Here is another online course on the same subject matter. All parts appear in Razie Mah’s blogs. Click on the month, then scroll downwards.
0012 These are sample courses. So, one may pick and choose points and reviews as one pleases.
Plus, there are lots of pictures. Pictures can be interesting and informative.
How so?
For the most part, the pictures are diagrams of purely relational structures.
0013 What am I selling?
Three online courses that cover the topic of human evolution. All are offered by Razie Mah. All are available at smashwords and other e-book venues. Merely purchase the e-books, print the pdf or read on a tablet. Each point can be discussed. The texts are designed to read and discuss.
A Course on the Human Niche contains the masterwork, plus four commentaries. This course introduces the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
A Course on An Archaeology of the Fall, contains the masterwork, plus outside reading (Paul’s letter to the Romans and Sura 5). An instructor’s guide is available. This course pertains to the hypothesis of the first singularity.
A Course in How To Define the Word “Religion” contains the masterwork, plus 10 primers. This course concerns our current Lebenswelt, which is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. A “how-to” instruction appears in Razie Mah’s blog in December 2022.
0014 With that said, here is the second online course on this topic.
One: Looking at William Lane Craig’s Book (2021) “In Quest of the Historical Adam”
(September 31-1, 2022, 21 blogs, 120 points)
Two: Looking at John Walton’s Book (2015) “The Lost World of Adam and Eve”
(August 30-1, 2022, 22 blogs, 192 points)
Three: Looking at Andrew Kulokovsky’s Overview (2005) “The Bible and Hermeneutics”
(May 27-16, 2022, 10 blogs, 85 points)
Four: Looking at Carol Hill’s Article (2021) “Original Sin with Respect to Science”
(February 25-7, 2022, 15 blogs, 72 points)
Five: Looking at Roy Clouser’s Article (2021) “… Support of Carol Hill’s Reading…”
(March 8-1, 2022, 6 blogs, 34 points)
Six: Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil”
(January 31-13, 2022, 16 blogs, 100 points)
0015 Total: 90 blogs, 603 points, 10 hours at 1 minute per point.
Maybe, this online course lasts around 2 weeks.
Enjoy this sample and consider purchasing Razie Mah’s online courses.
EOT 0001 The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language.
Language evolves in the milieu of hand-talk.
So, what is the story?
0002 A course on the topic of human evolution is already on the market.
See Razie Mah’s, A Course on the Human Niche, consisting of the masterwork, plus four commentaries.
The Human Niche
Comments on Clive Gamble, John Gowlett and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big
Comments on Derek Bickerton’s Book (2014) More Than Nature Needs
Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2016) Why Only Us?
Comments on Steven Mithen’s Book (1996) The Prehistory of Mind.
0003 The works are available for purchase at various e-book venues. In order to conduct the course, purchase the e-book to read on a tablet (or as a PDF to print). The class is not didactic. It is Socratic. The style is read and discuss. The text is broken into points. Each point can be discussed. So, a leisurely class may open the text, read out loud and ask what the point suggests.
0004 The masterwork came out in 2018 and is still highly relevant to inquiry into the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
How so?
The human niche is the potential of triadic relations.
No other course on human evolution poses this ground-breaking hypothesis.
0005 Nonetheless, six years later, Razie Mah adds to the first course with a second, consisting in two sequences of blogs. This blog-inclusive (as well as e-book exclusive) course serves as a supplement to the master course, especially in regards to the evolution of talk.
0006 The first sequence is collated and rounded out in a compilation, titled, Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019), making the blogs and the compilation ideal for a guided- and home-schooling course.
Michael Tomasello worked at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology for twenty years. He wrote a series of books on the evolution of human cognition, communication, thinking, morality and so on. In short, his books cover the evolution of the stuff of talk.
0007 Here is a list of the five commentaries in this first sequence.
One: Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (1999) “The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition”
(January 18-31, 2024, 12 blogs, 0-82 points)
Two: Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (2008) “Origins of Human Communication”
(January 17-4, 2024, 12 blogs, 83-186 points)
Three: Looking at Michael Thomasello’s Book (2014) “A Natural History of Human Thinking”
(February 29-5, 2024, 22 blogs, 187-388 points, completes Part 1 of Comments, see below)
Four: Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (2016) “A Natural History of Human Morality”
(March 26-1, 2024, 22 blogs, 389-600 points)
Five: Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Book (2019) “Becoming Human”
(points 601-793 are in Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) Part 2, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues)
0008 Yes, to complete the course, one needs to purchase Part 2.
How sneaky is that?
So, that is the meaning of “blog-inclusive and e-book exclusive”.
0009 The second sequence is collated in the compilation, titled, Synaesthesia and The Bicameral Mind in Human Evolution. This compilation packages two commentaries on human evolution and sets the scene for a study of the first singularity.
This list continues the previous numbering.
Six: Looking at Steven Mithen’s Book (2024) “The Language Puzzle”
(September 29-4, 2025, 23 blogs, 0-235 points)
Seven: A First Look at Julian Jaynes’s Book (1976) “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”.
(October 31-8, 2025, 21 blogs, 235-525 points)
0010 Overall, this hybrid online-onsale course on the evolution of talk, by Razie Mah, are available for sampling (on the blog) and may be purchased at any e-book venue.
Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019), Parts 1 and 2 contains 753 points.
Synaesthesia and the Bicameral Mind in Human Evolution contains 525 points.
0011 Total: 1278 points, 21 hours at 1 minute per point.
Perhaps, this online course lasts around 4 to 5 weeks.
Enjoy this sample and consider purchasing other Razie Mah’s online courses, especially the one on the human niche.
0001 The full title of the book before me is The Language Puzzle: Piecing Together The Six-Million-Year Story Of How Words Evolved (2024, Basic Books, New York). Dr. Mithen is a Professor of Early Prehistory at the University of Reading. He has published before. More on that later.
The book works on the metaphor of a jigsaw puzzle. Fourteen chapters present the pieces. The introduction and conclusion stage and arrange them.
0002 This current metaphor is very different than a glorious historical metaphor used in a book published almost three decades earlier. The Prehistory of The Mind (1996) offers the historical development of the architecture of cathedrals in Europe as a lens for considering cognitive evolution. The metaphor works well because the nave associates to general intelligence and side chapels associate to specialized mental modules.
0003 From the genetic divergence from chimpanzees to the start of bipedalism, the simple nave of general intelligenceadapts to cognitive challenges.
From the appearance of bipedalism to the domestication of fire, specialized modules are added to general intelligence, but the two do not integrate. Indeed, both specialized modules and general intelligence are supported by their own, thick, walls. The metaphor is the Romanesque cathedral.
From the domestication of fire until the first singularity (think, “the potentiation of civilization”), general intelligence integrates with specialized modules, presumably due to talk becoming fully linguistic. Language becomes the walls, supported by flying buttresses of automatic decoding. The metaphor is the Gothic cathedral.
0004 Here is a picture.
0005 The metaphor is so wonderful that Razie Mah publishes the e-book, Comments on Steven Mithen’s Book (1996) The Prehistory of The Mind as one of the readers that accompanies the masterwork, The Human Niche, in the series A Course On The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).
0006 Mithen’s approach is also echoed in the work of another evolutionary anthropologist, Michael Tomasello, working at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, as discussed in Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) (by Razie Mah, also see blogs for January through March, 2024).
0007 Mithen’s approach is also reflected in another review that belongs to the series, A Course On The Human Niche. The title is Comments on Clive Gamble, John Gowlett and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big. In this review, social circles turn out to be very important in hominin evolution. Mammalian brain size roughly correlates to group size. So, the larger the hominin brain grows, the larger the group.
Not surprisingly, Mithen’s metaphor indicates the social circle under the most intense selection pressure, irrespective of group size.
0008 What does this imply?
Obviously, group size is not the crucial factor in hominin evolution.
Whatever is increasing hominin brain size is.
0006 To me, it is not surprising that Mithen has not encountered Razie Mah’s review of his 1996 work, even though it is one of the few more-than-surface reflections on The Prehistory of The Mind available.
Perhaps, the same will go for this blog, which will take Mithen’s metaphor of a jigsaw puzzle quite literally.
0229 So, what is The Language Puzzle about, in an implicit sort of way?
It is about how speech gets added to hand talk after the domestication of fire.
The irony of the work is found in Mithen’s explicit denial of the gestural origins of language, while…
… at the same time, the author provides a solution to a question that he cannot even pose.
0230 Examinations don’t get better than this.
This examination adds value to Mithen’s work in a surprising fashion.
0231 This examination suggests that a tremendous amount of theoretical reformulation needs to be done. In particular, the following juxtaposition of events is suggestive.
0232 I ask, “Does Homo sapien’s encounter, love affair, then divorce from the Neanderthals create a condition where speech becomes more and more independent as a mode of talking? Does speech become capable of operating linguistically, independent of hand talk, yet remain integrated into the natural-sign references of hand-talk?”
0233 Take a look at the artifact of the lion-man, pictured in figure 3 on page 28 of Mithen’s text.
Maybe, we can ask him.
Do you think that he has something to say to us?
Surely, he cannot perform hand-talk.
So, the lion-man must speak for itself.
0233 Yes,it’s like synaesthesia gone wild.
0234 But, “wild” is not even close to this last implication, which tells me that our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
What about the item in red?
See Razie Mah’s e-books, The First Singularity and It’s Fairy Tale Trace (for a technical proposal) and An Archaeology of the Fall (for a dramatic rendering), available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0235 With that said, I thank Steven Mithen for publishing a book that can be fruitfully read both explicitly and implicitly.
Also, the story does not end here, because this examination plays a prominent role in the next commentary, Looking at Julian Jaynes’s Book (1976) “The Origin of Consciousness in The Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”.
0001 The book before me is published by Archaic Lens Publishing (North Carolina). The author posts podcasts on youtube, writes on twitter, and has a website, www.archaiclens.com. The book’s subtitle is The Thread that Connects the Ancient World.
0002 The author documents navel idols that are readily identifiable to the human eye on the basis of several characteristics, as shown below.
0003 They appear at the dawn of history, in regions that will end up civilized, but before any advances in the direction of labor and social specializations. Later, the idols will associate to the Chalcolithic (the Copper Age), corresponding to the era before the Bronze Age (when copper is mixed with other ingredients to create effective weapons).
The oldest navel figure is Urfu man, recovered from Gobekli Tepe in Turkey (Anatolia) and dating to around 10,000 B.C. This is long before the end of the last interglacial. The megastructure site associates to the pre-pottery Neolithic, which comes before the pottery Neolithic. Subsequent Neolithic cultures throughout southwestern Asia will be labeled and identified on the basis of their pottery.
Also, Gobekli Tepe is not associated with a sedentary settlement, such as the contemporaneous Catal Huyuk.
0004 So, what am I saying?
Gobekli Tepe, Catal Huyuk and similar sites do not end up constellating into a tangle of unconstrained social and labor specializations, where social circles transmogrify into networks of economic and political-religious affiliations.
0005 In the section on Turkey, the author makes an interesting point. The body habitus of Urfu man appears in statuary and figurines in early civilizations around the world. The further from Gobekli Tepe, the later in time these navel idols appear.
Ironically, this point is precisely the rule of thumb held by archaeologists during the early twentieth century. The further from southern Mesopotamia, the later an early civilization forms.
0006 Coincidence?
Or is one observation swept up in the other?
0007 In the section on Turkey, the author includes a watercolor image of an awkward looking small artifact, with enormous alien-like eyes, v-neck adornment and hand on either side of navel. This clay figurine dates to around 5,000 B.C., during the copper age, according to the British Museum.
This artifact dates to 5,000 years after Gobekli Tepe.
The prehistoric cultures associated with the later artifact occur on the cusp of civilization, where the term, “civilization” is characterized by unconstrained labor and social specialization.
0008 A look at the sections on the Kosovo, Serbia and the Balkans support this association. The navel idols of the Vinca culture (5850-5750 B.C.) appear similar to the latter Turkey artifact. The Vinca culture practices farming, animal husbandry and copper smelting. A similar pattern occurs in Bulgaria. These cultures are on their way to increasing social complexity.
0009 The pattern will hold for all navel idols found to the west of the Aegean Sea. The navel idols and the Chalcolithic and other features, such as astronomy-related megalithic arrangements, spread west from southwestern Asia.
Since Gobekli Tepe is pre-pottery and pre-Chalcolithic, it cannot be the direct inspiration for the navel idol figures located the West, five millennia later. So, the old archaeologists’ saying of the early 20th century applies. Something from southern Mesopotamia sends out emissaries bearing the news of not talking with one’s hands, as well as copper manufacture and astronomy.
Indeed, it may be that the cultural efflorescence that builds Gobekli Tepe and other Anatolian sites spreads into northern, then southern Mesopotamia as the glacial climate gives way to the Wet Neolithic of southwestern Asia and northern Africa.
0010 The sea-level rise serves as a good way to demark the navel idols before pottery and copper and the navel idols after.
0030 To the immediate west of Mesopotamia, the navel idols of Israel, dating to 4500-3500 B.C., look like they correspond to the first message. The Canaanite coffins of 1300-1200 B.C. look as if they are inspired by the latter message. The coffins do not contain emissaries from Mesopotamia, they contain Canaanite elites who benefitted from trends towards unconstrained social complexity.
0031 In Sardinia, the messages separate into more than one style of navel icon..
0032 Here, this examiner leaves the reader to use the speculative structure of two messages to appreciate the many navel icons that the author presents in this well-appointed art-book.
To me, the overall picture is clear for the West and for the East (as far as Eurasia is concerned).
The navel icons, as well as their speech-alone talking emissaries, are next involved in establishing a foothold in South America, but the messages are confounded with a trend already occurring in China. The same pose and adornment of the original navel icons are adopted as indications of elite status.
0033 Here is a picture.
0033 The conclusions… er… speculations of this examiner now set forth, I wonder whether the author will agree.
Of course, in this book, the author never entertains the idea that the navel icons are associated with either the bicameral mind (message 1) or the first singularity (message 2).
However, the author hints that intentional diffusion may be a reasonable explanation. The navel icons spread at the cusps of early civilizations throughout Eurasia and the Americas. Plus, there are other novel trends associated with the spread of the navel icons. These include copper metallurgy and… well… something to do with tracking celestial bodies. Oh, I should not forget v-shaped neck adornments.
0034 My thanks to the author for gathering evidence that is obvious to the eye, yet very difficult to account for. Perhaps, this examination, based on two works by Razie Mah, may assist.
0001 This article records a presentation at a symposium on Adam, the Fall, and the goodness of God. The text is published in the journal, Pro Ecclesia (2020), volume 29(4), pages 387-406. I request that the journal to unlock this issue. After all, this lecture is not the only gem, covering a topic that is seldom broached.
0002 The author steps to the podium and posits two axioms. One addresses the evolutionary sciences, in a minimalistic sort of way. The other addresses biblical hermeneutics in the modern age. Ironically, another science hides in the shadow of the second axiom. That science is archaeology.
0003 Here is a picture of the two axioms.
0004 The science axiom poses a double difficulty.
Currently, the biological sciences present all evolution as continuous developments in time, although there are moments of radical… um… “re-organization”, hence the theory of punctuated equilibrium. When the evolutionary sciences cast their models of human evolution into the mirror of theology, the theologian sees a picture that does not quite sync with the wild change of… um… “genre” that occurs the moment after God wraps up the Creation Story, by telling humans that they should give food to the animals (Genesis 1:30).
Speaking of that, here is an application of the two axioms in action.
0005 Mirror of theology?
See Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2014), available at smashwords and other e-book venues, as well as Razie Mah’s blog for the months of April, May and June, 2024.
On the one hand, the mirror of theology embraces the noumenon.
On the other hand, the mirror of theology reflects models proposed by science. Science is not interested in the noumenon, the thing itself. Scientists are only interested in a noumenon’s phenomena. Phenomena are the observable and measurable facets of a noumenon. Scientists build models based on observations and measurements of phenomena. If the model “works”, then scientismists want to say that the model is more real than the thing itself. At this point, natural philosophers and theologians object and say, “No, the scientific model is not more real than the thing itself.”
0006 After an awkward pause, triumphalist scientists reply, “Well, then, how are you going to know anything about the noumenon without our models?”
“Well,” the natural philosophers say, “What about matter and form? I can know these about the noumenon through experience of it.”
“So how are you going to do that when the noumenon is evolutionary history? How can you grasp that though determining its matter and form?”
To which the theologian sighs and says, “Listen, whatever the noumenon is, it cannot be reduced scientific models of its phenomena. So, I will set up a mirror that will reflect your scientific model, so you can be assured that your models are not ignored when I contemplate the metaphysical structures intrinsic to the thing itself, while keeping my mind open to revelation (including the the Bible). I will call it ‘the mirror of theology’.”
0007 To which the scientist counters, “And, we will correspondingly set up a mirror in our domain, a mirror of science. We will look at the theological statements concerning the character of the noumenon, which really should just be replaced by our mathematical and mechanical models. Then, we will laugh at and ridicule them.”
0008 Now, I once again present the odd coincidence pictured before as an application of the two axioms.
Do I have that correctly?
Does the scientist project his model into the mirror of theology?
Does the theologian project his metaphysical analysis into the mirror of science?
How confusing is that?
0008 It seems to me, a mere semiotician, that these two images actually reflect a single real being. The theologian looks into the mirror of theology and sees what evolutionary scientists project, then looks at revelation and locates an appropriate correspondence. Then, when the theologian’s correspondence is viewed by the scientist in their mirror of science, it says, “That is superstitious nonsense!”
“It”?
I thought male and female he created them.
“It” must be a first approximation.
0009 Of course, to the semiotician, the whole situation is sort of funny, because it implies that there is a body of wisdom that is independent of science, but not subject to science, because it concerns the noumenon, the thing itself.
0034 Yes, Razie Mah covers what postmodern scientists should project into the mirror of theology.
Our current Lebenswelt (German for “living world”) is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
The discontinuity is called “the first singularity”.
0035 The discontinuity entails a change in the way humans talk.
The hypothesis is technically described in The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace.
The scientific discovery is dramatically portrayed in An Archaeology of the Fall.
Both texts are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0036 The hypothesis, along with the hypotheses proposed in The Human Niche and How To Define the Word “Religion”,pose significant challenges to the way that human evolution is currently conceptualized. See Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019), as well as Razie Mah’s blog for January through March 2024.
0037 Arnold drills down into the ideological substance of etiology. With the hypothesis of the first singularity,the theologian’s focus on etiology bifurcates precisely along the fault-line between two genres.
Shall theology project this nested form into the mirror in the domain in science?
0038 The first step in Albright’s development scenario corresponds to the stories of Adam and Eve through the Table of Nations (following the stories of Noah’s flood). Here, Albright’s intuition hits the mark. This step corresponds to a phase of human reason, that may be correctly labeled, “proto-logical”.
Not surprisingly, the “proto-logical” label also applies to all the literature of the ancient Near East that is listed by Arnold.
Indeed, the label, “proto-empirical”, also applies.
Imagine passage from a world that thinks in hand-speech talk to a world that thinks in speech-alone talk. The former allows a diversity of implicit abstractions. The latter does not, because explicit abstraction gums up the works of implicit abstraction. In the proto-empirical phase, explicit abstraction starts to establish a life of its own.
0039 Arnold adds that the next etiological phase corresponds to the stories of Abraham. The founding of the people of Israel touches base with Albright’s “empirical” phase. The Biblical text changes in clarity and focus when passing from the mythohistories of Noah to the tales of Abraham. Terah does not move from his long-established home city lightly. He moves for empirical reasons. Yes, it is history, but it is rendered as myth.
0040 So, the Primeval History, along with other written origin stories of the ancient Near East, may be gathered under the catchment of “mytho-history”. This term has the same semiotic structure as “proto-logical” and “proto-empirical”. Yes, it is logical, but it is before formal logic. Yes, it is empirical, but it is before the empirical takes on a life of its own.
0041 Arnold notes that Albright sees how the term, “adamah”, changes from “humanity” to “a personal name”, in the course Genesis 2.4 through 4.
He sees the change as significant and unsettling.
But, he does not have a vision where the stories of Adam and Eve are located in the tourbillion of increasing unconstrained social complexity manifesting in the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia.
0042 Barth smiles at this unsettlement. For this theologian, as soon as Adam is with us, so is Christ.
In the construction of the temple of the heavens and the earth, God creates humans in His image in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
In the manufacture of Adam’s body and the inspiration of Adam’s breath, God creates humans in our current Lebenswelt.
0043 Thus, the discontinuity of the first singularity that appears in the mirror of theology, located in the domain of theology, is reflected back in the mirror of science, located in the domain of science, as the discontinuity between Genesis 2:3 and Genesis 2:4.
I wonder.
Can I imagine that there is only one mirror?
0044 A twenty-first century reading of Genesis challenges evolutionary scientists.
Genesis joins all the written origin stories of the ancient Near East, in proclaiming what evolutionary scientists ignore,humans are created by the gods in recent prehistory. Indeed, a causal observation of the archaeological data demands the proposal of a hypothesis like the first singularity, if only the separate two million years of evolution within constrained social complexity from the 7800 years of theodramatic madness within unconstrained social complexity.
But, there is more, see Razie Mah’s blog on October 1, 2022, for a research project for all of Eurasia.
0045 The stories of Adam and Eve precisely capture the theodramatic character and the absolutely crazy turns of events that typify our current Lebenswelt. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do.
Meanwhile, the Creation Story intimates a deep prehistory, confounding the construction of the temple of the heavens and the earth with a counter-intuitive sequence of events that weirdly coincides with a phenomenological vision of the Earth’s evolutionary “progression”.
0046 A twenty-first century reading of Genesis challenges theologians interested in the noumenon of humans, in our current Lebenswelt.
If the hypothesis of the first singularity becomes more and more plausible, so does a second doctrine of original sin,where the deficits of Augustine’s first attempt are amended, yielding a doctrine that applies to the post-truth condition. See Razie Mah’s blog for January 2, 2024 for a call to action. Also see Razie Mah’s blog for July through October 2024. These blogs will be assembled (for user convenience) as a three-part commentary, Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).
0001 In 2017, the author publishes a book, in Polish, with the English title, “The Metaphysics of Relation: At the Basis of Understanding the Relations of Being”. This article slices out one topic among many.
Thomas Aquinas uses the Latin term, relationes secundum dici, in ways that lead to a variety of interpretations. Consequently, the complete title of this work is “The Specificity of Secundum Dici Relations in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Metaphysics”. The article appears in Studia Gilsoniana 12(4) (October-December 2023), pages 589-616.
0002 I know that this article is scholarly, because the summary (abstract) appears at the end of the text.
0003 Why does this article capture my attention?
The term translates into relations (relationes) according to (secundum) speech (dici)… er… talk (dici).
I don’t think the Romans have a word for forms of talking other than speech.
They are so civilized.
0004 The term applies to various questions, such as when a pagan calls his god, “Lord of the heavens”, as well as the relation between matter and form, the relation between accident and substance, qualities of things, one’s orientation in labeling one side of an auditorium “right” or “left”, and so. These are just samples. Duma presents five cases in detail.
0005 The dici term contrasts to a similar term, relationes secundum esse.
The latter translates into relations (relationes) according to (secundum) existence (esse)… er… esse_ce (esse).
Esse_ce?
Esse_ce is a written play on the Latin term, esse.
Esse_ce is the complement to essence.
Whatever has esse_ce also has essence. Whatever has essence also has esse_ce.
0006 Those two statements sound like relationes secundum esse even though they may be relationes secundum dici.
Why?
The relation between esse_ce and essence is another way to state the relation between matter and form.
0007 Plus, the relation between matter and form is an exemplar of Peirce’s category of secondness, the dyadic realm of actuality (that contrasts with thirdness, the triadic realm of normal contexts, and firstness, the monadic realm of possibility).
Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements. For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the real elements are matter and form. The contiguity is not named. However, a name stands ready-at-hand. That name is “substance”. So, I can take the word, “substance”, and place it in brackets (for notation), to arrive at the following figure.
0008 Now, my interest in Duma’s article begins to clarify.
The relation between matter and form is a relation where the terminus of the relation is a word, so to speak, that denotes either the presence (matter) or the shape (form) of a thing. But, it does not denote a thing (which expresses both esse_ce and essence).
The same goes for the creature calling his creator, “master”.
When I watch the ritual proclamation, I encounter two real elements, the creature and the proclaimed word. I must figure out the contiguity between these two real elements. Both real elements are locked in a literal relationes secundum dici (a relation according to talk).
So, I place my guess into the slot for contiguity.
0009 Because Aristotle’s hylomorphe is a premier example of Peirce’s secondness, the creature [calling Creator] aspect of the dyad carries the feel of matter [substance], esse_ce, or “existence”. Also, the [calling Creator] “Master” aspect carries the feel of [substantiating] form or essence.
May I go as far to say that much of Aquinas’s philosophy carrries the feel of matter [substance] form, even as Aquinas transcends the esse_ce and essence of Aristotle’s philosophy in an intellectual flight towards a recognition that is so… so… divine?
God is Substance.
God is the contiguity between all real elements in Peirce’s secondness.
0010 According to John Deely’s massive book, Four Ages (2001 AD), Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) is an important waystation between St. Augustine (354-430), who poses the question of sign-relations, and John of St. Thomas (John Poinsot (1589-1644)), who finally and correctly identifies signs as triadic relations.
Aquinas mentions relatives in his discourses on various theological and philosophical questions and disputes. The diciand esse relations stand out. They are are similarly worded. The formula is relationes secundum X, where X is either esseor dici. Esse relations pose few difficulties. Dici relations lead to confusion and debate.
0011 Here is a table listing some of the characteristics of each.
0012 In this examination, I have already brought Duma’s article into relation with one aspect of Peirce’s philosophical schema.
I hope that no one is surprised.
The next step adds another layer and that may take the reader off guard.
0119 The conceptual-flow apparatus of A,B,&C also applies to Peirce’s category of firstness as explicit matter (A).
0120 An explicit definition of firstness (B) stands as form in the dicey bucket, then as matter in the esse bucket.
In the esse bucket, dici (speech-alone talk acting as hand-talk) relates to whatever follows the logics of inclusion and allows contradictions.
0121 Rather than giving another example, I proceed to section four, where the author formulates how we should understandrelationes secundum dici.
Since this examination is already disruptive, let me proceed to some suggestions that sort of correspond to the author’s points and some that do not.
0122 First, let go of the distinction between categorical and transcendental. Even though the distinction is helpful, it does not appear to be critical to the speculations at hand.
0123 Second, all dici relations have two termini, the relation itself (portrayed as a hylomorphic dyad consistent with Peirce’s definition of secondness) and the elements that go into the relation (for Aristotle’s hylomorphe, “matter” and “form”, and for the dici relation, “dici” and “relationes“).
0124 Third, as soon as relationes secundum X (where X = esse or dici) is formulated as a dyad in the realm of actuality, the relation is subject to the laws of contradiction and noncontradiction. The label for the contiguity is placed within brackets for clear notation. The contiguity’s label is selected on the basis that [it] minimizes contradictions between the two real elements.
[Secundum] may be regarded as a contiguity that minimizes contradictions.
0125 Fourth, relationes secundum X (where X = esse or dici) is an actuality2. A normal context3 and potential1 are required to attain understanding. An entire (filled-in) category-based nested form associates to understanding. Understanding encompasses the three distinctly different logics of thirdness, secondness and firstness.
In hominin evolution, our genus adapts to the potential of triadic relations, including “understanding”, defined as “the completion of a category-based nested form”. Implicit abstractions produce complete nested forms holistically (that is, without explicit articulation of the three elements). Hand-talk favors implicit abstraction.
Explicit abstractions may articulate elements within a relation, by using the purely symbolic labels of speech-alone talk. At the same time, the conceptual-flows of A,B,&C suggest that speech-alone talks engages implicit abstraction (and visa versa).
Nonetheless, A and C are not precisely the same relationes, even though they are contiguous with B, dici.
Nor, are A and C the same dici, even though they are contiguous with B, relationes.
0126 Fifth, what does [secundum] (translated as [according to]) in relationes secundum X (where X = esse or dici) imply?
Secundum compares to substance, in Aristotle’s hylomorphe of “matter [substance] form”.
Secundum also associates to either implicit abstraction or explicit abstraction, depending on the dyad.
Secundum entangles the distinction between categorical and transcendental relations, for those who cannot let go (see first point).
0127 Sixth, Peirce’s diagrams allow an inquirer to consider labels (from explicit abstractions) within a visual framework (that coheres with implicit abstraction).
0128 This examination adds value to Tomasz Duma’s contribution to our current appreciation of relationes secundum X,by suggesting that the philosophies of Aristotle, Aquinas and Peirce are (1) congruent and (2) illuminate cognitive features of both our current Lebenswelt as well as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0129 Furthermore (3), this congruence allows contemporary philosophers to consider the difference between explicitly abstracted relations that act as matter to dici (speech-alone talk)as form and implicitly abstracted relations that act as form to dici (hand talk)and esse asmatter.
Now, that is one complicated “furthermore”.
0130 Oh, one more “furthermore”!
Recall that Duma gives five cases where relatives appear in the writings of Thomas Aquinas.
In this examination, I also provide five examples for relationes secundum X.
The Oldowan stone tool is a case for X=esse.
The hand-talk gesture-word, [RAVEN], is a case for X=dici (hand talk).
[WOLF][FINGER] is a case for X=dici (hand talk) and then X=dici (speech-alone talk).
“Ravenous chairperson”, “cushy job” and “drought” are cases for X=dici (speech-alone talk).
“A bridge that meets code” is a case for X=dici (speech-alone talk).
0131 Is this what the author anticipated when he sent his article for publication?
I suppose not.
0132 Okay, the author may chuckle during the course of this examination, as it tracks from Aquinas’s relatives straight into a key question concerning human evolution.
Why is our current Lebenswelt not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
Are relationes secundum dici integral to an answer to this question?
What if.
0133 Indeed, laughter is an appropriate response.
Who would have guessed that Aristotle, Aquinas and Peirce, all strangely brilliant yet incomplete philosophers, are (inadverently) in the business of illuminating differences between who we are and who we evolved to be?
0134 My thanks to Tomasz Duma for his article on this very intriguing topic.
