Chapters eleven and twelve conclude the book with suggestions for how to proceed, now that Stiles’s own manuscript testifies to the necessity for operation spider web to engage in as many operation sheepskins as possible. The scrappy players are becoming aware that what they regard as reason3a,1a is actually an interventional sign-interpretant (SIi) declaring that an operation sheepskin2c executed by the scientismist one3c (SVi) stands for what people are thinking [and] what people are saying2a (SOi). Experts3b cannot reduce this awareness to capitalist and socialist ideations2b and remain intelligible.
More research is required.
One of the operation sheepskins has got to dominate the scrappy players that deny the post-truth interscope.
0750 The scrappy player needs only to watch corporate broadcast media for the latest operation.
The money and power required to sustain operation spider web is enormous.
After the system3c burns through its cash, then it3c will ask the oligarchs and the federal government to appropriate more funds for their private-public partnerships.
The laboratory of expertise strives for an effective formulation.
Will they configure a final solution?
0751 Meanwhile, scrappy playersa are coming to terms with the nature of domination by the ones of scientism3c.
The scientismist one’s3c interventional sign-objects2a (SOi) trigger the scrappy player to imagine2a a perspective-level interventional sign-vehicle (SVi), a hidden agenda2c, that can only be recognized when the intellect3a contextualizes a potential greater than the will1a (SIi).
In order to do so, the scrappy player must recognize that what he has been thinking2a and what he has been expected to say2a are no longer intellectually3a satisfying.
Something greater than “our” intellect3a is required.
Then, what the scrappy player discovers2a is that humans are adapted to recognize interventional sign-relations.
The ones of scientism3c use that adaptation against the scrappy players2a.
The ones of scientism3c dominate by pretending to be the divine source of interventional sign-vehicles (SVi).
They do so by limiting reason3a,1a to the intellect3a contextualizing the will1a, as if the will1a does not seek perfection (completion) in transcendentals, such a truth.
Yes, they are using a human adaptation against us. But, they are triggering the adaptation as well.
0752 Hence, there is a practical conundrum facing the scrappy player.
To speak of a hidden agenda2a is counterproductive, because to posit that events2a are scripted by operation-sheepskin empirio-normative judgments2c is to talk in terms of formal and final causalities, which are the very statements-phenomena2a that cannot regarded as worthy of observation and measurement by psychometric experts3c. Psychometric experts3b base their models2b on truncated material and efficient causalities (shorn of formal and final causation).
Speech about hidden agendas2a cannot be regarded as phenomena2a worth attending to.
Therefore, it must be ignored.
0753 The impasse is palpable, because (look at the third row).
0754 The crisis is about to begin.
0755 My thanks to Michelle Stiles for daring to publish a manuscript worthy of examination in regards to the post-truth condition.
0023 The full title of the book before me is A Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition: The Name of the Game (Anthem Press: London and New York). The book seems brief, but it packs a lot of material in sixteen short chapters… well… technically, an introduction, fourteen chapters and a conclusion.
0024 Professor Steve Fuller introduces the topic with the headline, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Post-Truth Condition”. The headline is a tongue in cheek reference to Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 intellectually pleasing masterpiece, “Dr. Strangelove”.
Yet, one has only to trace Kubrick’s career trajectory to envision a conclusion beyond worry and love. Kubrick dies in 1999 after wrapping up a homage to the will, titled “Eyes Wide Shut”.
0025 What matters is not whether something is true or false.
What matters is how something is decided.
The first statement concerns the intellect. The second statement concerns the will.
0026 So, how is a matter to be decided?
Shall we call upon the experts?
Consider the issues of anxiety and affection. An expert may reduce diverse and unsettling experiences to phenomena that can be observed and measured. Then, the expert may build a model, using a specialized disciplinary language. Next, with that model in hand, the expert will consider avenues to control the phenomena.
0027 For example, in a casual academic encounter at a university, I meet a needy and uncertain scholar who constantly nags her compatriot and (most likely) lover about the importance of managing her anxiety. Of course, the university setting is full of people making odd demands, so I think nothing of it. Later, I find out that her “husband” is a pharmaceutical salesman.
Indeed, she learned how to stop worrying about her field of inquiry and to love her husband with his briefcase full of Valium samples.
0028 So, is there a problem?
Fuller suggests that the “distance” between the layperson and the expert shrinks, because a layperson can become acquainted with the disciplinary language of any field of expertise well enough as to ask apparently intelligent questions. Yes, a question may be posed to the pharmaceutical salesman that goes like this, “I can see that your lover is addicted to Valium. Could you tell me exactly the mechanism for how this drug operates on the love-centers of the brain?”
To which the expert in marketing scoffs, “The human brain has frontal, parietal and occipital lobes. The human brain has a cerebellum. These anatomical structures perform various specialized neurological functions. Okay? The human brain does not have a ‘love-center’. What an ignorant question.”
0029 Indeed, the salesman goes on to testify before a legislative committee on the need to monitor and reduce the amount of medical disinformation on the internet. When laypeople read books on the neurological underpinnings of sexual attraction and drug addiction, they think that they’ve learned something. They think that they can ask revealing questions. So, they stupidly ask about “cerebral love centers”.
A law must be passed to deter this conduct.
0030 What does Fuller predict?
Just as during the Reformation, when Bibles printed in the layperson’s language opened the opportunity for any layperson to interpret sacred text,the current internet allows anyone who can read to become familiar with the language of any specialized discipline. Then, that layperson may publish a podcast that asks… um… revealing questions about what experts are supposed to know best.
The cost of entry into the market is astonishing low. So, many experts argue that it is the responsibility of the state to increase that cost through regulation and censorship.
0239 Francis Bacon (1561-1626 AD) lives at the start of the current Age of Ideas. He is a lawyer. He accepts that lying is part of everyday life, especially in the courtroom. He discovers that inquisitional modes of investigation force people to report in public what privately they do not hold. In short, the inquisitorial mode of testing and observing and measuring produces what I call “phenomena”. Courtroom phenomena do not reveal what a subject “privately” thinks. Courtroom phenomena reveal what the subject is openly willing to disclose under inquisition.
What I privately think associates to the noumenon.
What I am willing to say associates to phenomena.
0240 What does this imply?
Just as a triumphalist scientist wants to replace the noumenon with a mathematical or mechanical model,the scientismist one wants to replace what I privately think with what the Positivist’s judgment ought to be, that is, an empirio-normative narrative.
0241 Okay, then does that mean, once I am properly credentialed, that I have bought into a lie?
Yes and no.
Yes, phenomena cannot objectify their noumenon. If I do not testify to what I think, then I must be lying. So, the very idea of phenomena entails, not necessarily a falsehood, but a deception.
No, phenomena can objectify a model substituting for the noumenon. If I have successfully substituted an empirio-normative narrative for what I think, then I am always engaging in deception, even to myself. Either that, or I am always telling the “truth” (that is, the narrative) that can be objectified as what I say.
Did I write that correctly?
0242 The Christian doctrine of Original Sin derives from a mythic account of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve are fashioned by God in a paradise near the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. They disobey God’s command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Okay, let me tweak the tree’s label to “the fruit of the tree of formalized knowledge1b“. Mythically, this tree occupies the center of the Edenic garden.
The problem is not disobedience, per se, but a capitulation to a post-truth condition imposed by… what else?… a speaking snake. Serpents must speak, because they cannot talk with their hands.
0243 Needless to say, the serpent has a variety of narratives to offer. The fruit will allow Eve to own its beauty (the capitalist model of value2b) as well as make her wise (the socialist model of value2b). Eve sees an opportunity1c. She makes an actionable judgment2c. And, the relativist one3c notches up two successes2c, since Adam is along for the ride.
So, the Fall in the Garden of Eden has a lot to do with disobedience (to God, but obedience to the serpent) and lying (to oneself by adopting the narrative of the serpent as one’s own).
0244 Saint Augustine associates the Fall to a permanent weakness called “concupiscence”, which transliterates to “con (with) cupi (Cupid) scence (the state of being)”. The state of being with Cupid is a little more entertaining than the state of being scammed by a speaking snake. But, the post-truth condition for each is pretty much the same.
0245 Why?
The foundational potential of the post-truth condition is the will1a.
By definition, the foundational potential of the prior condition is the truth1a.
0246 What does this imply?
Well, if Adam and Eve associate to the start of our current Lebenswelt, as proposed in The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace (as well as An Archaeology of the Fall, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), then the prior truth condition must associate to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. Consequently, Adam and Eve may be historical, in so far as they are fairy tale figures associated with the start of the Ubaid archaeological period of southern Mesopotamia. The Ubaid marks the start of history (that is, our current Lebenswelt).
0247 Of course, Saint Augustine does not know this. So, he proposes that all humanity shares in the original sin of Adam and Eve through direct descent. All humans are subject to original sin2c because Adam and Eve are the first parents.
This turns out to be a scientific proposal. All humans are related to an original pair of humans. This hypothesis is debunked by modern genetics. There is no genetic bottleneck, as would be expected for a single-pair founding our species.
0248 So, Fuller points to a post-Augustine interpretation of our current Lebenswelt as a breeding ground for the post-truth condition. We are expected, by our inquisitors, to say only what we are publicly willing to disclose, as if that is what we are thinking. Whenever we live up to that expectation, we deceive ourselves. At the same time, we notch up successes2c for the relativist one3c.
On top of that, our hard-won academic credentials encourage us to utter statements based on the latest empirio-normative narratives2c, as if they2c are what we are thinking2a.
0249 Razie Mah heartily agrees. See his blog post for January 2, 2024.
0250 Perhaps, among other things, original sin involves defying the God of Creation by publicly mouthing the normative narratives of lesser deities, relativist ones3c, who put both the human intellect3a and will1a into perspective.
The sacrament of baptism plays a role in washing away that original sin, in so far as it introduces the infant to people who offer the story of the One True God, despite the fact that the story is unbelievable, according to all relativist one-heads.
0251 That said, Fuller’s genealogy of the post-truth condition points back to the very start of our current Lebenswelt.
Here is one vista that Fuller, as a guide to the post-truth condition, allows.
0252 Each person must decide which path to follow in the fourth Enlightenment Battle.
There are two paths.
One turns the person in to a certified mask that utters empirio-normative narratives.
One turns a person into a sign-tracker on a path that leads to a sign-vehicle that does not stand for what the empirio-normative judgment is telling me to think. This is the path of metalepsis. If Fuller is on target, the sign-tracker will discover an interventional sign-vehicle containing both a novel doctrine of original sin (for our current Lebenswelt) and a new appreciation of the human asan image of God (for the Lebenswelt that we evolved in).
In order to appreciate original justice, one must first respect original sin.
0253 Razie Mah offers three works that reconfigure the current empirio-schematic narrative of human evolution in a way that may assist sign-trackers. These works are titled, The Human Niche,An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define the Word “Religion”. These works address the Lebenswelt that we evolved in,the first singularity and our current Lebenswelt.
Indeed, these works begin where Fuller’s excellent guidebook concludes.
0254 My thanks to Steve Fuller for his daring, and brief, exposition of the contemporary post-truth condition.
0644 The full title of the book before me is Theistic Evolution: A Contemporary Aristotelian-Thomistic Perspective(Cambridge University Press: Cambridge: UK). The book arrives on my doorstep in October 2023. The copyright is dated 2024.
How time flies.
0645 This examination builds on previous blogs and commentaries.
Here is a picture.
0646 A quick glance backwards is appropriate.
Tabaczek’s story begins in the waning days of the Age of Ideas, when the Positivist’s judgment once thrived.
0647 The Positivist judgment holds two sources of illumination. Models are scientific. Noumena are the things themselves. Physics applies to models. Metaphysics applies to noumena. So, I ask, “Which one does the positivist intellect elevate over the other?”
The answer is obvious.
So, the first part of the story is that the positivist intellect dies, and lives on as a ghost (points 0001-0029).
0648 Tabaczek buries the positivist intellect and places the two sources of illumination against one another. It is as if they reflect one another.
But, the two sources also have their advocates.
In Emergence, Tabaczek argues that models of emergence require metaphysical styles of analysis.
In Divine Action and Emergence, he sets out to correct metaphysical emanations reflecting scientific models of emergence. It is as if these emanations are reflections of science in the mirror of theology. Intellectuals inspired by science want to see ‘what is’ of the Positivist’s judgment in the mirror of theology. But, note the difference between the picture of the Positivist’s judgment and the two hylomorphes in Tabaczek’s mirror (points 0039-0061).
0649 Why do I mention this?
In the introduction of the book before me, Tabaczek discusses his motivations. He, as a agent of theology, wants to exploit an opportunity. That opportunity is already present in the correction that he makes to what an agent of science sees in the mirror of theology (pictured below).
0650 What an opportunity!
Tabaczek offers the hope of a multidimensional, open-minded, and comprehensive (say nothing of comprehensible) account of evolutionary theory.
How so?
The positivist intellect is dead. The positivist intellect ruled the Positivist’s judgment with the maxim, “Metaphysics is not allowed.”
0651 Now that the positivist intellect is dead, the two illuminations within the former Positivist’s judgment may transubstantiate into the realm of actuality and become two hylomorphes, standing like candles that reflect one another in Tabaczek’s mirror.
Tabaczek, as an agent of theology, witnesses how a scientist views himself in the mirror of theology. The scientist sees the model as more real than the noumenon (the thing itself, which cannot be objectified as its phenomena). Indeed, the scientist projects ‘what is’ of the Positivist’s judgment into the mirror of theology.
0652 Tabaczek wants to project his philosophical construction of the noumenon (in concert with its dispositions and powers, as well as its matter and form) into the mirror of science.
But, I wonder whether any agent of science is willing to stop listening to the ghost of the positivist intellect long enough to discern what theologians project into the mirror of science.
0653 Yes, Tabaczek’s inquiry is all about optics.
0654 So, who are the players involved in the intellectual drama of Tabaczek’s mirror.
Tabaczek identifies three.
To me, there must be four.
0655 The first is the agent of science. The scienceagent is the one that makes the models. Two types of scienceagent stand out in the study of biological evolution: the natural historian and the geneticist.
0656 The second is the agent of theology. Tabaczek limits theologyagents to experts in Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 A.D.).
In a way, this self-imposed limit is a handicap, since Aristotle and Aquinas philosophize long before Darwin publishes On The Origin of Species (1859).
In another way, this self-imposed limit is a blessing, since it provides me with an occasion for examining his argument from the framework of Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914). According to the semiotician and Thomist John Deely (1942-2017), Peirce is the first postmodern philosopher. Peirce is also a co-discoverer of the triadic nature of signs, along with the Baroque scholastic (that is Thomist) John Poinsot (1589-1644), otherwise known as John of Saint Thomas.
Peirce’s semiotics begins where Baroque scholasticism leaves off.
0657 The third is the image that the scientist projects into the mirror of theology. I label this image: theologymirror, in contrast to scienceagent. The theologyagent can see the image in theologymirror, but is not the source of that image. I have already shown the initial image that the agent of science sees in the mirror of theology. I have also noted that Tabaczek aims to correct that projection.
0658 The fourth is the image that the theologian casts into the mirror of science. I label this image: sciencemirror, in contrast to theologyagent. The scienceagent can see the image in sciencemirror, but is not the source of that image. I have already indicated that the scienceagent (more or less) does not care what is in sciencemirror, because the ghost of the positivist intellect whispers in the ear of scienceagent, “All that metaphysical stuff is completely unnecessary.”
0824 Even though the bill is paid, and the public curtain closes on this examination of Tabaczek’s book, the flavors of the dessert still linger.
The associations in chapter seven suggest a retrogression into the house of evolutionary creation.
At the same time, the associations intimate a moment when the author can go direct into the house of theistic evolution.
0825 How so?
Can a scientist observe and measure the actuality2 within a category-based nested form?
Yes.
What about the normal context3 and potential1?
No, the scientist can only observe and measure phenomena associated with a category-based nested form. Phenomena go with the actuality2. The noumenon associates to the normal context3 and potential1.
0826 Well, if that is the case, and if the Kantian slogan of the noumenon applies (that is, the noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena), then the normal context3 and potential1 [cannot be objectified by] the actuality2.
But, this is what human constantly do. Humans understand actuality2 in terms of its2 normal context3 and potential1. So humans intuitively sense that the normal context3 and potential1 can be objectified by the corresponding actuality2.
0827 Indeed, the fact that the four causes work together to elucidate a category-based nested form constitutes one reason why Aristotle’s four causes are superior to attributions to the four elements (earth, water, fire and air).
Aristotle’s four causes are built into human nature.
0827 So, let me re-imagine the dessert, even as I digest it.
To start, a theologyagent (B1) realizes that Aquinas’s use of primary, secondary and instrumental causation in evolutionary creation can be formulated in terms of a category-based nested form.
Next, the agent of theology (B1) begins to appreciate the reason why Aristotle’s four causes are so appealing. The four causes work together to elucidate all three elements of a category-based nested form. The category-based nested form is the first step in understanding.
Yes, the category-based nested form is a purely relational structurethat is independent of the human mind.
But, it seems that the category-based nested form is embedded in the human body and brain.
0828 A question appears in the sciencemirror (C2), asking, “Is our capacity to intuitively construct category-based nested forms adaptive? Is the human niche the potential of category-based nested forms, in particular, and triadic relations, in general?”
0829 An answer is already prepared for the slot for scienceagent (A3).
Razie Mah’s e-book, The Human Niche, is available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
The claim?
The human niche is the potential of triadic relations.
0830 This is what theistic evolution can produce that evolutionary creation cannot.
In order to taste what Tabaczek’s meal (B1) does to the mirrorscience (C2) consider two of Razie Mah’s blogs (A3), both of which claim that current modern evolutionary theory cannot tell us how humans evolved to recognizethe noumenon, the thing itself, through implicit abstraction.
Current modern evolutionary theory cannot tell us where we came from.
Current modern evolutionary theory cannot tell us what we evolved to be.
Current modern evolutionary theory cannot tell us what went wrong.
0831 Here is a picture of one Greimas square for the optics of Tabaczek’s mirror.
0832 Oh, the two blogs?
Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil”, appears in Razie Mah’s blog from Jan 13 through 31, 2022.
Looking at Carol Hill’s Article (2021) “Original Sin with Respect to Science”, appears from February 7 through 25, 2022.
With that said, I thank Dr. Mariusz Tabaczek O.P. for this wonderful banquet for thought.
But, my work is not done. I now retreat to Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024) in order to examine chapter eight.
0155 I turn to the book that follows Emergence (2019).
The book before me is titled Divine Action and Emergence: An Alternative to Panentheism (2021, Notre Dame Press). The book divides into two parts. Part one concerns emergent phenomena (and looks back upon the previous book). Part two covers divine action in emergence.
But, is not there already a number of theories in our Age of Ideas concerning the topic of divine action in a world full of truncated material and efficient causalities?
0156 Oh, there is more than a number, which reminds me of the earnestness and ambition of Tabaczek’s graduate project.
Most graduate students, after being lured into an advanced program in science by the philosophical side of Tabaczek’s mirror, figure out that the noumenon, the thing itself, is an inaccessible reflection of the agent-side of science, the side where all the difficult and detail-oriented laboratory work gets done. That realization takes one or two years. Then, the rest of one’s graduate career consists of grinding out the data and wondering why doing science is not as fun as thinking about doing science.
In short, most graduate students in the natural sciences learn to live as agents on the science side of Tabaczek’s mirror.
0157 I suspect that the same process should have happened to Tabaczek, entering a graduate program in philosophy of science and getting introduced to diverse machinations of science-agent philosophers, explaining how the hylomorphe on the science side is reflected by the noumenon side of Tabaczek’s mirror as a sort of “cloud of unknowing”, that conforms to the ghost of the positivist intellect.
But, it does not.
0158 Perhaps, it is a miracle that those agents of science who supervise his doctoral studies do not sabotage and destroy this creature, who seems to absorb the soul-breaking literature, yet remains eerily constant in his vision.
Perhaps, Tabaczek holds the element of surprise because he stands in a tradition that loves science, yet despises the positivist’s intellect, which has one rule. Metaphysics is not allowed.
Most students coming out of the Christian tradition simply get confused and wander into specialized technical fields of either science or modern philosophy. Will they ever get the memo? The positivist intellect is dead.
0331 My sudden turn to semiotics does not occur in Tabaczek’s text.
Such is the examiner’s prerogative.
At this point, I stand at the threshold of section 1.3.4, almost precisely in the middle of the book.
My commentary on this book is significant.
Shall I review?
I represent the Positivist’s judgment as a content-level category-based form and discuss how it might be situated (points 0155 to 0184).
I suggest how reductionists can game emergent phenomena. Plus, I follow Tabaczek back to the four causes (points 0185 to 0239).
I present a specific example of an emergent phenomenon, building on the prior example of a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell. Then, I return to Deacon’s general formula for emergence (points 240 to 0276).
Finally, I examine Tabaczek’s “philosophical history of panentheism” up to the section on Hegel (points 0277 to 0330).
0332 These are notable achievements.
But, my commentary is not more significant than Tabaczek’s text.
At this point, it is if I look through Tabaczek’s text and see something moving, something that catches my eye. It is not for me to say whether it is an illusion or a registration. It is enough for me to articulate what I see.
0333 At this point, I draw the veil on Razie Mah’s blog for April and May of 2024 and enter the enclosure of Comments on Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024), available at smashwords and other e-book venues. Comments will cover the rest of Part Two of Divine Action and Emergence. June 2024 will look at the start of Tabaczek’s next book, Theistic Evolution and Comments will complete the examination.
My thanks to Mariusz Tabaczek for his intellectual quest.
0334 But, that is not to say that I abandon Tabaczek’s text.
No, my slide into sign-relations is part of the examiner’s response.
This occurs in Comments.
There is good reason to wonder whether the response is proportionate.
0001 Philosophers enamored of Aristotle and Aquinas tend to make distinctions. So, what happens when such philosophers wrestle with modern science as it confronts the realness of apparently irreducibly complex systems, such as um… hydrogen-fuel cells and the Krebs cycle, which serves as the “fuel cell” for eukaryotic cells?
On the surface, Tabaczek fashions, yet does not articulate, a distinction between… hmmm…
0002 Consider a sentence, found on page 273 of Emergence, midway in the final chapter, seven, saying (more or less), “I hope that my re-interpretation of downward causation and emergent systems, in terms of old and new Aristotelianism, will help analytical metaphysicians sound more credible to scientists and philosophers of science, who employ, analyze and justify methodological reductionism.”
….what?
Philosophers of science and analytialc metaphysicians?
0003 Philosophers of science attempt to understand the causalities inherent in the ways that each empirio-schematic discipline applies mathematical and mechanical models to observations and measurements of particular phenomena. In terms of Aristotle’s four causes, their options are few. Science is beholden to material and efficient causalities, shorn of formal and final causation. So, they end up going in tautological circles. What makes a model relevant? Well, a model accounts for observations and measurements of phenomena. What are phenomena? Phenomena are observable and measurable facets of their noumenon. What is a noumenon?
Ugh, you know, the thing itself.
If I know anything about the Positivist’s judgment, then I know this. Science studies phenomena, not their noumenon.
Everybody knows that.
Except, of course, for those pathetic (analytical) metaphysicians.
0004 …what?
A noumenon and its phenomena?
0005 Tautologies are marvelous intellectual constructions.
In a tautology, an explanation explains a fact because the fact can be accounted for by the explanation. For modern science, mathematical and mechanical models explain observations and measurements because observations and measurements can be accounted for by mathematical and mechanical models.
Scientific tautologies are very powerful. Important scientists ask for governments to support their empirio-schematic research in order to develop and exploit such tautologies… er… technologies. Philosophers of science tend to go with the flow, so they end up employing, analyzing and justifying the manners in which mathematical and mechanical models account for observations and measurements, along with other not-metaphysical pursuits. One must tread lightly. First, there is a lot of money on the line. Second, the positivist intellect has a rule. Metaphysics is not allowed.
0006 …hmmm…
Does Tabaczek offer a way out of the rut of not-metaphysics, without noticing that the rut is what distinguishes scientific inquiry from experience of a thing itself? Aristotle will tell me that the rut is not the same as the world outside the rut. The scientific world is (supposedly) full of mind-independent beings. Ours is a world of mind-dependent beings.
0007 …aha!
Now, I arrive at the yet-to-be-articulated distinction between what science investigates and what we experience.
For the modern philosopher of science, models are key. Disciplinary language brings mathematical and mechanical models into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena.
For the estranged modern metaphysician, the thing itself is key. The thing itself, the noumenon, gives rise to diverse phenomena, facets that are observable and measurable.
Consequently, the distinction that Tabaczek does not name looks like this.
0149 In chapter five, Tabaczek starts to develop the noumenal side of his mirror, beginning with dispositions and powers. Tabaczek wants to use these terms interchangeably. Perhaps, it is better to regard them as two contiguous real elements, where the contiguity is [properties].
Disposition [property] power is a hylomorphe that is slightly different than Aristotle’s hylomorphe, matter [substance] form. Even though they differ, they both belong to Peirce’s category of secondness.
To me, Peirce’s secondness opens the door to expressions of causality that reflect Aristotle’s hylomorphe in so far as they have the same relational structure.
Currently, no modern philosopher views Aristotle’s hylomorphe as a prime example of Peirce’s category of secondness.
How so?
As soon as a modern philosopher recognizes the point, then he or she becomes a postmodern philosopher.
Labels can be slippery.
0150 In chapter six of Emergence, Tabaczek introduces forms and teleology (that is, formal and final causes). The operation of these causes within the category-based nested form has already been presented.
0151 In chapter seven, Tabaczek labors to apply his dispositional metaphysics to Deacon’s formulation of dynamical depth. Perhaps, the results are not as coherent as the application found in this examination, but his efforts are sufficient to earn him his doctorate in philosophy.
Amen to that!
0152 Overall, Emergence is a testimonial to the resilience of a graduate student who completes his doctorate in philosophy of science without knowing that the model and the noumenon are two (apparently competing) illuminations within the Positivist’s judgment.
0153 Why doesn’t he know?
Well, no one knows, because philosophers of science are not paying attention the traditions of Charles Peirce or of Jacques Maritain. As noted in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy, Maritain uses the scholastic tool of three different styles of abstraction to paint a picture of science displaying the structure of judgment. Peirce’s semiotics and categories clarify Maritain’s painting by resolving two integrated yet distinct judgments: the Positivist’s judgment and the empirio-schematic judgment.
Plus, another reason why no one knows is because philosophers of science still think that the positivist intellect is alive. All laboratory scientists obey the dictate of the positivist intellect. Metaphysics is not allowed. So, if well-funded scientists are correct, then philosophers of science must project what is for the Positivist’s judgment from science into their own image in Tabaczek’s mirror. They do not realize that Tabaczek inadvertently de-defines the positivist intellect by not getting the Positivist’s memo and regarding a noumenon as the thing itself and its phenomena as manifestations of dispositions [properties] power.
0154 Say what?
Tabaczek’s “dispositional metaphysics” disposes with the positivist intellect by vaporizing the relation of the Positivist’s judgment and condensing what ought to be (the empirio-schematic judgment) and what is (the noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena) as two distinct illuminations. Both enter secondness. Two hylomorphes stand juxtaposed. In Tabaczek’s mirror, each hylomorphe sees its own image in the other.
0588 The Tomasello-Mah synthesis shows the ghost in the basement of the house of Tomasello’s vision.
Indeed, as this version of Darwin’s paradigm begins to haunt the entire edifice of human evolution, then Tabaczek’s housebecomes more than a house with a basement. If sociogenesis1b is the potential1b of triadic relations2a, then Tomasello’s arc of inquiry may be re-articulated using triadic relations.
0589 For example, Razie Mah’s Primer on Sensible and Social Construction may be used to re-label the eras of individual, joint and collective intentionality. Individual construction associates to the category-based nested form. Sensible construction associates to the two-level interscope, containing content and situation levels. Social construction associates to the three-level interscope, containing content, situation and perspective levels.
Here is a list of what that might look like.
0590 To continue, the re-labeled eras may be regarded in terms of the evolution of talk.
The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language. Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk.
0592 Next, I would like to focus attention on the era of collective intentionality.
Here is a list depicting the timeframe.
0593 Before the era of collective intentionality, hand talk is confined team activities. Hand talk produces sensible constructions. Each team develops its own way of hand talking.
After the domestication of fire, team-tradition hand talk starts to be used generally, eventually producing fully linguistic hand talk.
The situation is very dynamic. Since cooking with fire increases the number of teams, fully linguistic hand-talk is re-appropriated for specialized use in more and more teams. Fully linguistic hand-talk influences all social circles. In some of these circles, grammatically correct, yet apparently nonsensible statements, generate social constructions that open new cognitive spaces. These novel cognitive spaces become sites for more sensible construction.
0594 The voice comes into play during community meetings (150), seasonal mega-band round-ups (500) and special occasion tribal pow-wows (1500). The voice is used for synchronization. Song brings a large gathering of hominins into synchronization. Once this cultural habit starts, then singing joins other traits in sexual selection. The voice comes under voluntary control.
0595 Most likely, the early speciations of late Homo erectus produced species that could sing and hand-talk. But, they could not speak.
Speech is added to hand-talk with Homo sapiens. Anatomically modern humans practice a dual-mode of talking, hand-speech talk, for the next two hundred-thousand years.
0596 Hand-speech talk would still be practiced by anatomically modern humans today, were it not for the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia. The hypothesis of the first singularity proposes that the Ubaid is the first culture on Earth to practice speech-alone talk.
Here is a picture of the era of social construction.
0598 Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.
This brings me to the limit of Tomasello’s vision. I open the door, and step out into the realization that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. I step into the vision of Razie Mah.
0599 The arc of Tomasello’s inquiry, spanning from 1999 to 2016, opens onto three masterworks by Razie Mah. These electronic books are available at smashwords and other e-work venues. This examination relies primarily on The Human Niche, along with books contained in the series, A Course on The Human Niche. A related series is titled, Buttressing the Human Niche.
Here is a list of Mah’s masterworks.
Still, there is more.
A Commentary on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) is available at smashwords and other e-book venues. This commentary includes Mah’s blogs for January, February and March, 2024, along with an examination of Becoming Human (2019), the fifth book in a sequence of five books.
0600 My thanks to Michael Tomasello, who writes the books under examination while Co-Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, for conducting a scientific inquiry, from which I have examined only several works.
