as compared with his successors and heirs who tend to underplay it. For him it is an indispensable presupposition and conditioning factor of all research into any Traditional domain. To quote directly from his Symbols of Sacred Science:

“When one finds such agreement [between diverse Traditions] everywhere, is this not more than a mere indication of the existence of a primordial tradition? And how can it be explained that in most cases, those who feel obliged to admit this primordial tradition in principle thereafter think no more about it, and in fact reason as if it had never existed, or at least as if nothing of it had been preserved over the centuries? If anyone is prepared to reflect on how abnormal such an attitude is...etc”

The literal truth (or lack thereof) of a proposed “primordial tradition” is irrelevant to our purposes here, but the theoretical indispensability which Guenon attributes to it is worth pondering further, if only on the off chance that it might shed light on the constitution of active intellect as such—for instance, as a pseudo-historical presentation of primordial intellection.

*

“Working out the tacit ontological foundations of the 'cogito sum' will constitute the second stage of the destruction...”

(23)

In other words, this destruction, as Heidegger conceives it, must pass through Descartes. This is, one could say, its historical dimension. Theoretically (again, as Heidegger conceives it), this destruction attacks the “conceptualizations” which have accrued to the traditional ontology, and for which that ontology is ultimately “at fault”, in a manner of speaking. That the conceptual (or rational, or abstract) horizon of philosophy which has established itself in the wake of Descartes has been the source of many problems, indeed of a “forgetfulness of being”, is certainly true. That this rational development needs to be “destroyed”, is another claim entirely, and it is indeed an error. In the first place, as Heidegger's exposition (unwittingly?) demonstrates, the traditional ontology is not the only possible path to such a conceptual horizon. Such a tendency follows just as plausibly from Dasein's manner of being-in-the-world, viz. presence-at-hand leads to the bare subjectivity of “staring” which is the mother (or, rather, a mother) of abstraction. More to the point, Heidegger's own line of work, most prominently exemplified in “Being and Time”, which he later abandoned in favor of a “poetic turn”, lends itself to a certain measure of conceptualization and systematization, albeit in a manner conformable to the phenomenological method of exposition and investigation. Conceptualization (here, this term implies, broadly, an overt obtrusion of abstraction, rationality, discursivity, etc, a mastering framework of subject-object, of res extensa and res cogitans), in other words, is a possibility equally present to active intellect (as an “abstractive descent”, a conceptual reduction, a la the Kantian a priori categories) and to passive intellect or Dasein (as an “abstractive ascent” from out of absorption in the world). If, indeed, we have two paths to the development of transcendental subjectivity (which is essentially the same as the aforementioned “formalization), then we have two starting points, and if indeed these two starting points lead quite “naturally” to the same destination, then they must also share something essential in their constitution. Moreover, it necessarily follows from this reasoning that Heidegger's “other beginning” in no way precludes the crisis of ontology, that crisis which was one of his chief concerns, but constitutes merely another path to this crisis—in one case, through a “transcendental reduction” of metaphysical intuition, and in the other (that is, Heidegger's “other beginning”) chiefly through presence-at-hand, through “specified activity”, through a breakdown of our being-in-the-world [1]. That essential element, common to both “beginnings”, through which, or in spite of which, they necessarily must guide themselves to an identical terminus, is none other than their intellectivity, or rather, even more precisely, the polarized character of their intellectivity. The difference in starting point is a reflection of two different modes of intellection—passive and active—and also of two different ontologies—for which we can take the Heideggerian and the Traditional as typical instances, or as “case studies”, as it were. To “destroy” the Cartesian contribution would consist in nothing more than a destruction of the fruit which, consequently, leaves the roots untouched, roots whose “passive mode” Heidegger himself has most assiduously cultivated. In reality there are two “solutions” to the problem that Heidegger is, himself, attempting to “destroy”—on the one hand, reabsorption into primordial intellection (i.e. the “Supreme Identity”—the preferred solution of the “sage”, the accomplished jnani), that condition which precedes the rupture of passive and active intellect, or, on the other hand, the Promethean ontology, unshackling the “feathered serpent” (more on this later) [2].

1: The dual trajectories that lead to modernity look something like the following:

I will not be providing a detailed explanation of the various stages of these trajectories, in this note. At present, all the relevant information can be found dispersed throughout these notes, as well as in other notes which I have already made available (e.g. my notes on Kant's Prolegomena). An orderly and more or less thorough exposition of all this material (that is to say, a completion of my series of essays on the “communist metaphysics”) will be undertaken at a later time.

2: In reality, these solutions are not mutually exclusive. A Promethean ontology, as will hopefully become evident in the course of these notes, would dare even to exploit “God”, that is, in this case, the plenum of primordial intellect. Moreover, there is a certain inverse manner of characterizing the Promethean ontology, an aspect of it which I have not yet touched upon—one “Titanic” and transgressive and the other “Olympian” and divine. This ontology, then, resolves itself into two views, equally valid interpretations, neither of which can subsume or overcome the other—either it is Prometheus that exploits God as a resource, or it is God who wears Prometheus as His mask, either communism deploys Tradition as its technology, or it is Tradition that has simply adjusted itself to the proportions of Promethean modernity and proletarian industry. Indeed, these views are opposed, but not in any dialectical fashion, in the Marxist sense, that is to say, there is no material substrate, such as a class, which could serve as the criterion of their differentiation. These views share one and the same material substrate, namely, industrial society itself, especially in the context of proletarian rule. Thus, a decision between them seems to boil down to a matter of personal preference, cultural predispositions, or arbitrary whim. The “goal” of a society at this stage of development could therefore be simultaneously characterized as “to express God” and “to transgress God”, that is, to manifest divinity in the outward expansion of technoscience (= society + technology, in their historical becoming), or to exploit divinity for social and human ends.

To the extent that a rapprochement between them is possible, perhaps only a modified Shakta metaphysics could effect it. With such a metaphysics, “God” is none other than power itself in all the fullness of its activity and development. Prometheus himself (in Aeschylus' play, that is) acknowledges the supereminence of the goddess, she who is one but many named. Another crucial point to note here is that in either case Prometheanity must be contended with—whether one calls it the god of this era, or merely a mask of the Divinity—and in every case, Prometheanity is dangerous, and overtly transgressive with respect to much that we are accustomed to “value” and “cherish” from our history and traditions. One way or another we must grapple with this danger.

*

“Dialectic, which was a genuine philosophic embarrassment...”

(24)

It is most interesting that Heidegger's characteristic fastidiousness, in the way, for instance, that he “breaks down” terms like “logos” or “dialectic” or “nous”, flags when it comes to the term “philosophy”. What “philosophy” is, what it consists in as a vocation, what sort of changes it may have undergone in course of time—it does not occur to him to raise these questions at all, or else he raises them, and replies to them, opportunistically. Surely, one cannot understand “dialectic” without situating it in its original philosophical context, as an implement devised in the service of this thing called “philosophy”, whatever that is. Incidentally, many mistakes are made on this front by those examining dialectic in general, such as, for instance, the notion that dialectic is a neutral implement of inquiry. In any case, by neglecting to examine “philosophy”, Heidegger puts his whole inquiry in jeopardy. After all, the “logos” he seeks is not just any old logos, but the philosopher's logos. This is why he takes his point of departure from Aristotle and Plato. Heidegger himself, of course, is a philosopher, and this is not a trivial observation. Whether he likes it or not, he is conditioned by the history and meaning of that vocation, and, to his credit, he seems fully aware of this—and yet this neglect is all the more flagrant in light of this. It is a delightful irony that, the “later” Heidegger, zeroes in on “pondering” and “reflection” as the path toward a solution to the crisis of “metaphysics” (so-called)—but these are characteristically philosopher's solutions, and not just any philosopher's solutions, but “philosopher” in a pejorative sense, that is, a thinker (however profound an aura this reflection cloaks itself). An antique Platonist would have not proffered “contemplation” as a solution to social and historical ills, as though the function of contemplation was primarily instrumental. It is, on the contrary, the rectification of social ills which, for the Platonist, has an instrumental value, a support to the contemplative life. To offer up thought itself as a kind of path forward, is the gesture of mere “thinkers”, the activism of quietists, functionally comparable to the “critical critique” of mere critics, albeit expressed in the language and register of poetic reverie rather than the conceptual gymnastics of mere criticism. Heidegger's failing here is not just a failure in terms of some external criterion, but a failure of his thought to be adequate to itself.

*

“νοεῖν—the simple apprehension of something objectively present in its sheer objective presence [vorhandenheit]”

(24)

Here, Heidegger makes an error of cosmic (indeed, of metaphysical) proportions—does he think Plato is a Kantian, or that Aristotle is a Cartesian? It is precisely at this point that Heidegger draws over his eyes the blindfold that prevents him seeing the parallels between his own thought and the Platonic trajectory of philosophy, and consequently leads him to the pretentious posture of his “return to the Presocratics”. The very notion of a catastrophic break in philosophy, after the Presocratics, is little more than a second-rate historical drama. It is a story we tell ourselves in order to lend philosophy the quality of a tragic play. In reality, Plato did little more than render Heraclitus “the obscure” into the lucid language of Parmenides—Plato found the method, the ascesis (including its corresponding theoretical language), to Heraclitus' unfathomable logos. In any case, the continuities between Presocratic philosophy and “post-Socratic” are more significant than the so-called “breaks”, and indeed the same could be said for the continuity between Heidegger and antique metaphysics. Heidegger is as much a metaphysician as they were, and in essentially the same manner. A difference in polarity does not mark a difference in essence.

*

“Appearance”

(28-29)

There are strict analogies between Heidegger's account of “appearance” and the account of symbolism in the Traditional metaphysics. What must be kept in mind is the differing mode of intellection presupposed in these accounts. Heideggerian onto-logy (that it is a logos of being, which is in question, is crucial) makes possible an account of symbolism in its “everydayness”, the symbolism of “parochial existence”, as it were. Every symbol manifests an unmanifest (or intelligible) reality or, alternatively, “points” to it. Here lie two roads to the unmanifest, and they entail two modes of being (and, as per Guenon, being is “in itself” unmanifest, that is, non-differentiated from non-being) corresponding to them. To speak symbolically, in one case, that of the traditional metaphysics, being is the summit of manifestation, and in the other case, that of the Heideggerian ontology, being is the sheltering womb of manifestation (in its non-differentiation from the non-manifest, it is “the Earth”). It is also worth noting that both of these modes of symbolism are united in Christ—not only the “Word” (i.e. logos) of the metaphysical Godhead, but also a simple carpenter, precisely the sort of activity in which being manifests itself in its passive mode (in the work-world, where tools are “ready-to-hand”), and in the most ordinary and “everyday” sense.

*

“In the Greek sense, what is “true”...is αἴσθησῐς, the simple sense perception of something...This means that looking always discovers colors, hearing always discovers tones. What is in the purest and most original sense 'true'—that is, what only discovers in such a way that it can never cover up anything—is pure νοεῖν, straightforwardly observant apprehension of the simplest determinations of the being of beings as such”

(31-32)

Here we see, for the first time in a comparatively overt way, the “confusion of levels” which characterizes Heidegger's thinking, generally, and which leads him to constitute Dasein as a qausi-Cartesian “skandha”, a heap of transcendentality and transcendence. On the one hand, noein apprehends beings in their being, that is, in their intelligibility, integrity, integral unity—or it would seem, here, to do so. His formulation is saddled by unfortunate expressions—“determinations”, sufficiently vague that one might gloss it over, but tending toward the notion of an objectively present specification—“simplest determinations”—with this qualification we seem to have moved suspiciously close to the Cartesian “simple natures”—“straightforwardly observant”—now we are on the verge of a kind of empiricism, a subject's apprehension of a sensible “datum”. What will it be, then? Is noein a being with beings in their being, an integral and intelligible apprehension of them, or does it “observe” them and make them explicitly “present”? Is noein characteristic of Dasein qua Dasein (nous pathetikos), or does it consist in a transcendental departure from this intelligible being-in-the-world? These levels are confused, particularly in the writing of “early Heidegger”. Dasein, quintessentially, is nous pathetikos (needless to say, this is my reading), but here this intelligible being of Dasein is a ramshackle construction, a skandha composed, partially, of Cartesian bits and bobs. In the above passage this, at best, is only evident in an indirect manner. Later, this comes to the fore more directly.

*

“'Phenomenology' neither designates the object of its researches nor is it a title that describes their content. The word only tells us something about the how of the demonstration”

(33)

As Heidegger notes earlier (26), phenomenology is a method. This formulation forecloses possible misunderstandings which might classify phenomenology as a particular domain of philosophy, or an academic discipline in its own right, but the definition can be improved still further. Phenomenology is not simply one method among others, in a neutral field methods, but a particular mode of intellection given expression, for the first time in the history of philosophy, through a method of philosophical research and exposition [1]. Namely, phenomenology is passive intellection converted into method of philosophical inquiry or, put another way, a method of inquiry conformable to the passive mode of intellection. This development is truly novel and its value should not be underestimated, but, at the same time, it can never constitute anything like a “new beginning” or a “destruction of traditional ontology”—on the contrary, it constitutes the complement and completion of Traditional ontology, a closing of the symbolic circle of ontology, or, more precisely, the completion of the hermenoetic sphere; not the circular movement of thought closing in on itself, a la Kojeve's reading of Hegel, but the fully elaborated space of intelligibility and being. In this connection, and in conformity with the just made point regarding Heidegger's constitution of Dasein as a skandha, it would also follow that Heidegger's phenomenology is inadequate to itself, to what it implicitly aspires to be. Cartesian elements have entered into it out of season.

1: In this respect, we can only conclude that anything prior to Heidegger which called itself “phenomenology” is rather inadequate to the term, at best a foreshadowing or a bare schematic. Certainly, we can speak of a “phenomenology of the transcendental subject”, or of the “transcendental horizon” generally, and we have two species of this in Hegel and Husserl, but the name seems rather like a misleading advertisement of what they actually offer us, the one a dramatic stage play (note the indefinite article) of the subject and the other the stage director's notes and technical plans—two complementary aspects of the subject's dramaturgy. Ironically, it is Kant who, after a fashion, offers us the closest thing to a phenomenology of the subject, precisely by scrupulously avoiding a phenomenological presentation and approach. The transcendental subject appears to itself, as it is, in its fully elaborated and lawfully delineated structure, through a non-phenomenological inquiry. Non-phenomenology is the phenomenology of the transcendental subject.

*

“It is possible for every phenomenological concept and proposition drawn from genuine origins to degenerate when communicated as a statement. It gets circulated in vacuous fashion, loses it autocthony”

(34)

In the first place, it is worth noting that this consideration applies equally to the Traditional ontology, though Heidegger does not seem to appreciate this fact. That Traditional ontology, as an expository doctrine (e.g. in the philosophical writings of the Platonists), was nothing other than a means of making manifest (“apophansis”) in speech the real operations of active intellect and those principial realities with which it concerns itself. What is of special interest in the above passage, is that the “genuine” operations of passive intellect are (implicitly) wedded to considerations of a “politico-historical” nature—namely, via the invocation of “autocthony” as a symbolic anchor for the species of phenomenology (passively intellective) which Heidegger is developing, and the corollary denigration of the “cosmopolitan” character of “rootless” communication. Thus, implicit here is the romanticization of the first ontopolitanism [1]—“romantic” because it belongs to an irretrievable past. This romanticism is not necessarily fully endorsed by Heidegger, but it does find a highly receptive soil in many of his “followers”. The endeavor to secure a “first ontopolitanism”, as a deliberate political project, is characteristic of certain strains of reactionary (particularly of the “illiberal” variety) thought, among which we can include Nazism. The contradictory fashion in which this political project appears, wedding Titanically developed war-machine to parochial romanticism, is a peculiar characteristic of this strain of political thinking, not at all accidental to it, but basic to its very foundations and metaphysico-ontological presuppositions. An inquiry into this dimension of reactionary thinking will have to be left for another time, as these notes are hardly the place to elaborate this theory of reaction in detail. Suffice it to say, this theme is one I have already begun developing in greater depth elsewhere.

1: Aside from “primitive communism”, as a basic and “primordial” type for “first ontopolitanism”, as I briefly noted in the previous installment of these notes, this concept, by extension, also designates a broader constellation of related notions—peasant life, idyllically conceived or otherwise, a parochial manner of being, the “paganism” of the countryside, rural simplicity—forms of life in which the passive pole of intellection retains a comparatively pervasive influence, and, undoubtedly for this very reason, possessing such an irresistible appeal for Heidegger and Heideggerians.

Giambattista Vico also has relevance here. “Poetic wisdom”, as he characterizes it in his New Science, tends more toward the passive pole of intellection. It is poetry in a rustic sense—indeed, quite literally. Which is to say, in his account the cultivators of the land have a privileged theoretical position.

*

“Being and its structures transcend every being and every possible existent determination of a being. Being is the transcendens pure and simple...Every disclosure of being as the transcendens is transcendental knowledge”

(36)

A terminological quibble: given the (crucial) transcendent-transcendental distinction which I maintain in these and other writings, it would be more proper to refer to all such disclosures of being as “transcendent knowledge”. It should go without saying that term “transcendental” has been subject to a variety of usages in the history of philosophic thought. My usage is not proposed as definitively, etymologically, or somehow quintessentially “true”, but as theoretically expedient to my own theoretical reflections, a terminological conveyance for navigating the divide (both theoretical and historical) between reason and intellect. In any case—what, then, does being (specifically being as it is made accessible to Dasein, that is, as accessed in a passively intellective mode) transcend, and in what way? As Heidegger clarifies, it transcends every specific determination of beings. It is this capacity for making such determinations which constitutes the province of the transcendental. This transcendence, as Heidegger further clarifies in a note at the bottom of the same page, is not “metaphysical” (in actuality, it is, as foregoing considerations have shown and as those that follow will confirm) but consists in an “ecstatic temporality”. Thus, one could say that this transcendence is in the “downward direction”. Transcending what? The specific determinations characteristic of the transcendental (in its various degrees of “intermixture” with being). Indeed, one could call the sort of transcendence characteristic of Dasein (passive intellect) “immanence”, and therefore one could reserve the term “transcendence”, in an eminent sense, to the operations of active intellect—needless to say, however, it follows from the foregoing that immanence too is a “species” of transcendence, that immanence, strictly speaking, is a mode of transcendence rather than its “opposite” (see the first part of my notes on Kant's Prolegomena). Non-being, in turn, “transcends” the distinction between transcendence and immanence, and, in that sense, seems to “resemble” the condition of transcendental subjectivity in a manner comparable to Guenon's account of the “two nights” (see his Initiation and Spiritual Realization). The further possibility of an analogy between the prima materia and transcendental subjectivity, if not an “identity” of sorts (rather in the sense of “generic ambiguity”), suggested by the just mentioned considerations on the “two nights” is also worth exploring.

One major point of intersection between the notion of the prima materia, or pure potentiality, and transcendental subjectivity lies in the “horizontally” expansive all-interpretability of the “data” furnished by transcendental subjectivity, whether discursive or sensible. Every proclamation of the transcendental subject, every empirical sense impression (as distinct from the gnosensiential mode of sensation—see my series on “communist metaphysics”), though seemingly rigid, a concept or object set in stone, is, in reality, always necessarily open to further analysis and reinterpretation, a reinterpretation which, if it is sufficiently “creative”, can make every statement into whatever it will, even into its own opposite, and deconstruct every object, whether in a practical sense, by reworking it with the implements of industry, or conceptually determining it in advance, reconstituting its very significance qua object for us (and an object, qua object, is always an object for a subject). In that sense, the transcendental subject is pure potentiality in time, as opposed to the timeless and metaphysical potentiality of the prima materia. Given enough time, the transcendental subject can demonstrate its potentiality, its flexibility, its interpretive malleability. The concept (conceptuality belongs to the transcendental domain), unlike the Platonic “idea”, becomes, is malleable, changeable, mutable, temporal—and, yet, transcendental subjectivity is also peculiarly characterized by a certain abstract timelessness. Much like the illusion of discrete moments in time, following one after another, seemingly without continuity, each concept, too, appears “in itself” as a discrete conceptual moment [1]—this apparent character of the concept no more prevents its changing than the quantitative and discrete apprehension of time prevents its march forward—Zeno's paradox has never yet hindered anyone from completing a movement from here to there. Whether or not this movement of conceptual transformation and reinterpretation has a historical terminus, as Hegel supposed, is an open question, though the idea of a historical terminus to a process which, in terms of its intrinsic character, must necessarily be indefinite in scope, seems like a rather arbitrary proposition. On the whole, and for many reasons not explored in this note, Hegel's thesis seems basically insupportable. His drama of the subject has a terminus, but it is only one of an indefinite multitude of possible dramas.

1: If transcendental time is composed of truly discrete moments, then they are eo ipso not causally connected. Indeed, their causal connection is a virtual one, and indeed “causality”, apart from its symbolic and ritual formulation (i.e. karma in its older, “Vedic” sense), is as such a virtual scheme. Thus, transcendental time is not genuinely and intelligibly continuous, but it is virtually continuous, “in retrospect”, as it were. Put another way, it does not possess continuity in a gnosensiential sense, the genuine taste of continuity, but one may attribute to it the concept of “continuity”. The interesting thing about the doctrine of “occasionalism”, and what seems to make it “proto-modern”, is that it posits an intelligible (indeed, supra-intelligible) principle behind the transcendental appearance of atomic moments (and it is noteworthy that Ashari aqida affirms atomism not only in moments but in “thinghood”). Occasionalism is on the precipice of modern thought, with one foot remaining on the threshold of antique metaphysics.

Dattatreya, as depicted by Raja Ravi Varma (1890)

*

—Summary of insights, aka tl;dr:

1. Being cannot be circumscribed in discursion, but there are certain forms of speech, namely, symbolic speech, which can evoke being, render it transparent for us, make it conspicuously intelligible.

2. Which being we prioritize when seeking the meaning of Being (e.g. Dasein), depends on which sense or manner of “Being” is in question (e.g. passively intellected).

3. We cannot interpret being, “on its own terms”, without the support of symbols. Moreover, the manner in which symbols express themselves depends on the mode of intellection through which they are apprehended.

4. Ancient and medieval ontologies have a being like, but not in every respect identical with, Dasein as their theme—namely, active intellect.

5. Traditional structures and forms of knowledge are preserved “occultly” in our inconspicuous manner of being-in-the-world.

6. Symbolism effects a “living” connection between Being and beings.

7. Modernity is the disassembly of all the outward supports of intellection.

8. Scientific crises are a symptom of modern science’s origins in “traditional science”.

9. Marxism is a kind of “Protestantism” that fructifies in “Catholic” soil.

*

“...time as the possible horizon of any understanding whatsoever of being”

(xxix)

Certain preliminary remarks are already possible here. Whether or not Heidegger acknowledges it, time is generically ambiguous, and its character is therefore that of a self-transgressing or contradictory manifold. Time is not only “temporal time” but also “timeless time” (i.e. eternity). Time is not only linear, but also circular (not to exclude other geometries or topologies). Therefore, if time is the horizon of being (or of “any possible understanding” of it), how manifold and paradoxical must be the contours of being itself! How many horizons being must have! Being and time are equally chameleonic. The vista of being is virtually unlimited (though, this in no way excludes that it is also limited), as unlimited as the generic ambiguity of time allows for (or, more precisely than “unlimited”, it is of indefinite extent)—and what is time not? Time is not only itself. Time is also ritual. Time is myth. Will not being, too, be found in these things? Is not ritual a plenitude of being, a “numinous experience”? Is not myth, too, in its capacity as the symbolic core of our being-in-the world, the very compass of being? Time, frequently, also is space (though, naturally, this does not exclude that time is also not space). Therefore, if being shares its horizon with time then it also shares it with space. Heidegger could just as well have called his book “Being and Space”, and placed certain modes of spatiality at the center of his inquiry. This brings another crucial word to the fore—“possible”. If time is generically ambiguous, then indeed it is also the “horizon” of being's impossibility (can one speak of “horizons” where impossibility is concerned?). It is thanks to time's generic ambiguity that being is able to exceed the possible, to exceed its horizons. Naturally, being is generically ambiguous in its own right (indeed, perhaps the generically ambiguous concept par excellence, the emptiest concept), but here, presumably, we adopt a special point of view, namely, that of being viewed from and through time.

*

“The concept of 'being' is indefinable”

(3)

Indeed, being is not definable discursively (in a “final” sense) because, as Heidegger points out (via Aristotle), being is not a genus (this is not to preclude that one may treat it as such, and that such a treatment even could have a legitimate field of application). Nevertheless being can be indicated or signified symbolically. One can render being transparent through the symbol, and this includes symbolic speech. For instance one can speak of being as the summit of Heaven. Such speech serves to render being transparent for us, intelligible, or, if being as such is beyond intelligibility, to contextualize it in reference to an intelligible whole. Though, in a sense, the symbol generally only makes known to the one who already knows, which, if the doctrine of anamnesis is to be believed, is everyone—a doctrine which seems to be curiously confirmed, from another standpoint by Heidegger's account of the everydayness of Dasein, an everydayness in which all the knowledge of being is already contained “incipiently”, as it were, and which is the point of departure for Heidegger's investigations. In any case, the distinction between the discursive and the symbolic (two modes of Logos), and therefore also between the individual (which includes the general or generic) and the universal, is a crucial one. It is not only crucial in a general way, if we are to do any sort of philosophy at all—indeed, the corresponding notions of the symbolic, universal, intellective, and metaphysical, in their proper acceptations, should never have been abandoned at all, except, perhaps, as a fruitful detour into the zones of error—but, such a recovery of the “metaphysical” and universal, is also crucial if we are to understand Heidegger's account of being, which is deeply pervaded with symbolic structure, a structure whose significance he himself may not have been aware of. It is only equipped with the notion of the symbolic that we can fully enter into Heidegger's metaphysics. Symbolism is the primary language of metaphysics, and it is under the aegis of this guiding principle (i.e. metaphysics as symbolism) that we are fully justified in speaking of Heidegger as a metaphysician.

*

“Questioning”

(4)

One of the crucial functions of questioning, which is not to be understated, is its way of rendering that which we already know (all-too-well) into something that we do not know (nearly-well-enough, but certainly not “not at all”). In this way it opens up new possibilities, new vistas, by creating a new space to explore. This is how questioning becomes a quest. To question being, therefore, is to make possible its re-production as something other than itself, either to make it into something other-than-being which, in terms of generic ambiguity, is still being, or else to make it into another sort of “being”. As an instance of the former, one might re-conceptualize being in terms of “time” or “life”, or some such other notion. This re-conceptualizing of being identifies being with something other than itself, and yet it is still, in all this, being which is in question. Through questioning, the philosopher becomes an artist, and is therefore well deserving of his own muse, his own Artemis, the muse of philosophers par excellence. In questioning being, the philosopher makes possible its imitation (in conceptual language, generally, which is the preferred mode of expression of philosophers, or a mix of conceptual and symbolic language, depending on how one understands “philosopher”). “Dialectic” is one possible instrument for effecting such artistry, though the “Socratic dialectic” is not the only means for questioning (Nietzsche's perspectivist method is also perfectly adequate as a philosophical method). The phenomenological “method” is another possible avenue towards the philosopher's imitative work (the imitation of being, or whatever happens to be under investigation). Indeed, one might suppose that phenomenology, in Heidegger's ontological sense, to the extent that it is none other than passive intellection rendered methodical, would be eminently “imitative”, seeing that passive intellection consists in a sort of “ontological conformity” to “impressions”. In this respect, it is worth noting that Heidegger never does “phenomenology” pure and simple, but always brings his phenomenological inquiry to bear in the wake of a prior questioning. This questioning first renders the ground which passive intellect is to imitate relatively “emptied”, and thus allows even passive intellect, the faculty of “ontological conformity”, some space for a creative re-interpretation. Thus, Heidegger, through his method, conforms exactly to his position in the history of philosophy, as the return to intellect after the fact of the apotheosis of transcendental subjectivity through Kant. Passive intellect is forced here to “conform” to a space which has little to offer it in the way of pre-given content. Like a man in a dark room, it has been given space to imagine that which its hands and feet grapple with. Therefore, somewhat contra Heidegger, the purpose of questioning being is not only to bring to the fore that which we already know, but also to renew our understanding (of being, or whatever else), to unknow that which we already know. A questioning which does not renew, which only serves to “render explicit” is also possible, though it is a matter of degree. Questioning always interposes a nothing (or, as an “ontological questioning”, makes us into a nothing, the receptive space of being). To degree that this nothing is threadbare (“analytical”), its action of “renewal” is minimal, barely registered. In such questioning, the minimum of nothing is interposed, just enough to effect divisions in the subject matter (divisions which aid conceptual classification). The just mentioned “ontological questioning” can be likened to (if not identified with) an “attunement”, in a Heideggerian sense, an attunement to “the silence of being”, away from “idle talk” and the like, in which beings reveal themselves (aletheia), and can also likely be identified with the mode of questioning, also just mentioned, in which one becomes the “receptive space of being”.

*

“In which being is the meaning of being to be found?”

(6)

The answer for Heidegger is, naturally, Dasein. Dasein, which is to say, passive intellection, can only uncover a certain “mode-of-being” and whatever is related to it. Other “modes-of-being”, such as those made accessible to active or primordial intellection, are closed out of Dasein's intellective horizon (though, in a certain sense, all intellection is intellection, regardless of the “mode” in which it expresses itself). If Dasein is the being (or “entity” or intellect) for whom being-in-the-world is accessible (this is Dasein's peculiar mode of being, or, as we will see later on, is what constitutes Dasein itself as a mode of being; which is to say, Dasein is not a being at all [1]), then what might we call the being for whom active intellection is accessible, or the being for whom primordial intellection is accessible? Naturally, we can just call this being “active intellect” or “primordial intellect”, as the case may be, just as, likewise, we may call Dasein “passive intellect”. Nevertheless, to call this being by a name which makes it something close and familiar, rather than by recourse to technical jargon, has its advantages. After all, the quest for knowledge is, in some measure, a quest for familiarity [2], and we do not fully feel our selves to know something until it has a certain intimacy or familiarity for us. We might, then, be so bold as to call that being for whom active intellection, in its purity, is most relevant “God”. Even if we keep in mind the distinction between Dasein and “homo existentialis” (more on this later), a distinction that equally holds in the case of active intellect, one could still say that it is the “combination” of man and active intellect which brings “God” to the fore as “a being”, as the most “relevant” being. Nevertheless, that interior contemplation which has its summit in the “self-contemplation of the Self” (“Self” here has the sense of “atman”, not a psychological or transcendental subjectivity or apperception) can justifiably be called “God” or something like Him. Primordial intellection can justifiably be attributed to “a being” we might, like the Indians of the Great Plains, call the “Great Spirit”, or, perhaps, like the Romans, “Numen”. Therefore, the question of which being we are to find the meaning of being “in” depends on what sort (or mode) of being's meaning we are searching for! If one gives priority to that which “comes first”, a strong case must be made for giving research into primordial intellection the first place. It is out of primordial intellection that Dasein (passive intellection) and “God” (active intellection) have their origins, emerging through the division of primordial intellection by transcendental subjectivity (or through some other “mode” of the nothing). This nothing, in turn, is ultimately identical with the very ground of primordial intellection, a sort of “unknowable divine essence”—stupidity, ignorance, fecundity, the mundus imaginalis, logic, transcendental subjectivity, eros, to name only a few of the guises under which this nothing sometimes reveals itself.

1: Which is not to say that we may not hypostasize it as such. Such a treatment is theoretically helpful, provided we retain a more existential conception of Dasein (and, in this context, “existential” has the sense of “passive intellection”) as a background to any such specification of it as a being.

2: It is a quest that often begins by rendering unfamiliar, perhaps from a feeling that the already-familiar is also not-familiar-enough, that over-familiarity denatures and divests of any distinctive quality that we might encounter as possessing a warm familiarity, and thus such a “quest” calls for a distancing followed by a re-encounter.

*

“This preliminary research that creates the fundamental concepts amounts to nothing else than interpreting these beings in terms of the basic constitution of their being”

(9)

To interpret the constitution (this is the key word here) of beings in their being is to say that we ascertain the qualities most fundamental to them [1] (though, obviously, Heidegger would take exception to such a characterization), their whatness (from “qualitas”, the what-sort-is-it-ness, which, ontologically, does not indicate a “sort” in the sense of a genera, but an immediately intelligible universal), their ousia. If what is at stake here is an interpretation of being, then it is a matter of hermeneutic, and if hermeneutic then “divination”, and if “divination” then its primary manner of expression must be symbolic. Therefore, it is not a question of fundamental concepts but, prior to such concepts, fundamental symbols (in the case of Dasein, their “fundamentality” is situated in their existential-phenomenological expression). For a divinatory hermeneutic to be possible, we require, in the first place, a tableau of symbols. This tableau must already be given in advance before the interpretation of beings can take place, hence the origin of the “profane sciences” in the “sacred sciences” (or in the “occult sciences”). The fundamental symbols provided in the latter have been adapted, modified, abstracted, and conceptualized discursively in order to suit the purposes of the former. From whence, then, come these symbols? To the extent that their fundamental character consists in intelligibility or in the condition of facilitating intelligibility, perhaps their origin must be sought in intellection, as the “language” through which intellect communicates itself, that form of mediation most adequate to the immediacy of intellect. If, then, intellection, then we must distinguish the character of the symbolic as seen from the varying “standpoints” (or modes of being) of primordial, active, and passive intellection. From the standpoint of the first, the world itself is a symbol, in a pervasive, immanent, and “effortless” sense. The symbolic character of the world, and the intelligibility toward which it “points”, does not need to be brought out through any special exertion, and indeed it points at nothing which is even virtually external to itself, though, as a matter of course, man being a “part” of the world, his exertions in the form of ritual also participate in the symbolic environment of which they, too, are an inextricably embedded “portion”. This can be seen in the “pristine simplicity” of the ritual life, generally, of all peoples comprehended under the umbrella of “primitive communism”, a people of primordial intellection par excellence. The political and historical datum of “primitive communism”, taken ontologically, is also an “ontopolitanism”, indeed what I call the “first ontopolitanism”, a distinction I enter into later in these notes, and which I have also discussed elsewhere. That said, just about every authentic metaphysician prior to Descartes participated in primordial intellection, to one degree or another, albeit tending greatly toward active intellection. Passive and active intellection only reach the apogee of their conspicuousness, as radically separate modes of being, after Kant, and through Heidegger (in the case of passive intellection) and Guenon (in the case of active intellection). For active intellection, then, the symbolic increasingly becomes a sacral domain (i.e. separated from the profane, “mekudash”) which requires an elaborate science in order to render ritual and symbol efficacious, to make the symbol transparent to “another world”, the world, for the most part, having ceased to function as a transparent window “on its own”. For passive intellection, the symbol is an invisible (or inconspicuous) presence, an underlying “existential structure”, which guides and orients our being-in-the-world. In this, perhaps, we can distinguish between passive intellection as found in premodernity, which still belongs, in a fundamental way, to primordial intellection (as its relatively passive “portion”), and that passive intellection which characterizes the everydayness of modernity and which is the subject of Heidegger's inquiry, that is, passive intellect after the radical cleavage produced by the transcendental subject's apotheosis [2]. The former is “guided”, and even intensified, through “outward” (though, they are by no means “experienced” as outwards) supports, which supports are generally pervasive in the context of a “traditionaly constituted civilization”, and to which supports it responds as a fish does to water—moving in it as in its own element. The latter (i.e. passive intellect in a modern context), in many cases, demands special habituation or “training”, as it were, in order to be rendered “authentic”, as Heidegger would have it. It demands, in other words, an explicit theoretical development (existential phenomenology), such as that provided by Heidegger, which assists in seeing this passive intellection's presence, a presence which is generally “covered over” in our “unheedful dealings” or in our overly lucid subject-object consciousness [3]. Zen Buddhism might also be considered an attempt to provide such a “training”, a training which prioritizes passive intellection, if only in the sense of taking its point of departure from it, hence, unlike Heidegger, it is still oriented toward the realization of “supra-intellectual” (unmanifest—the unborn, as emphasized by Bankei, for instance) states.

1: That is, the interpretation of beings consists in the discernment of qualitas, but before we interpret we must be in a certain way, whether in a passively intellective manner (as Dasein), an actively intellective manner etc. Heidegger does not make a distinction here between such a “preliminary interpretation” and being because for him “being” (eminently) is equivalent to Dasein only, and therefore the only “preliminary interpretation” that counts for anything, the only one which is truly preliminary, is that which is constituted by Dasein and in conformity with its manner of being. Dasein just is the sort of being that we are for him, indeed the only kind. There is no equivalence for him between active and passive intellect, or rather, in his terms, between Dasein and the antique conception of ousia which he narrows into the sense of the thematizing of beings, making them present in an explicit way. The thesis pursued here, however, is that active and passive intellect are ontologically symmetrical (or ontologically inverse), something which the ancient metaphysics no more recognized than Heidegger does, but which is now possible to recognize, in part thanks to Heidegger.

2: An apotheosis which occurs politically in liberal, democratic, and republican governance, socially in industrial labor, theoretically in Kant, and at the planetary level in and through colonialism (or imperialism), capitalist relations, and the world market. This apotheosis, of course, is not limited to these domains, but has its analogues and expressions in art, science, cultural production generally, social manners, and so on.

3: Indeed, it is a certain need, felt as urgent, to guarantee a life, an “authentic” dwelling, within the “sheep pen of being”, that, at the political level, characterizes the fascist tendency. Within the eminently transcendental context of modernity, a certain force is necessary, a certain barricade must be erected (more on this barricade later), in order to guarantee an uninterrupted slumber in authenticity for the mass of humanity within the “parochial” (or pseudo-parochial) limits of the sheep pen of being. The closed circle which fences us in, forcefully, within the limits of authenticity (in the modern context, such a fencing in must be forced, especially at a social level), is not unrelated to the positing of an unbroken circle of hermeneutic. The positing of such a perfectly vicious circle, beyond which none are permitted to wander, constitutes an analogue of the political ambitions of fascism, if not indeed serving as a theoretical support for such ambitions.

*

“Ontologies which have beings unlike Dasein as their theme...”

(12)

Undoubtedly, he not only has the Cartesian trajectory in philosophy in mind here, but most especially philosophy in the vein of Plato, Aristotle, and the Scholastics. Now, while it may be true that this latter grouping of philosophers (antique metaphysics) does not have Dasein as their theme (at least not to any marked extent), it is certainly not true that they do not have a being (or, rather, a mode of being) like Dasein as their theme. They do indeed take a (mode of) being like, though not in every respect identical to, Dasein as their theme. That (mode of) being which the ancient ontology takes as its “theme” is active intellect, which is like Dasein, insofar as Dasein is passive intellect. The notion of intellect, “in general”, is the bridge over which a likeness might be established between Dasein and the other being-for-whom-being-is-a-question found in antique and medieval metaphysics. Therefore, the “existential analysis of Dasein” is only one “fundamental ontology” among others. The presence of a multitude of fundamental ontologies, all of which (or at least a number of which) are authentically intellective, implies some sort of metaphysical perspectivism [1]. Which, in turn, suggests something fundamental about “metaphysical perspectivism”—it is not merely a matter of a multitude of “starting assumptions”, but of a multitude of modes of being from which one can begin the most basic interpretation of being, something which is obviously prior to any “assumption” or metaphysical “axiom”. Just how many such “modes of being” (or “metaphysical perspectives”) there are is still an open question. Most fundamental among these perspectives seem to be those of primordial intellection, active intellection (in its primordial and “Guenonian” forms), passive intellection (in its primordial and “Heideggerian” forms), and transcendental subjectivity. One can further divide transcendental subjectivity according to its directionality, and according to the predominance of its rational or irrational character. Another field is opened up between transcendental subject and intellect, at the same time encompassing them, that we may call the “imaginal subject”. Whether there are any other such starting points is, again, an open question. Dugin, for instance, suggests a “radical subject”, but this seems to be entirely fanciful concoction, and indeed not so much a basic starting point for inquiry, not a mode of being, but a proposed datum, a half baked axiom, proposed by some mode of being which is already implicitly given to us. Given its abstractive and hypothetical character, I think it would be fair to ascribe this proposition of Dugin's to the unlawfully directed transcendental subject. This datum, the “radical subject”, seems to bear the stamp of just this subject. That is, it seems to be a mere concept mongering, an overeager bid for originality, and little more, with perhaps some tangential points of contact, entirely incidental, with reality.

1: The uncountably vast multiplicity of perspectives included in such a perspectivism follows from the fact that these basic ontologies, which are limited in number (arguably threefold with the nothing of transcendental subjectivity as a fourth), manifest in terms of degrees and overlap. Indeed, the manifestation of such modes of being in relatively pure form is an unusual occurrence, which really only becomes possible after the apotheosis of transcendental subjectivity in Kant. Before this apotheosis, it is always a question of tendencies, predominances, and polarizations.

*

“tradition, historicity, etc”

(19-20)

While “Tradition” (and I capitalize this term deliberately) may pertain to the historicity of Dasein, as Heidegger defines it, it does not pertain (at least not essentially and directly) to history. Tradition is a living historicity, while history (or “historical research”) is dead historicity. Dasein brings his historicity into the present, in an effectual way, through participation in a Tradition (I capitalize “Tradition” following the example of Guenon). If we keep in mind that Dasein is fundamentally something intellective, then it follows that this account of Tradition is not far off from that of the Traditionalists themselves. Indeed, if Dasein corresponds to passive intellection, then the view that Tradition is primarily preserved through the “masses” is confirmed here also [1]. The very “ontological structures” of Tradition are preserved “occultly”, as it were, through the way of being which characterizes a certain “lower” social strata—and included in this are their folktales, mores, festivals, and often also their superstitions. In any case, if we wish to study the historicity of Dasein, there can be no better source than practiced Tradition. Surely, we should prefer to study Dasein's living historicity, not mere memories preserved as texts, which could only have a very secondary interest in a study of living Dasein. Indeed, history, is a deficient mode of Dasein's historicity [2]. Therefore, the “investigation” into being can take two directions, broadly speaking, from this point on. It can consist in an investigation of dead history, or it can consist in a participation in living tradition (in one or another intellective mode). This second road can culminate in the conversion of Dasein's passive way of being (passive intellection) into an positively realized intimacy with Being, the intensification of passive intellect past the limits and rhythms of everydayness—an eminently ecstatic degree of passive intellect. Such an intimacy with Being was foreclosed for Heidegger as long as he rejected or ignored this second path. Moreover, the first road—is it not necessarily a circle of interpretation without end? In any case, Heidegger's subsequent polemic against tradition (20-21) seems to relate to tradition purely in its “exoteric” sense, as a “veil”—but, from the traditional standpoint, every veil is also an entryway, an invitation to step through. He lacks an appreciation for this second possibility, and the way that this possibility takes its point of departure from out of the first—that is, of how an intimate acquaintance with Being can proceed out of the ground of Tradition, of how Being in its being can be approached by first hypostasizing Being as a being, provided that this is done rigorously, in conformity with an effective tableau of intelligibly grounded symbols. Not all “reifications” are equal [3].

1: That is, the passively intellective preservation of Tradition (and “Tradition”, basically, signifies the repository of intelligibility, especially grounded in symbols, the maps of being and non-being) occurs at this level, especially in a social sense. From an actively intellective standpoint, Tradition is preserved in the parampara, the golden chain of initiates, the link of teacher and student between whom the most essential teachings pass wordlessly, through the eyes (indeed, perhaps the “eyes of the soul”?), as Plato would have it in the Phaedrus, and through presence. From the standpoint of primordial intellection, no “preservation” is needed, to begin with (the Hindu myth of Dattatreya seems to be related to this—that he bears a threefold divine form is also significant, as is his youthful appearance).

2: The significance of this for any “historical materialism” or any science of history, should also be considered. A fully Promethean science of history (that is, one which fully embraces the Promethean ontology and its consequences) would, like the dompteur (see the third part of my notes on Kant's Prolegomena), grasp the intellective prolongations of history in its heroic arms, the historicity of Dasein on the one side and the mythically intelligible dimension of history (corresponding to active intellect) on the other, and force these plenitudes of intelligibility to submit to the social project of modern technoscience, socially and historically instantiated in the form of proletarian dictatorship. That is, intelligible historicity submits to the historical and developmental project of Promethean humanity, as the fuel source of its revolutionary forethought.

3: Indeed, this inequality is an ontological one. Reification is generically ambiguous. We must ask—who is reifying this or that being or “concept”? The conversion of Being into the intelligible res of symbolism (e.g. the symbol of the sun, or that of the “Supreme Being”, God, etc) through and for active intellect, is not equivalent to the reifications of Being accomplished by and for the transcendental subject (especially characteristic of the unlawfully directed subject).

*

“The first philosophical step in understanding the problem of being consists in...not determining beings as beings by tracing them back in their origins to another being”

(5)

If such a genealogy of beings is proposed as a definition (by tracing out their “genus”) then it is surely in error (a production of the unlawfully directed subject [1]), but such a genealogy may have a symbolic value. Which is to say, the former approach is in error only insofar as it has any pretensions to determining beings in their being by way of a mere definition, by determining them in relation to some proximate genus, whereas an authentically constructed symbolism can lay bare beings in their being, though this fact is little appreciated today. Indeed being itself can and must be symbolized as a being, and this itself tells us something about the ontology of symbolism. Every symbol has the form of a being and, as symbol, is a window (a “window”, too, is a symbol) which renders some “universal” (not a mere genus) transparent to man's intellect. Symbolism is thus the original scientific ontology or, better yet, an operative and technoscientific ontology (this is especially so when one considers symbol in the “proactive” mode of ritual). Symbolism effectuates the connection between being and beings for us, renders their connection intelligible and participable (and, in a sense, these are the same thing—intellection itself is the most intimate sort of participation, the “benchmark” of participation). It does not merely render a theoretical account of their connection, but guides us toward it. Moreover, symbolism, as a technoscience, has its origins prior to the conspicuous differentiation of active and passive intellect. Thus, it can serve as a possible case study on the effects of this differentiation. How has this differentiation affected the character of symbolism, of its “deployment” in a variety of contexts, ritual or otherwise? Has a rupture been effected in its meaning and essence? Have two independent trajectories of the development of symbolism (one of passive intellect and another of active intellect) and its corresponding sciences (the various “traditional sciences”, in which, incidentally, the modern sciences have their origin) been inaugurated? In the most broad and even generic terms, one could refer to the passively intelligible developments of symbolism as “folk ontology” (since, relatively, passive intellect has a closer proximity to the phenomenon of “folk culture”) and to the actively intelligible developments of symbolism as “initiatic symbolism” or “esoteric symbolism” (which is very far from to say that the passively intelligible mode of symbolism is somehow “exoteric”—the esoteric-exoteric distinction seems to pertain chiefly to active intellect's manner of forming distinctions). In that connection, one can therefore also speak of a folk ontolgy and an initiatic ontology, which is the same as to say “passive intellect” and “active intellect”, respectively, only here taken in terms of their prototypical Traditional reference points.

The first question, above—how has this differentiation affected the character of symbolism, of its “deployment” in a variety of contexts, ritual or otherwise? For the most part, as Heidegger has continually tried to show, the passive mode of intellect (which he calls “Dasein” or “being-in-the-world”) has been hidden from thought, from history. Passive intellect does not primarily manifest itself in any visible signs, but in the occulted structures of our activities, such as, perhaps most prominently, tool use (e.g. relating to tools as ready-to-hand). Some of these occulted structures of our being-in-the-world will be elucidated in the course of these notes. In a sense, over the course of time, active intellect has also tended toward an increased concealment, an esoteric concealment. While this symbolism has been overtly manifest in the outward signs of religion, including their doctrines (whose structure, whatever appearances might suggest, is not merely discursive), the intelligible reality of these symbols has increasingly withdrawn from the “public” sphere to a sphere of more or less exclusive initiatic “organizations” (with all the due reservations appropriate to this rather imprecise term). This movement of withdrawal is called “Modernity”. This withdrawal of active intellect is also complemented by the withdrawal of passive intellect, just mentioned. Both tendencies already began in antiquity, by virtue of the increasingly conspicuous differentiation between these modes of intellect—it is as if they were, in reality, hiding from each other. As Modernity reaches its apogee, we increasingly lose our ability to “be-in-the-world”, in a seamless and inconspicuous sense, a capacity which, for a time, has been relatively well guarded in the sphere of rural, parochial, and folk culture, but is hardly any more present there than anywhere else, at this time. There is no “turning back” this process of withdrawal (i.e. modernity). Parochiality no longer has any distinctive intelligibility infusing it (i.e. passive intellect). We are therefore justified in asking: is passive intellection somehow “intrinsically” parochial, or, in the sweep of ages to come, will it come to be seen that the wedding of passive intellect to folk culture has merely been an “accidental” feature peculiar to a few meager thousands of years of human history? Political reaction, in a sense, is a desperate attempt to to prevent the withdrawal of passive intellect, which it intrinsically associates with “the folk” [2]. In that sense, perhaps, political reaction can also be considered a superstition. It centers the outward signs of folk culture, and consigns (incidentally, “consign” has a very interesting etymology) passive intelligibility itself, the operative reality of passive intellect, to the periphery. The productions of folk culture become essence, and passive intellection accident. For, if passive intellect was truly taken to be the essential element, there would be no real cause for worry at the disintegration of this transitory and historical phenomenon (one that we have taken to be an eternal feature of human existence) that we call “folk culture”. Passive intellect, in reality, suffers no loss thereby. The superstition of political reaction says, as it were, “passive intellect is folk culture, and nothing else—if the latter is lost, nothing can remain of the former”. To folk culture and political reaction, living intellect says “let the dead bury the dead”.

Returning to the original question, by way of a summary, one can say that the differentiation between the modes of intellect (as a consequence of the apotheosis of the transcendental subject in modernity) has manifested as the “purification” of these modes of all the outward signs through which they were originally united (“all that which is solid melts into air”). As these links disappear, like so many bridges, the modes of intellect appear to move away from each other. However, the fewer links remain, as these modes begin to approach a total poverty of outward signs, the more these modes seem (though, only to a few who pay attention) to occultly unite again, away from public view. A transcendent union, as it were, in the fastness of silence, is effected between them, accessible in every time and place, apart from all the usual supports. Primordial intellection appears to reassemble itself as the background of modernity, the nothing of metaphysical non-Being as the mirror of the conceptual nothing of the modern subject. Tradition crumbles, but the jewel in its inner sanctum is imperishable. It is this jewel, incidentally, a living fire, that the genuine Prometheus makes the object of his theft, and not those secondary productions of culture that arise in dependence on it.

1: Or what, in practice, amounts to the same—reconceivable as a production of the subject. Any genuinely intelligible symbol can be rendered empty, the bare and generically ambiguous concept of itself, the serviceable canvas of any intellect or subject.

2: Forms of political reaction that take their grounding in active intellect, on the other hand, have generally tended toward a kind of “apolitical elitism”. That does not mean, however, that we should let down our guard. They could just as well construct more viable forms of political reaction corresponding to themselves, viable in the same sense that a paper tiger with real claws is viable and politically actionable.

*

“...the notion of something being vorhanden does not necessarily imply that it has the character of an 'object'”

(6, note from the translator)

While the state of “Vorhandenheit” does not necessarily entail the fullest and most conspicuous development of the subject-object dichotomy, it always, at the minimum, entails a “rudimentary form” of this dichotomy, as it were. Indeed, one can consider it to be the “seed” (a possible seed, in conformity with ontological inversion) out of which this dichotomy develops (in this case, from out of passive intellect). In this state of “Vorhandenheit”, therefore, one finds the rudiments of transcendental subjectivity and rationality. The genesis of both of these out of the state of “Vorhandenheit” should probably be developed separately—the former seems to develop out of a certain disjunction, and the latter out of the attempt to unite them through seeking out a “common measure” (a “mere” common measure, as it were). The latter procedure is obviously insufficient in terms of the goal that it sets itself. The full union that it seeks can only actually be effected transcendently (not transcendentally) and ecstatically. Thus, rationality is a continual process of unification without a terminus [1]. Transcendental subjectivity, on the other hand, is simply a more conspicuously developed instance of the original disjunction between the tool and the one who uses it. To fully grasp the development of this “seed”, we must follow its social, theological, and metaphysical developments, as much as its more ordinary manifestations (e.g. the example of the broken tool). Socially, for instance, Vorhandenheit appears as the rudimentary form of rationality found in judging or adjudicating grievances, and in the support that judgment, originally founded in the wisdom of the ruler (as per Vico, the divinatory prerogative of the higher social strata), later on takes from the formulation of explicitly discursive legal codes. Theologically, it appears in the propitiation of deities for specific problems, and finds its culmination in the God-world dualism of monotheistic religion. Metaphysically, it appears in the very necessity (or seeming necessity) of positing a distinction between passive and active intellect, to begin with. Its metaphysical apogee consists in the attempt to circumscribe the real through the deployment of merely discursive concepts—a venture necessarily plagued by systematic failure (indeed, it is its obstinately systematic character which guarantees its failure). All three of these avenues of inquiry (without precluding other possible avenues) can assist in the elaboration of a historical account of transcendental subjectivity.

1: Rationality, in this sense, is a kind of transcendental inverse (what I have elsewhere called a “hermeneutic inversion”—see the sixth part of my notes on Kant) of symbolism (those superstitiously inclined might even call it a “satanic inversion”). Whereas a symbol is a veil that unites by separating, rationality separates all the more with its every bid for union. Indeed, rationality and the symbol are the two “sides” of the Logos, the two functions of Hermes, that interpreter and trickster.

*

“The elaboration of the domain in its fundamental structures is in a way already accomplished by prescientific experience...The real movement of the sciences takes place in the revision of these basic concepts...A science's level of development is determined by the extent to which it is capable of a crisis in its basic concepts”

(8-9)

What Heidegger outlines here, though, for the most part, unknowingly, is a trajectory of development which begins with the traditional sciences (whose essential content is identical to that of “prescientific” experience), leads to the production of modern sciences (through a narrowing of the scope of the traditional sciences), and, finally, ends as the continual crises of these sciences. What Heidegger fails to appreciate, however, is the very existence of such traditional sciences. This is especially significant given that such crisis is entirely foreign to the traditional sciences. They are constitutionally precluded from suffering any crisis “in themselves” (they are not “crisomorphic”, as it were). Heidegger's intrinsic association of science with crisis follows from his ascription of a scientific status exclusively to the modern sciences. This is not a merely semantic point. Modern science and traditional science are not two entirely separate domains that just happen to share the name of “science”. They share this name not by mere equivocation but through generic ambiguity. These are historically and ontologically interlinked domains, the former being ontologically dependent on the latter, as well as its historical progeny [1]. Thus to intrinsically associate crisis with science is an error—even modern science ultimately rests on immutable, albeit occulted, foundations, and its crises are, in a sense, the pranks of a divine trickster, a mutable play which takes place on the field of immutability, and always in relation to this immutability. After all, something can only appear to be “in crisis” if we have a reference which is not in crisis with which to compare it, however implicit this reference remains. Just as time is said to be a moving image of eternity, modern science is the moving (a movement effected through development and crisis) image of traditional science. Thus, we find here the rudiments of a genealogy of scientific crisis if we but trace out its dark path, a path that leads straight into the belly of Saturn. For, these crises are none other than the metaphysics of premodernity expressed in the agonies and bellyaches of Saturnine science, the deathless Olympians clawing at the entrails of the earthly Titan. Moreover, these crises, in their most basic structure, are polarized and dialectical. Thus, we also have a genealogy of dialectical revolution traced out here, the revelation that dialectical revolution is none other than the instrumentalized agony of metaphysics in its most original sense. Nonetheless, it still remains to be clarified precisely how and why metaphysics in the belly of science becomes dialectical and revolutionary crisis. The basic reasoning behind this, I believe, is rather simple. Modern theoretical science, in its most basic “essence”, is discursive, enclosed within a discursive horizon (the character and genealogy of technoscience must also be worked out later). Thus, of the antique metaphysics, that which modern science is most capable of assimilating, albeit in an attenuated form, is polarity, duality, and all that which is related to it. It is the authentically synthetic (metaphysically unitive) character of this metaphysics which most eludes its grasp. Thus, modern science inherits polarity without possibility of any final resolution (“moksha”). This troubling inheritance, which may at first glance seem like a curse, is also the source of modernity's dynamism. That said, without the capacity of “tapping in” to its own originary metaphysical source, that dynamism will tend toward fragmentation, dispersal, and disorder. Modern science must periodically baptize itself in its origins.

1: That said, we should not forget that it is only the intervention of the nothing into primordial intellection, to begin with, a nothing which is non-different from transcendental subjectivity, even if it does not “initially” appear in that guise, which renders passive and active intellect separate, and therefore allows for the production of determinate “traditional sciences”. Thus, in a way, traditional science is dependent on that which is the same with modern science, that which is the seed of modern science before their historical arising.

*

“Luther”

(9)

Luther's significance, in light of the preceding reflection, is both illuminating and equally difficult to fathom. There is no question that Luther's highly adulterated concept of “faith” is, metaphysically speaking, a deviation and an error, pure and simple. On the other hand, this error, from a theoretical standpoint, is the mother of Marxism which, in its practical and historical destiny, overcomes the limitations of its Protestant roots by fructifying in the soil of metaphysical tradition (that is, Marxism originates in the imperial core, but fructifies, initially, in the periphery—China, Russia, Vietnam, etc). Lutheranism, parallel to the character of modern science discussed above, makes out of its limitations the engine of a certain dynamism—the dynamism produced by the polarized interplay of rational speculation and “faith” (as mere “belief”). Thus, Luther, even more than Descartes, is the father of modern philosophy. Marxism has already partially overcome the limitations of this Protestantism, chiefly in the sphere of practical and revolutionary tasks, but it has yet to do so theoretically, and as long as this theoretical inadequacy remains in place its practical results will always be tenuous in the long term and potentially vulnerable in the short term. To make myself perfectly clear, in case I have been misunderstood—to overcome the limitations of this Protestantism is not to regress back to antique metaphysics, but to root oneself in this metaphysics while retaining this new dynamism as a power at one's disposal. That is, Marxism heralds the real social and historical birth of the “second ontopolitanism” (again, more on this “ontopolitanism” later), the Promethean ontopolitanism. The “second ontopolitanism” is none other than the acquisition by the “Protestant subject” of the metaphysical tradition, or, at the same time, the acquisition of Protestant dynamism by the “metaphysical subject” (i.e. chiefly Dasein and active intellect)—in other words, it is none other than the “hieros gamos” of modernity and premodernity, and the formation of the Promethean androgyne, a social and historical union that occurs under the auspices of proletarian dictatorship, which, in this connection (that is, in reference to androgyny) is equally a feminist dictatorship (a concept to be elucidated in a separate series of essays).

Painting by Odilon Redon

*

In terms of the master-slave-space dialectic, the sage performs the role of space vis a vis the social order. He is that which is the slave and master of every slave and master, that element which is utterly superior and utterly inferior at one and the same time.

*

The “good” for the Greeks (e.g. Plato) is not that which “should be done”, in the sense of a moral imperative, but that which is desired. In every desire, no matter how perverse, the good is concealed. The difference between a perverse and a salutary desire is the direction of its movement—the perverse follows the outward flow of the good towards manifestation, and the salutary either follows the circle of the good’s way along its “natural” cyclic path within manifestation (a circle that images the good itself), or else follows the upward path back to the source of all goodness. There is a greater similarity here between the perverse and the transcendent (upward) paths, than between the salutary (circular) and the transcendent paths. This is a key to understanding many unusual aspects of esoterism, especially pertaining to certain antinomian tendencies.

Desire is the common surface of all these tendencies. Is desire something somehow superior to the good? Desire seems to constitute a spectral element here. It is neither the good nor the “bad” (as in the downward flow of the good, as opposed to “bad” in the sense of that which is feared and avoided). It is neither one nor the other, yet it is, in a sense, both of them—they both become manifest to us through desire, without which we would have no such distinction. It is, as in Plato's Symposium, born of Poverty and Plenty.

*

Apocalypse, also the messianic kingdom, is the intelligible mode of futurity—and the intelligible is always also the eternally present. Apocalypse is, therefore, the eternally present future, a future image that grounds us in timeless presence.

*

Intellection is the domain of freedom from subjectivity (—consider the precise implications of this latter term, i.e. to be under subjection)

*

Self-consciousness is the “I am that I am”—but what does the “I am that I am” add to the “I am”? It adds nothing. It is the positive addition of nothing. Except for this positive addition of nothing, the second “I am” is superfluous. Self-consciousness is the addition of nothing to consciousness, an addition which impossibly transforms it.

*

“How can I know what you say is true if you do not prove it?”—on the contrary, no one has yet known anything through proof. Proof and knowledge have no point of contact, they merely parallel each other.

*

One cannot identify reason with language as such. The origins of language are poetical, the etymology of words in images and metaphor, grounded in the intelligibility of life. Reason uses the vehicle of language, but is something other than language—or, rather, reason is precisely nothing at all, a type of nothing. It can express itself through diverse vehicles, such as actions (rational moral criteria) or social organization (rational political structures) because it itself is nothing at all.

*

Reason is the “parokhet” (פָרֹכֶת) or veil dividing the holy of holies from the profane world. Indeed, “פָרֹכֶת” comes from the root meaning to divide, break apart, or disassemble, which is precisely the function of reason. Reason is therefore neither the noumenal nor the phenomenal, to adopt the Kantian distinction, but a transparent film interposed between them, without which such a distinction would be meaningless. Tearing this veil, the sacred and profane merge and spill over like a flood into a single world rendered profoundly ordinary.

*

Spinoza followed Descartes’ disquisitions on substance, extension, and thought to their logical conclusion. Kant followed the Cartesian subject to its logical conclusion. They evince a complementary rigor, or an opposed one, according to one's preference.

*

The metaphysics of Descartes and his successors is not a meta-physics, at all, but neither is it a physics. The rational is situated between physis and the intelligible. The philosophy of rational concepts is a sort of “trans-physics”, transcendental with respect to physics but not transcendent, or a simulated physis, a model-building imitation of nature.

*

Rationalist philosophies are anthropomorphic in a restrictive sense, and therefore also anti-humanist. Man, in the full sense, is also more than man—but the rationalist philosophy builds its world in the image of man minus the more-than-man.

*

One of the strengths of Plotinus’ form of exposition is its unsystematic and exploratory character. It is a wandering from here to there, across noetic regions, as if to remind us that we must travel these regions for ourselves if we are to actually know them.

*

Renaissance humanism: the human has no essence (see Pico de Mirandola).

Enlightenment humanism: the human essence is his capacity for rational thought.

This is why Althusser is a crypto Enlightenment humanist. Structural (= rational) thought is the supreme criterion, as per Enlightenment humanism. Althusser repeats the old mantra that “man is the measure of all things”, but in hushed tones and with the proviso that this “man” is that conceived by the philosophes. He subtracts man and replaces him with that which was already conceived precisely as man.

Genuine anti-humanism is found e.g. in Catholicism, Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, etc, that is, any and every variety of traditional metaphysics. Althusser’s affiliation with Catholicism is rather curious, then, in that connection.

The origins of Renaissance humanism lie in a reinterpretation of pagan antiquity. The origins of Enlightenment humanism lie in a reinterpretation of Luther.

*

A definition is the inverse of a symbol. The former encloses, the latter expands. A symbol, however, is also a type of enclosure—an expansive enclosure. A definition is also a means of expansion—it grants us a solid ground for our expansive projects, even if the “solidity” in question happens to be merely virtual.

*

The rational is the unreal, and the unreal is the terrible and incomprehensible power before which the real world of “nature” trembles. Rationality is extra-terrestrial.

But nature, too, is pregnant with rationality. Nature, too, is filled with salutary ratios. Nature prefigures its own transformation in the crucible of the social and historical world of humanity. The latter, like the alchemists, accelerate and radicalize the operations of nature. It should be noted that this is not an acceleration in the manner of the “accelerationists”, since it is not a linear trajectory constituted in the most sterile manner merely in advance, but a dialectical explosion and expansion in which every such linear trajectory is continually transgressed. Revolution is not “acceleration”. Accelerationism is merely reaction in another tempo.

*

The one rooted in nothing can have nothing but contempt for all that which is merely superior, all that which prides itself on little superiorities. Hence man, whose ontological basis is nothing, can only have contempt for a mere “overman”—to trade one’s boundless and unfathomable nothing for a mere degree of “superiority” is unconscionably foolish. Prometheus is the archaic sign of man’s humanity and his futurity. The “Overman” is an ape by comparison.

*

Can a philosophy (especially in the modern sense) ever really constitute something so vast as a “Worldview”? I think, at most, it can be a glance, a “regional glance”, but no more. The Worldview still belongs to fundamental symbols.

*

The history of philosophy is premised on a felicitous misreading of Plato—one mistakes his provisional use of dialectic for a speculative use of dialectic. Plato was not seeking out the Truth—he had already found it. The dialectical method is intended to produce this vision of the Truth in others. Plato’s chief concern is not some presupposition-less search after Truth, but the employment of a technique by the “sage” for transmitting his knowledge.

*

“Proof” is a type of nothing. If I have proven something, I have added nothing to it. Likewise, if I disprove it, it is in no way obliged to comply with my disproof by ceasing to exist.

*

The problem with psychology/psychiatry, today, is precisely that it has ceased to be psycho-analytic. It is not longer an endeavor aimed at penetrating into, and discerning the constitution of the human psyche through reflection and through psychoanalytic practice. Long lists of formally defined disorders, with checklists of symptoms—nothing could be further from a genuine analysis. The problem with psycho-analysis, in turn, is that it failed to appreciate the metaphysical constitution of the psyche—that is, it failed to factor in intellect as a conditioning principle of psyche. Psychology without intellect ends up chasing phantoms.

*

Dialectic is beyond the dichotomy of introspection and outward activity. On the one hand, dialectic is fundamentally concerned with reasoning processes (“dialogue”) and inquiry. On the other hand, as a “dialogue”, it projects its inquiry through the medium of another inquirer, and that into which the two inquirers inquire is something shared in common between them—eminently, the “world” and that which lies within it. Dialectic seeks to enter into the interior reasoning processes of the world, a world itself composed of reasoning human beings. It is not mere empirical description, which is a private activity which is only ever shared incidentally; ditto for intellective contemplation, the refuge of the solitary sage. Dialectic is always public, in the “market place”. It is inquiry through communication (commune-ication, communitas).

*

There is no “rational knowledge”. Reason is the faculty of ignorance, whether in the sense of rendering doubtful through questioning inquiry, or in the sense of its instrumental application. It takes that which is known and says “cease to know it” or “set aside mere knowing, and put to use”. Reason as applied to the clarification of concepts, categories, and definitions falls under the latter heading of reason (i.e. instrumental reason). It seeks to make language more readily usable, to smooth over its rougher edges. Clear and distinct definitions take that which is initially known and render it, rather, into that which is serviceable.

*

The Hegelian subject, “Geist”, is still transcendental. It is simply the historical dimension of the transcendental subject, that is, an account of how changes in subjectivity accompany changes in the objective world. The subject-object division is still, for the most part, taken for granted here, whether implicitly or explicitly.

Hegel’s attempt at tracing the movement of Geist, i.e. the “historical-transcendental subject”, throughout periods of antiquity and the middle ages, periods that were largely characterized by intellective modes of cognition rather than transcendental ones (it is, of course, a matter of degree), should not eo ipso be considered wrongheaded. On the contrary, he has furnished an account of the presence of transcendental subjectivity creeping silently through these intellective periods of time, the “cunning of Reason”. Transcendental subjectivity was present, albeit covertly. It is a “nothing”, and thus can never not be present—or, rather, is also present through its own absence.

*

You say you have “lost your innocence”—but if you were still innocent, would you know it? We are innocent precisely in the ways we do not suspect.

*

Millenarianism is the worship of the past disguised as orientation toward the future. It is the desire to regress toward a regressive future (back to innocence in the Garden of Eden). Future hope is rendered a canvas for nostalgia. Indeed, in the finality of what it prescribes, it seeks to abolish all futurity, as does every utopian scheme. That is, it aims at the abolition of humanity, futurity, forethought. This it fails to do. Eventually, Prometheus always breaks his chains.

*

There are two ways to answer a question—retreat or entry. A question is like an empty space that opens up before us. One can turn back towards that which one already knows, and cling to it, or one can enter into this space and bring out something new from it.

*

The paranormal is not that which defies the normal “as such”, but that which defies what we have declared to be normal by a sort of social fiat. This distinction is far from negligible. Science loves to explore that which is not normal, whereas the scientist, being a social being, frequently does not.

*

The intellectual conscience: everything which you try to exclude from your thought weighs on you like a burdensome guilt. Consequently, you cannot really exclude anything from thought—neighboring masses always leave an indentation. Try as any thinker might to ignore certain inconvenient facts or ideas, they always leave a trace in his thought, however subtle.

*

The Romantic is wedded to everything which his romanticism obliges him to reject. The Romantic renders his deepest ambition into a fantasy, and thereby he implicitly affirms whatever it is his ambition rejects (that is, reluctantly affirms it as real). No one is a more ardent believer in progress than the one who merely fantasizes about tradition. He shivers in a cupboard, clinging to his tradition, consumed by fear, while a monster roams in the house. For the traditionalist, progress is the most real thing there is, a monolith that towers over his landscape and swallows the sun.

*

Beauty as a force of life-affirmation, or a beacon of hope, is a cliche. Beauty is supposed to make you want to die on the spot.

*

Writing should be opaque to its origins, so that its own present constitution can come to the fore, a present constitution which is future-directed—but this is precisely what the academic cannot do. Academic writing makes the origins into the only present constitution, and forecloses its own future. Academic writing is writing without a future.

*

“Jargon” consists in concepts that seem to justify themselves through mere enunciation. At its best, it is a convenient shorthand, but all too often an excuse for lazy thinking.

The problem with jargon is not the perceived difficulty presented by a “technical” language. Thought should not condescend, but should present itself in its complexity. This is precisely what jargon does not do. Jargon is difficult language masking all-too-easy thought.

Jargon can be as antithetical to clear thinking as condescension (i.e. vulgarizing thought in order to “dumb it down” for one’s listener).

Jargon condescends to the vanity of middling intellects.

*

What distinguishes man, from a “Promethean” standpoint, is that he also thinks ahead. That is, that in addition to other ways of thinking, man also thinks ahead. Imagine a being that only thought ahead, a pure Promethean being—such, man is not.

*

Just as in alchemy, one must have gold to make gold, likewise in politics one must have power to get power. To those who have, more will be given.

*

The industrial mode of production itself constitutes the existential analogy between worker and capitalist, and therefore, as long as this mode persists, the worker’s being-with-capitalists will persist even in the “physical” absence of a capitalist class. The capitalist is the abstractable quantity of industrial production. It is not “capitalist production” which produces the capitalist (a viciously stupid circle) but industrial production. If this were not so, proletarian dictatorship would be unnecessary.

*

Too often we speak of liberalism in an all too generic way. Really, we have to distinguish between the French revolutionary liberalism, based on ideal social aspirations, and the Anglo liberal tradition based on a mix of utilitarianism, empiricism, and “free trade”. Our failure to make this distinction has allowed one tradition to take up the other as its mask and play us for fools. Many a magnate has concealed “ideal” (a monstrous ideal) aspirations behind a mask of ruthless market competition, and many an openly avowed idealism has been little more than a marketing strategy.

*

Millenarian fervor represents a world-weariness which is no mere negation, but the highest pitch of ecstatic desire. It equally inspires poor and rich to abandon their poverty and their riches and throw their whole lot behind the promise of a final and enduring bliss. Millenarianism does not represent a weariness with a certain configuration of class relations, nor the weariness of some class within a social class configuration, but a weariness with the burden of class society as such, with all forms of social contingency, with all social “personas” whether the mask is that of a master or a slave.

It is not a negative world-weariness, for it takes the world itself as a negation, and it is of this negation, experienced as a continual burden, that it wearies. That is, it is not negative once, but negative twice—the negation of a negation.

Communism is not Millenarian. Rather, Millenarianism is the specter which will haunt communism, just as communism haunts capitalism, today. By communism, here, I mean the real movement of the proletarian dictatorship (“actually existing communism”). Millenarianism is the ghost of communist future, which says to communism “you are not communist enough”.

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Provisional constitutionalism: the production of constitutions on a provisional basis, in order to adapt state institutions to the real existing social order. From whence then the authority to make such adaptations? From a double source of ruling class and “tradition” embodied in symbols. As Vico has noted, the ruling class exercises authority through divination. For this divination to be possible, we require a font of intelligible symbols through which to interpret the social order, and out of which to produce successive discursive constitutions. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the workers constitute the ruling class, and the vanguard of the workers consists in those members most qualified to interpret these symbols. The effective carrying out of constitutional demands belongs to the bureaucratic apparatus, but the production of constitutions belongs to the ruling class (i.e. the workers). Provisional constitutionalism, is a theory of constitutions which premises itself on class struggle, as opposed to ideal liberal-republican notions of the “good political order”. “Class struggle” itself is a lofty symbol under which a certain class (that is, of course, the proletariat) will conquer.

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The ideal-Platonic conception of the proletarian dictatorship is the monarchy of the masses, and the real-Aristotelian conception of proletarian dictatorship is the aristocracy of the masses. “Monarchy” here means that a singular arche is given metaphysical and organizational precedence in the structuring of the state. In the ancient monarchy, that principle is reified Being embodied in the divine king (and such “reification” is not something objectionable, superstitious, or reducible to a pejorative, but a genuine condensation of human knowledge in its environment, a gnoseological function). In the communist (hence, archaeofuturistic) polity, that principle is technoscientific power, embodied in the working masses. “Aristocracy” here means the dictatorial rule of a privileged class, in this case, that of labor.

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“Conspiracy theory”, in the colloquial sense (Reptilians, Illuminati, etc), is the attempt to render politics and history intelligible, especially the politics of modernity. It is the attempt to synthesize the disparate character of modern history under an intelligible symbol. Needless to say, it is an attempt that fails.

It is para-noid, though it should perhaps be dubbed “peri-noid” because it seeks to wrap the intelligence (nous, the intellective mind) around the phenomena of history. Myths of the Olympians are no longer adequate to the strange contours of modernity. Modern man paranoiacally searches everywhere for the hidden seams that can unravel the mystery of a labyrinthine world that claims to have nothing mysterious about it. The more modernity insists on its own disenchantment, the less the paranoiac is inclined to believe, the vaster the scope of the conspiracy sought. The conspiracist correctly intimates that, apart from a comprehensive intelligible vision, science itself, the social fabric, political institutions, and cultural productions undergo fragmentation and gradual self-dissolution. The mistake consists in the unskillfulness with which this intelligible vision is sought and the literal crudeness which cobbles it together.

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Nietzsche’s vision of a post-human order, which is identical to the vision of the “Nazi International” and the dregs of the European elite, fears the power of the masses on the pretext of their “low” character, their “mediocrity”. In reality, it demands the preservation of this mediocrity in order to feel higher merely by comparison. This is a fact, subject to historical verification. The deliberate mediocritzing of the masses has been an actual policy effected on a variety of levels (everything from undermining nutrition to sabotaging education). This elite, then, does not possess the true will to power and overcoming (only to being more-powerful-than). This can only come to the fore through communism, through the organized dictatorship of the masses—for man is a social animal. Therefore, his power and his overcoming are equally social. “Aufheben” overcomes and preserves. Nietzsche’s elite fail to preserve man’s basic social character. They can never be “superhuman” for the simple reason that they are not even human. Nietzsche’s doctrine is, in reality, the doctrine of the “Untermensch”. Only communism raises the level of man beyond himself in fact and in deed.

Every effort must be expended to stave off this subhuman future represented in the ideology of the European elite and the “technologically transhuman” concept. This is a destiny of eternal mediocrity, precisely contrary to Nietzsche’s claim.

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In terms of their international extent, and their prefiguration of a world state, both colonialism (particularly under the British) and imperialism (particularly under the American post-WWII order) are images and outlines of the coming communist world-state. Naturally, I speak of a communist “state” here in reference to the dictatorship of the proletariat.

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Personally, I am sympathetic to the idea that as an international order progresses (naturally, under communist auspices), the idea of the nation will fade away, not in order to give way to a cosmopolitan individualism, but to a more “organic” ordering of locales and cultures. Indeed, that apex of centralization represented by a putative “World State” is the precondition for the sort of decentralization necessary to make more autonomous local development possible. In the long run, internationalism is the best friend of “localism”. It is the halfway-house of competitive nation-states, under the auspices of capitalism in its imperial stage, that demands the sort of centralization which subsumes local autonomy. All resources, especially “human resources”, must be turned toward making the nation “competitive”. The difference, then, between internationalism and nationalism, is that the one is an agonic centralization and the other an antagonistic centralization.

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While I do not accept the ethic of work, the imperative to tireless industry, I can by no means deny the power of industry. Therefore, I am even obliged to admire it. The glory of work is in its power, not in its fulfillment of moral obligations. Work is luxury, the quintessentially human luxury and form of excess. For man, otium and laborum are one and the same in essence. Man is the only species whose characteristic form of rest is labor.

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Europe represents intellectual and artistic nihilism, nihilism in a meditative key. America is practical nihilism, nihilism realized on earth, nihilism as a cheery way of life, nihilism as enthusiasm.

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The ideological standpoint of a positive human essence is the preserve of petty bourgeois reaction (e.g. integralism). Both the proletariat and the haute bourgeoisie are emblematic of a lack of essence. The difference between them is that in the latter this lack is purely privative, and in the former it is a positive lack. The worker makes this lack into a positive power acting in the world. The haute bourgeoisie is a passive reflection of emptiness, a passive instrument in the hands of capital.

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Communism is nothing more than a minor adjustment that makes a world of difference. It is that shift in polarity that we call the “dictatorship of the proletariat”. It is a small thing, but the concentric ripples that reverberate from this point of impact, stretch on to infinity.

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To say that man’s essence or “species-being” lies in his sociality is, in effect, the same as to say that man has no essence at all—for, the social sphere is in constant motion, not only in the sense of a mere rearrangement of parts, but of qualitative revolutions (i.e. dialectical changes). Man, therefore, has no essence, and the theory of his species-being only serves to specify the operative character of the no-essence peculiar to man, that is, the manner in which this no essence successively assumes and casts aside every essence.

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If communism is a process, then the most self-conscious appropriation of that process is communism in an eminent degree. That is, the dictatorship of the proletariat is communism par excellence. Proletarian dictatorship is continually and progressively more communist than any communism as stateless, classless society.

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Historical inquiry preceded anything like a historical science (e.g. Spengler, Marx, etc), and is necessarily prior to its possibility. History is first a question asking, and only afterwards a method and answer. Herodotus, the father of history, had no real method, but he had a great appetite for gossip, and gossip is best fed through persistent questioning. History started there as asking around and peering into other people’s business.

History is a species of inquisitiveness.

History begins in the gossip columns.

On the other hand, we have another typological source of history in myth. History is always a story-telling. Even gossip conforms itself to certain already-given motifs. Gossip, after all, needs to evoke interest. It therefore often borrows something of the mystery and excitement of myth. History, then, is a kind of halfway-house between gossip and myth.

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Maybe what we need is a good thousand years of pure technocracy without any self-reflective thought so that thought can recover from its exhaustion. A thousand years of pure application. To be clear, this is mostly meant tongue in cheek. I am fairly prejudiced against technocracy, but at the same time, there is an element of morbid seriousness here. Just look back and consider how much development there has been over the last few thousand years, in art, science, thought. It's too much, not in the sense that we've passed some final limit beyond which development is definitively unnecessary, but in the sense of too much too quickly. We have not had time to digest all of it. While the idea is terrible to me, perhaps one thousand years of cultural sterility is just the sort of terrible thing that we need: time for digestion, not as a counterweight to development, but as the precondition of its not being lost to us. Whatever we do not digest, we will expel from the body of our cultural memory. This was highlighted to me some time ago when I read Beiser's "The Fate of Reason", an overview of the thinkers whose frictions were productive of the trend in thought we call "German Idealism". Many of these thinkers have been neglected, their names almost lost to cultural memory: Reinhold, Hamann, Jacobi, Ulrich, Maimon, Schulze. We moved on too quickly, and consequently have digested them badly. This reasoning can be extended to art and science. Good digestion is the precondition of stable, long-term progress. To be clear: technocracy is hell—but maybe we need to go through a temporary hell in order to preserve the building blocks of a possible heaven.

In all of this, it makes a world of difference whether this technocracy has the form of a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or of a dictatorship of the proletariat. That the dictatorship of the proletariat has the form of a “pure, technocratic administration”, or that it at least tends towards it, is a popular communist thesis, confirmed by many of the “classic” thinkers (e.g. Engels, Lenin, Stalin—Marx as well?). Incidentally, I don’t agree with it—the dictatorship of the proletariat is something political in the extreme, in my view, in almost an Aristotelian sense—but I am sympathetic to the idea that the dictatorship of the proletariat might need to provisionally adopt a technocratic form, for the reasons outlined above.

Technocratic sterility, as I conceive it, is not an inoculation against Promethean hubris, but the guarantee of its possible long-term persistence. Indeed, as an instance of future projection, of premeditated long-term planning, a provisional technocratic sterility becomes its own Promethean opposite. Technocracy, which is the very opposite of Promethean transgressivity vis a vis technology, becomes another Promethean machination intended to preserve the Promethean impulse over a broader field of history. Technocratic interim is Prometheus tensing before another leap, Prometheus reaping the last harvest in preparation for his next sowing, a period of sowing which will necessarily be on an even grander scale than the period which preceded it. Technocracy, itself instrumentalized as a machination, is a Promethean siesta.

Technocratic sterility and Prometheanism are obverse sides of the same coin—technology as a prison, and technology as a means of liberation from the prison of technology.

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There is no reason to suppose that artisanship, which is pre-capitalist, will cease to exist under communism. Even capitalism has not succeeded in completely phasing out artisanship, why should communism succeed where capitalism failed?

Similarly, one could, by analogy, conjecture that just as capitalism has not completely phased out artisanship, so communism will not completely phase out private property. Certain industries will continue to maintain a private character under communism, but they will be under the subjection of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

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Communism is supposed to be something of vaster scope than capitalism, not exclusively other than it. Communism is not an “alternative”. It is a liberal cast of mind that perpetually thinks in terms of “alternatives”.

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Class “consciousness”—but what sort of a consciousness? A cunning consciousness. The life of the working class is one of Sisyphean drudgery—they must also appropriate for themselves the cunning of Sisyphus. Cunning is the quality worthy of kings, that is, of the dominant social class. If the working class is to assert its rule, it must acquire the bearing of a king.

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The moderate, easy flowing canter of China’s social and economic progress is only possible because they began, in principio, with a radical overturning of the previous order. The establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat is attended by lightning and thunder. Smooth sailing only comes later.

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Nations might be ‘fictitious’ but the idea that nations are fictitious is even more fictitious than nations are.

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As productive power increases, and consequently as the shortening of the working day is enabled (though, at present, this possibility is not utilized), work itself increasingly becomes a social and political activity rather than an “economic” or slavish one. To coordinate and participate in social productivity becomes the vocation of a free man.

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Competition, under capitalism, and between capitalists, is not only economic but also ideological. The Rockefeller ideology is distinct from the Ford ideology is distinct from the Google ideology is distinct from Nazi ideology etc. A system premised on private economic power also becomes the rule of private ideological fancies. Peter Thiel and Bill Gates share a class character, but differ, albeit with points of intersection, in their ideological fantasies.

It is in this respect that communism cannot base itself on ideology (even if it provisionally deploys it). Communism is founded on truth, not on individual fancy or even the aggregate whims of a collective. Cynicism respecting the possibility of truth and science are incompatible with communism.

A sculpture of Hermes, approx. 330 B.C.

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Corollary to “automorphosis”, we must also conceive of a “xenomorphosis”, that procedure which renders something inaccessibly “other”. This does not only pertain to our social lives, that is to our “othering” of people, but to the experience of any phenomena whatsoever as incomprehensible, foreign, uncanny, or strange. The UFO phenomenon is a good example (indeed, “xenomorph” is the name given to the creature from Ridley Scott’s Alien).

The generic ambiguity that subsumes the automorph and the xenomorph consists in their both constituting types of nothing. That which is foreign to the point of incomprehensibility is effectively nothing for us. The self (the “me”, as opposed to the Self as “atman”) is that which appropriates to itself. It has no content of its own besides that which it incorporates from outside by saying “me” and “mine”. The self (automorph) is also a type of nothing.

That which is foreign (the xenomorph) is the self seen outwardly. The experience of strangeness consists in encountering the self exterior to itself, walking about in the world like a devouring monster, a hostile force. The self (automorph) in its native habitat is this selfsame foreignness, and its hunger is always for that which is near and dear to us. The desire for food for instance, or for affection. Affection and food are part of our world, and the self devours this world of ours, destroys it by appropriating it. Food and affection, in themselves, are things closer to our nature than this “self” which appropriates them. The self devours our intimate life in the world (passive intellection). Transcendental subjectivity is monstrous. The aim is to discipline this monster in forethought and the form of sociality which corresponds to this (i.e. socialism in large scale, scientific industry), and thereby render it into a Titan.

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A differentiation is necessary between the empirical and the experiential. The empirical refers to the experience of the transcendental subject, and thus is a type of the experiential. The experiential refers to all instances of wakeful consciousness (“wakeful” meaning conscious; that is, “conscious consciousness”, which is not in all cases reducible to self-reflexive consciousness—this is an ubiquitous error that must be rejected), whether that consciousness is characterized by a strict subject-object dichotomy, a looser subject-object dichotomy, or no subject-object dichotomy at all; whether that consciousness is characterized by automorphosis, or not, and so on. The empirical is that range of the experiential which is characterized by a more or less strictly delineated subject-object dichotomy and a conspicuous application of automorphosis.

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A posteriori analysis simply refers to the non-judgmental analysis which produces the synthetic a priori judgment from out of an intellective whole. It is posterior to intellective synthesis, which it renders susceptible of judgment “after the fact” (by converting intellective synthesis into synthetic a priori judgment). It is an analysis which comes after intellective synthesis, which acts upon precisely that intellective synthesis on which it depends as its ground of possible action. Hence, it is an a posteriori analysis, an analysis “after the fact”.

And note, one can speak here either of the analytic a posteriori judgment (that is, the procedure which produces the “atom of analysis”) or a posteriori analysis. Likewise, one can speak of synthetic a priori judgment or of an a priori synthesis (i.e. intellective synthesis), and so on.

Thus, a posteriori analysis, which is effectively another term for the “transcendental reduction”, would simply consist in rendering intellection conformable to the principle of non-contradiction, that is, converting an instance of intellection into something susceptible of analytic judgment (and what is it that is susceptible of analytic judgment? A synthetic judgment).

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Kant’s thing-in-itself consists in an unmediated ignorance, an unmediated unknowing, as contrasted with the unmediated knowing of intellect, or the mediated ignorance of reason. This unmediated ignorance is the unmediated knowing of intellect, or, rather, it is precisely our ignorance of that and nothing else, that is, with nothing else mediating that ignorance.

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Thing-in-itself is present to us, first as ignorance, as unknowing, and, secondly, present to us again as sensuous appearance (for the subject)—thus, contra Kant, appearance is the re-presentation of thing-in-itself. The for-ness of an appearance is a stamp from the mold of thing-in-itself, a distinctive nothing which marks it out within the transcendental horizon, and its qualities are a trace of that which precedes even thing-in-itself, namely, beings, things-as-they-are-in-themselves.

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The thing-in-itself, as Kant wants to conceive it, is almost to say a part without a whole. The synthetic a priori is a whole which is projected onto this whole-less part in order to contextualize it, which is the only way it may be rendered cognizable for the transcendental subject.

Kant attempts here to construct a linear model of the relation between whole and part. He does this by dividing part into transcendent portion (noumenon; thing-in-itself; whole-less part) and phenomenon or part as contextualized in “external intuition”. He also divides whole in two—the synthetic a priori form of “sensuous intuition” and this whole as it is cognized in a posteriori experience (external intuition).

Kant prefigured the “clover” (the fourfold horseshoe). Whereas the philosophers of circular hermeneutic see hermeneutic as the binary circle between whole and part, Kant already saw it as a fourfold structure made up of parting and whole-ing as much as part and whole. More than this—he saw that it was not really a closed circle. That said, he attempted to elaborate it in linear terms, but, after all, a horseshoe is as much almost a line as it is almost a circle.

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Phenomenon (in the Kantian sense) is simply what noumenon looks like for the transcendental subject.

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The transcendental subject is both the interposition which breaks the circle of hermeneutic and the one for whom it appears as an unbreakable circle. If the subject is blind to the break in the circle it is because it is that break (or that zone in which the circle is not).

Does the transcendental subject also break the hermenoetic sphere? Certainly. It is only because this sphere was first broken that we can reduce hermeneutic to a mere circle, from its original intelligible depth.

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Things-as-they-are-in-themselves do not present themselves as “objects” but they do re-present themselves as such. Man does not primarily cognize as subject, but he does re-cognize as such.

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In relation to transcendental subjectivity, intellect is itself a kind of nothing, a specter, a ghost. That is, intellect transgresses the bounds of transcendental subjectivity; the latter cannot “contain” the former. This, in turn, points to a more subtle transgressivity—for, intellect is not supposed to be transgressive at all. Intellect is that which is pure, intelligible, whole, complete. Who, then, has so audaciously made the intellect into something transgressive? It is the transcendental subject, whose very presence has imbued intellect with transgressive character with respect to transcendental subjectivity. It has made intellection into paradox.

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It is the nothingness of the transcendental subject which allows it to re-present being as that which it is not; to bring forth being-as-it-shows-itself as that which it does not (initially) show.

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What Kant was fundamentally talking about in all his distinctions with regard to synthetic, analytic etc was judgment. Synthetic, analytic, a priori, a posteriori—these were qualifiers. It was the faculty of judgment which was under examination, not metaphysics, or epistemology, or mathematics, etc. All of these are peripheral qualifiers with respect to judgment (e.g. a judgmental mathematics, a judgmental epistemology, etc).

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Transcendental metaphysics: an “indirect” metaphysics taken from the standpoint of the transcendental subject; metaphysics for the indirectly intellected subject (or “intellectual accidens”); metaphysics re-formulated according to one or more of its conceptual possibilities.

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Analytic judgement is an inverted image of intellection or intellectual synthesis (not synthetic judgement). Synthetic judgement is a type of analysis (not analytic judgement). Inverted how? The analytic judgment is dead certain, that is, a sterile certainty, and in this way reflects the glow of ineffable certainty that attends an intellection.

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A spirituality of transcendental subjectivity would be a peculiarly Western phenomenon. Not that transcendental subject somehow “does not exist” outside of the West, but it is the West, in particular, which places an emphasis on it, and which is most captive to its charms. Thus, it is the West which is obliged to transfigure the transcendental subject in a new spiritual light, the luminous darkness of unknowing. This transfiguration is the “Promethean ontology”.

I would only question here the prioritization of the West in this process. The West may have provided the seed (e.g. of communism), but it found a receptive soil outside of the “imperial core” (e.g. in Russia, China, Latin America, etc). This is directly comparable to the “Catholic-Protestant” dynamic I noted elsewhere (see my notes on Heidegger's Being and Time).

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Synthetic judgement is a conceptual fractalysis of a synthetic (intellective) whole.

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It would not have been possible to explore passive intellection on its own terms (i.e. phenomenologically) if Kant/Descartes had not fully developed the cleavage of transcendental subjectivity. It is this which sunders the unity of intellection, and renders both sides of the equation explorable, in an autonomous sense.

This would suggest that the metaphysics of antiquity / middle ages was largely a mixture of passive and active intellection, of myth and symbol. Indeed, the metaphysics of the scholastics, for instance, was never free from a dependence on Biblical guidelines.

This would suggest that Guenon also represents something new and decisive in the history of metaphysics. Though he does relate to myth in his writing, it is clear that he attempts as “pure” as possible an account of active intellection as he can; one that seems to be without precedent. He, therefore, is also dependent on the Kantian turn.

Guenon and Heidegger represent the two directions that are possible for metaphysics after Kant, that is, for metaphysics in its genuinely intellective sense—“metaphysics”, after all, is generically ambiguous, and not every metaphysics has an intellective character, even if it is this sort which is metaphysics eminently.

—And what of Hegel? Hegel and Marx, potentially, represent the possibility of uniting these directions into one Gordian knot (as opposed to a return to the relatively undifferentiated state of passive and active intellection prior to Kant). Hegel almost imagines such a union through his drama of reason, and Marx almost outlines its accomplishment in social struggle. In both cases, the intellective dimension is lacking, but by reason of Marx's theoretical proximity to the intelligible structure of the social sphere of modernity, he is much closer to intellect. In practice, this manifests most conspicuously in the seeding of Marxist theory outside the imperial core.

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Kant’s philosophy is “true”, but only from a certain point of view, and not without qualification—it is true from the point of view of the transcendental subject. It is truthful to the world produced by the cleavage of passive and active intellection. “Truth” is not a word that we should employ uncritically, even if, rather ironically, it is precisely that form of truth which eludes criticism that constitutes “truth” in its eminent sense. In a sense, perhaps, Kant's account of transcendental subjectivity is the true-to-its-subject-matter phenomenological account of transcendental subjectivity. It is precisely through an account as Kant renders it, in terms of the whole horizon of the transcendental subject's activity as a scientific actor, that the transcendental subject discloses itself to itself. It is the phenomenology of the transcendental subject precisely as it would elucidate itself, in a manner conformable to its own character, that is, scientifically. Thus, paradoxically, a true (or the truest) phenomenology of the transcendental subject would cease to be a phenomenology altogether. Husserl's phenomenology of the transcendental subject is something else altogether, something which presupposes the Kantian account as a background—after all, it is a kind of phenomenological science of the subject, and needs this whole scientificity complete in order to initiate its researches.

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A synthetic judgement (in the Kantian sense) is not synthesis proper, but either lusynthesis or fractalysis. Whichever the case, it has a compound character, both synthetic and analytic, the former by virtue of its construction of whole concepts or forms of sensibility and the latter by virtue of its judgmental character.

Synthesis proper is the tendency toward greater intellective unity. What, then, of other senses in which “synthesis” is used? Did the rest of the German idealists simply inherit this notion of synthesis as a type of judgement? If this is the case, it would have momentous consequences for any assessment of their philosophy. Schelling, if any, seems to buck this trend, but with reference to his thought certain reservations and qualifications are nevertheless unavoidable.

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There may be some connection between perspectivism and intellect—after all, perspectivism is founded on depth, the examination of the “depth of surfaces”, and intellect is structured as a “hermenoetic sphere”.

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In a Promethean age, one is obliged to say “intellect is for the transcendental subject, not the transcendental subject for intellect”. The latter is the “Traditional” view, and the former that of the Promethean ontology, but Tradition has already given us the seed of such an assertion in the gospel dictum (indeed, the Sabbath, as a condition of rest attained at the summit of the week, is an image of intellect). The problem of modernity is that intellect is “cut off” (to the extent that this is even possible), and thus a great source of double-power is lost to it—the powers of passive intellection (being-in-the-world) and the power of active intellection (metaphysical intuition), employed technoscientifically by the subject. It is an unapologetically Promethean turn which furnishes the solution to this problem.

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As per Kant, if we have already established that something is actual, it is only a matter of working our way “backwards” toward a determination of how it is possible (the transcendental deduction). Given that “transcendental reduction” itself is actual, can we then work our way back to the condition of its possibility? No, because it is impossible—and yet it is nevertheless actual. The transcendental reduction is the impossible deed. The transcendental horizon itself, that is, the horizon which effects any number of transcendental reductions, is itself a transcendental reduction of transcendence.

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The sort of “truths” the transcendental subject is capable of pursuing are always suffused with illusion, with that which transgresses its truth, and that is why the pursuit of truth always extends itself indefinitely for the transcendental subject (philosophia indefinitiva). It indefinitely postpones uncovering its own nothingness and the irrationality of its reason.

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For the transcendental subject, truthfulness is hypochondria, a compulsive hygienic procedure.

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Things-as-they-are-in-themselves are not beyond the range of possible experience for intellect—on the contrary, they constitute the horizon of its possible experience. It is things-as-they-are-not which lie beyond the possible experience of intellect, and are the proper concern of transcendental subjectivity, especially and eminently the scientific particularity of things-as-they-are-not.

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We must not ask what things are like “in themselves” behind the appearances, as it were, but why, for the transcendental subject, they seem to posses a “behind” at all? Why does transcendental subjectivity create this divide of appearance and thing-behind-appearance? Indeed, it is primarily thing-behind-appearance that Kant intends when he says “things as they are in themselves”. He does not seem to bear in mind the truly existential and intellective connotations of the latter formula, but only the epistemological connotations of the former. His implicit question is “why can I not see behind appearance?”. He does not really ask the intellective question (divided into essential and existential portions) of “what are things like in themselves?”. He does not inquire into the being of things, but (implicitly) projects another appearance behind the appearance, an unapparent appearance behind the apparent one.

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There are two transcendences possible vis a vis the transcendental subject—one in the direction of passive intellection, and the other in the direction of active intellection.

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Kant correctly designates time and space as belonging to representation, but this judgmental re-presentation of time and space is secondary to their various existential and essential presentations. That is, there is a time and space which belongs to representation. That much is true. It is not, however, the only kind.

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One might terminologically distinguish between existential presentation (passive intellection) and essential presentation (active intellection).

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Analytic judgment is a dissection of synthetic judgement (a priori or a posteriori), and the synthetic a priori judgment is a dissection of an intellective synthesis. The transcendental condition is the dissection of intellection “as such”, the hermeneutic cross-section of a hermenoetic sphere.

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When Kant speaks of “existence” what he is really concerned with is something more like “re-existence”—the standing forth of things again as something other than what they are (in their being). What do they stand forth as the second time around? As concept, as judgment, as “determination”, as nothing, that is, as a kind of non-existence.

The reexistent is the repetition of being as nothing, the imitation of being by nothing, albeit a nothing with particularity, the positive addition of nothing to existence.

This only perhaps applies to a certain restricted domain of reexistence. Being can also repeat itself as being (qualitative analogies between beings). One could call the former (i.e. the repetition of being as nothing) a “conceptual reexistence”, which would be a sort of privative reexistence, as opposed to the metaphysical reexistence that occurs through the “baptism” of beings in (principial) non-being, an operative or initiatic realization of their non-being.

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What Kant calls “universality” seems to be something more like “fixed generality”, fixed genera which determine all experience (if they were truly universal, rather than general, they would transcend the sensory experience of the subject—or stated another way, elevate the sensory experience of the subject to a transcendent degree, wherein it would cease to be subjective altogether).

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The analytic a posteriori judgment includes the determination, after the fact of constituting an intuition, that wholes may be sundered into parts, and, moreover, that those parts constitute a definite totality. Kant himself says that Nature is the “totality of all objects of experience”—what is this if not an analytic a posteriori judgment?

That is, one determines, after the fact, that a whole consists of a totality of parts. One transposes the synthetic notion of totality onto the analytic notion of part. What is a totality if not a whole? Therefore, to say “totality of parts” is to fully partition after the fact of intuition but in advance of scientific inquiry—that is, an analytic a posteriori judgment.

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The analytic a posteriori judgment is the after-the-fact determination of a limit of possible analysis. One says “analysis is possible down to this scale and no further”. It is, in a word—atomism. This determination then serves as an axiomatic determination in advance of all subsequent analysis. It is in advance of what follows it—as all that which is in advance is necessarily in advance of. Advancement is relative.

The analytical a posteriori judgment is perhaps the “fruitful misunderstanding” par excellence, and is indispensable for science.

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Kant’s philosophical project represents the transcendental subject’s becoming conscious of its own activity—but not yet conscious of itself. How can the transcendental subject itself become conscious of itself? It can and does, regularly, posit itself, but this is not yet a case of effectively grasping itself, self-consciously appropriating itself.

The transcendental subject becomes conscious of itself, in an effective way, only when it realizes (even in an initiatic sense of this term) that its nothingness and unconsciousness is not exclusive of consciousness, but the broader space which includes it. Its abstractive nothingness includes intellection. That is, the “two nights” are in analogy with one another. Generic ambiguity subsumes intelligibility into its barren landscape.

It has not yet become conscious of its nothingness with respect to intellection, of its position as a break within the circle of hermeneutic, an image of the axis within the hermenoetic sphere. A self-conscious appropriation of its real position implies the affirmation of a Promethean ontology, and together with this, at the social and historical level, a Promethean social order (i.e. proletarian dictatorship).

*

If, indeed, intellect is a “nothing” with reference to transcendental subjectivity, then it must also be the broader space which generates it (that is, the hermenoetic sphere), and therefore, transcendental subjectivity would always both be and not be a form of intellection. This would do a great deal to explain why transcendental modes of conceptualization and applied-rationality feel like a form of knowing to us, feel as though they render the world intelligible, even though, in the strictest use of the term “intelligible”, they do not really do so—that is, concepts both do and do not render intelligible, at the same time and in the same way.

Is it not, rather, transcendental subjectivity, as a sort of “nothing”, which is the broader space which generates intellect? Indeed, but insofar as intellect is nothing for the transcendental subject, an omission, and oppressive forgetfulness at the edge of memory, a word on the tip of one's tongue, it takes up the same function for transcendental subject which transcendental subject takes up with reference to it. Like the ontological inversion that occurs between the two intellects, we have here, between intellect (unspecified in terms of its mode) and transcendental subject, another kind of inversion, a hermeneutic inversion through which Hermes confounds himself, an inversion by means of which the circle becomes sphere and sphere becomes circle, through which break becomes continuity and continuity break. The double power of Hermes, rational and intellective, multiplies and entangles itself indefinitely.

*

Transcendental subjectivity renders intelligible by rendering stupid, by rendering standardized, homogenous, abstract. Here intelligence is in exile from itself and travels incognito. It wants to be known as that which it is not.

*

The procedure of analysis is one of increasing differentiation, and yet, insofar as what this procedure consists of is the interposition of a nothing, the very “substance” of analysis is non-differentiation (to be nothing is to be non-differentiated “by default”). This should in no way be surprising since the very act of comparison, which is what analysis renders possible, implies that there is a non-difference shared between that which has been differentiated. That is, something must be the same (i.e. non-different) between two different things if they are to be comparable with one another.

*

What sometimes appears dis-integrative is really only a dis-integration from some unity as a consequence of the integration into some other unity. Perhaps even analysis, as such, is an integration into the unmanifest, by multiplying the “quantity” of no-thing in the midst of things.

*

The symbolic form of judgment is the scales in which the two intellections are weighed one against the other. This is the Near Eastern ideal of the “wise judge”, the king who sits in judgment. Such wise judgment entails that the transcendental subject fall into his own middle position in an eminent manner. The knowing-function of transcendental subjectivity, as Kant expounds it, is transcendental subjectivity toward passive intellection, transcendental subjectivity displaced from its middle position. The transcendental subjectivity of the wise judge performs a balancing function rather than a grasping one or observing in a single direction (these latter make up the Kantian account). To speak figuratively, the ideal of judgment seeks to balance the perspectives of Heaven and Earth, whereas the Kantian subject looks only toward the Earth in order to circumscribe it in science.

The wise judge, the king, is neither a prophet nor a mystic. He is something more relatable, more human, and therefore basically transcendental. It is transcendentality as situated midway between the transcendent wisdoms of Heaven and Earth. There is clearly a resemblance here with a Promethean ontology, an ontology that also situates itself between the two intellects. The wise king, however, is not yet a Titan of wisdom. He respects and defers to the intellects, where the Titan appropriates and instrumentalizes them.

*

Intellection is union in presentation, and judgment is union in re-presentation through a relative disunion with presentation.

*

What is necessary is not a return to the intellective metaphysics before Kant, nor a disavowal of intellection for the sake of Kantian philosophy, but a post-Kantian account of intellection. A post-Kantian account of intellection would necessarily entail an account of passive and active intellection as separate domains enclosed in themselves. Thankfully, this task has already been undertaken. The premier post-Kantian accounts of intellection, passive and active, respectively, have been laid out by Heidegger and Guenon.

Where does Hegel fit into this scheme? My suspicion is that he does not represent something fundamentally different from Kant, but the plasticization of Kant through dialectic. Through Hegel, transcendental subjectivity is rendered conceptually plastic, its possibilities accounted for within a literary drama, and it becomes historically concrete through Marx.

Guenon represents a de-natured metaphysics, if one takes Nature in its particular sense as the domain of passive intellection.

Heidegger represents a secularized metaphysics, i.e. a worldly metaphysics divorced from the sheltering canopy of “heaven”.

An appreciation of passive and active intellection as separable domains of intuition, enclosed in themselves, was not possible before transcendental subjectivity was rendered conspicuous to the maximum degree—that is, until Kant came around.

*

If rationality itself is irrational (with respect to what it rationalizes), then what is the rational? It is the intellective, sundered by analysis. The Supra-rationality of intellect descends to the rational in disguise. Only rationality itself can never enter into the rational.

*

Guenon and Heidegger’s post-Kantian intellectivity is negatively conditioned by transcendental subjectivity. It is conditioned through a departure from transcendental subjectivity. One does not find transcendental subjectivity underlying their thought as a background assumption, rather one finds “non-transcendental-subjectivity” haunting it as a specter (that is, one finds the reactive feeling that “I am merely moving away from transcendental subjectivity” haunting their work like a guilty conscience). This bad conscience is even more conspicuous in their followers than it is in their own work.

*

Things-as-they-are-in-themselves, for Kant, have no existence—“existence is a synthetic a priori judgment which renders appearances objectively valid as 'experience', and hence has no valid application outside of experience”. What an absurdity! Things as they are have no existence. What does this tell us about the standpoint of the transcendental subjectivity? Why is it that for transcendental subjectivity existence is non-existence and non-existence (i.e. mere judgement) is existence? That transcendental subjectivity can even have its own peculiar notion of existence is a remarkable thing—that it can say “existence for me is nothing; that which does not exist is to me the existent”. Is this possible? No, it is precisely a transgressive impossibility that flows from the spectral character of transcendental subjectivity. Recall, beneath the spectrum (the spectrum in its totality is the intellective symbol) and inclusive of it, is the nothing. Transcendental subjectivity is this nothing, the fecund Artemis-like privation, which generates existence and non-existence (non-manifesting, not “standing forth”). Hence transcendental subjectivity is the condition for the generic ambiguity of existence and non-existence (= “existence”), and can render one into the other.

*

Generality is the judgmental (as in, pertaining to the faculty of judgment) image of universality.

*

The transcendental subject does not lie at the foundation of the existence of things, but at the foundation of their objectivity.

The objective also exists. That is, there is a generic ambiguity between the existential and the objective.

*

As a nothing, transcendental subjectivity can act both as the chasm which sunders intellection into passive and active modes, and as the space of their intermingling as “everydayness”. This (particular) “everydayness”, therefore, corresponds to Heidegger's understanding of Dasein (passive intellect) as a quasi-Cartesian heap (skanda), rather than to a rigorously conceived passive intellection. It is not the only conceivable “everydayness”, or the only angle of approach toward an elucidation of it.

*

The Vedantic “Sat-Cit-Ananda” roughly seem to correspond to the triad of active intellection, transcendental subject / rationality, and passive intellection. Each of these terms can be exchanged for the other, due to their generic ambiguity, but, nonetheless, each of them can be applied to one or the other in an “eminent” sense. Eminently, Cit belongs to the rational subject, since consciousness is a sort of nothing, a space for things to emerge in. Sat applies to passive intellection, in its “existential” sense. And ananda applies to active intellection, in its ecstatic sense, as contemplative absorption.

Transposed, ananda can be applied to the rational subject in relation to the logos=eros equation (the irrationality of reason), and Sat transposed to it in the sense of Being as the emptiest concept. And so on.

*

The horizon of transcendental subjectivity is all-horizon—that is, a horizon without an interior or an exterior. Indeed, it is a horizon with an exterior (the transcendent), though it has no access to it, and thus does not “have” it as its own exterior. Rather, it is had by it. That is to say, it only has an exterior in a virtual sense. Likewise, it is had by its own interior, which it never “has”, that is, the existential world of passive intellect which it represents within itself virtually as the world of sensuous appearance. This interior and exterior are a nothing for transcendental subject, but a nothing by which the subject is indirectly conditioned.

*

It is in the state of primordial intellection that the nothing is at its maximal state of nothingness (that is, divested of its particularity). Thus, it is most present to us (hence, “maximal”), and it is least present to us (i.e. least conspicuous). The maximal presence of nothing is necessarily also its minimal presence.

*

“Judgment” refers to any determination with a discursive structure or to the establishment in advance of the discursability of some determination, even if it is not initially encountered as discursion.

*

Existence is outward intelligence (passive intellection), and intellect (in the active sense) is inward existence (existence among divine things, including perhaps in the mode of “mundus imaginalis”)—toward a solution to the Gordian knot of knowing and being.

*

If rational processes are a circle (or rather, to the extent that they are conceivable as a circle), this circle must have a center—what is this center? Is it not, indeed, the nothing? The nothing from the standpoint of the horseshoe is that toward which the poles of thought and intellection tend. From the circular standpoint this nothing appears to be situated in the center, as that with which rational thought avoids direct confrontation—that is, it avoids confronting itself, its own nothingness, because it wants to say something.

The above interpretation may appear problematic, since it makes more sense to attribute the axial-central function vis a vis rationality to intellect. There is, in reality, no contradiction here, or at least none which pose any serious problem for us. Intellect is, effectively, nothing for rationality. Before rationality begins its autonomous reasoning, it must reduce intellect to nothing for itself. That is, there is a hermeneutic inversion between intellect and transcendental subjectivity.

*

Hegel’s supposition that self-consciousness tends to increase through various historical developments is incorrect if only for the reason that self-consciousness is not even susceptible of increase. Self-consciousness is not subject to considerations of quantity. To the extent that we can attribute something like quantity to it, it is only the quantity of zero. Self-consciousness is the reduction of consciousness, of other sorts of consciousness. As other sorts of consciousness recede, self-consciousness seems to “increase” by comparison. The “increase” in self-consciousness is the loss of the diversity of types of consciousness into the nothing of self-consciousness. That said, the capacity for producing such a loss must also have its raison d’etre (or perhaps, rather, its “reason for not being”).

Correspondingly, Hegel’s belief that in some sort of “Absolute” self-consciousness, man would find the resolution of all dialectical tensions, now appears preposterously off the mark. The putative “increase” in self-consciousness (really a kind of surgical removal of all planes but that of dialectical disputation) would only exacerbate the tensions of any dialectic, to an almost unbearable pitch. As man recedes into the nothing of self-consciousness which divides everything about him, the barrier cutting into the world, he also eo ipso produces divisions in this world. He becomes the dividing of the world.

Self-conscious man brings destruction to the world around him. Is not European man, a veritable transcendental xenomorph (an “other-form” as distinct from a “self-form”) ranging about the planet, the proof of this thesis? And yet, a victory over this planetary destroyer is also a destruction, a destruction of the destroyer, an expropriation of the expropriator. Material dialectic is the weapon of the masses against the sophistic dialectic of the oppressor, an intelligibly grounded dialectic over and against the ideological illusionists.

*

Man’s sociality is rooted in the operation of intellect, eminently that of passive intellect. One cannot have a restrictively rational sociality, for rationality restricted to itself terminates in solipsism. Therefore, socialism must bear an intellective stamp—and to say “intellective” is at the same time to say “integral”. Therefore, socialism is necessarily an integral order—but not “the integralism of the integralists”. It is the integrative power of social industry liberated together with that of the class that embodies it, not the integrality imposed from outside, the providential ordering which submits real society to itself.

Active intellect also has its own sociality. The characteristic function of active intellect vis a vis sociality is to enumerate the intellective structure of polities and human relationships (including the determination of the types into which the human is divisible within the context of a socio-historical form)—in other words, it elaborates a political metaphysics. The error of reactionary iterations of political metaphysics consists in the transposition of types from extinct socio-historical forms onto the present one, a transposition which masks the genuine intelligibility of the present.

*

The crucial point is that things-as-they-are-in-themselves represent not “objects” (indeed, “objects” precisely belong to transcendental re-presentation) somewhere beyond our cognition, but those same things which the transcendental subject designates as “objects” only now viewed in a different state of being, i.e. an intellective (or “transcendent”) state. In every object viewed by the transcendental subject, the intellect sees a thing-as-it-is-in-itself. The intellect is itself a different state of being. In intellectual vision the world itself is transformed before our eyes, or, rather, it ceases to experience the volatile transformations which it undergoes under the imperious gaze of the subject and returns to its unimpeachably ordinary baseline.

*

Rene Guenon and Martin Heidegger are two instances of a “post-transcendental philosophy”. They represent the return to intellection after the total and rigorous conspicuity of transcendental subject (mainly attained in Kant) and the full flowering of this transcendental subjectivity on its own plane (attempted, after a fashion, by Hegel).

The real question here is: where does Marx fit into this development? That sociality forms the basis of his thought suggests a turn away from transcendental subjectivity (since this latter has a tendency toward solipsism). In the first place, Hegel already seems to exhibit such a turn, since his dialectic is premised on the social encounter between master and slave, with all its attendant consequences for thought and cognition. However, one could perhaps argue that this whole encounter can be accounted for in terms of the transcendental subject’s internal constitution—it is sufficient that this subject, whether as slave or master, merely believe that he has encountered his “other”, since everything relevant about this encounter (from Hegel’s standpoint) consists in the subject’s “internal” representation of it. Is Marx similarly premised on such a “transcendental sociality”, i.e. does he also tend toward solipsism, in the final instance?

One might venture that it is Marx who makes the heroism of the transcendental subject possible, i.e. who makes it possible for this subject to be actually revolutionary in the world, to act upon the world, to transform it, to transform this present world of social industry. Prior to this, the transcendental subject was still fundamentally passive, a recipient of experiences, and of forms of possible experience. Even forms of possible experience change as a result of the subject’s transformation of the social sphere, and subsequently these old forms are shown to have been mere “ideological” fumes produced from out of the tensions of a social base. It is not so much that Marx was the first to produce an “activist” account of the subject, but that his class analysis of society and history renders it possible for this “transcendental heroism” to effect itself with actual material force (force rooted in actual material arrangements, and effecting transformations in those same arrangements). Furthermore, his conception of transcendental heroism is not limited to the solipsistic striving of one individual, but extends to large scale social struggles. It is on this social scale that real heroic feats can be effected in the present historical juncture. However, as long as the intellective element is excluded from our assessments, the scope of the subject’s heroism cannot extend very far. His revolution extends only to what the rational encompasses, which is only as much as the charity of intellect and the senses generously allow it. He is not yet ready to storm heaven, or to transfigure the world’s very imaginal texture, except indirectly and by accident, as it were.

*

I think, in a sense, Kant is more radically empiricist than Hume. He says “What do I care for mere justification? I see that experience is connected in certain ways, even if it cannot be ‘justified’. I see that experience is structured in a certain way. All that remains is to inquire in to the conditions of its possibility”. Therefore, Kant’s critique of Hume—“he is still too much of a rationalist!”. Kant is a critic of reason, and he criticizes without undermining its authority—an eminently reasonable thing to do. He allows the experience of the subject to show itself as it is.

*

The transcendental subject is always, at bottom, a solipsist. This solipsism is even more radical than ordinarily supposed, however. It does not only say “only I exist”, but “even I do not exist, for I am nothing—I am the only nothing, and there is no other”.

*

The idea of an “Other” to whom we owe consideration, distance, respect, is a crypto-solipsism, a xenomorphic disguise for self-assertion, a pseudo-sociality. The real sociality of passive intellect, on the other hand, is so proximate that there is no room for an “other”. The proliferation of “Other”-centric thinking ends up by converting our sociality into a crude self-satire, an anti-social parody of society, a circus show of empty formalities.

*

The basic error of phenomenology prior to Heidegger was the supposition that our state of being is uniform. It is not sufficient to simply enumerate “facts of consciousness”. One must clarify—consciousness for whom? Consciousness for the transcendental subject is not consciousness for Dasein (passive intellect). Even Hegel implicitly pre-conceives his phenomenological drama according to a static uniformity, the uniformity of the subject, which is already fully itself from the beginning. The transcendental subject, in its “full development”, is already concealed in “sense-certainty”. Indeed, that is because the subject, as such, is not susceptible of any kind of development at all—it is nothing.

*

Knowledge, in the most eminent sense, is presentation not representation—that is, it belongs to intellect not to transcendental subjectivity.

*

One cannot argue with the intellect respecting what it knows. What it knows, it knows. No “proofs” to the contrary can avail here. One who wishes to bring force to bear against the intellect’s horizon of knowledge must do so through an applied ignorance, not through knowledge. It is precisely ignorance which falls outside of the intellect’s jurisdiction. That is, nothing falls outside the intellect’s jurisdiction. To escape intellect, we must enter the nothing. This nothing is the horizon of transcendental subjectivity.

*

Kant’s things-as-they-are-in-themselves already give us a clue as to the direction thought must eventually take after him (through Guenon and Heidegger). The thing-in-itself is not an object. Objectivity, for Kant, is precisely a property of appearances, i.e. their being constituted according to synthetic a priori forms of possible experience. Neither is the thing-in-itself a subject. This intimates (though, it is nothing more than a whispered intimation) that the thing-in-itself occupies a state of being in which subject and object are no longer distinct—after all, if it is neither subject nor object then perhaps it might be both? In Kant, this remains a mere “perhaps”, but “perhaps” is already a sign post. Such a state of being (both subject and object) is precisely what is dealt with in the traditional metaphysics of Guenon (active intellect) and in the phenomenology of Heidegger (passive intellect). 20th century philosophy has broken through to the thing-in-itself—all that remains is to conquer it, that is, all that remains is to elaborate the Promethean ontology. This conquest, in the social field, takes its impetus from Marx.

*

The Humean standpoint and the Kantian standpoint are both equally characteristic of the transcendental subject's way of thinking. It is the transcendental subject who doubts himself. The structures of transcendental subjectivity are dissolved in their own “matter” (rationality).

Transcendental subjectivity is the putrefaction of intellect. The synthetic a priori forms are the “bones” which resist this putrefaction, but if corrosive rationality is continually directed at them, even they must eventually give way (incipit Hume), albeit an “eventually” that seems indefinitely delayed.

*

Relative to the philosopher’s speculative use of reason, “common sense” is something proximate to intellection. Anyone with exacting standards for thought, however, will naturally prefer the radical movement of reason to the stupidity (a stupidity, however, proximate to intelligibility) of common sense, presuming that it comes down to such a choice. That is, an exacting thinker will prefer the revolutionary and scientific stupidity of the subject to the sterile stupidity of common sense.

*

There is a continual flirtation with intellect, a coasting just outside of its boundaries, that is characteristic of philosophy after Descartes. Kant, Hamann, Leibniz, Jacobi, Maimon, Hegel—they all approach it, but stop short. There seems to be some unconscious presentiment that an acknowledgment of intellect would be destructive of philosophy as a project, that one must choose intellect or philosophy. That one can have both, or rather that philosophy as a project can appropriate intellect to itself as an instrument, demands a Promethean audacity of which very few philosophers have proven willing, wedded to a few crucial insights related to intellection of which most philosophy after Descartes has simply been ignorant. Such a Promethean ontology is now possible, not only theoretically, but also practically in the context of a revolution in social industry.

*

The point of my invoking intellection, transcendental subjectivity, etc in my writing, is not in order to produce any sort of definitive and complete cosmological, metaphysical, or physical account. I only wish to reintroduce intellection as factor in thinking, and to plumb some of the consequences of such a reintroduction within a transcendental context, within the material context of industrial society.

*

It is the reintroduction of intellect into philosophy that allows the transcendental subject, who is already the transgressive subject, to also transgress himself. That is, intellection is the precondition of monumental hubris. For instance, it is the “communal sense” of passive intellect wedded to rational critique that turns the social bond into a force of triumphant and collective human progress (i.e. since real and effective bonds of sociality are dependent on the presence of intellect). At the same time, the infinite puissance of active intellect becomes a terrible weapon when wedded to the transcendental subject's rational calculation; that, or an overwhelming power source susceptible of directed application.

Osiris and family, 22nd Dynasty

*

—Summary of insights, aka tl;dr:

1. Existential analogy is to be distinguished from essential analogy, the latter being characteristic of active intellect and the former passive intellect.

2. Apperception is the “nothing” which is most essentially characteristic of transcendental subjectivity, an instance of the law of identity in action.

3. Reason is doubly free: free from time, through abstraction, and free in time, through its transgressive nothingness.

4. The “dialogue” between the two intellects, with transcendental subjectivity as intermediary, is nothing other than a “transcendent dialectic”.

5. Kant’s invocation of “supreme reason” is an instance of the instrumentalization of “God”.

6. Reason always requires a “body” in order to be rendered operable, whether that “body” is sensual, imaginal, or intellective.

7. Reason is hypnagogic.

*

“Analogies of Experience...do not refer to the generation of intuitions...but to the connections of their existence to experience; and this can be nothing but the determination of their existence in time according to necessary laws, under which alone the connection is objectively valid and thus becomes experience”

(49)

In the first place, let us be clear from the outset that what Kant refers to here is not an “existential analogy”, as his words might suggest, but an “ontic analogy”, or better yet one might call it a “transcendental analogy”, thereby extending it also to subjects—indeed, he calls them “analogies of experience”, and the horizon of “experience” is subject-object—in which merely the objectivity (or subjectivity) of beings is in question, that is, beings in their capacity as “objects” (or subjects), and not at all in terms of their “existence”, strictu sensu. Whether it is a question of reducing all sentient beings (especially humanity) to bare subjectivity and thereby establishing the possibility of an analogy in their experience qua subjects of this or that domain (e.g. as political subjects), or treating of beings generally as objects comprehended through common laws, and thus of necessity inhabiting analogous situations, it is never a question here of their existence as such, of their being, but rather especially of that which can be determined about them in conformity with science and scholarship, in the modern sense. That said—what is an existential analogy? Analogies, in what are arguably their most quintessential senses, are essential analogies, such as those that belong to metaphysics in the strict sense, and abstract or structural analogies, which pertain to the discursible structures of things [1]. There are also, naturally, poetic or imaginal analogies. Here I am especially thinking of those analogies which analogize in spite of themselves, as it were, which seemingly transgress order, reason, and even intelligibility, those analogies in which imagination acts as the analogical glue of that which would not subsist together “in a state of nature”, as it were, or brings things together in a novel and unexpected way. What, then, does the existential analogy draw together through its analogizing? Or, put another way, which already-present togetherness does it help render transparent to us? The existential analogy between one thing and another refers to their being-together-in-the-world. For instance, the structural analogy between worker and capitalist is their common origin in the artisanal production of the middle ages. That is, they are both analogues of and through the artisan, representing two of his functions, split off (“alienated”) from one another, namely the functions of creating and appropriating—indeed, not only “representing” the artisan, but living and being this function within the horizon of the industrial social form. The essential analogy between them, or at least one of them, can be grasped through the medium of symbols; for instance, in or through the very same figure of the artisan, but now taken as an intelligible symbol—for instance, as demiurgus. These two (i.e. bourgeois and laboring classes) are world-fashioning classes, as contrasted with the “natural law” conforming tendencies of aristocracy and priesthood. The existential analogy between them is found in their ready-to-hand way of being-together in their shared world of social industry, just as pen and paper are in existential analogy through their shared being-together in the activity of writing. Pointing out such existential analogies can be helpful in clarifying our attempts to produce new states of affairs. All too often we project our desire to have a world of labor free from the capitalist class without considering what sort of being the worker could have in such a state of affairs. We think only in terms of his abstract structure within the “capitalist system”. If the problem is not tackled on this “deeper”, existential level, one could be faced with a situation wherein the “physical” presence of capitalists has been effaced, but the existential being-together-with capitalists persists (see my essay on integralism). The fundamental being-together-in-capitalism (or, really, in industrial production, generally) would still constitute the existential horizon of the worker. Industrial production is precisely this alienated form of artisanal production, and therefore always implies a function like that of the capitalist (i.e. the appropriating function). Whether this function is performed by the capitalist, in the ordinary sense, or the state bureaucracy, or a mix of both, in any case, the function itself remains.

1: These latter, that is, abstract analogies, include the aforementioned “analogies of experience” or “transcendental analogies”. Not all abstract analogies, however, conform to a lawful conception of objectivity, just as not every synthetic judgment does.

*

“apperception”

(56)

Apperception is the very “essence” of transcendental subjectivity (though, really, it is more of a non-essence, an “essential non-essence”, that non-essence which most essentially characterizes transcendental subjectivity, that nothing which constitutes transcendental subjectivity). Apperception itself can be taken from a number of standpoints (a la “metaphysical perspectivism”—see my “Pragmapathy and the Cold War in Concepts”, for reference), among which are the standpoints of apperception in or approaching the Kantain sense (transcendental standpoint; empirical psychology), the standpoint of “ahamkara” (the “perennial metaphysics”), and the standpoint of “automorphosis” (a Promethean ontology). How is it that this apperceptive procedure goes on to furnish the basis of all the structures (a priori judgments, forms of sensibility) which we associate with transcendental subjectivity? Apperception is an instance of the law of identity. In the “A=A” equation, the transcendental subject plays the role of the “=”, that nothing which redundantly refers the A back to itself—but this redundancy is a fecund and productive redundancy, an overflow, an excess of wonderful productions, the production of many peculiar nothings. What is this “A” which is referred back to itself? It is not the “A” of a purely abstract proposition—the abstract proposition “A=A” is secondary and follows by derivation from this primordial self-referral. That which is “self-referred”, in the first place, is indeed something eminently concrete. This “A” of the original apperceptive procedure is the “A” of “Atman”—the Self (or, indeed, just as much the “A” of the Buddhist “Anatman”, the primordial real in whatever aspect one takes it) [1]. Through the imitative (mimesis) repetition of the Self, the reflective-selfhood (automorph) of transcendental subjectivity re-produces itself as other than what it formerly was. Every thing which the transcendental subject produces, from this point forward, consists in rendering the im-mediately intelligible world into something redundantly self-referential, consists in the automorphosis of things insofar as their peculiar qualities can be rendered into such nothings. For instance, time and space, as intellective forms, are re-produced in relation to the transcendental subject as res extensa. Through this automorphosis [1], intelligible space-time becomes space-time-for-the-subject, and space-time-for-the-subject must be a nothing in a way peculiar to its own intelligible properties, just as the transcendental subject is a nothing (in a way peculiar to the intelligible properties of the “Atman”, or rather, in this case, supra-intelligible properties)—the something becomes nothing for the nothing, that is, intelligible entities are rendered into a priori-structured “objects” for the subject. The transfiguration of intelligible space into res extensa is precisely an auto-morphosis because it takes space as it is and renders it as it is not—for me, for the subject. It becomes mine at the expense of its being.

1: As for how this “Atman” is to be understood, especially in the light of a Promethean ontology, this is covered in a separate series of notes, to be published later. At present, it suffices to see in it a supra-intelligible guarantee of intelligibility, much like Plato’s Form of the Good. The same could be said for “Anatman”. The difference here is chiefly one of emphasis, with the Vedantic “Atman” serving as a point of reference for automorphic activity, and “Anatman” proclaiming a sort of indifference to the presence or absence of such activity.

*

“Reason is the cause of the laws of nature, and therefore free”

(80)

From an “authentically” metaphysical standpoint, Kant is not necessarily incorrect that reason is prior to physis or “nature”, and therefore prior to any causality internal to the world of objects and appearances, the latter of which expresses itself in time, and the former (i.e. reason) “timelessly”. Thus, reason is prior to a certain kind of “nature”, to a certain conception of it. However, he would be wrong to suppose that this reason is most prior of all, that there is nothing which stands before it (in both senses of before—behind and in front), or that its standpoint is a uniquely privileged one. For, reason is flanked on either side by the double priority of intellect (and intellect, its “function” consisting in operative identity, is identical to itself in both instances)—in front of reason (specifically that reason which belongs to the lawfully directed transcendental subject, since “in front” and “behind” are relative to the directionality of this subject) is passive intellect, which reason perceives in the guise of the “world” of appearances (constituted, through a priori categories, as objects); while, behind itself, reason indirectly intuits (via the world which lies in front of it) the presence of the a priori forms of sensuous intuition and understanding. Moreover, this “freedom” which Kant attributes to reason, is not a freedom in time, and therefore only really amounts to a freedom from time. Therefore, he has not accounted for its freedom in time, which it does actually (albeit impossibly) possess. This freedom in time [1] is consequence of reason's transgressive character (whereas, its freedom from time is a consequence of its abstractive character—at bottom, are these not the same, abstraction and transgression? To abstract a thing is always to transgress what it is concretely), a transgressive nothingness. Nothing is more free than nothing, and doubly so a nothing which transgresses a something—here freedom is not only had, it is flaunted and proliferated. That is to say, Kant's conception of the transcendental subject has not yet become Promethean and heroic. It is our reason which enables us to make a nothing out of a something, to render question-able, and therefore to liberate the world from its already determined worldliness. Reason liberates the world by remaking in its own image, that is, by liberating it from its weighty something-ness. Therefore, while reason is doubly determined by the two modes of intellect, it is also doubly free insofar as it is a nothing which transgresses (a “nothing which nothings”). Reason, in its nothingness, is free from that which determines it, and, indeed, continually determines its own grounds in a “dance” that goes on “as long as you like” (i.e. indefinite in its extent). Therefore, if reason wishes to remain free from its own grounds, it must always keep dancing.

Returning to the earlier point regarding time, it should be noted that reason is not strictly speaking “time-less”, which is a quality belonging to active intellection (passive intellection being characterized by an “ecstatic temporality”), but ensconces itself within a sort of less-time, a “lesser-time”—that is, abstract time, which is time in its own peculiar nothingness. Abstract time therefore shares in the double determination by intellect which characterizes reason. That is, abstract time is as much an abstraction of ecstatic temporality as of transcendent timelessness. Timelessness abstracted becomes fixed as neutral and eternally repeatable quantities, “moments” (each of which is timeless in the sense of a time which is not really time, which lacks the qualities that makes actually lived time what it is), and ecstatic temporality becomes abstracted as quantitative sequences (movement and life becomes an immobile figure, a “model”). Timelessness and temporality, then, tend toward each other and mingle in the nothingness of generically ambiguous time.

1: This “freedom in time” consists chiefly in reason’s revolutionary technoscientific activity (and “technoscience” should be understood as a social category, an intersection of society, historical development, and technology).

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“...transcendent and thereby dialectical...”

(p.82)

Is dialectic “transcendent” in the way Kant supposes—that is, does its use of concepts transcend the bounds of possible experience? Dialectic seems to chiefly to consist of an “immanent critique” of concepts, and therefore its purview does not extend much further than what our concepts have already given us, and if not in every case a “critique” then at least an internal modification of concepts. This is a typical account of dialectic. It seems that, from this standpoint, dialectic can be seen as a toying with concepts which bears little direct relation with experience (we are, of course, speaking only of a certain kind of dialectic), but it does not therefore follow that dialect “transcends” it—it “avoids” experience, as it were. It avoids experience, and therefore always acts with reference to it, albeit indirectly, just as one fleeing a murderer plans the trajectory of his escape with reference to the murderer, i.e. by deliberately avoiding running toward him. On another side, dialectic can be seen as the immanent critique of the very a priori concepts which condition the transcendental subject's experience. Dialectic, in this latter instance, causes us to reassess just how these conditions are constituted. This, also, is not a transcendent dialectic, but a transcendental one. So far, we have a discursive dialectic and a transcendental dialectic. Neither of these can really be considered transcendent, unless “transcendent” is employed with a pejorative intent, with reference to that which is detached from experience, or especially from lawfully constituted experience (“pejorative” because it slyly insinuates that “transcendence” itself is something fanciful or absurd—this seems to be the Kantian use of “transcendent”, for the most part). What, then, is the Promethean account of dialectic? What does it say of dialectic's possible transcendence, and how does it relate to an immanent critique? Immanent critique aims at “overthrowing” or critiquing a concept through that which the concept already contains. From the standpoint of a Promethean ontology, the most pertinent aspect of a concept, which an immanent critique should take as its point of departure, is the nothing which is peculiar to it—that which, in a sense, it does not contain, that which it positively and peculiarly does not contain, that which it distinctively does not contain, that which it distinctively forgets or forgoes or neglects, that which it obscures. From this basis of nothing one draws out an immanent critique, a Promethean hermeneutic. This dialectical orientation toward nothing has been dealt with elsewhere at greater length. We still must return to the original question—is there a transcendent dialectic, a dialectic which oversteps the bounds of possible experience (i.e. that experience which is possible for the transcendental subject), a dialectic that proceeds with genuine freedom from the bounds of possible experience, unconstrained by the necessity of reference or deference to them?

In order to answer such a question, we must specify whose experience is in question. When Kant speaks of “transcending experience” he naturally means transcending the experience of the transcendental subject (even the term “experience” is precisely defined by him such that it can only make reference to the world of transcendental subjectivity). In the dialectics which have thus far been referenced, nothing really “transcending” experience has been found. We have seen a discursive dialectic, which simply makes no (direct) reference to the transcendental subject's experience (this is the “dialectical illusion” which Kant refers to elsewhere), and we have seen transcendental dialectic which immanently critiques the conditions of the transcendental subject's experience, which refines or revolutionizes our conception of what those conditions are. Is there, then, a transcendent dialectic? There is, and it is that dialectic which the transcendental subject itself is most directly productive of (albeit, “inadvertently”), which it most immediately mediates. This dialectic has its threefold structure (all dialectic is threefold in its basic structure—a dialogue between two, with the dialogue itself as the third) in the cleavage of primordial intellection by the transcendental subject into passive and active intellection. The transcendental subject acts as the Hermes which makes a dialogue between these two realms possible—and this, in turn, highlights what the nature of this messenger is, namely, nothing. “I am only a messenger”—indeed, a messenger is a nothing which only “conveys”, as it were. It has nothing of its own—that is, it has nothing. This having of nothing, as the most subtle power (subtler than subtlety), is the distinctive feature of every intermediary. In any case, in this we have found the transcendent dialectic. It is the facilitation of dialogue between the “realms” of passive and active intellection (at the same time that they are judiciously kept separate) by the intermediary of transcendental subjectivity. This first and most immediate mediation by the transcendental subject (as opposed to its various secondary mediations which it undertakes through its thinking about things and about thought), between active and passive intellection, is mirrored by a second “mediate mediation” in the transcendental subject—the mediation between a piori conditioning concepts and sensuous intuition. This transcendental structure is the imitation, by the transcendental subject, of the transcendent structure which it more immediately encounters. The transcendental subject is the immanent critique of primordial intellection, through its dialogical transfiguration of passive and active intellection. It uncovers the active and passive possibilities of intellection immanent to primordial intellection.

Related to the foregoing considerations, we can ask another interesting question—what sort of dialectic (i.e. discursive, transcendental, or transcendent) is the Marxist dialectic? It does not seem to fit any of these categories in particular, and, at the same time, it is quite easily assimilable to any of them. For instance, as a transcendental dialectic, it could furnish an immanent critique of our accepted understanding of our categories of a priori judgment on the basis of their connection with prevailing social and political circumstances, e.g. the way our accepted understanding of these categories serves as an ideological buttress or expression of the reigning socio-political arrangement. Marxist dialectic belongs to all three types of dialectic and to none of them. As a discursive dialectic, it could support the critique of reactionary ideology. As a transcendent dialectic, it is none other than the Promethean ontology [1].

That is, the Marxist dialectic is a truly Promethean dialectic, a triumphant nothing, the necessary expression of the heroism of the transcendental subject in the era of industrial labor. What is more, given the generically ambiguous character of this dialectic (it is this dialectic, and that one, and the other, and none of them, the bare concept of their intermingling), or the possibility (or rather the transgressive impossibility) of a Promethean dialectic in general, this Marxist dialectic reveals in a practical way the underlying unity between the three aforementioned types of dialectic (and any other kind that one might posit), their unity not chiefly in terms of some intelligible symbol of dialectic but in terms of the nothing that is the bare concept of “dialectic”, a nothing rendered revolutionary in the social and historical field—for instance, as the nothing that is the generality, the triumphant masses, and, as a scientific subject, what Marx in the Grundrisse calls “general intellect” [2]. To say that Marxism is a Promethean dialectic is to say that it is a type of nothing, but it must be borne in mind that this nothing, as all nothings, has its own particularities. The Marxist dialectic is a material and historical dialectic, and hence entails the transposition of history and materiality across various domains. It inserts itself into these domains as the peculiar nothing which is the basis of an immanent critique, and that nothing has the form of class struggle, materiality, ideology, history etc, the panoply of fundamental Marxist categories.

1: A note here to clarify certain terms would be helpful. What I in some places call a “communist metaphysics” could just as well be called a “Promethean ontology”. In fact, the latter might serve as a better subtitle for my series of essays, or one that is more to the point. These two, together with “Marxism” generally, as a category, are really the same thing taken from different standpoints. “Communist metaphysics”, for instance, is better employed with reference to an “immanent metaphysics” of the political, as outlined in a very basic way in my essay on Schmitt (“Class Dictatorship and Sovereign Power”). Indeed, these three designations, namely, “communist metaphysics”, “Promethean ontology”, and “Marxism”, seems to fit quite neatly onto the triple scheme of transcendent (active intellect), transcendental, and immanent (passive intellect, which is equally “transcendent”—see the first part of these notes on the Prolegomena):

2: In what sense is the “general intellect” a nothing? At the most obvious level, it is a mere virtuality. We posit “general intellect” as an umbrella for the sum of tendencies in scholarship, science, and technology as manifest in the social field of modernity. Is this then a mere virtuality? In the present historical juncture, there remains nothing “mere” about virtuality any longer. Virtuality is an eminently modern force, with real implications in the social and historical field. Here, in “general intellect”, we have a kind of meta-virtuality, the virtuality that incorporates all other virtualities, all concepts, sciences, and technological developments, and accounts for their efficacy as social forces. “General intellect” is the ghost of Prometheus inhabiting the social body of modernity. “General intellect” is a force which is not there at all, but is no less efficacious for this, the sum of all nothings that transfigures the definite something of the planet.

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“The only possible way of pushing the use of reason...in the world of sense to the highest point is to assume a supreme reason as a cause of all the connections in the world”

(92)

Here Kant most audaciously proposes the instrumentalization of God (the “supreme reason” referred to here is the very same “Supreme Being” referred to elsewhere), which is the essence of the Promethean theft of fire (that “fire” most eminently representing God himself). He does this “indirectly” by proposing the conversion of the “Supreme Being” into a mere “Supreme Reason”, converting this being into a conceptual precondition for an instrumental conception of “world”. This Kantian “theft” reflects a very specific conception of science and technology, i.e. a rational one which gives precedence to theoretical science and scholarship. This, in turn must lead us to suppose the possibility of other sciences corresponding to other “domains” or “subjectivities”, e.g. imaginal science (for the imaginal subject), transcendent science, transcendental science (the Kantian conception of science, which is implicit in the theoretical science of Newton, for instance), perhaps even a science of “pure appearances”, an “ontic science”. With regard to transcendent science, we must consider three major types—the sciences of passive intellection, the sciences of active intellection, and the sciences of primordial intellection. There will be very few examples, if any, of pure types. Indeed, most instances of “primordial science” will slant in favor of either active intellection (e.g. Neoplatonic metaphysics) or passive intellection (e.g. arguably, certain iterations of Daoism and Buddhism). Scholastic metaphysics seems to be a science predominately of the actively intellective type, though, it is of interest, in this respect, to consider the adaptations of scholastic metaphysics made by Heidegger in developing his own philosophy. Indeed, Heideggerian philosophy (“existential phenomenology) can be considered a type of the “passively intellective sciences”. Another domain of science would belong to the Promethean sciences (insofar, I mean, as they conform to a Promethean ontology—in a way, all sciences are Promethean), that is, sciences which cannot be pinned down to any of the other types, taken individually, but which straddle some or all of them simultaneously, and in a manner suggesting both their identity and non-identity. Marxism might qualify for such a designation, especially in light of the theoretical reflection which I have undertaken in relation to it (e.g. Marxism as applied to traditional metaphysics). As for imaginal science, one might find instances of it in certain conceptions and uses of art (particularly drawing on the Renaissance conception of art), but equally in certain varieties of shamanism. Here I have only touched upon what such sciences might entail, and what might constitute examples of them. Returning to the original point, corresponding to each science we can posit a unique conception of “God” (or some rough equivalent or analogue)—and perhaps, corresponding to each conception of “God”, also a unique concept of sacrilege which renders him available to us as power, as technology.

*

[Reason] finds itself in the presence of an empty space in which it can think forms of things but not things in themselves”

(94)

Reason does not suffice in itself to furnish itself with anything. It always receives its sustenance from elsewhere. It is no different in the realm of the senses (taken “immanently” rather than empirically) as it is as regards the transcendent. In dreamless sleep, where the senses have given reason nothing, it can have nothing to tell us. When the senses slumber, reason does also [1]. Likewise, when reason reaches into the transcendent, it can have nothing to think over but its own abstracted recollections of the sensual, unless it allows intellect to guide its journeying in this domain—these are, after all, intellect's native waters. The more interesting thing to note here is that reason can reach into the transcendent (even if it cannot quite grasp at anything) without intellect, and treat is as the empty space of its own abstract thoughts. The first such “intrusion” of reason into the transcendent is that intrusion which produces the distinction between active and passive intellect, and, as a kind of afterthought, the subject-object dichotomy internal to itself, this second distinction a transcendental reflection of the first. Through this intrusion, it really enters into its own emptiness, i.e. the boundary between the intelligible and the sensual. One could even say that reason is productive of emptiness in whatever domain it enters into. Reason's purely “structural” (the most basic feature of this “structure” being the rational law of identity) thinking in the transcendent, even if its concepts are mere fancy here, evince the power of converting intelligible realities into abstract ones. Thus, even this fancy (or “dialectical illusion”, as Kant calls it) is ultimately rooted in something metaphysically concrete, however indirect this grounding might be. Moreover, reason's products in this domain are not a “nothing”, pure and simple, but a particular sort of nothing whose very particularity corresponds to that domain (the intelligible domain is characterized by intellective identity, of which the rational law of identity is the transcendental reflection, or, to employ our earlier terminology, a “transcendental reduction”).

As an aside regarding reason's dependence on the senses, noted above, one can posit that, at the minimum, reason always requires an “imaginal body” in order to continue functioning in a conspicuous way. Reason, as emblem of the nothing, is, in a sense, always present as the “background space” of all things, present through its non-presence (in the sense that, the less present that “nothing” is, the more present it is as nothing). However, in order to function in its conspicuous and “cutting” manner, that manner which we are most accustomed to associate with the idea of “reason”, some sort of specified form of existence is necessary, one in which subject and object are more or less clearly divorced from one another (indeed, their very separation from each other is reason's first conspicuous intrusion into life). Hence, imaginal subjectivity, as the most rudimentary form of subjectivity, signals the beginnings of reason's most rudimentary forms and applications. Which is to say, reason is basically irrational.

1: Though, is reason ever really “awake”?—contra the Enlightenment era notion of reason as the source of an enlightening wakefulness, reason is that which neither wakes nor slumbers. Is reason then a kind of hypnagogia?—appropriate given that Hermes, too, is transitional, a passage between states, the psychopomp.

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“...to comprehend [principles] a priori, or independently of experience, belongs to the speculative understanding and lies quite beyond the horizon of common sense”

(103)

Reason itself is the horizon of common sense (i.e. “passive intellect”) and of active intellect; reason, which I identify with what Kant here calls “speculative understanding” (he distinguishes between reason and “speculative understanding”, though I consider them one and the same). “Speculative understanding” simply refers to a directionality of transcendental subjectivity which Kant considers illegitimate (toward active intellect rather than toward “world” or “passive intellect”). Reason is the vanishing point of active into passive intellect and vice versa, and also the reason (pun intended) for their disconnect, to begin with, though, also, in the same measure, the space of their intermingling (after all, intermingling demands separation, otherwise togetherness becomes identity). Both intellect and common sense are comprehend in “gnosense”, that is, through something fundamentally “positive” and concrete. It is reason which comprehends privatively—that is, by insinuating its nothingness in between things, by increasing the “quantity” of privation inhering in things (i.e. the “quantity” of itself that inheres in them).