Constructive and deconstructive postmodernism - Integral Post-Metaphysical Spirituality2024-03-29T13:04:05Zhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/constructive-and?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A4610&feed=yes&xn_auth=noThis hybrid, bastard reasonin…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2010-11-19:5301756:Comment:46732010-11-19T04:19:36.000ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
This hybrid, bastard reasoning, in my twisted postmeta parlance, is the ego turned back to its roots in the body, the centaur that is neither and both, again "in the middle" way of my mad, madhyamaka kaka.<br />
<br />
I like that: mad madhyamaka kaka. I'm going to write a song with that title. You heard it first here.
This hybrid, bastard reasoning, in my twisted postmeta parlance, is the ego turned back to its roots in the body, the centaur that is neither and both, again "in the middle" way of my mad, madhyamaka kaka.<br />
<br />
I like that: mad madhyamaka kaka. I'm going to write a song with that title. You heard it first here. From Deconstruction in a Nuts…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2010-11-19:5301756:Comment:46722010-11-19T04:14:45.000ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
From <i>Deconstruction in a Nutshell</i> (Fordham UP, 1997):<br></br>
<br></br>
“When we think of Plato we think of the two worlds or regions allegorized in the cave: the upper world of the intelligible paradigms, the sphere of invisible and unchanging being in the sun of the Good that shines over all, as opposed to the sensible likenesses of the forms in the changing, visible world of becoming.... When presented with a neat distinction or opposition of this sort—and this distinction inaugurates…
From <i>Deconstruction in a Nutshell</i> (Fordham UP, 1997):<br/>
<br/>
“When we think of Plato we think of the two worlds or regions allegorized in the cave: the upper world of the intelligible paradigms, the sphere of invisible and unchanging being in the sun of the Good that shines over all, as opposed to the sensible likenesses of the forms in the changing, visible world of becoming.... When presented with a neat distinction or opposition of this sort—and this distinction inaugurates philosophy, carves out the very space of 'meta-physics'—Derrida will not, in the manner of Hegel, look for some uplifting, dialectical reconciliation of the two in a higher third thing, a concrete universal, which contains the 'truth' of the first two. Instead, he will look around—in the text itself—for some third thing that the distinction omits, some untruth, or barely remnant truth, which falls outside the famous distinction, which the truth of either separately or both together fails to capture, which is neither and both of the two.<br/>
<br/>
"In the Timaeus the missing third thing, a third nature or type—khora—is supplied by Plato himself. Khora is the immense and indeterminate spatial receptacle in which the sensible likenesses of the eternal paradigms are 'engendered,' in which they are 'inscribed' by the Demiurge, thereby providing a 'home' for all things.... This receptacle is like the forms inasmuch as it has a kind of eternity: it neither is born or dies, it is always already there, and hence beyond temporal coming-to-be and passing away; yet it does not have the eternity of the intelligible paradigms but a certain a-chronistic a temporality. Because it belongs neither to the intelligible nor the sensible world Plato says it is 'hardly real.' Moreover, while it cannot be perceived by the senses but only by the mind, still it is not an intelligible object of the mind, like the forms. Hence, Plato says it is not a legitimate son of reason but is apprehended by a spurious or corrupted logos, a hybrid or bastard reasoning. Khora in neither intelligible being nor sensible becoming, but a little like both, the subject matter of neither a true logos nor a good mythos” (83-4). Habermas was also a main sour…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2010-11-17:5301756:Comment:46342010-11-17T03:09:00.000ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
Habermas was also a main source Wilber used to denigrate Derrida. As xibalba noted above they reconciled near the end of Derrida's life, something ignored by kennilinguists. Also ignored is extensive research into Habermas' inadequate understanding and critique of the Da. Here's <a href="http://www.raymondvandewiel.org/habermas_derrida.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">an article</a> that discusses both of those topics. A few excerpts:<br></br>
<br></br>
"I will argue is that it is possible to cast…
Habermas was also a main source Wilber used to denigrate Derrida. As xibalba noted above they reconciled near the end of Derrida's life, something ignored by kennilinguists. Also ignored is extensive research into Habermas' inadequate understanding and critique of the Da. Here's <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.raymondvandewiel.org/habermas_derrida.pdf" target="_blank">an article</a> that discusses both of those topics. A few excerpts:<br/>
<br/>
"I will argue is that it is possible to cast serious doubts about the criticism that...Habermas [has] levelled upon poststructuralist thought....which has seen the shift from the open hostility voiced above, to a more sympathetic stance, being crowned by Habermas’ recent remarks about their relationship [meaning with Derrida].<br/>
<br/>
"What we need, I will argue, is to move in a non-dialectical [non Hegelian?] way ‘beyond’ the simplistic oppositionalism which has prevented, and continues to prevent, both the ‘post’ and its serious critics to explore the fertile terrain of their intersection."<br/>
<br/>
Echoing Keller above he goes on about Habbie's critique:<br/>
<br/>
"This evaluation is very unfortunate, not to say ill-advised, because it is based on the very limited, ‘Americanised’ version of deconstruction.... It is not considered by Habermas that Derrida’s deconstruction of the metaphysical tradition might bring him close to his own pragmatism.... If one reads Derrida’s criticism of Husserl in a slightly more sympathetic way, one might even find a few parallels in Derrida’s and Habermas’ work.<br/>
<br/>
"That Derrida here could be said to hint towards a form of <b>context-transcendent meaning</b> based in ‘otherness’, that is to say, outside the realm of ‘ownness’ and thus in between subjects, is not picked up by Habermas.... Critchley then argues that there might be a universal, ‘undeconstructable’ ethical moment in deconstruction." And my comment in that thread…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2010-11-14:5301756:Comment:46122010-11-14T20:50:03.000ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
And my comment in that thread was:<br />
<br />
As I've said before, there is also downward causation in addition to its upward forebear. But it seems that capacity only arises, or rather emerges, at a particular level of development somewhere around egoic rationality. Recall Levin's scheme where it is only at his level 3 that the journey to integrate earlier levels can even begin, and in so doing the higher level integrates and transforms the earlier levels, that is, reciprocal downward causation. Hence…
And my comment in that thread was:<br />
<br />
As I've said before, there is also downward causation in addition to its upward forebear. But it seems that capacity only arises, or rather emerges, at a particular level of development somewhere around egoic rationality. Recall Levin's scheme where it is only at his level 3 that the journey to integrate earlier levels can even begin, and in so doing the higher level integrates and transforms the earlier levels, that is, reciprocal downward causation. Hence prepersonal dream and deep sleep become subtle and causal transpersonal enactions. And all by virtue of the personal ego sans skyhooks, aka integral postmetaphysical nonduality. I'm cross-posting the followi…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2010-11-14:5301756:Comment:46112010-11-14T20:28:17.000ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
I'm cross-posting the following over here from <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/integral-postmetaphysical?id=5301756%3ATopic%3A4080&page=8#comments">p. 8</a> of the “integral postmetaphysical nonduality” thread, as it is relevant, particularly in relation to the last post on how to view teleology postmetaphysically and nondually.<br></br>
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Here are some interesting excerpts from an article called "…
I'm cross-posting the following over here from <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/integral-postmetaphysical?id=5301756%3ATopic%3A4080&page=8#comments">p. 8</a> of the “integral postmetaphysical nonduality” thread, as it is relevant, particularly in relation to the last post on how to view teleology postmetaphysically and nondually.<br/>
<br/>
Here are some interesting excerpts from an article called "<a href="http://www.litsciarts.org/slsa08/slsa08-686.pdf" target="_blank">Interstitial Life</a>" by Steven Shaviro:<br/>
<br/>
"Darwin provides an immanent, non-teleological mechanism for the development of life.<br/>
<br/>
"I have elsewhere (Shaviro 2003, 205-212) criticized the way that devotees of evolutionary<br/>
psychology, in particular, tend to invoke “purpose,” attributed to such reified agencies as “evolution.”<br/>
<br/>
"The outcome of a process is not the same as the conditions that led to its existence in the first place. To equate the two is precisely to confuse the “efficient cause” that gave rise to the trait with the trait’s concrete action as “final cause.”<br/>
<br/>
"But selection is rendered intelligible, in retrospect, only by means of the “teleological principle”<br/>
that particular traits have been selected for because they are adaptive. Thus the theory of natural selection takes away teleology with one hand, but gives it back with the other. The “argument from design” is rejected as an appeal to a transcendent, external cause, but restored as an immanent principle of emergent order.<br/>
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"Kant thus insists that linear, mechanistic causality is universally valid for all phenomena. But at the same time, he also proposes a second kind of causality, one that is purposive and freely willed. This second causality does not negate the first, and does not offer any exceptions to it. Rather, “freedom” and “purpose” exist alongside “natural mechanism”: Derrida would say that they are supplementary<br/>
to it.<br/>
<br/>
"Purposive (teleological) causality is not altogether eliminated, but it can only be accorded a ghostly, supplemental status.... But in cases of complexity, or of higher-order emergence, supplemental causality becomes far more important.<br/>
<br/>
"The idea of purpose, or of final cause, involves a circular relation between parts and whole. The whole precedes the parts, in the sense that “the possibility of [a thing’s] parts (as concerns both their existence and their form) must depend on their relation to the whole.” But the parts also precede and produce the whole, insofar as they mutually determine, and adapt to, one another: “the parts of the thing combine into the unity of a whole because they are reciprocally cause and effect of their form” (252). An organism must therefore be regarded as “both an organized and a self-organizing being.” It is both the passive effect of preceding, external causes, and something that is actively, immanently self-caused and selfgenerating." We have to be careful here wi…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2010-11-14:5301756:Comment:46102010-11-14T20:25:45.000ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
We have to be careful here with the various meanings of terms in different contexts. Recall Wilber's levels and those of Commons' hierarchical complexity advance through transition steps, for Wilber fusion, differentiation and integration. Commons increases the steps with the same general idea. These uses should not be confused with the bi-polar types of con and decon that might be present at each and every stage and step, but will be viewed differently by each.
We have to be careful here with the various meanings of terms in different contexts. Recall Wilber's levels and those of Commons' hierarchical complexity advance through transition steps, for Wilber fusion, differentiation and integration. Commons increases the steps with the same general idea. These uses should not be confused with the bi-polar types of con and decon that might be present at each and every stage and step, but will be viewed differently by each. I've suggested that a postfor…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2010-11-14:5301756:Comment:46092010-11-14T14:50:54.000ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
I've suggested that a postformal dialectic does not 1) posit an ultimate reality that 2) synthesizes the opposites but rather maintains oppositional tension in relation. In the latter a universal absolute is relatively grounded in particular instances, just as those instances are given meaning and understanding by universal categories. They are symbiotic instead of antagonistic with no need of an outside force like Spirit to ameliorate them. Kant had the right idea to keep the universal…
I've suggested that a postformal dialectic does not 1) posit an ultimate reality that 2) synthesizes the opposites but rather maintains oppositional tension in relation. In the latter a universal absolute is relatively grounded in particular instances, just as those instances are given meaning and understanding by universal categories. They are symbiotic instead of antagonistic with no need of an outside force like Spirit to ameliorate them. Kant had the right idea to keep the universal regulative in this fashion and not within a constitutive metaphysics. But he like Schelling, while moving in a postmeta direction, nonetheless retained the remnant. As did apparently some of the American pragmatists, if we are to believe Callaway's account.<br />
<br />
Whereas returning to Edwards above, con and decon are not subsumed in a spiritualized or higher synthesis but remain an ongoing complimentarity, almost as if they were "types" in kennilingus and opposed to levels. A basic categorical typology that persists through various incarnations of hierarchically complex levels. And of course one that is interpreted differently by those cognitive levels, wherein the legitimate debate continues as to what is the relatively more accurate interpretation of the absolute. Let us now return to Poonamal…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2010-11-14:5301756:Comment:46082010-11-14T05:25:33.000ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
Let us now return to Poonamallee's article on Advaita, which is similar to Wilber's use of Schelling. (And it is no wonder that Wilber also uses Vedanta and the type of Vajrayana Buddhism influenced by it.) What makes it non-dual is the unifying concept of "an all pervasive energy" (191) that "does not separate the spiritual from the mundane because they are all parts of the same ultimate reality" (192). Here's Wilber's and Schelling's (and Hegel's) Spirit, the metaphysically formal dialectical…
Let us now return to Poonamallee's article on Advaita, which is similar to Wilber's use of Schelling. (And it is no wonder that Wilber also uses Vedanta and the type of Vajrayana Buddhism influenced by it.) What makes it non-dual is the unifying concept of "an all pervasive energy" (191) that "does not separate the spiritual from the mundane because they are all parts of the same ultimate reality" (192). Here's Wilber's and Schelling's (and Hegel's) Spirit, the metaphysically formal dialectical higher synthesis of opposition, or as I came to call it in various threads, dual nonduality. Oh Jesus, literally. Turns ou…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2010-11-13:5301756:Comment:46032010-11-13T23:29:58.000ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
Oh Jesus, literally. Turns out Schelling's last period was a return to Jesus H. Christ with notions like the following, from <a href="http://www.csudh.edu/phenom_studies/europ19/lect_3.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this lengthy study</a> of him:<br></br>
<br></br>
"On the basis of his Doctrine of Divine Potencies, Schelling now elucidates Positive Philosophy which is to be revealed as Philosophy of Mythology and Revelation. Philosophy of Mythology refers to pagan religion as natural religion,…
Oh Jesus, literally. Turns out Schelling's last period was a return to Jesus H. Christ with notions like the following, from <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.csudh.edu/phenom_studies/europ19/lect_3.html" target="_blank">this lengthy study</a> of him:<br/>
<br/>
"On the basis of his Doctrine of Divine Potencies, Schelling now elucidates Positive Philosophy which is to be revealed as Philosophy of Mythology and Revelation. Philosophy of Mythology refers to pagan religion as natural religion, while Philosophy of Revelation deals with Christianity as the revealed Religion. The relation of the former to the latter is the relation of the imperfect to the perfect religion.<br/>
<br/>
"According to Schelling's Philosophy of Revelation, the temporal sensory World arose from human original sin. Namely because a human committed the original sin, the world came into being."<br/>
<br/>
What is up with these guys when they are faced with death? Cannot they just go into oblivion with their balls intact? Thank God(less) that this propensity slowly filtered out through the pragmatists to the cogscipragos. Thanks for this education, Ed…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2010-11-13:5301756:Comment:46012010-11-13T19:35:55.000ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
Thanks for this education, Ed. I've intended to look into Schelling's works but had not yet made time to do so.
Thanks for this education, Ed. I've intended to look into Schelling's works but had not yet made time to do so.