an international and interdisciplinary journal of postmodern cultural sound, text and image
Volume 16, Spring 2019, ISSN 1552-5112
Networks, Processes and Eregnisse
(Events):
A Metaphysics and Ontology for the Age of Dynamic Entanglement
We
live in an age of entanglement and connection; we are able to reach the four
corners of the universe at the touch of a finger. Science also seems to uncover
more and more evidence for the fact that we are engulfed by constant creation
and evolution, by connectivity and malleability, by networks and information.
Thus, it appears to be the case that dynamic processes do not only
fundamentally shape the realm of technology but also modern physics as well as
biology. However, we lack an ontology and a metaphysical system that can cope
with this dynamic reality. Traditional hierarchical metaphysical systems and
the conventional ontologies of substance - characterised
by stability and the simple location of well-defined and separate constitutive
elements - seem quite incapable of accounting for the dynamic and entangled
reality that we are currently creating and uncovering. This state of affairs is
not surprising since relationality and creative change pose many challenges for
rational thought. The most fundamental of these challenges that we encounter in
coming to terms with our entangled dynamic reality seems to be the following:
How can we conceptualise, systematise
or account for - in a word how can we think - that which is relational,
changing and creative as well as novel, without either turning it into stable
hierarchical structures or ending with relativism and epistemic chaos?
In
this paper, I will propose three concepts that I consider fundamental in order
to come to terms with these challenges: dynamic
networks, processes and the Ereignis. Adequately
understood all three terms describe or imply the dynamic, correlated, evolving
and multiple reality we live in, but each concept focuses on and accounts for
different aspects of what there is. The aim of their presentation in what
follows is simply to clarify the nature of these conceptual layers and their
mutual inter-dependence and thus to take a first step towards building an
ontology and metaphysics that is able to cope with the reality we live in. A
reality of dynamic entanglement.
1. Introduction.
Where I argue that any metaphysics and any
ontology is merely an attempt to describe and order the relevant or essential
aspects of what there is as it is.
Every
metaphysical system attempts to grasp reality as a whole, our place in it and
the generation of meaning in this world, just like any ontology attempts to
describe the existential categorical basis of this world. But the various metaphysical and ontological
descriptions proposed throughout the history of thought differ widely in their
account of what there is, in their account of how meaning is generated and, in
their account of our place in the world. How can that be the case if, as I
claim, all of them try to grasp this same world, namely the world that we live
in? I will argue that they only differ because they disagree on what aspects of
this world should be considered fundamental or relevant, and what aspects are
merely accidental and can be disregarded in constructing an adequate
understanding of reality. Metaphysics and ontology, as philosophical and
intellectual enterprises are situated in the realm of thought and language and
thus are the result of selection, abstraction and idealisation.
No metaphysical system, no ontology can provide a full account of all aspects
of what there is in realistic detail – there is always a selection to be made.
Just like no map can display the actual complexity of the landscape it
corresponds to and still function as a map, any description or account of
reality has to disregard those aspects that appear to be irrelevant for the
account at hand, in order to be able to provide an intelligible account of what
there is. Ultimately there is always more detail to reality than our general
and abstract concepts can account for, there is always more complexity than our
theories can convey and more change than we can accommodate in our systems of
thought.
The
world to be accounted for is always the same world – the world we live in, the
world we conceptualise and the world we explore in
the sciences. However, what is considered necessary or relevant to describe or
understand this world changes from ontology to ontology, from metaphysics to
metaphysics. And thus, metaphysicians specialise on
what they consider fundamental: they specialise, for
example, in explaining what is necessary, or what is lawful, what is ideal, in
accounting for what can be experienced, in the material construction of
reality, or the mathematical structure underlying reality, or they might specialise in providing an account for what is
intelligible. Similarly, the metaphysics and ontology of dynamic entanglement,
that I will work towards in this paper, is just another specialisation,
but this line of thought specialises on those aspects
of reality that are usually excluded in metaphysical accounts. To give a first
impression of the aspects that dynamic metaphysicians specialise
in and to give a first indication as to how this specialisation
compares to more traditional metaphysical and ontological forms of specialisation, I will begin my investigation with a quick
overview over some paradigmatic forms of thought that shaped the history of
metaphysics and ontology.
2. Historical
background.
Where I take a look at the emergence of
philosophy in the west and the reasons why traditionally becoming, change and
creativity are generally overlooked and thus omitted from the investigation.
If
we take a closer look at philosophy in its ancient Greek infancy, a certain
correlation between the philosopher’s understanding what is fundamental to
reality and in the way the world is accounted for emerges. There were those
ancient thinkers who departed from mathematics, logic or objects/things in
order to explain reality and these thinkers tended to prefer hierarchical
structures and stable elements when explaining what there is. However, at the
same time, there were also those thinkers who considered qualitative, organic
and becoming nature as paradigmatic and who tended to explain reality through
more dynamic structures. Dynamic thinkers tend to think reality through the
paradigm of physis (nature), while
thinkers that prefer stable hierarchies tend to use the ideals (idea or essentia) or things (pragma or res) as
their paradigm.
It
is especially interesting to follow this correlation in Aristotle. Depending on
his object of study, from predicates or properties (categories), to
metaphysical entities (metaphysics), nature (physics) or biology (e.g. de generatione animalium) his
account of what is fundamental shifts. In the categories for example, where he
studies the nature of things (or the way we predicate, depending on one’s
interpretation of the text) there is no category connected to change, and
change is treated as purely secondary. While there are categories concerning
causing effects (acting, poiein) and being
acted on (undergoing, paschein), the
qualitative change involved in these processes is not itself discussed in any
detail. In the physics on the other hand, where Aristotle studies nature,
change turns out to become so fundamental that Aristotle begins Book III with
the claim that nature should be “defined as a 'principle of motion and change'
[…]”.
Some
remnants of dynamic thought persisted throughout the history of philosophy,
hiding in plain sight – especially present in those works that were concerned
with qualitative nature (physis)[1],
the living and the organic. Much of German Idealism and Romantic thought, for
example, was concerned with the changing, related, temporal and historical
aspects of reality. And it is noteworthy how deeply this tradition was
influenced and inspired by investigations into life and nature. Further
examples of this correlation between nature, life and dynamic (as well as
relational) thought can be found in Henrí Bergson. Bergson’s
philosophy was very much influenced by the advances in biology of his time, and
also, there is Alfred North Whitehead, who developed a dynamic philosophy of
organism and process ontology. Martin Heidegger too, worked towards revealing
this concept of physis as becoming nature and
considered it fundamental for the development of his dynamic history of Being.
And I would also like to mention Gilles Deleuze, a process thinker who was not
only influenced by many of the thinkers mentioned above, but did also engage
with biology, psychology and other concrete sciences of nature. However, even
if dynamic modes of thought were employed by different thinkers throughout the
history of philosophy, this kind of thought was rarely able to challenge the ortho-doxa
in a transformative way.
3. Conceptual
background.
Distinguishing dynamic metaphysics from
traditional forms of metaphysical thought
The
first question to answer at this point is why this return to the tradition of
metaphysics and ontology? Why repeat its tendency of abstract theorising that is fundamental to metaphysics and ontology,
and thus risk falling back into an onto-theologically motivated forgetfulness
of being? Especially considering the fact that today we are at a point in time
when we seem to finally have overcome the inevitable one-sidedness caused by conceptualising reality in terms of atemporal
necessity or in terms of unchanging entities and objective things.
Dynamic
thinkers do try to uncover the fundamental structure of reality, in this sense
they fall within the remit of metaphysics. However, the fundament that these
thinkers are trying to uncover is neither absolute nor thing-like, it is not conceptualised following the structure of atemporal ideas, things or entities, the absolute or the
ideal; but instead this fundament is thought along the lines of physis, of nature and the organic, of generation,
creativity and becoming. So, dynamic metaphysics, while asking a question
similar to traditional metaphysics, is no mere repetition of the tradition, as
it implies an immanently – experientially – motivated ordering of what is
necessary and what is irrelevant. Dynamic
metaphysics differs from traditional forms of metaphysical thought in that it
is neither constructed in a transcendental-horizontal fashion, nor does it
forget the verbal character of being, i.e. its occuring
essence (anwesen).
The
next question to be answered before I move on is the one concerning the
relationship between ontology and metaphysics. Even though I do distinguish
between these fields, in my eyes this distinction between is merely
methodological, as ultimately both approaches attempt to describe the same
reality, however, they do so from different perspectives; ontology begins with
the details and looks at how they grow into larger structures, while
metaphysics is concerned with various higher levels of integration and the
generation of meaning within these structures.
There
are three concepts that characterise any dynamic
metaphysics and ontology: dynamic networks (i.e. internal relations), processes
and events. Using traditional terminology the expression ‘dynamic network’
describes an idealised metaphysical understanding of
reality as a creative and open whole that, on the level of ontology, can be
reconstructed as interrelated processes in the Whiteheadian sense, while the
term ‘event’, as conceptualised by Heidegger, characterises how meaning and knowledge can arise and
remain relatively stable over a period of time within such an ontology. Taking
this seriously of course means that both the concepts of ‘dynamic networks’ and
the ‘Ereignis’ belong to the metaphysical side of the
investigation, while only ‘processes’ describe what there is on the level of
ontology.
After
having thus set the historical and conceptual stage and provided a first
contrast between static and dynamic ways of understanding what there is, in
what follows, I will discuss the general features of this kind of dynamic
thought I propose in more detail. After beginning with the metaphysics of
dynamic networks, I will move on to ontology (i.e. processes) and end with a
return to metaphysics by looking at the becoming of knowledge and the stabilisation of meaning through Heidegger’s discussion of
Being and the event.
4. The
metaphysics of dynamic networks
Networks
have always played a part in human life. As soon as we are born, we are
integrated in social, cultural, physical and conceptual networks. Just like our
living bodies are shaped by communication networks of proteins and genes, our
language and our knowledge are shaped by networks of transmission and our life
is shaped by the networks of social and political institutions, clubs and
groups. But what are networks exactly? Generally speaking, networks can be
understood as correlated and interactive systems that can be described in terms
of points of connection (nodes) and the links between these points (edges).
Furthermore, networks, in the metaphysical sense investigated here, are all relations. There is no substrate, no
fundamental rest, or basis beyond each of the contextualised
and situated relations.
But
how can a network emerge without things that are being related – without something
being ‘networked’ so to speak? Well,
there are two answers to this worry, the first one, which I will only tackle in
the next part, concerns the character of what stands in relation in dynamic
networks. What is related in dynamic networks are processes and not things.
That is why these networks are dynamic. The second answer to this worry, which
I will quickly address now is, that the points of connection (nodes) within a
network are the result of relations (i.e. the edges or connections), which means
that the nodes cannot exist independently from the relations – they are
constituted by the relations. Such kinds of relations are usually referred to
as ‘internal relations’.
Relations
are notoriously difficult to define for metaphysicians, as they are neither
substances nor attributes[2],
but seem to be of a third, different kind. And it is just as difficult to
determine how relations relate to their relata. This
is the aspect to be clarified in order to be able to conceptualise
networks of relations without having to presuppose something independent that stands in relation. The
British idealist F. H. Bradley and the analytic philosopher Bertrand Russell
famously debated this issue over a long period of time (roughly between 1900
and 1924). They disagreed on whether relations should be considered to be
internal and thus constitutive of what there is or whether they should be
considered to be external and accidental to what there is.
Bradly
argued that relations are internal, that a “relation must at both ends affect,
and pass into, the being of its terms.”
This
distinction between internal and external relations can be spelled out in many
different ways, but the easiest way is to compare it to the difference between
essential and accidental attributes. Some properties can be removed from a
thing, while the thing remains the same. These properties are generally
considered to be accidental properties. Other properties are so central to what
something is, that if these properties were lost, it would not be the same, it
would become something else; these are essential properties. Applying this to
relations leads to the following characterisation: if
relations are internal, they are essential to the relatum; removing them would
substantially change the nature of what is related. External relations, on the
other hand, can be removed without changing the nature of the relatum, there is
something that exists independently from the relations it stands in.
If
my personal identity is, for example, the result of internal relations, then
who I am, depends on my relation to others, the languages I was brought up
with, the experiences I made, the nutrients that sustained my body and so on. I
am the result of these biological, social and conceptual relations to my
parents, my surroundings, my education and so on. My identity is then the
effect or result of all of these relations and the ways I chose to integrate or
reject these relations. If, on the other hand, my identity was merely related
externally to all these factors, then these factors only make a superficial, an
apparent difference. What constitutes my personal identity is then some
immutable fundament, some essence constituting the core of my identity;
whatever experiences I have, whatever I encounter, whatever I learn - my
essence remains unchangingly me, irrespective of any experiences or relations.
In
other words, the debate on internal and external relations revolves around the
following question: do relations ontologically depend on what there is
independently from any relation or is what there is in itself fundamentally
relational?[3] And
from the point of view of a dynamic metaphysics, relations are internal and
thus constitutive of what there is. The network of internal relations allows
for the coherence or the unity of a reality that is pure creative becoming. As
Alfred North Whitehead puts it in Process and Reality: “The coherence, which
the system seeks to preserve, is the discovery that the process, or
concrescence, of any one actual entity involves the other actual entities among
its components. In this way the obvious solidarity of the world receives its explanation.”
This
creative and networked nature of a dynamic conception of reality fundamentally
distinguishes dynamic metaphysics from traditional metaphysical systems in
regard to their ability to change and adapt. There are again two reasons for
this, the first one again relates to processes, which I will tackle in the next
section and the second one regards how influence and power are distributed
throughout the system. In contrast to open interrelated networks, traditional
hierarchies[4] are
generally organised in a vertical, linear fashion, so
that power or influence can only flow in one direction, namely from the top
down. In any metaphysical hierarchy the top node is connected to all or nearly
all other nodes and thus exerts influence on all the other nodes, while the lower
nodes exert almost no influence on the top node. Which means that these systems
are built on the presupposition that some of the component parts constituting
reality are more fundamental or at least more influential than the others and
are to be located at the top of the hierarchy of being.
Traditional
metaphysical systems are very good examples of these sorts of hierarchies.
There is one (generally) transcendent top node, be it God, the unmoved mover,
the idea of the good, or from which all comes, the source, etc. or hothen in the Greek language, that influences
and determines the whole system. Then there is a hierarchical sequence of less
and less influential lower strata (be it the transcendentalia,
the angels or the various celestial spheres) that determine smaller and smaller
parts of the system until we end with matter. The top node of any given
hierarchical system has to remain stable as they ground or hold the whole
structure in place, while lower nodes can change as they do not play as central
a role in the system.[5]
Ontology: Dynamic being
Up
until now I focused on spelling out the non-hierarchical and correlated
structures of metaphysical networks, in what follows I will focus on the
dynamic aspect. This however means that I will move from a metaphysical look on
the relational whole to the level of ontology, i.e. the constitutive fundament.
But before I begin a more detailed discussion of processual ontology let me
address an immediate concern. Is it not the case, so the immediate challenge, that
we experience all sorts of stable entities; is there not at least as much
stability as there is change in the world?
Well,
this observation will only hold, if one does not invest too much time in
investigating this apparent stability. There are objects that do certainly
appear stable over periods of time. But as soon as we investigate this apparent
stability over the span of a couple of years, decades or centuries, which in
terms of the universe, is really no time at all, this stable identity proves to
be much less static. And if we take into account the sorts of intervals that
shape our cosmos, all apparent stability becomes fluid and evaporates. In all
of concrete or physical reality there is not one being, entity or thing that
has stood the test of time without changing, without becoming and perishing.
Woods, lakes, mountains – whole landscapes are the present result of past
becoming. And there is broad consensus within the scientific community that our
planet, our galaxy, even the whole universe is constantly undergoing changes,
that everything in our physical universe has become at one point and will in
all likelihood perish sometime.
But
even if it is the case that reality is fundamentally dynamic, as these
arguments suggest, how does this relate to networks? In introducing networks, I
have emphasised the fact that in a dynamic network,
understood metaphysically, there are no things or entities that stand in
relation. And I argued that one reason for this is that relations are internal
to what there is, there is nothing fully independent, nothing above or beyond
the relations. Now it is time to argue the second point, namely that the
internally related nodes themselves are processes and that it is these
ontological processes that ultimately generate the dynamicity of the dynamic
networks.
Let me get back to my example of my identity to
illustrate this processual nature, before I delve into a more abstract
description. If my identity is nothing but the effect of relations, what
happens if I make a new connection, if I have a new experience – if there is a
new relation? Every new experience (and this includes every repetition of an
experience), every new relation is in some way or other woven into the complex
network forming my identity. My personal identity thus grows, sometimes
unperceptively other times manifestly, it evolves and changes with every
encounter, with every contact, with every relation. I thus do become my
physical, biological, social and mental experiences over time. Who I am now is the
result of my past relations, which are my past physical, biological, social and
conceptual experiences as well as the way these experiences were integrated
into who I was at that point.[6] I
am at present the result of my past and will change in accordance with my
present encounters. I am an evolving and growing process. Thus identity takes
time to become, since what something is “never appears at the outset, but in
the middle, in the course of its development, when its strength is assured.”
‘Process’
or ‘becoming being’ are thus the terms used in dynamic ontologies that are
supposed to occupy logical space taken up by terms like ‘entity’, ‘thing’ or
‘substance’ in traditional ontologies. They function as the most basic category
of existence, but do so without implying an unchanging essence, or any form of
stable fundament. This leads to an ontology that can avoid many traditional
problems, since it abandons “the subject-predicate forms of thought, so far as
concerns the presupposition that this form is a direct embodiment of the most
ultimate characterization of fact. The result is that the 'substance-quality'
concept is avoided; and that morphological description is replaced by
description of dynamic process.”
Traditionally
ontologies are usually considered to be taxonomies of structures or entities
and not descriptions of occurrences or events. Ontologies usually treat what we
refer to with subjects and adjectives, and usually disregard whatever would
correspond to the verbs. And if ontologists do look
at processes, the process is treated merely as an intermediary step between the
object before and the object after any change. However, to genuinely think
temporal-dynamic ontology is to turn this preconception on its head, it’s to
see the processes or events as fundamental, and to consider stabilities as
effects of these processes - not their causes.
This
clarification allows us to exclude a certain type of ontology that might look
like a genuinely dynamic ontology but is not, namely event ontologies as they
are being developed in the context of analytic philosophy. In these kinds of
event ontologies, generally speaking, events are considered certain kinds of
temporally extended building blocks out of which reality is (at least
partially) composed. Examples for such events are exams, a chess game or a
wedding. These events have a (relatively) determinable beginning and a
determinable end, they are neither open-ended, nor creative or currently
in the process of becoming. So, while these events are temporally extended, the
actual flow of time, the actual process of becoming is not taken into account
when coming to terms with these temporally extended entities. Conceptualising events this way limits their connectedness,
cuts and separates them from the network of processual relations within which
they are integrated and stops creative evolution. The dynamicity and change
involved in creative becoming is kept at bay, because the event is not a
becoming being, but a temporally extended existant.
Instead
of accounting for open and creative goings on or evolving happenings, these
sorts of ontologies merely account for temporally extended event-blocks. These
sorts of events too can be accommodated by process ontologies, as
meta-structures, i.e. sums or networks of certain basic processes that taken
together constitute the relative stability of an event. Such events, however,
do not describe final reality, the processes constituting these sorts of events
do. Whitehead defines these events and their relation to the fundamental
processes (actual occasions) as follows: “I shall use the term 'event' in the
more general sense of a nexus of actual occasions, interrelated in some
determinate fashion in one extensive quantum. An actual occasion is the
limiting type of an event with only one member.”
However,
there is another way to conceive of events, as proposed by Heidegger. While
there is no apparent overlap between the presented ontological use and
Heidegger’s metaphysical use of the term, I do think Heidegger’s ‘event’ is
much more relevant for our purposes. In what follows I will argue that reality
conceived as dynamic and networked processes makes events in Heidegger’s sense
not only possible but also necessary in order to allow for knowledge and (limited)
certainty that transcends the chaos of change. But before I will present this
argument let me spell out why processes, i.e. (actual or substantial) change
are so problematic for knowledge and certainty.
The pitfalls in thinking
that which changes: Knowledge and the problem of understanding a world of
change.
When
it comes to understanding and explaining a world of dynamic change, a whole
host of aporias arise, of which I will only present the ontological and the
epistemological one. The ontological version of the problem of change revolves
around existence and identity. How can something have existence, so the
question proceeds, if it doesn’t remain what it is, but instead changes
continuously and becomes something other all the time? From the perspective of
epistemology, on the other hand, the problem of change concerns the possibility
of gaining insight or attaining knowledge. How can we truly know something if
it changes in the very moment that we are trying to grasp it? If the objects of
knowledge keep changing fundamentally, then there is nothing that could be
known. To sum it up, in a world of change nothing exists, and nothing can be
known.
These
conceptual problems do not only explain why traditional philosophy focused on
the unchanging but also why coming to terms with our current dynamic networked
reality necessitates a reckoning with these issues. And there are a few
attempts to come to terms with the historical and dynamic aspects of reality.
As in Heraclitus’ thoughts for example. Later the systematic development of an
alternative mode of thought able to support historical metaphysics began with
Hegel’s “Verflüssigung des Denkens” (a rendering liquid of thought), moved from
Schelling’s founding on the abyss (Ungrund),
the real ground of being which can never be reflected by thought and develops
the idea of positive philosophy to be able to think this real, factical ground of being. Since reason is thus not able to
ground itself in what there is, later thinkers like Nietzsche argue for reduced
faith – or even the abandonment - of reason in coming to terms with
reality. These thoughts hold the seeds
of deconstruction that led to attempts to achieve a full destruction of
master-narratives. In its wake this development demolished (or at least attempted
to demolish) any and all apparent or real certainties, the idea of objectivity
and the absolute.
What
thus (partially) began as an attempt to account for the historicity of reality,
i.e. the dynamic, concrete, ungrounded and creative aspects of the universe,
today seems to have ended in the philosophical gesture of destruction and
rejection. Rejection of any and all presupposed or even potential stability,
including the rejection of ground, foundation, of unity, of the absolute or the
necessary – of language and objectivity, of science and knowledge – of
everything philosophers used to strive for. This has created a quite
paradoxical situation. We are now able to talk and think about rhizomatic
structures, lacunae, emptiness, no-thingness, process and the like, but we
don’t seem to be able to conceptualise or generate
and guide sustainable creative processes. We seem unable to stabilise
the creative chaos unleashed by these thoughts enough to generate a direction,
or to realise any aim at all. This is not surprising,
as any aim, any direction is often considered a new master-narrative, a new
ultimate, another unity ordering actions and creating a new hierarchy and thus
all such efforts need to be rejected as soon as they are constructed. However,
to me, the gesture of renouncing the grand narratives seems itself nothing but
a grand narrative, its aim merely a maximum of difference, a maximum of
plurality and creativity. This gesture too still elevates one aim above all
others and thus still creates familiar kinds of structures. With the added
complication that any structure, as soon as it is realised
needs to be attacked again, pulled down and destroyed, precisely because this
new structure in the very moment of its realisation
has become just another version of the grand narrative, of the ultimate aim.
The
deconstructions and destructions of the last hundred years have opened up space
for multiplicity, for difference, for plurality, they have even opened our
understanding to the fact that these pluralities and differences are developing
along historical lines, but we haven’t quite managed to strike a balance between
continuity and creativity, between stability and change. Pure creativity
without continuity is destabilisation, it is chaos
without anything being created, while pure continuity without innovation leads
down the path of traditional, stable hierarchies of suppression and power
monopolies. So the question of our time seems to be the following: how to come
to terms with dynamic networks, with creative related processes without
congealing their processual becoming into substance, while maintaining enough structure
to be able to create and produce intended outcomes - all while remaining able
to set goals and realise them? I will end this paper
with a short discussion of Heidegger’s concept of the Ereignis
as a potential insight that could aid us in striking such a balance.
Das Ereignis
Heidegger’s
notion of the ‘Event’ is notoriously difficult to understand. But let me tackle
this problem by beginning with an analogy (with the additional caveat that this
analogy, like any analogy, works only in one respect and lacks resemblance in
others) to then move on to a more sophisticated treatment of the issue.
Let
me thus begin with the following question. How is it possible to redefine
entities or concepts, to give them a new meaning, even though they were perfectly
understandable for hundreds of years? And what is it that renders a specific
definition suddenly inadequate? These questions are especially confusing
considering the fact that a redefinition does not necessarily imply an
objective change in what an entity is or what the concept points out. How is it
possible, for example, that we understood what it means to be a human being as
a combination of psyche and matter for around a millennium, then as a
combination of res cogitans and res extensa for hundreds of
years, and then as Dasein? All of these concepts provide an account of
the same actuality, namely of what it is to be human. Furthermore, all three
concepts create insights and are in certain respects adequate descriptions of
the conditio humana.
These
redefinitions reflect a shift in what is considered necessary, relevant or
unimportant for understanding what it means to be human. Introducing some
Heideggerian language around the Event, we can say that each of these terms
discloses or unconceals what it is to be human from a
specific understanding of Being, from a specific understanding of which aspects
of reality are fundamental, which aspects are relevant and which aspects can be
disregarded. This development from one definition or conceptualisation
to another can thus be understood as an effect of the shift from one set of
ordering the important and the unimportant aspects of beings into one
understanding of Being to another such ordered set.
The
Being of beings does not exist like the myriad beings we encounter in daily
life, however it unconceals beings as existing (it
is) in a specific ordered manner (is so and so), before any intellectual
engagement or analysis:
Be-ing is and will nonetheless never be a being.
Being of a being - as what is spoken to and from this being, that is, the
predicate - claims be-ing insofar as the asserting
pronouncement always already has to hold itself in the open and address what is
un-covered beforehand as a being in its "that" (it "is")
and "so" and "so" ("is").
This specific ordered manner of existing is
nothing but a determination of which aspects of beings are essential or
relevant in order to grasp their existence adequately, and which aspects can be
disregarded since they are not considered to characterise
beings in their essence. And what is considered essential for beings to exist,
be it an essence, a mathematical structure or identity, changes in the event of
a creative philosophical gathering and re-ordering of what is essential and
what can be disregarded: it is the fact that be-ing
‘refuses’ to give itself (fully) that “enforces the 'gathering', the 'taking
together-unto-one' and the 'receiving' of the rising presencing
(φύσις)”.
Leaving
Heidegger for the moment, let’s look at the question in what kind of world such
a fundamental re-definition is even possible. How is it possible that there are
several adequate ways of generating such sets? Also, how can it be that all of
these definitions are sufficiently adequate in describing or grasping what
there is, to have influenced people’s understanding for centuries if not
millennia? I would claim that dynamic metaphysics of processes can provide an
adequate answer to both of these questions. If what there is, is an internally
related dynamic process, there are many ways of conceiving or ordering these
networked processes adequately and thus many ways of grasping what there is
adequately, even if every grasp is always one-sided and historically situated.
This one-sidedness and the correlated need for re-definitions is then not the
result of an ‘human, all too human’ epistemic shortcoming, but a fundamental
and necessary feature of reality. It is not the case that Aristotle simply
misunderstood what it means to be human and Descartes merely perfected his
description – both are perfectly adequate abstractions answering the question
of what it is to be human most adequate
and most relevant for their
respective moment in history. It is merely the case that both focused on
different aspects of reality and abstracted from others. Both philosophers thus
present a necessarily one-sided and historically situated conceptual
description of the interrelated and dynamic process that form human reality.
Even
if we left Heidegger for a moment, we did not stray from the way he thought
about Being and the Event. When Heidegger states that the main question of his
philosophy of the event is the question of “Wie west das Sein?” (How
does Being occur essentially?) then
the dynamic and temporal nature of this understanding of Being is quite
evident. The fact that he speaks of the essence of Being verbally (wesen, an-wesen) is
a clear enough indication. Furthermore, he also talks about a historical
dimension of Being. Considering both statements, we will have to conclude that
for Heidegger Being too occurs, just like ontological beings (i.e. the processes) occur. But
how does Being occur exactly, i.e.
how does the history of Being emerge?
It is this question, namely how these different forms of Being are given and gifted, that Heidegger unfolds in his
philosophy of the event. When he claims that Being “essentially occurs as
the event of grounding the 'there' or, in short, as the event”
In
engaging with these questions, one has to take care not to commit the fallacy
of misplaced concreteness and identify, in the classical onto-theological
tradition, Being (the order of distinctions between what is relevant and what
can be disregarded in one’s account) with beings (the ontological networked
processes). Being is the ground of meaning allowing us to live within a given
world, to develop any given ontology, to develop any conceptual framework – in
this regard it is Heidegger’s analogon to the nous
in ancient Greek thought. The occurrence of being as the event is what renders
beings thinkable (Denkbar).
Even
if there is an analogy between Being and nous, the way intelligibility is
granted by the nous, however, differs substantially from the way Denkbarkeit is granted though the giving of Being
that occurs as the event. The nous guarantees intelligibility and it
grants a full, unrestricted, absolute understanding, provided that one has done
the conceptual work necessary to access it. Being as the event, on the other
hand, necessary conceals in the process of unconcealing,
shows while hiding, grants while depriving, and thus only ever allows for a
partial understanding. Thus, Being can never guarantee universal or absolute
intelligibility. This difference between the nous and Being pertains
precisely because while the nous is grounded in an ultimate, and is
fundamentally connected to thought or rationality, the Event of Being is grounded
in the world, in the phenomena, in the process of becoming existence. It
remains a phenomenological account of the generation of meaning, tied to physis, to experience and immanence:
Since then all "is" and being
arises out of beings; since then beings enjoy the preeminence of the starting
point; since then beings enjoy this pre-eminence even there, where the
"origin" of beingness (always categorial) is displaced into the
"I think" and into its 'having been thought'.
an international and interdisciplinary journal of postmodern cultural sound, text and image
Volume 16, Spring
2019, ISSN 1552-5112
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Heidegger, M. (2016). Mindfulness. (P. E. Kalary,
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Whitehead, A. N. (1978). Process and Reality
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Notes