We are born into a fully formed world with all its history and processes. We in turn develop within this world. We acquire language, definitions, develop physically, and gain all our prejudices and biases. Some look back to an origin, or even a first philosophy and will soon come to realize that there are many. Our histories are wide and diverse, and often hidden or unknown, only told by consumer products which keep the creator behind a corporate veil. This is the same phenomena of concealment that occurs when we speak tales of great men of history. Those who built the pyramids have been lost to history, namelost laborers who we name a god king to assign cause and responsibility to. We find ourselves in a duality of the individualism of authoritarianism in contrast to the actual act of the collective actions which built history that is recorded in the structure of the pyramids. Every concept we assign to phenomena rose from human imagination, as an attempt to articulate, contain or measure. The form of communication bears the burden of the subjectivity of the articulator.
There are things we know individually, that which a single instance of mind contains. There are things we collectively have come to know, that which the shared mind processes contains that may be available to us to know. There are things which are not yet known that can be known. Aristotle realized that we are limited by our sense perception in our knowing (His emphasis was on sight). In this we ask is there that which because of the limitation of our biological senses can not be known? Often we find a god or spirituality within this.
Science is the study of the repeatable. Magic is the study of the unrepeatable. The social act of science is verification. Magic thus has no verification. For, when it does it reterritorializes and finds its way into science. In this definition we see that perhaps there is more magic than science in subjective experiences of the world. Then there is the idea of “truth” which necessitates the existence of a truth if it is to truly be what the very definition assumes it to be. Truth relies upon objectivity, yet is limited to subjective minds, and in praxis finds its claim in intersubjectivity.
In his Metaphysica, Aristotle examines the claim of previous philosophers who claimed mathematics to be the structure of all. He frames this as positing ideas as causes. Let us ask causes to what? Can an idea be a cause? The world I was born into was thousands of years after the ideas of Aristotle were infused into the Cultural Hegemony. It is a foundation of thought in Anglo Academic Institutions. In fact it is a capitalist consumer culture where we shop in the marketplace of ideas. To address the cause we look at the ultimate question rising from the doctrine of Anglo Christian Supremacy. Where did we come from? And by this we often include the entire universe of which we know very little about. Two common answers to this that are given are that a creator made it all, or that a by chance accident like “the big bang” occurred. Reality is that both of those are only ideas. They were not an objective telling of a witnessed event, for both recognize they were not events observed, but thought of retroactively. The very assumption that the universe had to have a beginning is one we cannot verify. Do the conditions for life necessitate a certain material condition, or does life struggle to find a way to emerge and adjust for survival despite the conditions? In this life elsewhere could be unrecognizable. What is life? The only causes we have for this in reality is found in ideas we form and pass along.
Plato spoke of a realm of ideas and then a realm of the thing. This idea is somewhat in line with the ideas of a mind body dualism. The spirit, the soul, or consciousness, are the ideas we tend to associate with ‘the mind’ as if it is separate from the body. At current that lies within the realm of “the study of the unrepeatable” therefore it is magic. If we want to contend that and seek the repeatable we must define what we repeat and what is to be measured and the process of beaurovariance must begin. That is, to begin to bureaucratically classify various ‘things’ observed within the genius as Aristotle did. This is where we get the genius, philo, species etc… This could also be for example, the soul, the spirit, or consciousness as genius. Here we began by creating the ideas of mind, the spirit, soul, or consciousness become the various classifications that must be broken down to their definable parts emerging a definition of what they are. Attributes of the mind become the definitions. It is also possible to continue practicing magic, as people have done so for as far as recorded history it would appear. Magic I assert is where we miss the connections completely. Historically, rationality and reality do not go hand in hand. Rationally, reality and history do not go hand in hand. And in reality, history and rationality do not go hand in hand. It is a paradox. But do not limit the paradox to the three lenses we looked at there. The paradox rises from the limitations of human thought. It would seem that way as we hold more in common with the understanding of the flea and the world around it. Why does the dog keep circling back to the water bowl? Why does the food try to get me off them? I’m just trying to get dinner. As we look up in awe at the movement of what we are inhabiting.
God is in the cracks. So we ask about the realm of ideas or even idealism. The misunderstanding of idealism is that it reveals to us the limitations of understanding. It shows us what we can not figure out. It is what we have not been able to answer all along. Aristotle’s Metaphysica is trying to figure things out. Often stories do the same thing. The reality is that the Metaphysica is just a big story.
“Big P” philosophy is a conversation, or discourse. There are dialectictions that contrast on many levels. To take Fitche’s thesis, antithesis, synthesis we see only a simplistic dualistic dialectic. The reality is that these many levels are just the result of interaction of assemblages at various levels. There is often a multiplicity of thesis and antithesis in a given interaction. If the interaction includes a third, each comes with their own thesis confronted by the antithesis. The human being only exists within a subjective experience of the real.
Aristotle
When I look at Aristotle, I come from a limited understanding, but there is a forms of structures and classifications he seems to imagine. He seeks to control and constrain the things around him to understand or for his preferences. Reality is far more chaotic.
One example given in history to claim a logical truth is all husbands are men. The formula of logical, rational truth given in this example is that by definition a thing is true as defining the word husband as being a man creates the truth in itself. In this the assignment of the term to an actual is where we begin to see it may have only been an idea, and that definitions often fail to encompass a totality of reality. This becomes more apparent after the postmodern era of understanding.
Mathematics is a tool. It is a logical mode of rationalism that focuses on the quantification of a given thought or thing. For mathematics to work we must measure a thing with the process. In this we must create the beaurovariant classifications we fit into the symbolism of the number.
In regards to truth it is written in the metaphysica:
The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that on one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, we do not collectively fail, but everyone says something true about the nature of things, and while individually we contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all considerable amount is amassed. Therefore, since the truth seems to be like the proverbial door, which no one can fail to hit, in this respect it must be easy, but in fact that we can have a whole truth and not the particular part we aim at shows the difficulty of it.
Here we see that there is a question of a ‘whole truth’ or a ‘particular truth’, again to comprehend we break into two categories in a dichotomy that we are imagining. In this beaurovariance we can question the dichotomy, and make a more complex dichotomy, a trichotomy, or a quatrotomy as we struggle to control and isolate to come to an objective. But in the search for the objective we engage in a process of constructing. We could rename beaurovarinace, the categories and much more. But here let us say that we have from Aristotle ‘whole truth’, ‘particular truths’, from there we can go on to imagine ‘subjective truths’, ‘intersubjective truths’, ‘mathematical truths’, ‘magical truths’ all seeking to find the image of the ‘objective truth’ which can be perceived with our senses. In this we see this ‘objective truth’ as some absolute truth, which follows a logical path to an ontology as is given in the traditional academic process of philosophy. Which leads us to ask what is the ontology? Or you even might ask what is ontology?
Ontology is this ultimately sort of god like questioning we began with. What is the base foundation of all? Baidou has come to declare that ontology is mathematics. Like the Prothagereanas that Aristotle encountered he has come to the conclusion that this lens of mathematics, the use of a specific tool to quantify and measure things around us is where the answers lay.
The question of the ontology or the base can also be seen in logic. We condense language and structure of language and create rules to precisely articulate a claim without contradiction. We look now at ethics and truth as a social science. In that sense we see the real method we engage in to create ethics and truths. The beginning of science is in Plato, as we watch Socraates question everything and challenge assumptions. This social process evolves over centuries and we see Descartes attempt to question all his assumptions. Questions can then become far more powerful than answers. But as answers are found they bring with them further questions. Inherent to this is an action that is occurring in the social realm which Hegel would attempt to articulate from his subjective experience which we call dialectics. The constant churning of the idea that evolves with further understanding. What was his proof? The pages of history and the ideas they held and his questioning and observing of this provided his source. Hegel is taught as a foundational thinker in Social Science.
Social science as a tendency is not as concerned with the nuance of the idea, philosophy or religious dogma itself as it is the actual human action, and how we construct the social. This can either emphasize its utility like structuralism, or it can challenge it upon the apparent contradictions as is done in conflict theory.
Things are both of themselves and of the observer. Kind of like how Plato saw this other realm where things existed, but it is not some place far out in the ethereal plane that exists outside of reality. We do know that the generalized concept and understanding of a thing lives in our thoughts, how we understand. The screwdriver functions as a prybar when implemented as one. In a world without screws the function of the screwdriver as a screwdriver is a meaningless concept. Any worker can tell you the importance of having the proper tool. The idea is a tool for what it accomplishes. That could be nothing for thousands of years until it actually comes into a wider social interaction, revived and guides into a new action or form. (The revival of old ideas in a new light is common. It is the realization that things have in and of themselves changed in relation to the idea that must be understood. The idea is an extension of the one who holds it, it is able to survive in history through writing or historic record. (as we saw with pyramids) If and only if the idea is brought into the world and not lost in the mind. Its health, longevity and thriving depends on congruence and social acceptance.
Historic record is all about. In a consumer economy we are removed from the real history of the consumer products we interact with, but they do exist, they have history and origin, we are just removed by the process of distribution and production from these things. They record the actions of labor and manufacturing in their physical result. The intent of a thing is not always understandable.The manufacturer tag on your clothing could reveal a limited view to that history. And what we first come to know are the things around us that have already been constructed or altered. The child knows the parents’ tools by observing the parent acting with the tools. Language, religion and culture are tools. Language like other tools takes knowledge for skilled use. This is both in the articulation and the translation.
As ideology is not benign, it serves a purpose in society in the articulation of the proverbial idea. The complete thought and idea is complicated by the limitations of the tool. The tool works to do what it does, therefore the reality of what seems to be a reality of the ideology which we construct to justify our participation and actions within a society. Further understanding may lead us closer to Aristotle’ s unachievable ‘whole truth’ an ideology will be contained to its ‘particular truths’. Now claiming supremacy, the formal ideology takes the shape of a theory. The theory often exists within a formal academic structure, like Aristotle’s school, (as he was a teacher.) holds its claim to authority in a position of authority. The claim to authority can be varied.
We turn again to mind body dualism. In the experience of the world we are isolated to ourselves in a way we cannot connect to others fully within an alienated society. The full experience often does not have congruent language to properly articulate. The act of using language artistically leads to a great deal of interpretation necessary to comprehend. In this the hearer looks in with their lens. Connecting to others, understanding and being able to relate to the other takes skill and intent. It is a thing that can be taught and it should be a foundational part of the base education of a healthy society.
To categorize, isolate, and control has a side effect. In dividing we see the twofold result where on one side we create very isolated forms of knowledge within the various schools, sciences and ways of professionalizing, but a product of the synthesis is alienation. We know the alienated constructed lenses intimately as we often reflect an element of one in our own understanding. These are the morally doomed understandings of economics, chemistry, sociology, and all else but not only according to their wider genius divided down to the splintered functions in society. As the development of organization theory, a structuralist approach to social sciences has evolved it is useful to look at a foundational text, the engineer as economist. This proposed a new scientific method of approaching social control, largely within a given assemblage such as a business. Within these systems assembled formally or informally that largely govern the current consumer culture of monopoly capitalism in the 21st century.
Born into a fully developed society controlled by constraints built around beaurovariance of various schools and sorts we find ourselves maneuvering the maze of connections and flows between assemblages, territorializing and deterritorializing at various levels. As each social assemblage seems to have an internal culture, there is an element of culture shock when moving between them. Forms of assemblages can bear the same name over time and not reflect the form or structure of the previous. Property is a beaurovariant that is defined by an attitude in relationship with the external. It realizes a relationship of dominance with the external. The external becomes a part of the imagined self in the fictions imagined to defend the use and abuse of the external. It is an attitude of entitlement.
The purpose of a thing exists in what it does, not what the intent of it was. Ideology is a story we tell. History is formed in subjective perception limited by its relationship within assemblages. The history of ideology in the written word is largely in metaphor. How much was realized to be metaphor at various times can vary.
When mythology of gods were written in the western tradition, many took the form of ourselves showing the creation of a god in man’s own image. As we reproduce humans as a synthesis of two other humans leading to a wide diversity of variance that is humanity, we also reproduce the external reality and the internal understandings. As various humans interact, those variances mix according to variance and interact creating ever more unique variances influenced by various experiences and conditions. The emergence of a physiologically different human, can at times be seen as deviant within the social authorities of a given assemblage.
The idea is not the action. It is often the judgments and articulation of the observed tainted with the biases and preference of what or how it should be.
As a praxis for an anarchist social science, you must take a phrase from the bible and be in the world but not of the world.