Wie die Neuzeit die Antike auf den Kopf stellte

(Oder:  Wie die Neuzeit die Antike über den Tisch zog )

Die Neuzeit wurde ontologisch im 17. Jahrhundert auf vollendete Weise durch das Denken Descartes’ mit seiner Setzung des Bewußtseinssubjekts eingeleitet. Das Bewußtsein als Subjekt zu proklamieren, dreht schon das _hypokeimenon_ (Subjekt) des antiken griechischen Denkens um, denn es war das Zugrunde-liegende (von _hypo_ 'unter' und _keimai_ 'liegen'), das durch den _logos_ des alltäglichen sowie des philosophischen Denkens angesprochen wurde.

Die Leitfrage der griechischen Philosophie und besonders von Sokrates und Platon — nämlich _ti estin...;_, “Was ist...?” — war an das zugrunde-liegende Sub-jekt gerichtet, um zu untersuchen, was es ist, d.h. sein Wassein, Quidditas oder Wesen. Die Frage nach dem Wassein bleibt die Leitfrage durch die ganze Antike und auch weiter im christlichen Mittelalter mit seiner theologischen Untersuchung von dem, was Gott ist.

Mit dem Cartesischen "cogito ergo sum", “Ich denke/fühle/empfinde/nehme wahr, deshalb bin ich”, wird das Bewußtseinssubjekt gesetzt. Dies ist kein Syllogismus mit einem Schluß, wie das Wort “deshalb” nahelegt. Es gibt nicht einmal zwei Prämissen, die syl-logistisch in einem Schluß zusammengeschlossen werden könnten. Vielmehr wird ein eingeschlossenes Bewußtsein als das neue Wesen des Subjekts gesetzt. Dieses subjektive Bewußtsein wird mit einer Außenwelt konfrontiert, die aus ihm gegenüberstehenden Gegenständen besteht.

Die Frage der Antike nach dem, was das Subjekt (_hypokeimenon_) ist, in der dritten Person singular gestellt wird in eine positive neuzeitliche Setzung der Gewißheit, “Ich bin” in der ersten Person, verwandelt. Das Bewußtseinssubjekt wird hermeneutisch als das fundamentum inconcussum, d.h. als die unerschütterliche Grundlage, gesetzt, von deren sicherer Basis aus die Außenwelt vernommen werden sollte. Diese Vernehmung findet in erster Linie durch  — vorzugsweise mathematische — theoretische Modelle statt, die vom Bewußtsein konstruiert werden. Diese wissenschaftlichen Modelle werden mit experimentellen Daten von der Außenwelt der Gegenstände beliefert, um die in Frage stehende Theorie zu prüfen. Solange die Theorie der experimentellen Überprüfung standhält, wird sie als die objektive Wahrheit betrachtet.

Wer denkt heute über diese epochemachende Verschiebung von der dritten Person singular zur ersten Person singular nach? Wer hat sie überhaupt bemerkt? Warum wird dieses Bewußtseinssubjekt in der ersten Person noch als ein Was — besonders für wissenschaftliche Zwecke — betrachtet, so daß die erste Person wieder in die dritte Person verbogen wird? Warum wird diese Verbiegung nicht als das gesehen, was sie ist? Warum hat es keine parallele Verschiebung von der antiken Frage nach dem Wassein des _hypokeimenon_ in der dritten Person zur Frage nach dem Wersein des Bewußtseinssubjekts in der ersten Person gegeben? Warum bleibt selbst das Wort ‘Wersein’ — oder sein lateinisches Äquivalent ‘quissitas’ — heute noch ein befremdlicher Neologismus? Während das ‘Wassein’ oder ‘Wesen’ als mehr oder weniger ‘natürlich’ angenommen wird?

Diese Lage ist nicht nur ein der wachsenden Armut des Denkens im heutigen Zeitalter geschuldetes Übersehen, sondern auch eine Frage der Macht, der wirksamen und der gesellschaftlichen Macht — eine Frage, die in den Bildungseinrichtungen systematisch unterdrückt wird.

Weitere Lektüre: Social Ontology Kap. 3, 10 and 11.

How the Modern Age turned Antiquity upside down

(Or: How the Modern Age turned the tables on Antiquity)

The Modern Age was inaugurated ontologically in the 17th century with the positing of the subject of consciousness, most consummately in the thinking of Descartes. Pronouncing consciousness as the subject already turns the subject (_hypokeimenon_) of ancient Greek thinking on its head, for it was the under-lying _hypo-keimenon_ (from _hypo_ 'under' and _keimai_ 'to lie') that was addressed by the _logos_ of both everyday and philosophical thought.

The guiding question of Greek philosophy, and especially Socrates and Plato, was _ti estin...;_, "What is...?" addressed to the under-lying sub-ject to investigate what it is, i.e. its whatness, quidditas or essence. The question of whatness remains the lead question throughout Antiquity and even into the Christian Middle Ages with their theology investigating what God is.

With Descartes' "cogito ergo sum", "I cogitate/think/feel/sense/perceive, therefore I am", the subject of consciousness is posited. It is not a syllogism with a conclusion, as the word "therefore" misleadingly suggests. There are not even two premises which could be closed together 'syl-logistically' in a con-clusion. Rather, an encapsulated consciousness is posited as the new essence of the subject. This subjective consciousness is confronted with an external world consisting of objects (Gegen-stände) standing over against it.

Antiquity's question, What is the subject (_hypokeimenon_)?, posed in the third person singular is transformed into a positing assertion of certitude, "I am", in the first person, of the Modern Age. The subject of consciousness is posited hermeneuticaly as the fundamentum inconcussum, i.e. the unshakable foundation of encapsulated consciousness, from whose secure  base the external world is to be interrogated. This interrogation takes place primarily through scientific theoretical models constructed by consciousness, preferably mathematically, into which experimental data from the external world of objects are fed for testing the theory in question. So long as the theory holds up to experimental verification, this is said to be objective truth.

Who reflects today upon this momentous shift from the third person singular to the first person singular? Who has even noticed it? Why is this first-person subject of consciousness still regarded as some kind of what, especially for scientific purposes, thus perverting first person back into third person? Why is this perversion not clearly seen for what it is? Why has there not been a concurrent shift from the ancient question regarding the whatness of the third-person _hypokeimenon_ to the question regarding the whoness of the first-person subject of consciousness? Why is the very word, 'whoness', or its Latin equivalent, 'quissity', still a strange neologism today? Whereas 'whatness' or 'essence' are accepted as more or less 'natural'?

This state of affairs is not only an oversight due to the growing poverty of thinking in the present age, but also a question of power, of effective power and social power -- a question that is systematically suppressed by institutions of learning.

Further reading: Social Ontology Chaps. 3, 10 and 11.

Contradictions in time

Excerpt from an ongoing discussion:

It's interesting to take a look at Hegel, who makes the valiant attempt to turn Western logic into ontology in what must be one of the most difficult works of the entire philosophical tradition.

Here's a tit-bit from Hegel on contradiction:
"Es bewegt sich etwas nur, nicht indem es in diesem Jetzt hier ist und in einem anderen Jetzt dort, sondern indem es in einem und demselben Jetzt hier und nicht hier, indem es in diesem Hier zugleich ist und nicht ist. Man muß den alten Dialektikern die Widersprüche zugeben, die sie in der Bewegung aufzeigen, aber daraus folgt nicht, daß darum die Bewegung nicht ist, sondern vielmehr, daß die Bewegung der daseiende Widerspruch selbst ist." (Logik II Werke Bd. 6, Suhrkamp, Anm. 3 zu "3. Der Widerspruch" S.76)

"Something moves not in that in this now it is here and in another now there, but only in that in one and the same now it is here and not here, in that in this here it is and is not simultaneously. One has to concede to the old dialecticians [e.g. Zenon ME] the contradictions which they point out in movement, but it does not follow from this that therefore movement is not [non-existent], but rather, that movement is the existing contradiction itself."

Notice that the term "simultaneously" is temporal, just as the term, _hama_, in Aristotle's formulation of the principle of non-contradiction in Met. Book Gamma, meaning 'simultaneously', also is temporal. Contra Hegel, it is not "one and the same now", but the simultaneity of presence and absence at the same time, i.e. in the same ecstatically stretched, time-clearing,  that enables something in motion to be here and also not here.

Movement is the "existing contradiction", and this contradiction can only exist because the temporal dimensions of presence and absence presence together, i.e. 'simultaneously'. Hegel does not get this far, but Heidegger does, at least implicitly. The 3D 'time-clearing', as I call it, is capacious, capacious enough also for contradictions to 'exist', i.e. stand out ec-statically in the existential time-clearing. It is the tacit presupposition of Aristotle's ontology of movement itself: _dynamis - energeia - entelecheia_: potential - energetic movement - actual, perfected presence. The "existing contradiction" of movement is only possible as such in its identity with the temporally 3D, triple vision of human being (Dasein) itself.

The 'contradiction' of the simultaneity of absencing and presencing is what enables movement at all. The logical principle of non-contradiction excludes such simultaneity -- all the worse for logic. And such simultaneity is nothing other than the unity of presence and absence in the time-clearing.

I also think that with the so-called 'scientific discovery' of quantum indeterminacy around 1925 (Heisenberg and Schrödinger), which was not 'experimental' but the blind consequence of the mathematical theories employed, the end of science was reached, i.e. its final, teleological, com-pletion, consummation, and simultaneously its demise. Its nemesis was time itself which ultimately repudiates mathematization.

With the publication of Sein und Zeit in 1927, the alternative was already given, i.e. the keys to another age but, of course, science did not give up and has not taken up Sein und Zeit one whit. On the contrary, it has continued for a further century without let-up on the road of effectivity, remaining blind and without any resolution of the creakiness of its foundations, of its unsolved problems, starting with that of so-called quantum gravity, an open sore festering now for well nigh a century.

Modern science is wounded, and a wounded beast is all the more savage and dangerous. It hides its wound and will remain in self-denial for as long as possible. Through its agents, the scientists, it will preserve its privileges, its honours and glowing reputation, at all costs, repudiating any other thought that comes along, dismissing it as fanciful, as 'non-verifiable', as 'useless'. 

And who notices today that this is our situation? Not the media, not the scientists, physical or social, of course, and not the scholars, including  the academic philosophers, even those with an hermeneutical, phenomenological bent. 

Thinking thinks very slowly, waiting patiently for the attentive recipients of its messages.

Further reading: 

The Digital Cast of Being

Appendix: A demathematizing phenomenological view of quantum mechanical indeterminacy

and

A Question of Time

An alternative cast of mind

Machina Panepistemonica

M: What is a Machina Panepistemonica?

P: Well, Machina is 'machine', but what is Panepistemonica?

M: You know Pan? He pissed on Monica.

P: And Monica retaliated by making Pan omniscient?

M: Yes, long before converting St Augustine.

P: And Leibniz tried to take out a patent on Pan's machine?

See also:

Turing's cyberworld of timelessly copulating bit-strings