Zhuangzi and the Becoming of Nothingness (SUNY Press, 2019) - Table of Contents and Introduction (original) (raw)
Related papers
Festschrift for Prof. Moshe Idel 75th Birthday, dir. A. Bar Levav, M. Halbertal and R. Margolin, , 2022
There is no 'Nihil': Kabbalistic Dialectical Ontology and non-causal Origination At the dawn of Greek philosophy, we find what could appear as a strange assertion: "Non-being is not". The prima facie interpretation of the Parmenidian axiom is that non-being cannot or should not constitute an object of thought in itself; consequently, that the emergent 'science of being' is not an enquiry into some process of origination of being out of non-being. Plato's "parricide", i. e. the fact of accommodating non-being into being, and thus of conferring it an ontological consistency, may well have been an antidote to the "unity of being" 1 (or rather to its homogeneity). While the meaning of this apparent anti-Eleatic rebellion is subject to (much) debate, it lays the bases of a tradition of dialectical ontology in which the on and the me-on become inextricable. The Platonic First/One/Good, however, escapes this dialectics: it resides outside or beyond all ontological determination, and no category can either approach it or point toward it. The birth of 'theology' and the gradual essentialisation of a divine first cause/Creator coincide, starting with the beginning of the second century, with the crystallization of the Christian doctrine of the creatio ex nihilo, 2 which becomes one of the staples of the theistic dogma. Thus, a primordial non-being or nothingness comes to be imagined, alongside with the conflation of God and 'being', and with the implicit process of purification of the Being of God. 3 The ex nihilo creationism confers non-being an absolute, ultimate status and an undisputed precedence, a representation that informs both metaphysics and cosmology. Underlying the cosmological argument and the question of "why is there something rather than nothing" is the presumption that non-being is the subtending, primary ontological state. Nonbeing is, in a sense, "natural", whereas being has to occur. Thus, these apparently abstruse and speculative questions bear tremendous implications in terms of Western 'world hypothesis', and orient not only metaphysics, theology and (as we shall see) ethics, but also epistemology, even in the contemporary scientific forms. The question of "how does the universe come into being" underlies modern cosmology and the current dominating Big Bang model. However, in regard of its ultimate presuppositions, this paradigmatic cosmological model can be seen as a 1
Our Incorrigible Ontological Relations and Categories of Being
2017
The object of this book is to present a radical novel conception of the ontological categories, their nature and epistemic importance. A conception that constitutes a challenge to the prevailing tenets, if not paradigms, of ontology today. The arguments and observations are given without addressing nor directly contesting the current theories on the subject. However, its author emphasises some of the main conclusions that entail from the new perspective, in particular regarding the role of philosophy among the sciences. Departing from the novelty of considering distinctions to be the subject matter of thought and language -that is, of reference and meaning- it is observed that there are certain concepts, encompassed under the notion of “Being”, that are each “all” comprising categories. It is explained that these categories are conformed by certain ontological relations, which seem to stand for the structure of reality in-itself, and cannot be, in any manner, denied cognitive content nor objective existence in any possible world. Following this, it is argued that they constitute the primary premises of judgment and ultimate explanatory resources, and, thus, the fundaments of logic and mathematics. Moreover, language is shown to be structured according to them, and it is likewise explained that, as primary premises of all our judgments, they cannot be but determined a priori, standing for aspects of mind objective reality of a non-sensible nature, which are essential elements of cognition. It is shown, that it is they that enable to bridge the gap between the mind and the world, but set a limit to our possible knowledge of reality, which forces to presuppose the existence of higher or hyper-orders of reality. The importance of this work is, that from a naturalist stance, its observations and arguments constitute a strong case against established and well-rooted tenets in contemporary philosophy, while point to the need of focussing the field of the discipline to the study of the cognitive content of our innately determined a priori concepts.
The Logic of Being: Realism, Truth, and Time - Appendices
This appendix is a chapter of the manuscript of The Logic of Being that was cut from an earlier version since it represents something of a digression with respect to the main argument of the book. It was originally situated roughly between chapter 6 and chapter 7 of the current version.
Ontological Pluralism and the Being and Time Project
Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2013
In this paper, I identify a problem, which the project that I will refer to as the ‘Being and Time Project’ (or ‘BTP’ for short) aimed to solve; this is the project within which Heidegger reinterpreted his early thought—and which he unsuccessfully attempted to bring to fruition—in, roughly speaking, the years 1925-28. The problem in question presents several faces: viewed from one angle, it concerns the unity of the concept of “Being in general,” from another, the integrity of the notion of “Dasein,” and from another, the possibility of the perspective from which the philosopher does her work. The solution that the BTP would have offered turns on the claim that time is “the possible horizon for any understanding whatsoever of Being” (SZ 1), and what I want to focus upon in particular is why making a claim of this form was a metaphilosophically pressing matter. It is widely believed that the BTP does not work, a view seemingly confirmed by Heidegger’s own failure to complete it; one also encounters the view that the project represented a further, perhaps over-ambitious step that also lacks deep motivation: so Inwood, for example, argues that “[i]t is … not obvious that we need to elucidate Being in general to understand the differences between various modes of Being, between rocks, tools, Dasein, time and world.” While that might be true, my concern will be to make vivid why Heidegger felt he had to elucidate that concept and undertake the associated—and doomed—BTP. In presenting this case, I will juxtapose the issues Heidegger’s work raises with issues raised by Kris McDaniel’s and Jason Turner’s recent attempts to revive what they call “ontological pluralism” (OP), a doctrine of which they see Heidegger as an advocate. Others whom they would recruit to their cause include Aristotle and Russell and both will figure in the following discussion. Section 1 begins with Heidegger’s proposal that many philosophical problems are really pseudo-problems which we encounter solely because of our “ontological indifference,” our failure to recognize the distinct kinds of Being that the entities on which we reflect instantiate. But this same diversity raises questions about the possibility of assertions of the level of generality that we might take to be characteristic of philosophical assertions, a worry which section 2 introduces through a comparison with problems that Russell encounters. It was in the work of Aristotle, however, that Heidegger saw analogous worries arise and section 3 identifies two lines of argument which cast doubt on the possibility of a “science of being qua being.” They do so by casting doubt on the idea that Being might be a genus that subsumes species or kinds of Being. Section 4 explains how the second of these lines of thought finds an echo in a worry about the very possibility of a philosophical perspective: a certain “ontological indifference” seems necessary if ontological claims, such as those that distinguish between kinds of Being as kinds of Being, are to be possible. Section 5 further deepens our concerns, by arguing that the worries identified in sections 3-4 also raise doubts about our grasp on the very notion of “Dasein.” Section 6 turns to how the BTP might be seen as responding to the challenges that sections 2-5 reveal. Heidegger claims that “[w]ithin the horizon of time the projection of a meaning of Being in general can be accomplished” (SZ 235) and I offer an outline sketch of the project for which this claim was the centre-piece, highlighting in particular its metaphilosophical significance: time “enabl[es] … the thematic interpretation of Being and of its articulation and manifold ways,” and “thus make[] ontology possible” (BPP 228). But the BTP ultimately unravels and section 7 suggests that the first Aristotelian line of thought that section 3 presents may help us understand why. The final section considers another way in which one might imagine responding to the issues we consider here, a way that McDaniel and Turner’s presentation of OP suggests; however, I argue that this response fails to meet the challenge of section 3’s second Aristotelian line of thought.
In this essay we will begin again to approach thinking through deeply ontology taking as a starting point Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy: from ereignis. But here we will not attempt to mimic Heidegger's thoughts but begin again ourselves and attempt to think at least to his depth of thought about the topics of Being, Existence and Manifestation. We will call this an attempt to understand the primal ontology within in our own context which is different from that which existed for Heidegger when he wrote his Contributions to Philosophy. It will go hand in hand with an archaic existientiality as we discover the intertwined nature of Being and Existence. But we will continue to consider Heidegger's contribution to our enterprise along the way as his attempt to think deeply haunts our own and lays the ground work for all such attempts to understand the primal ontology and archaic existentiality as they bear on a deeper understanding of original manifestation of the sources.
Paul Tillich, Zhuangzi, and the Creational Role of non-Being
Philosophy East and West
For Paul Tillich (1886Tillich ( -1965, the age-old question "Why is there something and not nothing?" 1 is easily answerable: there is something because thought begins with being. However, being alone is insufficient to explain the causal root of reality; the world exists, Tillich says, in a dialectical relationship with nonbeing. This nonbeing is not the absolute Nothing (ouk on) out of which God creates things ex nihilo; on the contrary, it is a relative form of nonbeing (me on) that threatens to eradicate the finite being of things. Given that God is pure potential, what Tillich calls being-itself, things are created ex deo, that is, from the pure being of God. Humans, however, question the nature of being and hence uphold the belief that freedom stems from, in Tillich's words, standing out of nonbeing so as to stand in being. This act of courage nullifies the threat of relative nonbeing, but not that of absolute nothingness, insofar as it indicates acceptance of our being separated from God, granting us the freedom to make life choices of our own volition. Those who succumb to the threat of relative nonbeing simply return to the nihil out of which all things emerge.
Being & Logos → OntoTopoLogia → Big Ontological Revolution
Essay, 2024
In general, this is the result of the «adventure of ontological ideas» over 34 years of independent travel along the philosophical «rivers of knowledge and cognition». Always, in moments of relaxation and reflection on the past, I watch a wonderful video [1] again and again, remembering how the whole family sailed on the «Blagoveshchensk» steamship along the Lena River from the port of Osetrovo to the village of Mukhtuya in Yakutia in July 1961 for the construction of the Vilyuiskaya hydroelectric station. Without understanding the «Heraclitean river», «understanding space» it is impossible to «grasp» (understand) the dialectics of Nature, the dialectics of Life, the dialectics of the Cosmos. The ideas of the «OntoTopoLogia» system are aimed at overcoming the conceptual-paradigmatic crisis in the metaphysical/ontological basis of fundamental science (mathematics, physics, cosmology) on the basis of a holistic paradigm («paradigm of understanding»), a comprehensive conceptual-figurative synthesis, a method of dialectical-ontological construction, MetaCategory, MetaAxiom, SuperPrinciple and Metasymbol, a new holistic understanding of matter, its ontological unification across all levels of existence of the Universe as eternal holistic process of generating more and more new meanings, forms and structures. A model of the Primordial (absolute) generating structure is being built-a single ontological basis of knowledge: ontological framework, carcass, foundation as an all-encompassing Ideality, a single basis for the «sciences of nature» and «sciences of the spirit».