An Integral Tropology of Saturation: The Interplay of Shownness and Givenness

[David Miller]

Final%20Paper.docHere was my foray into including something Integral in an academic paper.  (Please forgive the typos I noticed when I re-read it just now.)

Since then I've added Marion's re-interpretation of Aquinas's analogy of being, which re-interpretation builds on Heidegger's critique of Aquinas as enmeshing God in metaphysics by building an onto-theo-logy.  Applying Gebser to this critique is what makes my work an Integral Postmetaphysical Phenomenology, and I think  mine is the only one to exist so far.  I'd better hurry up and get published!  :)

Any and all critique is appreciated.

[David Miller]

Thank you.  I am very stimulated by the responses.  I may be able to start responding tomorrow evening, or it may be Saturday.  But I will respond, and appreciate the conversation.

[Layman Pascal]

In this same section I pause over the phrase "undifferentiated whole".  I worry that this is phenomenologically misleading at that the sense of the undifferentiated wholeness is a kind of popular illusion arising after the differentiation begins but which does not do such a good job of characterizing the prior phase.  I am inclined to view this as a pre-differentiated condition of hyper-partiality compared to which the consciousness of differentiation represents an enormous leap forward in both structural integration and experiential wholeness.

Do you have an interest in referring to pre-differentiation as a type of wholeness or is that just a kind of colloquialism?

[Layman Pascal]

One thing I've paused at a few times in the paper is the description of the Mirror Stage in Lacan.  Your phrasing suggests somewhat casually that the reflected image is interpolated as the result of adults pointing out and naming it.  However since it also appears that a few of the "higher animals" reach the Mirror Stage in the sense of being able to correctly identify their reflection in relation to an individually embodied identity we might presume that this process (unlike the passage through the Oedipal Gate into linguistic self-consciousness) may progress with little or no naming and educating.  Our neural architecture is very quick to build its Frankensteinian composite self-image out of whatever perceptions even come close to the model that we are primed to download.  Obviously the capacity for a "That one!" gesture is needed but I remain suspicious about making this seem to much like a verbal-social event of identification.

[Layman Pascal]

Hi David.  I appreciate the gesture.  My ideal welcome wagon might be a bit more of a chaotic dance than some others.  And I hope my sense that enriched and progressive theory should aim for a hybrid of cognitive & aesthetic, personal & impersonal, conventional & peculiar, etc. is not too far away from the goals and approaches which you have in mind.  Like Balder I'm poking into your paper whenever I get a free moment.

Here are a few questions which came up for me while reading your remarks:

Do you think of Heidegger's epochs of the metaphysics of Being as (a) a more or less contingent series of phases (b) not really a good description of history (c) a "nietzschean" tale of the devolution of culture as the latent nihilism comes, by stages, to the surface (d) a progressive tale which is loosely analogous to the kinds of developmental stages invoked by Gebser and others?

Are you concerned with the interface potentials between phenomenology, developmental psychology and only Christian theological traditions (appropriate to addressing Marion) or are you interested in the possibilities of folding in other lineages of theology?  One immediately thinks, for example, of the various ways in which the Buddhists handle a saturational surplus as "suchness".  The connection between meditative disciplines (which have some connexion to the accelerate development of human thinking through developmental stages) and the process of acclimatizing oneself to make a cognitive space for the givenness-which-exceeds-our-capacity-to-grasp seems to deserve some scrutiny here.  

Along these same lines do you see a particular meditative or contemplative deployment suggested by your understanding of the resonances between the 4 quadrants, 4 tropes, 4 modes of saturation?

Are you concerned at all about the tradition of thought which suggests the development from the Real to Imaginary to Symbolic is a mistaken or merely preliminary holding of Lacan and that the Real is best understood not an experience or phase or dimension but rather as simply the virtuality suggested by the failure of Symbol and Imagination?

I certain join you in affirming that saturation does not denote a passive condition of the subject and that a evolving-emerging pseudo-hierarchical phenomenology traces a line from sentience to sapience to salience (from bodily consciousness to psychological consciousness to the vividness and mystical excess which permits more sophisticated arrangements of phenomenological detections into more complex and deeper world-models.

So I'm looking forward to reading more of your ideas.

Hi David.  I appreciate the gesture.  My ideal welcome wagon might be a bit more of a chaotic dance than some others.  And I hope my sense that enriched and progressive theory should aim for a hybrid of cognitive & aesthetic, personal & impersonal, conventional & peculiar, etc. is not too far away from the goals and approaches which you have in mind.  Like Balder I'm poking into your paper whenever I get a free moment.

Here are a few questions which came up for me while reading your remarks:

Do you think of Heidegger's epochs of the metaphysics of Being as (a) a more or less contingent series of phases (b) not really a good description of history (c) a "nietzschean" tale of the devolution of culture as the latent nihilism comes, by stages, to the surface (d) a progressive tale which is loosely analogous to the kinds of developmental stages invoked by Gebser and others?

Are you concerned with the interface potentials between phenomenology, developmental psychology and only Christian theological traditions (appropriate to addressing Marion) or are you interested in the possibilities of folding in other lineages of theology?  One immediately thinks, for example, of the various ways in which the Buddhists handle a saturational surplus as "suchness".  The connection between meditative disciplines (which have some connexion to the accelerate development of human thinking through developmental stages) and the process of acclimatizing oneself to make a cognitive space for the givenness-which-exceeds-our-capacity-to-grasp seems to deserve some scrutiny here.  

Along these same lines do you see a particular meditative or contemplative deployment suggested by your understanding of the resonances between the 4 quadrants, 4 tropes, 4 modes of saturation?

Are you concerned at all about the tradition of thought which suggests the development from the Real to Imaginary to Symbolic is a mistaken or merely preliminary holding of Lacan and that the Real is best understood not an experience or phase or dimension but rather as simply the virtuality suggested by the failure of Symbol and Imagination?

I certain join you in affirming that saturation does not denote a passive condition of the subject and that a evolving-emerging pseudo-hierarchical phenomenology traces a line from sentience to sapience to salience (from bodily consciousness to psychological consciousness to the vividness and mystical excess which permits more sophisticated arrangements of phenomenological detections into more complex and deeper world-models.

So I'm looking forward to reading more of your ideas.

[Balder]

David, I'm in the midst of the busiest part of my week, so I haven't had time to write much yet this week, but I wanted to check in to comment that I've been reading your paper and still intend to respond.  Your recent clarification to Layman was helpful to me, as I was not very familiar with Marion's notion of saturated phenomena.

 

Since this topic has been explored from multiple angles in this forum over the years, I'd also like to ask you if you'd care to give your understanding of "postmetaphysical" (in general and/or in the context of your paper).

 

Best wishes,

 

Balder

[David Miller]

Okay, I'll give this a try, but I must say, if your first post was the welcome wagon, I'm not sure about this neighborhood.

What excites me is that this provides an opening for developmental theory in contemporary phenomenology.  Developmental theory was incorporated into early phenomenological method in the study of religion, but it was an essentialized, modernistic version that has been discredited by postmodern philosophy.  There is some measure of development in Ricoeur's hermeneutical phenomenology, as he moves from symbol to myth to philosophical/theological speculation, but this has been by and large confined to the hermeneutical aspect of his work and has not been taken up by phenomenologists.  Marion's work is a big deal in the world of phenomenology, as he is either reviled or admired -- there doesn't seem to be much middle ground -- for his part in the so-called religious turn or theological turn in phenomenology, so working with Marion's ideas and effectively critiquing them (if it turns out that I'm actually able to do so) has a great deal of currency in that world.

Ricoeur's description of the rhetorical master tropes as analogues gets me four things (not all of which are mentioned in this paper).  1) It gives me a way to critique Marion's four forms of saturation (which are based on Kant's categories).  2) It gives me an entry into Marion's critique of the standard interpretation of Aquinas's analogy of being and thus an entry into postmetaphysics.  3) It moves me toward explication of the master tropes / the four forms of saturation / Kant's categories as expression of the four quadrants.  4) Its use of metaphor and metonymy links phenomenology to Lacan's development from the Real to the Imaginary to the Symbolic and to his understanding of crossing the bar from the unconscious to the conscious.

More on # 3: The structure (not the content) of the four master tropes  is one of parts and wholes. In two of the forms, wholes either integrate toward one another or disperse from one another.  In the other two forms, parts either integrate into a whole or disperse as parts.  We therefore have interiors and exteriors with singular or multiple components, the four quadrants.

More on # 4:  Lacan (and Ricouer, as well, although I did not use him in this paper), as part of the canon of continental philosophy, gives me a toehold for development.  Lacan provides metaphor (one of the master tropes and therefore one of the quadrants) as a way to move from the unconscious to the conscious (a vertical move between two discontinuous realms) and metonymy as the slide of signifiers under the bar that splits our consciousness into that of the (un)conscious.  My argument is that the same tropes can get the subject, or the Self, or the ego, or Dasein (different phenomenologists refer to consciousness in different ways) from its mundane consciousness to the saturated phenomena posited by Marion in an active way.  (Marion says that saturated phenomena show that the subject is merely passively receiving whatever givenness gives to it.  I do not think that is the only way to view the subject.)  So I envision a movement of consciousness from the Real to the Imaginary to the Symbolic to saturation and beyond (the latter being something to which Marion never gives a thought or at least never writes a word).  This, of course, gets me to Gebser's integral phenomenology, which has been neglected in phenomenology.

So, rather than seeing what I've written here as a conflagration, I see it as the mini-version of my dissertation (which includes some of the things I've written here that I hadn't yet contemplated when I wrote the paper I posted), centering around two axes-- the horizontal axis of the four quadrants and the vertical axis of integral development -- in the context of a postmetaphysical phenomenology.  In particular, it is not merely a developmental form of phenomenology, in which a modernistic, essentialized stage is posited but outgrown in the next stage, but truly an integral one, as all the forms of consciousness coalesce in Gebser's integralized phenomenon.

I don't know if this will float your boat, but it does mine.

[Layman Pascal]

David, the only insult is this -- your comment about my comment was woefully narrow, refusing to take advantage of the many openings it provided for further engaged discussion.  It was neither insult nor critique but preamble, invitation, etc.  I couldn't possibly have commented without a substantial amount of interest and also having read at least part of your paper. 

In fact, the non-presumption of insult is central to the development of any definition of integral consciousness.

Yet why would anyone read an academic paper (which are notorious for their lack of personality, play and juiciness) without a good reason?  So I proposed that getting to know you a little better would constitute such a reason.  Your commentary here provides the personal and flavorful supplement to the paper and also a context with which to engage it.  Since obviously you are more important than the paper I want to go in knowing (a) what you love about this (b) what kinds of feedback would be helpful. 

[David Miller]

Layman,

That seems not so much a critique as an insult.  This was an academic paper, and, as you have little respect for the style, I can't imagine we have anything to talk about.

Thanks for the lack of interest.

[Layman Pascal]

Hi David,

This is an interesting confluence & conflagration of topics -- tossing Christian theology, phenomenology and Lacanian developmental psychoanalytics onto into a great heap using Gebser to set them on fire.  I dig the topics... but at the same time why would I read a dull, hyper-referencing paper on the subject? 

I already have little enough respect for the academic style! 
Perhaps I need to get to know you better?

What, in all of this, do you find the juiciest, most compelling, most fun, most potentially useful for other human beings?

I'd love to talk about that.

[Balder]

I started reading this yesterday evening, David, and it looks quite interesting.  Thank you for posting it here.  Commentary to follow soon.