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Early, June 2007

Brent’s reply to Letter to B. Jenkins I

Anil "Egghead" Mitra,

1. Are there proofs for essentiality and authenticity? Do essentiality and authenticity have meaning only in their binary opposites?

2. What is being affirmed in ‘affirmations of existence,' and by extension what is existence?

3. Primary vs. secondary relations between 'thought' 'experience' 'sensation.'

4. "We are able to be in a process of defining and living or trying to live what is ‘authentic,’" could just as easily be written as : we are able to be in a process of defining and living or trying to live what is 'inauthentic.'

3. Objectivity = elimination of secondary vs. primary affirmations?
The 'problem' here almost certainly lies with the word objectivity, that it 'always' and 'only' exists on a continuum, as a specific 'case.' 'Pure' objectivity can only be God's.

4.  An ‘objectivity’ of ‘being.’
Objectivity in this case operates as existence and being as 'being' here, but what do non-objectivity and non-being look like? I like a map, probably three dimensional, with objectivity or being as a point on the map and a cluster of points to indicate how western philosophy has used those terms, and how grammar uses those terms, eastern philosophy, science, ordinary folks, etc.

5. This is perhaps what I mean in saying ‘not an egghead.’ An egghead is fragile because he / she takes his / her thoughts too seriously—as though his / her universe automatically defines a universe…
I like an egghead map here. A point on the map for egghead and not egghead, fragile egghead, not fragile egghead, serious thought egghead, non serious thought egghead, defines-a-universe egghead, non defines-a-universe egghead, a non-defined universe egghead, etc.

6. The universe (an ego mistake).
The non-universe a non-ego mistake.

7. It is perhaps a distraction of the ego to be concerned with it too much.
The concerned vs. the unconcerned ego....hmmm.

8. ‘Logic’—in a way a suppression of the ego; which, however, misused, overused, used to assert ego over other is again a ‘secondary’ affirmation of ego.
Tell me again, can Logic constitute a primary affirmation of existence?

9. The logic of the void—valid or not—is expressed in a form that is not a secondary affirmation. It is primary in that nothing more than existence is the first affirmation; not this existence.
What if someone were to tell you "Nothing more than non-existence." Would this be nonsense? And what if they were to provide you a list of ways in which, in fact, we don't 'exist.' What if the first item on the list read: "We do not exist linguistically."

10.  There is a point of doubt regarding the logic and that point comes at the point of affirming the existence of the void and, I think, not before.
Can the void be affirmed in any other way than linguistically? What implications does this hold?

11. However, the doubt concerns not distortion due to ego but perhaps simple logic error.
Is logic separable from ego? Does 'ego' want to make a distinction?

12. A point for analysis—the idea that metaphysics and epistemology are distinct and used distinctly for the Theory of being suggests that the distinction may break down and therefore should be case by case rather than categorial.
Theory of Being in two sentences? I like Witty's idea that philosophy isn't one theory over another but rather description.

13. The second reason—not a logical reason—for doubt is that the theory gets so much from so little. This is why I think the thinker has happened upon some beautiful idea-scape and has not created it.
Parallels in history of "so much from so little?" I like the idea of a beautiful idea-scape created or not.

14. Is it a form of substance thinking that the world is like that—a place where this kind of doubt is being itself?
I suppose the world--this word--is never quite definable. Its definition shifts from usage to usage, moment to moment, and in each of those moments its 'being' is at once manifest and absent. We might want to privilege one moment or usage over another but we might be wrong in this privileging.

15. However, experience is an incontrovertible premise. Experience is a name for one thing that is there. A case of meaning and being—which are typically separable—being ‘identical.’
Does wanting or stating experience as incontrovertible make it so?  "There" = where? Is this ever really capable of being stabilized? Meaning means because it is/does, but doesn't non-meaning also do, i.e., non-meaning is not is-less. I know we want the incontrovertible, but again isn't it a case of continuum? In one case (map) the clusters line up in an area of more incontrovertibility in another less? Again, the need (?), necessity to examine our philosophical desires, to perhaps factor those into our philosophical statements.

16.Enter faith. Regardless of what has been written on ‘faith’ I think of faith as the attitude to being, action, certainty and doubt… that is most productive of fullness of being—of authenticity if that is what is desired, of realization of the ultimate.
Do we desire faith? Fullness of being? authenticity? the ultimate?

Brent "Egghead" Jenkins aka The JenkHead