Metaphysics of Presence

Reply to Mikie Well said.

I suppose I could add that one of the themes I've been exploring was suggested by John Vervaeke, with his 'participatory ontology'. That is the idea that 'the world' (or being or existenz) is something we're immersed in and part of, in a way that the modern sense of individuality tends to occlude. We each feel like little island-subjects confronting an indifferent world, whereas in the participatory ontology, we are not just spectators any more, but also participants. Religion obviously provided a means to that by the symbolic re-enactment of creation, but many of these mythical forms are no longer reconciliable with the discoveries of the natural sciences (although physicist John Wheeler's 'participatory universe' suggests something like it.)

That is all I have time to contribute at this moment, but I'll be interested to see what develops.

Quoting Mikie

The phrase “metaphysics of presence” was popularized by Derrida, but comes out of Heidegger — Metaphysik der Anwesenheit. Despite much derision directed at both men, I think it’s not only an interesting and challenging idea, but also still relevant. So I feel like it needs a thread of its own. There’s much more detail involved which I can get into depending on how the thread develops, but I wanted to keep this relatively brief. Also, I’m not interested in Twitter-level responses here.

Two questions should stand out:

(1) What does the phrase mean?

We encounter the metaphysics of presence in Heidegger primarily in the guise of the present-to-hand (Vorhandenheit), which he contrasts with the ready-to-hand (Zuhandenheit). We encounter things as present-to-hand when we treat them as simply persisting in time self-identically. He argues that this ‘theoretical’ stance is a derivative mode of encountering things. Our primary mode of engagement with things is in terms of what we are using them for, how they matter to us in relation to our larger goals and projects.

The disadvantage of treating the world in terms of the metaphysics of presence is that it conceals from us the relevant connection between ourselves and our world.

Reply to Wayfarer

That’s interesting. I’ve never heard of Vervaeke, but I’ll take a look. But the idea — as you describe it —I like. See also Michael Albert’s participatory economics.

Reply to Joshs

Thanks for that elaboration Josh. I failed to make that connection, but it’s an excellent point.

Quoting Mikie

(2) Why is it important?

I believe that determinism obscures the importance of the present by establishing continuity between past and future. This makes understanding our experience of being present impossible. That is because the need to choose is fundamental to our experience.

One way to open a thread on this topic is to define "presence" the way it is defined within the confines of philosophy. Philosophers do not re-invent the wheel, but rather try to build on what's already been presented by past thinkers.

So, metaphysics of presence as opposed to what? By providing this piece of information, it would be clearer to understand. And just to add to this understanding, the metaphysics of presence is a critique against the privilege that we put on the 'now'-- the world as we experience it in real time.

So what are they arguing about?

Quoting Mikie

Understanding the metaphysics of presence can assist in this effort.

Quoting L'éléphant

So, metaphysics of presence as opposed to what?

:chin:

Quoting L'éléphant

Philosophers do not re-invent the wheel, but rather try to build on what's already been presented by past thinkers.

Like Aristotle and Plato, yes. But if that presentation obscures something, we should think about it anew.

Quoting L'éléphant

So, metaphysics of presence as opposed to what?

As opposed to what is absent, hidden, concealed. Which is far greater than what’s merely present before us.

I like to think of it as studying unconscious (absence) behavior as opposed to conscious behavior. Human beings have been essential defined as thinking things — the res cogitans. But “thinking” is worth understanding a bit more. Descartes was very clear about what he meant, and it’s telling.

Reply to Joshs’s post is relevant here I think.

You’re right to mention the “now” — that’s how we generally see time, as a series of “now” points, dating back to Aristotle’s essay on time. But this conception itself is based on an understanding of being as substance, as ousia, and so privileges the present as well, the “now” point.

Quoting Mikie

“metaphysics of presence”

Quoting Mikie

(1) What does the phrase mean?

From what I have read, one important aspect of Derrida’s position was to question the traditional view that speech has presence over writing. He termed it logocentrism – the idea that speech is primary, more connected to thoughts – and writing is secondary – just a copy of speech, and therefore prone to incompleteness and misunderstanding.

That view goes back to Plato’s argument against writing, expressed in dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus:

You know, Phaedrus, that is the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly correspond to painting. The painter’s products stand before us as though they were alive. But if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the same with written words. They seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say from a desire to be instructed they go on telling just the same thing forever.

Derrida did not agree. He did not think that only speech was pure presence. He redefines writing as foundational, alongside speech. Both have access to meaning.

As he writes in Of Grammatology:

“the operation that substitutes writing for speech also replaces presence by value: to the I am or to the I am present thus sacrificed, a what I am or a what I am worth is preferred. “If I were present, one would never know what I was worth.” I renounce my present life, my present and concrete existence in order to make myself known in the ideality of truth and value. A well known schema. The battle by which I wish to raise myself above my life even while I retain it, in order to enjoy recognition, is in this case within myself, and writing is indeed the phenomenon of this battle.”

As a writer of short stories, this quote really resonates with me. I am very much present in my writing. I imbue my writing with meaning, which is taken up by the reader, and often they put their own spin on it, find meaning in it I did not even intend. But above all, it brings writer and reader together.

It calls to mind Tolstoy’s definition of art (Chapter 5, What is Art?):

[i]If only the spectators or auditors are infected by the feelings which the author has felt, it is art.

To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself then, by means of movements, lines, colours, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling—this is the activity of art.

Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings, and also experience them.

Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious Idea of beauty, or God; it is not, as the æsthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man’s emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress towards well-being of individuals and of humanity.[/i]

Quoting 180 Proof

Understanding the metaphysics of presence can assist in this effort.
— Mikie
So, metaphysics of presence as opposed to what?
— L'éléphant

Quoting Mikie

As opposed to what is absent, hidden, concealed. Which is far greater than what’s merely present before us.

I like to think of it as studying unconscious (absence) behavior as opposed to conscious behavior.

:fire:

Reply to Mikie When I saw the thread title, my first thought was as in communion in Christianity. The presence of spirit. Then I saw that it was really about time.
Surely presence would include the idea of place as well as of time. Because for something to be present in the present, it would also be present in a place?

Quoting Punshhh

Surely presence would include the idea of place as well as of time. Because for something to be present in the present, it would also be present in a place?

That’s true, although like in the case of time, the concept of space is also a little murky. The “here and now” is a well known phrase, and seemingly go together— no question. But exactly why that is privileged over what isn’t here (or now) is the theme of this thread.

Reply to Mikie

That’s true, although like in the case of time, the concept of space is also a little murky. The “here and now” is a well known phrase, and seemingly go together— no question. But exactly why that is privileged over what isn’t here (or now) is the theme of this thread.

Yes that’s interesting, my first thought is that almost everything (that could be here and now), isn’t. While the only thing(s) we can be sure of is. It looks like we have the horns of a dilemma.

1, How come we are compelled to believe that almost everything that could be here and now isn’t. Whilst the only things we can be certain about are what are here and now?
2, How can we know, that there is something which isn’t here? Or in other words, how can we say that there really is something which isn’t here and now, whilst the only things we can be certain about (say something about) are what is here and now?

Reply to Punshhh

Those are excellent questions. (It may take me a little time to respond today, so I wanted to at least acknowledge the response.)

Quoting Mikie

The phrase “metaphysics of presence” was popularized by Derrida, but comes out of Heidegger — Metaphysik der Anwesenheit. Despite much derision directed at both men, I think it’s not only an interesting and challenging idea, but also still relevant. So I feel like it needs a thread of its own. There’s much more detail involved which I can get into depending on how the thread develops, but I wanted to keep this relatively brief. Also, I’m not interested in Twitter-level responses here.

Just as a reminder, those who speak derisively about Heidegger or Derrida, haven't read them. It just generally goes like that. Fear of the unfamiliar.


Quoting Mikie

(1) The phrase essentially means that our general way of understanding the world — at least tacitly — privileges one dimension of time; namely, the present, and that this privileging began with Plato and has influenced all ontology (and philosophy generally) since. It manifests itself especially with “substance ontology.”

If you bring up time and Heidegger in the same thought, you have to understand that what you call 'now' is part of an existential ecstatic temporality/ Plainly put, can you at all conceive of the past apart from the present and future? The past is necessarily a recollection, and a recollection is an event of recalling, and this is an anticipation of the content of the past brought into act of recalling into a what-will-be of the anticipation. Crudely put here, these familiar time terms are really a unity. Derrida would say that the language deployed to give this very analysis cannot reach into affairs beyond its own structure. Language does not talk about the world in traditional way. Rather, when it talks about the world, "the world' itself belong to language. This leaves the actuality that sits before you, the park benches and clouds and other people, and everything, really, a delimited intra-referential system in which meanings defer to other meanings. Derrida is like Heidegger on steroids, a radical hermeneutics.

So the, well, "real" metaphysical issue has to do with a kind of non linguistic insight of a world that clearly is NOT language. Meister Eckhart comes to mind, where mysticism begins??

Quoting Mikie

(2) We’re in a period of technological nihilism, where we view human beings as essentially machines. The world itself is thought of as a machine, one reduced to substances — a collection of atoms. Our current variant of materialism, where humans are animals with language who go through life with needs to satisfy (inevitably leading to the human being as consumer), is particularly harmful. One consequence is capitalism in various forms. These ideas permeate politics, religion, and business. We did not get here by accident— the objectification of the world (in its modern form starting with Descartes) is an outgrowth of substance ontology.

Not sure what this has to do with the metaphysics of presence. I mean, I find what you say fairly right, but how does, but are you suggesting that our culture's "present" state of affairs is reductive towards something less than human, a mere consumer of high tech "things"? Perhaps, but the metaphysics of presence is a more radical idea. Imagine beholding a world which is not wholly determined by the finitude of what Heidegger (since you brought him up) called, "the they"/

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

I believe that determinism obscures the importance of the present by establishing continuity between past and future. This makes understanding our experience of being present impossible. That is because the need to choose is fundamental to our experience

Determinism makes not only the present but the past and future incomprehensible. By treating time as the linear succession of punctual nows, only the present is actual, but the present is meaningless isolated from a historical context. For Derrida, the present is ‘specious’. It includes within itself past and future, not as sequentially separate but as simultaneous.

Quoting L'éléphant

So, metaphysics of presence as opposed to what? By providing this piece of information, it would be clearer to understand. And just to add to this understanding, the metaphysics of presence is a critique against the privilege that we put on the 'now'-- the world as we experience it in real time.

So what are they arguing about?

They’re arguing about the tendency to treat presence as self-affecting presence to self, A=A. What is colloquially called ‘real time’ is treated as a metric placed over events.

Reply to Constance

Quoting Constance

Derrida would say that the language deployed to give this very analysis cannot reach into affairs beyond its own structure. Language does not talk about the world in traditional way. Rather, when it talks about the world, "the world' itself belong to language. This leaves the actuality that sits before you, the park benches and clouds and other people, and everything, really, a delimited intra-referential system in which meanings defer to other meanings. Derrida is like Heidegger on steroids, a radical hermeneutics.

So the, well, "real" metaphysical issue has to do with a kind of non linguistic insight of a world that clearly is NOT language. Meister Eckhart comes to mind, where mysticism begins??

Derrida understands concepts like language and writing in his own peculiar way. Language is simply the repeatability of a mark, and the fact that i. repeating it we are altering its sense. This alteration that inhabits iteration is what Derrida means by writing. Language for him is not an enclosed structure. it is the contamination by an outside which infects a mark of meaning from inside of it.

Quoting Mikie

(2) We’re in a period of technological nihilism, where we view human beings as essentially machines. The world itself is thought of as a machine, one reduced to substances

Quoting Constance

Not sure what this has to do with the metaphysics of presence. I mean, I find what you say fairly right, but how does, but are you suggesting that our culture's "present" state of affairs is reductive towards something less than human, a mere consumer of high tech "things"? Perhaps, but the metaphysics of presence is a more radical idea. Imagine beholding a world which is not wholly determined by the finitude of what Heidegger (since you brought him up) called, "the they"/

Heidegger’s analysis of technological thinking in terms of enframing reveals the ultimate consequence of treating time and beings as present at hand. The present at hand becomes thought as orderability. Everything, including ourselves, becomes instrumentalized as a mere means to a pre-figured end.

“The subject-object relation thus reaches, for the first time, its pure "relational," ie., ordering, character in which both the subject and the object are sucked up as standing-reserves. That does not mean that the subject- object relation vanishes, but rather the opposite: it now attains to its most extreme dominance, which is predetermined from out of Enframing. It becomes a standing-reserve to be commanded and set in order.”

Reply to Questioner
Quoting Questioner

Derrida did not agree. He did not think that only speech was pure presence. He redefines writing as foundational, alongside speech. Both have access to meaning.
As a writer of short stories, this quote really resonates with me. I am very much present in my writing. I imbue my writing with meaning, which is taken up by the reader, and often they put their own spin on it, find meaning in it I did not even intend. But above all, it brings writer and reader together.

You put your finger on it here. It is not just when someone else reads my writing that they find meaning you didnt intend. The very structure of intention guarantees that you will end up meaning something other than what you intended in the very act of intending to mean something.
The act of meaning is never purely present to itself. It is always contaminated by something other than itself.

"Through the possibility of repeating every mark as the same, [iterability] makes way for an idealization that seems to deliver the full presence of ideal objects..., but this repeatability itself ensures that the full presence of a singularity thus repeated comports in itself the reference to something else, thus rending the full presence that it nevertheless announces"(LI29)). ...the possibility of its being repeated another time-breaches, divides, expropriates the "ideal" plenitude or self-presence of intention,...of all adequation between meaning and saying. Iterability alters...leaves us no room but to mean (to say) something that is (already, always, also) other than what we mean (to say) (Limited, Inc,p.61)." "The break intervenes from the moment that there is a mark, at once. It is iterability itself, ..passing between the re- of the repeated and the re- of the repeating, traversing and transforming repetition(p.53)( Limited, Inc)

Quoting Joshs

It is not just when someone else reads my writing that they find meaning you didnt intend. The very structure of intention guarantees that you will end up meaning something other than what you intended in the very act of intending to mean something.

Art is in the eye of the beholder

Quoting Joshs

The act of meaning is never purely present to itself. It is always contaminated by something other than itself.

In this case, seen through the prism of the reader's experience

Reply to Joshs Reply to L'éléphant Reply to 180 Proof

If you look at a sculpture and notice the negative space around it, it may occur to you that this negative space makes the statue possible.

The statue is your virtue. The negative space is your monstrousness.

The statue is the self-righteous spirit of the ego. The negative space is the evil within you that you refuse to recognize as your own, so you project it across the world out to the horizon.

The statue is Heidegger's Nazi sympathy. The negative space is that he was Plato reincarnated.

Quoting Joshs

For Derrida, the present is ‘specious’. It includes within itself past and future, not as sequentially separate but as simultaneous.

I'm inclined to agree with Derrida on this. I believe that I experience the present as the simultaneity of the past (as memory) and the future (as anticipation. That seems to be the foundation of experience for me.

I really don't think that the present is specious for Derrida though. Years back, we did a reading group on Derrida's "Voice and Phenomenology". I just did a brief review of the part where he talked about "now" and I see that he described it as "pure actuality". So I don't agree that "now" is specious for Derrida.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

I just did a brief review of the part where he talked about "now" and I see that he described it as "pure actuality". So I don't agree that "now" is specious for Derrida.

What do you think Derrida means by ‘pure actuality’? You dont think it includes what has just passed and what is just about to occur? Derrida wrote on Heidegger's formulation of anxiety as being-towards-death:

“…the point is not to resign oneself to one's mortality…but to constitute the present as the past of a future: that is, to live the present not as the origin and absolute form of lived experience (of ek-sistence), but as the product, as what is constituted, derived, constituted in return on the basis of the horizon of the future and the ek- stasis of the future, this latter being able to be authentically anticipated as such only as finite to- come, that is, on the basis of the insuperability of possible death, death not being simply at the end like a contingent event befalling at the far end of a line of life, but determining at every — let's say moment — the opening of the future in which is constituted as past what we call the present and which never appears as such

Quoting Joshs

What do you think Derrida means by ‘pure actuality’? You dont think it includes what has just passed and what is just about to occur?

As I said, I agree with this.

But I think that describing the present as pure actuality is far from indicating that the present is "specious". "Pure actuality" indicates that "now" is more like the opposite of specious. I seem to remember that this is how he objectifies subjective experience, through the objective reality of "now". That the reality of "now" is the simultaneous occurrence of past and future, doesn't render the present as specious.

I think what he is indicating in your quoted passage, is that the present never appears to us as "a moment" So it is "the moment" which is specious, not the now. In other words, "the moment" is not a correct representation of "the present".

Quoting Joshs

it is the contamination by an outside which infects a mark of meaning from inside of it.

I had to look into this. Contamination, but this would still be a system of deference and difference out of which the "trace" produces the sense of presence, notwithstanding what "infects a mark".

Reply to Constance

Quoting Constance

I had to look into this. Contamination, but this would still be a system of deference and difference out of which the "trace" produces the sense of presence, notwithstanding what "infects a mark".

As long as we don’t confuse this system of deferral and difference with a Saussurrian structuralism in which the elements of the system are simultaneously present to each other as aspects of a totality mutually defining the meaning of each element.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

But I think that describing the present as pure actuality is far from indicating that the present is "specious". "Pure actuality" indicates that "now" is more like the opposite of specious.

I think what he is indicating in your quoted passage, is that the present never appears to us as "a moment" So it is "the moment" which is specious, not the now. In other words, "the moment" is not a correct representation of "the present".

If the present never appears as the ‘moment’ , what is a moment, and how does the present appear? To me specious means inclusive or thick, that the ‘now’ has room for past and future , not just the present. So what would the opposite of this be? Some kind of preferencing of the present over the past and future, in which only the present, but not the past and future, is pure actuality? Or a preferencing of the past and future over the present?

Quoting Joshs

To me specious means inclusive or thick, that the ‘now’ has room for past and future , not just the present. So what would the opposite of this be?

OK, the problem is in the way we understand the word. My dictionary defines "specious" as superficially plausible, but actually wrong, or misleading.

Quoting Joshs

If the present never appears as the ‘moment’ , what is a moment, and how does the present appear?

The present appears as we discussed, as the past and future in simultaneity. Here:

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

I believe that I experience the present as the simultaneity of the past (as memory) and the future (as anticipation. That seems to be the foundation of experience for me.

The "moment" is an abstract tool, created for the purpose of measurement. For example, we insert two artificial "moments", now, one thousand and, now, and measure the time in between as one second.

Quoting Mikie

Philosophers do not re-invent the wheel, but rather try to build on what's already been presented by past thinkers. — L'éléphant
Like Aristotle and Plato, yes. But if that presentation obscures something, we should think about it anew.

Not the way the hermeneuts would do it. As I said, philosophers try to avoid reinventing the wheel. If you believe we should think anew, you are essentially saying we should discard what's already been annotated, reviewed, argued, critiqued, and defended. In other words, we should discard what's already been theorized.

Should we come up with our own view from scratch? What do you think theories are? Made from scratch? No! There are axioms, ideas, and truths collected from past works that make up a theory.

Quoting Mikie

I like to think of it as studying unconscious (absence) behavior as opposed to conscious behavior.

So, you don't think the autonomic nervous system doesn't happen in the present? It's a system that works without us being conscious of it. Please try to give a better example.
Gravity is something we're not conscious of. We were told about it. But it's happening now.

Quoting Punshhh

When I saw the thread title, my first thought was as in communion in Christianity. The presence of spirit.

Yes, good catch.

Quoting Joshs

They’re arguing about the tendency to treat presence as self-affecting presence to self, A=A. What is colloquially called ‘real time’ is treated as a metric placed over events.

Please expand on this as I'm no clear on its meaning.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

My dictionary defines "specious" as superficially plausible, but actually wrong, or misleading.

This where I’m getting it from:

“William James's "specious present" describes our experience of the present as a short, flowing duration, not an instantaneous point, acting like a "saddle-back" of time with a bit of the immediate past and future held together, allowing us to perceive motion and succession rather than just isolated moments, a key idea in his Principles of Psychology (1890). He contrasted this "thick" experience with the "knife-edge" mathematical present (a single point) and the "stream of consciousness," arguing that our awareness always carries a sense of "now" that's extended and contains felt duration.”

Quoting L'éléphant

In other words, we should discard what's already been theorized.

Largely, yes. But not because the theory is necessarily “wrong.”

You’re right to push back on such a big claim. But try to think of it less as reinventing the wheel and more of talking about the chariot. Doing so doesn’t negate the wheel’s invention, it’s simply talking about something else, albeit adjacent.

Quoting L'éléphant

Should we come up with our own view from scratch?

Not really. Remember, I’m building off of the work of Heidegger mainly, so this isn’t some armchair theorizing out of the blue. I’m naturally repulsed my that as well. Really the entire argument is based on historical and textual evidence. It’s an attempt to return to a presocratic understanding of being.

Quoting L'éléphant

So, you don't think the autonomic nervous system doesn't happen in the present? It's a system that works without us being conscious of it. Please try to give a better example.

No need, because I think your example is a good one.

The ANS. Yes, it works without conscious awareness. Its functions are mostly transparent or invisible to us, yet it happens. So we’re breathing all the time, but how often do we notice? Not until something goes wrong, or we’re meditating or something like that. Is that really “present”? No, I’d argue it’s concealed from our conscious mind. It’s absent until one’s attention is turned to it.

Now you can make an argument that everything from gravity to behavior that’s “second nature” all happen in the present, but that’s begging the question. It’s essentially saying “x is present because it happens in the present.” From one perspective, this makes perfect sense: everything happens in the present, then becomes past in memory while pushing into the unknown future. Like a moving point on a number line. But this perspective is exactly what’s being questioned.

Quoting Punshhh

2, How can we know, that there is something which isn’t here? Or in other words, how can we say that there really is something which isn’t here and now, whilst the only things we can be certain about (say something about) are what is here and now?

So I would challenge this assumption. Why is the only thing we can be certain of in the “here and now”?

But in any case, for everything that is here and now, how many things are NOT here and now? Far more. From the workings of our bodies to all activity outside our scope of vision, what’s absent and unknown is simply much bigger than what is present and “known.” Yet this is what’s been privileged historically, and has even come to define human beings, from zoon echon logon to res cogitans.

The influence of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and even Kant is immeasurable when it comes to thinking about and defining human being (and thus what a good life, propose, and happiness mean). Yet to me it’s like defining a screwdriver as a paint can opener. Our capacity to think, speak, and be consciously aware (as in Descartes’ definition of thought) are secondary characteristics.

Quoting Constance

Crudely put here, these familiar time terms are really a unity.

In my understanding, it’s a unity in the sense that these traditional terms are really an abstraction from human activity. It’s all happening, and so the future is just as much the past and the present as the past is also the future. Which from a traditional Aristotelian sense of time is a gibberish statement. Nevertheless, there it is.

Quoting Constance

Not sure what this has to do with the metaphysics of presence.

To me, a consequence of privileging the present, and substance ontology generally, is a modern form of materialism that eventually reduces the goal of human life to consumption. Why? Because human beings become a substance, an object, like everything else— with perhaps the added trait of “reason” or language or thought. Which isn’t entirely untrue, of course. But any spiritual content — which once existed — is now gone, replaced with scientism, nihilism, capitalism. These now become the moral context in which society operates, from its mores to its laws.

Obviously these are sweeping statements and need much more examples and elaboration to fill them out. But that’s the connection I see— and the reason I find the metaphysics of presence an important and relevant philosophical concept.

Also, I am not advocating a return to Christian or Hellenistic religion. Just to be clear.

Reply to Mikie

Quoting Mikie

Why is the only thing we can be certain of in the “here and now”?

But in any case, for everything that is here and now, how many things are NOT here and now? Far more. From the workings of our bodies to all activity outside our scope of vision, what’s absent and unknown is simply much bigger than what is present and “known.”

I don’t think this is what Derrida is getting at in his deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence. What he means is that the present isn’t something that can turn back to look at itself. To be present is to be a change, a hinge, a transit. The present doesn’t ‘occupy’ a moment of time, as if it subsists itself briefly as itself before it changes into a new present. When we talk about or imagine things outside consciousness, beneath consciousness , simultaneous with consciousness, like a body performing processes we are unaware of, we are still treating these things and this time as present at hand.

Reply to Joshs

This blurb suggests that it's not primarily about time. It's about presence versus absence. Do you have a quote that contradicts this?

Britannica :Derrida characterizes as the “metaphysics of presence.” This is the tendency to conceive fundamental philosophical concepts such as truth, reality, and being in terms of ideas such as presence, essence, identity, and origin—and in the process to ignore the crucial role of absence and difference.

. here

According to my daimon Marcus Tullius Cicero "[t]here's nothing so absurd but some philosopher has already said it." And that was in 44 BCE!

I would amend that statement, or perhaps it would be more correct to say expand on in light of the subject matter: There's nothing more otiose but some philosopher has already proclaimed it.

And now some words from John Dewey: "Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device
for dealing with the problems of philosophers
and beomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men."

Reply to frank



[quote="Britannica"]
Quoting frank

This blurb suggests that it's not primarily about time. It's about presence versus absence. Do you have a quote that contradicts this?

Derrida characterizes as the “metaphysics of presence.” This is the tendency to conceive fundamental philosophical concepts such as truth, reality, and being in terms of ideas such as presence, essence, identity, and origin—and in the process to ignore the crucial role of absence and difference.
— Britannica

The way that absence and difference are internal to presence what time is. Difference isnt a static fact, it’s an event , an activity. It is temporalization.

Quoting Joshs

The way that absence and difference are internal to presence what time is.

If you mean presence and absence are aspects of change, then yes. But presence and absence go eat beyond that, so we don't have to confine ourselves to time.

Reply to frank Quoting frank

If you mean presence and absence are aspects of change, then yes. But presence and absence go eat beyond that, so we don't have to confine ourselves to time.

No, they don’t go beyond time, since they are inextricable. from it. They are incoherent without it.

Quoting Joshs

No, they don’t go beyond time, since they are inextricable. from it. They are incoherent without it.

Nevertheless, Derrida's critique is about a tendency to ignore ABSENCE and DIFFERENCE in favor of presence, as in the presence of the color blue, versus the absence of that color.

Quoting Joshs

I don’t think this is what Derrida is getting at in his deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence.

You could be right, but I don’t care much about Derrida. I think he was mostly a windbag. I mention him in the OP because he popularized the phrase and occasionally said some interesting things, but it’s Heidegger that I’m building off of here.

Quoting Joshs

“William James's "specious present" describes our experience of the present as a short, flowing duration, not an instantaneous point, acting like a "saddle-back" of time with a bit of the immediate past and future held together, allowing us to perceive motion and succession rather than just isolated moments, a key idea in his Principles of Psychology (1890). He contrasted this "thick" experience with the "knife-edge" mathematical present (a single point) and the "stream of consciousness," arguing that our awareness always carries a sense of "now" that's extended and contains felt duration.”

I see the point and I agree with the principles, but it looks to me like a misuse of "specious". What James argued is that the common conception of "present", when "present" is defined as the divisor between past and future is a faulty concept. So, that thin, instantaneous, "knife edge" present which separates past from future, is what ought to be referred to as the "specious present". "Specious" because it is false and misleading. The common concept of an instantaneous present moment, is false and misleading, therefore it ought to be called "the specious present".

The thick present, which James proposes, is a combination of past and future, and it is supposed to be the true present, what Derrida calls "pure actuality", and therefore not "specious". The difference being that one description of "present" is as a division between past and future, the other one has the present as a unity of past and future. That's a substantial difference. Since the former is the conception which is false and misleading, we ought to say that it is the specious present.

Reply to Mikie

So I would challenge this assumption. Why is the only thing we can be certain of in the “here and now”?

Forgive me, I’m new to all this phenomenology malarkey. I thought the idea was that everything is always here and now and it is our experiences which give us the impression that it is otherwise. Namely that everything isn’t here and now, except the few things we are concentrating on, in any one moment.

Quoting Ciceronianus

And now some words from John Dewey: "Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device
for dealing with the problems of philosophers
and beomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men."

Quantum physics started with Einstein wondering why iron glows when it gets hot. I think you'd tell Einstein to stop lollygagging and get back to making doughnuts.

Reply to frank
Mmmmmm. Donuts. Their presence is so satisying. Their
absence, though, is never unnoticed, but instead much regretted.

Reply to Ciceronianus
:lol:

Quoting Punshhh

I thought the idea was that everything is always here and now and it is our experiences which give us the impression that it is otherwise.

I think our impressions give us the sense that everything is here and now, and the rest is unknown. At least that’s the emphasis of various types of phenomenology: our own conscious awareness is what we can be sure of, whether representation or not.

Husserl and his school of phenomenology is relevant here only in the sense that it was an influence on Heidegger, but otherwise isn’t that important.

Quoting Ciceronianus

And now some words from John Dewey: "Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and beomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men."

:up:

Quoting Mikie

Largely, yes. But not because the theory is necessarily “wrong.”

You’re right to push back on such a big claim. But try to think of it less as reinventing the wheel and more of talking about the chariot. Doing so doesn’t negate the wheel’s invention, it’s simply talking about something else, albeit adjacent.

You're supposed to dig deeper into the philosophers' work you cited in your OP. Then you can make an argument for or against it. This is what I wanted to say. But if you're not at all threading into their waters, but just want to name the subject, I don't think it's fair to name drop either.

I see that there's still confusion happening on this thread, at two pages of it.

Quoting Mikie

Now you can make an argument that everything from gravity to behavior that’s “second nature” all happen in the present, but that’s begging the question. It’s essentially saying “x is present because it happens in the present.” From one perspective, this makes perfect sense: everything happens in the present, then becomes past in memory while pushing into the unknown future. Like a moving point on a number line. But this perspective is exactly what’s being questioned.

That's the thing -- we can't even make a memory out of something that's outside of our consciousness. And no, the argument in quotes "x is present because it happens in the present" is not even a proper argument. I'm just pointing out to you when I used the ANS that what's hidden from consciousness may not necessarily be at a disadvantaged given that humans have a propensity to favor the clear and present perception.

Quoting Ciceronianus

According to my daimon Marcus Tullius Cicero "[t]here's nothing so absurd but some philosopher has already said it." And that was in 44 BCE!

I would amend that statement, or perhaps it would be more correct to say expand on in light of the subject matter: There's nothing more otiose but some philosopher has already proclaimed it.

And now some words from John Dewey: "Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device
for dealing with the problems of philosophers
and beomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men."

Oh the irony! :lol:

Or hypocrisy?

Quoting L'éléphant

we can't even make a memory out of something that's outside of our consciousness.

That’s a good point. The here and now of conscious awareness is the absolute starting point for Husserlian phenomenology. Heidegger and Derrida as well accept the absolute primacy of the experienced now. Their deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence aims to show that within the now itself there is a bifurcation or hinge even more intimate than pure presence. So they dont look outside of the now to what is beyond our immediate awareness, but within this assumed immediacy.

Quoting L'éléphant

You're supposed to dig deeper into the philosophers' work you cited in your OP.

Second paragraph:

Quoting Mikie

There’s much more detail involved which I can get into depending on how the thread develops, but I wanted to keep this relatively brief.

I feel like I’ve elaborated further, as necessary. But to each their own.

Quoting L'éléphant

That's the thing -- we can't even make a memory out of something that's outside of our consciousness.

I fail to see the relevance. Plenty of behavior involves no conscious awareness, yet it happens. We may have no memory of turning the doorknob to event a room, but we know it must have occurred. We’re all in agreement about that, I think.

All of these are examples of absence, which is exactly what isn’t privileged— and that was your initial question.

Quoting L'éléphant

I'm just pointing out to you when I used the ANS that what's hidden from consciousness may not necessarily be at a disadvantaged given that humans have a propensity to favor the clear and present perception.

Fine— but I never said anything about being at a disadvantage. I think that defining a human being (and the world, or “reality”) in terms of conscious awareness, “thinking,” reason, logos, or in Heidegger talk as “presence at hand,” does lead to problems, but this particular state of being isn’t harmful in itself. It’s only that it isn’t primarily what we are (or what the world is) — and privileging it has lead to various unintended consequences that continue to the present day.

Quoting Mikie

I fail to see the relevance. Plenty of behavior involves no conscious awareness, yet it happens. We may have no memory of turning the doorknob to event a room, but we know it must have occurred. We’re all in agreement about that, I think.

All of these are examples of absence, which is exactly what isn’t privileged— and that was your initial question.

Yes, but this distinction between what we are paying attention to and what is outside of this awareness is not what Heidegger or Derrida are getting at with their deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence. They are directing their focus on what is taking place within that very beam of direct attention, that it is not simply a staring at something but being thrown into engagement with it. Attention is a kind of displacement.

Reply to Joshs

I’m not sure Heidegger even used the phrase too often. It was Derrida who popularized it. So whether be deconstructs it or not, I don’t know.

In any case, I think my reading is more interesting. I don’t want to start quoting chapter and verse, but a major concern of Heidegger’s is the dehumification of human beings, and I think it’s that piece that’s most relevant today. Presence and its privileged position within Western philosophy has played a large role in that.

Quoting Mikie

(2) We’re in a period of technological nihilism, where we view human beings as essentially machines. The world itself is thought of as a machine, one reduced to substances — a collection of atoms. Our current variant of materialism, where humans are animals with language who go through life with needs to satisfy (inevitably leading to the human being as consumer), is particularly harmful. One consequence is capitalism in various forms. These ideas permeate politics, religion, and business. We did not get here by accident— the objectification of the world (in its modern form starting with Descartes) is an outgrowth of substance ontology.

I'm interested in this paragraph. Forgive my meandering and uninitiated response.

We often hear this kind of criticism of the present era from religious people and popular intellectuals like Jordan Peterson and John Vervaeke, both of whom are unlikely to be influences on your thinking. I understand some of their ideas are derivative of Heidegger.

I've often thought that we are living in an anti-modernist, neo-Romantic period where everything is centred around emotionalism and we are no longer generally convinced by reasoning or science, which seem to be widely understood as joy killers, the enemy of the human. Lived experience is seen as overriding institutional knowledge, with self-expression and personal freedom framed as moral imperatives.

I don’t see widespread objectification of the world as an emerging trend so much as a mystification of everything: a vanquishing of certainty, a privileging of subjective experience, an obsession with authenticity and a re-enchantment of nature, bordering on its worship. To me, this looks like a legacy of the 1960s counterculture that never really went away despite the best efforts of the 1980's.

I am assuming that the antidote to our situation (for you) is some kind of deeper connection to being and nature? What might that look like?

Reply to Mikie

Quoting Mikie

I think my reading is more interesting. I don’t want to start quoting chapter and verse, but a major concern of Heidegger’s is the dehumification of human beings, and I think it’s that piece that’s most relevant today. Presence and its privileged position within Western philosophy has played a large role in that.

I just think that, if you want to define the metaphysics of presence as a thinking which doesn't take into account what is completely outside of awareness you should leave Heidegger and Derrida out of the discussion and focus on those accounts which illustrate, rather than challenge, your argument, such as psychoanalysis and cognitive science.

Quoting Joshs

if you want to define the metaphysics of presence as a thinking which doesn't take into account what is completely outside of awareness

It’s a thinking that privileges the present. It’s not that it doesn’t take anything else into account.

Quoting Tom Storm

I've often thought that we are living in an anti-modernist, neo-Romantic period where everything is centred around emotionalism and we are no longer generally convinced by reasoning or science, which seem to be widely understood as joy killers, the enemy of the human. Lived experience is seen as overriding institutional knowledge, with self-expression and personal freedom framed as moral imperatives.

I don’t see widespread objectification of the world as an emerging trend so much as a mystification of everything: a vanquishing of certainty, a privileging of subjective experience, an obsession with authenticity and a re-enchantment of nature, bordering on its worship. T

Yes, yes! :100:

Quoting Tom Storm

I've often thought that we are living in an anti-modernist, neo-Romantic period where everything is centred around emotionalism and we are no longer generally convinced by reasoning or science, which seem to be widely understood as joy killers, the enemy of the human. Lived experience is seen as overriding institutional knowledge, with self-expression and personal freedom framed as moral imperatives.

I don’t see widespread objectification of the world as an emerging trend so much as a mystification of everything: a vanquishing of certainty, a privileging of subjective experience, an obsession with authenticity and a re-enchantment of nature, bordering on its worship. To me, this looks like a legacy of the 1960s counterculture that never really went away despite the best efforts of the 1980's.

The anti-modernist, neo-Romantic thing seems apt to me up here in Nimbin. :wink: I don't know what's its like in the cities these days?I haven't lived right in a city for nearly thirty years. I visit Sydney about once a year, but the people I catch up with there are friends from Sydney Uni and artists?philosophical, creative and literary types.

I think the story is very different for the everyday person, that is the majority?they seem hypnotized by TV and social media, and preoccupied with paying their mortgages or rent, while being keen in their precious time off to do as much in the way of 'fun' leisure activities as possible. I don't see much re-enchantment of nature there. Certainly there is a privileging of the individual, of the over-riding importance of being entertained and having a good time as much as possible.

I don't think philosophical materialism is the problem?I think it is consumerism, the obsession with material "goods" and personal comfort that is really the problem. I don't think loss of meaning, in the sense of loss of the ability to be convinced by overarching narratives is the problem either?I think it likely that most people only ever gave lip-service to such religious institutions in the interest of conforming with their social milieu. Those interested in philosophy or spirituality are a rare breed?most people thing it is a load of crap, just a waste of time.

Quoting Janus

The anti-modernist, neo-Romantic thing seems apt to me up here in Nimbin

Fuckin' weed smoking hippie!

Pretty big in my city of five million as well. Of course, it’s mainly the middle classes and the literate blue-collar types who get on board, like any widespread movement. I recently had a plumber lecture me about how science is the cause of most problems and that we need more people like America’s visionary RFK. I think the culture war we often talk about also unfolds as a battle between the seen and the longed for. Or something like that.

Quoting Janus

I don't think philosophical materialism is the problem?I think it is consumerism, the obsession with material "goods" and personal comfort that is really the problem. I don't think loss of meaning, in the sense of loss of the ability to be convinced by overarching narratives is the problem either?I think it likely that most people only ever gave lip-service to such religious institutions in the interest of conforming with their social milieu.

Yes, I think we’ve agreed on this too. I wonder if the fear stirred by issues like climate change, AI, and technological change has helped spark a fresh retreat into comforting stories as a way of avoiding a perceived reality.

Reply to Tom Storm
Quoting Tom Storm

I recently had a plumber lecture me about how science is the cause of most problems and that we need more people like America’s visionary RFK. I think the culture war we often talk about also unfolds as a battle between the seen and the longed for. Or something like that

It gets a bit tricky to sort out where anti-vacc-ers and other rejecters of scientific consensus are coming from. Much of the rejection of covid recommendations coming from the CDC and Fauci in the U.S. emanated from the same groups who reject climate change models. I wouldn’t characterize this group as anti-science. On the contrary, they are science idealists. They would tell you that they very much believe in science as a method. But they have a traditional, romanticized view of how science method works, and the actual ambiguities and complexities of scientific practice don’t fit their idealized view of it. Their worshipful, dogmatic view of science is about as non-relativized as can be.

At the opposite end of the political spectrum are new age and postmodernist types who are suspicious or dismissive of the limits of Western medicine. Unlike the traditionalists, they directly question the authority of scientific methodology. By contrast, traditionalists accuse the scientific establishment of choosing political ideology over ‘scientific truth’ as the traditionalists idealize it. Traditionalists believe in a pure separation between scientific truth and politics, whereas postmodern types believe all science is inherently political.

I think the postmodernists have a point about needing to question the authoritative approach to doing science. And I don’t find that postmodernists deny the benefits of scientific medicine. They are not arguing that western medical advances and climate change research are untrue or not useful. Their issues are more subtle than this.

To sum up, traditionalists embrace an older, idealized conception of science which causes them to treat climate change and covid recommendations as simply bad or corrupt science. New age hippie types embrace non-Western alternatives to scientific medicine which integrate body , mind and cosmos holistically. At times this leads them to dangerously reject the Western component rather than finding a way to accommodate it to their alternative practices. Postmodern types dont advocate for an alternative to science. They accept it for what it is , useful in a sense. They simply want to point out that it is intrinsically political. I think hippie-types have a point about the need to integrate body and mind perspectives, but without simply rejecting Western approaches. And I think postmodernists have a point about needing prominent body and mind with the socio-cultural dynamics within which science functions.

Quoting Joshs

It gets a bit tricky to sort out where anti-vacc-ers and other rejecters of scientific consensus are coming from. Much of the rejection of covid recommendations coming from the CDC and Fauci in the U.S. emanated from the same groups who reject climate change models. I wouldn’t characterize this group as anti-science. On the contrary, they are science idealists. They would tell you that they very much believe in science as a method. But they have a traditional, romanticized view of how science method works, and the actual ambiguities and complexities of scientific practice don’t fit their idealized view of it. Their worshipful, dogmatic view of science is about as non-relativized as can be.

Interesting. This analysis surprises me. I hadn't thought about science-idealists who reject models when they are uncertain. It does make sense.

Quoting Tom Storm

I don’t see widespread objectification of the world as an emerging trend so much as a mystification of everything

That’s true to a degree, but look at how people really behave. Everyone’s forced into jobs, more or less. And today’s jobs are mostly total crap. Cogs in a machine. Ironically, I think looking at material reality exposes just how materialistic we are.

Reply to Mikie I’m not sure that’s my experience but maybe Australia is somewhat kinder. There are certainly neoliberal trends along those lines but also opportunities not to participate. But maybe I’m experiencing a wave of optimism.

Reply to Tom Storm

What’s the wealth distribution like in Australia? It’s likely better than the US, but I would expect about 70-80% of people there living fairly precarious lives too. I haven’t done a carful analysis of the economy of down under though.

The point I’m making goes beyond economics, of course— it’s a (mostly tacit) philosophy of life, of how we see ourselves and what we value. We’re living the answers to those questions.

Quoting Mikie

I haven’t done a carful analysis of the economy of down under though.

Nor me. But what we do have is free medical and hospital treatment and a guaranteed welfare payments and pensions. I work in the area of addiction and mental health so I’ve seen my fair share of disadvantage.

Quoting Joshs

That’s a good point. The here and now of conscious awareness is the absolute starting point for Husserlian phenomenology. Heidegger and Derrida as well accept the absolute primacy of the experienced now. Their deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence aims to show that within the now itself there is a bifurcation or hinge even more intimate than pure presence. So they dont look outside of the now to what is beyond our immediate awareness, but within this assumed immediacy.

Good!

I think of the things outside of our immediate awareness as scaffolding necessary to hold our attention to what's within our means to perceive the world.

Quoting L'éléphant

I think of the things outside of our immediate awareness as scaffolding necessary to hold our attention to what's within our means to perceive the world.

Like in dreams, we know there is a world beyond the immediate. Consciousness seems like a flashlight in a dark room. We move the flashlight around and come to know what was already there.

Quoting frank

Like in dreams, we know there is a world beyond the immediate. Consciousness seems like a flashlight in a dark room. We move the flashlight around and come to know what was already there.

This is a good example of the metaphysics of presence, where awareness is treated as our discovery of what was already there. A flashlight model assumes that the relation to the world is something added to a prior existing subject. But Heidegger rejects the idea that there is a self-contained subject who merely “lights up” pre-existing objects that are already there in themselves.

The world is not something present-at-hand which we merely observe; it is that within which Dasein already finds itself.(Being and Time)

Heidegger considers the encounter with objects in the world in an act of attention to be a creative process altering self and world in the same gesture.

"The essence of something is not at all to be discovered simply like a fact; on the contrary, it must be brought forth. To bring forth is a kind of making, and so there resides in all grasping and positing of the essence something creative…. To bring forth means to bring out into the light, to bring something in sight which was up to then not seen at all , and specifically such that the seeing of it is not simply a gaping at something already lying there but a seeing which, in seeing, first brings forth what is to be seen, i.e., a productive seeing. "

Beings (essences) are produced by Dasein in the act of taking something as something because the ground ( the totality of relevance) of their being is created anew in our encounter with them.

“Every “foundation” in the sense we discussed comes too late with regard to the positing of the essence, because the productive seeing of the essence is itself a productive seeing of that in which the essence has its ground—a productive seeing of what its ground is. Knowledge of the essence is in itself a ground-laying. It is the positing of what lies under as ground... It is not the subsequent adding of a ground for something already represented.“

Quoting Joshs

But Heidegger rejects the idea that there is a self-contained subject who merely “lights up” pre-existing objects that are already there in themselves.

And yet his theory of truth emphasized revelation, uncovering. My theory of truth is that we see ourselves as in communication with the world. The division between a psyche and its world is the capacity to be mistaken, to read the world incorrectly.

Sure, in some mystical silence, the psyche and its world are one, but there's nothing to say about that. Life as we know it is in the realm of partial truths.

Quoting frank

Life as we know it is in the realm of partial truths.

Is that yours? I like it. The interesting thing is that we don’t agree on those partials. Maybe if you put everyone's partials together, you get the whole truth? Sorry, dumb quip.

Quoting Tom Storm

Maybe if you put everyone's partials together, you get the whole truth?

I think so. That's kind of the theme of War and Peace. Every story is made of directly opposing truths.

Quoting frank

But Heidegger rejects the idea that there is a self-contained subject who merely “lights up” pre-existing objects that are already there in themselves.
— Joshs

And yet his theory of truth emphasized revelation, uncovering. My theory of truth is that we see ourselves as in communication with the world. The division between a psyche and its world is the capacity to be mistaken, to read the world incorrectly.

:up: :up:

Truth in Heidegger is aletheia, unconcealedness. This relates to absence, what’s overlooked. Another concept of what dasein is, is a “clearing,” like a clearing in a forest. Basic perception is key, viewed as an opening or blooming.

Contrast this with Descartes or Kant, or even (much earlier) Plato. The human being becomes a rational animal, a thinking substance, a subject. Truth becomes correspondence with an object— and endless epistemological debate follows about the object, the subject, etc.

Meanwhile, modern science develops out of natural philosophy— nature being a translation of the Latin natura, which itself is the translation of the Greek phusis, both of which have original connotations of birth and growth, but later (as in physics and nature) as aspects of the world in terms of substances, mechanics, and forces.

In my view, scientism, materialism, and generally nihilism has been the long term result, embodied especially in the techno-capitalist system we currently endure. It’s all based in this basic Western philosophy, which has evolved for a couple thousand years. As I said before, I think a good antidote is the perspective and practices of the East, as a kind of counterbalance. But they’re basically capitalists now too, largely. So it’s tricky.

Quoting frank

Consciousness seems like a flashlight in a dark room. We move the flashlight around and come to know what was already there.

So, you are a realist!
Good analogy.

Quoting L'éléphant

So, you are a realist!
Good analogy.

We have the same experience of moving a flashlight around in dreams. I've had a lot of dreams where the locals have these violent and horrifying customs. They do these things because that's the way it's always been done. So there's a whole history implied. It's real in the dream.

Reply to 180 Proof

Quoting frank

The division between a psyche and its world is the capacity to be mistaken, to read the world incorrectly.

For Heidegger, it’s not just invalidation which comes from the world, it’s also the perspective being invalidated.

Quoting Joshs

This is a good example of the metaphysics of presence, where awareness is treated as our discovery of what was already there.

The spotlight analogy can be read as local, attentional awareness of what was already there in global consciousness. Like when you are driving, you are implicitly aware of the road, other cars, trees, people or animals?basically the immediate, but fast changing road adjacent nevironment. Something might catch your attention and make you explicitly aware of what you were previously only implicitly aware. That's the flashlight or spotlight analogy for me?making the implicit explicit.