Some Notes Concerning Causality, Ethics, and Acausal Knowing
The notion of causal separation - of the purely causal nature of Being
and beings - is incomplete because of the acausal nature of livings
beings. [1] Thus, livings beings are distinct in their being by virtue
of possessing life, and this life which animates their matter, their
causal being.
Hence my understanding of Πόλεμος as -
"...the whole, the complete, the natural, the
cosmological, process which includes ἀρχὴ, ψυχή,
Αἰὼν, and Φύσις,
and our revealing or coming-to-know these through λόγος. That
is, through that thoughtful reasoning [σωφρονεῖν], that
balance (ἁρμονίη)
of
both a causal knowing and an acausal knowing." [2]
Conventional philosophy, with its ideation based on or derived from the
causal separation of beings, is therefore incomplete, and expresses
only a causal knowing. In addition, this causal knowing is one of
ideation - of the process of εἶδος and ἰδέα which
involves (1) the assigning of individual beings (existents/things) to
the categories and/or forms that have been so manufactured; (2) the
process of inclusion/exclusion in the foregoing on the basis of some
posited criteria; (3) the relation between the singular, separated
beings, within and exterior to such categories and forms; (4) the
relation, if any, between such posited categories and forms and thus
the beings included or excluded from them; and (5) the assignment, by
some posited criteria, of value and/or some attribute or attributes to
both the beings included/excluded and to the forms/categories
themselves, and which attributes may or may not be concerned with or
involve degrees of separation, quantitative or qualitative,
As I have mentioned elsewhere [3] this is basically also the process of
experimental science, differing from conventional philosophy by the
use of and reliance on observational data, and often involving some
abstraction symbolism, usually mathematical, to express or to define
the subject-object relationship and inclusion/exclusion.
Knowledge becomes thus a subject-object causally-determined type of
knowing, founded on the assumptions of causality and the observations
of, or assumptions concerning, Phainómenon [4]. This type of
knowing - especially that deriving from experimental science and
especially that related to the observable Universe (including our own
planet) - has proved insightful and valuable,
But I contend that it is limited, cannot therefore by itself be a guide
to becoming σοφός, and that
the fundamental mistake of conventional philosophy (and also of some
speculative theories of experimental science) is to apply or strive to
apply this process of causal knowing - the abstractions, the ideations
- to living beings, especially human beings, especially in relation to
understanding Being and beings. Furthermore, that the nature of Being
and beings which such a causal knowing explains is incorrect,
subjective, an illusion, by virtue of such knowing projecting
causality, the ideation of separateness, of subject/object, onto Being
and beings.
It is incorrect because living beings partake of the acausal nature of
Being itself, and it is knowledge of this acausal nature - by the
process of acausal knowing [5] - that uncovers the connected nature of
not only living beings, but also of Being. Thus, λόγος is both
this acausal knowing and also causal knowing - the process whereby we
can discover ἀληθέα. [6]
I further contend that what is
ethical - as with becoming σοφός -
can only be based upon the complete knowing of Being and beings that
this λόγος reveals or guides us toward. This complete
knowing - partly revealed by empathy and partly by the numinous
authority of πάθει μάθος [7] - is of what I have termed the the
dependant nature of beings, in particular of living beings and of our
connexion to Being and other living beings. This knowing, this
uncovering of the acausality of Being, is of Πόλεμος as an
expression of the acausality beyond our
causal ideation, the acausal nature of which both ψυχή and
Αἰὼν manifest to us, as thinking beings.
[2]
This uncovering of and knowing of the dependant nature of beings - of
ourselves as one microcosmic connexion to Life and thus to other living
beings, human, sentient, and otherwise - thus establishes a new theory
of ethics, based on the personal knowing deriving from a personal πάθει
μάθος and on the empathy of the immediacy-of-the-moment [8]. Since,
by its nature, empathy is personal, individual, and cannot be
abstracted out from the personal immediacy-of-the-moment of that
empathic knowing - away from a direct awareness of another living being
- it
follows that what is moral is not abstract, cannot be defined by any
ideation, but instead is an expression of the numen, of ψυχή;
that is, of acausal knowing and personal knowing; on the individual
judgement of an individual who has the living quality,
ἀρετὴ.
For empathy and πάθει μάθος [9] enable us to be aware of, to
know, the
numinous - and thus predispose us to avoid the error, the
disruption, that is ὕβρις, for such a
knowing of the numinous includes an awareness and an understanding of Δίκα
[10]. Thus, we make a distinction, based on the direct learning of our
personal πάθει μάθος and on the acausal knowing of empathy,
between that which inclines us, or could incline us, toward ἀρετὴ,
and
that which inclines us, or could incline us, toward ὕβρις
[11]. This distinction is made in a practical way by a Code of personal
honour, since it is such personal honour which - by means of the
personal and the immediacy of empathy, and one's πάθει μάθος - is
our
guide to ἀρετὴ.
Hence, we are brought, by λόγος, by the process of thoughtful
reasoning, σωφρονεῖν, to an awareness of Πόλεμος, of ἁρμονίη,
of
the balance that is Δίκα, and of τὸ καλόν. And this is a move toward becoming σοφός.
As Aeschylus wrote, over two and half thousand years ago:
ἰὼ βρότεια
πράγματ᾽: εὐτυχοῦντα
μὲν
σκιά τις ἂν τρέψειεν: εἰ δὲ δυστυχῇ,
βολαῖς ὑγρώσσων
σπόγγος ὤλεσεν γραφήν.
καὶ ταῦτ᾽ ἐκείνων μᾶλλον οἰκτίρω πολύ. [12]
David Myatt
2011 CE
Notes:
[1] This is outlined in my Acausality, Phainómenon, and The
Appearance of Causality and also in An Introduction To The
Ontology of Being.
[2] Heraclitus - Notes on
Fragment 53.
I incorporated part of the above notes in my essay, Empathy and The
Immoral Abstraction of Race
In particular, ψυχή should be understood in relation to Αἰὼν,
that
is, ἀρχὴ is that changing, the
presencing and re-presencing of being, that is ψυχή through
Αἰὼν. Where of course Αἰὼν is to be understood
in the Homeric sense as Life, that which animates us and gives us our
mortal being.
[3] See for example From Aeschylus To The Numinous Way.
[4] Refer to my Acausality, Phainómenon, and The
Appearance of Causality
[5] Refer, for example, to my Acausality, Phainómenon, and
The
Appearance of Causality and also Physis, Nature, Concealment,
and Natural Change
[6] See, for example, Physis, Nature, Concealment,
and
Natural Change and also Empathy and The Immoral Abstraction of
Race
[7] Refer to my From Aeschylus To The Numinous Way and
other essays of a similar ilk.
[8] I have outlined my understanding of empathy in several essays,
including An Introduction To The Ontology of Being, and Introduction
to
The
Philosophy of The Numen
[9] In an important way, a living culture transmits to us the
remembered πάθει μάθος of our ancestors. See, for example, my Numinous
Culture,
The Acausal, and Living Traditions.
We can also, of course, learn from the πάθει μάθος of other
cultures past and present, which live, still possess a numinous being,
so long as we or others remember them and use them as one guide to
becoming σοφός.
It is my contention that the Hellenic culture - with its insights into
matters such as ὕβρις and Δίκα - is therefore now
still a living culture; remembered, and presenced and transmitted, by
those who having learned from those insights, treasure them. Thus,
individuals such as Heraclitus, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and many others,
transcending the practical milieu which brought their insights and
their understanding forth, are still relevant and important.
ὢ πόποι,
ἦ δὴ πολλὸν ἀποιχομένου Ὀδυσῆος
δεύῃ, ὅ κε μνηστῆρσιν ἀναιδέσι χεῖρας ἐφείη
Homer, The Odyssey, Book I, 253-254
Before the gods! How great is the need here for the absent Odysseus -
For him to set about these disrespectful ones with his fists!
[10] For some comments regarding Δίκα, see my Quid Est
Veritas?
[11] In respect of ὕβρις see, for example, Quid Est
Veritas?
[12] Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1327-1330
Alas! - for those concerns of mortals. A lucky
fate
Is a shadowy thing that can change: and if an unlucky fate
Strikes, what is written about someone is destroyed by a
moistened sponge;
And then there is much more to make lament for.