05/18/23

Looking at Brian Kemple’s Book (2019) “The Intersection” (Part 1 of 4)

0001 According to Neoplatonic legend, the descent of the soul starts with a small immaterial gem resting on an undefinable pillow in the presence of transcendental beauty.  Then, a trap door opens and the little source of illuminationbegins to fall.  As it descends, it accrues matter.  Matter enters form.

One may say that the matter is evil and the soul, good, and conclude that the immortal soul becomes encased in corruptible matter.  But, the story is more complicated, because the term, “matter” slyly includes the capacity to become entangled with purely relational being.  Matter holds the capacity for meaning.  Matter substantiates form.  So Christians, following the complication, witness the baby as bearing a message.  The message?  Baptize me.

0002 The book before me is Brian Kemple’s The Intersection of Semiotics and Phenomenology: Peirce and Heidegger in Dialogue, published in 2019 by Walter de Gruyter Press (Boston/Berlin).  The masterwork is dedicated to the memory of John Deely (1942-2017 AD), who served as Kemple’s professor.

0003 The book presents a complex argument.  I, a simpleton, fixate on the titular word, “intersection”.

For me, the term has a technical definition, as formulated in the chapter on message in the e-book How To Define The Word “Religion” (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  An intersection is a single actuality composed of two actualities, each with its own category-based nested form.

Say what?

See A Primer on the Category-based Nested Form.

0004 A photon is an example of an intersection of two actualities: a wave and a particle.  The normal context of a diffraction apparatus3 brings wave properties of light2 into relation with the potential of ‘observations of wavelengths’1.  The normal context of a metal plate3 brings particle properties of light2 into relation with potential ‘observations of the photo-electric effect’1.

0005 Here is a picture.

Figure 01

0006 Here is another way to look at the photon as intersection.

Figure 02

0007 In the following blogs, I will endeavor to visualize whether Kemple’s use of the term, “intersection”, coheres with this technical definition.

In order to do so, I will locate two category-based nested forms, one for both Peirce and one for Heidegger, and see whether the two actualities meld into one. 

05/15/23

Looking at Brian Kemple’s Book (2019) “The Intersection” (Part 4 of 4)

0020 The term, Bildendwelt, sounds like the concatenation of the words, “Bilden” and “dwelt”, as in the English statement, “I dwelt in that Bilden, before it came crashing down.”

In order to appreciate my humor, consider the October 1, 2022, blog at www.raziemah.com, titled, “Fantasia in G Minor: A speech written for Gunnar Beck MEP”.

Da Bilden is coming down!

Oh, I meant to say… the Bildendwelt makes no sense at all.

0021 So much for wordplay.

The compound-word, Bildendwelt stands, waiting to be refined in the furnace of postmodern use.

0022 The third division of Kemple’s book weaves together divisions one and two, titled World and Sign, into an intersection.  In the process, Kemple focuses on two elements in the following figure: Sein1V and sign1H.

Figure 08

0023 To me, Kemple’s focus is remarkable, because Being1V and triadic relations1H are crucial for bringing our lineage from Umwelt, to Lebenswelt, and further into Bildendwelt.  Indeed, I wonder whether these compound terms should be used to label the single actuality of Peirce’s experience2H and Dasein2V.

0024 But, let me not ignore one further possibility, the single actuality is us.

Here is a list of labels for the single actuality.

Figure 09

0025 Now, I can portray our descent.

Imagine us, as purely spiritual illuminations, perched on undefinable pillows, in the presence of transcendent beauty in an era when all time is now.  A trap door opens and we descend into Being and Time.  As we fall, we accrete two actualities, coinciding with Peirce’s experience following his realization that signs are real1H and with Heidegger’s vision of Dasein1V.  These actualities are full of contradictions.

As we descend through Being and Time, we accrue World and Sign.  We pass through our primordial Umwelt, the Lebenswelt that we evolve in, the first singularity, our current Lebenswelt and now, our Bildendwelt.  Descent with modification.  Then we are born, in the present, and each one of us bears a message.  Baptize me.

0026 What does baptism do?

Baptism cleanses us of Gestell, the grammars of our world, carrying temptation, misdirections and lures that entrap us, confound us, and, in the end, convince us that the truth can never be found.

How so?

Truth is just a spoken word.  We create our own “truth”.  Spoken words are merely projections of our Innerwelt upon that which is outside ourselves.  After temptation fixes our occasions of sin, after our own projections redirect the projections of others and weave a veil of reality, and after we begin to believe in our own self-divinizing speculative grammar, we construct artifacts that validate our spoken worlds.  We build our own prison.  Heidegger calls it, Gestell.

0027 When the waters of baptism pour over an infant, the baby often cries. The baby represents all of us.

The waters of baptism disturb.  Dasein2V!  We enter a world perfused with signs.  We are welcomed into a world where the material finds meaning in the immaterial.  The human niche is the potential of triadic relations.  How all encompassing will Peirce’s experience2H be?  We stand on the threshold of a new age of understanding.

Kemple offers the reader a portrait of John Deely’s vision, in a book that lives up to its title, in more ways than one.  Bravo!

07/29/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay  (2022) “Covid was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 1 of 10)

0001 Matthew B. Crawford, at University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, publishes an essay at the website, UnHerd, on May 21, 2022.  The website is worth investigating.  Crawford is worth reading.

0002 But, that is not my only motive for this sequence of blogs.

It turns out that well-organized writers provide excellent material for triadic diagrams.  These blogs aim re-articulate Crawford’s argument, following the technique of association and implication.  The method is the same as with the other blog this month, concerning Vigano’s speech on how Vatican II serves the agenda of the Great Reset crowd.

0003 The title of Crawford’s essay is displayed in the header.  The subtitle reveals the nature of the endgame.  Liberal individualism has an innate tendency towards authoritarianism.  That tendency manifests as real behavior.

0004 What is the real behavior?

Italian Giorgio Agamben (b. 1942) captures its essence with the political philosophical… or is it theological?.. label, “state of exception”.  During the past eighty years, emergency declarations become more and more the norm.  An emergency declaration inaugurates a state of exception and provides cover for top-down programs of social transformation.

0005 What do emergency-justified “liberal” projects aim to accomplish?

The core of the “liberal” regime is both political and anthropological: to remake humans.So, the answer depends on the meaning of “make”.

07/29/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 2 of 10)

0006 How are humans to be reconfigured?

Two key political philosophers articulate two visions.  

0008 John Locke (1632-1704 AD) regards humans as self-governing creatures.  Humans are endowed with reason.  Commonsense allows us to rule ourselves.  Democracy is the mode of government most suitable for reasonable citizens.

Liberals remake humans by changing their votes.

Locke’s position may be re-articulated as a nested form.  A nested form?  See A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

Here is the nested form.  The normal context of human nature3 brings the actuality of commonsense2 into relation with the potential of a form of governance suited for self-governing people1.  Democracy1 labels that potential1.  Democracy1 is the potential of a state arising from self-governing people1.

Here is a diagram.

Figure 01

0009 Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679 AD) claims that each human is vulnerable, especially in regards to other humans.  Every person is vulnerable to the ambitions of other people.  We need a state to protect us (from one another).

Liberals remake humans asking the government to protect them from harm.

Hobbes’s position may be re-articulated as a nested form.

The normal context of the state of nature3 brings the vulnerability of each person (especially with respect to other people)2 into relation with the possibility that the state will protect us (from ourselves)1.  Hobbes has a label for a form of governance that manifests the potential of protecting us from one another.  He calls it1 “leviathan”.  Leviathan1 is the potential of a state capable of protecting us (from one another)1.

Here is a picture.

Figure 02

0010 From its inception, the liberal civic religion holds both Locke’s and Hobbes’s positions as a mysterious union.  Of course, this union is filled with contradictions that cannot be resolved.  But, that is the nature of mystery.

What is a mystery?The chapter on message, in Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”, describes a relational structure corresponding to mystery.  An intersection of two nested forms portrays a mystery.

07/28/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 3 of 10)

0011 What is the relation between the following two nested forms?

Figure 03

Remember that democracy1 is the potential of a state arising from self-governing people1 and leviathan1 is the potential of a state capable of protecting us (from one another)1.

0012 Enlightenment liberals know that each nested form does not emerge from and situate the other.

The normal contexts are different.  For example, the word, “nature”, in the two normal contexts, has different meanings, presences and messages.

Similarly, the potentials are different.

For example, the second amendment of the original American Constitution says that all citizens can own and carry guns.

On the one hand, any rational person has the right to defend “himself”, especially against those who would take “his” property (such as a zealous government official).  That’s democratic.

On the other hand, a zealous government official may be commissioned to protect “vulnerable persons”.  Vulnerable persons may be conditioned to fear people carrying guns.  The self-acknowledged vulnerable folk may demand that the zealous government official take the guns (property) away from other citizens.  That’s leviathan.

The Constitution rules in favor of democracy.

0013 So, how do the two nested forms relate to one another?

Enlightenment liberals know that both nested forms constitute a single, contradiction-ridden entity.  I call this actuality2′, “the individual”.

Figure 04

The individual2′ is an actuality that is constituted by the intersection of two nested forms.  The intersection binds two independent actualities.  According to the masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”, intersections associate to the message underlying the word.  Intersections are mysteries.

0014 The construction may be also be portrayed in the following fashion.

Figure 05

Now, that looks like an intersection.

This diagram conveys the mystery underlying the liberal civic religion, which accompanies the spread of democracy in the modern Age of Ideas.

07/28/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 4 of 10)

0015 Usually, an intersection serves as an actuality2 in a category-based nested form.

Here is a picture.

Figure 06

0016 But, according to the chapter on presence in the e-book, How To Define The Word “Religion”, the individual in communityA belongs to firstness in the following undifferentiated nested form.  Each element in the figure below designates an interscope (a nested form composed of nested forms).

Figure 07

Yes, the mystery of liberalism2′ applies to the tier related to firstnessA.  It2′ resonates with the actualities contained in the interscope for the individual in communityA.  The comparison will be further developed, later.

0017 Since the liberal tradition is a civic religion, liberalism also belongs to the societyC tier.

The societyC tier contains two types of religion, ones above the sovereignbC (suprasovereigncC) and those below the sovereignbC (infrasovereignaC).

The three levels of the societyC tier are (from top to bottom) suprasovereigncC, sovereignbC and infrasovereignaC.

In comparison, for the individual in communityA tier, the three levels are judgmentcA, perceptions and phantasmsbA, and sensations, decodings, impressions and feelingsaA.

“Decodings” convert what someone speaks into a meaning, presence and message underlying the statement.

Figure 08

0018 I offer this comparison because liberalism is a religion on the societyC tier.  Yet, a core mystery of liberalismcoincides with the virtual nested form, in the realm of actuality, for the individual in communityA tier.

So, allow me to juxtapose the virtual nested forms in the realm of actuality, for both the societyC and individual in communityA tiers.

Figure 09

0019 So, the question arises, “Is liberalism a suprasovereign or an infrasovereign religion?”

This answer is both.  Liberalism consists of many different institutions3aC, striving to remake humanity1aC, according to diverse organizational objectives2cC.  The variety of causes is enormous, from teaching people proper manners to ending human trafficking.  These causes appeal to the commonsense2V and the awareness of vulnerability2H characterizing individuals2′.

Only fools have no commonsense2V.  Only sociopaths have no awareness of vulnerability2H.

So all liberal institutions, appealing to anyone who is not a fool or a sociopath, share a relational object2cC, the mysterious intersection of Locke’s and Hobbes’s nested forms.

Furthermore, this relational object2cC, is an actuality that associates to the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality for the individual in communityA tier.

Figure 10
07/27/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 5 of 10)

0020 Remember, the technical definitions of democracy1V(2cC) and leviathan1H(2cC) are:

Democracy1V(2cC) is the potential of self-governance or the potential of a state arising from the cooperation of self-governing people.  Another way to describe this term is the potential of being sensible1V(2cc).  Only fools are not reasonable.

Leviathan1H(2cC) is the potential of a state that will protect us (from one another).  Another way to describe this term is the potential of feelings of security1H(2cc).  Only sociopaths dismiss such feelings.

0021 We thought-align to the liberal objectrel2cC by applying commonsense2V and being aware of our vulnerabilities2H.  In doing so, we embrace the technical definitions of both democracy1V(2cC) and leviathan1H(2cC).

Figure 11

0022 With this denkalignment in mind, Crawford raises the question (more or less), “How stable is the individual?”

0023 The individual2cC is the object that brings the modern nation state into relation.  Liberalism stands at the heart of every legitimate nation-state.

Liberal policies operate in the arena of leviathan1V.  These policies must gain the assent in a democracy1H.

Liberal agendas touch base with feelings of peace and security1V. Peace and security provide motives for adopting a particular policy.  These agendas must be reasonable and sensible1H.  They must not defy commonsense2V.

0024 For example, the liberal civil rights movement in the USA during the 1950s and 1960s demand that the leviathan (the courts) overturn discriminatory laws (“Jim Crow”) in southeastern states.  Protests peacefully threaten civic order1H.  The liberal civil-rights movement appeals to commonsense1V and Christian values.

0025 Christian values?

The concept of the individual is conceived within the womb of the Christian tradition.  The Church gives birth to the individual.  Through the sacraments, an individual can come into mystical union with the Son of God, Jesus the Messiah.  The Church delivers a template for commonsense action and for peace of heart in the political realm.  But, it cannot impose its template.  The leviathan can.

The liberal civil rights movement says, “According to commonsense and Christian values, every person, even the descendants of slaves, are individuals (hence, citizens).”

0026 The liberal civil-rights movement also relies on legal warfare that challenges the so-called “Jim Crow Laws”, supports legislation to assure civil rights in federal jurisdictions and undermines apparently “unequal” separate educational institutions.

0027 The civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s succeeds in implementing its organizational objective2aC and remakes humans, that is, re-orients individuals in communityA.

The concept of the individual, liberalism’s relational object2cC remains intact as individuals in communityA change alignment on the content, situation and perception levels.

Figure 12

Here is a liberal movement that successfully remade humans by changing individual hearts and minds.

0028 Unfortunately, the use of lawfare, short for “legal warfare”, during the civil-rights movement, calls the stability of the individual2cC into question.

Subsequent movements follow under the banner of “civil-rights”.  None carry the same legitimacy.  Each defies commonsense1V.  The federal government gains in scope and power, promising to reduce the vulnerability of its citizens to a diverse range of threats, from industrial pollution, to financial distress, to systemic discrimination, to lack of “equity, and to more and more, until finally, to the sudden appearance of a novel coronavirus that can be “diagnosed” by a newly marketed polymerase chain reaction test (that, everyone learns later, also tests positive for influenza).

0029 The leviathan’s response to the last threat, according to Crawford, unravels the mystery.

07/27/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 6 of 10)

0029 What does it mean to unravel a mystery?

The intersection unravels into a resolution, where one nested form emerges from (and situates) the other.  A two-level interscope results.  One nested form goes into the content level.  The other occupies the situation level.  The two-level interscope is discussed in A Primer on Sensible on Social Construction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0030 Say what?

To start, what would produce the conditions where a mystery resolves into a heresy?

The intersection2 is the union of two actualities2, so it2 should enter the slot for actuality2 in a nested form.  So if the normal context3 shifts, then the internal dynamics of the actuality2 may change.

Crawford suggests that the recent political response to the novel coronavirus completes a historic transition, from modern liberalism3 to hypermodern (some would say, “postmodern”) technocratic progressivism3.

0031 Here is a picture.

Figure 13

0032 In liberalism3, the goal is to move the mystery2, in a spiritual sort of way, by exploiting democracy’s and leviathan’s abilities to remake humans1.  Appeal to the people’s commonsense.  Set limits to what is acceptable.  Offer inspiration.  Apply peer-pressure.  Certainly, liberals think that they are smarter (or better, more enlightened) than other citizens.  But, they respect the wisdom of tradition, particularly the Christian tradition.  Indeed, liberalism3 seeks to practically implement the Christian vision in a fallen world, by calling the individual to be reasonable and by cajoling individuals to recognize their weaknesses.

0033 In technocratic progressivism3b the goal is to move vulnerable persons2b, in an efficient sort of way, by using the leviathan1b to situate the impulses of human nature3a.  Insist that commonsense2a is defined by technocratic calculations1b.  Frame every challenge as a fear-inducing crisis.  Offer scientific and technical explanations, using terminology that confounds the literal meanings of words.  Insist that alternate policies have dire consequences.  Label the opposition, “malevolent”.

0034 The result is a new relational structure, “the unraveled individual”, which casts a shadow upon the originating mystery.

Figure 14

Vulnerable persons2b virtually emerge from (and situate) commonsense2a.A mystery unwinds into a heresy.

07/26/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 7 of 10)

0035 A mystery resolves into a heresy.  An intersection unravels into a two-level interscope.  One nested form goes into the content level.  The other nested form enters the situation level.  Two configurations are possible.  Typically, one predominates.

What is a heresy?

You tell me.  The answer appears before you.

0036  In the heresy of technocratic progressivism3leviathan1b virtually situates democracy1a.

What is leviathan1b?

Leviathan1b is the potential of a state that will protect us (from one another)1b.  Another way to describe this term is the potential of feelings of security1b, in a world filled with sociopaths2a.

Figure 15

0037 The implication is that human nature3a coheres with purely calculated judgments2cA, dispassionate perceptions2bAand stoically accepted sensations and decodings2aA.

Such dedication to reason means that humans are basically sociopaths, unable to register the emotional reactions of others.  There is no way that these sociopaths can govern themselves.  Therefore, democracy1athe potential of self-governance1a or the potential of a state arising from people being reasonable or sensible1amust be virtually situated by a leviathan1b, underlying a state of nature3b

Figure 16

Human nature3a is sociopathic3a.

The state of nature3b is a state of fear3b.

0038 Yes, the state of fear3b, which describes what the leviathan1b apparently aims to prevent, becomes the normal context favored by technocratic progressivism3, as it3 brings the actuality of the unraveled individual2 into relation with the potential of ‘remaking humans’1.

0039 Surely, this does not makes sense.  Yet, it is precisely what Crawford witnesses during the lockdowns.

Human nature2a is ruthlessly3b suppressed by sovereign acts and decrees from a department of the leviathan1b aiming to protect vulnerable people2b, on the basis of a threat to health from the state of nature3b.  Lockdowns and mask requirements violate commonsense2a, yet anyone questioning the sovereign acts and decrees is regarded as a sociopath1a, who does not care about the health of vulnerable people2b.

I suppose that Crawford’s witness implies that the state of nature3b is a state of fear3b that, contrary to rational calculation3a, arises from the potential of a state that aims to promote feelings of security1b and to provide both material and psychological safe harbor for vulnerable people2b.

Does that sound like lockdowns and stimulus checks?

07/26/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 8 of 10)

0040 A suprasovereign liberal civic religion dies with the unraveling of the individual2, defined as the intersection of commonsense2V and vulnerabilities2H.

In the normal context of technocratic progressivism3, a mystery2cC unravels into a two-level interscope.  But, the unraveled individual2b does not make sense to humans in their natural… um… state3a.

0041 The two-level interscope characterizes sensible thought.  However, the emotional judgments2cA, phantasms2bA, impressions2aA and feeling2aA of vulnerable persons is more like a religious experience2b, compared to an exercise in commonsense2a.

Yet, this religious experience2b is sensible in the normal context of a state of fear3b, where the leviathan has the potential to declare a state of exception1b.  Consequently, in technocratic progressivism, the perspective levelc does not come into play.

Or, at least, itc appears not to.

0042 Here is a diagram.

Figure 17

0043 How does Locke’s human nature3a become regarded as sociopathological3a?

How does Hobbes’s state of nature3b manifest as a state of fear3b?

The original normal contexts do not seem exceptional.

The latter normal contexts do.

0044 Crawford writes that, in the 1990s, social scientists dispose with the “rational actor” model of human behavior.  Cognitive psychology (and evolutionary psychology) sees humans as unconsciously employing evolved cognitive modules.

Along the same lines, bureaucratic criteria1b, such as performance metrics2b, replace commonsense judgments2a.  Examples include so-called “evidence-based medicine”, standardized tests and curricula, and self-driving automobiles.  These policies are designed to protect vulnerable persons2b, given the sociopathic (unconsciously employing evolved cognitive modules) nature of doctors, teachers and ahem… people who drive.

0045 Here is a picture of what human nature transitions to under the normal context of technocratic progressivism3.  Evolutionary psychology informs us that human nature is full of sociopathic tendencies, due to our “selfish genes”.  Cognitive psychology models human thought processes as circuits of unconscious modules, working in tandem.

Figure 18

Commonsense2a gets redefined.

Some call this progress.  Others call it, “dehumanization”.

0046 During the 2000s, theatrical political initiatives introduce a perspective-level actuality2cthe state of exception.  Astate of exception is declared in order to confront emergent vulnerabilities2b.  These declarations do not need to satisfy commonsense2a, in the old sense of the word, because “commonsense” has been redefined.  In fact, the original concept of human nature3a has been narrowed by scientific inquiry into a suite of sociopathic tendencies3a.

Technocratic progressivism3 dons the mantle of science in its pursuit to remake humans1.

0047 Here is a picture of the transitioned unraveled individual.

Figure 19

0048 Of course, the most recent theatrical incident coincides with a complex sequence of conjunctions among Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto in the Houses of Capricorn and Aquarius.  See Razie Mah’s blogs for March and April 2020.  A novel coronavirus (the common cold) rages through Wuhan after the New Years Festival celebrating the Year of the Rat, then spreads to the world.  The virus’s progress is marked by the technocratic implementation of a polymerase chain reaction test.

Never mind claims that the test also shows positive for influenza.  Hospitals in China and Italy are overwhelmed with old people in the middle of winter suffering complications and the doctors are calling for experts to save them with medical protocols.  Corporate television reports the breaking news.

Disease translates into data.  Data feeds panic2b.