Existential Symmetry, Enlightened Personalism

Each self is a unique existence, which is perfectly impervious…to other selves – impervious in a fashion of which the impenetrability of matter is a faint analogue. ~ Arthur Seth Pringle-Pattison, Hegelianism and Personality

Beyond Mere Perception and Sensation

Form

Form imparts itself into everything humans do, everything we see and touch, in effect, all aspects of rudimentary life. Form is the bridge that links man’s contact with objective reality to mind. Form alerts man to the objective nature of human reality. Because form enables us to become acquainted with sensual objects, the natural world, and other people, it acts as the harbinger of man’s incarnate self: subjectivity. While form puts man in touch with objective reality, it does so through thoughtful agency that cannot be understood otherwise than as subjectivity.

The discovery of form by the pre-Socratic philosophers, Pythagoras and Parmenides, and Plato’s explicit explanation of its relation to the sensual world, leads to our conceptualization of beauty and its deformation in the sensual realm. The conceptualization of beauty is one of the key and unifying forms that man utilizes to orient itself, as a subject, in reference to the structure of human reality. Man’s sense of beauty is spearheaded by an intuitive sensibility that enables us to uncover the import of form in human existence. Yet, this discovery, through conceptualization, is a consequence of the intuitive sensibility that uncovers form, not its cause.

Taking into account the vast array and intricacies of man’s sensual experiences, which demand that man organize the lived-experience in a hierarchical order of existential priority, form is often apprehended by man in its vaguest rendition – sensual qualities: shape, texture and color. This is the result of mere perception that humans share with higher animals. The sensual aspects of form can be thought of as the look of things that man and animals identify to live from day to day – for survival. This is form considered as crude aesthetics, for sensual experience is the ground of man’s connection to the external world that engulfs the self. Perception of the look of things fails to engage the imagination, when perception glosses over the vast implications of form to the self, which locates itself in objective reality. The self is indicative of human existence on existential terms. About the self, I will have more to say later.

The sensual qualities of form, aesthetically speaking, are secondary qualities  that suspend the form (morphos) of physical objects in high relief against the background of other objects. We must keep in mind that the plurality of objects that exist in the world ‘compete’ with each other for attention from consciousness. This is the case because man must make choices, separating the objects and lived experiences that consciousness addresses, from each other. This means that consciousness is never devoid of physical objects that it addresses (intends). This pre-reflective mental operation takes place implicitly and unsuspectingly, taking its cue from bare perception. This is even the case unsuspectingly with consciousness in animals. While animals do not make explicit choices, in the same manner that humans utilize free will, they are attracted or repelled by the color, patterns of plumage, markings, odor, fauna, the geometry of the terrain, etc. Perception in animal life is the signpost that safeguards them from danger; it is their engine for survival. Perception that leads to concerted observation is a central component of human survival. Consequently, sensual experience coerces man to identify form, depending on the demands that the lived experience necessitate.

The sense of beauty that calls attention to form in the sensual realm is an aesthetic sensibility that beckons form to reveal itself on a conceptual level that surpasses mere perception, much as Parmenides refers to truth (alētheia) as revealing/unrevealing. Form, beauty, and the de-formation of objects work in tandem through the interaction and strain of opinion and truth.

Navigating through the world of things, objects, colors and shapes requires that man identify, generalize and order sensual objects and the lived experience. Equally important is the need for mind to separate singular sensual objects and experiences from others – regardless of degree or kind. This is necessitated by man’s need to make choices. As far as survival and well-being are concerned, man’s primordial approach to sensible objects, through perception, keeps man grounded in objective reality. This is the entry level of a homespun form of realism that takes into account man’s surroundings, and our relation to space and time that man shares with animals. For example, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are attracted to orange and red flowers because most of the nectar-bearing flowers they feed on are these colors.

Form and Ontological Independence

One of the first things that come to mind when we think of form is an intuitive beckoning that corrals form in sensual experience, as it were, by issuing it ontological independence. In other words, form is what distinguishes objects from each other. At the sensual level, perception locates objects in space and time. This process pays respect to differentiation through practical necessity. However, perception is only one half of the equation, as far as thought is concerned. Does differentiation also apply to the qualitative differences that man encounters in diverse lived experiences through psychical ideation?

Differentiation is a staple of the quantitative reality of the cosmos, world and human reality that man recognizes through perception. Differentiation enables man to maneuver through sensual reality. Even at the level of perception, man must choose, that is, discriminate between objects that are better suited for any given task at hand. This involves the recognition of the existence of dissimilar objects that display heterogeneity.

The ontological independence of sensual objects, Plato is correct in his assessment, is made manifest as the result of conceptual analysis. This is what is meant by thought proper. In Plato’s thought ontological independence of form from its sensual counterparts takes place through the recognition of higher forms, especially in lieu of the form of non-physical essences, such as geometrical and conceptual form. Higher forms do not require that man possess an image of sensual objects before conceiving the nature, that is, the essence of form psychically, without the aid of sensual objects. This seems counterintuitive.

The Greek word eidos conveys more than aesthetics. In aesthetics, form is the driving image of objects of art, painting, sculpture, and architecture. On a conceptual level, the import of form is reserved for the image that the mind makes of the nature and essence of things. This is why it is necessary for mind to organize quantitative reality through a process that recognizes ontological difference. What are the fundamental forms that prop up the structure of objective reality that reason aims to uncover and organize? What are the essential properties, ontologically speaking, of human reality that require concentrated and sustained effort on behalf of man to uncover?

Form, Reason and the Self

Reason is only one of the tools that man has at his disposition to uncover the logos of human reality. I will argue that reason, when conceived as full-blown rationalism, as is the case after the Enlightenment, limits itself when its fundamental questions lack in existential depth and vigor. Instead, I propose a form of reason that recognizes its own limitation – this is one of the discoveries reason makes about itself that enable reason to expand into other complimentary cognitive processes – such as intuition and the attainment of tacit knowledge, which are animated through rudimentary observation of the sensual world.

A principal component of the discovery of form is the necessary realization of the self that acts as the ground of subjectivity. The I of consciousness that we readily refer to self-referentially points to the singular differentiation of man that the reflective self comes to know as personhood. To augment the scope of reason man must employ some of the attendant values of reason, i.e. intuition, sensibility for transcendence and the sublime, and tacit knowledge, which enable man to discover form through reflection on the existential nature of the self. These psychical processes I refer to as existential symmetry. 

Existential Symmetry: Form of the Self (Subjectivity)

Postmodernity has ushered debilitating confusion concerning the difference between subjectivity and subjectivism. Perception that does not attain to the level of conceptual analysis does not surpass form – as the look of things. What practical perception does convey is nothing more than vague and confused notions, not even ideas about human reality. Often, these vague notions, which are nothing more than ‘colorful’ impressions, become accepted and established as the order of things. This is subjectivism, not subjectivity. Subjectivism leads to the de-formation of human reality.

Rudimentary perception is the sphere of opinion (doxa) that Parmenides argues informs the lowest levels of understanding that perception provides man. This confusion, which springs from a lazy inability to confront reality on its own terms, naturally leads to relativism: the belief that the structure of human reality, if this is even attainable, relativists allege, relies solely on personal interpretation. Relativism lies at the core of subjectivism.

Postmodernity has degraded reason and truth by aggressively positing that the essences, objective scaffolding that holds up human reality, is a human fabrication. Today, postmodern ‘theorists’ call man’s existential inquietude concerning the essence (nature) of human reality, relative ‘constructs.’ A dire consequence of this is that relativism leads to hollow and platitudinous subjectivism, which in recent times, has morphed into corrosive forms of irrationality, banality, radical ideology, and narcissism that have corroded all aspects of human life in postmodernity.

Consequently, postmodernity has subsumed the self’s capacity to reflect on the essence of genuine subjectivity with empty subjectivism. These two words have not as much been confused with each other, as is the case that subjectivity, as the ground of the human person, has been vanquished from the human psyche in postmodernity. In its place, hollow, unreflective, and irrational subjectivism has filled the void of authentic subjectivity that is capable of self-reflection. For this reason, form has come to be equated with the mere look of things: low-grade perception as a cognitive act that cannot surpass the vagaries of the sensual realm. The covering up of the self with the vaguest semblance of sensual form is the legacy of postmodernity’s abrasive nihilism.

Personhood and Subjectivity

Instead of self-consuming subjectivism, which covers up and stifles subjectivity, man’s capacity for self-reflection uncovers the unique and intricate characteristics of personhood. Personhood is grounded in the subjectivity and interiority that the self brings to light. A paradox of subjectivity is that the most direct road that delivers man to the discovery of the self also links man to objective reality. Observation of the objective structure of human reality enables man to respect, organize and appropriate contingencies that make demands on man. This resistance sets up the most authentic conditions that lead to the possibility of self-reflection. If necessity is said to be the mother of invention, objective reality necessitates that the self acknowledge reality in order to attain certainty – psychical stability, at worst. This is the initial and most elementary discovery that the self makes. While this cognitive operation may appear to be a mutual appreciation of the subject-object pole of human reality, it is ideation that, in the process of paying tribute, if not respect, to objective reality, finds itself situated amid sensual reality.

In its pre-reflective mode, subjectivity does not seek itself. In youth, the self is akin to a camera eye that collects and organizes perceptions. Depending on the subject’s capacity to appropriate the implications of perception to human agency (free will), on an existential level, perception either gives birth to thought proper (conceptualization) or it is stunted. Subjectivity must be confronted by objective reality, if it is to release itself from the background of objective reality that we regard as nature – our surroundings. This confrontation triggers self-reflection that eventually learns to separate and order the hierarchical structure of form in sensual reality.

Thus, existential symmetry discovers the tension that objective reality places on subjectivity. Another way of saying this is that objective reality, while remaining objective in itself, as the constants of nature, becomes the object of thought of thoughtful subjects. The other pole of this equation is that subjectivity discovers its uniqueness and role in the greater scheme of reality, what was not long ago referred to as the ‘big picture’ in philosophy, through interaction with objective reality. While this interaction takes place in early life, it does not come to fruition as conceptualization unless perception is eventually converted to mature conceptual understanding.

Because the discovery of subjectivity pays tribute to the self that uncovers the hierarchy of form, this existential act is the uncovering of personhood: the self as the form that unifies other forms that man comes in contact with. This is an existential creative act. This is the fundamental discovery of existential symmetry. The conjunction of objective reality with subjectivity implies a symmetrical foundation of the self with the sensual objects of perception. This suggests that man’s psychical engagement with objective reality requires a patent level of observation, and awe and wonder, that demands active agency. It is owing to this psychical engagement that objective reality beckons man to uncover its inner secrets.

Existential symmetry brings to light the subjectivity of personhood through existential reflection. Thus, the existential moniker. By existential, we must understand that existential self-reflection cannot be supplied to a subject from the outside. Instead, authentic existential agency respects the tension and strain that authenticity demands of concrete, differentiated persons. The essence of existential self-reflection cannot be passed down to individuals through any process or condition that originates outside the self.

The Union of Higher Forms with Personhood

Platonic higher forms address personhood directly and indirectly, patently, and latently. While the potential conversion of perception into conceptual understanding does not necessarily culminate in self-reflection, it is nonetheless a precondition required for the cultivation of self-understanding. That is, self-reflection is several cognitive levels removed, like a sculpture in high relief, from the background of human life: nature.

For detractors of existential self-reflection, and philosophy in general, the question often comes up: Are the discoveries made by existential self-reflection ultimately personal or universal? Consider that all discoveries of human existence necessarily come down to human agency. For instance, science is an activity undertaken by individual persons. While it remains true that the method of science, when it is intellectually honest, remains objectively rooted in logic and experimentation, the decision to undertake this or that experiment begins with a choice that necessitates free will. How does this relate to existential self-reflection? This is a metaphysical question that meta-science must address.

Undoubtedly, self-reflection is essential for our survival. This means that rudimentary thought is a practical matter. If we respect the premise that man self-reflects because this pays dividends on pragmatic terms, we will realize that no excess or superfluous theorizing is necessary to safeguard man’s existential condition. The Greek word theoria does not mean postmodern ‘theory.’ Instead, it depicts contemplation and meditation on the objects of thought. Existential reflection on the concrete subject that is doing the reflection is a psychical act that converts the self into the object of its own reflection. This is a secondary act that liberates man from mere perception. What truth does this yield for individuals and man as a species? One clue to the answer to this question brings us back to the question of nihilism, especially the form of postmodern nihilism that culminates in subjectivism’s abrasive narcissism. Narcissism as a form of nihilism reminds us of why it is important to respect objective reality and eschew subjectivism.

The recognition that there exist an objective structure of reality and other people besides ourselves is a starting place for self-reflection. Nihilism, whether through relativism or naïve philosophical materialism, annihilates man’s capacity for self-reflection, and consequently, self-understanding. What is it that nihilists, relativists, positivists, and narcissists lack? If we answer self-knowledge, this exposes them to the charge that they know little or nothing about objective reality, given their negation of objective reality.

Hence, we arrive at the realization that higher forms, whether mathematical, the constants of nature, the structure of human reality, and especially the essences that inform every aspect of human existence, are brought to light by subjectivity; interiority is the hallmark of existential self-reflection. The union of higher forms with existential self-reflection yields knowledge of the structure of human reality that is neither theoretical nor feigned – in addition to refuting ideological affectation. Existential self-reflection locates the higher forms (essences) in the metaphysical-existential realm, which distinguishes these forms from the crude forms that lazy perception regards as the mere look of things.

The sensual being of flesh and bones that we recognize as the human person locates itself in a sensual, carnal realm, as is the case with becoming in Plato’s allegory of the Divided Line. Existential self-reflection enables personhood to know that it participates (méthexis) in the hierarchy of Being. This is what transcendence conveys. While man can overachieve regarding seeking the nature of infinity, we recognize that even limited knowledge, besides keeping us humble and intellectually honest, reminds us that we are beings capable of ascertaining the essences that inform human reality, and which shape our lived experience.

Existential symmetry establishes the self as the ground of the human person. Subjectivity recognizes personhood as an incarnate, existential condition that links man to objective reality. The modus operandi of personhood is existential symmetry. This makes man the intermediary between the beasts, sensual world, and God. With this realization comes the responsibility of human agency that we experience as free will, which can lead to existential authenticity.

Existential symmetry is the lived experience as an existential creative act that locates man in the entrails of nature, that is, objective human reality. This creative act enables man to attain a moral/spiritual level of authenticity that sensual reality consistently erodes by tempting man to believe that psychical processes are an illusion – while matter reigns supreme over man.

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