Looking at Slavoj Zizek’s Book (2024) “Christian Atheism” (Part 2 of 33)
0016 With the final chapter behind me, I turn to the introduction (pages 1-22).
Oh! Before I complete my turning, a brief discussion of Peirce’s category of secondness is appropriate.
As already noted, secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.
Two hylomorphes come to mind. The first belongs to secondness. The second belongs to firstness.
0017 The first goes with Aristotle. The two real elements are matter and form. The contiguity, placed in brackets for proper nomenclature, carries the label, “substance”. Of course, the word, “substance”, has fallen on hard times in our modern age. People talk about substance abuse. Here, I add one more meaning, presence and message. The messageis that actuality is real. The presence is between two real elements. The meaning is the contiguity between matter and form.
Here is a picture.

0018 The second goes with what is of the Positivist’s judgment. The Positivist’s judgment is first developed in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues). A judgment contains three elements: relation, what is and what ought to be. When each of these elements is assigned to one of Peirce’s categories, the judgment becomes actionable. An actionable judgment unfolds into a category-based nested form.
0019 So, what is what is of the Positivist’s judgment?
I call it, “Kant’s slogan”, even though Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) never uttered the formulation. Or, maybe he did. A noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena. The thing itself [cannot be objectified by] its observable and measurable facets.
Here is a picture.

0020 This apparent hylomorphe belongs to firstness. It has the appearance of secondness, because it is a hylomorphe. Yet, it is a monad, belonging to the realm of possibility. How is it a monad? A noumenon does not exist without its phenomena. And, visa versa. What is odd is that only phenomena are observed and measured by scientists. Science ignores the noumenon.
The Aristotle’s hylomorphe applies to the noumenon. Aristotle’s hylomorphe is the first step in natural philosophy. Yet, the noumenon is abandoned by empirio-schematics. The thing itself is the coin that moderns toss into the ferryman’s hand for passage across the river into the land of science.
0021 Now, for some practice, I offer a few examples.
The following content-level actuality pertains to industrial scale… um… production. Production is on the content-level of a three-level interscope. The market stands on the situation level. Assessment occupies the third level.
0021 Here is the hylomorphe.

The two real elements are raw materials and specified product. The contiguity is [construction]. What about pollution? Well, pollution is a possibility1 that must be… um… situated.
If I compare the above figure to Aristotle’s hylomorphe and what is of the Positivist’s judgment, then I suppose that the former wins out.
0022 Here is a more disconcerting example. It applies to the content-level of the post-truth condition (as discussed in Parts 1-3 of Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues). The content-level is labeled, “the scrappy player”.

0024 What is the [contiguity] with this hylomorphe?
It depends on the beholder.
For someone like another scrappy player, the contiguity is [reflects], or even, [substantiates].
So, what I think [substantiates] what I say.
An expert surveys the scrappy player, in order to build psychometric models. The contiguity between the two content-level real elements is not [substantiates]. It is Kant’s slogan, [cannot be objectified as]. What I think corresponds to noumenon, the thing itself. What I say expresses the noumenon’s observable and measurable facets.
So, what I think [cannot be objectified as] what I say.
I ask, “Which of these hylomorphes is more likely to belong to Zizek’s audience?”
0025 One more example?
I have two real elements on the perspective level. The perspective level virtually puts the situation level into context. The situation level virtually situates the content level.
The two real elements?
One is capital and acquisition. These are real elements that sustain the doctrines of capitalism.
The other is social and the exercise of order. These are real elements that sustain the doctrines of socialism.
0026 The substance is [wealth and power].
Here is a picture of the hylomorphe.

If I compare this hylomorphe to Aristotle’s exemplar, then [wealth and power] are not real elements. They are the contiguity between capital & acquisition as matter and social & exercise of order as form. The entire hylomorphe, just like Aristotle’s matter [substance] form, constitutes a single thing.
0027 If I separate these two real elements and treat them independently, then what happens to the contiguity? Wealth reifies into matter. Power reifies into form.
If I want the two real elements to serve as matter and form2c, within one “emancipated collective”, then the actuality2cmust be contextualized by a normal context3c and potential1c that do not reify [wealth and power]. Is this what Zizek aims for? Christ3 is the normal context3 and ‘truth’1 is the potential1.

0028 What is the alternative to Zizek’s perspective-level configuration?
If I compare the above actuality2 to what is of the Positivist’s judgment, then capital & acquisition would associate to a noumenon and social & the exercise of order would correspond to its phenomena.
This is clearly nonsense.
Or is it?
What if social institutions and the sovereign exercise of order are the observable and measurable facets of capital and the capacity to acquire? Then, [wealth and power] operate as a veil, in so far as {capital and acquisition [cannot be objectified as] sociality and the sovereign exercise of order}2.
0029 Egads! Does this imply that both capital & acquisition and sociality & political order emerge from (and situate) a death drive1 that reproduces itself as a way to maintain the life of some particular Relativist One3?
Plus, does the Relativist One3 stay alive by maintaining the scientific actuality2 that {capital & acquisition [cannot be objectified as] sociality & the sovereign exercise of order}2…
…even though [wealth and power] is the natural and philosophical contiguity between the two real elements?

Only one who stands independent of the financial, the labor, the bourgeois, the proletariat, the religious, the irreligious and all other jurisdictions can contextualize such a serpentine actuality2.
Plus, the Relativist one3 operates on the potential of… ‘what’1?
‘Staying alive’?
Or ‘fixating on wealth and power as two distinct and independent… spiritual beings’?
What potential is so delusional as to support the twisted contiguity where [wealth and power] also corresponds to [cannot be objectified as] within the actuality2 of Zizek’s perspective?
Oh, I have an idea.
It probably includes the potential to crucify Christ1.