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PrefaceThis paper investigates the concept of the Word. Not any words in particular, but the concept that makes us think that these marks and noises we make mean something and have real bearing on our world. Indeed, these marks do have bearing on our world, but it is of a sort that I think we tend to misunderstand. I begin this essay, by considering what this concept has meant to various cultures, then narrowing it down to the two that I think have had the most effect on our ways of thinking, the Greek and the Hebrew. I try to explore some of the thoughts which have been carried by these words in service to clarifying the nature of existence Being. En route to my conception of the meaning of Being and the meaning of the Word, I hope to clarify the only place where these two concepts matter, that is us, the humans. I will visit upon the thoughts of Parmenides, Heraclitus, Sartre, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and very briefly, Levinas and Wittgenstein in hopes of rendering an old way of thinking in a new light and in new terms. This "old" way of thinking, is the sublation of the two traditions that have had the strongest grip on the Western world. It is Christianity, the faith of millions the world over. I will reinterpret it, in terms which are more congruent with the concept of the Word (dabhar) that originated in its Hebrew roots claiming that, as filtered through the concepts that have their origin in the Greek word (logos), the profundity of its meaning has been lost.This effort is in service to the return not of Christianity, but to the concept of the Christ, which, I think offers a genuine chance at human freedom if we can open up this concept in a way that can have a real effect on what we are here and now, rather than in some transcendent heaven which we are to await.
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I. In The Beginning…If we are to trust what has been said, in the beginning there was the Word. From that word sprang forth the universe and its multiplicity of constituents. The Word burst forth from the lips of the creator and out of the paradoxical swirl of chaos and unity was born an equally paradoxical order and disunity. Pushing ever harder against the threat of entropy, the Word created; expanding the universe as it went, establishing its own kind of order.The Word, has carried with it, and paradoxically has been carried by, one of its more peculiar creations. That creation is the human being. From the outset, human beings have relied upon the Word; growing and changing through its use and its growth and change. Because of the interplay between the creator and the created, the Word takes a particular interest in the human, as does the human in the Word. It is through this interplay that the universe is discovered and through it that humanity finds its place at the center of it. The relationship we have with the Word is our story, and in telling it one uncovers the mysteries in which it has been shrouded. This string of words intends to reconnect us with the intricacies and implications of our relationship with the Word. In this endeavor, one hopes to reestablish a clear perspective on what it is to be human, and to reestablish an old relationship, lest we lose the force of the creator altogether.That the concept of the Word has arisen in the literature, mythologies and cosmologies of so many separate cultures is enough to want to pursue it as a topic of investigation. Unfortunately even within those traditions, the concept itself is not thoroughly explicated but, rather, it is mentioned almost dogmatically as if its presence and meaning were in some ways self evident.Though it is not necessarily a well defined concept in any of the traditions, it is clear that in each case its presence indicates a creative and/or ordering force that is in some ways prior to and responsible for the objects and features of the world. In each case it is thanks to the Word that the universe and the world exist. What follows is a brief survey of what has been said of the Word in the beginning…In ancient Syria, the Word was first spoken by the God Marduk-Ellil. The effect of his word was praised by the Assyrians as a force whose power is unmatched in both its creative and destructive abilities. The Word of Marduk-Ellil has the character of a physical creative force that by its utterance can either generate or destroy any of the features of the world (Boman 5). Similar stories of creation are found in Egypt. The God of the Memphis Region, Ptah, created the world using only his mouth "which named things" (5). Further still, of the Egyptian God, Thot, who is also a creator God, it is said that "what springs out of his mouth, this happens and what he speaks, this comes to pass." Another statement of his power holds that "Everything that is has come to be through his words" (5).Javeh too, the creator God of the Old Testament is a creator with his words. The Old Testament is laden with imagery of Javeh creating with a divine word. By passages such as "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made" (Ps -6) and "For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded and it stood forth" (Ps. -) show the Word undoubtedly in its creative capacity.The Greek word, logos, takes on a different character than that of the traditions mentioned before. For instance, in the term logos, we lose the explicitness of creation. The creative aspect of logos is discovered in investigating its meaning from an etymological standpoint. Logos, comes from the root leg-, which means to gather together or to arrange (Boman 67). This act of arranging or gathering becomes the quality of arrangedness in the term logos. Logos is a term that refers to the arrangement or order of things. This order is of the magnitude of what is found in the creative force of the Gods. The logos refers to not only the order found in every day life, but to a higher cosmic order whose presence is reflected in the order of all things.To be sure, these concepts are not identical. There is however the obvious basic relationship that binds them. That order and words or speech are in some way fundamentally related is the underlying unity that is found in these concepts. In his book The Religion of the Veda, Maurice Bloomfield suggests that the unity to be found in these concepts is that "… They seek the creative power and creative plan in the mind and heart of the universe rather than in its mechanical manifestations…"(07).With that said, it must also be said that these concepts are different in certain other ways. The most readily visible difference one sees in distinguishing between these concepts is the mentionable ostensible features of the Word. Again we see in the early Assyrian creation stories that the divine word has a physical cosmic presence. Marduk-Ellil's word "shakes the earth beneath" and "proceeds like a storm." The same can be said of the way in which the Word of Javeh is portrayed.For as the rain…comes down from heaven and return(s) not thither, but water(s) the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower, bread to the eater, so shall my word be that 'goes forth' from my mouth; It shall not return to me empty but it shall accomplish which I purpose and prosper in the thing for which I sent it (Isa 5510 my parentheis).The Word in Greek is never associated with creation in the way we have seen above. The Word of the above mentioned gods are both physical and dynamic. They had the power not only to create, but to move and alter and even destroy that which has been created. The Word of the gods was about the ordering and reordering of the universe in an involved and dynamic way. By contrast, the Greek logos was a term that refers to the already present and established order of the cosmos; an order that represents the truth of a higher order. The Greek logos was more of a static concept than is found in the other traditions. This distinction between dynamic and static is a very important distinction and will be somewhat of a recurring theme throughout this essay. This distinction between stasis and motion is in some ways the basic underlying conflict that will frame this entire discussion as we push forward.From here, we will primarily focus on the Greek and Hebrew concepts of the Word. This is the case, primarily because it is from these two traditions that the core of our modern western culture has derived, and these concepts have been inherited by the western tradition. What we do and how we see ourselves and our world have been shaped to a large extent by words, and how we use them has, to a certain extent been mediated by what we think words can do and what we think they are for. Of the two, it is the Greek which has made the largest impression on us, and as with the Greeks, this concept plays a very large role in how our worldscape has developed and evolved.The development of the concept of logos has had a lasting effect on the development of western thought and thinking patterns. Its consequences are far reaching, and much closer to us than we think. For now, though, we will investigate the origin of the concept we have inherited. The quest to understand logos is a quest to understand the underlying order that we find in our world. Coming to terms with this concept would presumably put us in a position to accurately judge and understand the world from a solid ground. For Heraclitus though, Firm ground was exactly what you would not find in the logos.For Heraclitus, the logos was characterized by flux. Everything was in a constant state of change. He posited that the underlying form of everything was fire. For this discussion we need not take him on his word on that, but simply recognize that, from his perspective, the underlying order of the universe was change. His argument was based initially on changes that we can experience like the change from day to night, the changing of the seasons and so forth. Heraclitus was also aware of the kinds of changes that we cannot see like the evaporation of puddles, the rotting of wood, and the changing of bronze into green patina (Popper 15).He held that such change was the truth of reality and that permanence was an illusion. The reality of change often escapes our senses, but we can certainly see its consequences. We do not see our hair growing, but we know that it does. From this he goes on to conclude that even the idea of objects was faulty. While we easily believe in the permanence of objects, Heraclitus holds that there aren't even objects to be permanent. In Popper's description, "there are no solid bodies. Things are not really things, they are processes, they are in flux. They are like fire, like a flame which, though it may have a definite shape, is a process, a stream of matter, a river" (15). Heraclitus' Dynamic depiction of the underlying order (which he calls the Divine logos), was unique in pre-Socratic philosophy. According to Boman, "his high estimate of change is un-Greek; Heraclitus stands alone among Greek Philosophers with his doctrine" (51).More in line with the Greek depiction of order is another pre-Socratic luminary, Parmenides. Quite the opposite of Heraclitus, Parmenides' theory of order indicated a static universe. For Parmenides the world was one with no division and no motion. Parmenides further posits that the world of change is simply an illusory world that mortals inhabit. Furthermore the illusion we live in is the result of the belief in both what exists (the present) and what does not exist (or what does not yet exist, the future). He finds it to be a great error that people could possibly think that there could be something which is opposite to Being.Parmenides begins his argument with the tautological premise "what is not is not" (Popper 17). In other words, there is no such thing as that which does not exist. The concept of non-being or nothingness is basically bankrupt. His claim is that it is essentially pointless to derive a theory based on something that is nonexistent. It may be an accident of our language that we are able to posit nothingness in such a way that it is a something. Thus, for Parmenides, there is no void, there is no nothingness. From this it follows that the world is solid through and through. There is no space. The world is a solid unity because any division would require nothingness "in the gaps." For that reason, he posits that there is, in truth, no motion because "In this full world, there is no room for motion" (Popper 17).In order to better understand the Parmenidean stance, it may be helpful to put it into direct discourse with Heraclitus' position. For Heraclitus, the only permanent and sure truth was change. What change entailed for Heraclitus was the constant alteration that turns things into their opposites. Things grow from small to large and from young to old. Day turns to night. Wet turns to dry. This is the order of things. For Parmenides, Being is here now. Being is present. Being has the character of a solid physical mass, immobile and impenetrable. Being can be no other place than here and now, and for that reason to posit Being as some future potential is nonsensical. The future and its putative change are just illusions that we live in that in no way correspond to what is. Parmenides' argument may have some merit (and as we will see later may have some use), but it is generally refuted out of hand simply based on its conclusion that there can be no change. He would argue that the intuitive stance that makes his argument refutable based on the fact that we are constantly experiencing change is simply a stance that is caught up in the illusion of non-being.The primary problem between Heraclitus and Parmenides is Heraclitus' obsession with opposites. That Heraclitus' change was always to an opposite would make Parmenides cringe because, from his perspective, if a thing is it is and could become what it is not. It could not even be what it is not in the future because the future too is nothingness. In the end though, even Heraclitus relented on this theory of opposites claiming that the world of opposites is for man. He doesn't go so far as to say that it is an illusion, but he does say that God sees through the opposites, so, in the more true view, all things are one.While the notion that there could be no motion and no change never really caught on, the notion of what is (Being) and what is not (nothingness) did. What also caught on is that the world of appearance is inferior to the higher reality. Being is of a higher order than what appears. It is from these two ideas that Plato's theory of forms derives. Plato's theory divides Being into four parts, one major division between what appears and what truly is, and then smaller divisions of degree within these larger two divisions. The world of appearance is characterized by what is immediately given, what is graspable and sensible; in other words, the world of objects. These objects have a certain kind of reality that is truer than images such as shadows and reflections. Together these two modes of Being, objects and images, make up the world of appearances. This world, like that of Heraclitean fire, is characterized by coming into Being and passing away. Everything here is in flux, is mutable.The spiritual realm, what truly is, is of a higher order. Here nothing changes and everything is eternal. As mentioned above, this realm too is divided. The lower of the spiritual world is the world of mathematical certainty, laws, and geometrical forms. The higher member and the truest reality are Ideas. Ideas are the true underlying form of the universe. Ideas are the true logos.The Ideas are the full undifferentiated Being which are only partially manifest in the world of objects the physical things we see. Ideas are the true essence of what we point out with our speech. We may see any number of dogs which may be born and may pass away. Dogs are numerous and have many varying features, but none of the specific dogs we see can be said to be, the pure idea or essence, 'Dog'. They are merely transitory instances of dog, particular dogs. Despite the transitory nature of dogs, the Idea of Dog will remain unchanged no matter how many dogs come to be or pass away. The logos is characterized by the eternal. The Word is eternal and what is eternal is true.We've seen that the Word of the ancient traditions was dynamic and affecting whereas that of the Greeks was more static and permanent. This is the case because the Word, and words, intend to point out Being. That is, the Word is meant to address what exists and what can be encountered in the world. With this in mind it is not surprising that the Hebrew and Greek understandings of Being were different by the same basic standard change. Being for both the Hebrews and the ancient Greeks was something that was there to be encountered. This being the case, the way in which Being was encountered required comportments appropriate to the nature of Being. For the ancient Hebrews Being, much in the way that it did for Heraclitus, had the character of change. In this worldview, objects in the world and the world itself were in a continual state of change. This stance on the nature of Being requires a congruent mode of interaction. That is to say that in order to interact with the world, if the world is dynamic, the agent acting in the world too must be dynamic.The opposite can be said of the prevalent theme in Greek thought. In their basic world view, Being was static in nature and thus required an interacting agent to respond to that stasis. The sensible and objective world represents a less true manifestation of the eternal transcendent logos. This truer realm then becomes what an agent ought to primarily interact with in order to better achieve what he or she intends. This is an important point. In Greek thought, there are two very general ways to interact with the world. One may interact with what the world appears to be (those transitory objects) or what the world really is (the true essences).Since for the Greeks the world presents itself most truly as essences, one's interaction with the world must focus on essences. This is something that the body (a transitory object) cannot do, thus the soul is required to encounter the true Being of the world. Here the relationship of logos and Being becomes clearer. Logos, as I said before, is about order or ordering. The term, again, means to gather together. For my purposes I will render this term as intending to denote the gathering together of one's attentions. That is to say that logos, the Word, is the vehicle by which one can weed out the faulty information of what appears and better focus one's attention on what is essential in beings, their essences. We see here that it is through the logos that one is able to come closer to the true Being itself. This is an intellectual affair and can only be achieved by disciplining one's use of words such that they could operate as a sufficient tool to gather one's attention on only the truth.The Hebrew concept of word, dabhar is an interesting concept. It entails not only words, but actions. Its literal meaning is "to be behind and to drive forward" (Boman 65). Dabhar is not to be understood simply as having two meanings, one being word and the other being action (or deed), but it is to be understood as these two terms unified as one inextricable concept. The ancient Hebrews did not distinguish between words and deeds. Of this, Boman writes Abraham's servant recounted to Isaac all the 'words' that he had done (Gen 4-66); The rest of Solomon's words and everything that he did, and his wisdom are recorded in the book of the words of Solomon (I Kings 11-41). The Word is the highest and noblest function of man and is, for that reason, identical with his action. Word and deed are thus not to be thought of as two different meanings of dabhar, but the deed is the consequence of the basic meaning inhering in dabhar. (65)Here we see that the Hebrew concept of word is tied up with the objective (that is bodily) interaction of humans in the world. As is with Javeh, the Word always corresponds to an act or effective motion within Being. For a clearer understating of how the Word and Being work in ancient Hebrew thought, it may help to revisit and further flesh out the Hebrew concept of Being. Being for the Hebrews was a matter of objective presence. The reality of Being needed no proof because it is characterized by the subsistent objective and affective features of one's experience. It was nature and its objects and forces. Nature and its objects present themselves as ever changing. While they could point out that there were things that persisted over time more or less unchanged, for them all things pass away, this is the Word of Javeh.The nature of Javeh, too, plays a crucial role in Being. It is his word that creates and recreates the world which drives forward the continual motion of the cosmos. Recall that the Word of Javeh has the character of the physical phenomena which manifest themselves and continually alter Being. Now we come to a crucial point. In ancient Hebrew thought, Javeh and Being are one. Being is Javeh. The two are conceptually synonymous. Javeh "…is the sum of all dynamic existence and the source and creator of it" (Boman 4).One could say that the ancient Hebrews considered all of their actions (words) to have been in direct contact with Javeh and that his words directly responded to the words (acts) of man. This is the case because our own bodily activity has the character of objective presence. Our bodies themselves are created in the image of the creator, that is, they have the character of Being (becoming acting effecting). And when our words accord with our actions, we are at one with Javeh.It is important to note, though, that in Hebrew thought, while dabhar meant both word and deed, the Hebrews were very aware that words and deeds did not always correspond. Often what was spoken had nothing to do with the actual effective action which was manifest in Being.…the failure in such instances lies not in the fact that the man produced only words and no deeds, but in the fact that he brought forth a counterfeit word, an empty word, or a lying word which did not possess the inner strength and truth for accomplishment or accomplished something evil (Boman 66).This point opens nicely into our next discussion. But before diving right in, it might be useful to compile some terms in order to clarify their unity. Again I will point out that Javeh and Being in Hebrew thought are one. Being is inherently dynamic, or as one may say inherently imbued with the Word of Javeh. In that way, Javeh and his word are inseparable, they are considered to be one and the same. From this it is evident that, as far as the Hebrew tradition goes, the Word (dabhar), Javeh, and Being can all refer to the same central reality and can effectively be used interchangeably in reference to that reality. All three terms represent that central reality equally, but each term connotes nuances that are appropriate to the context. The context in which we will primarily focus on that central reality is as it is addressed by the term 'Being'.As mentioned above, dabhar can be interchanged with Being. The most direct evidence for this can be found in investigating the term lo-dabhar. Literally the term means 'not word', but its definition in Hebrew usage is non-being or nothingness (Boman 56). This meaning refers to the kinds of words which do not either correspond to or bring forth action. These words are nothing, they are powerless, they are not of Javeh. For the Hebrews, non-being, nothingness (no-thingness) also has a certain existence which in practical life is tangible and unsavory. 'Mere words' (Heb words of the lip) are empty and vain and, therefore pernicious and dangerous…A lie for the Hebrew is not as it is for us, a non agreement with the truth…For him, the lie is the internal decay and destruction of the Word (Boman 56).The lie, the Word which does not have a use, the Word which does not bring about action, blocks one's ability to interact with Being and its motion. One cannot interact primarily because there is no initial act with which to connect one's actions. One interacts with nothing. It sets one's attention onto things which, because they are not real, cause one's deeds to be in reaction to something other than Being; nothingness.The Greeks too have a concept of nothingness. Recall Parmenides' easy destruction of this term with his laconic "what is not is not." However easily Parmenides seemed to think he had eradicated its presence, this concept does not go away so easily. Parmenides considered nothingness to be opposite of Being, and for that reason denied its existence. And all to his chagrin, nothingness returns in a different form. This different form doesn't posit nothingness as precisely opposite of Being, but simply other than Being. While it isn't made explicit in the works of Plato, for him nothingness is tied up with words. Plato's version of nothingness is closer to the Hebrew version than is the version that Parmenides reviles. Nothingness for Plato is a matter of illusion, error, and false judgment. When one makes an assertion about the world that presents the world incorrectly, one is talking about nothingness (Denyer 55).It is my general stance that both the Greek and Hebrew concepts of Being have, to a greater or lesser degree, been inherited by modern culture and modern sensibilities. The Greek concept of Being, in my opinion, has thoroughly dominated the modern cultural worldscape, primarily as a result of the dominance of the Greek logos which posits a transcendent order free from change. The Hebrew concept dabhar, on the other hand has not fared so well and I suggest that this is primarily due to the fact that it doesn't tell us anything. Dabhar doesn't add anything to our experience, it doesn't tell us what things are, but only that things are. This, as we will see later, is not enough to give us what we think we need.The Greek term logos (for word) signifies a gathering together of one's attention on what is being pointed out by the Word itself. Coupled with the Greek concept of Being, this amounts to the ability of words to point out true Being, that transcendent true reality; the essences or ideas. Of course one must clarify one's terms and be sure to accurately address those essences, which one could do by practicing rational thought and speech. Speaking and thinking of Being, as it is in its truest form, was possible in the worldscape of ancient Greek philosophy. In this quest, one need only find the right words. In this way of thinking, the words we use can give us direct access to the true order of things, so if one uses reason, one can have direct access to the truth, in a word, knowledge. The Hebrew concept of word gives us no such luxury. Dabhar is simply the tool with which we interact and communicate with one another. It serves the same purpose as we relate to Javeh. That is to say that it is the tool through which we interact with Javeh. It does not, however, give us knowledge of Being. Javeh is forever shrouded in mystery because it is forever dynamic. In its continual change, one can never be certain of what such a change may entail, so one's best course of action, in relation to Javeh is to 'hear' his word (dabhar), and respond, accordingly, with our own. The luxury of access to truth that is established with the version of word, logos, which we have inherited has laid the foundation for a whole new world-view in which truth can be found in transcendent Being. This world-view doesn't necessarily pay allegiance to Plato's ideas, but suggests and anticipates that the discovery of truth can be found in transcendent Being, perhaps as a set of propositions or as a mathematical equation which will link the ultimate essences of the universe into a coherent, unified whole. This is the world-view that is taken up by the modern sciences. The multiplicity of scientific theories that we have today find their origins in certain of the basic assumptions that are indicative of the Greek worldscape that we have inherited.1). The transitory world of what is sensible is less true than the permanent world of essences perceived in thought.). One can only be sure of truth as it can be delineated through essences, that is, through clear ideas.). One interacts with these ideas through strict and logical thinking.4). Only by understanding and interacting in the world of ideas does one apprehend truth and knowledge.5). Truth is the one static and unchanging reality. 6). Knowledge is man's greatest achievement.This list, however doesn't only apply to science and scientific theory. It has seeped into our cultural worldscape and is basically unnoticed because it has become more than just truth (something that you know), it has become reality. This worldview has carried us into the modern age, carrying along with it a number of consequences. The scope of such consequences is far reaching and touches upon many aspects of the modern human condition. Reverberations of the static worldview are to be found within our understandings of what it is to be human and what it is to be a self. Accordingly it also penetrates into our decision making and how it is that we choose to interact with the world. It lays out the definitions of our existence and establishes the possibilities through which we move. In this, we discover the bounds of humanity. The implications of this fact are many and tell us quite a bit about what we are and perhaps about what we are doing here. What follows is an attempt to re-think the human condition by re-thinking certain conceptions of human Being that, I will suggest, can be read in terms of their adherence to the static version of truth. This will all be in service to a higher goal, a goal that has been shared by every dreamer, and a goal that is misunderstood by most; the goal of freedom. En route to reaching this goal, I will open up another dream, it too is misunderstood by most, but more importantly it has been forgotten. This dream, if properly understood becomes more than a dream, it becomes more than truth, it becomes more than reality. It becomes so real, that it becomes you. It becomes life, eternally.---------------------------------------- "Exploring the human condition" could serve as a title for this section, except that that phrase is so incredibly vague it could mean anything. What could be entailed in such a statement stretches the bounds of the imagination. Interestingly enough, that fact by itself begins to reveal our condition. The revelation comes not as a response to the consideration of the human condition. That is to say what is revealed is not an answer to the question "what is the human condition?" The revelation is a reaction to this consideration as one of our possibilities; we react by stretching the bounds of our imaginations. In that, we extend the limits of what we can explore.It is this very 'what' that we explore that makes our condition so unique because that 'what' is we ourselves. This, however, brings nothing new to the table and leaves much to be desired. It is no secret that we, as humans, are terribly interested in ourselves. Such a discussion reveals little more than the obvious. What yields perhaps a more interesting discussion comes from the manner in which we address ourselves. Approaching the ways in which we approach our exploration may yield a clearer picture of our condition.To many, asking what the self is, is asking an idle question. This may be the case because some think that it is self evident and therefore unnecessary to inquire into. But more tend to think that the question itself is superfluous, that even if it could be answered conclusively, such an answer would leave us where we began, still having to solve the problems of war, world hunger and all of the varying personal problems that plague each of us and probably lead to our inability to solve the latter two problems. This stance suggests that even if we know what we are, we would still have to respond to and cope with the always complex and often difficult nuances of Being, whatever a self may be.In response to the notion that what we are is self evident, we ought to clarify exactly what it means to say that it is self evident. Clearly this has nothing to do with evidence in the literal sense of easily or clearly seen, so we have to focus on it in terms of thought. One must assume then that by saying that the self is self evident one must mean that the self can clearly be discovered in thought. This is of course an oversimplified version of Descartes. Descartes based his famous justification of the evidence of himself on this definition of evidence. His suggestion was that the self was evident, and it was so because he could form of it a clear and distinct idea. That is, that it was an idea that cannot be doubted. Another way of putting this was to say that the self necessarily underlies any act of thought including doubt. His argument was that even in doubting his own existence, it is he himself who was doing the doubting. This is something that cannot be denied. It is contained in each of his thoughts. The self is a clear and distinct idea. It is evident. I think, therefore I am. End of story. This powerful argument has held the attention of the western philosophical tradition not to mention the broader dimensions of our culture, since it was first penned by Descartes. This, however, proved to not quite be the end of the story because this suggestion of the self in terms of a clear and distinct idea simply would not do for David Hume. From his perspective, all ideas were derived from perception and are therefore matters of experience. In some ways ideas for Hume were simply memories of perceptions. Even those fantastic ideas like dragons rely on actual perceptions in their make up, they are simply abstract reconfigurations of those memories. We have perceived fire, we have perceived lizards, and we merely juxtapose the two and consider it to be an idea of its own right. The perception of the self for Hume is not terribly different from the idea of the dragon.For Hume, one no more perceives the self than one does a dragon. One simply perceives. Individuals have a series of feelings and perceptions of a variety of different things. One perceives light or heat or this or that, but one never perceives the self. There is no sense through which the self can be intuited. Eyes perceive light, ears perceive sound, hands perceive heat and pressure, but through what faculty can we grasp the self? Hume says that there is no faculty by which we can grasp the self other than through our imaginations. The self is just an abstraction that we think of in order to understand where or how all of these perceptions can be unified. For Hume there is no self aside from perceptions. We simply juxtapose those perceptions in our minds. The self is simply a bundle of perceptions. The fact that Descartes infers his clear and distinct idea of the self, points out the manner in which he chose to approach the prospect of answering the question of the self. Hume's conclusion also demonstrates the medium that he is focusing on in order to answer that question. True to their respective "schools of thought," Descartes wants to discover it rationally, and Hume wants to reach his conclusion empirically. It is clear that the initial stances that they take on how to encounter the mind predetermined their results to a fairly significant degree, but, that is not the end of it. In fact, it is only the beginning.Note that Hume's intention is to experience the self. This is something he says cannot be done except as an imagined abstraction. Descartes on the other hand is not actually concerned with any experience of the self or of anything for that matter. After all, he is doubting his experiences. Descartes is perfectly content with discovering the self rationally, that is, by thinking about it. So what does it mean to say that Hume wanted to experience the self, and Descartes wanted to think it? To answer this question, it may help to investigate the 'tools' that they used to carry out their plans.For Hume, all perception is a matter of sensation so his intention is actually to, in some way, physically detect the self. This is of course something that he cannot do. He thinks that therefore there is no reason to posit its existence. For a rationalist like Descartes, this was perhaps all the more reason to try another method. Rationalists preferred the tools of reason and logic, the tools of language, to discover the self. This is a critical point, because with language they do find the self.The real core of the issue between rationalists and empiricists was whether or not the objects and ideas that one was able to discover through reason were really real. That is whether or not truth was attainable by reason. In some ways, one could say that the empiricists were concerned with how it was possible to attain truth, whereas the rationalists were trying to discover what truth was. In this respect the two schools of thought miss each other in the middle. The two sides of the discussion are separated by a gulf. This mirrors the mind/body dualism that did much to fuel the discussion in the first place. This, to me, is no coincidence. Rather it is indicative of where I am going with what I am describing as the human condition.The importance of what was discovered in this discussion was overshadowed and is still overshadowed by the fact that it is couched in terms of an opposition. In my opinion, what is important in this discussion is that both schools of thought articulated a way in which we encounter the world. We do encounter the world in both ways and we thus reveal our true dualistic nature.Human Being has as little to do with what really exists as it has to do with how we can be sure that we know something. We react to what we think exists, and only rarely consider how we know, or how we could know it to be so. For that reason it has everything to do with what we encounter and what we think we encounter; in short, what we respond and react to. What we encounter depends largely on which aspect of ourselves that we focus on. When we focus on things of the mind/soul, like words and thought, we are focusing on the tools which the rationalists used to address the world. When we focus on the things of the body (like sensation and perception), and experience, we are focused on the tools which the empiricists used to address the world. Both, whether representative of "truth" or not, are essential to our existence. It is this way that we are dual creatures.In contemporary philosophy dualism is almost a bad word. It hardly can even be granted that status because modern philosophical sensibilities have rendered it completely obsolete. It is a misunderstanding that held back the progress of western philosophy for hundreds of years. It is a concept whose time has passed. When people dare mention its name in a contemporary setting, they had better be simply discussing in terms of its historical implications if they want to be taken seriously. Here though, I do mention it, and with all honesty. And, believe it or not, I do hope to be taken seriously. At any rate, since I am causing all this trouble by speaking the unmentionable, as I should have expected, I have some explaining to do.At first glance, my brand of dualism will looks Cartesian. That is, that the concept of mind/soul is certainly present, and is considered in terms of its relationship to the body. It is my stance that the Human Being is composed of a mind, and a body and that these are the two fundamental structures which constitute our make-up. But, it is important to see the ways in which my own take on the human condition differs from Descartes', because they definitely differ. Descartes' vision of the human condition is based primarily on the existence of two substances that are called, simply enough, thinking substance and physical or extended/material substance. Descartes himself describes substance as "an existent thing which requires nothing but itself in order to exist" (Beardsley 88). According to Descartes, the only existent thing that can fulfill this is God. Thinking and extended/material substances come in second only to God, seeing as their existence requires that God exist prior to them. This is a minor point in itself (for our discussion), but it helps to further illustrate what exactly is meant by substance. Literally referring to that which stands beneath, substance is the basic underlying form of an entity. God is the only substance which stands beneath and supports thinking and extended substances. These two substances, in turn, stand beneath and support all other entities.Thinking substance has the basic character of being dimensionless; one would discover it neither in space nor time. It is only to be found in thought. It is the core of what we are. All of our thoughts, ideas, and memories are of this kind of substance. It is thinking substance that stands under and supports any of the affectations of the mind. It is here that the mind/soul/self resides. Material substance has the character of objective presence. It is extended in space and interacts with other extended substance and is commanded by specific laws of nature and geometry. It, again, stands under and supports all of the different and varying arrangements of material that we may physically encounter.There is no need to go into a thorough explanation of Cartesian dualism because my stance differs from his from the very beginning. Descartes' efforts are in service to showing what really exists in the universe (be it the material or mental), that is, his theory is metaphysical. My position, on the other hand, for reasons to be considered later, considers any such effort to be redundant. Aside from that, though, I will say that while I do consider mind and body to be separate, to consider them to be objective, is not at all necessary.My brand of dualism is not a matter of what exists at all; it is rather a matter of how we encounter and respond to that which exists. So it is not as if there are minds and bodies or mental and extended substances that are simply inert. What is more to the point is that we are minds insofar as we relate to the world through our ideas, and we are bodies insofar as we relate to the world through our physical interaction with it.This is not terribly unlike Descartes in its end result but, differs widely in principal, seeing as the concept of substance is completely forgone. What remains similar to Descartes, at least conceptually, is that the human Being is divided into two very different ways of Being. Neither of which can be understood in terms of the other These ways of Being constitute two clear and distinct universes which will be worth exploring. What is to be primarily taken from my stance is that these universes are universes of interaction. They are not populated with objects which are able to move and interact, but rather, motion and interaction is their principal. The dual creature that we are is composed of Being and The Word. These are the fundamental components of the human condition. This dualism is essential to what we call human Being, and this has been noticed in varying forms throughout the history of humanity. We, in the modern world, have been a bit presumptuous to so easily eschew the truths of our traditions, but even more so with this truth because it transcends all traditions. However prevalent it has been, it has gone through its changes, and those changes have a dramatic effect on what it means to be human. Those changes also let us in on one more clue to the nature of our condition. Next we examine Being and The Word.II. (There Was Being and…) The Questions of Being and The Word were virtually nonexistent within the history of western philosophy until both questions began to resurface in the late 1th and early 0th centuries. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time, which notes the disappearance of that question, makes the question of Being its central theme. His theory spawned a further movement in philosophy Existentialism. This movement was spearheaded by Jean-Paul Sartre, who focuses on Being in his book Being and Nothingness. In service to the return of the Word, thinkers such as Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein as well as Heidgegger began to rediscover the power of the Word. For now though, I will focus primarily on Being. The study of Being has, from the beginning, had an implicit relationship to consciousness. That is to say, that the study of Being is always framed within the scope of our being related to it. Our relationship to Being is tied up with the ways that we are able to relate to anything, both of which are captured by the Hebrew dabhar; our speech and our actions. In ancient discourse on Being, consciousness remained implicit. But in more recent attempts at elucidating this topic, consciousness has become a central and essential component to these discussions. Enter Sartre, whose powerful book Being and Nothingness directly and thoroughly address the relation between Being and consciousness. This relationship is imbued with what Sartre calls nothingness or non-being. He even goes on to say that consciousness itself is nothingness. Below is a brief description of how he arrived at this conclusion.At the core of Sartre's depiction of consciousness is intentionality. Intentionality has nothing to do with what we normally call intentions. It is a technical term that refers to the relationality of consciousness. Basically this term refers to the fact that whenever a being is conscious, it always has an object toward which it is directed. There is no free floating consciousness, consciousness is always conscious of something. Intentionality is a concept that Sartre borrows from Edmund Husserl, though, for Sartre's purposes the scope of the concept must be altered.For Husserl, consciousness is primary. There could be no world without Consciousness (Moran 16). Consciousness is responsible for the Being of the objects toward which it is related. In other words, consciousness is, and everything else is secondary including the objects of consciousness. Consciousness posits them and their way of being in the world. These objects, according to Husserl are in no way part of consciousness itself, but rather are transcendent to consciousness. Sartre interprets the Husserlian account to mean if consciousness is primary Being, then if its objects transcend and are wholly different from it, then those objects must be non-being.This conclusion which Sartre draws is one which he feels to be unacceptable and in need of revision. In his own rendition of intentionality, objects in themselves are primary in their Being. If consciousness is always of something, it is that something on which consciousness relies. Consciousness is really a noticing or remembering of Being. If this is the case, then it follows that the Being of the objects that consciousness notices is independent of consciousness itself. Consciousness exists only in relationship to objects, and therefore in itself, consciousness is nothing. Understanding consciousness as nothing requires a more thorough description of Sartre's conception of Being. The being which consciousness reveals is the being-in-itself. This kind of Being can be considered in terms of objective presence. This kind of Being is solid and absolute. The Being of the in-itself is described tautologically and is opposite of the way in which Parmenides describes nothingness. One could say of Being in itself, "what is, is." That is to say that beings-in-themselves simply are what they are.Alongside this kind of being is the for-itself, the kind of Being which consciousness has. Remember that consciousness has the character of intentionality, it is always directed toward something. This something toward which it is directed is always something other than consciousness itself. In this way, we see that consciousness has no Being aside from its relationship to the in-itself. "consciousness is born supported by a Being which is not itself" (6 Brossman).It is in this "not itself" that the elusive nothingness can be found. For Sartre, consciousness is always aware that the object toward which it is directed is not itself a part of consciousness and its objects. We see here, if we recall Parmenides, that if consciousness and its objects are separable, then the plenitude of Being is broken. Consciousness creates space within Being. That is to say that for both thinkers there is nothing negative about Being. Being is completely affirmative. For Parmenides, this fact leads to the inherent immobility and stasis of Being. Sartre concurs with Parmenides with respect to Being-in-itself, he saysTransition, becoming , anything that permits us to say that Being [that is Being-in-itself] is not yet what it will be and that it is already what it is not all that is forbidden on principle…It is full positivity. It knows no otherness; it never posits itself as other than Being…it is not subject to temporality. (BN )In many ways Sartre and Parmenides are dealing with the exact same issue except that where Parmenides throws nothingness out as worthless illusion, Sartre sees nothingness as an essential feature of conscious Being. With all that said, it is clear that the simple Parmenidean claim about non-being what is not is not will not suffice for Sartre's rendition of Nothingness. This is because although it is not, we still encounter it in the world. That, and that it constantly permeates our existence, makes this a critical point for Sartre to describe. Permeating our reality, nothingness is part of our everyday experience. The most readily accessible experiences we have of it are our experiences of absence and regret (Catalano 5). Less intuitive, but probably more indicative of the nature of nothingness is the attitude of inquiry (54). The attitude of inquiry really begins to open up the nature of nothingness. Sartre says that in this way of relating to the world, three kinds of nothingness are always present.1). The non-being of knowledge in the questioner.). The possibility of a negative reply or a lacking in objective Being. ). That each question presupposes a definite answer. That the answer is x andtherefore not y.A thorough investigation reveals that the first two brands of nothingness would not even exist without the third. Considering the non-being of knowledge in the questioner, one must first come to terms with what knowledge is. The answer to the question of what knowledge is, of course, could and has filled the binding of many a book, but for our investigation we need only consider what it would be for a questioner who is seeking it. Note that this does not require that the questioner have 'correct' knowledge, but only that the questioner considers his or her take, on that which is considered, to be adequate to close the gap that nothingness has left behind. So for the questioner, knowledge is whatever take on that which is considered, that he or she takes to answer the question. It is basically anything that quiets the call of nothingness.In this rendition of knowledge, we see that the questioner seeks something definite which he or she has yet to grasp. The question remains unsettled until the questioner decides on something concrete to focus on, in other words, until the questioner can say the answer is x. Once the answer to the question is found (accurate or not), the non-being of knowledge dissipates.To better understand the second kind of nothingness, we must better understand what Sartre means by "attitude of inquiry". In Sartre's depiction of the question, the question is an attitude that one takes toward the world (Catalano 54). When we question, we are, in effect, expecting the world to reveal something about itself to us. Questioning always entails expectation. It is only because of expectation, that something in the objective realm (Being-in-itself) could be lacking. If I question (as Sartre does) is Pierre in the caf ? What I expect to find in the world (Pierre) colors my experience of the caf . The cafand its constituents exist in-themselves in the full Parmenidean plenitude . Though the objects and bodies exist in such a plenitude, my take on them inserts a kind of nothingness. That is, that Pierre is not in the caf , and that each of these objects and bodies, in every direction I turn as I look for Pierre, shows up for me as not Being Pierre or where he is. It is only because I could presuppose an answer, either that Pierre is or isn't in the caf , that the cafcan show up for me with Pierre as a lacking feature of the caf .Sartre sees these instances of nothingness as specific because his intention is to describe the ways in which we experience nothingness. For my purposes, though, it is important only to get why we experience nothingness. I agree with Sartre that nothingness is a product of consciousness, and that it could not exist in-itself. I also agree that we do not experience nothingness as the result of a thematic judgment of affairs, but rather, nothingness impinges itself upon us without the necessity of us articulating the judgment. Nothingness just appears before us as part of a state of affairs. Where I do disagree with Sartre is that he considers nothingness to be concrete and essential to consciousness (Catalano 6). I consider this to be an over simplification that cuts off a more telling discourse about the why of nothingness.The why of nothingness has its origin in expectation. This is very clear. Sartre writes in Being and Nothingness, that "It is evident that non-being always appears within the limits of a human expectation" (BN 8). This stance is further evinced by the ability to collapse the other forms of nothingness into the third which, again, states that nothingness is generated by positing x and thus not y. It is this aspect of nothingness that will be my main focus. Sartre refers to this brand of nothingness as "the non-being of limitation" (6).As mentioned above, this expectation is not necessarily something that we are specifically aware of, in fact, in most cases, this expectation is hidden by the fact that what we expect generally corresponds with what we find. This point will require further explanation. Here I am moving out of the sphere of questioning. However, I am maintaining that it is expectation that is the primary reason that nothingness ever enters into our world. It is important to cue in on the fact that what we expect is always something definite (BN 6). This something definite always derives from some prior engagement with the world. Our engagements with the world are definite and specific. And for that reason, our expectations are of the same order; definite and specific. We grow accustomed to interacting with objects and people in regular ways because these objects and people present themselves in situations that are generally consistent enough that we are able to address them under one concept. We see our doctor in the office, our professor in class, and we begin to focus our attention specifically on these people further defining what it is we expect from them; we are then able to determine how it is that we are to regularly interact with them. It happens quite by accident that we come to know them better, we simply find a definite set of attributes that we focus on when we encounter these people. The same can be said of objects and our interaction with them. The one difference is that our interactions with objects are generally less dynamic than they are with people and so we can generally get away with having a less complex expectation and still be able to identify, that is, accurately expect, the objects that we encounter to respond in the ways that they normally do. When they do, we simply experience the world; when they do not, we experience nothingness. In both cases, whether it is an object or a person, what we know about what we encounter and what we expect are the same thing. It is a simple matter of our way of relating to them. We simply focus our attention in a specific way that accounts for the ways we intend to interact with whatever it is that we may encounter. We are satisfied by these and count them as knowledge. This is the non-being of limitation at work outside of the attitude of inquiry. What is to be noticed here is that what we are immediately grasping in a situation such as this is not the object. We are not relating to Beings-in-themselves. So in some ways we are not reacting to what we are intending to react to. We see here that objects in the world that we encounter are not objects in-themselves, but rather they are objects in terms of the way in which we focus on them. So if we are not directly conscious of objects, what exactly are we conscious of? Husserl, whom Sartre borrows his concept of intentionality from, employs the term noema to suggest a mediator between objects and consciousness. Husserl considered noema to be the meaning of an intentional act or the object as it is intended (Smith ). The noemata are specific elements of acts in which we focus our attention on objects in the world. It is through these noemata that the world and its objects make sense. It is also through these noemata that nothingness becomes possible. This is the case because any positing that a being is thus and not otherwise introduces the non-being of limitation. The non-being of limitation only becomes evident to us when the objects in the world present themselves in such a way that the specifically focused attention/ expectation/noema ( for my purposes these are all the same thing) that we use to relate to that object becomes inappropriate. A noema can become inappropriate when objects in the world behave differently than we expect. What we paradoxically experience, rather than the failure of our noema, is the failure of the world. We experience nothingness. We see in this, that it is the noematic world structure that we are primarily engaged in. A world that is a set of expectations that are generally fulfilled; this is the nature of our experience. The fact that when there is a breakdown, we see the Being-world (the world in-itself) to be insufficient shows the degree to which we are allied to the noematic world structure. How is it possible that the world in itself becomes inadequate? This question is especially interesting since there is only nothingness outside of the in-itselfAbove is a bit of a reworking of Heidegger's version of Being-in-the-world. But it may be useful to visit his theory itself. Heidegger's depiction of Being gives us a strong conceptual basis with which we may more easily address the problem of the inadequacy of the world.That the world fails certainly lets us in on something peculiar about the way in which we encounter it. It becomes clear that the world of our experience is not the world of substance. This is the major thrust of Martin Heidegger. For this reason, his attention is directed primarily at redefining the concepts with which we describe the world. His primary target is the traditional concept of Being that has pervaded the history of philosophy. He considers the ontology of substance, especially that of Descartes to be the single most devastating concept to the progression of western philosophy and thought. He points out that the substance ontology that we normally identify with the world, really has very little to do with what we experience. It is his contention that the notion of substance as a theoretical construct began as early as with Plato's theory of forms. From Plato on, Being has been couched in terms of some unchanging permanent ground upon which everything rests. We humans, limited in sense as we are, are unable to encounter true Being, whether it be the forms, our own souls, or Kantian noumena. We are forever limited subjects in a world of reclusive objects that we may act upon, but never really know. According to Heidegger, that whole way of thinking is a pure fiction that the tradition has simply gotten caught up in. Heidegger's project was to rectify this mistake. Substance ontology, according to Heidegger, rests on the basic premise that the Being of objects and the world exists independently of Dasein (Human Beings) and for that reason, any true depiction of them must depict them as they are in "themselves." Following this, traditional substance ontology attempts to gain objective perspective on objects and the world, one that is unsullied by human interpretation. In order to do this, one must engage objects and the world as a passive and disinterested observer. This way of approaching the world Heidegger calls the theoretical attitude. It is this attitude, according to Heidegger, that has dominated the history of the philosophical as well as the more popular cultural understandings of the world. It has simply been taken for granted that the world can best be understood as, in itself, separate and independent from Dasein. This assumption is the source of a number of philosophical problems. The most important of these is the one that was alluded to some time ago in our discussion of Descartes the mind/body problem. How is the mind, a thinking substance, able to contact and interact with material objects, like our bodies, if these two entities were wholly different?Heidegger thinks that there is no solution but to forgo the whole ontological framework and begin anew. Any philosophy based on the primacy of substance will be doomed from the beginning because it is founded upon the wholly false assumption that disinterest, which comes from the theoretical attitude, is the primary way of approaching the world in order to attain knowledge. Heidegger's claim is that the theoretical attitude is not the primary attitude in which to pursue Being. This is because the theoretical attitude is simply one of any number of attitudes that we may enter when addressing the world. He even suggests that this is an awkward way of approaching the world that must suspend the way in which we really encounter the world in our everyday lives. It is precisely the attitude of everydayness to which Heidegger clings. It is here that we may truly begin to see the nature of Being. In our average everydayness, we are always caught up in the objects of our world. We are never passive subjects trying to figure out how to be sure that an object is what it is. We are, rather engaged in a world of meaningful objects. As a phenomenologist, Heidegger's pursuit intends to grasp objects as we really encounter them. In this case, it would seem absurd to continue to address objects from a disengaged theoretical perspective. His suggestion is that the Primary Being of an object can only be found in our everyday relationship to it.Our everyday relationship to objects is a matter of the way we use them. For Heidegger, an object's Being inheres in its use value for us. Heidegger calls this property readiness-to-hand. An object's readiness-to-hand is supported by a web of relations to other objects that it may be used in conjunction with. For example, a hammer's readiness to hand is supported by nails, wood and other tools that may be used in conjunction with it. Its Being is also found in the purposes that this readiness makes available like house building. In our everydayness, this is the only way in which a hammer makes sense. It would not make sense to consider a hammer as if it is not used for anything. When we encounter a hammer, we do not mistake it for a set of objective properties that can be listed and measured. That is because we already know what it is. It is not primarily a funny shaped piece of steel impaled upon a stick; it is a hammer. What I intend to convey here is that for Heidegger, the Being of an object lies in our understanding. Dorothea Frede characterizes it as such "there is no other sense or 'meaning of Being' than the one we bestow on entities in our understanding" (Guignon 56). In a sense, for Heidegger, objects are as we take themPlease note that this sample paper on In Service to the Return is for your review only. In order to eliminate any of the plagiarism issues, it is highly recommended that you do not use it for you own writing purposes. In case you experience difficulties with writing a well structured and accurately composed paper on In Service to the Return, we are here to assist you. Your persuasive essay on In Service to the Return will be written from scratch, so you do not have to worry about its originality.
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