02/17/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2022) “…Dimensions of Dugin’s Populism” (Part 8 of 9)

0040 Here is Dugin’s Greimas square.

Figure 14

0041 Here is the second strange Biblical association.

Figure 15

0042 A comparison takes the inquirer straight into an unanticipated opportunity to reconfigure the doctrine of Original Sin.  Modern academic Christians have been trying that for years, to no avail.  That is because Augustine of Hippo is not irrelevant.  It just turns out that the scientific aspect of his doctrine has been disproven.  All humanity does not directly descend from the loins of Adam.  But, the theological aspect is alive and well, as the Greimas squares demonstrate.

What is required is a new scientific hypothesis.

0043 One component of a new hypothesis appears in the e-works The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace (a plain formulation) and An Archaeology of the Fall (a dramatic portrayal), by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

In the year 2022, neither Alexander Dugin nor Michael Millerman are aware of the hypothesis of the first singularity.

0044 The hypothesis starts with an observation.  Our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

How so?

0045 The Lebenswelt that we evolved in spans around two million years.  Once hominins are bipedal, their arms are free to gesture to one another.  This allows the evolution of talk.  At first, hominins pantomime their meanings, presences and messages.  Then, the manual-brachial gestures become familiar, then routine, and hand talk evolves.  Hand talk consists of routinized manual-brachial gestures that are used in particular social normal contexts, especially teamwork.  Manual-brachial gestures work because they picture and point to their referents. They are icons and indexes.  They are natural signs.  Routinization turns these gestures into systems of differences.

Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk.  Ferdinand de Saussure defines language as two related systems of differences, parole (talk) and langue (mental processing of signs).  The story is told in the masterwork The Human Niche.  Once hominins domesticate fire, starting around eight-hundred thousand years ago, symbolic operations become general and grammar evolves.

Fire and linguistic hand talk allow hominins to prosper.  When humans evolve, speech gets added to hand talk.  Anatomically modern humans practice a dual-mode way to talking, hand-speech talk, for two-hundred thousand years, until the first singularity.  The semiotics of hand-speech talk are yet to be explored.  Hand-speech talk is grounded in the iconicity and indexality of hand talk.  Since speech cannot picture or point to anything, speech adorns hand talk and allows novel styles of social grooming.

0046 If all civilized humans practice speech-alone talk, then how do we get from hand-speech talk to where we are now?

The rupture starts with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia.  The Sumerian language is unrelated to any family of languages.  Why would this be so?  It is a creole, a language that emerges from the fusion of other languages.  When two groups coalesce, they practice pidgin.  Pidgin is composed of words, from two or more languages, without much grammar.  Then, over time, children weave the pidgin into a language with grammar.

As it turns out, the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia forms out of the fusion of two hand-speech talking cultures.  In the pidgin, the hand component of hand-speech talk is lost, leaving speech-alone.  From a pidgin of spoken wordsthe children of the Ubaid weave the first speech-alone language.

0047 The semiotics of speech-alone talk is vastly different from hand-speech talk.  The Ubaid constitutes the first narod

Remember, speech-alone talk cannot picture or point to its referents.  So, what does a spoken word really mean?  The narod of the Ubaid starts to create artifacts that valid certain novel speech-alone words.  In doing so, they generate novel labor specialties, such as shepherd, goat-herder, reed-harvester, farmer, beer-brewer, potter and transporter.  They construct novel social specialties such as king and priest and warrior and missionary and on and on.  The Ubaid becomes wealthy and powerful.

The surrounding Neolithic hand-speech talking cultures cannot help but notice.  Speech-alone talk spreads on the wings of mimicry.

Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.

0048 Around 7800 years later after the start of the Ubaid, the hypothesis of the first singularity is formulated.  Speech-alone talk characterizes our current Lebenswelt, filled with unconstrained social complexity.

Hand-speech (and hand-) talk characterizes the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, filled with constrained social complexity. Constrained?  All our ancestral social circles work in harmony.  Intimates, family, teams, bands, community, mega-band and tribe draw nourishment from the soil and branch out into our tree of life.  Eden is paradise because, in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, we are who we evolved to be.

0049 The hypothesis of the first singularity allows me to add a correlation, that further develops the contrast between the narod (C) and the ethnos (D).

Here is a picture.

Figure 17
02/16/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2022) “…Dimensions of Dugin’s Populism” (Part 9 of 9)

0050 Eden, the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, is where we, in our current Lebenswelt, come from, but cannot return to.  The myth of Adam and Eve says it all.  

The ethnos is where the narod comes from and cannot return to.

Figure 17

0051 The implications weave together psychology, sociology and biology.

How can the ethnos (D), the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, serve as the transit between the narod, emerging in our current Lebenswelt (C), and the person as objectified subject (B)?

Does each -ism appeal to our innate imaginations by offering an explicit abstraction, a forbidden fruit, that is desirous to the eyes, tastes sweet, and is desired to make one wise?

Does a narod (C) accepts the Luciferian suggestions (B) in the process of becoming a people (A)?

0052 Dugin proposes his fourth political theory in a world broken by our appetites for explicit abstractions.  We have been sold tickets (B) back to Eden (D).  Where do our travels bring us?  Our travels meet a flaming sword that turns in all directions.  A cherubim blocks the way.

Dugin speaks to the people.

His proposal has ethnosociological and existential dimensions.

We are more than individuals, class members, citizens and role-bearers.

We are a narod, on a quest to find who we are supposed to be.

Who do you say that we are?

0053 My thanks to Michael Millerman for his excellent summary of these two dimensions of Alexander Dugin’s political philosophy.

02/15/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2022) “…On Strauss and Dugin” (Part 1 of 10)

0054 Allow me to cut to the chase.  The reason why Millerman writes this chapter is simple.  He wants to defend the serious study of Dugin before admirers of the political philosopher Leo Strauss.

Why would Millerman want to do that?

When Millerman declares the topic of his doctoral thesis at the University of Toronto, four members of his dissertation committee resign.  Two are Straussians.  The actions of these two are particularly poignant, since Millerman self-identifies as a maven of Strauss.

0055 Maven?

Yes, the term fits.  This chapter, number six in the collection of essays under one title, Inside Putin’s Brain: The Political Philosophy of Alexander Dugin, (available at Amazon and other hardcover book venues) plays Straussian themes.  The essay is exoteric.  The essay is esoteric.  There is a message in the middle.  Plus, that message comes from Dugin himself.

Of course, I do not say this lightly.  I have my own philosophical axe to grind, so to speak.  Yet, the clever Millerman has already prepared his text, so to speak.  The essay cleaves into three parts.  The introduction discusses two philosophical dances, one between Heidegger and Strauss and the other between Heidegger and Dugin.  The middle translates an excerpt from Alexander Dugin’s Book (2011) Martin Heidegger and the Possibility of Russian Philosophy.  The end recapitulates the introduction.

I cannot axe for more.

0056 Millerman’s text is an example of the semitic (as opposed to the greek) textual style (as discussed in An Instructor’s Guide to An Archaeology of the Fall).  The pattern is A:B:A’.

The semitic textual style asks the reader to recognize a possibility.

0057 What is the possibility that Millerman wants us to recognize?

Dugin and Strauss have a lot in common.  Both dance with the one Heidegger.  Both address a key question, articulated by ancient Greek philosophers, that defines classical political philosophy.

What is the best political order?

02/14/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2022) “…On Strauss and Dugin” (Part 2 of 10)

0058 What is best political order?

Leo Strauss ends up asking the question that moderns evade.  According to the political philosophers in our current Age of Ideas, the political order institutes organizational objectives in the names of the righteousness of the individual, the class member, the citizen and the unrighteousness of the one who cannot be a citizen.  The ancient questions are ignored.  The political order is a means to an end.  Plus, modern experts define that end in the name of an objectified subject.  We are who the experts say that we are.

And that is not good.

0059 To oversimplify Millerman’s account, Strauss’s story starts with Spengler’s cultural relativism and ends with the eternal, natural philosophy of Plato.  Spengler conceives of a comprehensive theoretical project, where (as Strauss frames it) the task of philosophy is to understand various cultures as the expression of souls.

To me, that sounds like a huge complicated project.

So, of course Martin Heidegger, who sits in the same academic chair once occupied by Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, says, “Let me give this a try.”

0060 Now, projection is a huge temptation in trying Spengler’s project.  As soon as one projects one’s own terminology into the past, then the past will conform to present academic expectations.  Here is a clue that Heidegger avoids this temptation.  Heidegger claims that modern philosophers do not understand Aristotle or Plato, at least, not in the ancient Greeks’ own terms.

The admission pleases Leo Strauss, who happens to agree.

Out, out, damned projection!

0061 Historical studies are welcome.  Historicism, the ideology that philosophy is a symptom of the culture and the age, be damned.

02/13/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2022) “…On Strauss and Dugin” (Part 3 of 10)

0062 What about Dugin?

Alexander Dugin wants to know whether there can be such a project as Russian political philosophy.  To me, this is a great question, because if there is a Russian political philosophy, then is should be as entertaining as an American political philosophy, starting from… say… the mound builders at Poverty Point, Louisiana.  I suspect that there is.  Let me take a look at the Book of Mormon.

0063 Dugin, the Russian, is drawn to Heidegger, the German, because the wizard has found two philosophical golden tablets.  One tablet offers to develop a philosophically adequate account of cultures as expressions of souls(corresponding to Dasein).  The other tablet promises a return to a study of the ancients as they are, rather than what we project upon them.  Not unlike the intrepid American, Joseph Smith, Dugin must translate these tablets into his native language.  Joseph Smith translates angelic script.  Alexander Dugin translates Heidegger’s German.

0064 To me, English (for Smith) and Russian (for Dugin) are only networks within a larger web of consciousness.  They allow us to envision a star, in the constellation of virtues, that is some sort of Omega Point.  Over time, our mundane earth rises towards the celestial earth, which itself moves towards a stellar Omega Point, as Teilhard de Chardin envisions.  See A Primer on Classical Political Philosophy, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0065 Well, Millerman does not mention any of this.

My flight of fancy soars into the joint between the end of the introduction and a translation of Alexander Dugin’s plans, as they appear in the 2011 Russian edition of Martin Heidegger and the Possibility of Russian Philosophy (Moscow: Academic Project).

Sort of like an axe hitting a soft spot.

0066 Dugin’s masterplan contains three tasks, (1) dismantling archeomodernity, (2) correctly comprehending the West and (3) elaborating a philosophy of chaos.

0067 On one hand, I think, “Whoa.  Dugin’s tasks are more ambitious than John Deely’s project to describe the arc of philosophical history in terms of the development of the causality inherent in signs.”

Deely’s book, Four Ages of Understanding (2001) runs over a thousand pages.  It is published by the… um… University of Toronto.

0068 On the other hand, I think, “Well, maybe, Dugin’s tasks are not as ambitious as the tasks proposed on October 1, 2022, of Razie Mah’s blog, under the title, A Fantasia in G-Minor: A Speech Written for Gunnar Beck MEP.”

MEP is an acronym for “Member of the European Parliament”.

0069 In the following blogs, I will present a stream of consciousness for each of Dugin’s heroic tasks.

02/10/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2022) “…On Strauss and Dugin” (Part 4 of 10)

0070 Task one seeks to dismantle archeomodernity.

What is archeomodernity?

Why does Dugin want to dismantle it?

0071 Well, given Dugin’s concrete directions, ably translated by Millerman, archeomodernity seems to be a cognitive space that is trapping contemporary Russians.  Liberation from archeomodernity opens the possibility of Russian philosophy.

0072 So, archeomodernity must be a trap.

How can I explain the purely relational nature of this trap?

I have found an example of such a trap in my intellectual wanderings through the vast goofiness of the internet.  I will not say where.  But, I will say that if you, the intrepid truly postmodern intellectual, post or publish a paper using the category-based nested form (or other triadic relations), please e-mail a notification to raziemah@reagan.com.

Perhaps, a new journal is called for.

0073 The story of the trap goes like this:

At the start of the middle ages in the West, Anselm coins a slogan that is repeated to this day.  Faith seeks understanding.

At the start of the modern era, Descartes coins another slogan.  I think, therefore, I am.

I associate Anselm’s premodern slogan to “archeo-“.

I associate Descartes’ slogan to “-modernity”.

0074 So, how does archeomodernity constitute a trap?

How can I portray this trap?

First, I render each slogan as a nested form.

0075 For archeo- Anselm, the normal context is faith3.  The actuality is seeks2.  The potential is understanding1.

Here is a picture.

Figure 01

0076 For -modern Descartes, the normal context is I think3.  The actuality is therefore2.  The potential is I am1.

Here is a picture.

Figure 02

0077 Now I ask, “Does Descartes’ slogan situate Anselm’s slogan or visa versa?”

The answer is no.

Do these two nested forms constitute a single, mysterious intersection, as described in the chapter on message in Razie Mah’s e-book, How To Define the Word “Religion” (available at smashwords and other e-book venues)?

The answer is no.

0078 Are there any other options?

Here, Dugin’s impression that archeomodernity is a trap comes into play. Biological (especially, cellular) systems are full of traps.  They are called “receptors”.  Receptors typically consist in proteins that are folded in such a fashion that a substrate is attracted and held in place.

So, I picture the archeo- side of a matrix and the -modern side of a matrix as forming a groove.

Figure 03

0079 What goes into the groove?

Nested forms, of course.Nested forms may be attracted to the normal context3 and the potential1 elements on each side of the groove.  The stronger the attraction to both sides, the stronger the binding and the better the fit.  Archeomodernity traps ideas that fit its groove.

02/9/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2022) “…On Strauss and Dugin” (Part 5 of 10)

0080 How about an example?

Consider a claim by Spengler, mentioned earlier.  According to Strauss, Spengler states that the task of philosophy is to understand various cultures as expressions of the soul.

0081 Does this go into a nested form?

The actuality is various cultures2.  The normal context is expressions of the soul3.  The potential is understanding1.

Here is Spengler’s suggestion.  It fits well into the archeomodern groove.

Figure 04

0082 Now, let me try a variant.  Historicism explains expressions of the soul (including philosophy) in terms of the cultural dynamics of the time.

The normal context is explains3.  The actuality is expressions of the soul2.  The potential comes from cultural dynamcs1

Figure 05

0083 Does this bind very well?

I don’t think so.

Spengler’s idea binds well to archeomodernity.

Historicism does not.

0084 Archeomodernity is a trap, in the same way that a receptor is a trap for its substrate.  Spengler’s claim is a suitable substrate.  Historicism is not, unless the substrate alters the binding site through irreversible degradation.

What do I mean by that?

0085 Compare the way that each nested form binds in the realm of thirdness.

Figure 06

Surely, Spencer’s claim intuitively binds to both sides of the groove, while historicism does not.  Expressions of the soul3appeal to faith3 as well as to human thought3.  Determining an explanation3 does not.  Faith3 does not want empirio-schematic “explanations”3.  Plus, scientific explanations terminate inquiry3, and therefore, human thought3.

0086 What do modern experts desire?

They desire to terminate inquiry with scientific models (explanations) that account for observations and measurements of phenomena.

0087 What about a comparison in the realm of firstness?

Take a look

Figure 07

0037 Understanding1 from Spengler’s claim, does not match understanding1 from Anselm’s slogan.  However, since Spengler’s understanding1 is philosophical, rather than scientific, its potential coheres with Anselm’s use of the term.  

At the same time, understanding1 from Spengler’s claim may not satisfy Descartes’ desire for individual realness1.  But, it1does not terminate the presence, inherent to I am1.  

0088 In contrast, the naming of cultural dynamics1 makes understanding1 irrelevant.  Cultural dynamics is a term belonging to a specialized disciplinary language.  The term gives the impression that viable mathematical and mechanical models account for observations and measurements of cultural phenomena.

Of course, mathematical and mechanical models focus on actuality2 and ignore normal context3 and potential1.  Anselm’s understanding1 requires all three categories.  So, cultural dynamics1 is not compatible with Anselm’s understanding1.

Even worse, the impression that models of cultural dynamics1 increases understanding1 (in Anslem’s sense of the term) degrades the archeo- side of the groove.

0089 Similarly, if the term, “cultural dynamics”, belongs to a specialized disciplinary language, not known to average blokes, then the potential of I am1 extols the expert, in contrast to the plebian.  Theoretically, the expert is Cartesian, with an unlimited will (I am1to know (I think3)   In short, expertise3 emerges from the potential of the expert’s will1.

But, since normal contexts follow the logic of exclusion, most modern experts are satisfied to be the only person in the room with a model that no one else can argue with.  So, it makes me wonder whether the potential of cultural dynamics1serves to disengage the purity of will implied by Descartes’ slogan, thereby degrading the -modern side of the groove.  Experts do not have an unlimited will to know, because… well… they are satisfied with what they know.

0090 The Western version of archeomodernity is a receptor.  That is why moderns (and especially, so-called “postmoderns”) despise it.  Indeed, the social sciences tend to degrade it.  Social science explanations do not bind well to the groove.  Consequently, the social sciences are inexplicably dissatisfying.

02/8/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2022) “…On Strauss and Dugin” (Part 6 of 10)

0091 If archeomodernity serves as a receptor for a productive matrix in the West, then why does Dugin want to get rid of it as his first task.

Remember that his task is to envision the possibility of a Russian philosophy.

So, Russia is not the same as western Europe.

0092 Consequently, the archeomodern groove must be different.  In the west, Anselm’s slogan pairs with Descartes’ slogan to form the sides of a receptor.  In Russian, a slogan from the premodern past pairs with, perhaps, a Marxist slogan, to form two sides of a trap.

In western Europe, the archeomodern groove tends to bind to nested forms that are not purely empirio-schematic judgments, which pisses off the scientific experts to no end (and explains the persistence of phenomenology and similar research programs).

In Russia, the archeomodern groove may bind to bad ideas, giving them an authority that they would otherwise not enjoy.

0093 Well, what would this Russian archeomodern groove look like?

Since I am not Russian, I cannot say.  But, I can make suggestions based on what little I know about Russia, with the expectation that Russian philosophers will surpass my suggestions without looking back.

Here goes a fool’s attempt at the Russian archeomodern groove.

0094 Slogans are wonderful sources for nested forms.  They are pithy.  They readily separate out into normal context, actuality and potential.  

0095 So, what about the archeo- side of the groove?

In the west, there is a slogan that calls to mind the world of Saint Basil and the Love of Sophia.  It is an appeal to an archangel, Saint Michael, who fights Lucifer and casts him out of God’s realm.  Yes, this is the stuff of Paradise Lost

The slogan says, “Saint Michael, the archangel, defend us!”

The normal context is angels3.  The potential is being defended (or defense)1.  The actuality is us2 (in an unnerving situation). 

Here is a picture.

Figure 08

0096 What about the -modern side of the groove?

To me, one of the Marx’s most famous phrases is “the specter of communism”.  The specter of communism haunts the mercantile society of Marx’s time.  So, I will add a few words to turn the phrase into a slogan.  The specter of communism haunts us.

Here is the corresponding nested form.

Figure 09

0097 Now, I combine these two nested forms into the structure of an archeomodern groove.

Figure 10

0098 What nested form fits into this groove?

The example that I choose belongs to the famous Stalin-era scientist, Lysenko.  According to western sources, Lysenko ruined Soviet biology by promoting Lamarkianism, the idea that acquired traits may be inherited.

In particular, in agriculture, Lysenko wanted to plant wheat seed that had been frozen, because exposure to cold for the seed should produce the acquired trait for the plant.  Of course, this does not work, since frozen grain will not germinate.  Nevertheless, Lysenko did not fail for lack of trying.

0099 This example turns into a nested form through the following associations.  The normal context is survival3, in the evolutionary sense of the term.  The actuality is frozen wheat2.  The potential is the acquired trait of cold resistance1.

Figure 11

0100 Now, I place Lysenko story’s nested form into the groove and ask, “Can I envision how the nested form might fit (or bind to) each side of the groove?”

Figure 12

For the archeo- side, surely survival3 and angels3 attract one another. Otherwise, why would we ask Saint Michael to defend us?

For the -modern side, survival3 coheres with the soul of wheat seeds3.  All wheat seeds should have the capacity to perpetuate acquired traits (even though, really, they do not).  Once the seed is frozen, it is dead, and its soul becomes a specter.  Perhaps, I can say, the seed becomes the specter of Lamarkianism.

Similarly, the acquired trait of cold tolerance1 should haunt1 the plant that grows from a frozen seed2.  Plus, the anticipated acquired trait1 serves as a defense against cold weather1.

0101 Ah, Lysenko’s intuition binds well to the archeomodern groove for the Russian matrix.

The problem?

The fact that Lysenko’s Lamarkian proposition binds to the archeomodern groove for the Russian matrix does not make it correct.  Indeed, the binding is so strong that experiments are conducted over and over again, with slight variations, but always with the same results.  But, how can the experimental results turn out negative, when the proposition obviously fits our archeomodern groove?

Ah, now I can see how the archeomodern groove may be a trap.

0102 The concept of an archeomodern groove adds value to Dugin’s first task because it allows a way to envision how western European and Russian philosophies differ.

The Western archeomodern groove, composed of slogans by Anselm and Descartes, produces bindings that are so productive that western scientists want to dismiss the Western archeomodern groove.  Why?  People read popularized science in order to understand.  Yes, people want to understand.  People have faith, in God and in science.  Why don’t common folk only care about drab scientific results?  Why do they want to see how scientific models fit into a bigger picture?

Dugin wants to map the Russian archeomodern groove because it attracts and binds ideas that are satisfying, but scientifically impossible.  The Russian archeomodern groove is a trap.

02/7/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2022) “…On Strauss and Dugin” (Part 7 of 10)

0104 What about the second task?

Task two aims for a correct comprehension of the West.

I add, “Especially, the modern West.”

0105 Remember Descartes’ slogan, “I think, therefore I am.”

Modern scientists promise to satisfy an unlimited will to know1 in the normal context of expertise3.

Remember Anselm’s slogan, “Faith seeks understanding.”?

Modern scientists also imagine that they deliver the understanding1 that people seek2 in the normal context of faith3.  Otherwise, why write books popularizing scientific knowledge?

People are not interested in materials and methods.

0106 As the western archeomodern groove breaks down, I ask.  Is there understanding1 without faith3?  Does the invocation of the term, “cultural dynamics1“, satisfy the Cartesian will to know1?  Or, are modern and postmodern institutions producing narratives… I mean… nested forms that do not bind well to the otherwise productive archeomodern groove?

The corrupt bureaucrats say, “Trust the science.”

The people reply, “This makes no sense.  I do not understand.”

0107 Perhaps, a correct comprehension of the West starts with science.

Christian philosophers struggle to formulate science in terms of Aristotle (or, for Catholics, Thomas Aquinas).  Their struggle has been going on for centuries.

Last century, Jacques Maritain comes close to hitting the target.  In Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy, Razie Mah distills Maritain’s argument into two intertwined judgments: the Positivist’s and the empirio-schematic judgments.

0108 A judgment has a triadic structure.  It has three elements: relation, what is and what ought to be.  Each of these elements may be assigned to one category: firstness, secondness or thirdness.  Only one category per element is allowed.  Categories define the associated nested form.

Here is a picture of the Positivist’s judgment.

Figure 13

0109 A positivist intellect (relation, thirdness) brings the dyad, a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena(what is, firstness) into relation with an empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be, secondness).

The positivist intellect has a rule.  Metaphysics is not allowed.

0110 Note that what ought to be is also a judgment.

Figure 14

A disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) brings observations and measurements of phenomena (what is, firstness) into relation with mechanical and mathematical models (what ought to be, secondness).

0111 Questioning the Positivist’s judgment never works as anticipated.  If one criticizes the lack of metaphysics, one ends up trapped in a discussion couched in the disciplinary languages of the empirio-schematic judgment.  If one criticizes an empirio-schematic judgment , one gets accused of denying phenomena, the observable and measurable facets of their noumenon.  Or worse, one is dismissed as a metaphysician.

02/6/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2022) “…On Strauss and Dugin” (Part 8 of 10)

0112 Does a correct interpretation of the West entail an alternate vision of science?

There are many ways to describe science.  Who would describe science as two intertwined actionable judgments, that unfold into nested forms on the basis of their categorical assignments?

Razie Mah would.

0113 Even stranger, Razie Mah presents a series of commentaries, titled Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect.  Several works appear in that series, including Comments on Jack Reynold’s Book (2018) “Phenomenology, Naturalism and Science”A Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenological Reductions”Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean-Luc Marion and… First Philosophy” and Comments on Richard Colledge’s Essay (2021) “Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenological Reduction”.  These are promoted in blogs at www.raziemah.com during September and October, 2021, as well as during March and April, 2022.

0114 What is there in the Positivist’s judgment that a phenomenologist might fixate on?

Here is a picture.

Figure 15

Well, with a discipline called “phenomenology”, I imagine that the phenomenologist would fixate on what is.

But which side?  The noumenon?  Or its phenomena?

0115 A noumenon, the thing itself, cannot be fully objectified as its phenomena, its observable and measurable facets. Indeed, in the natural sciences (relation, thirdness), disciplinary languages model observations and measurements (what ought to be, secondness) of phenomena (what is, firstness), while ignoring their noumenon (what is, firstness).  In the 1920s and 1930s, the Vienna Circle proposes that noumena are completely irrelevant to our modern scientific world.

0116 There is a problem with this proposal.

Decades earlier, Edmund Husserl (1859-1938 AD) anticipates the issue and proposes an oddly named school, called, “Phenomenology”.  How is it oddly named?  Husserl strives to identify, in an intuitive way, what the noumenon must be.  Phenomenological reduction starts with the same phenomena as the empirio-schematic judgment, then brackets out all sorts of notions, such as traditional formulations, as well as the empirio-schematic judgment, in order to arrive at a declaration of what the noumenon must be.

Here is a picture.

Figure 16

0117 On what basis is the declaration made?

To me, the basis may correspond to what Heidegger calls “Da-Sein”.

If Da-Sein is the basis of discovering what the noumenon must be, then the noumenon must correspond to Sein, Being Itself.  

0118 Needless to say, Martin Heidegger (1899-1976) occupies the same Chair in Philosophy at the University of Freiberg that Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) retires from.

Coincidence?

0119 Dugin knows the link between Heidegger and Husserl.  Dugin says that understanding Heidegger’s philosophy is crucial to articulating a Russian philosophy.  Yet, I wonder whether Dugin is aware that Heidegger’s Sein may be the noumenon, the thing itself, which cannot be objectified as its phenomena.

If that speculative “may” proves fruitful, then Dugin is something of a prophet.  A correct comprehension of the modern West involves a correct comprehension of science. Heidegger says that the key to a correct interpretation of our scientific world starts with Dasein.  Dugin points to Heidegger and says, “Listen to this philosopher.”  What Heidegger says fulfills the second task.

0120 At this point, I add a purely speculative note.  I have a guess.  I have a curious feeling that Heidegger offers a big label to what the noumenon must be.  It is “Sein” (German for “being”).  Plus, “Dasein” (German for “there” and “being”) labels the human encounter with Sein.  Once these substitutions are made, then the remainder of the Positivist’s judgmentis eclipsed, or “bracketed out”.  Heidegger brands the noumenon, the thing itself, in a most philosophically encompassing manner.  There is a difference between Dasein and the lived experience and the consciousness in our modern age.

Here is a picture of the new beginning.  The Positivist’s judgment fades as Heidegger rides the noumenon into a promised land.  Promised to the people of Germany.

Figure 17

Well, that sounds dramatic.  Plus, it sounds somewhat theological.  It is enough to make me wonder, “Is there a phenomenology of the spirit?”

With that in mind, consider the blog, posted October 1, 2022, at www.raziemah.com, appealing to a German politician.  The title of the blog is “Fantasia in G-minor: A Speech Written for Gunnar Beck MEP”.

MEP stands for Member of the European Parliament.

Perhaps, there is an alternative for Germany.