Heidegger

Cologne 25-Nov-2007

Joseph Polanik schrieb Sat, 24 Nov 2007 10:21:22 -0500:

> Axiom 0: On Choosing a Root Predicate
>
> >>JP: here you seem to be suggesting that one is obligated to use as a root
>
> >>predicate every predicate ever used as a root predicate by anyone.
>
> >ME: I don’t care one wit about “root predicates”. You’re the one
> >asserting root predicates.
>
> JP: you are the one who insists that ‘being’ is co-predicated of any subject
>
> to which ‘reality’ (used as a root predicate) is attributed.

ME: Actually, I now want to radicalize that co-predication into
pre-predication (see below).

>
> JP: I’m only saying that this claim of ‘co-predication’ is untrue *unless*
> being is defined to mean no more than ‘is not a member of the empty set’
> which is what a root predicate asserts. you are claiming to know much
> more about ‘being’ — for instance, that it is the name of the
> originary phenomenon. *none* of that is co-predicated of that to which
> the root predicate is attributed.

ME: You have already predicated being in the very formulation of your Axiom 0,
because Axiom 0 postulates that there is something to be said that can be said
about each and every x that is, i.e. about each and every being. But it is
precisely the task of ontology to delve into what “x is” means, i.e. to
elucidate the sense of being rather than surreptitiously presupposing it and
taking it for granted. “x is” already contains the mystery.

>
> >>>ME: No matter which so-called “root predicate” you “choose”, the
> >>>predicate “being” is always ALSO chosen. Try it out.
>
> JP: As I’ve shown, the claim that ‘being’ is always also chosen is false;
> for, sometimes it is assigned a completely different meaning.

ME: You attempted to show this with your example of osmium, which shows
nothing, for it is based on an arbitrary and haywire taxonomy.

> >>1: I assume Axiom 0.
>
> >>2: I construct a substitution instance of Axiom 0 by choosing ‘real’
> >>as a substitute for the placeholder, P, in Axiom 0.

ME: This is an arbitrary postulation. The point would be to unfold the
phenomenon of reality, not to simply assume ‘real’ as a predicate which, as
Hegel would say, is “begrifflos” (thoughtless).

> >ME: So ‘real’ is your predicate P. That implies that for all x, x is
> >real. And you’re claiming that ‘x is real’ does not imply that ‘x is a
> >being’? And yet x is???
>
> JP: again, where ‘real’ is defined as the root predicate, ‘x is real’ does
> not imply that ‘x is a being’ *unless* ‘being’ is also defined as the
> root predicate — something which I don’t do.

ME: As if one could pick and choose predicates to suit one’s tastes and
preferences! “x is”, postulated within Axiom 0, already predicates being
before you have taken a single step further. But that “x is”, is already
mysterious and calls for questioning. Formalizing Axiom 0 in symbolic logic or
bringing in set theory is no rescue from, but merely obfuscation of the
inevitable presuppositions in Axiom 0, and it is these presuppositions which
make an axiomatic approach to ontology utterly futile. Ontology has to find
its starting-point in what is most originary and entirely without
presuppositions.

> >>JP: 3: this substitution instance Axiom 0 is taken as Axiom 1 of the
> logic
> >>of the language of reality; and, ‘reality’ becomes the root of a
> >>taxonomy of all that is (when that taxonomy is presented within the
> >>language of the real).

ME: A “taxonomy of all that is” is useless in itself. Ontology inquires into
what it means for “all that is” to be, and is therefore most comprehensive
inquiry of all or, as Aristotle puts it, it is the _prima philosophia_.

>
> >>JP: 4: I assume Axiom 2 which (as stated within the logic of the language
>
> >>of reality) is: not every reality has the same reality type.

ME: Yet another arbitrary postulation.

> >>JP: 5: I take inventory of the reality types that are attributable within
>
> >>the language of reality. as mentioned these on previous occasions,
> >>they are:
>
> >>a) existential or physical reality (anything made of matter/energy and
> >>spacetime).
>
> >>b) phenomenological reality (subject or object of any experience)
>
> >>c) ontological reality (ie being; or, more generally, anything that has a
>
> >>reality independent of our experience of it (ie a metaphenomenal
> >>reality); but, which is not an existential reality).
>
> >ME: This classification of “reality types” is flawed for all the
> >reasons I have stated previously in extenso, but especially because it
> >is captive to the ontology of subject and object.

ME: Your tripartite taxonomy conveniently, tendentiously and arbitrarily
truncates ontology in its omnicomprehensive breadth.

>
> JP: perhaps you don’t like my inventory of reality types; but, you
> challenged me to show that “No matter which so-called ‘root predicate’
> you ‘choose’, the predicate ‘being’ is always ALSO chosen”; and, I have
> met that challenge by using ‘being’ as the name for ontological
> realities as defined above.

ME: You have met this challenge merely by defining “ontological reality” to
exclude what you term “existential reality”. But such a defining is arbitrary.

Let me now strengthen my claim: The predicate ‘being’ is not just
co-predicated when ‘choosing’ what you call a ‘root predicate’, but, prior to
that, has already been assumed (or pre-predicated) in the very formulation of
your Axiom 0 because this Axiom 0 already assumes every x that is, or ‘all
that is’. So Axiom 0 itself must be questioned to bring to light what it means
that “x is”, the originary _logos_ that says of x that it is. In other words,
the predicate P that Axiom 0 postulates as applicable to all x is simply that
x is, i.e. the predicate asked for is already assumed, surreptitiously
postulated and taken for granted within the axiom itself. So instead of
serving as a self-evident foundation for further derivations, the very sense
of “x is” or “all that is” calls for elucidation, and this can only be
achieved by regressing rather than progressing, going deeper in asking what it
means for x, or all x, or everything that is, to be.

> JP: in any case, it appears that you accept Axiom 2 (or its analogue in the
> language of being: not all beings have the same mode of being), since
> you use ‘being’ as a root predicate and also speak of modes of being.
>
> I understand that, following Heidegger, you name the mode of being that
> is characteristically human, ‘existence’. what are the names of the
> other modes of being you recognize?
>
> I suggest it might be interesting to compare your inventory of modes of
> being with my inventory of reality types.

ME: There’s no point whatever in comparing “inventories”. What is called for
is a thinking-through of being and reality to discover what their senses are.

>
> >>JP: 6: since your claim is that someone who chooses ‘real’ as the root
> >>predicate *necessarily* co-predicates ‘being’ of any reality, I
> >>present a reality that refutes your claim: an atom of osmium.
>
> >>there is no proof that an atom of osmium is a being or has any being
> >>as defined above (eg a soul in the cartesian sense). philosophers
> >>might dispute this point; but, no one has ever proven or even
> >>presented a shred of evidence that it is *necessarily* true that an
> >>atom of osmium is other than a mere existential reality.
>
> >ME: I know nothing in particular about “an atom of osmium”, but if it
> >is an “existential reality”, it is also a being. Osmium itself is a
> >rare, very heavy, brittle, odd-smelling, bluish-white metal, i.e. a
> >being. And like all atoms in the way modern age science thinks atoms,
> >an atom of osmium is a theoretical construct of physics and chemistry,
> >i.e. a being construed by a certain scientific theory. And you deny
> >that?
>
> JP: for reasons given previously, I deny that an atom of osmium is a being
> as I define ‘being’. I also deny that an atom is merely a theoretical
> construct.
>

ME: You have defined ‘being’ in an arbitrary way, but already assumed it in
formulating your Axiom 0 without, however, further delving into the sense of
being you have assumed as self-evident.

You may well deny than an atom is a theoretical construct, but then you are
denying that what atoms are is defined only through a complex set of
mathematical equations (with terms such as mass, energy/motion, forces,
momentum, wavelengths, certain constants, etc.) constituting theoretical
quantum physics. We only see these beings called atoms (and sub-atomic
‘particles’) through the equations that define them and their motion (cf.
_kinaesis_, the great question motivating ancient Greek philosophy: _to on_
and _to kinaeton_!!). By using the word “merely” to qualify these theoretical
constructs, you are grossly underestimating the achievements of thinkers, both
ancient ones and modern scientists, for it is only through this theory that we
at all can LOOK AT (the original sense of _theoorein_) what composite things
are composed of.

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Posted on Sunday, November 25th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
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