Category Archives: Defining Religion

03/3/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2020) “Rorty” (Part 1 of 3)

0001 This chapter appears in Michael Millerman’s Book (2020) Beginning with Heidegger: Strauss, Rorty, Derrida and Dugin and the Philosophical Constitution of the Political (Arktos Press).  The composition of the book sends a message.  A forty-nine page introduction is labeled as a preface, complete with Roman numerals.  The first chapter covers Heidegger and stands in the center of the book.  Then, chapters two through five covers the responses of four political philosophers to Heidegger’s academic labors (as well as his political affiliation).

Richard Rorty is discussed in the third chapter.  This chapter serves as a transition from the weighty chapters on Heidegger and Strauss to the surprising chapters on Derrida and Dugin.

0002 Rorty offers a change of style.  Rorty is an American philosopher.  This pleases me, since I write like an American, too.  I roll, roll, roll down the river of literary endeavors.  My paddles are purely relational structures, such as the category-based nested form and the Greimas square.

Consequently, Millerman refers to movies, rather than books.  And, if books must be mentioned, then novels come first.

0003 Oh, I should add, the first novel comes from the pen of Cervantes.  Don Quixote marks the start of the Age of Ideas.  In seventeenth-century Spain, two movements coincide.  On one hand, Baroque scholastics finally articulate the causality inherent in sign-relations.  On the other hand, Cervantes creates a new literary genre.

Perhaps, these two hands belong to a single entity.  The novelist represents the scholastic behind the mask of modernity.  Like the heroic character in V for Vendetta, there is no removing the mask.  The Spanish innovator spins away from truth (the scholastics were all about mind-independent being) and leaps towards happiness (the novelists are all about mind-dependent beings).

Is it any surprise that, in the next century, France produces a revolution with a similar attitude?  Then, two centuries later, today’s social democratic politics perform the same routine.

0003 Richard Rorty wrestles with a strange duality.  Politics is contextualized by two distinct masters, truth and reality.  Politics emerges from the potential of good (which goes with truth) and the potential of what can be done (which goes with reality).

Here is a picture of two nested forms.

Figure 01

0004 Of course, Rorty wants to step away from truth3 and find happiness in reality3.  But, one cannot take the mask without the face or the face without the mask.  One cannot say, “Look at the mask without thinking about the face.”

Here is where Rorty flounders.  His social democratic politics tell him that viable options are the only things that matter. But, as a philosopher, he must face the question as to which options are good.

0005 In short, politics is a single actuality that is composed of two distinct nested forms.  Neither nested form can situate the other.  So, the actualities for both nested forms fuse, creating one single contradiction-filled actuality, as described in the chapter on message in Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”.

I call the following diagram, “an intersection”.

Figure 02

0006 Right away, I spy that the single actuality of politics2 veils two unspoken actualities that emerge from (and situate) the vertical and horizontal potentials.  These two actualites are overshone by politics2, in the same way that Mercury and Venus appear to disappear within the Sun in astrological conjunctions.  The technical term is “combustion”.

Here is a Greek parody of politics2.

Figure 03

0007 Yes, truth3V and reality3H exhibit different orbits around politics2.

According to Millerman, Rorty is a social democrat advocating for truthlessness and hopefulness.

0008 How does that statement mesh with the above intersection?  Rorty distains Heidegger’s romance with language and says that there is no such thing as a thing itself that can be put into language.  So forget esse_ces (beings substantiating) and essences (substantiated forms).  Indeed, forget righteousness.  The question is whether the thing is useful.  Or not.

At first, it seems that Rorty is only interested in the horizontal axis.

0009 But then, Rorty writes that there are three conceptions of the aim of philosophizing in the modern era.  These three are Husserl’s scientism, Heidegger’s poetics and Dewey’s pragmatism.  The latter two respond to the former.  Husserl idealizes scientists.  Heidegger extols poets.  Pragmatists, like Rorty, Dewey and James, prefer engineers.

Now, if I associate these embodiments into the above mystery, then I replace Mercury with the engineer and Venus with the poet, resulting the the following intersection.

Figure 04

0010 Once I diagram this, the contradictions become more apparent.  The Heideggerian venusian poet2V and the pragmatist mercurial engineer2H orbit an all encompassing solar politics2.  From the point of view of an astrologer, sometimes these inner planets run ahead of the solar presence, sometimes they lag behind the solar presence, and sometimes they are in conjunction with the solar presence.  Combustion!   The Sun’s transit through the constellations, plays this celestial drama over and over again, for those who watch the heavens.  For those who watch politics, the Earth orbits the sun.

03/2/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2020) “Rorty” (Part 2 of 3)

0011 Now, I personalize the ongoing intersection.

Figure 05

0012 Rorty’s condundrum becomes all the more visible.

Rorty, a pragmatist mercurial engineer2H, is trapped by the same gravitational field of politics2 as Heidegger, a visionary venusian poet2V.

0013 Rorty is a social democrat, concerned with implementation of policies that work.  He has lots of options, but no philosophical heft when it comes to figuring out the truths of political matters, much less the question, “What is a political good?”

Heidegger is an anti-democratic phenomenologist, whose vision of the truth amazingly allows him to pursue the only political option available to a professor of philosophy at the University of Freiberg during the Third Reich.  If Heidegger wants to keep the job, there not many options.  The German people march, like Don Quixote on his quest, towards a political good that is a figment of their leader’s imagination.

0014 What does this add up to?

Well, I suspect that Rorty, having no sympathy for Heidegger, wants to replace the political philosophical poet with a nice automated coffee dispenser.  First, the dispenser does not talk.  Second, everyone agrees that coffee is needed in departments of philosophy.  Its utility is guaranteed.

Of course, Millerman does not agree with this utopian solution.

Utopian solution?

Brew a cup of coffee and think about it.

0015 One problem lies in the nature of the intersection.  One actuality overshines two.  Intersections are filled with contradictions.

On top of that, an intersection may serve as actuality in a nested form.

Rorty sees no other options for political philosophy than social democracy.  His vision serves as a clue that Rorty works within social democracy3 as a normal context.  Normal contexts tend to exclude other normal contexts.  But, social democracy3 cannot exclude the normal contexts of reality3H and truth3V.

Why?

Reality3H and truth3V belong to politics2.

What about potential?

Well, not unlike Voltaire’s Candide, Rorty aims for the best of all possible worlds.

That means utopia is possible, today.

0016 Here is the nested form for Rorty’s politial philosophy.

Figure 06

0017 This nested form dovetails into Rorty’s views concerning the contingency of language2V and the absence of foundation1V.  Rorty needs truth3V.  But, his utopia1 comes on the wings of viable options1H, not from claws sharpened by debates over the good1V.  So, the philosophical question boils down to figuring out options1V, without being gouged by the claws of do-gooders2V.

0018 Other philosophers hone in on Rorty’s dilemma.  Obviously, Rorty evades the contradictions inherent in politics2.  How so?  Rorty cannot offer a persuasive resolution to a mystery that is as old as Mercury and Venus and the Sun.  Surely, the beauty of a mystery does not dwell in avoiding its contradictions.  Theologians know this.  Modern philosophers have forgotten this lesson.  Astrologers remember.

0019 This nested form allows me to appreciate Millerman’s claim that Rorty does not respond to Heidegger philosophically.  He responds politically.

To Rorty, the vertical axis of the intersection2 corresponds to Heidegger’s fundamental-ontological reactionary politics of nostalgia2, which is just another metaphorical language game.  Indeed, such nostalgia arises from the potential of another no-where1 (the transliteration of the Greek term, “utopia”).  Rorty accuses Heidegger of trying to step onstage in a decisive event in the History of Being, when a new philosophy emerges from the ashes of the old, on the possibility of a new know-where1.   Know-where1 does the truth3V bring that coffee-making appliance2 into relation with the good1V than in the dispensation of Heidegger’s fundamental-ontological nostalgia3.

0020 Here is a picture of Rorty’s view of Heidegger’s political philosophy.

Figure 07

Americans are so good at projection.

03/1/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2020) “Rorty” (Part 3 of 3)

0021 Of course, Heidegger would (if he could) return the insult, by calling Rorty a liberal propagandist.

After all, Rorty is not concerned with questions of truth3V, preferring issues concerning social consequences3H.

0022 Plus, Heidegger (if he could) would have regarded the imprisonment of Rorty and other social democratic philosophers as a matter of “petty details”.

Petty details?

In Heidegger’s view, the West has exhausted its options1H.  And, proof comes later in the title of Rorty’s book, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity.   Are these options?  Or, are they signs of exhaustion?  Compare that title to Being and Time.

0023 The squishiness of the former title is made worse when Rorty’s dichotomy of choice, private versus public, appears to align with the potentials of good1V and options1H, respectively.  Is truth3V private?  Is reality3V public?  If so, then I ask, “Are these affirmations the poisonous fruits of the Treaty of Westphalia?”  The Treaty of Westphalia marks the start of the modern era, almost four hundred years ago.

Perhaps, Rorty inadvertently testifies to Heidegger’s proposition.  The West has exhausted its options1H.  Politics2 is the intersection of the actualities of reality3H and truth3V, arising from the potential of viable options1H and good1V.  Without a good1V, there are no options1H.  So, politics2 is dead.  But, our love (philo-) of wisdom (-sophy) endures.  So, it is only a matter of time before politics2 rises again.

Shout it from the rooftops!

Politics2 is dead.  Long live politics2.

0024 My thanks to Michael Millerman for his excellent chapter into how Rorty views Heidegger, chapter three in Beginning with Heidegger: Strauss, Rorty, Derrida and Dugin and the Philosophical Constitution of the Political (2020, Arktos Press, London), pages 97-134.

02/11/23

Looking at Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s Music Video (2022) “Unholy” (Part 1 of 1)

0001 The Grammy Awards Ceremony is broadcast February 5, 2023.  Sam Smith and Kim Petras win the grammy in the category of Best Pop Duo or Group Performance for their song, “Unholy”.  Their grammy performance quickly goes viral, with many Christian podcasters dubbing the performance… say nothing of the ceremony… “Satanic”.

To wit, I now examine the official video for this song (not the Grammy performance) for the unholy message that the song sends.  My conclusion is that the moniker, “Satanic”, may apply.  But, so does the word, “political”.  This music video spins an artistic message, at once cryptic and revealing.  I strive to delineate this message, using the methodology of the category-based nested form.

0002 This music video is an actuality.

According to A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form (available at smashwords and other e-work venues), in order to understand (or appreciate) an actuality2, one must figure out its normal context3 and potential1.  So, this is what I intend to do.  My determination of normal contexts3 and potentials1 is purely speculative.  Do not take them as judgment or doctrine.

I start with a guess.   The normal context3 is politics.  The potential1 is for ‘something Satanic to be exposed’.  Thus, the normal context of politics3 brings the pop-music video, “unholy”2, into relation with the possibilities inherent in ‘an exposure of something Satanic’1.  Maybe, Satan shows his plans for the future.  Who knows?

Here is a picture.

Figure 01

0003 Politics?

The song is released on September 22, 2022, six weeks before the November midterm elections in the USA.  The November 8, 2022, elections occur at the time of a lunar eclipse.

0004 So, I suspect that politics3 includes astrology3.

Several astrological squares and oppositions are in play on September 22, 2022.  Here is a picture of some of them.

Figure 02

0005 The Saturn-Uranus square is at the top of the list, since it dominates the last half of 2021 and almost all of 2022, including the span from September through November.  In the following figure, a zodiac sign is the normal context3, a planet is the actuality2, and the potential pertains to the astrological characteristics of such an arragement1. When two planets are at right angles to one another, it is almost as if they work at cross purposes.

Here is a picture.

Figure 03

0006 So, the release date offers clues to the potential of ‘stellar arrangements’1.  Whatever Satan is preparing, it is simultaneously a cold calculation and a steaming pile of manure.

0007 Speaking of cold calculations, the video begins.

A woman in white gets out of a car.  Is she the daemon of the American Democratic Party?  What is a white woman?  A woman who has abandoned Jesus and found… shall I say?… someone willing to put a warm coat of manufactured virtueupon her?  She is obviously highly educated.  She is well manicured.  As he goes to park the car, she enters the foyer.  She reaches into her pocket and lifts out a playbill (an official narrative) and a condom from the Body Shop (protection, of sorts).

0008 Here is a diagram of the first of five movements in the video itself.

Figure 04

0009 Well, isn’t that the way the music video starts?

Biden is a good looking man.  He drives the car and parks it at the Body Shop.  He has been there before.  He knows the price of things.  The lyrics mention daddy.  Daddy Biden.  Shall I call him Biden Joe?  Biden goes up the stairs and passes the whores of various nations.  Can I make out China, Iran and Ukraine?  Miss Ukraine devours the blossoming youth of her nation.

Biden Joe is tempted.  And, he knows how to play the game.

Figure 05

0010 Someone pulls on Biden Joe’s tie.  Then, a vision captures his gaze.  Biden is in a booth, overlooking a theater.  He engages two active parties (Ukraine and China?), in pay for play.  Biden sees Biden.  Joe observes Hunter.  Both are the same person.

Say what?

0011 Suddenly, Sam Smith, perched in a balcony seat in the theater of the Body Shop, captures the viewer’s gaze then hurtles it towards the blue center-stage, where Kim Petras descends upon a swing in the shape of a heart.  Her madonna-like visage lands on the top of an automobile.  American, no doubt.  Biden Hunter is in the back seat, in full erotic rutting.  He has what it takes to satisfy the material girl.  He is in deep doo-doo (English, for “fumier”).

Figure 06

0012 In the fourth movement, Biden is spent and on display, mimicking the Hangman of the Tarot Cards.  The Hangman card is often interpreted as the potential of an unusual revelation.  Here, the revelation is compromising.  Biden is exposed (on top of the car, for all to see) as who he is (a load of manure, for all to smell).

Figure 07

0013 The drama is not over.

The spent handsome man, simultaneously the daddy and the man-child, lays on stage as completely revealed to an American public as a liar and a cheat.  It is written on the car.  The entire dance troupe awaits the next moment.  The audience in the theater (perhaps, the mavens of corporate media) applaud.  What a performance!

Then, the white woman walks up the aisle towards the stage.  Who knows how she got there?  But, she is there to render a judgment.  She steps on stage and observes the prone corpse of her man, in a pure Saturn-square-Uranus pose of cold calculation looking upon someone who could not keep his business clean.

She turns and faces the audience.

She has a choice.

0014 Here, we see the crux.  Here, we see the materialization of ‘something’ that Satan wishes to be revealed.  It is all about choice.

Does the white woman, a key demographic that remains wedded to the Democratic Party, repudiate the man that she was led to believe in, and embrace the perverse machinations of the Body Shop, the apparatus for the temptation of the father and for the corruption of the son?

Or, does she repent?

0015 Here is the message.

Figure 08

0016 The curtain falls.  But, there is one small issue.  A foot of the corpse remains on display, indicating that what has been exposed is not for certain.  Not even Satan knows the future for certain.  Sam Smith and Kim Petras are big fans of the projected outcome.  But, the story has only begun.

0017 Now, I recapitulate.

First, I place the work of art under examination into the slot for actuality in a category-based nested form.

Figure 09

0018 I make an initial guess.  My guess is informed by Christian podcasters commenting on the Grammy ceremony.

Then , I proceed to imagine the normal context3 and potential1 of various aspects2 (here, movements2 within the drama).  Do these cohere with my initial guess?  Some will say, “Yes.”  Others will say, “No”.

0019 Here is the breakout for the realm of actuality2.

Figure 10

0020 Do these cohere with the realness of the music video?

Yes, these are the actualities2 that I endeavor to put into normal contexts3 and potentials1.

0021 What does this imply?

The astrology of the time of release frames the movements in term of a square between Saturn in Aquarius and Uranus in Taurus.  The artist pours out a beautiful and captivating music video with two figures represented as one.  Yes, that one handsome man, like a bull, is simultaneously Daedalus, who fashions the wings of escape, and Icarus, who uses the wings, fashioned by his father, to fly too close to the Sun.  To me, this associates to the contemporary story of Joe and Hunter Biden.  Oh, did I mention that Jupiter in Aries is in opposition with the Sun in Libra?

And what of the woman in white?

Does the white woman represent one of the most faithful demographics wed to the Democratic party?

She opens and closes the music video.

0022 Here is the breakout for the realm of normal context3.

Figure 11

0023 What does that imply?

The normal context3 of astrology addresses a post-Christian world.  In this pagan world, certain bonds, certain promises, and certain rituals are presumed to be substantial.  But they are not.  The woman in white lives in a world of pretensions.  The playbill recounts an official narrative.  And, the condom?  That is official, too.

The Body Shop manifests the will to power in the furnishings of materialism.  The philosophy of the will to power asks one to pay for entrance into the Body Shop.  Daddy is hot.  Daddy cannot hide his business.  But, he retains restraint.  Not so, his son, who is the same as the father.  The symbolism of the double is striking.  Temptation for the father translates into lust with the son.  The father and the son are both out of control.  Both are to be exposed and ruined.

Where?

On the stage of the Body Shop.

0024 Where does that leave the white woman?

She faces a choice.

And, that choice reveals ‘something’ Satanic.

Satan dreams that her choice comes to pass.

0025 Here is the breakout for the realm of potential1.

Figure 12

0026 The story of the stars offers a narrative of fate.

In our world of pretensions, playbills offer narratives and condoms offer protection.

From fate?

0027 The Body Shop seals the fate of the one man, who is really two.  Daddy wants something to keep himself warm.  The son wants someone to cool himself off.   But, the selves are no different.  They both subscribe to the Body Shop.  For them, the choice is already made.  Their destiny is certain.

0028 But, is the same fate necessary for the woman?

I don’t think so.

If anything, this advertisement for the Body Shop aims to foreclose any option that prevents the destiny that Satan plans for her.

She has a choice.

Unholy or holy?

Will she signal her manufactured virtue by repudiating her own ruined man, while simultaneously bonding with the unholy Body Shop?

Or, will she mourn the loss of her pretensions, and appeal to the love of God?

0029 I reiterate.  These associations and implications are purely speculative.  They are to be taken as an act of appreciation, rather than a judgment or a doctrine.  My thanks to Sam Smith, Kim Petras, along with their collaborators, for producing this engaging music video.  Here is a work of art worth examining.

With that said, I recount my initial guess.

Figure 13

0030 For those interested in trying their own hand at this diagrammatic method of art appreciation, please consult A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

Here are some other music videos worth trying the method on.

“I Wanna Get Better” by the Bleachers

“Doom days” by Bastille

“Welcome to the Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance

“This is Gospel” by Panic at the Disco, plus its sequel

“Hi Ren” by Ren

0031 If the reader wants to suggest other music videos worthy of examination using this method, please e-mail Razie Mah at the address that appears in the Primers.

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.

Figure 01

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.

12/29/22

Looking at Razie Mah’s (2014) Course on How To Define the Word “Religion” (Part 2 of 24)

0008 A Course on How To Define The Word “Religion” may be found at smashwords and other e-book vendors.  Use 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”.

The primers and the masterwork are punctuated, not by page numbers, but by points.  A one-hour class may cover around 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.

0009 The first five primers are listed below.

Figure 02

0010 These five primers introduce the category-based nested form, the two-level and three-level interscope, and topics covered by psychology and economics.

0011 The second five primers are listed below.

Figure 03

0012 These five primers introduce tiers, institutions, politics and religion.

The range of applications for the category-based nested form is remarkable.

0013 These ten primers open the door to the masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”.

This masterwork is one of three, covering the entire human evolutionary record.

0014 The method of instruction is to read and discuss.  Some points will pass rapidly.  Other points will evoke discussion.  Don’t worry about timelines.  The love of wisdom walks at her own tempo.

0015 The following blogs dwell on each of the ten primers.

12/28/22

Looking at Razie Mah’s (2014) A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form (Part 3 of 24)

0015 The category-based nested form comes first.

Some educators say that evolution should be a key concept in teaching sociology, psychology, and other social sciences.

Yet, the modern social sciences simply take the biological sciences for granted, then mimic the empirio-schematics of the natural sciences.  Disciplinary languages bring mathematical and mechanical models into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena.

The modern social sciences ignore human evolution and the mysterious character of the biological sciences.

The modern social sciences embrace empirio-schematics.

0016 Razie Mah proposes that human evolution has three aspects.  He writes three masterworks, one for each aspect, as depicted in the following figure.

Figure 04

0017 The third work, How To Define the Word “Religion” covers the character of our current Lebenswelt.   Speech-alone talk is one of the defining features of our current Lebenswelt.  The spoken word may be pictured as a category-based nested form.

Here is a diagram.

Figure 05

0018 How To Define the Word “Religion” relies on the truly postmodern philosophy of Charles S. Peirce.  The word, “postmodern”, is a site of contention, because many modern intellectuals label themselves with the term. What a fashionable attribute.  No one wants to be called, “modern”.  “Postmodern” is in vogue.

Yet, these self-identified “postmoderns” cannot identify Peirce’s three categories, nor how they fit together.  The category of firstness is the realm of possibility.  The category of secondness is the realm of actuality.  The category of thirdness is the realm of signs, mediations, judgments and normal contexts.

Instead, postmodern academics propose only two categories: their good and political fellow travelers and their evil and despised detractors.

Just kidding.

0019 Peirce’s categories permit the construction of the category-based nested form.

Here is a picture.

Figure 06

0020 Ten primers prepare the student for How To Define the Word “Religion”.  

The first is A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form.

0021 The student?

This course is suitable for freshmen of all stripes, whether in middle school, high school or college.

0022 How so?

Freshmen enter introductory courses.

Freshmen need intellectual tools.

The intellectual tools introduced in these primers are relevant to understanding all three aspects of human evolution: the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the first singularity and our current Lebenswelt.

12/27/22

Looking at Razie Mah’s  (2014) A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form (Part 4 of 24)

0023 Peirce’s categories label the number of elements.  Thirdness has three elements.  Secondness has two.  Firstness has one.

0024 The three elements of thirdness are relation, actuality and potential.  Each category is represented in thirdness.  Thirdness exhibits the logics of exclusion, alignment and complement.

0025 The two elements of secondness are contiguous.  One real element is contiguous with another real element.  For nomenclature, I place the contiguity in brackets: one real element [contiguity] other real element.  The contiguity has the character of substance, causality, embodiment, information and so forth.  Secondness exhibits the logics of contradiction and noncontradiction.

0026 The one element of firstness can be really goofy.  Imagine two frames.  In one frame, the canvas is covered with the color gray.  The other frame holds a painting of a park in Paris in the middle of summer.  Both images belong to firstness.

Here is another way to imagine firstness.  Picture a coin.  One item has two faces.  One can only observe one face at a time.  Firstness exhibits logics that are inclusive and allow contradictions.

0027 Here is a picture of the nested form.  The categories serve as subscripts.

Figure 07

0028 So, what do the covers for the primers, as well as the masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”, portray?

Here is the pattern.

Figure 08

0029 Now, back to education.

I appeal to homeschoolers and private schools.

0030 How does one teach the ten primers as well as the masterwork?

The method is easy.  Read and discuss.  The text is marked with points.  Step by step, both instructor and student can walk together and examine each point.  Both will learn along the way.

Timing?

Each point takes one to three minutes.

An assessment of class time may be found in day 23 of this blog.

0031 The advantage?

Right now, so-called “public” schools teach the scientific facts of human evolution, according to a Darwinian picture of descent with modification.  But, imagine that the facts constitute an actuality2 that will enter into a category-based nested form.

The following nested form results.

Figure 09

Indoctrination asks the student to recite the facts of human evolution2.

Education asks the student to consider the normal context3 and assess the potential1 underlying the facts2.

Facts are not the same as understanding.

12/26/22

Looking at Razie Mah’s  (2014) A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (Part 5 of 24)

0033 The second primer covers sensible and social construction.

This primer is a little loopy, because, when sensible construction fails, social construction begins and when social construction ends, sensible construction begins once again.

0034 I proceed by way of example.

Today, in 2022 AD, all books on human evolution weave the fossil record into a seamless garment, starting around two million years ago and ending with paleolithic hunter-gathers.

A sequence of figures depict the actuality2 of descent with modification3.

Figure 10

0035 Descent with modification3a is situated by evolutionary science3b.

Here is a picture of a sensible construction.

Figure 11

0036 Clearly, a situation-level nested form emerges from (and situates) a content-level nested form.

Sensible construction is composed of content and situation levels, in a two-level relational structure.

12/23/22

Looking at Razie Mah’s  (2014) A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (Part 6 of 24)

0037 What happens next?

Of course, some clever comedian adds more figures to the picture of human evolution painted by descent with modification.

The additional features raise a question.

Figure 12

0038 Comedians love to upset the narrative.

Clearly, the fat guy with a beer2a cannot be explained by evolutionary science3b with material and physical models2bbased on natural selection and genetics1b.

Neither can the hunch-back at the computer.

Sensible construction fails.

Figure 13

0039 When sensible construction fails, social construction begins.

A social construction appears within a nested form on the perspective level of a three-level interscope.  A three-level interscope is a nested form composed of nested forms.

Figure 14

0040 Well, of course, the guy with the beer does not descend with modification from the guy with a spear.  The two guys occupy different living worlds (or, in German, Lebenswelts).  The guy with a beer belongs to our current Lebenswelt.  The guy with the spear belongs to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Does this sound vaguely familiar?

Recall that actuality2 represents a dyad composed of two contiguous real elements.  Actuality2 looks like this:

one real element [contiguity] other real element

Correspondingly the perspective-level actuality looks like this:

the Lebenswelt that we evolved in [first singularity] our current Lebenswelt2c

0041 Notice that elements of the perspective level are really empty slots.  

0042 What is the potential1c?

A perspective-level potential1c virtually brings the potential of natural selection and genetics1b into relation with the potential of both archaeology and history1a.

The potential1c is triadic relations.  Triadic relations include signs, mediations, judgments, normal contexts and category-based nested forms.  The human niche is the potential of triadic relations1c.

0043 What is the normal context3c?

The normal context3c is not clear.  Whatever it3c is, it3c puts evolutionary science3b into perspective, even as evolutionary science3b emerges from and situates the potential of Darwin’s foundational principle of descent with modification3a.

I do not think that the perspective-level normal context3c rules out theology.

If I look back at the original comedy, where the guy with a spear “evolves” into the guy with a beer, I see an intimation of a theocomedy, the humorous counterpoint to our great theodrama.

Human evolution comes with a twist.

0044 Here is a picture of the beginning of a new age of sensible construction.

Figure 15