PHILOSOPHY
OF A SCHIZOPHRENIC
Paul Fearne
This book was originally published
as ‘In Relation’.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1 – The Person in Relation
Chapter 2 – Relation as a Contrast
Chapter 3 –
Similarity & Difference: The Ground of Relation
Chapter 4 – Relational Contexts
Chapter 5 –
Finale
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
CHAPTER 1 – THE
PERSON IN RELATION
The
present volume seeks to understand a fundamental aspect of human
existence. It seeks to understand
how the person stands in relation to the world that surrounds them. Many philosophers have sought
explanations for the relation between person and world. They have coined new terms, presented
unexpected insights, and generally pushed the bounds of language in their endeavours.
Martin Heidegger, one such philosopher, saw human beings as essentially
‘Being-in-the-world’. For
Heidegger, we may understand our lives as human beings through our commerce
with those things that constitute the world. Heidegger maps this relation between person and world
through a range of neologisms and novel insights. His work Being and Time explores how a person relates
to the world in systematic detail.
Immanuel Kant, another philosopher concerned with this relation, sought
to explain how the object stood in relation to the subject. He claimed that there was a reciprocal
relationship between subject and object that help define the ontological
parameters of each. Both Heidegger
and Kant were overtly concerned with this relation between person and world,
and how it was structured.
Following in this tradition, this work reformulates our understanding of
how ‘person’ exists via its relation to ‘world’. We here - as with Heidegger, and
as with Kant - employ the use of neologism to help facilitate a new
understanding of this relation.
Through a bending of language we will be better able to understand this
most important of relations.
Descriptive
Frameworks
In
this endeavour, this work presents the reader
with what may be termed a descriptive framework toward seeing the
relation between person and world in a new light. Before we proceed to detail this descriptive
framework, a few words on just exactly what descriptive frameworks are is in
order.
Jonathan
Culler, in speaking of the work of Ferdinand De Saussure,
remarks of “the human tendency to organise
things into systems by which meaning can be transmitted”.[i]
As humans, we are constantly organising
information into categories of meaning, helping us to better structure the
demands of everyday life.
Philosophy, being a human endeavour,
attempts the very same thing. It
accordingly uses descriptive frameworks to understand the phenomena it seeks to
question.
So
what is a descriptive framework?
The work of Donald Davidson will be able to help us here. Davidson speaks of what he calls
‘conceptual schemes’. Davidson's
conceptual schemes describe the structures through which a person comes to
comprehend the world. They are
schemes, conceptual in nature, that help determine how a person views a
situation. Davidson writes of
conceptual schemes that:
Philosophers of many persuasions are prone to talk of
conceptual schemes. Conceptual
schemes, we are told, are ways of organizing experience; they are systems of
categories that give form to the data of sensation; they are points of view
from which individuals, cultures or periods survey the passing scene…Reality
itself is relative to a scheme: what counts as real in one system may not in
another.[ii]
A
conceptual scheme is that which schematizes our view of a
phenomenon. For Davidson it is a
way of ‘organising experience’. The data of sensation can be organised
by being refracted through the lens of a conceptual scheme.
Essentially,
descriptive frameworks operate in the same manner as a conceptual scheme. A conceptual scheme organises
perceived reality through the concepts that the person has at their
disposal. A descriptive framework
operates in the same fashion. It
does not apprehend reality directly per se, but helps us to understand that
reality through certain formulations and taxonoma that are useful for
organising experience.
So
while a person uses a conceptual scheme to organise a perception derived from
experience, a philosophical work may use a descriptive framework to organise an
outlook upon a particular question.
And our question is - how does a person relate to the world?
The
Person qua Relation
So
let us now begin to establish such a descriptive framework. We may do so by describing the person
as a relational being. People
require that which they are in relation to. We may say that we are never without relation – in some way,
we always in relation to something or other. Jean-Paul Sartre writes that "in one sense
consciousness in isolation is an abstraction."[iii] The contention presented here is that
human consciousness can never be considered in isolation. It is continually in relation, whether
it be to other people, or hylic objects.
To put it simply, a person is fundamentally relational in nature. P. F. Strawson conjectures that, “it is
a necessary condition of one’s ascribing states of consciousness, experience,
to oneself, in the way one does, that one should also ascribe, or be prepared
to ascribe them, to others who are not one’s self.”[iv] Strawson is describing what it means to
be a person, and this description is intrinsically relational in scope. If we are to ascribe to ourselves
certain states of consciousness, then we can only do so in relation to other
people and other things in the world.
This idea is also
articulated by Martin Heidegger.
As we saw, for Heidegger, people are characterised by their
‘Being-in-the-world’. Our being -
our ontological structure – is fundamentally comprised by our relation to the
broader world that surrounds us.
Heidegger uses the term ‘Dasein’ to describe the person. We will look at this notion of Dasein
in more depth shortly. For now it
is enough to see that, for Heidegger, the person (Dasein) is ontologically
legitimised through their relational capacities. Being-in-the-world is characterised by our relations to
objects, but more important by our relation to other people. In Being & Time
Heidegger writes, "So far as Dasein is at all, it has
Being-with-one-another as its kind of being."[v] For Heidegger, a person is constituted
in a very basic way by its relation to other people. Its very being is defined as ‘Being-with-another’. In our lives we spend considerable time
and effort co-ordinating our activities around the needs of others, and our
need to be with others. And
there is a reason for this. Our
very ontological structures are determined by the imperatives of the
Other. This relation governs our
everyday praxis.
Jean-Paul
Sartre also makes this insight. As
with Heidegger, Sartre has a novel conceptualisation of the person. He characterises the person roughly as
the ‘for-itself’. This is in
contrast to the ‘in-itself’ that is simply hylic. A person is characterised as the ‘for-itself’ by Sartre
because it is being for-itself-in-another. From Being & Nothingness: "I am...a
being-for-itself which is for-itself only through another."[vi]
Something
is ‘for-itself’ if it requires itself for its existence. So, according to Sartre, the for-itself
(person) requires itself for its own existence. This seems a tautology, but is not. For Sartre the ‘itself’ the person
requires is itself-in-the-other. A
person requires other people to have existence at all. The ‘Other’ person is the self same
self of the first person, but ontologically distant from it through its manifestation
in the Other.
In
terms of Sartrean existentialism, we may say a person is for-itself in that is
part of a greater whole - that of humanity. A whole that requires individual members to be in relation
with each other so to accord each the grounds of the possibility of
existence. Hence a person is
‘for-itself’ because it is for-itself-in-the-other. And it is only through this relation that the individual person
is able to exist.
John
MacMurray articulates the same insight by simply saying, “We may say that the
Self exists only in dynamic relation with the Other.”[vii] Fundamentally, a person requires that
which they are in relation to for their very existence. A human being is a relational animal. Relation conditions human existence.
Cartesian
Dualism
So we
may describe the person as a relational being. This description emphasizes what constitutes the person
externally. A person requires that
which they are in relation to (externally) for existence. We need also to describe the person
internally if we are to present a complete ontological picture. One such way to describe the person is
through a mind/body dualism.
The
division between mind and body gets its major codified formulation in the work
of René Descartes. His work, The
Meditations on First Philosophy, is concerned to secure the bedrock from
which all epistemic certain can arise.
Toward this end, Descartes doubts everything that can be doubted. The only thing which cannot be doubted,
according to Descartes, is that when he is doubting he is thinking. Hence the phrase, ‘I think, therefore I
am’ [cogito ergo sum].
Descartes’
move relies primarily on the separation of the mind and its thoughts from the
rest of ‘perceived’ existence. And
one of these perceived existents is the body. The mind is therefore distinct from the body on epistemic
grounds. I can know my mind with
certainty, but not my body. There
are other reasons, however, why they may be considered different. Descartes writes:
The first observation I make at this point is that there
is a great difference between the mind and the body, inasmuch as the body is by
its very nature always divisible, while the mind is utterly indivisible. For when I considered the mind, or myself
as so far as I am merely a thinking thing, I am unable to distinguish any parts
of myself; I understand myself to be something single and complete….By
contrast, there is no corporeal or extended thing that I can think of in my
thought that I cannot easily divide into parts; and this very fact makes me
think that it is divisible. This
one argument would be enough to show me that the mind is completely different
from the body…[viii]
Descartes
rests his argument that the mind is different from the body on the fact that
one is divisible (the body), and the other is not (the mind). According to Descartes, even the
different faculties of the mind, such as perception, understanding and so
forth, are not ‘parts’ of the mind.
The mind is a unified whole – that is indivisible.
The
argument presented here uses Cartesian dualism to establish a new descriptive
framework through which to view the person. It seems reasonable to suppose the human being has a mind,
has a body, and that these things are different. Not withstanding the long running debate about how such
things of different nature can interact, Cartesian dualism does provide a prima
facie theoretical basis upon which to establish a theoretical architectonic.
Bionoesis
Having
now considered mind/body dualism to be a useful descriptive framework through
which to view the person, let us take our analysis a step further. Let us use this idea to reframe how we
look at the human being.
Two
concepts that can be used toward this end - words that embrace mind/body
dualism as a useful descriptive framework - are Bio and Noesis.
Bio
of course pertains to the body - the body is a biological mechanism. Noesis, on the other hand, pertains to
the mind (or ‘mental capacity’ as it is defined in the Oxford English
Dictionary.)[ix] So if the person is best characterised
as a mind/body complex, then rather than calling it that, we might call it Bionoesis.
There
are a number of reasons for this change.
Firstly there is a greater stylistic and grammatical exigency that is
accorded the person if it is described as Bionoesis. The word used to describe the person contains in its
grammatical penumbra the very things that constitute it – mind and body. Of course this move has its greatest
value when doing philosophy, and so is a philosophically exegetical word, not
one of common usage.
Secondly,
the word ‘Bionoesis’ describes a process.
A human can best be described as a process, rather than as a state. A person is not a person, full stop. A person is an unfolding process – one
that is localised in the individual, but yet one that is contextualised in
greater mass of humanity. A person
changes, grows develops and is very much ‘different-from-what
it-was-before’. This is an unfolding
process, not a static one. And as
such a person is not a ‘person’.
But rather an unfolding process, one that can be described through the
categories of Cartesian dualism.
And
lastly, and most importantly, the word Bionoesis, while still having a value in
talking about particular individuals, can also designate the greater humanity
from which the individual is a member. We may easily and succinctly talk of the
person as fundamentally ‘in-relation-to’. Given that a person is such only by
virtue of being contextualised in the greater whole that is humanity, to speak
of the unfolding of Bionoesis is a greater value than just talking of ‘an
individual.’ To talk of an
individual, and only of an individual, misses what constitutes the individual
most fully – that is its situatedness within the rest of humanity. We may fully talk of the human being as
being ‘in-relation-to-the-Other’ as considered qua ‘Bionoesis-as-Other’
Dasein
A
similar critique of the person can be found in Heidegger’s work. As we saw, Heidegger characterises the
person as Dasein. Michael
Inwood writes of Heidegger that, “In BT [Being & Time] he uses (das)
Dasein for 1. The being of humans, and 2. The entity or person who has
this being.”[x] In short, Dasein equates to the
‘person’.
Defined,
Dasein is “to be there, present, available, to exist”.[xi] This very rarefied characterisation is
used to lift the analysis of the person away form more anthropomorphic
understandings, toward its ‘Being-in-the-world’ and in particular its
‘Being-with’. Dasein is
fundamentally ‘in-a-world’ – that is it is closely and irrevocable tied to the
world in which it lives. And part
of this world is the other people who inhabit it, so (as we saw earlier) Dasein
is also ‘Being-with’, that is being with other people.
So
what is the difference between Bionoesis and Dasein? Both terms designate a contextualised entity, the human
being, and do so in a more abstract fashion. Both are obviously only useful in a theoretical
context. However, Bionoesis
emphasises the mind/body complex, bringing it to the fore of a philosophical
understanding of the human being.
The word Dasein is interested more to accentuated the locatedness, or
‘presentness’ of the human being, without necessarily saying what it is made up
of.
The
term Bionoesis locates the human being in a context, i.e. that of the rest of
humanity, as does Dasein.
‘Bionoesis’ leaves more of what is important to be a human being in its
definition in contextualising the person, however. It also emphasises that being a human is more of process
that a state. If something is
‘there, present, available’, this would imply more of state than a
process. The human being becomes,
and it does so it the context of other people, in the context of humanity. It does not reside in a state, but
unfolds in an act of becoming.
Nascency
We
have seen how people require that which they are in relation to. We might make this claim stronger and
say people are materialised in relation to those things that situate them. They become nascent through
relation. Or, Bionoesis becomes
nascent when in relation to things external to itself. However, the notion of ‘becoming
nascent’ requires further explanation.
What is it for a person to become nascent?
The
Oxford English Dictionary defines the word nascent as “coming
into existence”.[xii] What then does it mean for a person to
come into existence? Well, the
common conception is that a person comes into existence at birth, and ceases to
exist at death. But the argument
that a person becomes nascent in relation to that which is external to them
seems to be saying something more.
It seems to be saying that a person comes into existence all the time -
on an ongoing basis.
A
person in an art gallery who stands in relation to a work of art, is –
according to the argument presented here – coming into existence in relation to
this work of art. Again, the
person has become nascent through their relation to the work of art.
This
same process occurs at every instance of a person’s life. They are always in relation to
something or other, and so come into existence at every moment. This seems counter intuitive. We seem to be in existence all the way
through our lives, from birth to death, and seem to require no help to keep us
in existence.
A
number of considerations may help us here. Firstly, we can give an explanation of what ‘becoming
nascent’ means other than the fact of being physically born. To this end we might say that to become
nascent, to come into existence, is to experience a form of pleasure,
happiness, or general well being.
When Bionoesis experience such things, then they can be said to become
nascent in the sense of their inner being experiencing an invigoration. The phrase, ‘it made me feel alive’ is
useful here. We say that something
‘made us feel alive’, when we have loved something – something we have been in
relation to. This thing has made
us emotionally nascent, as it were. It has brought our emotions into existence.
The
notion of nascence also has more substantive resonances. It can also be said, in a manner of
speaking, that food makes us nascent.
Yes, it does sometimes make us feel alive, but it also brings our
physical body into existence. The
person then, in relation to food, has become physically nascent.
We
may also become noetically nascent. That is, we may come into relation with things that
invigorate our minds, that make them come alive. In talking of the effect of architecture on the human soul,
John Ruskin makes the point that, “[a]ll architecture proposes an effect on the
human mind, not merely a service to the human frame.”[xiii] And this effect is to enliven. Also books, math’s problems, or even a
simple conversation with a friend, may be things that bring us into existence
noetically – giving sustenance and life to our minds.
The
notion of nascency as being presented here is also making a stronger
metaphysical claim. It is saying
that Bionoesis is literally brought into existence in relation to things
external to it, and is being done so all the time.
We
can see this with the help of an example.
If a person is confined in a sense deprivation chamber for a length of
time, then over the course of that time, their psychological, emotional, and
physical structures will begin to subside. Deprived of external stimulus in this way, a person will experience
visual and auditory hallucinations.
They will also lose body weight and suffer dehydration, and given an
enough time, they will die of starvation.
Emotionally, they will experience greater and greater levels of fear,
terror, and depression. All as a
result of being cut off from external stimuli. That to which the person was in relation to was removed, and
hence the person began to ‘go out of existence’. Without the things that keep a person in existence - that
keep them nascent - symptoms such as hallucinations, emaciation, and depression
occur. All these symptoms are
apparent in a person who is losing their purchase on their existence, both on
the level of emotional well-being, and on the level of psychological and
physical coherence.
In
the Critique of Judgment, Kant writes that “For, of itself alone, the
mind is all life (the life principle itself), and hindrance or furtherance has
to be sought outside it”.[xiv] People require externality in order to
‘further’ themselves – they need to be in relation to something other to
anything at all. They become
nascent through relation.
The
Entelechy Field
We
need now to flesh out exactly how it is that a person may become nascent. We will see in this section that
Bionoesis maintains within its ontological horizon a matrix of relata that
serves to propel it into existence – it maintains what may be termed an entelechy
field.
In De-Anima,
Aristotle propounds a conceptual framework[xv]
many commentators on the work have called ‘entelechism’. Enetechy, as defined by the Oxford
English Dictionary, is “a move from potentiality to actuality”.[xvi] Hugh Lawson-Tancred translates
Aristotle's word ‘entelechia’ as used in De Anima as ‘actuality’. The
soul, as characterised by entelechia, is actual – or as Lawson-Tancred writes,
“the soul is the Form of the living body to the view that it is the first
Actuality of the living body, the second Actuality being that in virtue of
which the body actually is in the exercise of its function.”[xvii]
This
work employs the notion of entelechism to help explain how Bionoesis comes to
be nascent. It does so it terms of
the functioning of the person, as does Aristotle. But also in terms of its being in
relation. It is through being
in relation that a person moves from potentiality to actuality. It is therefore through relation that
Bionoesis becomes nascent. And in
being nascent it does not simply come to an end point at which it is
actual. But rather is continual
born by being in relation -
continually moving from potential to actual.
In
order to describe how Bionoesis thus becomes nascent – moving from potentiality
to actuality – the notion of an entelechy field will be
useful. As we have seen, in
becoming nascent Bionoesis must be in relation to things. These things may be houses, cars,
trees, and other mundane objects.
But they may also be people, music, books, animals, and any thing that
takes a person’s interest.
All these things are considered to be within a person’s entelechy field
in that it is in relation to them a person moves from potentiality to actuality
– that is becomes nascent.
We may call
these things that enter the Bionoetic’s entelechy field actualisers. They serve to bring Bionoesis into
existence – they move Bionoesis from potentiality to actuality. An actualiser might be a work of art, a
friend, a lover, a pet, a house – anything that a Bionoesis may find themselves
in relation to and that may be constitutive of their entelechy field.
Odilon
Redon – A Case Study
We
find a good example for the above claims in the life of the 19th
century French artist, Odilon Redon.
Douglas Druik writes of Redon’s life that, “[b]ecause of his life, Redon
placed unusual demands on his art.
In making it, he sought to reconstitute himself.”[xviii] Through art, Redon sought to provide
the grounds through which he may become nascent – he attempts to reconstitute
his entelechy field.
Generally
speaking, the artistic Bionoesis, when faced with certain harsh vicissitudes,
will withdraw from the group, and then attempt to re-assimilate back into
through the aegis of their creative endeavours. This is true very much so of Redon’s life. Through a number of stressful events in
early life, Redon found himself unable to cope. So he retreated into a world of artistic endeavour. Through doing so he was providing the
means towards his becoming nascent in relation to art and artists – he was
‘constituting’ his entelechy field.
He lacked the capacity to make himself nascent in life without art, so
he turned to art to bring himself back into existence, as it were.
As Sartre writes
in Being & Nothingness, "the relation of the for-itself to the
in-itself is a fundamental ontological relation."[xix] For Redon, his relation to his works of
art was indeed fundamental. When
the external world ceased to provide him with the ‘means toward nascence’, he
closed himself in a new world - a world of art. He writes in a journal entry:
As
for me, I work, but the sun has disappeared and I have shut myself up. Definitely [the sun] is our great
hearth. It abandons me during the
winter to an inner world and an introspection that lead me to drawings and
etching that I will probably take up a bit.[xx]
When the world,
in this instance the sun, has ‘abandoned him’, he retreats to drawing and
etching. When one actualiser in
his entelechy field has been withdrawn, Redon seeks a new actualiser to keep
himself nascent, in this case art.
Heidegger,
characterising the relation between a person and the world in Being &
Time, writes, "Dasein can proximally and for the most part understand
itself in terms of the world."[xxi] Redon can
only understand himself in terms of his world – in relation to this
world - and once his normal world recedes, he takes up art and drawing,
creating for himself a new world - a grounds toward nascence.
We can see that
when the world is ‘immanent’ for Redon, and not ‘withdrawn’, that it provides a
great grounds for his nascence. He
writes in a journal entry, “Out of
doors, the same delights. An
overcast days, I savoured my dream.
The grey sky filled with great, dark clouds; the sturdy trees with large
branches disturbed by stiff breeze especially charmed me.”[xxii] His sense of charm in nature is very
intense. Again from another
journal entry, “There are sites…so much in Harmony with certain sections of the
heart that nature seems to form part of the soul.”[xxiii]
Sartre writes,
"The man is defined by his relation to the world."[xxiv] Redon is indeed defined in relation to
the world – a world that includes art and nature. This world provides the ground through which Redon becomes
nascent. We will look at the
artist - and their means towards nascence - again in chapter 4.
_______________
We have seen in this chapter that the person is fundamentally
relational in nature – people require that which they are in relation to. We have seen that a good way to
re-describe the person is as Bionoesis.
Bionoesis becomes nascent in relation to that which surrounds it. Each Bionoesis maintains an entelechy
field that is constituted by actualisers that contextualises its relational
existence.
CHAPTER 2 – RELATION AS A CONTRAST
In order to
successfully argue that a person becomes nascent through relation, a thorough
analysis of the notion of relation is required. We will see, that when speaking of the relation between a
person and the world, the notion of relation is better seen as a contrast, and
viewing it in this way will aid us in seeing such relation as a grounds for
nascence to occur.
We here see that
the notion of relation is an empty concept - empty of ontological essence. As such, a re-description of the notion
of relation is necessitated. A
better way to describe a relation – a way in which it is seen as empty – is to
redescribe it as contrast.
Relation becomes contrast by being empty. This will also help us to see the possibility of Bionoesis
becoming nascent in relation to (or through contrast with) objects of
externality.
Antonio Rosmini, writing in the 20th century, claims that
as philosophy moves away from the understanding of the essences of things, it
becomes more and more decadent, finally to only concern itself with empty
phenomena:
Often Philosophy departs from its first argument and
finally, through natural limitation and weariness, forgets its original
aim. Forgetfulness of this kind
means decadence in philosophy, which first abandons the essence of things for
which it searched so avidly and generously in the beginning, and then devotes
its entire attention to what things do and produce. But the results, separated from their first, substantial
cause, are nothing more than empty phenomena and inexplicable appearances.[xxv]
We may take Rosmini’s words with a grain of salt and say that, yes,
the history of philosophy is a move from the study of essence to ‘empty
phenomena’, but it is not a sign of its increasing decadence. Many phenomenon
are, by nature, empty. For our
current inquiry, it is natural that philosophy should move toward understanding
the notion of relation as an empty concept, free of an ontologically inherent
nature.
The concept of relation was viewed by some thinkers in the history
of philosophy as a concept that accorded concrete essences to things. If two things related, then those two
things were things in their own right, or ‘things-in-themselves’. They were things in relation, but not
so necessarily; things of themselves and in-themselves. The relation between
them, taken as something separate, was also considered a thing with its own
inherent existence.
Others used the
concept to describe relations between things that were not simply things in their
own right, but were things simply through the necessity of the relation in
which they found themselves. The
relation itself was not considered an entity with its own inherent
characteristics – it was seen as ‘empty.’
After
mapping this history and the arguments for and against metaphysical inherence,
this chapter re-articulates the idea of a ‘relation between things’, as a
‘relation of contrast’. It will
show that the notion of contrast is an excellent descriptive framework through
which to view relation as considered an empty concept. The move is made through a scrutiny of
F. H. Bradley’s notion of ‘internal relation’.
The
History of ‘Relation’
Rudolf
Gasche paints an excellent historical picture of the notion of relation in his
book, Of Minimal Things.
Gasche contends that a fully fledged critique of the notion of relation
did not emerge until the 19th century. He details how theorists such as Augustus de Morgan, Charles
Sanders Pierce, Gotlob Frege and Ernst Schroder focused on the notion to further
the development of their work. He
further remarks that, by the 20th century, Bertrand Russell and
Alfred North White Head had drawn on this corpus in their own Principia
Mathematica.[xxvi]
However,
the rudiments of a codified theory of relation were present in Plato. The classicist Constantine Cavarnos
maps the notion of relation in Plato and contends that, “Plato distinguishes
two major kinds of entities (onto): (a) absolute entities’ (kath’ hauta)
and (b) ‘relations (pros alla).”[xxvii] According to Cavarnos, Plato also talks
of action and passions as relations and not as merely inherent modes of
being. In the Republic,
Plato Speaks of ‘Forms’ of relation, and indeed relations between Forms. The latter being of three types; (a) of
blending, (b) of exclusion, and (c) of otherness. The last relation mentioned will become important as the
chapter develops. Plato speaks of
“a relation…[as] a characteristic which has the peculiarity that the thing
which has it has it in some sense ‘towards’ (pros) some other distinct
thing.”[xxviii]
This chapter emphasises the ontological ‘directness’ of Bionoesis away from
itself in a given context - a dispersal toward other Bionoesis and objects.
Another
Greek to critique the notion of relation was Aristotle. Aristotle also wrote of the
‘relation of otherness’. In his Metaphysics,
the notion of sameness is opposed to the relation of otherness. Things are known as other if they are
the opposite of being the same-as.[xxix] Also, things are ‘other’ in opposition
to being merely similar.
Again
in the Metaphysics, Aristotle speaks of those things whose very essence
it is to be in relation. Aristotle opposes relation to other kinds of entity,
calling the latter intrinsic.[xxx] If an entity is intrinsic, it has a
claim toward having an ‘essence’.
A relation on the other hand is not intrinsic, according to
Aristotle. It does not present an
‘essence’ from which ‘attributes’ might derive. This lack of essence will be crucial to this chapter as it
develops.
Moving
from Greek to Medieval Scholastic philosophy, Gasche contends that “Scholastic
philosophy featured an extraordinary range of strongly diverse theories of
relation.”[xxxi] Gasche details how the battle between
the ‘realists’ and the ‘conceptualists’ of the fourteenth century saw a burgeoning
of interest in theories of relation.
The debates were theological in nature, and were concerned to detail the
relation of God toward living things.
These scholastic philosophers ascribed a certain conceptual
substantiality to their analysis.
Relations were ‘things’ that were real in themselves and that could be
studied independently. Dun Scotus
helped move the debate from an emphasis on such ‘thingness’ by saying of a
relation that it is was a thing, but one that maintained a ‘tiny being’. It was a thing that can be studied and
explained in its own right, but only just.
Thomas
Aquinas also saw a relation as thing, but not as a thing on par with other
things, but rather as “the weakest or least real”[xxxii]
of all the categories of things.
In Aquinas’ words, a relation was “so week that it requires for its
support an entity that is ‘more perfect’ than itself.”[xxxiii] Relations are real, according to
Aquinas, but of such an insubstantial nature that they were only real through
the support of entities that were more perfect than themselves. So a person might be real for Aquinas,
God might be real, and the relation the relation between them might be real,
but the reality of the relation is far ‘weaker’ than that of the person or
God.
For
the Scholastics then - from Dun Scotus, to Aquinas - we see an increasing ‘emptying’ of the notion of
relation. For the Realists it was
a thing like any other, maintaining a strong inherent existence. While for Dun Scotus it had a ‘tiny
being’, still inherent, but not as strong. There is a move toward explaining relations with less and
less ‘reality, or inherent existence’.
Aquinas continues this by claiming that a relation has the “weakest” of
all reality. What was real has
been increasingly ‘emptied’ of its inherent reality.
For
Gasche then, the study or relations is then a study of “minimal things”. A relation is such that it maintains
the least, or the minimal, degree of reality.
This
book takes the analysis of relation one step further and says that a relation
has no inherent existence at all – a relation has no essence, no
thing-in-itself. It is an
‘empty’ concept. A relation is not
a thing; it cannot be described in this way. A better way to describe how one thing relates to another is
to say that it contrasts.
But
to see the necessity for this shift we must take a look at the logic of
relation and see why talk of a relation as an inherently existing thing is not
adequate, and indeed why to talk of entities as inherently existing is not
adequate.
The
Logic of Relation
Traditional
logic identifies five different forms of relation; symmetrical,
asymmetrical, transitive, intransitive and irreflexive.[xxxiv] A relation is symmetrical if
each of two things related can be predicated identically. The relation ‘is as young as’ requires
that if x(Paul) is as young as y(Matt), then y(Matt) will be as young as
x(Paul). An asymmetrical relation
requires that x is not identical in its predication with y. If x(Anna) is shorter than y(Paul) then
y(Paul) can not be shorter than x(Anna).
A transitive
relation allows a chain of identity in that x can relate to y and also
relate to z, where z is also in relation to y. So if x(Steven) is larger than y(Paul), and y(Paul) is
larger than z(Mike), then x (Steven) is larger than z (Mike). Intransitive relations do not
allow this chain of identity. If
x(Henry) is the father of y(Steven), and y(Steven) is the father of z(Paul),
x(Henry) cannot be the father of z(Paul).
Irreflexive relations apply only to numerically separate objects.
The
most helpful form of relation for this work, the one that helps us to
understand the relation between entities as a contrast is F. H. Bradley’s
notion of ‘internal relation’. In Appearance
and Reality, Bradley made the distinction between an internal
relation and an external relation.[xxxv] If two things relate, and they do not
require each other necessarily to maintain their respective existence - to
maintain themselves as what they are in-themselves - then they are considered
to be externally related.
However, if two things relate, and that relation is necessary to their
existence - i.e. the relation constitutes the things themselves – then the
relation is an internal relation.
The relation is internally necessary to the thing so that it may be that
thing. Remove one of the two
objects from the relation and neither will be the same object that was apparent
when they were in relation. It is
the notion of internal relation that most concerns this work.
It is
claimed here that every relation is internal. Everything that is in relation requires that which it is in
relation to for its very existence.
Remove a relata from the matrix of relations that situates an object,
and that object will not be the same object. Remove a loved one from the entelechy field of a Bionoesis,
and that Bionoesis will be fundamentally changed.
The
Problem of the Thing-in-Itself
Immanuel
Kant, in the Critique of Pure Reason, makes the distinction between two
aspects of the object – appearance (on the one hand) and what he terms the
‘thing-in-itself’ (on the other).
According to Kant, the perceptions we obtain through our outer senses
give us knowledge of outer objects in appearance only. There is something that
lies beyond surface appearances – something inside the object as considered a
metaphysical entity – that we can have no knowledge of the
‘thing-in-itself’. The
thing-in-itself is the essence to a particular object – that thing which makes
it what it is.
We
can see that Bradley’s notion of internal relation is problematic for
Kant. We may say, in
the light of Bradley’s idea of internal relation, that if something is in
relation to another thing internally, then it is never in-itself. This is so because Bradley’s notion of
internal relation sets up an infinite regress when considering the
thing-in-itself. If one thing (x)
relates to another (y) internally, then that which is internal to x - that
which relates internally to y - in turn relates to a further in-itself within
x, and an infinite regress is instantiated.
Or in
other words, x relates to y internally.
The ‘in-itself’ of x relates to the ‘in-itself’ of y. But if the ‘in-itself’ of x relates to
the ‘in-itself’ of y, then the ‘in-itself’ of x’s ‘in-itself’ must relate to
the ‘in-itself’ of y’s ‘in-itself’, and so on through an infinite regress. Hence there can be no ‘in-itself’ if
relation is internal.
What
does this mean for our current inquiry?
The notion of the thing-in-itself is strongly akin to that of an
essence. Indeed, Martin Jay writes
that for Kant, there is a distinction between “knowledge of the world of
appearances (phenomena) and of the world of essences or things-in-themselves.”[xxxvi] According to Jay, the terms
‘appearance’ and ‘phenomena’ are interchangeable in Kant, as are the terms ‘essences’
and ‘things-in-themselves’ – and that there is a distinction between the two
groups. In coming to critique the
notion of the thing-in-itself, we may also say that we are critiquing essences. If a thing does not maintain any
‘in-itself’, it does not maintain an essence either.
So we
might say then, that when two things are in relation (and are so internally),
they are unable to maintain an essence or thing-in-itself – they are
‘empty’. Given that everything in
the world must be in relation to something, then nothing maintains an essence
or thing-in-itself – everything is empty.
Relation
via Contrast – A Descriptive Framework
A new
description of relation is required, one without the implications of any
‘thing-in-itself’. Such a
descriptive framework is provided by the term contrast.
If
two things contrast, then there need not be a thing-in-itself to explain how
those two things can be what they are; how they can be ‘in-themselves’ and yet
still be in relation. If x relates
to y via contrast, then both x and y require each other to remain
themselves. And ‘to remain
themselves’ is not to maintain an unknowable ‘thing-in-itself’. It is simply a necessity of relation –
a dynamic interplay of contrast. X requires y necessarily, as y requires x.
Relations
via contrast are internal relations as considered through the work of F. H.
Bradley. There is a necessity of
relation between x and y that constitutes their respective ontological
parameters. As such there can be
no ‘thing-in-itself’ or essence to these entities. Contrast then becomes the best way to view relation.
We
can make this claim stronger if we consider a further point. When speaking of one thing contrasting
with another, we do indeed mean that they are in relation. However, we mean something more
also. We mean that something is
made salient about both things in being contrasted. Something that wouldn’t have been noticeable without them being
in relation.
In
studies of colour dynamics, analyses of contrast talk of simultaneous
contrast – a change in one colour (colour x) that is situated
amongst others (colours y, z, a, b, and c)
will cause a change in those other colours. There is a fundamental bond between colours that
necessitates that when one colour is changed or removed, the other colours in
the matrix of relations that situates a colour will also change. Concerning
such simultaneous contrast, The Oxford Companion to Art states:
The position of a colour area in relation to other colour
areas in the visual field can cause changes of colour analogues to those which
would be produced by changes in the character of light coming from area to the
eye. As a general rule the visual
mechanism accentuates difference in juxtaposed areas. The effect applies to hue, saturation, and brightness,
either concurrently or separately.[xxxvii]
We
can extrapolate and say that a colour becomes nascent in relation to the other
colours that situated it. This is
evident by the fact that there is a change in one when there is a change in
others, a change that occurs simply through the necessity of relation that
exists between the colour changed (colour x) and the colour affected
(colour y) - not through any change in colour y itself, but only
as a result of being in relation to colour x. And this change occurs not due to anything essential about
each colour being different – there is no in-itself that is changed or removed;
just a change in the relational matrix.
This
point can be further emphasised by turning to the gestalt school of
aesthetics. The school, amongst
other things, seeks to understand how juxtaposition works in light and colour.
Four insights are employed. Each
shows how a colour depends on that which it is in relation to for its own existence:
( i ) Juxtaposed area’s of high and low brightness
appear respectively brighter and darker than they would in separation.
( ii ) Apparent saturation varies according to
juxtaposed or background areas.
( iii ) Juxtaposed areas of adjacent hues appear
to be more different than if seen separately.
( iv ) Juxtaposed objects of complimentary hues
appear more saturated than they would if seen in separation.[xxxviii]
In
order to further the descriptive framework presented here, we may say that a
colour is fundamentally tied to that which surrounds it. A colour is situated, and as such is in
relation to its context. Through
contrast, it becomes nascent.
A
fine example of the power of juxtaposition to make colour nascent is seen in
the art of lithography. The
contrast between black and white in these works is striking, giving the work a
powerful effect. Various forms in
these works are made salient, or become nascent, by being juxtaposed to black
(if they are white), or white (if they are black).
The Oxford
Companion to Art mentions the mode in which a colour may come to be more
intense via being situated in a context of colours. The Companion stipulates that, “[Intensity] refers to
the insistence of prominence which a patch of colour acquires in a particular
context owing to enhancement by simultaneous contrast with neighbouring
colours”[xxxix]
In the case of the contrast between black and white we might say that black
becomes intense when in contrast to white, and vice versa.
To
exploit this nuance of meaning, we might say - for the sake of a new
philosophically descriptive framework - that two things relate via
contrast. And it is a radical
contrast. Not just one that makes
something salient about the objects that are in relation, but that actually
constitutes what they are ontically.
It’s through a relation of contrast that an entity becomes nascent,
rather than merely salient.
The
relation apparent between things that contrast do so internally, as considered
in the light of Bradley’s work on internal relations. There is a necessity of relation for those things
that are in relation to each other through contrast. As such, there is no essence or ‘thing-in-itself’ apparent
between things that contrast. The
notion of contrast is then the best term to use to describe relations between
things in the world.
The
Nascency of Contrast
We
need to now explain how something becomes nascent when relating through
contrast. With contrast, the
mechanism that explains how a thing can ‘be what it is’ is not a
thing-in-itself, but rather a differential – that is a differentia
between two things, or a ‘differentia-between’.
X
relates to y via contrast. Through
this contrast x is able to be x and y is able to be y. How so? The contrast between x and y instantiates a
differential. For example, one
colour in the spectrum is a deeper red than the one next to it. This differential in hues of colour,
between the darker and the lighter shades of read, actually causes both colours
to become nascent. It is not
anything about the colours in themselves, but simply the necessity of being in
relation - relation through contrast - and the differential that such a
relation inaugurates, that makes them what they are.
This
descriptive framework is here entitled the nascency of contrast. As we have seen, The Oxford
English Dictionary defines nascency as a ‘coming into existence’.[xl] Dark red ‘comes into existence’, or
becomes nascent, in contrast to light red, and vice versa.
Contrastive
Magnitude
But a
question lingers. Surely there has
to be something about dark red and about light red that means that a
differential can be established between them – some essence. Again the answer is one given in terms
of a descriptive framework, and not metaphysical truth per se.
We
might say that dark red and light red maintain a ‘contrastive magnitude’. This contrastive magnitude is not akin
to a metaphysical thing-in-itself in the sense that it is something about dark
red inherently. It is rather a
descriptive framework through which to explain the phenomenon of dark red when
in relation to light red.
Dark
red maintains a certain contrastive magnitude, as does light red. It is the differential between the
contrastive magnitude of dark red and that of light red that allows both to be
what they are. In other words, it
is a differential, a differential between magnitudes, (magnitudes that are
nothing except descriptive of differential points) that provides the mechanism
through which an object comes to be what it is.
But
surely, one might ask, does not dark red still have something about it that is
akin to a thing-in-itself, i.e. a contrastive magnitude? - something that it
has and that no other entity has?
The answer is no. The
contrastive magnitude of a thing, in this instance dark red, is determined not
by the parameters of its own essential thing-ness. But rather an ontological proximity between things that
merge from an interplay - one between the similarity and the difference
apparent between x and y. This
analysis, of similarity and difference, is presented in the next chapter. Suffice it here to say that a thing
maintains similarities with objects, and also differences, and that these
similarity and differences determine how ontologically proximal a thing is to
another thing. This proximity
grounds an object’s contrastive magnitude – grounding it within a broader
context.
Relation
as a ‘Dispersal-toward-the-Other’
Our analysis of
the history of the notion ‘relation’ and its re-articulation as contrast has
shown us that the notion is best utilised without the need of a ‘thing-in-itself’. Both the entities that relate through
contrast, and the relation itself, are best seen as insubstantial. That is, they are related through
necessity, and as such are not ‘in-themselves’ – they are a contrast.
To use the
nomenclature of contemporary theory, we may say that as a result of this lack
of essence, entities (including Bionoesis) are dispersed toward the ‘Other’, an
Other that instantiates their own ontological status through the very relation
that makes them proximal and so in a relation of Otherness.
This necessity
of relation is always contextualised, and as such, the necessity of relation is
always multiple. Their will always
be more than one if entities are to exist. There is a difference required within any given context for
a particular entity to exist.
Spatially, this difference is numerical. There is always more that one thing in the world. Context implies multiplicity.
And given there
is multiplicity, there will always be relation. If these relations are described as a contrast, and are
necessary, then the need for a Kantian ‘thing-in-itself’ is absent. There is an ontological dispersal, from
an entity to another, a dispersal that is grounded in a necessary relation and
described as contrast.
_______________
Bionoesis, then,
in being in relation to the world, contrasts with it. It is through this contrast that it becomes nascent. It contains no essence, as the things
in the world (objects of externality) also do not display an essence. Bionoesis comes into existence through
the nascency of contrast. Objects
enter into the entelechy field of the Bionoesis, propelling it toward
existence.
CHAPTER 3 - SIMILARITY AND DIFFERENCE:
THE GROUND OF RELATION
Having
now seen that relation is better understood as contrast, and that such contrast
is the basis for the nascency of Bionoesis, let us look at the grounds of this
contrastive nascency itself. The
phenomenon that grounds the nascency of contrast that propels Bionoesis into
existence is heterogeneous homogeneity – or difference within similarity.
Analytics
involving the concepts of similarity and difference have been common through
the history of philosophy. Some
philosophers accentuate either one or the other. Ludwig Wittgenstein, in articulating his notion of
conceptual family resemblance, emphasis’s similarity. For Wittgenstein, the things to which a particular word
refers form “a complicated network of similarities overlapping and
criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of
detail.”[xli] His notion is designed to highlight the
similarities that are apparent between those things that are referred to by the
same word. And in doing this, he
provides a platform from which to describe how a word comes to have its
particular meaning.
Others
accentuate difference. One
important theorist to have done so is Jacques Derrida. His concept of différance is
also used to describe the operations of words. For Derrida, a signifier (word) differs its meaning
throughout a chain of signifiers (a totality of language). This differing of meaning relies on the
difference apparent between the various words of a language. Derrida describes the word différance
as a sheaf, and does so because it:
[S]eems to mark more appropriately that the assemblage to
be proposed has the complex structure of a weaving, an interlacing which
permits the different threads and different lines of meaning…to go off again in
different directions, just as it is always ready to tie itself up with others.[xlii]
Derrida
concentrates on making salient the differences between phonemes in a system of
language in attempting to explain meaning content. Differences determine the structure of the linguistic
enterprise. For
Wittgenstein, on the other hand, the similarities are emphasised.
There
have been philosophers willing to put both concepts to use in their work – and
to do so at the same time. Aristotle employs the use of the terms identity
and difference in his work the Metaphysics. More recently, Michel Foucault in his book
The Order of Things details an epistemic taxonomy that employs the
notions of similarity and difference to ground definitional criteria. And another French Theorist of the 20th
century, Giles Deleuze, employs similar concepts in his book Difference and
Repetition. Let us look at
these three in turn.
Aristotle
– The Metaphysics
In
his Metaphysics, Aristotle defines similarity and difference in the
following way. He defines sameness
as “clearly a kind of unity of being.”[xliii]
The being of an entity, if it maintains a unity within the penumbra of its
ontological scope, is said to exhibit ‘sameness’. This definition takes into account sameness as “either of
two or more things or of one thing considered as more than one.”[xliv] We will see that this distinction of
(1) the same between two or more things; and (2) the same between one thing
that has an inherent multiplicity - has importance for understanding the
relation between the person and the world. We need to be able to describe similarities between objects
that are external to each other, as well as similarities between things that
are internal within an entity. We
will come to this shortly.
Aristotle
goes onto to distinguish between three types of things that are called ‘like’:
(1) if in all or most respects they have the same
attributes; (2) if their quality is one; (3)if they agree in the majority or
the more important of those attributes in respect of which things undergo
change (i.e. contraries).[xlv]
For
Aristotle, things may be considered alike if they possess the same
characteristics. We can see, that
when two things are in relation, that it may be useful to describe the
characteristics that are homogeneous with each other. This ‘relation of like’ is important when considering how
Bionoesis becomes nascent in relation to objects of externality.
Aristotle
also defines four types of difference:
‘Different’ is applied (1) to things which, though in a
sense the same, are ‘other’ not only numerically but in species or genus or by
analogy; (2) to things which belong to distinct genera; (3) to contraries; and
(4) to those things which have ‘otherness’ in their essence.[xlvi]
Differences
between entities in the world – in particular Bionoesis and objects of
externality – are important in understanding how they become nascent. Such differences include objects that
may be similar to, but still maintain distinct differences with, other objects
external to them, as described in Aristotle’s definition (1). We see in this definition an
interweaving of differences amongst entities that also display
similarities. This becomes
important as the chapter develops.
Entities display differences, but also similarities, and such similarity-in-difference
is crucial in describing how Bionoesis becomes nascent.
A
related concept, that of ‘Other’ is defined by Aristotle as denoting “plurality
in kind, or matter, or in definition and is therefore used with meanings
opposite to that of ‘same’.”[xlvii] We can see how Bionoesis, in relation
certain objects of externality, can be in a relation of radical otherness –
with things comprised of raw hylic material. In these instances, the nascency of contrast is less
effective. The reasons for this will
become clearer as we progress in our analysis.
Aristotle,
in writing of ‘same’ and ‘different’, may be interpreted as establishing
contraries. They are indeed
contraries, in the normal sense, but this chapter will show that they are
contraries that are not simply antithetical. They are contraries that are seen to engage in a dynamic
interplay when the relation between the person and the world is analysed.
Foucault
and Taxonomia
Michel
Foucault was another philosopher to employ the notions of similarity and
difference in his analysis. For
Foucault, an analysis of similarity (or identity) and difference has importance
for epistemology. In his book The
Order of Things, Foucault is concerned to historisize the progress of the
human sciences, and in doing so understand how their epistemic imperatives are
structured. To do this he places
epistemic verity for these sciences firmly at the feet of symbolic orders of
language. And these orders are
governed by the interplay of similarity and difference. He writes:
[T]he ordering of things by means of signs constitutes
all empirical forms of knowledge as knowledge based upon identity and
difference. The simultaneously
endless and closed, full and tautological world of resemblances now finds
itself dissociated and, as it were, split down the middle: on the one side, we
shall find the signs that have become tools of analysis, marks of identity and
difference, principles whereby things can be reduced to order, keys for
taxonomy…[xlviii]
Issues
concerning classification, or ‘keys for taxonomy’, are especially important to
Foucault’s work in The Order of Things. Foucault claims that the historical approach to the
development of scientific taxonomies is grounded in similarity and differences
between observed phenomena. ‘Taxonomia’,
he says, are symbolic - and in being so are representational arrangements of
identity and difference: “The
project of a general science of order; a theory of signs analysing
representation; the arrangements of identities and differences into ordered
tables.”[xlix]
The
issue of taxonomical structure and classificatory criteria will be important
for our discussion of the similarities and differences between a person and the
object. If we are to say that
there exists certain structures of similarity and difference between Bionoesis
and objects in the world, then we had better have certain taxonomies at our
disposal, no matter how provisional, so as to validate the claim.
Giles
Deleuze – Difference and Repetition
The
last theorist to concern us here is Giles Deleuze. His book Difference and Repetition draws heavily upon
the notions of similarity and difference, as seems obvious. I will take Deleuze’s use of the
concept of repetition to be akin more or less to that of similarity. If a thing repeats itself, or if
another thing repeats what a former has done, then we may say that there is a
similarity in their activity, i.e. one act is similar to another in that it is
repeated. Obviously it is a
different act, but in its repetition it is similar to the original act. Hence Deleuze sets up an analysis in
terms of similarity and difference.
Deleuze
writes, “Repetition…appears as difference”,[l]
and again, “Difference is included in repetition”[li] Both these excerpts are included in a
broader critique of the conceptual and symbolic in the operation of
repetition. We may however simply
take the central tenet of these statements as presented here – repetition and
difference are closely linked in their operations. Or rather, for the purposes of this analysis, we may say
that similarity and difference are intimate companions.
This
seems obvious to on a conceptual level.
Similarity requires that there is difference to indeed be similarity at
all. If things were all similar,
then there would be no similarity.
The same can be said for difference. If everything were different, then
there would be no difference. Some
things have to be similar to each other for difference to arise at all.
Heterogeneous
Homogeneity
The
main point to note from these three thinkers is that similarity and difference
are closely linked. Now, in our
endeavours to provide a new descriptive framework through which to view how
Bionoesis and the world relate, we may say that they relate through a certain similarity
and difference.
A
person is similar to other people in the world; similar bodies, similar
emotions, similar thoughts and similar interests. They are also similar, though less so, to animals; similar
organic structures and instinctual drives. And similar to things such as plants, though obviously of a
much reduced degree; similar stimulus and response and similar needs to consume
nutrients.
However,
a person is also very different from the world. They are different from other people in it; different from
animals, and even more different from plants; different in size and in shape;
and different in body and in mind.
So we
have a relation – one between Bionoesis and things in the world. It seems that this relation is grounded
to some degree in the similarities between one thing and another, but also in
the differences between them. So
we may say that the relation between Bionoesis and the world is grounded to
some extent through similarity and difference.
However,
the terms similarity and difference are not quite adequate for the task at
hand. There are two concepts that
more fully describe the relation in question. They are heterogeneity and
homogeneity.
The Oxford
English Dictionary defines the term ‘heterogeneous’ in the following way:
“1 a. Of one body in respect of
another, or of various bodies in respect of each other: diverse in kind or
nature”, and, “2. Of a body in
respect of its elements: composed of diverse elements or constituents;
consisting of parts of different kinds.”[lii]
And
the term ‘homogeneous’ is defined in the following manner: “1 a. Of one thing
in respect of another, or of various things in respect of another, or of
various things in respect of each other:
Of the same kind, nature, or character”, and, “2 a. Of a thing in
respect of its constitution: consisting of parts or elements all of the same
kind.”[liii]
We
can take advantage of the bifurcation apparent within the Oxford
definitions of both these terms.
Each term maintains two distinct meanings. One is to make salient relationships between things which
are external to each other. For
heterogeneity, its definition speaks of ‘one body with respect to
another’. Things which are
distinct and external to each other are related and found to be
different.
The
other is to make salient things that are in relation internally. Again
for heterogeneity, the second definitional criteria states, ‘Of a body in
respect to its elements’. Given a particular entity, if its constituent
components are different, if the things that make up that entity and that are
internal to it are different, then they are heterogeneous. This is an internal difference. The very same bifurcation is apparent
in the definition of the term homogeneous.
To
apply this to our current investigation, we may say a person is different from
the world, a world that is external to it. It is also different internally, that is contains different
aspects within itself. For a
person these different aspects are things such as emotions, thoughts, and
sensations.
However,
Bionoesis is also similar to things in the external world. Other Bionoesis are the best example,
but as we have already seen, the person is also similar to animals, and even to
plants in very limited respects.
And there are similar internal states within Bionoesis - similar
emotions, for example. The
emotions of love and hatred, while being polar opposites, when experienced at
certain times, can be very similar.
We
may now say that the relation between the person and the world is governed by a
certain heterogeneous homogeneity. There are similarities between Bionoesis and the
world, as well as marked differences.
Also, within the scope of this relationship, there are similarities and
differences apparent within Bionoesis, and within aspects of the world.
Taxonomic
Proximity
In
explaining how heterogeneous homogeneity establishes to the nascency of contrast
that characterises the relation between Bionoesis of objects of externality, we
need an additional theoretical ingredient. Toward this end, the descriptive framework presented here
employs the term ‘taxonomic proximity’.
Something is taxonomically proximal to another thing if there is an
equilibrium of heterogeneous homogeneity between the two things. That is, if there is a certain level of
equality between the similarities and the differences with respect to the two
things that are in relation, they are said to be taxonomically proximal.
This
term is required to ground the relation between the two things considered. Two things relate, say colour a
and colour b. One becomes
nascent in relation to the other.
It is not simply through the relation alone that a comes to be
what it is. A must be
taxonomically proximal to b to become nascent. It is the degree to which a and b share
similarities and differences that makes a what it is and b what
it is. If there is more difference
than similarity, and a marked degree more, then the power to engender nascence
will be diminished – and vice versa.
If there is too much similarity then the grounds for nascence will be
diminished. A and b,
in sharing an equilibrium of heterogeneous homogeneity – or close to it – are
taxonomically proximal, and able to provide the grounds toward nascence for
their respective partner.
Sine-differentials
We need a concept that explains what happens when the heterogeneous
homogeneity apparent between two things, and the subsequent taxonomic
proximity, is felicitous enough to engender the nascency of contrast. Such a concept is a sine-differential.
In the study of sound waves, a sound with a perfect (pure) tone is
said to be a sine-wave. We can
draw from this notion to say that a relation that displays the appropriate
heterogeneous homogeneity to engender nascency (a heterogeneous homogeneity
that is in fact ideal for the inauguration of such nascency) is exhibiting a sine-differential. It is a differential between contrastive
magnitudes that is ideal for the arising of nascency. It occurs when the differential between Bionoesis and the
object (and their relation’s respective heterogeneous homogeneity) is in equilibrium.
The
sine-differential is exemplified in poignant moments of enjoyment that arise in
Bionoesis when it is in relation to (or contrast with) an object or other
Bionoesis. A person walks along
the street with a friend and experiences a contented state. That person and the friend are
described as maintaining a sine-differential. A person meets a prospective partner, and there is an
emotional connection – again a sine-differential occurs. The nascency of contrast operates
through such sine-differentials.
_______________
So we
may say, Bionoesis becomes nascent through that which it is in contrast
with. This contrast is grounded in
heterogeneous homogeneity.
Heterogeneous homogeneity, and the sine-differentials that it
establishes, may therefore be said to be the grounds of the possibility of the
nascence of Bionoesis.
CHAPTER 4 – RELATIONAL CONTEXTS
The
World as a Relational Context
We
have now seen that the relation between a person and the world is best
described as a contrast. We have also seen that a good way to describe
personhood, for philosophical purposes, is talk of Bionoesis. Our analysis also
concerns a third concept – that of the world. To understand what we talk of when we talk of the world will
aid us to understand what Bionoesis relates to, and indeed how it does so.
To
begin with let us ask, what is the world?
One simple answer is to say, ‘the world is a context’. It is a medium through which an entity
is contextualised. Every entity
that we encounter, without exception, is localised in the world. The world is therefore a totality of
entities encounterable by people, and as such is a context.
For
Heidegger, as we have seen, Dasein is always Being-in-a-world. That is, it is fundamentally situated
in a world. This fact gives Dasein
its very ontological status, that of being Dasein. Being-in-the-world is the context in which Dasein can be
Dasein. It is either being-with,
that is being with other Dasein, or being-in, that is proximal to
objects that are in the world.
The
world then is a relational whole, a whole in which Bionoesis finds itself
contextualised. Bionoesis
exists in the world, and is in relation to objects within it. We need now to develop a way of
speaking of the world in light of the work done in chapter 2. If the relationship between the person
and the world is one of contrast rather than of mere relation, how can this
context be spoken of?
Contrastive
Matrixes
As we just saw,
the world may be seen as a matrix of relation. We might say, after the work done in chapter 2 on the
notions of relation and contrast, that world can be redescribed as matrix of
contrast. Given the
world is a context, and that context is a relational one, we may say that it is
a context that is best described as one of components that relate through
contrast. Hence it is a matrix of
entities that relate via contrast – a matrix of contrast.
What is the
point of saying this? Well we want
to understand the person in the context of a relation to the world. Along these lines we can say that
Bionoesis is in relation to the world.
He or she is one of the things that is inclusive within this world. Bionoesis is then inclusive within a
relational totality of context – a totality in which there are other people and
physical / organic objects. We may
see Bionoesis then as what may be termed a juncture within this
context. In fact, not just
Bionoesis, but everything in the matrix of contrast that is the world is a
juncture within it – a contrastive juncture.
What then is the
difference between an object and Bionoesis? The answer lies in the notion of taxonomic proximity. Bionoesis are taxonomically more
proximal to other Bionoesis (as they are fellow human beings) than to objects,
which are simply hylic things.
Other Bionoesis are taxonomically more proximal due to the relation of
heterogeneous homogeneity. There
are similarities, strong similarities, between Bionoesis – in biology and
behaviours. There are also
differences – different predilections, appearances and the like. However the differences between
Bionoesis and the object are obvious and hardly need detailing.
So Bionoesis is
a contrastive juncture within the matrix of contrast that is the totality of
the world. The world qua
contrastive matrix is the context through which Bionoesis may become
nascent. The nascency of contrast
requires the contrastive matrix of the world to operate through.
Artists
and the Creation of Contexts - A
Case Study
An example may
help to establish these claims – the artist. Given the truth of the claim that Bionoesis becomes nascent through
relational contrast, and that contexts vis a vis contrastive matrixes
provide the relational grounds through which this nascence becomes possible, we
might then see why an artist might be interested in producing art. Through the production of their art,
the artist is creating a context, or situating themselves in a context, through
which they may become nascent.
An artist
produces a folio of work. Through
relation with this folio of work the artist establishes an entelechy field
through which to become nascent.
Certain works in the portfolio are exhibited in galleries, where the
artist must attend openings, mixing with admirers and critics. In the course of
their career, the artist meets fellow artists, and develops a network of
acquaintances. The works the
artist produces adorns the walls of not only their own home; but the walls of
the homes of friends and collectors.
Through this contextual construction, an artist provides the grounds
through to make themselves nascent.
Through the people they meet when promoting and selling their art, to
the galleries that they are in consultation with, to the psychical hanging of
works of art in people’s homes, the artist brings themselves into existence.
In terms of the
particulars of the theory presented in the current work, we might say that the
Bionoesis qua artist establishes a contextualising entelechy field with
the broader contrastive matrix of the world. The entelechy field contains works of art, other Bionoesis,
and places that help the Bionoesis become nascent. Each of these things establishes a sine-differential between
itself and the artistic Bionoesis, a differential that – through the nascency
of contrast – brings the artist into existence.
In Being
& Time, Heidegger writes "Proximally and for the most part Dasein
is formulated within its world."[liv] Given the truth of this claim, we may
say artists - as provisionally considered Dasein - formulate themselves in
terms of their world. Now their
world is constituted by art, artists, and people associated with art. An artist is therefore formulated
within this world.
In terms of the
theory presented here, we may say that an artist becomes nascent in relation to
this world. And the reason the
artist is an artist, is that they possess the capacity to create this world –
that is produce works of art that will surround them and that will give them a
greater chance of meeting the types of people they are in the habit of meeting
- people to relate with and who are fellow producers of art. The heterogeneous homogeneity exhibited
between these people and the artistic Bionoesis establishes sine-differentials
that propel it into existence. The
artist creates the relational context in which they may become nascent.
We
have some anecdotal evidence for these claims. David E. Cooper
writes of Oscar Wilde that,
“For Wilde....art is ‘a way of world making’ and not a mirror of
something already in place”[lv] Wilde sets out to fashion a world for
himself - one that contains objects of art, in this case literature – and
people to admire his neat aphorisms.
He is attempting to create the context through which he may become
nascent. He is attempting to
establish a new and more felicitous entelechy field through which the nascency
of contrast may operate to bring him into existence- he is creating a world, or
a contrastive matrix, in which he may become nascent.
We
may also reflect upon the words of the psychiatrist Oska Pfister. In speaking of the aetiology of
artistic creations such those produced by expressionist artists, Pfister says
of such artists: “Repelled from the external world by bitter experience, the
cognitive subject hides itself away in its own inner world, and magnifies
itself into a world creator.”[lvi] Such artists, through various traumatic
life experiences, retreat from the external world and set out to create their
own. We might say that with such
artists, their entelechy field has become ruptured, and that they are
attempting to reconstitute it through their art. They are attempting, under their own volition, to construct
a world in which they may find the means toward existence.
_______________
The
world then is a relational context – a contrastive matrix – that situates
Bionoesis and makes it nascent.
The artist takes advantage of this, creating contexts through which they
may be brought into existence.
Bionoesis may be considered a contrastive juncture in the broader
contrastive matrix that is the world.
CHAPTER
5 - FINALE
This
work has established a new descriptive framework through which to view the
human being and its relation to the world. The person has been re-described as Bionoesis, highlighting
its being constituted by a mind/body dichotomy. Bionoesis becomes nascent in relation to things in the
world. Such objects of
consciousness can, if conditions are right, establish sine-differentials with
Bionoesis, engendering pleasure.
These objects in the world constitute the entelechy field of Bionoesis –
they provide the grounds through which Bionoesis becomes nascent. We have also seen how it is more
felicitous to describe the relation between Bionoesis and world as a contrast –
due to the emptying of the concept.
We are then at liberty to talk of the nascency of contrast that propels
Bionoesis into existence. Such a
nascency of contrast operates via a contrastive magnitude being established
between the subject and the object.
The relation is also very much grounded in the heterogeneous homogeneity
that is apparent between the Bionoesis and actualisers that inhabit its
entelechy field. Finally, we saw
how we may re-describe the world as a relational context – or to adhere to the
nomenclature established in this work – as a contrastive matrix, in which
Bionoesis has the relational imperatives required to become nascent.
GLOSSARY
Actualiser – Each person is situated in a
surrounding context that ensures the continued grounds for their arising into
being. This context is constituted
by its mundane surrounds (proximal objects in the world), as well as things of
interest (art, people, nature etc).
Each of these entities is an ‘actualiser’ in that they provide the
grounds for that person to continually move from potentiality to actuality.
Bionoesis – Cartesian
dualism is a helpful framework from which to view the human being. People have minds, and they have
bodies, and there is a difference between them. This work describes the human being as ‘Bionoesis’ – ‘bio’
meaning biological, and ‘noesis’ meaning mind.
Contrastive
Juncture – The point at which an entity arises into being is a contrastive
juncture. It is a juncture where
the broader contrastive matrix has established the correct differential within
itself for the arising of an entity.
This differential is affected through the contrast of other entities
within the contrastive matrix.
Contrastive
Magnitude – Every entity maintains a certain ‘magnitude’. This magnitude is the measure of the
size of the influence in the surrounding context that it maintains. This influence will provide the grounds
of the possibility of the arising of other entities within that context.
Contrastive
Matrix – The world is a contrastive matrix in that it is a matrix of
differentials between entities that contrast. Each entity in the world is a point within a matrix (a point
contrasting with other points) at which the nascency of contrast occurs through
the imperatives of sine-differentials.
Sine-differentials
–
The contrastive magnitude of an entity establishes a differential between
itself and its surrounding context.
This differential is the mechanism that facilitates the arising of an
entity into the world. The more in
equilibrium the differential - the greater the balance within the heterogeneous
homogeneity between the entity and its partner - the greater the effectiveness
of the contrastive nascency.
Entelechy Field – Each person maintains a surrounding
context that provides the grounds for the possibility of its progress from
potentiality to actuality. This
context is constituted by mundane objects and entities of interest.
Heterogeneous
Homogeneity – Entities in the world display differences between each
other. They also display
similarities. There is therefore a
certain ‘similarity-in-difference’ that is evident between things in the
world. This work describes this as
heterogeneous homogeneity.
The Nascency of
Contrast – An entity arises into being through its contrast with other
entities. The entity establishes a
differential between itself and its context - a differential that provides the
grounds of the possibility for its arising into being.
NOTES
[i] Culler, Jonathan D., Saussure, (Fontana:
Great Britain, 1976), p. 9.
[ii] Davidson, Donald, Inquires into Truth and
Interpretation, (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1984), p. 183.
[iii] Sartre, Jean-Paul, Being and Nothingness,
(trans.) Hazel E. Barnes, (Washington Square Press: New York, 1956), p. 239.
[iv] Strawson, P. F., Individuals: An Essay in
Descriptive Metaphysics, (Methuen: London, 1959), p. 99.
[v] Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time,
(trans.) John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, (Blackwell: Oxford, 1962), p.
163.
[vi] Sartre, p. 321.
[vii] MacMurray, John, Person’s in Relation,
(Faber & Faber: London, 1961), p. 17.
[viii] Descartes, Rene, Meditations on First
Philosophy, (trans.) John Cottingham, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1996), p.59.
[ix] The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary,
Vol. 2: N-Z, (ed.) Lesley Brown, (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1993), p. 1931.
[x] Inwood, Michael, A Heidegger Dictionary,
(Blackwell Publishers Ltd.: Oxford, 1999), p. 42.
[xi] Ibid.
[xii] The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary,
Vol. 2: N-Z, (ed.) Lesley Brown, (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1993), p. 1885.
[xiii] Quoted from Barnett, Sylvan, A Short Guide to
Writing About Art, 5th Edition, (Longman: New York, 1997), p.
54.
[xiv] Kant, Immanuel, The Critique of Judgement,
(Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1952), s. 29, p. 131.
[xv] Hugh Lawason-Tancred calls it a “conceptual
framework”. See Aristotle, De
Anima, (Trans.) Hugh Lawson-Tancred, (Penguin: New York, 1986), p. 15.
[xvi] Ibid.
[xvii] Ibid.
[xviii] Druik, Douglas, Odilon Redon, (Thames
& Hudson: London, 1994), p. 24.
[xix] Sartre, p. 295.
[xx]Druik, p. 64.
[xxi]Heidegger, p. 186.
[xxii] Druik, p. 27.
[xxiii] Ibid, p.30.
[xxiv] Sartre, p. 345.
[xxv] Rosmini, Antonio, Psychology: Vol. 2, Development
of the Human Soul, (trans.) Denis Cleary & Terence Watson, (Rosmini
House: Durham, 1999), p. 731.
[xxvi] Gasche, Rudolfe, Of Minimal Things: Studies on
the Notion of Relation, (Stanford University Press: Stanford, 1999), p.1.
[xxvii] Cavarnos, Constantine, The Classical Theory of
Relations: A Study in the
Metaphysics of Plato, Aristotle and Thomism, (Institute for Byzantine and
Modern Greek Studies: Belmont,
1975), p. 14.
[xxviii] Cavarnos, p. 17.
[xxix] Aristotle, The Metaphysics, (trans.) Hugh
Lawson-Tancred, (Penguin: London, 1998), p. 128
[xxx] Cavarnos, p.43.
[xxxi] Gasche, p. 2.
[xxxii] Ibid, p.3.
[xxxiii] Ibid.
[xxxiv] The Oxford Companion to Philosophy,
(ed.) Ted Honderich, (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1995), p. 755.
[xxxv] Bradley, F. H., Appearance and Reality: A
Metaphysical Essay, (S. Sonnenschein: London, 1897).
[xxxvi] Jay, Martin, Marxism and Totality,
(University of California Press: California, 1984), p.54.
[xxxvii] The Oxford Companion to Art, (ed.) Harold
Osborne, (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1970), p. 260.
[xxxviii] Ibid, pp. 260-261.
[xxxix] Ibid, p. 258.
[xl] The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary,
Vol. 2: N-Z, p. 1885.
[xli] Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical
Investigations, (trans.) G. E. M. Anscombe, (Blackwell: Oxford, 1958), p.
33.
[xlii] Derrida, Jaques, Margins of Philosophy,
(Harvest Wheatsheaf: New York, 1982), p. 3.
[xliii] Aristotle, Aristotle’s Metaphysics,
(trans.) John Warrington, (J. M. Dent & Sons, LTD: London, 1956), p.
19.
[xliv] Ibid.
[xlv] Ibid.
[xlvi] Ibid.
[xlvii] Ibid.
[xlviii] Foucault, Michel, The Order of Things: An
Archaeology of the Human Sciences, (Vintage Books: New York, 1970), pp. 57
–58.
[xlix] Ibid, pp. 71-72.
[l] Deleuze, Giles, Difference and Repetition,
(trans.) Paul Patton, (Athlone Press: London, 1994), p. 15.
[li] Ibid, p. 17.
[lii] The Oxford English Dictionary, Second
Edition, Vol. VII, Hat – Intervacuum, (Prepared by) J. A. Simpson & E. S.
L. Weiner, (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1989), p. 186.
[liii] Ibid, p. 340.
[liv] Heidegger, p.149.
[lv] A Companion to Aesthetics, (ed.) David
Cooper, (Blackwell Publishers Ltd.: Oxford, 1992), p. 442.
[lvi] Quoted from Werner, Alfred, Modligani,
(Thames and Hudson: London, 1966), p. 11.
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