roo PAM Socrates Sep/Oct 2014 Eiglosiphy Now Back Issues Categories Podcasts Videos Search Forum Events Lites Books Free Articles Digital ezitions Reve Slecuseee Emacs 1. A student's guide to Jean-Paul Sartre's Eustentiatsm and umansm 2. Pop Cuture: An Overview 5, Moraity is @ Culturally Conditioned Response 4. The Death of Postrrodernisin Ang Beyond 5, Plato's Just State ry aA) Being and Becoming | Issue 61 | PrleeopyNow Articles Being and Becoming Christopher Macann explains the besis of his ‘genet’ system of phenomenology. In Raghael’s painting The Schoo! of Athens, we see an elderly Plato pointing upward {and a middle-aged Aristotle standing baside rim, with hs night palm hele horizontally ‘over the ground. This conjunction has been interpresed as the upwerd-orentes philosophy of the master (Pista) contrasting vith the down-to-earth ideas ef the up (Aristctle). This s by no means the only instance of 2 phissophy of heights Eontrested wth a philosophy of depths. Kane's upward-arented, "vanscencent at philosophy set in rotion a reaction which fed through Fichte and Scheling to the “ontological philosophy of Hegel, Again, Heidegger iy Being and Time was prometed to transform Edmund Husserts transcendental phenomenalagy of pure essences into an antoloaical phenomenclogy of existence. That In two ef these instances (Qrstotle and Heidegger) the Migure who lransformed the ‘transcendental shiosophy Of heights into an ‘ontological shiososhiy of depths started out 6 8 pup of the Some Useful transcencentalst gives us even more reason to doubt the accidental character af Definitions this relationship, Being and Whoever speaks of heights and depths imples a midcle ground, a polnt of ceparture Becoming for the pilosephical movement upward or connward, For Plato, this mice ground 'Na5 appearence and gainion, mhich was transformed upwards by ns theory of Forms into an investigation into realty and knowledge. And however diferently Aristotle may have conceived of the transformation, nevertheless hs movement downwards from the transcendent world of Forms to ethics and science also seeks ‘to get to the bottom of things, to the truth of the matter as against Hhot ‘comrmoniy believed. With Kant the pont of ceparture was the emencal worl, with, lis two basic supports, sense experience and rational though. In order to Comprehend how these two supports made abjective knowledge possi, Kant thought It necessary to presuppase a higher, transcendental dimension of consciousness, capable Of raflecting upon the conditions of the possibilty of objective knowledge, With Hussed, science and common sense are brought under a omen head as the natural attitude’ of thought. Ths "natural attkude’ is then suspended through a procedure he calls ‘the phenamanological reduction, which More articles rales possibie the transition to 2 higher, transcendental consciousness capable of ‘from this sue reflecting upon the structures of personal experience upon when ebjective ‘experience and knowledge re founded. Husser's ‘natural attitude’ then becomes Heidegger's realm af the “entic’, the task now becoming ane of investgating the ontolegical ground of the unity ip experience of the dehotomies which characterize our having objective knowledge, Thus Hussert and Meegger share the same point of departure, in the micle groune represented by the natural attitude, but they go about the bushiess of phenomenology n cismetically ‘opposed ways. Hussar appeais ta the highor founcatien of transcendental reflection, Heidegger to the lower ground of an ontological analysis of being. So & that the basic structures of Heideggers Being and Time take the form of an inversion of Husser's own aralyses. The being-out-of-the-world of Husserts transcendental ago becomes the being-in-the-word of Heidegger's Dasbin; hysset's time of inner time conscicusness becomes Heidegger's existential ime; transcenental aloneness becomes Deing-with, Right away, 9 new possibity springs to mind ~ that of ining and connecting the three levels in an ordered sequence, Starting from the bottom, with an ontological investigation of tne nature of experience pror to se¥refiection, we can proceed through the middle ground charecterized by science and corraron sense, before concluding with the fvgier transcendental sphere capable of reflecting upon the conditions of the possiblity of the two lower levels of consciousness. I call this a genetic investigation nto penomencloay, because t Involves anciysing the processes tnat give bith te experiance. Unfortunately, this onterly genesis of awareness through these thee levels of experience fails to Go justice {to one salient feature of the nistorical sxamples presented above, It would seem that the ontological realm ‘of unveflected experience fs where @ genetic investigation ougnt to begin = with what most prmordial in. ‘experience. And yet, in every historcal Instance an ontolegical investigation seers to come after the transcendental ~ death philosophy folowing upon the ahvosophy of naights: Arsvotle coring after Pato, Heidegger after Husserl, How can we account for ths dscrepency? And what ff the ontologcal realm Teatured twice, once at the outset, and again as the outcome of the genesis? Az Heidegger put it, hat Is closest to us i being is furthest ‘ram us I analysis, We have ontologies! experience at the core of being human: this & why if tales the long detour via eariectign fer us to come to terre with what we are, But ‘ot only would 2 double instantiation of the origin ~ at the begianing and also at the end of theught, s0 to speak ~ make It possible to resolve the histoncal dificulty, ® would transform a linear concept on of the hipsiphiloscenyrowergissuRsi6sing_and Becoming Searer a usoreo Being and Bocoming | fssu0 61 | Philoscehy ow genesis of thought into an equivalent cyclical form, and so make i possible to conform to a prince : fundamental of Hege's own cyclical genesis, where “The goa! is the ground and tne ground, the gosh (see the beginning of the first Book of the Science of Logic, § 86.) Here a full awareness of experience © Fesched. So what we now have Is a ganasis which assumes four rather than three staces, skiaough the fourth stage turns out to be nothing other than the reflective recuperation of the fist - "reflection upon ‘the unrefiected” to employ Merleau-Porty’s memorable phrase Now that Meviesu-onty has been brought into the pleture, gerhaps we can use his path-breakng Phenomenology of Perception to provide a grounding pracipe far the ontological stage, the els of hhumen being. The Phenomenology of Perception talks ncessently about enbodiment without ever taking ‘about the question of being. Heidegger's Heine and Tims, an the other hend, tals incessorty abou the {question of being without ever talking about ewbodiment. So what could be more obvious than bringing the thinking of these two philosophers together by defining the grounds of human being in terms of hs being & ody? But f the principle of embodiment can thus serve ta crounc the fist and original stage in the genesis of consciousness, what of the tuo further stages? sre we to refuse any ontological status 10 the objective and reflective stages of thought? Ard if an ontological status isto be accorded to these two subsequert stages in the genesis, whst find of being can be attrisuted to such stasestil, as { suppose, the evelopment of consciousness through successive stages presunposes 9 progressive separation ofthe sek from its Body and from the world, then whet sense does make to continue to accord ontological status to these subsequent stages? My answer is that since it must always be some relation to the body which upholds the ontological status Of eech stage, not only must the crginal coincidence of consciousness and the bocy give way to a erivative ‘aistinction’ and then ‘abstraction’ From the body, thie must also confer some kind of ontological Status upon the respective stages. This s where becomes pertinent to appeal to Descartes, For, as we all nom, Descartes defined the being of the seif (as 'sou") in terme of ke cistinction from the bocy- Even i, at the second stage of the genesis of consciousness, the se¥ now clstances tel From ts body, this ‘tinction’ from the body stl suffices to give an ontological status to this second, objective stage, What then of the contemporary tendency to rejact the Cartesian origins af madern phvasophy ina prince of ds-etrbaciment? Hovever hostile contemporary analytical phitosophy might be to continental philosophy, the two schosls of thought tend to agree on one thing: their common opposition to Descartes and the dichotemes ane Gualties he introduced into philosophy ~ mind-body, subject-object, subject-other subject. Gloeit Rye's ‘objection to the ‘ghost in the machine’ finds en echo in Heidegger's refusai of af tak about consciousness, ‘mentalty, spitualty and so on ~ which maans thet both are in acreement i disrassing Husserts phenamenolagy af consciousness as “transcendental twadcle,” ta employ Watgensteln’s sicturesque Dhrase. A genetic methodology crates it possible to restate Descartes in his rightful lace es the father of ‘modem philosophy’, whe at the same time doing justice to the contemporary ambition to overcome Cartesian duaities. The beng of human beng can be defined intially in ters of ts being a body, fst a long as this orginal condition Is allowed to give way to a derivative principle of dis-embodinent (c? Descartes’ two-fold definition of substance as both physical and spitual. The Scheme of Being and Becoming Now fs tme to put my cards on the teble in the form of an outline of the scheme of the fest volume of my work, To the three stages which characterize the progressive genesis of awareness I rave given the names “orghary’, “objectve’ and ‘reflective’ Each of these three stages is defined in terms of 2 formal prneiale, that determines the nature of the relation which prevals between consciousness and the body & tat stage in the genesis. The first and criginal stage is defined in ters of a coinciaence of Consciousness and the body; the second, objective stage, In terme of 2 distinction of consciousness and the body; wis tie third, reflective stage is defined In terns of an abstraction of consciousness from the body. Furthermore, the relstion betiveen the self and ts body is taken to pre-determine an equivalent relation between the Sell fend anything other than sell, Anyone possessing the sightest acquaintance mith Descartes’ phiosophy wil ‘understand what is meant by saying that the mind-body distinction goes along mith, or even pre Setermines, an equivalent dlstinction between the thintang subject and the object (or she word of objects), That there should be an orginal coincidence of consciousness and the body, that consciousness and the body should itiaty be one, makes perfectly goad sense, Dut kt might saem odd to say that th, Coincidence of the sef with ts body also makes possible an equivalent coincidence of self ad other. But {25 soon as we appeal to Heidegger's Being and Time thie dificuty vanishes. Heideager argues that human existence cant be envissaed independently ofits warlé ~ a world which makes up 2 part of hs very omn being, And Merlaau-Ponty says nothing different when ne tale about the world in which an orginal ‘embodied human being Iwes and moves and hes its being \What of the third principle, of ‘abstraction’? Again, to say the transcendental dimension of consciousness is grounded in an abstraction of conseiousness fromthe boty does not sound too extravagant (and statements by Husseri can be found to suppor this concept). The bask klea fs thet an bstraction’ from ‘the body involves the taking up of an even greater distance of tne eel ‘rom self and from the werd then does “distinction”. One way to See this is m terms of the new, trenscendental possibity ef meking, Consciousness RSel" an object of consciousness, Whereas the astinetion’ of mnné and body only makes possibie the objectification of whatever does not pertain to the self, abstraction makes pessisie an Objectiticatin of the self Rsetf qua consciousness (in other words, reflection, propery so called). ut whereas the empirical self remeins inaivicual and relative, tha transcendental se¥ i recarded by Kant 25 “universal ane by Hussert as ‘absolute’. Inceed, statements can be found In which Husser! tals expleithy of the emergence of an absolute and unversal transeendental conscwusness a conditioned by an ‘abstraction’ from the body. As for the complementary abstraction from the world, ite here chet Musser’s hipssiphilosconyresvergfesuesi61/Boing_and_Bacorring m4orang Bing and Beceming | Issue 61 | Pileseaty Now concept of the henomenological reduction’ comes to the rescue. For, folowing Descartes’ method of doubt, Husser sists thet the way to discover a transcendental dimansion of consciousness isto suspend befet in an extemal world beyond my consciousness, Instead af simply assuring the existence of an extemal word, we have to reduce the world to Its "being for me’, to “pure appeerence”, to ts being & mere “object of consciousness’ - and nething more. Whenever a personal pronoun is needed to characterize the sel of an originaf rade of being, use the pronoun "It. (Freud end his conception of an ‘unconscious consciousness’ are relevant hare. Signune Freud alle the unconscieus an £5, which is most straightforwarcly translated inta Englsh as the pronoun "kt, but which Strachey's translation of Freud unfortunately rendered as the Latin id.) Whenever a personel pronoun 's neaded to characterize the self at the objective Ckrowledge) stage, Ise the proncun I. Finally, whenever a personal pronoun is neaded to characterize the sel at the reflective stage, {use the pronoun ‘One’. The aim here is to imply that the self which reflects theraby achieves a certain university The universalty of transcendental consciousness is apoarent in the very method Kant used to justify the transcencentel deduction of the categories in his Critgue of Pure Reacan. For Kant serpy takes for granted ‘that whatever a transcendental consciousness discovers to be true of ts sel wil be tr of any sel whlch possesses a transcendental (self-reflectiva) status. Hence the absence of any theory of intetwubjectarky, for Kant. And nathing is more critical to Kent's ethics (in his Critique af Practica) Reason) than the prineple ‘of universaizabity; the idea that whatever moral judgments 2 self discovers to be morally val for sel tare by the same token binding upon all other oral agents, Far ftom being an abstruse notion, placing other Selves on a par with myself implied by any doctrine of the equality ofall eitizens before the lav, and by any conception of inalienable huran rights, Hoping to bring beck into philosophical circustion such antiquated words as “Sou and ‘Spi’, Ihave chosen to call the frst and origina stage of the ganesis of consciousness a ‘Doctrine of Soul’ using the word in the same sense as Hegel's Seek, The second stage I call a ‘Doctrine of Wind. Here the reverence to the Philosophy of mind which occupies a central place in analytic phiksophy is entirely appropriate. The use of the term Doctrine of Spint! to characterize the Chind, refigctive stage of consciousness & meant to bring baci into circulation the sense of the German word Geist, which readers may tecognize from the German litle of Hege's best-known work The Phenomenology of Spit. There is notning ghostly or spocky abaut the Use of these terms in the context of my genetic ontology. Far from “Saul for instance refers to the beng Of the self insofar as iis fuly and corplarely integrated wth Rs bodiy being, and so with the word in wiih it Finds itself. Although Temploy the word "Spit In 2 mate remote and apstract sense, t cenotes another genuine possibity of being, which requires of the self that it abstract from Reel, with a view to overcoming ts lower self, and so becoming that ~higher’eelf which each end every one of vs hes & in us to be, To develop the ful wealth of material required by any attempt to adequately explain the development of self-awareness, the originary stage had te be further differentiated, Here { borrowed from Hegel, In that Sub-divide the originary stage along the samo lines as those which characterize the thresfok ehision of the overail genesis. AS Hegel employed his threefold divsion of the ‘In-ltsair, Fer-set and the in-ang-For- itset” in a furcner subcivision of each of these stages along the samme ines, sa Thave sud-civided each of the orginary, objective and reflective stages inca orighary, objective and reflective sub-divsions, And precisely because the originary stage is the most ‘ontologkal stage, tne sub-civisons are most rportant at this stage ~ if only because they pre-figure the further development of the overall genes. Fotoning & format developed by Hegel in his Anthropciogy, 1 have adopted the terms ‘Natural Seu! "Wortd Soul and ‘Actual Sout to characterize the three sub-dn’sions of the erigiary stage, The ‘Netural Soul hes its being in pure being (nature), the World Sou, in the works, while the awareness of the ‘Actval Soul is restreted to itself. That is, the Actual Soul no longer hes its being in anything other than iesef, ro longer experiences itself es ‘integrated In’ or ‘belonging to ene world In whieh k finds itself ~ even though the Actual Soul hos not yet become the subject. This arogressive restriction of the being-in of the sai Is expressed in principle {cat the ontological delimtation of transcendence’, The most extensive dwveling of the Sel In being por se gives way to a less extensive daaling In the warid, which, In tum, gives way to the least ‘extensive dwveling of the se in sei. By staging the withdraval of the se from being in this way, 1am able to prepare the way for transforration which brigs with ka polarization of Deing. The mind-body, Subject-object distinctions are seen to be the outcome of this progressive withdrawal, a dirinishment OF being which at the saire time cendtions and males aossible an augmentation of consciousness These three orginal sub-stages of the Doctrine of the Soul concem an investigation of the way In which the exnerience of the objective universe is progressively constructed by the self, So far fam being hostile to enppircal evidence, Ido my best ta find Confirmation of my theory in the relevant dseipines, npartcuer Child psychology (For the orginal beng of the self as an individual), anthropotogy (ror the orginal bing af the self as 8 species) and cukural anthropology (for the prmordial exprossions of the ongint made of hhuman being). implied here is a hypothesis to the effect that the logk of the genesis of consciousness {pales to the development of the species, the develapmert of the Individual and even to the development (of culturel expressions of our being in the world ~ wita phigsoghy as the eventual outcome, Being and Becoming further extends this system with 8 logic of the genesis of philosophy, with the paradoxicel twist that itis the highest and most remote form ef philosophical shining that is lone capable ot effecting the rrovernent of retum to the ongin ‘So now we have an ontological phenomenology which, so far from excluding transcendental philosophy ond lismssing erica, positivist, pragrretic, analytic philosophy, Includes all these as stages inthe genesis of human consciousness. From this we find that the develapment af consciousness 'spatd for a the cost of @ diminishment of the belag-relation, The more human being develops itself, s conscious resources, the less {remains one wth itself and with that in which it Finds sel, To emplay an expression barowed fom Heidegger: “the more consciousness, the lass being.” fs ths hot the very predicament we face today, as thinking subjects capable of a scientific understanding and a technological mastery and domination aver the Imeteriel universe? In the 1Sth century people assumed scientific prograse would automaticaly bong with tps:tnhitosophyrawerafiseues!6eing_and_ Bocoring a4Being ard Becoring | laste 61 | Prlosophy Now an unlimited extension of human wel-being ~ only for us to discover that this very same science and technology is bringing us to the brink of destruction, Where previously we tended to disparage so-called primitive’ cultures and civilzations, we now study them assieuoushy, to leam from them how to lvs ha symbiotic relation with nature arid at peace with ourselves, orezote 0 nothing is more crucial to the message offered by Being and Becoming than the movernent of return. This fs the fourth stage, end brings with & a retur to the fist stage. It tums the progtessive genes ‘back upon itself, and £0 makes possible a regression to the origin. The goal and the graund are now one. tn ther words, the timate goal of the genesis of consciousness is nathing less then & full carprchension of What It besicaly means to be hurmen, to be a body, invelved in 3 world with ethers, with al that ehat Fnplles for our natura’ and soeiat wellbeing ‘What napaens shen the ‘ovement of retum makes possible a reflective recuperation (awareness) of the orig, higher swareness of being? Three possibilities arise: ontological psycholagy a3 the reflective recuperation in seif of the Soul, ontelogical costrology as the reflactive recuneration ih the worl! of the ‘Soul; and ontological theology as the reflective recuperation in being (‘Being’) of the Soul Kant vndertock a review of ontological psychology, onteiogal cosmology and antolacical theclogy in the context of his certique of the ilsions of pure reason. To some extent Ihave tekan over Kant’s terminology, transforming his dismissal into 2 positive doctrine, Ontolagical psychology ceases to be what Kant took i to be (a Spurious deduction of the invmortalty of the soul from the prneiple of golf-identity) and becomes instead What might be eafed a doctrine of selFactualzation, a phrase made famous h Masiow's Pxyeroiog) of ‘Being, Sef-actualvation becomes even more plausitie in the contexc of @ cyclical genesis, where & represents “the reflective recuperation of the Actual Soul.” My ontological easmalbgy has nothing to do with Kent's entieue of any attempt to determine the spatial or temporal lnits of the universe, and becomes instead a theory of the ‘work’ of art. After all, pertains to the work of ar, as Heidegger never ceased ra emind us, to re-create a world ~ the world of the art work, Finaly, ontological theology represents "the feflective recuperation of the Natural Soul." Identifying God wah Being andi so seekang in ontology (the Ssclenco of baing) a Foundation for a theology is just the kind of project to which Tlieh committee Ainsee in Fis three volume Systematic Theology, Hegel calectical genests culrinates in what he calles an “Ansobite Consciousness’, whose topics he depicted as Art, Religion and Phiosophy. Thase topics of Absolute Consciousness ere belier expressed as humen eels, clscovared though the question, ‘What is the utimate polvt and purpose of being human?” Since phiosepry is the means by which this question gets asked, I would msist that phlosopny sel can fot represent the ideal (Che question isnot its awn answer}, and that Hege's attempt to make philosophy ‘the utinate reason for being represents a parrpous form of self-glorfication. But the question of purpose sillstands, Ang to that question f would offer the answers, Self-actualzation, Art and Religion, Becorring who one & is 2 matter of ceveloping oneseF existential, of expressing oneset artisticaly, and of enteting Inte that kind of ration with Being (God) whieh alone offers a prospect of salvation, © Professor Christopher Macann 2007 raf Macann is 2 former student of Paul Reosur and has recently lectured at the Universities of London ‘and Bordeaun. + This atcie has been limited to an overview of Being and Becoming Vol 1, devoted to General Metaphysics. This frst volume is succeeded by three others, devoted to Natural Pibsophy (Time and Space), Socia! Philosophy (Personal Relations and Language) and Practical Phiesophy (Freedom and sthics). Each of the subsequent volumes applies the genetic Format laid out In the first volume to thelr various topics. (Genesis is the process of comng nto being.) Some Useful Definitions Phenomenology fs the analysis of experience, ‘Ontology isthe enquiry inta the nature of the being of human experience. Transcendental means above or prior to experience. Transcendental consciousness Is eg thinking that can be aware of and reflect upon tse, Genesis isthe process of coming into being Being and Becoming Professor Macana has just completed a vast philosophical project in four parts entitled Being and Becoming. 1,700 pages long and 26 years in the writing, ts publishers hope it will de for the Engish-speaking world what Heldesgers Being and Time did for Gorman phiosephy, or what Sartre's Being and Nothingness and Merteau-Ponty's Arenamenoiogy of Pecception did for French phlasophy, More details can be found at waw.onlinriainas.com. ips ipilosophymeworaissu2a)6 IBeing_ and Becoming 46