Discovery vs Disclosure
November 1st, 2007, search relatedRelated posts :: Discovery vs Disclosure :: [epistemology] Discovery vs Disclosure :: Discovery vs Disclosure* :: Discovery vs Disclosure*
Cologne 31-Oct-2007
michaelP schrieb Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:25:38 +0000:
> MichaelE to Joe recently:
>
> > And, as I pointed out in my last
> > post, the ink-blot’s showing of itself AS such is enabled by the category of
> > SOMETHING, a phenomenon the Greek philosophers could still see, but we
> > smarties today, blinded by Cartesian and British empiricist prejudice, no
> > longer can see.
>
> Michael, I can see in your lucidity two (different but belonging-together)
> notions of be-ing (which I think stems from some where in Aristotle) which
> can be phrased in terms of categories as you do:
>
> 1) the category of ’something’; for me: thatness, that something is, that
> is: is not nothing; standing out against nothingness.
>
> 2) the category (for example) of image (say, an inkblot); for me: whatness,
> what something is, that is: is not something else; standing out against
> elsewise.
>
> Both embrace a difference in standing out (ex-sists): not nothing; not
> something else. In this way, both prescribe be-ing in terms of difference.
> Without that difference (it’s the same difference-qua-difference) we can not
> *say* anything about anything (even if we can and do endlessly *speak* such
> nonsense which explicitly or implicitly precludes or obliviates such
> difference; and here’s the rub: even such nonsense (refusing the difference)
> requires the difference even to speak such ‘falsity’ at all).
>
> Or have I gotten this all diddley-squat?
>
> regards
>
> michaelP
ME: Good question, Michael. Actually, SOMETHING is closest to the second
Aristotelean category, _to poion_, or quality (howness), but inscribed in pure
immediacy or presence or _ousia_ (the first Aristotelean category), thus existing
as a definite, determinate reality (thatness, as you say). Hegel thinks this
through for the first (and last) time in the history of philosophical thinking as
Etwas (somewhat, something). Before Hegel, the categories had not been established
in a connected thinking-through or dialectic, but pretty much, from Aristotle to
Kant, fell from the sky.
SOMETHING (or SOMEWHAT) is the most superficial category for the being of a being;
it is a present reality defined (determined, delimitedness) in some way, i.e. a
being with definite qualities. The being’s being as SOMETHING is identical with
and exhausted by its qualities.
There is no deeper whatness (essence) in this primitive determinate being. Each
quality is purely and simply a determination that demarcates/delineates (L. finis,
G. Grenze) one how of being (quality) from another how of being, so that a given
something is different from other determinate beings. E.g. a meadow has certain
qualities or determinations which demarcate it from being a forest, which has
other qualities. An ink-blot has certain definite qualities which demarcate it
from the determinate being of the piece of paper in which it is impregnated.
(These qualities do not have to be sensorially perceptible ones, but they provide
the easiest examples to start with.) Hegel explicitly refers to Spinoza’s
insightful dictum, “Omnis determinatio est negatio”, in connection with the
category of Etwas: Something can only be delineated by setting it off from what it
is not, an other with other properties. E.g. a red ink-blot is (qualitatively)
other than a black ink-blot and therefore AS SOMETHING other than the other
SOMETHING. These are phenomenological trivialities, but nevertheless well nigh
impossible for common-sense to see because it takes the categories for granted.
The analytical British Empiricist mind explains categories away as mere
subjective, linguistic conventions, or the like.
We human beings (are able to) understand determinate ways of being (qualities) and
(are able to) distinguish them from other determinate ways of being (qualities),
and in this way we distinguish, on a superficial level, one something from
another. To employ an artistic mode of expression, SOMETHING is the first,
incipient inscription of a delineating contour into pure, immediate, indeterminate
presence.
At this moment, the sun shows itself again from behind the clouds…
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