0101 Oh my, this examination is already as long as the article.

Oh, maybe I can use a different label for what I am doing.

May I call this examination “a reconfiguration”?

The reconfiguration starts with a distinction between esse, dici (hand talk) and dici (speech-alone talk), drawing human evolution into the discussion.

In the long run, I suspect that Aquinas’s philosophy may be (to a significant degree) “re-expressed” using Peirce’s diagrams, if only because diagrams allow one to visualize a relation, as well as content within the relation.

Okay, maybe I should call this examination, “a speculation”.

0102 I conclude by offering a couple more blogs, with lots of pictures.

One blog focuses on the difference between implicit and explicit abstraction in regards to relationes secundum X.

The other blog concern the category-based nested form and how Peirce’s categories may be regarded in terms of explicit and implicit abstraction.

0103 I start with the counter-intuitive hand-talk statement discussed earlier.

Here is relationes secundum dici for this implicit abstraction.

0104 In the statement, each gesture-word categorically pictures or points to its referent.  In doing so, each hand-talk wordassociates to matter.  The form, here provided in speech-alone talk, is a relation that is counter-intuitive because ravens do not swim.

0105 But, maybe they do not have to.

0106 In speech-alone talk, the matter-slot is occupied by an interpretation (a relationes), corresponding to the form-slot for hand talk.  The speech-alone word which solves the riddle of the slogan is “drought”.  This word mimimizes contradictions to the extent that the interpretation only requires sensible construction.

0107 At this moment, I pose a question in regards the way that my attention proceeds in the previous two figures.

To me, it seems easy to proceed from (A) the matter-slot for implicit abstraction to (C) the form-slot for explicit abstraction.   Dici (hand talk) flows through relationes to dici (speech-alone talk).

The other direction seems much more problematic.  For example, if I say the word, “drought”, I do not spontaneously imagine that a drought allows ravens to pick up pebbles from the bottom of creeks.

The difficulties multiply when considering a return passage from dici (speech-alone talk) to dici (hand-talk).

0108 How does explicit and implicit abstraction apply to the category-based nested form.

0109 I now go through explicit, then implicit abstraction, for each of the three categories.

To start, the category-based nested form is a triadic relation.  Triadic relations implicate implicit abstraction.

The category-based nested form entails explicit abstraction, because it is a specific application of Peirce’s category of thirdness.  Thirdness is the realm of normal contexts, signs, mediations and so forth.  Each of these triadic reations may be diagrammed as “empty-slot” relational structures.  Then, the inquirer enters explicit abstractions into the empty-slots.

Accordingly, a diagram of the category-based diagram offers a general (universal and transcendental) example of dici(speech-alone talk)(as form) in contiguity with Peirce’s definition of thirdness (as relation).

The following dyad displays two real elements: a general way of articulating the category-based nested form,(corresponding to form) and what is implicated by a relation among Peirce’s categories (occupying the slot for matter) in the manner of relationes secundum dici (speech-alone talk).

Even though this relationes secundum dici (speech-alone talk) appears legitimate, this dyad goes into the dicey bucket.

0110 What happens when I bring the form from the dicey bucket (B) over to the slot for matter in the esse bucket  (B)?

In this instance, a formalized diagram of a category-based nested form containing elements of speech-alone talk is treated as if it is has the same semiotic qualities as hand talk.  The articulated diagram of Peirce’s secondness (dici (speech-alone talk)) now acts like matter, substantiating a specific relational expression (like form) for relationes secundum dici (hand talk).

In the following figure, the relation (form) expresses the ways that the logic of the normal context expresses itself as an explicit abstraction, even though its realness manifests as an implicit abstraction.

This is an example of a dyad in the esse bucket.

The logics of the normal context comes to the fore as form for the implicit abstraction, because thirdness (matter for explicit abstraction) presents itself as a category-based nested form (form for explicit abstraction and matter for implicit abstraction).

So, the above figures picture a transit from the dicey to the esse bucket.

One transit from explicit to implicit abstraction starts with a relationes (in the slot for matter, for explicit abstraction, A), proceeds through dici (speech-alone talk, first as form, B, and then as matter for hand-talk, B), to a relationes (in the slot for form, for implicit abstraction, C).

0111 Is this how a relation (A), in our current Lebenswelt, somehow “translates” into various innate operations of implicit abstraction, consisting of mental adaptations to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in (C)?

Or, is this how dici (speech-alone talk) (B) corresponds to a relation in our current Lebenswelt (A), while performatively activating a phenotypic relation adapted to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in (C)?

0112 Of course, Duma does not go into such disturbing and discombobulating scenarios.  Duma does not even mention Peirce.  But, the last two questions frame a very important concern for philosophers.

The concern is not whether the theory of evolution is philosophically viable or not.

The question asks, “Given that human evolution consists of adaptations to the potential of triadic relations in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, then what the hell is going on in our current Lebenswelt?”

0113 Peirce’s diagrams offer opportunities to express ways that implicit relations (as forms in the esse bucket, C) may be triggered when speech-alone talk (as a form in the dicey bucket, B) accords to explicitly configured relations (as matter in the dicey bucket, A).

Trust (implicit relation, C) the science (explicit relation, A).

0114 Ready for the next category?

The flow of A,B,C may start with Peirce’s category of secondness as explicit matter (A).

What is the corresponding explicit form?

Aristotle’s hylomorphe (B) exemplifies this category, consisting in two contiguous real elements.  Here, the contiguity could hold the word, “transcendental”, because it applies to all expressions of secondness.  The contiguity could also contain the word, “categorical”, for a specific application.  For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the first real element is “matter” and the second real element is “form”.

0115 Once again, dici (speech-alone talk), expessed as a diagram of a hylomorphic dyad, goes from form (in the dicey bucket, B) to matter (in the esse bucket, B).  The corresponding form (C) consists of icons and indexes as sign-relations,as well as the logics applicable to expressions that belongs to Peirce’s realm of actuality.  Actuality is subject to the (logics or) laws of contradiction and noncontradiction.

0116 An example?

Consider the actuality of a bridge (A), in a fancy high-rise hotel, spanning across the atrium.  This construction should follow the laws of non-contradiction. In order to pass safety inspection,  a little sign is placed at either end of the bridge, saying, “Only 100 people allowed.”  This little sign (B) satisfies the attribution of this architectural thing to Peirce’s category of secondness (matter, explicit abstraction, A).

The two real elements to the relationes secundum dici (speech-alone talk) are the integrity of the bridge’s construction (A) and the safety limits placed on the bridge (B). The contiguity is [supports].

0117 Now, imagine a meeting of a philosophical society full of inquirers who know nothing of either Aquinas or Peirce.  After the final academic session of the day, some wealthy donor throws a party in the atrium featuring the deep-state trance rave-master remixer named Crashing Success.

My pals say that the best place to watch the show is from the bridge suspended over the atrium floor.  So, we go, and the bridge is already packed with fellow travelers.  Lots of fellow travelers!  But, right at the moment that I am about to step onto the bridge, I see the little sign: “Only 100 people allowed” (B).

So, I defer, and go back to the food court, while casting worrying glances at the party scene further down the atrium (not C).

0118 The transit from explicit (A) to implicit abstraction (C) intimates disaster.

For similar scenarios, see Looking at N.J. Enfield’s Book (2022) “Language vs. Reality”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog for October 2024, as well as in Original Sin and The Post-Truth Condition Part 3 (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

0013 Now, the original judgment must be corrected, not only for the spelling error, but with the spelling error in mind.

0014 Theoretically, John Paul II addresses concerns about Humanae Vita, an encyclical written and approved in the treacherous year of 1968.  The scope is narrow.  This proclamation expresses a theology of the body.  And, it is not about scented body-wash, which is now on sale at commercial venues, as an X-mas gift for whoever is significant to the one making the purchase.

0015 As already intimated, John Paul II uses the theology of Aquinas as a platform on which to stand and proclaim a truth concerning who we evolved to be.  We evolved to live as images of God.

To date, no philosopher in the tradition of Aquinas follows the pope’s daring lead.

John Paul II cannot be put into the box of Aquinas’s theology.  Instead, Aquinas’s theology is the box that John Paul II stands on to proclaim a theology to the modern world, that contests all the mercantilist, and fraternalist, and normativist theories proposing materialist solutions to our immaterial condition.  We are created in the image of God.

0016 So, of course, current scientific theories of human evolution must be reconfigured with the pope’s daring stand in mind.

And oddly enough, this is precisely what Razie Mah does in his three e-masterworks, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define The Word “Religion”.

Now, should I say that these would make wonderful Christmas gifts?

0017 Okay, Pope John Paul II offers a broad challenge to the tradition of Aquinas while concentrating on a narrow issue: the theology of the body.

How do elements of the biblical teaching of Genesis key into the above (broad) judgment?

Here is a picture.

0018 Does the judgment that John Paul II develops in Theology of the Body point to Alexander Dugin’s conceptualization of the ethnos?

Here is how to read the above diagram.

An honest and holistic intelligence (relation, thirdness) brings the creation of male and female in an evolution-sounding revelation (what is, secondness) into relation with the moral of Adam’s reaction to Eve upon presentation of a “helper” (what ought to be, firstness).

This judgment belongs to the divine suprasubjectivity of original justice, and is manifested as a commitment in human subjectivity.  Marriage is not a thing, or only a ritual.  Marriage is a transubstantiation of this judgment.

0019 Of course, I use the term, “transubstantiation”, in an unfamiliar, yet technically precise, manner.  Transubstantiationis a “change in substance”, corresponding to a change in assignment of Peirce’s categories.  For example, ‘something₁‘ in firstness becomes an actuality₂ in secondness.

For this particular judgment, what is and what ought to be change categories when the relation becomes the sacrament of marriage (a relation consistent with the honest Christian intellect of Pope John Paul II).

0020 Here is a picture.

0021 Once again, the sacrament of marriage (relation, thirdness) brings the creation of male and female in an evolution-sounding revelation (what is, firstness) into relation with the moral of Adam’s reaction to Eve upon presentation of a “helper” (what ought to be, secondness).

0022 Marriage is an adaptation to life in an ethnos, belonging to Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

The closest that we currently can get to the ethnos is to live in the pre-political narod.  The narod is the closest way of life in our current Lebenswelt, to who we evolved to be.

0023 Wanless quotes John Paul II’s comments on Jesus’s reply to the Pharisees in Matthew 19:3-12, saying (more or less), “When Christ appeals to the ‘beginning’, he asks his interlocutors to go beyond the… um… first singularity, the transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt.”

Christ asks us to consider the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  That is no small feat, because our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Indeed, we can never truly return to who we evolved to be.

0024 So, how to proceed?

0025 First, note that in the previous judgments, both what is and what ought to be correspond to the Genesis account before the… you know… “incident”.  Adam and Eve are (somehow) one with the ethnos, yet destined to enter the narod.  Similarly, human evolution in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in precedes the first singularity, yet is destined to enter the first singularity.

0026 Here is a thumbnail sketch of the hypothesis of the first singularity.

Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk in two steps, as described in The Human Niche, as well as Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019), by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Also consider Razie Mah’s blog for January through March 2023.

0027 Speech is added to hand-talk at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens.  Homo sapiens practice hand-speech talk for over 200,000 years until something happens, around 7800 years ago, to the dry land that is now called the “Persian Gulf”.  Yes, 10,000 years ago, the Persian Gulf is dry land.  By 7800 years ago, water fills the shallow geological basin.

0028 An interglacial begins.  The ocean levels rise.  Sea-water fills the ravine carved by the confluence of four rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates, during the so-called “Wet Neolithic” archaeological period.  A mesolithic culture moves out of the ravine and begins to settle in with a developed neolithic culture occupying the (then) dry-land surrounding the ravine.  Two hand-speech talking cultures are forced into the same territory.  Because they have complementary economies, they make love, rather than war.

0029 The linguistic consequences?  The new hybrid culture starts with pidgin, then the children of later generations create a creole, a new language.  Plus, this new language does not have hand-talk.  Sumerian is the first speech-alone language.  Not surprisingly, Sumerian is unrelated to any family of languages.  The technical term is “linguistic isolate”.

As it turns out, the semiotic qualities of hand-speech talk and speech-alone talk are very different.  Hand-talk and hand-speech talk ground reference through iconic and indexal manual-brachial gestures.  In short, even fully linguistic gesture-words picture or point to their referents.  The referent precedes the word-gesture.  In contrast, speech-alone talk has no iconic or indexal sign-qualities.  It is purely symbolic.  A symbol is a sign-relation whose sign-object is based on habit, convention, law, and so forth.  A spoken word cannot picture or point to its referent.  Therefore, the spoken word precedes the referent.

0030 So, at the start of the first singularity (as well as our current Lebenswelt), the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia stands as the only speech-alone talking culture in a world filled with hand-speech talking cultures.  I mark the nominal start of the Ubaid with a new chronological marker, Zero U0′ (Ubaid Zero Prime or “uh-oh prime”).  0 U0′ corresponds to 5800 B.C.

Of course, that may change.  The correspondence is a first approximation.

By 2800 U0′, the Sumerian Dynastic archaeological period begins.  Populations within city-states are not a “people”, yet, unless the origin myths of the ancient Near East can be labeled “political theory”.  They are narods.  These narods traditionally support the city-state.  They clear the irrigation canals.  They build a stairway to heaven in order for their local god to descend from the firmament to earth.  They build a palace to house the king, who is charged with the protection of the city, as well as tasked with the impossible job of talking to the priests… at the temple next to the ziggurat, in order to ascertain the intentions of whoever comes down the staircase from the firmament.

0031 At 7000 U0′, Thomas Aquinas defines the philosophical parameters for discussing the ethnos (belonging to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in) by conducting an inquiry into the nature of the pre-lapsarian Adam (who, after the Fall, definitely belongs to our current Lebenswelt).  Because Adam is made by the working of an artisan, he belongs to our current Lebenswelt, and so he must be counted at a narod.  He also practices speech-alone talk.

At the same time, pre-lapsarian Adam is called ‘adam-ah’, meaning “humanity”, or “the human one”, which associates to the ethnos, living before the first singularity.  This precisely fits Pope John Paul II’s suggestion that, if we stand on the soap-box of Aquinas’s philosophy, we might be see over the fence of the first singularity, to envision who we evolved to be.

0032 What is John Paul II up to?

Well, I suspect that he asks God to bless his honest Christian intellect (relation, thirdness) as he strives to look over the fence of the first singularity (what ought to be, secondness) while standing on the soap-box of Aquinas’s formulation of original innocence (what is, firstness).

Just as with the sacrament of marriage, John Paul II’s proclamation of a theology of the body, involves a transubstantiation.  What is is now imbued with firstness, the realm of possibility.  What ought to be is now assigned to secondness, the realm of actuality.

0033 So, why fuss about “transubstantiation” technically defined as a change of category of elements?

When each element of a judgment is assigned to one of Peirce’s categories, then the judgment is actionable.  If not, the judgment is contemplative.  Actionable judgments unfold into category-based nested forms on the basis of the categorical assignments.

Consequently, the judgment rendered above (the result of a transubstantiation of the what is of Aquinas’s theology from secondness to firstness) unfolds into the following category-based nested form.

0034 The normal context of a blessed, honest and Christian intellect₃ brings the actuality of a vision of the gift, as a reality embedded within the ethnos₂ into relation with the possibilities inherent in Aquinas’s theology in regards to the prelapsarian Adam₁.

0035 The broad nested form may be compared to a specific nested form concerning marriage, where sacramental marriage transubstantiates the judgment rendered by an honest intellect (points 13-21).

0036 Now, I can compare elements in the two nested forms, not as specific as opposed to broad, but as two illuminations shining light upon one another.

0037 Firstness is the monadic realm of possibility.  The logics of firstness are inclusive and allow contradictions.  In both judgments, firstness associates to what once was regarded as secondness, the realm of actuality.  What is moves from secondness to firstness.  Pope John Paul II says, “Consider standing on the shoulders of Aquinas.”  At the same time, the createdness of male and female must be considered in terms of the possibility of “one flesh”. 

0038 The possibilities inherent in male and female stand as the basis of various modern -isms (B) that explicitly abstract one possibility (say, the woman’s role) of a complex whole (the family) in order to theorize an elevation of the feminine to the status of the masculine, such that both are undifferentiated (in the normal context of a pagan spirit) under the label, “human”.  With this counter-intuitive labeling, human subjectivity alters, and a permanent, conscious, explicit abstraction is internalized as an implicit abstraction. 

For example, a feminist humanist may declare, “If a male behaves like a male, he dehumanizes the female.”

The explicit term, “dehumanize” conjures the implicit abstraction of offense.

The pope’s theology of the body moves the same possibilities inherent in male and female to a divine suprasubjectivity.  Our very being steps out of chapter one of Genesis, which, despite all attempts to contain its evolutionary theme, still serves as a sign of our evolutionary heritage.  Read the text.  If recited by a madman in a lab coat in the halls of academia, the Creation Story would easily be mistaken as an evolutionary vision of the development of our world.  Male and female, He created them.

0039 From the view of divine subjectivity, male and female₁ constitute a monad, to be actualized as one “flesh”₂, in the normal context of the spirit₃.  Images of actualization are so addictive that pornographers make fortunes by marketing simulacra of the real… um… “thing”.  But, the “flesh” is more than what pornographers fixate on.  The “flesh” is family.  The lesson is precisely located in the story where God, after fashioning Eve from Adam’s rib, introduces her to him as his “helper”.

The irony is profound, because in human evolution, the male adapts to serve as the female’s helper.  The Homo genus survives because each male provisions for his female and her children (not completely, but enough that the behavior becomes encoded genetically).  In order for that to happen, the female must bear her mate’s children, and not another male’s.  Provisioning by the male (as the female’s helper) is a gift.  Fidelity by the female (as the one who receives the male’s provisioning) is a gift.  The “marriage deal” is so successful, that the female adapts to signaling her fidelity by making the male the one in charge of the family.  The male, who is in charge, adapts by becoming emotionally bonded to his female.

0040 From the view of divine subjectivity, the irony mentioned above belongs to the potential of the original innocence of prelapsarian adamah.  “Original innocence” is the label that St. Thomas Aquinas attaches to the condition of the prelapsarian Adam, located in the liminality between the Lebenswelt that we evolved in and our current Lebenswelt.

Original innocence points to the gift of our creation.  This is no small feat.  As Steven Gould noted, if one replayed the history of the Earth with one small change, humans would not have evolved.

Original innocence also points to adamah (or “humanity”, or, using Dugin’s terminology, “ethnos”) as providing a gift back to God, by embodying his image.  That is no small feat.  In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, hominins practice hand (and later, hand-speech) talk.  Manual-brachial word-gestures image and indicate their referents.  No element in the speech-alone phrase, “image of God”, can be pictured or pointed to.  So, the application of the term, from a God capable of transubstantiating symbols (the stuff of thirdness) into real things (the stuff of secondness) and potentials (the stuff of firstness), is sacramental.  The gift that we give back to God is to be who we evolved to be.

0041 Secondness is the dyadic realm of actuality.

Looking back at the Greimas square for Alexander Dugin’s political theology, modern political theories (B, which, by the way, have all failed, each in its own way) extract an actuality from the narod (C, the pre-political and post-lapsarian adamah) and elevate that actuality into a normal context for a people (A).  So, modern political theorists, like the magicians at the employ of Pharaoh at the time of Moses, also perform transubstantiations.

0042 Once again, here is a picture.

0042 Against modern materialist -isms, Pope John Paul II offers a holistic theology that may turn the narod (of Christ) into a people (under the banner of Christ the King).  The blessed, honest Christian intellect offers a quest to recover (or, for modernity, to discover) who we evolved to be.

0043 That quest (relation, thirdness) brings the ethos of the gift (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with original innocence (what is, firstness).

The “gift” is theologically rich.  One offers a gift.  One receives a gift.  One does not refuse a gift.  Indeed, to accept a giftis a gift, as well.  Plus, the gift of not refusing a gift cannot be refused, because the gift is… well… unstoppable.

0044 Of course, if the laws of noncontradiction are applied to the gift, consistently, and gratitude becomes obligation, then the fate of the gift may draw people into a web of obligations leading to a horrible fate.

Consider how uranium can be an inexpensive agent for producing electricity or an expensive agent to reduce military targets to rubble.  What gift can be more wonderful and more horrifying?  Yet, international markets trade this giftroutinely.

0045 Think of how much more wonderful and horrifying the actuality of two becoming one “flesh” can be.

0046 What does “flesh” mean?

Pope John Paul II contrasts “flesh” with “spirit”.

Two becoming one “flesh”₂ occurs in the normal context of the spirit₃ and arises from the potential of ‘oneness’₁.  Otherwise, the two are just “playing house”.

The gift of one lover giving himself to the other lover, who gives herself to the one lover, also manifests as the gift of life.  Each child is a gift.  The narod (and the ethnos) recognize children as gifts, not of human ceremonial exchange, but of divine beneficence.  Grace inflows nature.

0047 So the potential of ‘oneness₁ of flesh₂ in spirit’₃ corresponds to grace flowing into human nature.

The “gift”, then, exemplifies grace inflows nature.

0048 Humans intuitively recognize the nature of gifts.  There is nothing like a gift from God.  There is nothing as welcome as a gift from a fellow human.

Our innate ability to recognize a gift is an adaptation.  In this adaptation, we anticipate the ethos of the gift (like grace) to flow into the ethnos (like nature).  What is the result?  Humans in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in are happy, in ways that civilized folk find hard to imagine.  They own nothing.  They are happier than any civilized person that owns something.

0049 Which makes me wonder, is “ownership” somehow different than the “gift”?

Uh-oh, isn’t ownership one of the conditions for civilization?

See Comments on David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Book (2021) “The Dawn of Everything”, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Chapter ten of this book is examined in Looking at David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Chapter (2021) “Why the State has no Origin”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog from March 15-31, 2023.

0050 The explicit abstractions afforded by speech-alone talk toy with our minds.  The ethos of the gift (like grace) flows into the ethnos (like nature).  As far as the human intellect₃ is concerned, the gift₂ arises from the potential oneness of what we give and receive and who we evolved to be₁.

As far as the modern intellect is concerned, grace is one thing and nature is another.  The notion that grace and nature are contiguous is ridiculous.  Two options are available.  Either grace rules and God manipulates nature to His ends or nature rules and God’s grace is a nice idea to pray over.  Once “grace” and “nature” are no longer contiguous, then the gift-recognizing nature of the human becomes subject to analytic dissection, resulting in various -isms that theorize about what we ought to be giving and receiving and who we are.