09/29/23

Looking at Appendix 1.1 in Brian Kemple’s Book (2019) “The Intersection” (Part 1 of 18)

0028 This is the second blog in a series.

Looking at Brian Kemple’s Book (2019) “Intersection” appears in Razie Mah’s blog from May 15 through 18, 2023. In that brief examination (points 0001-0027), a technical category-based definition of the term, “intersection” is shown to mesh with the theme of Kemple’s book, whose full title is The Intersection of Semiotics and Phenomenology: Peirce and Heidegger in Dialogue (Walter de Gruyter, Boston/Berlin).

To me, that is fascinating.

0029 In this series of blogs, I examine Kemple’s appendices.

Yes, he has more than one appendix.

Plus, there are subdivisions.

0030 Appendix 1.1 is titled, “Presentative forms and the grounding of transcendence”. My associations will draw upon A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, as well as A Primer on Natural Signs, Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings, and Comments on Newell Sasha’s Article (2018) “The Affectiveness of Symbols”. These primers and comments touch base with Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”, which is available, along with the other mentioned e-works, at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0031 The title of Appendix 1.1 contains two technical terms.

“Presentative forms” is a term coined by Jacques Maritain and literally means a form that is substantiated by its presentation, rather than by matter. The hylomorphe is presentation [substantiates] form, rather than matter [substantiates] form.

“The grounding of transcendence” is a phrase used by Martin Heidegger. It conveys what the presentative form accomplishes. The presentative form accomplishes more than matter-substantiated form, because it leads to (grounds) another form, which is located at a higher categorical level (transcendence).

0032 Surely, this implies that presentative forms and the grounding of transcendence coincide in a particular way. The “matter” of the presentative form associates to the adjacent lower category of its corresponding “form”.

Is this is a general feature of presentative forms?

Well, the claim is a good working hypothesis.

09/5/23

Looking at Appendix 3 in Brian Kemple’s Book (2019) “The Intersection” (Part 18 of 18)

0161 What about Appendix 3, titled “Synechism and semiosis”?

0162 Well, I best look into Appendix 4, which presents a helpful list of definitions.

“Synechism” is a principle of continuity. There are no hard and fast distinctions between possibilities, because firstness is monadic. In the empirio-schematic judgment, the dyad, a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena, exists in the realm of possibility and obeys this principle. There are no phenomena without their noumenon. There is no noumenon without its phenomena. The hazards of synechism are yet to be deeply appreciated. For scientific inquiry, what happens when certain actors claim to be observing the phenomena of a noumenon which is not… um… obvious to other people?

“Tychism” is a corollary of synechism. Peirce envisions chance (er… possibility) as universal. Without possibility, there is no actuality or normal context. If there is an actuality that appears out of nowhere, in such a fashion that it has no normal context, then we are back to phenomena of a noumenon which is not… um… subject to understanding.

“Semiosis” is the action of signs. Signs are triadic relations. Triadic relations constitute the human niche.

0163 For the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, our ancestors adapt to an ultimate niche as well as many proximate niches. This means that hominin evolution is both convergent, with respect to our ultimate niche, and divergent, with respect to many proximate niches. The ultimate niche is the potential of triadic relations. The proximate niches are regional ecologies and environments.

Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk. Hand talk relies on the semiotic qualities of icons and indexes to motivate a relation between parole (hand talk) and langue (mental processing). As this motivated relation becomes more and more conventional (that is, habitual within hominin social circles), hand-talk gestures become more and more like signs in an arbitrary system of differences (that is, symbols). Grammar consists of symbolic operations within a finite set of symbols. By the time anatomically modern humans appear, hand talk is fully linguistic.

0164 Speech is added to hand talk with the appearance of our own species, Homo sapiens.

Humans practice hand-speech talk for around 200,000 years, with great success.

0165 Around 7,800 years ago, the end of the previous ice age raises sea-levels, flooding shallow geological basins such as what is now the Persian Gulf. In the process, two hand-speech talking cultures, one settled on the basin and one settled along the coast and river gorge, are forced into proximity. A pidgin and then a creole ensues. The creole is the Sumerian language (unrelated to the nearby Semitic languages). But, more importantly, this creole is the first instance of speech-alone talk.

At its inception, the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the only culture in the world practicing speech-alone talk.

It is no coincidence that the world’s earliest civilization arises in southern Mesopotamia.

Speech-alone talk potentiates civilization.

0166 Our current Lebenswelt is marked by speech-alone talk. Speech-alone talk spreads from the Ubaid to the four-corners of the world, potentiating unconstrained social complexity wherever it goes.

7800 years ago, the world population may have been as many as seven million.

Today, it is seven billion.

Such is the significance of the first singularity, the transition from hand-speech talk to speech-alone talk.

0167 Heidegger is a German philosopher who strives to restart Western philosophy after it fumbles its founding charisma.

Peirce is a precocious American post-modern who becomes fascinated with one of the crucial questions asked by scholastic philosophers, “What is the causality inherent to the sign-relation?”

0168 Both these philosophers propose ideas that address a single question, “What is the nature of our current Lebenswelt?”

Their answers apply to a single actuality.

0169 I do not know the name of this actuality, but I do appreciate the significance of Kemple’s attempt to delineate an intersection (without being aware that the term, “intersection”, might have a technical definition that supports his inquiry).

An intersection is an actuality composed of two actualities, each of which has its own nested form.

0170 For these reasons, Brian Kemple’s book, The Intersection of Semiotics and Phenomenology: Peirce and Heidegger in Dialogue, deserves interest. While my examinations, so far, covering the term, “intersection”, and the appendices, are sparse, they are suggestive. There is a lot at play within the pages of this book.

06/9/23

Looking at Betsy DeVos’s Book (2022) “Hostages No More” (Part 1 of 8)

0001 Betsy DeVos serves as the eleventh Secretary of Education of the US Federal Government. She advocates for reform. She speaks for herself. Whether her message is heard by the people is another matter. Her book’s full title is Hostages No More: The Fight for Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child. The publisher is Center Street (Nashville, New York), a division of Hachette Book Group (New York).

0002 Hachette?

Isn’t that French for “tiny axe”?

0003 Well, I have my own little cognitive hatchet. It is called the category-based nested form. I used this tool in the May 2023 blog (www.raziemah.com), Looking at Heather Heying and Bret Weinsteins’s Book (2021) “A Hunter-Gather’s Guide to the 21st Century”.

Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein resigned from modern higher education in 2017 and are now offering guidance, in the form of the Darkhorse podcast. These two were not about to be held hostage by the minions of big government (il)liberalism (BG(il)L: spoken “bigilib”).

Why did these two professors run from the BG(il)L education system?

Perhaps, it no longer teaches critical thinking, unless, of course, one alters the definition of the term, “critical”.

Does “critical” mean “be skeptical” or does it mean “situate by Marxist resentment”? Most people would point to the former, but educators teaching so-called “critical theory” technically indicate the latter.

The April 2023 blog, Looking at Gad Saad’s Book (2020) “Parasitic Mind”, educes a three-level interscope where three normal contexts align. Social justice_3c virtually brings critical theory_3b into relation with the potential of social constructivism_3a.

0004 Saad’s reality makes Betsy DeVos’s book intriguing.

Do the nested forms obtained in prior examinations apply to Betsy DeVos’s work?

What does that imply?

That is all I axe.

06/1/23

Looking at Betsy DeVos’s Book (2022) “Hostages No More” (Part 8 of 8)

0055 Now comes the moment of truth.

The curtain is closed.

Before it opens, I want to thank Betsy DeVos for taking this reader beyond the notion of school choice and into the dynamics of educational freedom_1c. There is more to be discovered in this new jurisdiction, standing outside the prison of big government_3c (il)liberalism_1c.

0056 Of course, the curtain may never open. People may decide that it is better to live as slaves under the appearance of freedom. But, that collective decision only assures the experts that appearances are no longer necessary. Experts are trained to know these things. Certain experts are prepared to make us slaves to the identities that they have manufactured for us.

0057 Be that as it may, the following diagram presents (what I imagine) is behind the curtain. Betsy DeVos’s educational interscope is a vision to behold.

12/30/22

Looking at Razie Mah’s (2014) A Course on How To Define the Word “Religion” (Part 1 of 24)

0001 Many home and private schoolers face a difficulty.

They want to teach their children and students about God and nature.

At the same time, they want their children and students to pass standardized tests constructed by government agencies that declare themselves to be “not religious”.

Can a “not religious” sovereign establish a religion?

I like to call this apparent anomaly, “Big Government (il)Liberalism”.

Other names also apply.

0002 Indeed, parents and teachers suspect that the standards… or perhaps, the norms… of these godless educational… er, indoctrinating agencies do not allow a type of thinking that has been common to Christian civilization since its inception. This type of thinking is both analytic and synthetic and is promulgated by the schoolmen (or “scholastics”) of the so-called “Middle Ages”.

As it turns out, scholastic debates concerning mind-independent and mind-dependent reality end up with a definition of sign-relation that incorporates modern science, while at the same time transcending it.

Of course, the mechanical philosophers of the 1600s don’t know this. Modern scientists try to model observations and measurements of phenomena, using their highly specialized disciplinary languages. These models break down into two elements: cause and effect.

But, material and physical cause and effect cannot describe the causality inherent in sign relations.

0003 Surely, there are three elements to all existence.

Charles Peirce (1839-1914 AD) reads Francisco Suarez (1548-1617), a Baroque Scholastic, and comes up with the idea that there are three categories. Firstness has one element. Secondness (which includes mechanical science) has two elements. Thirdness has three. These three categories describe the causality inherent in a sign relation.

These three categories are also the foundation for the category-based nested form.

0004 So, what does this mean to parents and teachers?

None of the government agencies, who declare themselves to be “scientific”, can define the sign as a triadic relation.

So, perhaps that is a good place to start.

0005 Semiotics encompasses the natural sciences, not the other way around.

Teaching your students the analytic and synthetic practices of the category-based nested form and semiotics will prepare them for technology, engineering and mathematics. Science typifies secondness. And, secondness stands between thirdness and firstness.

Say what?

Take a look at the following figure. Even without familiarity with Peirce’s categories, the diagram tells a story concerning the relevance of triadic relations₁ in regards to inquiry₃ and science₂. Understanding is not the same as scientific determination.

0006 What about the social sciences?

I wonder, can modern social scientists observe and measure social phenomena?

Can they model observations of religious behavior, when they describe themselves as “not religious”?

If everyone can be religious and if social scientists choose not to be religious in order to build models of their observations of those who are, then isn’t there some sort of contradiction?

Or, is that the nature of specialization?

Speaking of specialization, sociologists do not study psychology. Psychologists do not study sociology. Plus, sociology and psychology ignore biology. All these disciplines are alchemically sealed within their own academic echo-chambers. They cannot hear one another.

Say what?

0007 The category-based nested form is a triadic relation, that is both synthetic and analytic. It is useful for reading texts. It is a powerful tool for picturing the purely relational characteristics of psychology, sociology, cognition and evolution.

A Course on How to Define the Word “Religion” offers a unique path into topics covered by the so-called “social sciences”, without the blinders of BG(il)L.

Please consider this course when developing a curriculum for your children and your students.

12/2/22

Looking at Razie Mah’s Series (2015) A Course on How To Define the Word “Religion” (Part 24 of 24)

0161 In conclusion, many home and private schoolers face a difficulty.

They want to teach their children and students about God and nature.

At the same time, they want their children and students to pass standardized tests constructed by government agencies that promulgate a religion, even though they declare themselves to be “not religious”.

This course is one way to approach the difficulty.

This course offers a path, a text, along which you, the adult, and your children and your students may walk together.

0162 No other work in the field of education in 2022 compares.

Except of course, other courses by Razie Mah, such as A Course on The Archaeology of the Fall and A Course on the Human Niche.

Welcome to the fourth age of understanding.

0163 A Course on How To Define The Word “Religion” may be found at smashwords and other e-book vendors, using the search terms: Razie Mah, series, course, how to define the word “religion”.

The course consists of ten primers, followed by the masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”.

Each primer and masterwork is punctuated, not by page numbers, but by points. A one-hour class may cover between twenty and forty points. That is a little slower than one per minute. If you conduct a class, record the number of points covered per session and report to raziemah@reagan.com.

0164 These blogs provide a taste of the style and the content. They complement, rather than substitute, for the primers and the masterwork.

I hope that you enjoy these blogs and pass them onto others who may serve as guides in a world where education is the job of parents and those similarly motivated, rather than those who are certified by the state.

God bless.

07/29/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 1 of 10)

0001 Matthew B. Crawford, at University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, publishes an essay at the website, UnHerd, on May 21, 2022. The website is worth investigating. Crawford is worth reading.

0002 But, that is not my only motive for this sequence of blogs.

It turns out that well-organized writers provide excellent material for triadic diagrams. These blogs aim re-articulate Crawford’s argument, following the technique of association and implication. The method is the same as with the other blog this month, concerning Vigano’s speech on how Vatican II serves the agenda of the Great Reset crowd.

0003 The title of Crawford’s essay is displayed in the header. The subtitle reveals the nature of the endgame. Liberal individualism has an innate tendency towards authoritarianism. That tendency manifests as real behavior.

0004 What is the real behavior?

Italian Giorgio Agamben (b. 1942) captures its essence with the political philosophical… or is it theological?.. label, “state of exception”. During the past eighty years, emergency declarations become more and more the norm. An emergency declaration inaugurates a state of exception and provides cover for top-down programs of social transformation.

0005 What do emergency-justified “liberal” projects aim to accomplish?

The core of the “liberal” regime is both political and anthropological: to remake humans.So, the answer depends on the meaning of “make”.

07/29/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 2 of 10)

0006 How are humans to be reconfigured?

Two key political philosophers articulate two visions.

0008 John Locke (1632-1704 AD) regards humans as self-governing creatures. Humans are endowed with reason. Commonsense allows us to rule ourselves. Democracy is the mode of government most suitable for reasonable citizens.

Liberals remake humans by changing their votes.

Locke’s position may be re-articulated as a nested form. A nested form? See A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

Here is the nested form. The normal context of human nature₃ brings the actuality of commonsense₂ into relation with the potential of a form of governance suited for self-governing people₁. Democracy₁ labels that potential₁. Democracy₁ is the potential of a state arising from self-governing people₁.

Here is a diagram.

0009 Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679 AD) claims that each human is vulnerable, especially in regards to other humans. Every person is vulnerable to the ambitions of other people. We need a state to protect us (from one another).

Liberals remake humans asking the government to protect them from harm.

Hobbes’s position may be re-articulated as a nested form.

The normal context of the state of nature₃ brings the vulnerability of each person (especially with respect to other people)₂ into relation with the possibility that the state will protect us (from ourselves)₁. Hobbes has a label for a form of governance that manifests the potential of protecting us from one another. He calls it₁ “leviathan”. Leviathan₁ is the potential of a state capable of protecting us (from one another)₁.

Here is a picture.

0010 From its inception, the liberal civic religion holds both Locke’s and Hobbes’s positions as a mysterious union. Of course, this union is filled with contradictions that cannot be resolved. But, that is the nature of mystery.

What is a mystery?The chapter on message, in Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”, describes a relational structure corresponding to mystery. An intersection of two nested forms portrays a mystery.

07/28/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 3 of 10)

0011 What is the relation between the following two nested forms?

Remember that democracy₁ is the potential of a state arising from self-governing people₁ and leviathan₁ is the potential of a state capable of protecting us (from one another)₁.

0012 Enlightenment liberals know that each nested form does not emerge from and situate the other.

The normal contexts are different. For example, the word, “nature”, in the two normal contexts, has different meanings, presences and messages.

Similarly, the potentials are different.

For example, the second amendment of the original American Constitution says that all citizens can own and carry guns.

On the one hand, any rational person has the right to defend “himself”, especially against those who would take “his” property (such as a zealous government official). That’s democratic.

On the other hand, a zealous government official may be commissioned to protect “vulnerable persons”. Vulnerable persons may be conditioned to fear people carrying guns. The self-acknowledged vulnerable folk may demand that the zealous government official take the guns (property) away from other citizens. That’s leviathan.

The Constitution rules in favor of democracy.

0013 So, how do the two nested forms relate to one another?

Enlightenment liberals know that both nested forms constitute a single, contradiction-ridden entity. I call this actuality_2′, “the individual”.

The individual_2′ is an actuality that is constituted by the intersection of two nested forms. The intersection binds two independent actualities. According to the masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”, intersections associate to the message underlying the word. Intersections are mysteries.

0014 The construction may be also be portrayed in the following fashion.

Now, that looks like an intersection.

This diagram conveys the mystery underlying the liberal civic religion, which accompanies the spread of democracy in the modern Age of Ideas.

07/28/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 4 of 10)

0015 Usually, an intersection serves as an actuality₂ in a category-based nested form.

Here is a picture.

0016 But, according to the chapter on presence in the e-book, How To Define The Word “Religion”, the individual in community_A belongs to firstness in the following undifferentiated nested form. Each element in the figure below designates an interscope (a nested form composed of nested forms).

Yes, the mystery of liberalism_2′ applies to the tier related to firstness_A. It_2′ resonates with the actualities contained in the interscope for the individual in community_A. The comparison will be further developed, later.

0017 Since the liberal tradition is a civic religion, liberalism also belongs to the society_C tier.

The society_C tier contains two types of religion, ones above the sovereign_bC (suprasovereign_cC) and those below the sovereign_bC (infrasovereign_aC).

The three levels of the society_C tier are (from top to bottom) suprasovereign_cC, sovereign_bC and infrasovereign_aC.

In comparison, for the individual in community_A tier, the three levels are judgment_cA, perceptions and phantasms_bA, and sensations, decodings, impressions and feelings_aA.

“Decodings” convert what someone speaks into a meaning, presence and message underlying the statement.

0018 I offer this comparison because liberalism is a religion on the society_C tier. Yet, a core mystery of liberalismcoincides with the virtual nested form, in the realm of actuality, for the individual in community_A tier.

So, allow me to juxtapose the virtual nested forms in the realm of actuality, for both the society_C and individual in community_A tiers.

0019 So, the question arises, “Is liberalism a suprasovereign or an infrasovereign religion?”

This answer is both. Liberalism consists of many different institutions_3aC, striving to remake humanity_1aC, according to diverse organizational objectives_2cC. The variety of causes is enormous, from teaching people proper manners to ending human trafficking. These causes appeal to the commonsense_2V and the awareness of vulnerability_2H characterizing individuals_2′.

Only fools have no commonsense_2V. Only sociopaths have no awareness of vulnerability_2H.

So all liberal institutions, appealing to anyone who is not a fool or a sociopath, share a relational object_2cC, the mysterious intersection of Locke’s and Hobbes’s nested forms.

Furthermore, this relational object_2cC, is an actuality that associates to the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality for the individual in community_A tier.

An Archaeology of the Fall

A Horror Story by Razie Mah

Tag Archives: interscope