I thought of a new concept for the ultimate stuff or what their really is beyond all appearances. People use varying terms for this ultimate stuff: Truth, Reality, The Real, The Absolute, God, the Tao, Nature. But I think there is a paradoxical and almost not-there quality to the ultimate stuff which is not reflected in those concepts. So we need a word that takes up that space - in our minds and on the page - but which doesn't give us much to cling to, since we really can't prove to everyone that we are the ones who've got It (the Truth, the Right way, God). So I propose that we call the ultimate stuff "The Absence". It is a word, a concept, so it is present and yet it refers to what's not there. It's pleasantly or irritatingly paradoxical since it's identifying something that is missing. Maybe the Buddhist notion of emptiness is comparable, but that has to be clarified by saying: "it really means empty/fullness" and "don't think it means nothingness." The term "The Absence" points to something that isn't there.
A drawback to this term could be that it could refer to a previous presence that is now gone because it went away, but that may be ok too.
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It is quite disturbing, if not outright amusing, how persistent humans are in coming up with names for that which shouldn't bear any designation whatsoever. When, in dealing with reality, we account for an absence (that is, for something that's missing from our attempts to keep the record straight), we call it The Absence, as if it were something rather than nothing. Somehow, we do not readily accept that our power to control reality by interpreting it is not total. It is as if we feel that reality owes us some change, in return from the change we've imposed on it, and we insist to get it all back, or at least to know what is the due amount.
Well, nothing's really due as long as there isn't anything for sale. It's only when nothingness becomes an object of exchange that it takes the shape of absence. Otherwise, absence is everywhere present. It is the reality's warranty against being changed at will. Or, should I say, the absence in question is metaphysical in nature--not an absence but rahter a presence acting as reality's liability to itself.
narkos.
Very interesting response. I think you’re advocating not naming the ultimate. It reminds me of Richard Rorty’s critique of absolutizing. He would say it’s not productive to try to grasp the ultimate or absolutes. It leads to unproductive conversations. I like that view, but recently I’ve been impressed with Zizek’s (following Lacan) use of “the Real” as a term for, as you say, “reality's warranty against being changed at will.” But it’s also an ungraspable attractor, or a trauma-point around which our psyches are constructed or that which continually returns whether we want it to or not, or that which the symbolic order never grasps (similar to your: “that which shouldn't bear any designation whatsoever” and “something that's missing from our attempts to keep the record straight.”
Graham Priest says that the ultimate has a paradoxical quality, even as we try to not refer to it we refer to it as in your “that which shouldn't bear any designation whatsoever.” He would call it a true contradiction.
And yet, you talk about “nothing” as if it’s something. And, in contrast to nothingness becoming an object of exchange in which case it takes the shape of absence, you say “absence is everywhere present.” What do you mean by that?
We also must remember that there is much comfort in naming things. We can feel powerful or, at least, semi-superior over the thing named. Only humans name things...
I have been pleasantly lost in Rorty's stuff lately. (Thanks again, Jeff.) If I'm reading him at all correctly, he seems to suggest an attitude more than a philosophy: get used to ambiguity and never believe the hype about the "end of inquiry." Gives me the shivers.
Trying not to sound like an idealist here, but I believe the majority of the "named things" discussed and debated in philosophy are our projections; little bits of ourselves disowned through fear.
I've been asking myself this question: how differently would I be if I did in fact have access to all correspondence of truth? Or, contrarily, to Rorty and Davidson's ease with not knowing anything "for a fact"?
Interestingly, I believe I'd be bored. No more searching, hunting, guessing...no more need for curiosity. Homeostasis might be the best definition of hell.
Jeff~
Not naming the ultimate is, in my view, the perfect equivalent of naming it. This is because having a view of the ultimate, an understanding of it, passes by necessity through the means of representation. The mind is "the mirror of nature" of which Rorty speaks. It's the specular organ of man, and there is no way around it. There is no point in trying to keep our eyes shut by fear of illusion. Moreover, if we do that, we risk delusion. Purposefully not naming the ultimate does not stop us from thinking about it, and trying to shun representation does not in the least leave room for anything else.
Whatever we do, we do re-present ourselves the world. I believe that making use of these representations is what's truly important. Naming is one way of dealing with what's before us. Naming is indeed a way of mastering reality, but in and of iself it is not more detrimental than the very process of representation. Words are nothing more than reality tags, mere signs on a map. Their power comes not from the map itslef, but from what the map purports to represent. This is why shying away from a direct reference to God does not necessarily make religious languaging more inclusive.
What makes a difference is whether one is able to see without either looking or closing his eyes. It is only when a name is being turned against what it designates that brings about trouble. This happens the very moment the name of a thing becomes the substitute of that thing, aiming to replace it and subdue it for good, up to becoming the true measure of it. A good example of that is how the Bible ("the word of God") is being used to hijack God itself. But this is perhaps just a minor example, because it has become commonplace to imagine more and more sophisticated ways of achieving total objectification. Reification is nowadays the norm.
It is indeed hard to speak of absence as if it was not actually taking up space. I could say that the "everywhere present" absence is the absence at the heart of all things, but then I wouldn't be objective enough, would I? Perhaps I could say that it's the distance between me and myself, between need and desire, that which allows things to never fit their own image, or that which prevents identity from becoming the principle of life.
Paradoxes have long been used as illustrations of spiritual realities, although the ultimate paradox is that paradoxes are--almost by definition--not something useful. So, I guess, there must be an art behind every paradox.
Joshua,
We also must remember that there is much comfort in naming things. We can feel powerful or, at least, semi-superior over the thing named. Only humans name things...
** Yes, and in philosophy we can assume that when we are speaking of things and manipulating concepts we are getting at the things themselves. We forget the distinction between the words we use that the things they refer to. But, in addition, that distinction itself presupposes that there is the words and the things they refer to. The distinction – again – occurring in conceptuality. (Or not, if it turns out to be the way things are.)
I have been pleasantly lost in Rorty's stuff lately. (Thanks again, Jeff.) If I'm reading him at all correctly, he seems to suggest an attitude more than a philosophy: get used to ambiguity and never believe the hype about the "end of inquiry." Gives me the shivers.
** Your welcome on Rorty. It is startling and liberating. Maybe more than an attitude – although he has that too: glib, sometimes flip, facile – a stance or approach. But he does engage in the philosophy too. The collection “Rorty and His Critics” edited by Robert Brandom has big names in philosophy criticizing his work and Rorty’s replies. The most interesting is Bjorn Ramberg’s because Rorty basically says: “You’re right in all your criticisms, let me explain how you’re right.” Rorty was unusually undefensive about his work. There’s only one time that he got huffy responding to a criticism. The Nobel Laureate physicist Steven Weinberg was critical of philosophers’ questions regarding whether there is a physical world. And Rorty, ironically, was put in the position of having to defend the integrity of the philosophical domain. He was angered and defensive FOR philosophy.
** The “end of inquiry” is when the presenting practical problem is solved or when people are done with the conversation or change the subject. Not when The Right Answer is found.
Trying not to sound like an idealist here, but I believe the majority of the "named things" discussed and debated in philosophy are our projections; little bits of ourselves disowned through fear.
** Yeah, there’s the psychological interpretation approach or there is the Wittgensteinian approach in which we track down the way in which we get ourselves into certain philosophical debates by appropriating words from one language game to another, and then the words in the new language game become knotted.
I've been asking myself this question: how differently would I be if I did in fact have access to all correspondence of truth? Or, contrarily, to Rorty and Davidson's ease with not knowing anything "for a fact"?
Interestingly, I believe I'd be bored. No more searching, hunting, guessing...no more need for curiosity. Homeostasis might be the best definition of hell.
** I guess you’d be God. I’m reminded of a Talking Heads song called “Heaven”. One line goes: “Heaven…heaven is a place…a place where nothing….nothing ever happens.” Yet in mystical practices there is talk of knowing Reality, but the Reality known is usually not of the knowing-all-things-as-they-are type. It’s usually described as ineffable and knowing the essence of things, which is usually a paradoxical essence.
** Here’s a video of Rorty and Davidson talking for an hour. If you haven’t heard Rorty speak you might be surprised. While his writing is spritely, his speech is a droning monotone.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8442907408947441860#
Jeff
To Narkos
Reply Part I:
Not naming the ultimate is, in my view, the perfect equivalent of naming it. This is because having a view of the ultimate, an understanding of it, passes by necessity through the means of representation.
** This depends on what you mean. Is naming the ultimate equivalent to not naming it for the reason I gave, which is that there’s a paradox in referring to the ultimate (or Absolute) because to make any reference to it – even saying you can’t say anything about it- is a reference to it? I don’t think that’s what you are saying.
The mind is "the mirror of nature" of which Rorty speaks. It's the specular organ of man, and there is no way around it.
** No! Rorty would say there is a way around it. His book is an exposure and critique of the metaphor of “the mind as mirror of nature.” That this metaphor arose at a certain time in history and spread for various reasons. One could instead not make a visual metaphor for knowing central and perhaps avoid the problems that the specular metaphor now gets us into.
There is no point in trying to keep our eyes shut by fear of illusion. Moreover, if we do that, we risk delusion. Purposefully not naming the ultimate does not stop us from thinking about it, and trying to shun representation does not in the least leave room for anything else.
** It’s not a matter of shutting our eyes or a fear of illusion. It’s a recognition that some of us do currently use the idea of an Ultimate or Ground or Reality and that it is problematic because how do you know who is really in touch with it and why is it such a paradoxical reference? And lots of people don’t think about the ultimate. Most people go through their days without thinking about it. One could after reading Rorty or others say: That’s not a useful concept, I think I’ll use it less and less or just drop it or use it as a cautionary term such as: “Since we can’t be absolutely sure it’s right to execute people, let’s abolish the death penalty.”
Whatever we do, we do re-present ourselves the world. I believe that making use of these representations is what's truly important. Naming is one way of dealing with what's before us. Naming is indeed a way of mastering reality, but in and of iself it is not more detrimental than the very process of representation. Words are nothing more than reality tags, mere signs on a map. Their power comes not from the map itslef, but from what the map purports to represent. This is why shying away from a direct reference to God does not necessarily make religious languaging more inclusive.
** Oh, is there’s distinction between naming and representation? The philosophical issue is whether the concept of representation as words corresponding to the world is a useful concept and useful to explore and analyze. Certainly all the everyday – non-philosophical uses of representation – are fine. For example: “Hey, you’re misrepresenting my record!” or “That portrait isn’t a good representation of me.” The problem comes when you try to show that the mind can represent the world as it is. Then interminable philosophical debates ensue.
End Part I
Jeff
Part II of reply:
What makes a difference is whether one is able to see without either looking or closing his eyes. It is only when a name is being turned against what it designates that brings about trouble. This happens the very moment the name of a thing becomes the substitute of that thing, aiming to replace it and subdue it for good, up to becoming the true measure of it. A good example of that is how the Bible ("the word of God") is being used to hijack God itself. But this is perhaps just a minor example, because it has become commonplace to imagine more and more sophisticated ways of achieving total objectification. Reification is nowadays the norm.
** Now before I thought you were defending the use of representation and here you seem to be cautioning against its abuse. Lots of names work fine for practical purposes but there are cases where one name excludes others and a battle of naming needs to be fought. Certain groups in the U.S. have appropriated the term “pro-Israel.” To oppose or differ from them is, because of their hold over that term, to be “anti-Israel.” So a discursive battle must be waged to loosen the grip of that term.
It is indeed hard to speak of absence as if it was not actually taking up space. I could say that the "everywhere present" absence is the absence at the heart of all things, but then I wouldn't be objective enough, would I? Perhaps I could say that it's the distance between me and myself, between need and desire, that which allows things to never fit their own image, or that which prevents identity from becoming the principle of life.
** This sounds like Lacan and Zizek’s use of the concept The Real. That ungraspable thing which motivates and organizes our search to capture it.
Paradoxes have long been used as illustrations of spiritual realities, although the ultimate paradox is that paradoxes are--almost by definition--not something useful. So, I guess, there must be an art behind every paradox.
** Well, Graham Priest argues that we get contradictions at the limits of thought because they are true contradictions. It tells us something about the limits of thought. That’s useful. Also, in Zen paradoxes in the form of koans are part of a path to enlightenment.
Jeff
In my view, representation is not an affair of the mind, but of perception, therefore coming always before the act of naming. Naming, on the other hand, is relegated to the abstractive power of the mind, thus being in fact a re-presentation--that is, a way of coining the results of representation in order to make them useful.
If I may risk a comparison, a name is nothing but the handle of what it represents, and although it seems to come first in importance as a means of dealing with reality, it only estranges us from our very capacity to perceive. Just as the handle of a tool serves as a grip not on the object working with, but on the tool itself, preventing in fact the worker to become one with his tool--and, indeed, to allow himself be the tool in question, rather than to make use of it--so are names interposed not between us and the world, but between us and our own capacity to represent the world, thus allowing at best for a re-presentation of reality.
Rorty's "philosophy without mirrors", imagining a way to side-step knowledge, runs straight into the aporia of letting people instrument reality with their bare hands, which would be very nice if it were possible. But one cannot pretend he is not bent on finding truth as long as he knows that truth exists. It's an utterly irresistible pull. I suspect that Rorty is somehow neglecting the fact that epistemology and knowledge would have not become what they are today if it wasn't for a good reason. They are so dear to us humans precisely because they bear the smell of truth all around them. I guess Foucault could tell that story better than I can. Knowledge is an instrument to truth, and I would not give a dime to anyone claiming that knowledge should be left aside or that the pursuit of truth is futile. Nota bene, I'm not saying that it is not so, quite on the contrary, but I'm always wary of an unfair competition. :)
Rather than disingenuously proclaim a disinterest in pursuing truth, I find it more appealing to find the means *of* truth, instead of finding the means *to* it. In other words, knowledge doesn't have to be left aside in the process--it has to be a part of it and, moreover, it has to be shaped by it. We have to redefine what knowledge is (and is not--when knowledge stops being knowledge), we have to re-learn how to name things, to forget about naming when a name isn't called for, and to generally temper our zest for purpose in life. Then, there will be little need for God (or truth) to bear a name.
You wrote:
In my view, representation is not an affair of the mind, but of perception, therefore coming always before the act of naming. Naming, on the other hand, is relegated to the abstractive power of the mind, thus being in fact a re-presentation--that is, a way of coining the results of representation in order to make them useful.
If I may risk a comparison, a name is nothing but the handle of what it represents, and although it seems to come first in importance as a means of dealing with reality, it only estranges us from our very capacity to perceive. Just as the handle of a tool serves as a grip not on the object working with, but on the tool itself, preventing in fact the worker to become one with his tool--and, indeed, to allow himself be the tool in question, rather than to make use of it--so are names interposed not between us and the world, but between us and our own capacity to represent the world, thus allowing at best for a re-presentation of reality.
** Ohhhh! I didn’t understand your terminology. Here in the US, representation is usually used to describe what you call naming. The name re-presents what is present, which is the raw, perceived thing. (You actually say this when you say “Naming…being in fact a re-presentation.”
** For some practical purposes I think your way of understanding things in which there is a perceiving or raw knowing or in-touchness with reality and then the naming or re-presenting with words is fine. For example, people can relearn to have a more immediate experience of life by being redirected to the things themselves and away from the names of concepts we use, as in Buddhist practice. But I think (and this is Rorty’s argument and others) that if you try to push the distinction between the knowing of the world and the naming of the world, you get into interminable philosophical problems that aren’t going to be solved because of that very division you start with: words and world. There are other approaches that argue that we have “a world” in the sense that humans have one and animals don’t – a meaning-filled world – because of the naming. Out of naming comes humanity and there is no raw perceiving. Or if there is raw perceiving it plays no separable role in the naming game of giving and asking for reasons. How do you demonstrate to all others that YOU, and not them, are in touch with reality, things as they are, the raw experience on any given occasion in which there is a dispute about it? You assert things, give reasons, run tests, make arguments, all things that occur in the space of reasons or the world of naming.
End Part I
Part II
You continued:
Rorty's "philosophy without mirrors", imagining a way to side-step knowledge, runs straight into the aporia of letting people instrument reality with their bare hands, which would be very nice if it were possible. But one cannot pretend he is not bent on finding truth as long as he knows that truth exists. It's an utterly irresistible pull. I suspect that Rorty is somehow neglecting the fact that epistemology and knowledge would have not become what they are today if it wasn't for a good reason. They are so dear to us humans precisely because they bear the smell of truth all around them. I guess Foucault could tell that story better than I can. Knowledge is an instrument to truth, and I would not give a dime to anyone claiming that knowledge should be left aside or that the pursuit of truth is futile. Nota bene, I'm not saying that it is not so, quite on the contrary, but I'm always wary of an unfair competition. :)
** I think you’re not criticizing what Rorty actually asserted (not that what he actually asserted can’t be criticized). Rorty’s not side-stepping knowledge, he just doesn’t think “truth” plays a big role in gaining knowledge. Knowledge is justified belief. “True” doesn’t add much. The best justification is all we have. “Truth” can play a cautionary role as in, “Well I feel well-justified in my view, but is it true?” Now you could take that as saying: what I’m saying seems justified but did I miss something or is there another way of looking at it, or maybe in the future we won’t see it that way. But there’s no way to know what is apart from all the ways, tools, media that we use to know what is because they are the ways that we know.
Rather than disingenuously proclaim a disinterest in pursuing truth, I find it more appealing to find the means *of* truth, instead of finding the means *to* it. In other words, knowledge doesn't have to be left aside in the process--it has to be a part of it and, moreover, it has to be shaped by it. We have to redefine what knowledge is (and is not--when knowledge stops being knowledge), we have to re-learn how to name things, to forget about naming when a name isn't called for, and to generally temper our zest for purpose in life. Then, there will be little need for God (or truth) to bear a name.
** Rorty’s not disingenuous in saying he doesn’t pursue truth. Of course he thought he was right or made the best argument, but that’s doesn’t have to be the same as pursuing truth.
** I don’t get the distinction between “means of truth” vs. “means to truth.”
** Yes, the pragmatic approach would agree that “to forget about naming when a name isn't called for.” And it depends on what purpose in life you mean. Finding some overall purpose is probably going to be unsuccessful, but I think people should think more about their personal purpose in life.
** But I think you’re saying don’t name things that can’t have a name. Don’t overreach it creates problems we don’t have to have. Sounds like a Wittgensteinian therapeutic approach.
Jeff
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