The mystery of iniquity starts to unfold when I come up with ‘something’ objective1b, without attention to the rules of reason and the divine law1c. At first, the objective1b sets aside the suprasubjective1c, by not admitting to the intersubjective1b.
I decide what makes sense3c.
0057 Isn’t this the nature of concupiscence? Why should I worry about right reason or Yahweh’s law? I’m going to hang out with Cupid. Cupid likes me. Cupid agrees with me.
After a phantasm2b of deliciously-worded2a desire2b becomes habitual, self-justification3b strains towards the intersubjective1b. For self-deception1b to become openly regarded, it must first become intersubjective.
So, I, a self-deceiver3b, search out a team that will judge2c my privation2b as virtuous and true. Let my intersubjective2bhabit find an accommodating suprasubjectivity1c. Yes, I may join the club. I may join the secret society that does not pay attention to some aspect of the rule of reason or the divine law1c, then justifies the consequences2a.
In fact, our common intersubjective privation2b reflects a self-congratulating fullness of suprasubjective being2c. Our good is obvious to anyone who is “educated”. We all love one another and despise the uneducated morons, don’t we?
0058 We blather2a in production of our subjective agreement1a.
Are we really free to choose1b?
Or, am I forgetting something1c?
0059 There are privations in things and events2a, including speech-alone talk2a.
There are privations in phantasms2b, losing the balance between judgment2c and speech2a.
0060 In sections four and five, Kanzelberger pulls more threads through the loops of Poinsot’s scholasticism and Peirce’s postmodernism. He does so well, that I continue in parallel, like a harmony to his melody.
0061 I turn to privation of judgment2c.
Consider an example.
0061 Crooked lawyers love the sin of omission. They love to omit the evidence that would cause them to lose the case. This love is justified by the doctrine of total satisfaction for the client. The crooked lawyer does not serve justice. The crooked lawyer serves only his client, even when his client is guilty as charged.
In the domain of morals, the doctrine of total client satisfaction stands in opposition to an oath to serve justice. Lawyers take an oath to serve justice. This doctrine deprives the oath of its merit. Evil is a privation of good.
Legal theory contextualizes a lawyer’s cupidity, even as the lawyer’s exploits defy the attainment of justice.
0061 Is there a hierarchy here?
Crime is what happened3a. A trial is what is happening3a. Victory in court is what it means to me3b. Someone really depraved constructs the legal process that permits it all3c.
There is a hierarchical difference between a corrupt lawyer3b, who objectifies what is happening3a in the pursuit of total victory for his client1a, and a legal theorist3c, who formulates the consensus of what is legally permissible1c. Legal theorists3c fashion suprasubjective entities, concocting law-determining judgments2c that alter, tweak, nudge, correct and re-configure the intersubjectivity2b within which a moral agent3b signifies. Legal theorists3c alter the machinery of justice2c. Evil ex academia1c.
The well-educated cutting-edge legal theorist3c offers norms2c that may oppose the rule of reason and the divine law1c, just as parody opposes tragedy. The projection of alternate meaning into words1c, such as “client interests”, “service”, “mandates” and so on, mocks the hard-won projection of true meaning1c, where the client’s interests do not outweigh justice and true justice ultimately furthers the interests of us all, including the client.
Alternate legal theories2c cannot endure in the absence of the original truth of justice1c. There are two types of immoral actors. The practitioners of concupiscence2b, like crooked lawyers, struggle with self-justification1c. The self-justified2c, like opportunistic legal theorists, strain to defy right reason and divine law1c. They offer better alternatives2c. They3coffer them2c in droves. A multitude of alternatives2c swarm with betterness.
Kanzelberger writes, “Purposeful evil is not a matter of ignoring the moral context of courses of action, but a semiotic disorder involving… a fictive construction… that functions as… an imagined future.”
0064 You mean, like that approaching cloud of legal locusts?
Imagine a world where the rule of reason2c and the divine laws1c are partially, then totally, eclipsed by a swarm of organizational objectives2c, each declaring its own righteousness1c, each supported by its own theoretical imperatives1c and each relying on the power of the state to enforce its dictates.
Imagine a world where certain words1a are made flesh2a, and this winged flesh2a fills the air with what is happening3a, so that all things and events2a actualize theory-distorted subjectivities1a.
Imagine a world where our phantasms2b are not grounded in truth, but in the projection of meaning2b into once truth-filled speech-alone words2a.
0065 Surely, we have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good an evil.
0066 Kanzelberger writes, “Moral evil is a dark image. It weaves a web that bewitches its author, then ensnares others.”
But, the author and the ensnared do not necessarily stand on the same level.
0067 Natural evil makes no sense. Natural evil is privation of the subject.
Moral evil makes sense. Moral evil is privation in phantasms. We selectively use word-symbols deprived of their fullness. We seek agreement1a, not wisdom1c.
Metaphysical evil defies moral sense, by willfully projecting its own relations between what is and what ought to be2c, into spoken words2a, which cannot image or indicate on their own.
0068 Imagine a nest, full of duly-appointed avian-philic crooked lawyers, passing a law decreeing the latest innovation of their premier legal theorist. All cats are to be banished from the sovereign realm, because they are symbols of human maliciousness and cruelty.
Here is a brood worthy of Kanzelberger’s philosophical consideration.
0069 Kirk Kanzelberger joins Thomas Aquinas with a basic acknowledgment: Evil is a privation of a good.
He then considers natural and moral evil.
In moral evil, he locates a semiotic disorder, in addition to a privation.
He considers the nature of the sign, as formulated by Charles Peirce.
0070 He publishes his argument in a journal worthy of the reader’s support.
Reality: A Journal for Philosophical Discourse
0071 My comments are not so different. They thread through both Peirce and Poinsot. They pass through the two loops brought to light by John Deely.
Yet, the are different, in that they offer diagrams based on Peirce’s categories.
0072 Typically, Razie Mah’s comments are published in the smashwords website and carried by a variety of e-book vendors.
Start with A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form.
Add A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.
That is all that is needed to introduce oneself to the interscope of social construction.
Figure 09
0073 The three-level interscope appears in the chapter on meaning in the masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”.
The three-level interscope plays a role in A Primer on the Individual In Community.
The three-level interscope serves as a model of langue, in Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2016) Why Only Us: Language and Evolution.
0074 All these works are available at the smashwords website.
So concludes this look at Kanzelberger’s foray into both Aquinas and Peirce, concerning reality and the nature of privation.
0001 Why would a Catholic priest podcast on the topics of myths, monsters and mysteries?
Are these actualities somehow related?
Perhaps, they are nested. Mysteries are locked within monsters. Monsters are contained in myths.
The outside is myth, the middle has monsters, and the center holds mysteries.
In addition to nesting, the title tells a story. A story has a beginning, middle and end. This podcast title opens with myths, proceeds to monsters, then resolves in mysteries.
Two approaches complement one another.
0002 Why?
Each word in the title labels an actuality. These actualities fit into one another. These three actualities tell a story.
0003 Our world is full of stories. Some are fantasies. Some are histories.
Fantasies have no foundation in real human events. So, the story is not real.
Histories are founded in real human events, but often the story is incoherent.
Myths seem to blend these two poles.
Fantasies illuminate how we (humans) think. For myths, Jungian psychologists investigate this particular topic, revealing universal mental habits.
Histories tell of what happened, by connecting various evidentiary dots or exploring clues.
The magic of myth is simple. It holds historic dots and clues within itself, long after what happened has passed into the mists of time. Myths are repeated with such accuracy, that dots and clues may remain for centuries, even millenia.
Consequently, there is no coherent discipline investigating how myths address something that actually occurred.
0004 Can I say that all stories contain clues.
These clues reveal something real.
On one hand, this something pertains to human psychology.
On the other hand, this something includes human witness.
0006 Fr. Dwight Longenecker sets out on a quixotic quest.
On first listening, he appears ready to deliver insights in Jungian psyhcology and critical aesthetics, as if these will imbue actuality into myths.
On second thought, he touts his book on who the magi actually are. They are not Persians. They are traders, located between Persia and Jerusalem. They are in transitbetween both civilizations. He follows clues in the infant narratives. He examines archaeology. He looks at historical documentation.
0007 What does this mean?
Think of a real historical event as a grain of sand.
Think of human psychology as the maw of an oyster.
The grain of sand enters into the maw of the oyster and then, over time, something mysterious happens. The grain of sandgives rise to a pearl.
The pearl is like the myth.
0008 In sum, the continuum expressed in the previous blog will not suffice.
There are two real elements, the grain of sand and the pearl. The grain of sand cannot be recognized within the pearl, but it stands as its origin. The two elements are contiguous, like matter and form.
0009 For Aristotle, matter and form are contiguous. The technical term is “hylomorphism”.
Here is a picture.
Figure 02
0010 For Charles Peirce, the category of secondness, the realm of actuality, consists in two contiguous real elements.
An entire series of comments are published in smashwords on the proposal that Aristotle’s hylomorphism coincides with Peirce’s category of secondness. This is a portal to the Fourth Age of Understanding, the Age of Triadic Relations.
One way to write the contiguity between matter and form is matter [is contiguous with] form. Matter and form are real elements. The contiguity is placed in brackets. The word, “substance”, labels the contiguity between matter and form. Or, should I say, “being and form”?
Figure 03
0011 There is a beauty in this configuration.
There are two terms that scholastics used regularly. One is the Latin word, esse. Esse is translated as being as existent, in contrast to ens, being as being. Esse concerns presence. The other word made it into English, essence. Essence concerns form.
As it turns out, these two terms apply the Arisotle’s hylomorphism.
Here is a picture.
Figure 04
I coin a new word, esse_ce, which sounds the same as esse, but is defined as being [substance], in contrast with essence, which is [substance] form.
0012 What does this have to do with Longenecker’s podcasts?Perhaps, Longenecker aims to discuss the esse_ce and essence of myth.
0013 Now, I travel in a little circle, turning around Peirce’s secondness and Aristotle’s hylomorphism. One is postmodern. The other is premodern.
0014 Myth is a hylomorphism, which may be depicted as follows in the style of Peirce’s secondness.
Figure 05
0015 Peirce’s secondness is one of three categories. It is the realm of actuality. Secondness consists in two contiguous real elements. The two elements are real. The contiguity, placed in brackets, conveys a feeling of causality. A myth is a story. Its real origin hides within.
0016 A myth does not seem like a thing. A pearl does. A pearl serves as a metaphor for myth. If it were not for science, we would not know that a grain of sand gives rise to a pearl inside the maw of an oyster. This implies that the real world event may be known from other inquiries, not from the story itself.
Here is a picture.
Figure 06
0017 Aristotle’s hylomorphism applies to things. A pearl is a thing. A thing has two real elements, matter and form. Matter has two facets. If material, matter is called “matter”. If immaterial, matter is called “being”. Being is relational. The Latin word for being is “ens”.
I label the contiguity between matter and form with the word, “substance”. The term, “substance”, has quite a history. So, it should be fine if a thing is matter [substance] form. Note how the contiguity could just as well be a verb, “substantiates”.
0018 Now, many of us have heard the term, “essence”. Essence is all about form. Indeed, I suspect that essence captures one facet of Aristotle’s hylomorphism.
There is another, less well known, scholastic term, “esse“. Esse is Latin for being as existent. I will now make up a word, esse_ce, which is a complement to essence. Esse_ce captures the other facet of Aristotle’s hylomorphism.
0019 Here is a picture of the myth, with esse_ce and essence denoted.
Figure 07
0020 Ah, in myth, both esse_ce and essence share the contiguity between a real event and its story.
Isn’t that curious?
Even more, I can extend this pattern to the pearl.
The esse_ce of a pearl contains a grain of sand.
The essence of a pearl is a translucent spherical form.
0021 A pearl serves as a metaphor for myth.I have come full circle.
0022 When Father Longenecker begins his discussion of myth. It seems that he is discussing Jungian psychology.
Jungian psychology investigates the way that the mind works, especially in regards to the so-called “collective unconscious”, mental habits common across civilizations. This corresponds to essence.
Essence contributes to the realness of the story.
0023 However, there is the complement to essence, esse_ce, that is discovered through independent inquiry. One could label this inquiry, “science”, but the modern term means building mathematical and mechanical models.
The premodern term for “science” is “natural philosophy”. Natural philosophy seeks out a thing or process or event, tries to explain it, and reaches understanding of the thing itself, not the observable and measurable facets of the thing.
The thing itself has a hylomorphic structure.
0024 So, an independent inquiry, having great compatibility with natural philosophy, may try to figure out the real event that hides within and gives rise to myth2. The discovery of the event is prophetic, since it cannot be predicted by examining the story itself. Only after the discovery of the event, does the myth become more that pure essence (fantasy). The story gains esse_ce.
Esse_ce contributes to the realness of the myth in ways that essence does not.
0026 Now, I want to offer an example. This example may take Father Longenecker by surprise. It is the story of Adam and Eve found in the early chapters of Genesis.
Many argue that the temptation of Eve is pure fantasy. It is pure essence. There is no esse_ce. Really, a talking serpent?
0027 Longnecker may speak of the essence, using Jungian psychology.
I will offer a picture of the esse_ce, using the evolution of talk, as opposed to the evolution of language.
Figure 09
0028 Two works shed light upon the esse_ce of this myth. One is a scientific proposal, The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace. The other is the dramatic fiction, An Archaeology of the Fall. The evolutionary backdrop for both is found in The Human Niche.
0029 What is the evolution of talk, in a nutshell?
Starting with the adaptation of walking, characteristic the genus, Australopithecus, the foot is enslaved and the hand is freed. The hand is free to gesture. Why gesture? Manual-brachial gestures convey intentions during team activities. Why engage in team activities? That is how a band of walking apes survives.
Homo habilis and erectus adapt to the opportiunity that manual-brachial gestures offer. Gestures convey intent (message), content (meaning) and role (presence) during team activities. The semiotic qualities of hand talk are iconic (images) and indexal (indicators). So, a referent defines the message, meaning and presence of its word-gesture.
Hand talk is crucial for team activities, such as gathering seasonal vegetables and hunting or scavenging game.
0030 On top of that, word-gestures should differ from one another, fitting Ferdinand de Saussure’s definition of languageas two related systems of differences, parole (manual-brachial gesture) and langue (particular sets of messages, meaning and presences).
0031 The domestication of fire allows hand talk to become a team activity in itself. Hand talk expands from team-activities to something more general (that is, conversation). A full fledged grammar develops, all in the milieu of hand talk.
The generalization of talk is very successful, expanding brain volume and group size.
0032 Humans evolve in social circles of increasing size. Larger circles have different dynamics than smaller circles. Bands are permanent. Bands gather in community. Communities are semi-permanent. Communities gather into mega-bands. Mega-bands are seasonal. Mega-bands gather into tribes. Tribes meet occasionally.
Adaptation togatherings of the larger groups includes the use of the voice for social synchronization. When the tribe gathers, time is limited. Everyone must quickly get in sync. The voice comes under neural control for singing. The Neanderthal and the Denisovan most likely practice lingusitic hand talk and sing.
0033 With the speciation of anatomically modern humans, around 200,000 years ago, the voice is exapted for language. The voice joins hand talk. From the very start, Homo sapiens practices hand-speech talk.
Hand-speech talk lasts for hundreds of thousands of years, until…
Something weird happens.
0034 Slightly before 7800 years ago, one culture drops the hand talk component of hand-speech talk. The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia forms when rising ocean waters fill the formerly dry-lands of the Persian Gulf, pushing a river and coast dwelling mesolithic culture into the same territory as a dry-land stock-breeding culture. The cultures meld, despite thier vastly different traditions. Their way of talking breaks down into pidgin. The resulting creole is unrelated to any family of languages. This creole is the Sumerian language. Sumerian is a linguistic isolate.
0035 The Ubaid culture is the first speech-alone talking culture. Speech-alone talk has very different semiotic qualities than hand-speech talk. Speech-alone talk cannot image or point to anything. So, the referent cannot define the word. Instead, message, meaning and presence is projected into the mind, as if there is a referent that is pictured or pointed to.
0036 Does that sound like the snake-like serpent talking to Eve?
The snake says speech-alone words and Eve projects message, meaning and presence into the forbidden fruit.
This is what we do in our current Lebensweltof speech-alone talk. Such projection is not possible in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, of hand and hand-speech talk.
0037 Needless to say, this shift in the semiotic qualities of talk potentiates the formation of unconstrained social complexity, including civilization. Speech-alone talk spreads to the far corners of the Earth, on the wings of power and wealth, the fruits of unconstraind social and labor specialization.
0038 Yes, the key to the talking serpent is this: The serpent has no limbs. It cannot engage in hand talk. Therefore, it presents an image of the actualization of speech-alone talk.
How creepy is that?
The talking serpent is more real that anyone imagined.
The talking serpent is a clue tothe esse_ce of the story of Adam and Eve.
0039 Fr. Dwight Longenecker is onto something. The stories of the Bible have esse_ce and essence.
Longenecker’s work on the infant narratives stands at the threshold of the use of both Jungian psychology and independent inquiry to address revelation. Real world events, like grains of sand, hide within Biblical stories, embodying pearls of revelation. In myth, esse_ce meets essence.
