The Symmetrical House of Form (Part I)

Substantial Form and Existential Reflection

The most profound discovery of ancient Greek philosophers and by implication Western civilization is the discovery of form. Plato’s thought is a testament to this fundamental discovery that serves as the bridge between thought and man’s ability to understand essential aspects of human existence. Form (eidos) is the recognition of ultimate reality, whether through the cultivation of man’s sense of awe and wonder about transcendence and the sublime, or as a guide for man to embrace human reality as an intelligible structure.

Substantial form illuminates the human person in several ways. This condition is indispensable for man to address practical concerns. I suggest that existential concerns are ultimately practical. Human existence is framed by a reciprocal relationship between subjectivity and man’s ability to recognize the demands of objective reality. This relationship affords man the ability to gain self-understanding and knowledge of the cosmos; the latter as objective reality.

By and by, it is necessary to ask ourselves what the meaning and purpose of individual life are, if we are to live a contented life that must make crucial choices. Human reflection is a pragmatic engagement with reality, not an abstract luxury. The latter is dictated by life’s contingencies. Existential reflection depends on several factors. This essay concentrates on existential reflection as a fundamental form of human temperament that leads to a symmetrical view of reality.

The question of meaning in human life is in many instances man’s acknowledgement of transcendence, the sublimity of individual life, and our response to the structure of human reality. Because man finds himself in the world, society, and the cosmos without prior knowledge of the ultimate cause and reason of his existence, thought is often converted into existential reflection. The turn inward becomes the source and inspiration to develop a plan for life that takes into consideration the strain on subjectivity by objective reality. Though, it is important to point out that the latter relationship is not a philosophical problem for many people. Yet the conscious act of creating a life plan enables man to cultivate subjectivity. Consequently, man can embrace the world, as it were, armed with knowledge of the human person as an existential being endowed with the ability for self-rule, which originates in free will.

How should individuals appropriate the demands made on us as beings capable of reflection about our own existence? This is important because questions of meaning and purpose are not abstractions. A thoughtful approach to this question is a response to the demands made on us by life itself.

Transcendence, meaning and purpose are important to human existence as practical concerns, however ironic this may sound to positivists. By eschewing theory and abstraction man comes closer to understanding human life as human existence, as only existential beings can realize. This realization places man in a position to reap life-affirming answers from our existential concerns.

At this point a clarification is warranted. By practical concerns in the previous paragraph, I merely mean to convey the idea that reflection itself, as is the case with contemplation, is a practical human activity. The word practical does not only mean practical thinking that addresses everyday mundane concerns – though this is desirable – e.g., doing menial things that require mental dexterity and a logical approach in order to accomplish these tasks. Neither is practical to suggest pragmatism or praxis in the Marxist sense of the word.

Existential inquietude and longing enable man to live in a manner that surpasses the limitations of physiology and biology. The fundamental motivation of this essay is the union of existential reflection with the nature of form (essence) that informs human existence. In affixing existential reflection to essence, we realize that, while remaining objective, essence must be embraced by man in a manner that augments the particulars, e.g., experiences of individual persons.

It is the nature of life as existence – not biology – that creates the possibility for reflection in existential beings. The latter is not afforded to animals and other forms of nature. Existential reflection discovers rules of engagement with reality-proper that must be respected and honored, if existential agents who act on their free will, are to cultivate self-rule.

Form and Reality-Proper 

Reality-proper, which can be defined as the objective conditions and contingencies that inform the existence of the human person, appear in human life in two ways. One of these is the basic structure of physical laws that human beings, whether explicitly or through a willful act of resignation, must ascertain and internalize. Any assessment of human reality-proper must recognize that even when man cannot grasp the entirety of the phenomenal world, he can still come to terms with its basic tenants. This takes place through reason, but perhaps most importantly, through a form of intuition that is tied to the will. In tandem, both of these existential tools are indispensable in allowing man to make sense of his surroundings, including his own existential make-up. Granted, man often embraces reality grudgingly, as a last resort. This is because human experience is fluid and does not depend on our acceptance for its truth-value.

The other condition of reality-proper that is an essential aide to human life is the intuitive, perspicacious mechanism that people who possess this ability can cultivate. Man can only embrace reality-proper through a mutual agreement. Man’s existential inquietude and/or longing finds itself in need of firm grounding in reality. How human existence eventually comes to accept grounding in reality is perhaps not as wide-open a question, that is, open to interpretation as some people believe – especially relativists.

If interpretation becomes the rule and not the exception, reality-proper appears as a mere illusory suggestion and moving-target of human desire. The latter view delivers man to a form of skepticism that destroys the grounding in reality-proper that existential longing seeks. Moreover, if skepticism as a way of life becomes man’s dominant belief-system, as appears to be the case in postmodernism, existential longing becomes a casualty of stale and damaging positivism.

Even when existential longing appears to be a dead-end in regard to ultimate questions, this does not mean that existential longing itself disappears. Instead, it becomes suppressed by a limited view of human reality – not reality proper. This is the dominant view espoused by postmodernism, whether explicitly or through postmodernism’s web of contradictions. The latter view leaves man exhausted, through the crippling effect of having to be the measure of all things; man gyrating in a pointless existential vacuum that is dominated by self-consuming subjectivism that can never be quenched.

Existence and Interiority

Interiority is the natural and necessary existential condition for the human person to attain a lived intimacy with individual subjectivity. Subjectivity enables man to ascertain the phenomenal forms that human existence encounters as lived experience. In turn, coherence of the lived experience allows man to ascertain archetypal form. The archetypal nature of form is objective. Hence, the molding capacity that form has over human existence can be appropriated through the embrace of subjectivity. However, subjectivity must not be confused with subjectivism, which in postmodernity is equivalent to relativism.

Interiority, or the reflective turn inward of the human person vis-à-vis cosmic reality, is conspicuous of man’s other-than-nature existence. Human existence is characterized as being other-than-nature through man’s ability to address and embrace metaphysical – what are ultimately existential concerns – none of which are replicated in the animal world.

Interiority is the predominant vehicle that affords thinkers the practical aspiration of making sense of human reality. We can think of interiority as the subjectively eponymous naming of a form of activity that defines man.

While interiority may appear translucent, at least to outside observers, it remains the seat of identity of the human person. Forms of life that lack interiority in the terms that we are describing fail to meet at least one of the staples of personhood. One of these conditions is man’s ability to live in the physical world in a manner that embraces the possibility for self-rule, knowledge, and existentially-driven understanding of human reality.

The seat of morality is grounded in man’s capacity for self-reflection that extrapolates the cultivation of interiority in oneself with that of other people. Understanding the interiority of the Other, as a human person, necessitates good will that leads to communication. In some cases, communication even leads to the ultimate form of good will, love. I will return to this topic in part III of this essay, “Symmetry and Happiness.”

Interiority is addressed through both, reason and experience. Even when some people negate its existence and sphere of influence over human life, interiority cannot be evaded given that it filters reality through the human person. Though some people may address the reality of interiority as an epiphenomenon of consciousness, they cannot separate that claim from the subjectivity (interiority) that makes that reductionist claim possible. This is one reason why through existential longing that seeks form, man can be spectator of cosmic reality as objective, including the reality of the human person, and still be capable of ascertaining the essence of form.

Interiority, the Natural Attitude, and Existential Reflection

In metaphysics, the age-old question that asks how people view the world and human reality is a staple concern of human beings. The question has to do with the inner workings of the human person in relation to consciousness and man’s ability for self-reflection. This is a simple recipe for auto-gnosis. Man’s capacity for natural reflection, an ability that manifests itself in a primal and pre-intellectualized manner, is a strong stimulus for thoughtful people to suspect the hierarchy of essences that inform human reality.

Man’s primal attitude toward the world and human reality signal desire to make sense of reality, as this manifests itself in man’s daily dealings with the world, including other people. This is not a modern predicament, rather a perennial staple of human life, for the natural attitude is pre-reflective and pre-intellectual. At a basic level, the natural attitude is like a bird learning to fly or a new-born calf seeking its mother’s milk. In other words, the natural attitude is man’s response to being in the world, which necessitates thoughtful engagement with reality, if for nothing else but survival. Of course, this does not immediately transfer into greater engagement with self-reflection. It merely serves as a beginning – a propaedeutic for self-reflection – if the latter is to occur at all.

From this primal capacity for practical reflection man can build understanding of human reality. The natural attitude puts man in contact with the structure of human reality, which enables man to recognize patterns of reality that are not of our doing. The natural attitude is beckoned to reflect about the structure of reality outside of its own sphere of influence. Otherwise, man would never venture out of the mental constructs that it fashions at will.

Symmetry and Form

The greatest discoveries of human beings appear to be on face value inventions that enable us to prosper in the world. The demands made on human beings by physical circumstances cannot be ignored without paying the ultimate penalty: death. Invention, whether the creation of the wheel, cultivation of fire, agriculture and writing are brought about by a type of being that can achieve mastery over nature because it uncovers basic rational and logical rules of engagement with physical reality.

I will return to invention and technology in part II of this essay, “The Economics of Being: Man’s Struggle for Survival in Pre-History.” Invention is a form of life for man, homo faber (man the maker), who can take charge of its circumstances through intuition (instinct) and perspicuity – both qualities that display an essential aspect of human existence. As a maker of tools, man addresses himself to the cosmos in a manner that spells a modicum of control over the other-than-itself.

In metaphysical terms, an existential and existence-driven engagement with human reality acts as the foundation of man’s nature. For philosophical anthropology to offer incisive, real-world answers to life’s dilemmas, man’s nature must be understood in metaphysical/existential terms. This approach safeguards man from embracing baseless abstraction and theorizing. At the core of man’s primal natural attitude, first toward himself and later toward the world-at-large, man is driven by instinct, which is the longing to survive; control over physical circumstances is a secondary effect of survival.

The metaphysical underpinning of human reality puts man at odds with mere biological reality. Whether man is initially conscious of this is not of consequence; the metaphysical natural attitude cannot be denied. The understanding that man has of the cosmos, often shrouded in mystery, is not addressed head on in the natural attitude. This is partly the case because introspection is not necessary for survival. Also, because in the natural attitude, man confronts reality in particular terms – things in isolation from each other. Introspection, if and when it is cultivated, serves to unify human experience, which in turn leads to a symmetrical view of human reality.

Heidegger’s work conceives the question of being as the ultimate concern that modern man has glanced over. Too readily, he suggests. Therefore, he proposed a return to being that was especially congenial to the thought of the pre-Socratics. This is a noble attempt. However, late in life Heidegger reached the realization that being qua being, much like Aristotle’s work proposes, cannot be fully grasped head on.1 Instead, being can best be addressed in a manner that concentrates on its periphery. This conclusion is poignant and takes into account man’s additional tools for living besides the intellect.

Symmetry and Lived-Existence

The appropriate way to address self-reflection today, circa 2020, is not through academic hairsplitting, which has become a cottage industry that does not reflect the spirit of genuine philosophical reflection about the human condition. Academic hairsplitting is a symptom of a broader postmodern existential malaise.2

An approach to the question, not of being, but of form in relation to existential reflection that is recognized by individual persons, is a timely and valuable enterprise. This form of reflection is especially important as philosophical reflection looks to man’s future, as a being capable of self-rule and free will. The latter must serve as the vanguard of liberty in man’s perpetual promethean effort to roll back the tide of man’s totalitarian impulse.

One way to safeguard philosophical reflection from both, relativism on the public opinion front and scholasticism on the academic, so-called professional philosophy end – two poles that are not mutually exclusive – is through concrete existential reflection. This process necessitates that philosophers of existence pay allegiance to first-person reflection; leave the scientific and analytic pretensions of academic philosophy to so-called professional philosophers.

Authentic existential reflection is propped up through recognition of the hierarchy of essences, which in the natural attitude, thoughtful individuals recognize as a guidepost for living. This cannot be achieved by subjectivism, for subjectivism exercises stubborn opposition to the hierarchy of essences. As a dogged luxury, subjectivism cannot safeguard man from the physical demands that nature makes on human beings. Thus, subjectivism is often displayed as a tantrum that people in post-industrial societies indulge in without measuring the price of self-indulgent obstinance.

Concrete existential reflection affords man valuable answers to life’s perplexities. This is the purpose and value of reflection in the first place. Existential reflection must make difficult choices that curb the lazy biases of an undisciplined will. Existential reflection cannot safeguard subjectivism from the trap it sets for itself: the embrace of answers that beg the question. Existential reflection requires intellectual honesty.

Genuine existential reflection sets up stringent standards for itself. Existential reflection that seeks to know its place in the hierarchy of essences begins by recognizing the subjectivity of the human person. Subjectivism can never achieve this end.

Subjectivity is the purview of self-reflection per se. Existential reflection cannot answer its own concerns in advance; reflection springs from intuition that respects the integrity of life as lived-experience. This is one definition of thinking-proper that academic philosophers do not suspect, whether through lack of philosophical temperament or because they settle for the safety of academic scholarship.

Existential reflection discovers itself as subjectivity enmeshed in an objective cosmos. One way to think of objectivity in relation to the human person is as reality that offers resistance to subjectivity. The self is a singular, particular reality that has the ability to come to terms with essences that inform experience as lived-reality. The task for the philosophy of existence is to begin with subjectivity of the human person.

While it is natural for thinkers to reflect on the nature of man, this operation does not illuminate understanding of the nature of differentiated subjects: the human person. This is because existential reflection is rooted in concrete experience, while theoretical and abstract thought concerns itself with logical constructs.

Hence, perennial philosophy embraces reflection on the self as the object of self-reflection. The task for philosophical reflection in the future, especially after the mistakes made by post Enlightenment thinkers, is to convert the scope of philosophical thought into existential reflection. Philosophical questions that do not take into account concrete persons should be relegated to scholarship.

Existential reflection remains Platonic in scope because, while identifying itself as a differentiated subject, man must recognize the hierarchy of essences, as this informs human experience. Even the most fervent relativists and subjectivists must pay allegiance to objective and physical structures that make up reality. Refusal to recognize the subject-agency that distinguishes existential reflection from physical reality is intractable and illogical.

Concrete existence, not biology, discovers essential-form that informs life as lived-experience. The difference between human existence and biology is important because positivism in its many varieties has the effect of destroying man’s capacity for self-reflection. It does this by pushing man out of himself, as it were, through de-humanization that places the onus of human existence on physical and biological structures. Physicalism is reductionism that blocks existential reflection.

Existential reflection enlightens itself through the discovery of form in human existence. This discovery – form that apprises human existence – serves as an existential system of checks and balances, and oversight of human experience that grounds the life of the human person. Life as human existence is life as interiority. The latter is the most appropriate form of human authenticity, vis-à-vis physical reality.

The role of essence in human reality culminates in lived existence as symmetry, for symmetry uncovers the ordering structure of human reality. For this reason, symmetry is the appropriation of the ground of human existence that enables man to cultivate moral and spiritual values. Symmetry assuages the demands of physical reality by appropriating human existence in light of existential subjectivity.

Notes

1. Martin Heidegger, Identity and Difference. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1969).

2. Karl Jaspers, Philosophy and the World: Selected Essays. (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1989), 14.

Also see “The Symmetrical House of Form: The Economics of Being and The Struggle for Existence in Prehistory; “The Symmetrical House of Form: Happiness and Joy“; and “The Symmetrical House of Form: Aesthetics of the Lived-Experience.”

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