0104 What about the second task?

Task two aims for a correct comprehension of the West.

I add, “Especially, the modern West.”

0105 Remember Descartes’ slogan, “I think, therefore I am.”

Modern scientists promise to satisfy an unlimited will to know₁ in the normal context of expertise₃.

Remember Anselm’s slogan, “Faith seeks understanding.”?

Modern scientists also imagine that they deliver the understanding₁ that people seek₂ in the normal context of faith₃.  Otherwise, why write books popularizing scientific knowledge?

People are not interested in materials and methods.

0106 As the western archeomodern groove breaks down, I ask.  Is there understanding₁ without faith₃?  Does the invocation of the term, “cultural dynamics₁“, satisfy the Cartesian will to know₁?  Or, are modern and postmodern institutions producing narratives… I mean… nested forms that do not bind well to the otherwise productive archeomodern groove?

The corrupt bureaucrats say, “Trust the science.”

The people reply, “This makes no sense.  I do not understand.”

0107 Perhaps, a correct comprehension of the West starts with science.

Christian philosophers struggle to formulate science in terms of Aristotle (or, for Catholics, Thomas Aquinas).  Their struggle has been going on for centuries.

Last century, Jacques Maritain comes close to hitting the target.  In Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy, Razie Mah distills Maritain’s argument into two intertwined judgments: the Positivist’s and the empirio-schematic judgments.

0108 A judgment has a triadic structure.  It has three elements: relation, what is and what ought to be.  Each of these elements may be assigned to one category: firstness, secondness or thirdness.  Only one category per element is allowed.  Categories define the associated nested form.

Here is a picture of the Positivist’s judgment.

0109 A positivist intellect (relation, thirdness) brings the dyad, a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena(what is, firstness) into relation with an empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be, secondness).

The positivist intellect has a rule.  Metaphysics is not allowed.

0110 Note that what ought to be is also a judgment.

A disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) brings observations and measurements of phenomena (what is, firstness) into relation with mechanical and mathematical models (what ought to be, secondness).

0111 Questioning the Positivist’s judgment never works as anticipated.  If one criticizes the lack of metaphysics, one ends up trapped in a discussion couched in the disciplinary languages of the empirio-schematic judgment.  If one criticizes an empirio-schematic judgment , one gets accused of denying phenomena, the observable and measurable facets of their noumenon.  Or worse, one is dismissed as a metaphysician.

0112 Does a correct interpretation of the West entail an alternate vision of science?

There are many ways to describe science.  Who would describe science as two intertwined actionable judgments, that unfold into nested forms on the basis of their categorical assignments?

Razie Mah would.

0113 Even stranger, Razie Mah presents a series of commentaries, titled Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect.  Several works appear in that series, including Comments on Jack Reynold’s Book (2018) “Phenomenology, Naturalism and Science”, A Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenological Reductions”, Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean-Luc Marion and… First Philosophy” and Comments on Richard Colledge’s Essay (2021) “Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenological Reduction”.  These are promoted in blogs at www.raziemah.com during September and October, 2021, as well as during March and April, 2022.

0114 What is there in the Positivist’s judgment that a phenomenologist might fixate on?

Here is a picture.

Well, with a discipline called “phenomenology”, I imagine that the phenomenologist would fixate on what is.

But which side?  The noumenon?  Or its phenomena?

0115 A noumenon, the thing itself, cannot be fully objectified as its phenomena, its observable and measurable facets. Indeed, in the natural sciences (relation, thirdness), disciplinary languages model observations and measurements (what ought to be, secondness) of phenomena (what is, firstness), while ignoring their noumenon (what is, firstness).  In the 1920s and 1930s, the Vienna Circle proposes that noumena are completely irrelevant to our modern scientific world.

0116 There is a problem with this proposal.

Decades earlier, Edmund Husserl (1859-1938 AD) anticipates the issue and proposes an oddly named school, called, “Phenomenology”.  How is it oddly named?  Husserl strives to identify, in an intuitive way, what the noumenon must be.  Phenomenological reduction starts with the same phenomena as the empirio-schematic judgment, then brackets out all sorts of notions, such as traditional formulations, as well as the empirio-schematic judgment, in order to arrive at a declaration of what the noumenon must be.

Here is a picture.

0117 On what basis is the declaration made?

To me, the basis may correspond to what Heidegger calls “Da-Sein”.

If Da-Sein is the basis of discovering what the noumenon must be, then the noumenon must correspond to Sein, Being Itself.  

0118 Needless to say, Martin Heidegger (1899-1976) occupies the same Chair in Philosophy at the University of Freiberg that Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) retires from.

Coincidence?

0119 Dugin knows the link between Heidegger and Husserl.  Dugin says that understanding Heidegger’s philosophy is crucial to articulating a Russian philosophy.  Yet, I wonder whether Dugin is aware that Heidegger’s Sein may be the noumenon, the thing itself, which cannot be objectified as its phenomena.

If that speculative “may” proves fruitful, then Dugin is something of a prophet.  A correct comprehension of the modern West involves a correct comprehension of science. Heidegger says that the key to a correct interpretation of our scientific world starts with Dasein.  Dugin points to Heidegger and says, “Listen to this philosopher.”  What Heidegger says fulfills the second task.

0120 At this point, I add a purely speculative note.  I have a guess.  I have a curious feeling that Heidegger offers a big label to what the noumenon must be.  It is “Sein” (German for “being”).  Plus, “Dasein” (German for “there” and “being”) labels the human encounter with Sein.  Once these substitutions are made, then the remainder of the Positivist’s judgmentis eclipsed, or “bracketed out”.  Heidegger brands the noumenon, the thing itself, in a most philosophically encompassing manner.  There is a difference between Dasein and the lived experience and the consciousness in our modern age.

Here is a picture of the new beginning.  The Positivist’s judgment fades as Heidegger rides the noumenon into a promised land.  Promised to the people of Germany.

Well, that sounds dramatic.  Plus, it sounds somewhat theological.  It is enough to make me wonder, “Is there a phenomenology of the spirit?”

With that in mind, consider the blog, posted October 1, 2022, at www.raziemah.com, appealing to a German politician.  The title of the blog is “Fantasia in G-minor: A Speech Written for Gunnar Beck MEP”.

MEP stands for Member of the European Parliament.

Perhaps, there is an alternative for Germany.

0121 The third task elaborates a philosophy of chaos.

Why?

The narod, the ethnos born into our current Lebenswelt, confronts chaos.

How so?

0122 Here is a narrative that addresses mythos.

0123 The ethnos corresponds to us in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  In terms of culture, the ethnos consists of social circles within social circles (friends, intimates, family, teams, band, community, mega-band and tribe), as described in Comments on Clive Gamble, John Gowlett and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big.  These social circles adapt to one another and promote human flourishing.  These social circles operate in harmony.  These social circles are the foundations of the human sense of belonging.

0124 Then, the first singularity casts all that away.  Humans abandon the hand-talk component of their hand-speech talkin their efforts to mimic wealthier and more powerful cultures, who practice speech-alone talk.

The narod corresponds to us in our current Lebenswelt.  Because speech-alone talk potentiates unconstrained labor and social complexity, our social circles no longer work in harmony.  Indeed, new “social circles” are formulated, using specialized languages that come into being explicitly to exploit some advantage, like turning blue rock into copper metal or rotting milk into delicious cheese.

0125 The narod cannot return to the ethnos, even though the ethnos characterizes what we evolved to be.  Yet, somehow, we intuitively recall the harmony of the social circles, the pleasures of constrained complexity and the sense of belonging.  Plus, we acknowledge that we are cast out of that world and our new world is ruled by a demiurge, a fantastic and cruel leviathan that draws people into organization.  This monster is visualized in chapter 6A in An Archaeology of the Fall.

0126 Out of a narod comes a people.

People long for order.  A people establishes an order.  Or, does an order establish a people? 

There are two ways to establish order.  Often, order spontaneously occurs.  Sometimes, order is imposed.  To the latter, the former appears as chaos.  How so?  Spontaneous order cannot be imposed.  Indeed, imposed order is threatened by chaos from without.  Imposed order is threatened by chaos from within.  And worse, the purveyors of an imposed ordermay feed off the fruits produced by a spontaneous order.

Some people call these purveyors, “Parasites.”

Parasites are agents of chaos, insofar as they prefer a fragile imposed order to a robust spontaneous order.

0127 Yes, there is a logos that walks with this mythos.

Dugin’s third task asks, “What is the philosophy of chaos?”