Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Will and Self-Restraint

'Will' is often applied to experiences of self-restraint, e. g. to resisting temptation. Interpreted as 'doing nothing', such cases seem to refute the thesis that has been advanced here, that Will consists in setting oneself in motion, i. e. because they involve the prevention of motion. But, such an interpretation confuses 'not doing X' with 'doing nothing', whereas resistance consists in the performance of an alternative to what is resisted, at minimum a continuation of what one had been doing prior to the possibility of doing X arising, e. g. an alcoholic does not merely not enter a liquor store but continues walking down the street. Even 'holding one's ground' is an expression of an effort in the direction contrary to that of what would move one, e. g. not fleeing in fear is exertion contrary to the direction of flight, not a 'doing nothing'. This analysis is especially crucial to Kant, for whom not acting on a forbidden maxim is an expression of 'freedom'. For, an expression of freedom in his system is the effect of a cause that is itself not the effect of a prior cause, but a non-event, such as 'not doing X', cannot be categorized as an effect of any kind. Rather, the expression of freedom can only be the course of action that ensues following the jettisoning of the forbidden maxim, even if it is completely irrelevant to the purposes that the maxim addresses. Perhaps more important are the practical consequences of this analysis of self-restraint, i. e. its diagnostic and prescriptive implications.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Will to Power

Perhaps the most significant innovation of Nietzsche's doctrine of Will to Power is its challenge to the dogma, especially Schopenhauer's version, that the fundamental vitalistic conatus seeks persistence in living. His doctrine also specifically rejects Schopenhauer's Platonization of the Will to Live principle, holding, instead, that Will to Power consists entirely in its singular concrete occurrences. However, it also inherits Schopenhauer's questionable, as has been previously argued here, personification of the principle as a 'Will', even in the most impersonal instance. Consequently, Nietzsche's focus is more on the terminal, 'Power' phase of the process, i. e. that it seeks to discharge its strength in the face of resistance, and less on the character of its initial, 'Will', phase, which, therefore, remains vague in his treatment. In contrast, Will, as defined here, is the effort to execute a command that, in essence, constitutes a variation of established conditions. Hence, the very occurrence of Will, from the outset, is an exercise of strength with respect to its antecedents, i. e. is at even its initial phase already an expression of Power. In other words, while Nietzsche's analysis seems to characterize the middle phase of Will to Power as its having emerged, but as having not yet exercised its strength, in Will, as conceived here, by that stage, a more fundamental exercise of Power has already occurred.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Will to Live

Because the 'thing-in-itself' is unknowable in Kant's system, whether there is one or many such things is indeterminable. So, when Schopenhauer identifies it as 'the' universal Will to Live, his quantification is groundless. Furthermore, he reinforces that arbitrariness with the Platonist inference from plural specific cases of the Will to Live to the actual existence of the singular universal of which they are its instances. In contrast, Will, as conceived here, is an essentially exteriorizing process that eventuates in its publicly appearing. Hence, this Will is not a Platonist universal that remains 'in-itself'. This contrast also highlights a significant flaw in Schopenhauer's concept of 'Will', which he defines as 'Causality from an inner perspective'--perspective presupposes individuation, the illusoriness of which is a cardinal thesis of his system. Thus, on his own premises, the 'Will' to Live is actually no Will at all, i. e. it is the product of a personification in a system which denies the reality of Personhood.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Reason and Volition

In recent Philosophy, the Rationalism-Empiricism debate of the 17th and 18th centuries has generally been cast as a topic in Epistemology, i. e. as pertaining to the nature of cognitive processes. But, for some of the thinkers of that era, the issue also, if not preeminently, concerns Volition. For example, for Spinoza, Will is rational, while for Hume, it is irrational. Consequently, while Kant explicitly seeks to mediate between their Epistemological differences, on the question of Volition, he seems initially to be siding with Spinoza, only to reluctantly eventually accept a neutral position between the latter's and Hume's. For, he first proposes that the mere consciousness of his Principle of Pure Practical Reason suffices to effect action in obedience to it, thereby equating Will and Reason. However, he is subsequently forced to systematically accommodate Hume's appreciation of the motivational power of sensory stimulation, i. e. Pleasure and Pain. So, to resolve this dilemma, apparently contrary to his original ambitions, he proposes a second notion of 'Will'--an elective Will that chooses between rational and irrational grounds of action, which he cannot avoid recognizing as a non-rational Will. Still, this elective Will falls short of isolating what has been argued here to be essential Will, i. e. executive Will, which is the effort to carry out some command, regardless of its source. In itself, this Will neither responds automatically to Reason, responds automatically to promises or threats, nor chooses between Reason and Unreason.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Expulse and Will

Because Impulse is fundamentally outward-directed, 'Expulse' might be a more appropriate designation of the process. But, the proper traditional term for it is 'Will', which has a accrued some extrinsic or misleading baggage over the past few centuries. Will is essentially the effort to publicly execute a private command--a process of Exteriorization--regardless of the content of the command, and any processes that contribute to the determination of that content precede the execution of it. Hence, Will is in itself neither legislative nor elective, as Kant has it. Furthermore, it is a concrete process, issuing forth from a conscious source, in specific circumstances. In other words, Will is not the universal non-mental force that Schopenhauer has it as. Finally, the very execution of a command surpasses its antecedent circumstances. Hence, it is an exercise of power and a discharge of strength from the outset, not at the termination of the process, as Nietzsche's Will to Power seems to imply.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Impulse and Selfishness

According to Teleological Atomism, Impulse is a means to private satisfaction, and, so, is innately selfish, even according to those versions of the doctrine which otherwise conceive a human as a 'tabula rasa'. In contrast, Dewey's concept of Impulse as essentially characterless grounds his demonstration that Selfishness is a variety of learned behavior, and, hence, is amenable to re-education. Formaterialism diverges from Dewey's concept of Impulse as characterless, with the thesis that Impulse is a fundamentally outward-directed process. On that basis, Selfishness, which functions to preserve Interiority, as has been previously discussed, therefore represses Impulse. A common but generally unrecognized manifestation of that repression is one's lack of awareness of the exteriority of motions that arise from impulses, and, therefore, of their existence as public events with implications beyond one's inner experience. This lack of awareness is sometimes classified as 'narcissistic', or as 'solipsistic'. The derision, common in commercial contexts, of sociability as a 'weakness', is a familiar occasional explicit example of that repression.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Formaterial Experience

Dewey's notion, 'the plasticity of impulse', implicitly recognizes the combination of Material Causality and Formal Causality in Experience. His 'impulse' is Motility, and, hence, a mode of Material Causality, while its 'plasticity' implies the possibility of some Formal Causality that organizes it. His primary concern in the context is Habit, i. e. acquired behavioral structure, so he is less interested in singular experiential episodes, such as the process of habit-acquisition, which often involves the guidance of a particular physiological motion by an intention, e. g. by a set of instructions. His study thus does not distinguish the variety of ways that the two causes can interact in a specific situation--from ways in which Material Causality predominates, e. g. relaxed or effusive behavior, to those in which Formal Causality does, e. g. concentrated or constrained behavior. Nevertheless, as is, his model does signify a departure from traditional models of behavior based on Efficient or Teleological Causality, in favor of one based on an interaction of Material and Formal Causality. The latter model has previously here been termed 'Formaterialism', and, because of the pervasiveness and fundamentality of its two main components, they have been more properly classified as principles, i. e. as the Material Principle and the Formal Principle.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Material Causality and Morality

From the perspective of an Atomistic concept of the Individual, most Moralities are an imposition on an Individual, e. g. they are constituted by 'duties'. For, on that concept, association with others is, at best, an extrinsic good, but, more frequently, the existence of others is a hindrance to selfish pursuits, e. g. Hobbes' 'war of all against all'. Accordingly, the promotion of sociability that most Moralities formulate is a threat to such individuality. In contrast, if Material Causality, i. e. the drive to exceed oneself, is accepted as a basic characteristic of the Individual, the promotion of sociability is a program of enhancement and cultivation. In other words, the recognition of Material Causality as a fundamental principle of human behavior transforms the function of Morality.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Material Causality and Political Atomism

A theory of Experience in which Material Causality is a component implies agreement with Aristotle's thesis that humans are by nature political entities, though not with his teleological grounds for it. Whereas for Aristotle, political activity fulfills human nature, with Material Causality as its principle, it is an opportunity for the growth of an individual, e. g. for a broadening of one's perspective, via cooperative association with others. On the other hand, Hobbes' theory of human nature as essentially selfish, and his consequent concept of the role of political organization as a mediator of natural interpersonal antagonism, constitutes a suppression of Material Causality. Likewise, while Locke has a sunnier view of interpersonal dynamics, he agrees with Hobbes that individuals are essentially atoms, and, therefore, that political activity is, at best, an extrinsic good for one. Indeed, generally speaking, most modern political orientations, include the breadth of the American spectrum, subscribes to political Atomism. One potential exception is Heidegger's concept 'being-with-others', which he, however, eventually subordinates to Ontological solitude. So, the recognition of Material Causality as a fundamental dimension of Experience entails what seems to be an alternative to most established political doctrines.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Material Causality and Excession

The desire to improve, to not rest on one's laurels, to outdo one's previous achievements, etc. is a familiar psychological phenomenon. Any such process of self-surpassing can be called 'Excession'. But, as commonplace as Excession is, it seems difficult to derive it from the principle of Self-Preservation, which seeks to maintain the given. Likewise, any psychological model which posits a limit to development, e. g. 'self-actualization' theories, precludes the possibility of Excession, for that model typically interprets any case of improvement as not a surpassing of what has been achieved, but as a nisus towards its posited ideal. In contrast, a theory of Experience which entails Material Causality appreciates Excession, since two experiential modes of Material Causality are self-externalization and self-variation, both of which are characteristics of Excession. In other words, Excessional processes demonstrate the greater explanatory power of theories of Experience which recognize Material Causality.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Material Causality and Atomism

Previously argued was the methodological soundness of proposing Writing as an exemplary experience, thereby demonstrating that Material Causality is a primary principle of Experience. One main characteristic of Writing is the self-externalization of its author, which, if accepted as a fundamental component of Experience, implies significant challenges to some standard theories of Human Nature, notably to Atomism. The latter holds that Self-Preservation is the fundamental principle of an Individual, and that Selfishness is its primary psychological drive, with respect to which sociality, e. g. Political and Moral experience, is extrinsic, if not antagonistic. However, if an individual inherently seeks association with others, then it is by nature a Political and Moral entity, and the existence of others is an opportunity for growth, not a threat. Heidegger's concept Being-in-the-World, presumes to present a challenge to Atomism, until he classifies withdrawal from the World as 'authentic' experience. If he were to recognize Being-with-Others as not a fallen condition, but as an opportunity for growth, he could better appreciate that Growth is one of Dasein's ownmost possibilities, one which is as stifled by his ontologization of personal opacity as is Material Causality by the Atomistic tradition.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Material Causality, Writing, Experience

It seems that it would be difficult for an author to deny that "I am writing this". Thus, a book that seeks a self-evidently true foundation of a theory of Experience could begin with an examination of the process of Writing. The study might proceed to analyze that Writing is a physiological act of its author's self-expression, appearing in an extensive medium, developing ideas to be communicated to others. It could, accordingly, infer that self-extension is a fundamental dimension of Experience, in general, and, since, self-extension is a type of self-variation, that Material Causality is an essential component of Experience. It would also expose as paradoxical, if not absurd, books that articulate the thesis that philosophizing is a private, incorporeal endeavor, especially where they attempt to argue that the existence of Extension is dubitable.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Motility and Philosophical Method

Philosophical investigations often begin with an immediately given feature of experience, typically either the 'I' or some sense-datum. The standard criticism of such methodology is that the presumed 'immediately given' is the product of a prior arbitrary abstraction. A further under-appreciated problem with the method is not that it is abstractive, but that it falsifies the evidence. For example, at the outset of the Meditations, Descartes cites his sitting in a chair observing the room around him as his immediate experience. However, he is plainly actually seated at a desk and writing about what can only be some experience other than the writing of the moment, if not a piece of experimental fiction. Likewise for rival accounts, and analogously for oral presentations. So, since writing and speaking are modes of Motility, the latter dimension of Experience is usually precluded from theories that nevetheless purport to be grounded in immediate experience.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Motility and Prejudice

Marx and Nietzsche each proposes that Philosophy is not the presupposition-less endeavor that it is often taken to be. For, as they and their followers show, doctrines are often expressions of economic, theological, or psychological prejudices. Another application of that proposal is more general--to the contexts that have conditioned most philosophical enterprises. In these, the philosophizer is usually immobile, e. g. sitting, and is engaged in a favorite personal activity, i. e. contemplation, each of which can influence or determine the content of the philosophizing. For example, Descartes' being seated at the outset facilitates his eventual de-corporalization, and Aristotle's advocacy of the primacy of Theoretical Virtue is ad hoc with respect to the Golden Mean principle that is otherwise the normative criterion of his Ethics. Similarly, the traditional neglect or denigration of Motility reflects more a chronic Philosophical prejudice than any conscientious examination of the process itself.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Material Causality, Growth, Organism

Contributing to the general neglect of Material Causality is the pervasive subscription to the thesis that the fundamental principle of organic life is Self-Preservation. For, on the basis of that principle, variation is either extrinsic or even inimical to an organism, and self-variation is impossible. So, that tradition precludes the possibility that Material Causality, i. e. a process of Diversification, is a principle of Organism. But, Growth is inconceivable without Diversification. Hence, the tradition finds it difficult to explain organic growth. For example, as has been previously discussed, Spinoza, Kant, and Whitehead each flirts with recognizing growth as a cardinal characteristic of any natural entity, without fully committing to the implications of that recognition, perhaps because accommodation of Material Causality would significantly disrupt his system.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Material Causality, Motility, Creativity

Material Causality consists in a transition from Certainty to Uncertainty, which marks it as a primary problem for doctrines in which Certainty has the highest priority, i. e. for most of the Philosophical tradition. The chronic antagonism to Material Causality is most typically expressed not via direct confrontation, but, as Deleuze's study of Difference shows, by suppression or neglect, e. g. the treatment of Matter as passively inert, or that of Motility as fundamentally requiring control. However, Novelty entails Uncertainty. Thus, the traditional hostility towards Material Causality is perhaps more graphic in those Vitalistic doctrines that appreciate Creativity. For example, Whitehead, as has been previously discussed, recognizes the contribution to Creativity of neither Discrescence nor Motility. Likewise, Dewey overlooks how an organism can itself be the source of a disruption of its achieved adaptation to an environment. But, perhaps the most graphic expression of frustration with the intractability of Matter is Bergson's struggles to both treat it as inert and, yet, to reduce it to a mode of vitalistic Spirit. His failure to satisfactorily accomplish the latter is evidence of the independence of Matter, and of Material Causality.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Material Causality, Motility, Indefiniteness

Material Causality is a transition from Definiteness to Indefiniteness, just as Counting is an essentially unlimited process. Early motor habit-formation makes it difficult to isolate the fundamental indefiniteness of Motility. But, one example of that indefiniteness is the situation sometimes described as 'all dressed up and nowhere to go', which reveals the basic aimless nature of Impulse. The significance of that example is that it tends to refute the pervasive Teleological interpretation of Motility, i. e. that Motility primarily functions as a means to ulterior ends that conduce to the survival of an organism. It fleetingly shows, rather, that Motility is a mode of a different Causality, and that, in itself, it is an essentially open-ended process.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Material Causality, Motility, Spatialization

As Levinas proposes, Interiority is Sameness, and Exteriority is Alterity. Hence, any transition from Interiority to Exteriority constitutes a Diversification of Sameness. Now, Motility--e. g. Will, Impulse, execution of Intention, etc.--effects a transition from Interiority to Exteriority. Thus, Motility constitutes a Diversification of Sameness. But, as has been previously proposed here, 'Diversification of Sameness' is a definition of Material Causality. Thus, Motility is an instance of Material Causality, i. e. it is the fundamental experiential mode of Material Causality. Furthermore, since, as has been discussed, Externalization is Spatialization, the structure of experiential Material Causality is Spatialization. Inversely, since Temporalization is Internalization, as has been discussed, Material Causality is not merely a-temporal, but, more accurately, counter-temporal. One important implication of the classification of Motility as Material Causality is to oppose it to traditions for which it is either an instance of Efficient Causality, e. g. for Newtonian Physics, or one of Teleological Causality, e. g. for Behaviorism.

Material Causality

Accepting the definition of Formal Causality as 'the unification of a multiplicity', and the Form-Matter distinction as one of Unity-Multiplicity--and, analogously, of Identity-Difference, Sameness-Diversity, etc.--it follows that the 'diversification of a unity' defines Material Causality. Of course, this use of the expression 'Material Causality', despite the soundness of its derivation, is quite unorthodox. However, equally unorthodox, as Deleuze's study shows, is its respect for Differentiation and analogous pluralizing processes. Furthermore, the traditional treatment of 'Matter' and 'Material', by even 'Materialists', as characterless 'stuff', reflects more a legacy of the orientation for which 'Matter' is a passive bearer of dynamic properties, including even the Dialectic, than any insight into the fundamental nature of Matter. So, the proposed definition offers a coherent fruitful alternative to both one of the most neglected concepts, and one of the emptiest concepts, of tradition.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Formal, Teleological, and Efficient Causality

While Kant reduces Teleological Causality to Efficient, his system implicitly recognizes another of the traditional types as more fundamental than either of those two--Formal Causality. For, as perhaps Cassirer best recognizes, the Form-Matter distinction is primary and pervasive throughout the system, though Kant never explicitly formulates a definition of Formal Causality. Nevertheless, such a definition is easily gleaned from the perhaps most important of the system's notions, namely Synthesis. For, the Form-Matter relation is regularly represented as a Unity-Multiplicity relation, and Synthesis is the unification of a multiplicity. Hence, the system implies a definition of Formal Causality as the 'unification of a multiplicity', the fundamentality of which is evident insofar as Teleological Causality and Efficient Causality are each unifications of a manifold of experiential data.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Temporality and Formal Cause

A Formal Cause fundamentally occurs at the termination of a process, which is perhaps most clearly observed in processes in which the shape that a development takes remains unsettled until the end. In such cases, the terminal stage defines what leads up to it, and, because that end is neither inevitable nor foreseen, the traditional classification of it as a Teleological Cause superimposes an extrinsic premise on the interpretation of the process. More frequently, a Formal Cause functions as one's attentive monitoring of one's performance, thus appearing as seemingly parallel to the action. But, in fact, it is continually subsequent to each phase, yet so seamlessly coordinated with phase-to-phase transitions that it appears concomitant with them. Accordingly, an Intention is the appearance at the outset of a performance as the choice of a possible formal cause to guide that nascent performance, and is neither a preview of the result of the performance, as the Aristotelian tradition has it, nor an efficient cause of it, as Kant proposes. In other words, an Intention is a derivative Formal Cause. Now, as has been previously discussed, the source of all experiential termination is the Temporalizing representation of Motility, so, Temporalization is the Formal Cause of Experience.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Cumulation and Formal Causality

As previously argued, the terminal phase of a cumulative process is not necessarily its teleological cause. However, since that phase does impart definition to the hitherto indefinite development that precedes it, it qualifies as the formal cause of the process. Similarly, a representation, at the outset of a process, of its projected outcome, i. e. an intention, is the formal cause of the activity that ensues. Kant mistakenly classifies an intention as an efficient cause, because he does not recognize the distinction that Dewey draws--between an impulse and the specific shape that it takes in its expression as a specific motion--and, therefore, fails to distinguish an intention functioning as the formal cause of a motion from the motivating impulse that the intention organizes. Kant does approach an understanding of Cumulation as Final Cause, with his thesis that Time is the formal condition of all Experience, but falls short of it because he interprets Time as successive, not cumulative.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Cumulation and Teleology

Kant's definition of Purposiveness, as a relation between a concept and the effort to actualize it, anticipates the distinction that Dewey draws between an 'End' and an 'End-in-view'. For, both locate the efficacy of a Teleological Cause in the intention that precedes an action, as opposed to in the terminal point of a process, as Aristotle has it. Likewise, a cumulative process is not 'teleological' on the mere basis that its latest phase preserves the phases that precede it; it would be teleological only if a representation of that final phase sets the process in motion. Conversely. the final phase of a teleological process always preserves its antecedents. In other words, Teleological Causality is a special case of Cumulation.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Cumulation, Efficient Cause, Proximate Cause

Kant joins Aristotle and Hume in treating an Efficient Cause as an event isolated from its context, thus abstracting it from other conditions that contribute to the production of an Effect. For example, that the striking of a match 'causes' it to ignite presupposes dryness, sufficient oxygen, adequate striking force, etc. Likewise, 'Efficient Cause' seems to questionably classify 'the straw that breaks the camel's back', and to be problematically applicable to chemical reactions in which no single component is the decisive one. In other words, 'Efficient Causality', as understood by each of the three, is a special case of a cumulative process, in which the penultimate phase is emphasized. Hence, a less misleading characterization of that penultimate phase might be 'Proximate', instead of 'Efficient', 'Cause'.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Successiveness and Efficient Causality

One of the main innovations of Newtonian Physics is the elimination of three of the four types of Causality that constitute Aristotelian Physics, thereby recognizing only Efficient Causality. Kant's allegiance to Newtonian Physics is perhaps most explicit in the Critique of Pure Reason, in which Causality is plainly exclusively Efficient. Now, the critique of Newtonian Physics that that work presents, in combination with his introduction of Purposiveness and Teleology in the other Critiques, might suggest an eventual delimitation of the scope of Efficient Causality by the Kantian system. However, Kant proceeds to demonstrate how those two can also be formulated in terms of Efficient Causality. For, the apparently Teleological Means-End relation he conceives as a concept of End-Means to that End, i. e. as the Efficient Causality of a consciousness of an intention followed by acting in accordance with that intention. Now, since his concept of Causality, as has been discussed, entails a Temporality of Successiveness, the latter model of Time apparently serves him well throughout his system. However, his apparently successful application of it to even organic phenomena glosses over his own criterion that one of the cardinal features of Organism is Growth. But, Successiveness is inadequate to Growth, which requires, as has been discussed, a Cumulative model of Temporality. Likewise, Efficient Causality cannot explain Growth either. Hence, because Successiveness can be derived from Cumulation, but not vice versa, the latter is the more fundamental model of Temporality in Kant's system.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Successiveness and Causality

Kant defines Motion as 'alteration of location', and, accordingly, Time as 'successiveness'. Thus, neither differentiates between constant and inconstant velocity, a significant example of which is acceleration. Still, the notion of Successiveness can ground the specification of inconstant velocity, i. e. as 'a succession of successions', which, in turn, can ground the distinction between Cause and Effect. For an Effect, though not necessarily its Cause consists in a variation of velocity. Hence, insofar as one of the main ambitions of the Critique of Pure Reason is to counter Hume by distinguishing Cause from Effect, Kant can accomplish that without recourse to a logical category. The applicability of distinguishing Cause from Effect on the basis of possible constancy vs. necessary inconstancy is to such prominent examples of the former as Aristotle's circular motion, Einstein's particle moving at the speed of Light, and Kant's own Moral Law.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Successiveness and Sufficient Reason

Kant's conceiving of Time as Successiveness may have less to do with the structure of Temporality itself, and more to do with the ambitions of his Moral theory. The centerpiece of that theory is the sequence: consciousness of the Moral Law, followed by performance in obedience to the Moral Law. Now, on a model of Time as cumulative, an earlier phase of the process is not a sufficient condition of a later one. So, since, according to Kant's Moral theory, the consciousness of the Moral Law is a sufficient condition of a subsequent performance, the cumulative model is inadequate to it. In contrast, a mere succession of moments is amenable to the structuring of Kant's category Causality, which establishes the earlier moment as a sufficient reason of the later. Commentators have sometimes seemed puzzled about how concrete examples of causal relations distinguish Kant's concept from Hume's, and have more frequently seemed to overlook the irrelevance of that distinction to the Third Antinomy. But, the significance of that distinction eventually emerges clearly in his Moral theory, in which the Consciousness of the Moral law cannot be merely constantly conjoined with performance in obedience to it, nor as argued above, a means to the latter. The concept of Time as Successiveness alone seems to facilitate his ambitions for it.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Time and Motility

Kant's de-mythologization of Time is not a relocation of an at-large cosmic force into the individual soul, as is the case with some post-Copernican concepts of the Abrahamic deity. Rather, it redefines Time, separating it from its presumed functions of source of biological aging, image of Eternity, or container of mechanical events, as the Successive Form of individual Experience. The criticism here is that this redefinition retains a vestige of Mythology, insofar as he conceives Experience as given as subject to that Form. The thesis here is, instead, that Time is created by the Temporalization that is an organic process in an entity possessing Motility, i. e. the capacity to move itself, a process that provides the cohesion without which the accomplishment of the simplest project would be impossible. The pattern of the resultant Temporality is Cumulative, from which traditional models such as Successiveness and Duration, Linear or Circular, can be derived, thereby similarly demonstrating that traditional concepts of Time are grounded in this one.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Physicists and the History of Time

Hawkings' 'History of Time' incorporates Physicist concepts of History and of Time. The limitations of the scope of his project become more evident when it is contrasted with another such History, consisting of the following four stages: 1. Mythological (Time as a god); 2. Platonist (Time as the moving image of Eternity); 3. Newtonian (Time as a container of mechanical phenomena); and, 4. Kantian (Time as a form of Experience). The applicability of Hawkings' account to stages other than #3 is questionable, as is its capacity to represent the scheme's theme--The De-mythologization of Time. Furthermore, like many Physicist treatments of Time, it ignores Kant's challenge to the decidability of any thesis that asserts that Time has a beginning. Indeed, unless it can be proven that the Physicist 'Big Bang' is not preceded by a massive Physicist 'Black Hole' which swallows the entire universe, there can be no certainty that the Big Bang is the beginning of History or of Time, i. e. that upon the destruction of the universe, its reconstruction does not perpetually ensue. Perhaps encouraged by their continuing astounding successes in their proper sphere, Physicists still ignore Kant's warnings when they wander into groundless speculation. Finally, a conscientious 'History of Time' would recognize that either the concept of History presupposes one of Time, or vice versa, and that the presentation itself must exemplify the more fundamental of the two, since, it, too, is a Temporal event in the History of the universe.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Temporality and Aging

The lack of correlation between biological aging and experiential Temporality is compellingly, if not sufficiently, demonstrated by an ambiguity in the former notion. Aging consists in both maturity and decline, a distinction which is not evinced in cumulative Temporality. Furthermore, there seems to be no correlation between physical decline, which in a human typically begins circa the age of 35, and Memory, in which Temporality is usually constituted. In fact, the occasion of severe cerebral deterioration, i. e. dementia, is not experienced as any intensification of the experience of Temporality, but as quite the contrary--as the same retentive capacity as that of an infant. Accordingly, theories which, on the premise that the death of an organism is pre-encoded into its consciousness, conclude that the aging which leads to that death, even abstracting from the possibility of an accidental demise, are not grounded in experience. As is the case with the presumed fact of one's death, any internal phenomenological evidence that one is physically aging seems to be lacking.