Here it is… the summation of the last ten years of my thought. This version is current as of 9-17-05. See http://dennykane.lnux.us for more recent versions.
[size=150]First Metaphysics: Finishing the Heideggerean Project[/size]
by Dennis Kane
Abstract: In the following analytic, I will attempt to show that spatiality is given only by the period of the existential attunement of awaiting the resolution of the annihilated temporal universe. Furthermore, I will attempt to show that the physicalistic conception of time-as-worldly-succession – t – is nothing other than the primary spatial dimension, from which the secondary spatial dimensions – x, y, and z – are derived. In other words, temporality-as-such, as a pure enduring, cannot be thought of as having a structured “dimensionality,” because it is the same essential conception as identity-as-such. Temporality-qua-identity, then, is nothing other than the purely transcendental conception known as: being.
The following is a full-fledged ontological inquiry into the metaphysical foundations for all possible physicalistic ways of thinking, as well as an attempt to implicitly “point the way” towards a wholly experiential, transcendental spritualism, thereby serving as grounds for all possible authentic ethical activity.
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We begin our analytic with the temporal universe size=75[/size]. The temporal universe is an existential state of consciousness, as opposed to the so-called “spatial universe,” size=75[/size] which is an epistemological array of facts size=75[/size]. The temporal universe can perhaps best be described as the “Zen meditative state,” whereby one has the feeling only of an enduring self-sameness size=75[/size]. We can gain a conceptual understanding of the temporal universe by thinking of it in terms of the existential modality of I-world unity size=75[/size]. This existential analytic, then, will focus upon this conception of the mode of I-world unity – temporal universality – qua the transcendent consciousness of a purely undifferentiated duration size=75[/size].
It is from the mode of I-world unity that the phrases “I am” and “There is time” are understood as being self-referential. That is, when we think of time-qua-endurance, we are truly thinking of our inner, essential selves: our pre-conceptual identities. And vice versa, when we think of our ownmost identities, we are truly thinking of the essence of time-itself size=75[/size]. Temporality and identity, therefore, are self-referring conceptions. They are the primary meta-concepts from which all other ways of thinking – conceptualizing – may be derived. In the same vein, the transcendental mode of I-world unity is the mode from which all other “ways of being” may be understood size=75[/size].
This “First Metaphysics” is an investigation into all possible ways of being through an existential analytic of the temporal universe. In order to do this, the existentially analytical manner of questioning must be fully distinguished from the epistemologically synthetical manner of questioning. An existential analytic is an attempt to discover inner philosophical truth through the investigation of how one’s “existential attunements” – moods – conditions a pre-conceptual understanding of the “world” in which one finds oneself. An epistemological synthetic, on the other hand, seeks to put together – synthesize – a logical ordering of “worldly facts” so that a particular phenomenon may be formally conceptualized. In other words, an existential analytic is an attempt to understand the very “possibilizing ground” of the “phenomenal universe” itself size=75[/size].
An existential analytic is meant to implicitly “point the way” towards spiritual transcendence by way of an elucidation of the ontological “wherefrom” of spatial dimensionality; on the other hand, an epistemological synthetic is meant to “lay out a blueprint” for the physical construction of the appearing world through the logical use of spatial dimensionality. The “direction” in which this existential analytic is meant to point is towards the authentically transcendental way of being: the mode of I-world unity. It is only through this truly authentic manner of being that an authentic ethics becomes possible size=75[/size].
The mode of I-world unity always only deals in transcendental possibility, and never in epistemological actuality. The existential way of questioning is only concerned with what is possible. On the other hand, the epistemological way of questioning is concerned only with what is actual, or, impossible. All actuality is by definition an impossibility. A better way of putting this, perhaps, is that actuality and possibility do not directly oppose one another; rather, possibility is the existential transcendence of actuality size=75[/size].
Our concern in this existential analytic is to see how all epistemological, actualistic ways of thinking can be derived from the transcendental mode of I-world unity. It is within this transcendent mode that temporality is understood as the pure endurance of one’s ownmost identity: the I. The phrase, “the I,” is simply another way of referring to the temporal universe. In other words, the I, qua the temporal universe, is the very origin of all worldliness. To accomplish transcendence, then, the I must “pull” all apparent worldliness back into itself, so “reconstituting” the mode of I-world unity. But what does this mean that the I must “pull” all apparent worldliness back into itself? What must be our sense of the conception “world” so that it may be “pulled” in such a manner size=75[/size]?
We must now come to understand what is meant by “world” in our manner of an existentially analytical questioning. In order to do this, we must question how it is that the temporal universe undergoes spatialization. We can conceptualize this spatialization as the annihilation of the mode of I-world unity into the mode of I-and-world disunity. This annihilation, perhaps, can best be understood as basic biological necessity, as in the satisfaction of thirst and hunger, as well as any other “natural” urges. The precise reasons for annihilation, however, are not important to our task at hand. The important thing is that we gain an understanding of the essential nature of the annihilation that takes place within the framework of our existential analytic size=75[/size].
Annihilated, then, the I and the world stand in opposition to one another. As an opposition, the world has become an indeterminate question for the I. It is within this manner of being an indeterminate question that the world can be said to “appear.” Whereas the world was once united with the I, it is now a mere appearance for the I size=75[/size]. This mode of indeterminate questioning is always an awaiting of the resolution of the degenerative mode of I-and-world disunity. This awaiting is the fundamental existential attunement – mood – from which all other ways of questioning may be derived size=75[/size]. As an annihilation, an awaiting can be said to “make space” within the absolute fullness that is pure temporality size=75[/size]. Annihilated, the temporal universe becomes spatialized into a temporal multiverse, consisting of a linear succession of “different times” size=75[/size].
Between each of these distinct “times,” there is said to exist a “space.” We can now come to a definition of spatiality-itself: the period of awaiting the resolution of the annihilated temporal universe. It is from this first, essential spatiality that the conception of dimensionality is understood. It is within this context of spatial-dimensionality that the degenerative temporal multiverse manifests. The time-line that is constructed from our succession of “different times,” then, is the primary spatial dimension and is known in scientific terminology as t. It is from this primary t-spatiality that the secondary spatialities – x, y, and z – can be existentially understood size=75[/size].
Within the degenerative temporal multiverse of t-spatiality, the act of measuring becomes a possibility. In terms of t-spatiality, to measure is to quantify the difference – distance – between “time points.” The existential way of putting this is: to measure is to quantify the indeterminacy of awaiting – the space – between times of transcendent I-world unity. It is only in relation to this “primary” form of measurement – the measurement of t-spatiality – that the “secondary” form of measurement – the measurement of xyz-spatiality – becomes a possibility. This is for no other reason than the fact that temporality-itself is how we come to identify with our very selves, so as to perform the basic tasks of self-preservation.
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This existential analytic of the temporal universe is an ontological questioning. Etymologically speaking, ontos is the Greek word for being. Ontology, therefore, is a logical – step-wise – inquiry into the meaning of being. Put simply, then, being is the “holding firm” of the temporal universe. In other words, being is the realization of the existentially transcendent mode of I-world unity size=75[/size].
There is, to be sure, a difference between the temporal universe and the temporal multiverse. This difference is known as the ontological difference size=75[/size]. The ontological difference is the major modal difference, meaning that it is the primary difference between all possible ways of being. There is only one ontological difference: that being the difference between the transcendent mode of I-world unity and the degenerative mode of I-and-world dis-unity.
It is only within the temporal multiverse that the many secondary differences become manifest. These differences are known as ontic differences, meaning the differences between the many worldly appearances. These ontic differences, then, are minor modal differences. While there is only one ontological difference, there are infinitely many ontic differences. The questioning of the ontological difference has the character of transcendental spirituality whereas the questionings of the ontic differences have the character of dialectical physicalism size=75[/size]. To question ontologically is to put oneself on the way towards spiritual transcendence, so that an authentic ethics becomes a possibility. To question ontically is to quantify – lay out a blueprint for – the world as it appears to the I, qua the degenerative temporal multiverse.
It is from the temporal multiverse that the logos arises. The logos is the entire set of words, symbols, and images that are used to re-present the world as it appears to the I. The use of the logos in this way is known as logic. To think “logically” is simply to question ontically. It is in this logical manner of questioning that the scientific paradigm is understood. Science is always only an ontic questioning: a questioning of the many minor differences between appearances size=75[/size]. Spirituality, however, is always an ontological questioning: a questioning of the single major difference between being and worldly-appearance-as-such size=75[/size].
The task of the authentic existential project, then, is to “repair” the annihilated conception of time-as-worldly-succession – the temporal multiverse – back into the transcendent conception of time-as-I-endurance – the temporal universe size=75[/size]. This kind of “reparation” is one of the major tasks of the Eastern philosophical tradition, by way of meditation, yogic exercises, riddles, and allegorical lessons size=75[/size]. It is not my purpose, however, to advocate for any particular way of spiritual transcendence above any others. My purpose is simply to say, “The truth is, unity transcends multiplicity.”
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This existential analytic has attempted to reveal the problem with all previous “metaphysical theories”: the “failure” of equating time with the simple, linear successiveness of the temporal multiverse, rather than with the enduring permanence of the temporal universe. The point of this existential analytic of the temporal universe has been to outline a strict metaphysical construct that will clear up any confusion caused by all previous attempts at such. This philosophy was wholly inspired by my reading of the book Being and Time by the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger. Particularly, Heidegger’s expositions of being-in-the-world, Da-sein (there-being), worldliness, and temporality were a major help towards my taking the “existential leap” in the manner of my philosophical questioning.
It is from these tiny conceptual nuggets that my mind started to go off on tangents that no one else (that I know of) ever has. The basic outline of this metaphysical system was created during an “existential odyessy,” in which I wandered the coast of California, in a completely homeless state, from San Diego to San Francisco. I took city and Greyhound buses to get from place to place, and I simply allowed my mind to wander wherever it wanted. The entire journey lasted just under three weeks, but it was in the first nine of those days that I kept an existential diary, whereby I combined my immediate experiences with my philosophical thoughts.
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A graphical schematic of this essay
Footnotes
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The importance of this conception cannot be overstated: it is at the intersection between all possible “forms” of science and spirituality. The concept of the temporal universe came to me on September 15, 2005, after I had used the term “the mode of Time-Identity” for well over a year to decribe the same essential idea. I now realize the crucial importance in the exact phrasings that one uses in the pursuit of philosophical clarity. The temporal universe can be thought of as the world as it is experienced in those fleeting moments of transcendental consciousness: there is no sense of need or want. It is from this existential mode that the a priori conception of spatiality can at all be understood. Cross my fingers… this could be just the idea that wins me the Nobel Prize!
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I should explicate further why I refer to the “spatial universe” as “so-called.” In brief, spatiality and universality are necessary antonyms. The concept of spatiality-itself is existentially grounded in the conception of “multiversality.” In other words, there can only truly be a temporal universe. Therefore, our “spatial universe” would more appropriately be called xyz-spatiality: this is a physical-logical construct. Of course, all of this presupposes that we take seriously the uni- part of the word universe, signifying an indistinguishable whole.
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A logical ordering. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is basically a full accounting of what I am trying to say here.
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I am attempting to describe what Kant might have meant by the transcendental unity of apperception. You could also call this meditative state the “singularity of consciousness,” or the absolute-I. Although I don’t like the terminology very much, one could perhaps use the phrase: pre-reflective ego. I, however, am impartial to the simple phrase: the I.
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As an existential modality, the I-world unity must not be confused with any sort of physicality. I use the term “world” in the same sense of Heidegger’s explications of being-in-the-world and thrownness (in Being and Time, tr. Stambaugh).
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“A purely undifferentiated duration”: This is similiar to Bergson’s conception of durée. In other words, when we are not busy “counting time,” – when we aren’t concerned with clocks or calendars – then time “feels” like an essential “smoothness.” This essential smoothness – as in no “gaps” – can be thought of as an “infinite density.” Our common, physicalistic, conception of infinite density is of a “point mass” that “pulls” all surrounding matter back into itself. This conception of an “infinite density that pulls” will come up later in the essay when we are tasked with transcending all worldly appearances.
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I fully understand how people might be resistant in equating the phrases “I am” and “There is time.” This is entirely due to the failure of “adding in” worldly conceptions to our notions of our essential identities and temporality-itself. You must perform a complete abstraction of both of these conceptions in order to get them to “jibe” with one another. This is indeed a mind-bending, and some might say mentally painful, thing to do. If one cannot “withstand” the level of abstraction that is required here, then the rest of the analytic will make precisely no sense… consider this to be a challenge!
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All of this is to say that the temporal universe is the “origin” of all possible ways of thinking and being. Time, identity, and the mode of I-world unity are all simply different ways to “understand” what the temporal universe essentially is.
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An epistemological synthetic is a scientific questioning. It seeks to “measure” the multiplicity of appearances in the “phenomenal universe” and come to a formal understanding of their relationships. An existential analytic seeks to destructure the very being that is “performing” all of this scientific activity in order to discover the “a priori” grounding of any possible kind of scientific understanding at all.
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This may seem like an overly bold set of claims. I am essentially saying that an understanding of spatiality-itself is enough “ammunition” to lead an ethical life. The key here is to realize that the primary “spatiality” that must be dealt with is the common conception of time as apparent worldly successiveness: the temporal multiverse. In other words, the temporal multiverse must be transcended so as to repair the mode of I-and-world disunity back into the mode of I-world unity. It is only within this authentically transcendental attunement that authentic ethical activity becomes possible. The important thing here is authenticity. If one is not in the way of transcendental authenticity, then any kind of authentically ethical activity is not possible.
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Here, I am intentionally staying away from the catch-words: reality and objectivity. The state of transcendence is always the highest possibility of our “human condition.” In other words, the conception of state-hood (or: stage, level) itself must be avoided. State-hood denotes a kind a atemporal static-ness, similiar to Plato’s Ideas. State-hood is likewise how scientists are able to logically represent physical processes (at t=1s, the velocity is 3.4m/s, and at t=2s, the velocity is 4.6m/s, and so on). State-hood is therefore a product of the temporal multiverse whereby the logos is used to re-present the world as it appears to the I. Any kind of “state” is by definition impossible, and I define this impossibility as actuality.
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Here, I am about to set up the conception of “worldliness” as essentially temporal multiversality, as in t-spatiality. This kind of past-present-future temporality is how we come to existentially understand the common conception of spatial “worldliness.” We can then bring the world back into the I by “pulling” the past and the future into the present. We can call this, “living in the moment” or “living in the now,” and is the essence of the temporal universe. This footnote won’t make sense unless you’ve already read the entire essay!
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I can’t stress enough how unimportant are the “actual” reasons for the annihilation of the temporal universe. We can call it animal necessity as much as we can call it “fallenness,” or even “original sin.” However you want to put it, what is essentially happening is that the mode of I-world unity is being “ripped apart” into the mode of I-and-world disunity (duality). Within this degenerative state, we are always in the “existential mood” of awaiting the resolution of the annihilated I-world unity. We are in a “state of suspense.” The world is an indeterminate question for the I.
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My sense of the word “appearance” is the same as “physical sensation.” In other words, I am not simply making reference to the visual sensation. In this sense, a wind gust can “appear” cool, the stove-top can “appear” hot, the music can “appear” loud, the odor can “appear” pleasant, and the food can “appear” salty. Also, there “appears” to be pleasure and pain. This is a purposeful attempt to rid metaphysics of the “visual bias” that so infiltrates it, as in the saying, “I have in my mind the idea of a perfect circle.” I believe this kind of statment is utterly unphilosophical and only leads to a hopeless state of confusion.
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My primary “fallen” existential state is: awaiting the resolution of the annihilated I-world unity. To await is to have one’s very being “thrown into question.” One way of putting this is that the I (the absolute-I) is “dualized” into this-I and that-I. Each of these degenerate “I’s” are essentially “based” upon the world as it appears to the I. It is in this way that the I is able to question what it essentially is. As long as the I is simply only questioning based upon the myriad of worldly appearances, however, it is not questioning authentically, and authentic ethical activity is not possible. The I, then, must understand how to question authentically, in terms of questioning ontologically.
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This just means that the I that is presently awaiting the resolution of the I-and-world disunity is “held in suspense” between a past, remembered temporal universe and a future, expected temporal universe. This requires that we “always already” (a priorally) have an existential conception of what the temporal universe – as the mode of I-world unity – essentially is. We truly cannot ever forget this conception, because to do so would mean that we can no longer “grasp” that we are always essentially “identical with” ourselves, rendering us wholly incapable of taking any kind of self-preservational activity whatsoever.
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Within each self-identical “time point,” we tend to define our “identities” in terms of the worldly appearances that surround us at each given particular “time.” Of course, each so-called “point in time” only retains its “identity” because it is itself a temporal universe, meaning that it is a pure, smooth duration of absolute experiential “density.”
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This is hitting upon the essential problem with all previous metaphysical constructs. The concept of “space” had never previously been explicitly formulated as a “problem.” A pre-conceptual understanding of “world space” had always been taken as axiomatically given. I believe this is simply a relic of the “visual bias” that everywhere taints authentic philosophical thought. We like to think that we are automatically “intuiting space” from the visual experience. However, we are only ever truly seeing a flat plane of “color-splotches.” It is only through continued practice with this “plane of sight” that we are able to intuit the “spatial relationships” of these splotches. But experiential intuitions of these kinds of relationships are in no way a priori intuitions of spatiality-itself. When we are forced to define space, the only thing we can say is that it is a nothingness, or an absence. So the ultimate question of metaphysics is: how is it that we can have any kind of an a priori intuition of spatiality-itself? How is it that we can come to “know” nothing? Or, how can we come to understand “thingness” itself if it is to be “negated” and rendered into a no-thingness? This is where the critical importance of the temporal universe is revealed. The temporal universe, as a transcendentally experienced fullness, is thingness-itself. And when the temporal universe is annihilated, it is rendered into the temporal multiverse. The temporal multiverse – which is given by the existential mode of awaiting the resolution of the I-and-world disunity – is that which “gives birth” to the a priori conception of spatiality-itself. Our first spatiality that we have access to, then, is temporal-spatiality (t-spatiality), and this a priori conception is what is always “used” when we say that we have an understanding of what space-itself is. In other words, we can always easily say that we “know” what Cartesian, xyz-spatiality (world space) essentially is, but we all know that saying doesn’t necessarily make it so!
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Here, I am attempting to provide a straightforward answer to Heidegger’s question, “What is being?” in Being and Time. It may seem to be an all too simple answer to an otherwise impossible to fathom question. This supposedly “simple answer,” however, relies entirely upon the conceptual grasping of the temporal universe and how it annihilates into the temporal multiverse, giving rise to the a priori understanding of spatiality-itself. It any of these concepts are not fully grasped, then the answer to the question concerning being is rendered entirely superficial: it becomes a simple “creed” instead of an authentic existential questioning that allows for the possibility of spiritual transcendence and therefore of authentically ethical activity.
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Heidegger stated that the ontological difference is the difference between being and beings (at least, it was translated as such). I believe that this is a hopelessly confused way of putting things. My metaphysical construct has absolutely no place for the word: beings. All this word does is “substantialize” the word, being, thereby rendering the entire task completely pointless. In other words, there will always be a bias of physicality towards the word, beings, and this physicality will always rub off on the word, being, when the ontological question is formulated as the difference between being and beings. Instead of the word, beings, then, I use the conception of the multiplicity of appearances that constitute the world as it appears to the I, within the temporal multiverse. This conception of the word, beings, allows us to focus on the purely transcendental character of being.
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Here we can see a relationship setting up between the spiritual and the physical vocations. This can easily degenerate into a question that asks, “Which is better: religion or science?”. Besides the fact that I am in no way speaking to particular “religions” or “sciences,” this kind of crude question wholly misses the point. There is not an oppositional, either/or relationship between spiritualism and physicalism. There is, rather, a transcendental relationship between the two. The transcendence of physicality into spirituality is always the essential freedom of the I. In other words, transcendence is no one’s business, but the business of the I, alone.
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These definitions of logos and logic are entirely my own. I am defining them in this way to get rid of all the “metaphysical baggage” that they carry. It seems that so many “logicians” feel that they are able to determine “ontological status” through the simple algebraic manipulation of words and symbols. Some believe that theoretical physicists are doing the business of determining the “ultimate nature of reality,” and are thereby on the way to determining a so-called “Unified Theory of Everything.” This becomes manifestly untrue if one understands that the physicists have precisely no understanding that spatiality is ultimately wholly derivative of temporality-qua-identity. Their simple, unquestioned use of xyzt-spatiality (spacetime) shows that they are on the entirely wrong end of the spectrum in the question concerning unity. In other words, one cannot ever hope to “cure” the fundamental dis-unity of spatiality (after all, space is disunity) through a manner of questioning that relies entirely upon the unquestioned assumption that the logical construct given by xyzt-spatiality is fundamentally a priori.
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A transcendentally existential questioning is the only possible way in which to question ontologically. All physicalistic investigations are necessarily ontic, or, wholly derivative to the “true” task of the I.
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This is the final “payoff” of my previous references to the I having to “pull” all worldly appearances back into itself. This can only be done by “collecting” all thoughts of the past and future into the now that goes nowhere, but always remains. The now that always remains is the existential mode of I-world unity: the temporal universe.
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A major philosophical motivation for me has been to “build a bridge” to the spirituality of the East by way of the language of the West. I feel, by describing the existential “wherefrom” of spatiality-itself, that I have accomplished this task like no one else in history. I would not compare myself to historical philosophers like Plato, Descartes, and Kant, however. I fully realize that I have inherited a far richer language due to the work of those who preceded me, not to mention my “unfair advantage” of the ability to acquire information at the push of a button. Therefore, I should rather say that I only could have accomplished what I did with the explicit help of those who came before me. My work is their work. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants.
Copyright © 2005 Dennis H. Kane
. Again, I would just say that transcendental unity is the essential freedom of the absolute-I to “repair” the annihilated mode of I-and-world disunity back into one of I-world unity.