Well burrowed, old mole!

Preliminaries

*Critique requires close attention to the distribution of the empirical/transcendental-de facto/de jure–fact/principle–accident/essence in theoretical systems.

*Dogmatic/Moral/Orthodox image of thought exists as a set of postulates–propositional themes which remain implicit and are understood pre-philosophically

*A Philosophy without presuppositions (‘thought without image’) is the philosophy which undertakes a radical critique of the postulates/the image of thought as non-philosophical. Image is non-philosophical because philosophy is supposed to break with the doxa. 

*”The form of recognition has never sanctioned anything but the recognizable and the recognized; form will never inspire anything but conformities”

*This is an idealization of orthodoxy–instead of a break with the doxa this is a rationalization that universalizes them–a break with the doxic content but retention of the form.

*We will “remain slaves so long as we do not control the problems themselves, so long as we do not possess a right to the problems, to a participation in and management of the problems”

Where philosophy begins–problem of presupposition, problem of beginning

Philosophy≠Science–science has only objective presuppositions eliminable with axiomatic rigor; philosophy has objective and subjective presuppositions.

Philosophical Trick–reject objective presuppositions on condition of assuming subjective ones

Eudoxus vs. Epistemon–Simpleton and pedant, both have presuppositions, Philosophy sides with Eudoxus and his subjective presuppositions. But philosophy ignores…

Underground Man/Untimely/Idiot–person who does not share the implicit presupposition–the only one without prejudices.

(1) The postulate of the principle, or the Cogitatio natura universalis (good will of the thinker and good nature of thought);

Philosopher’s Presuppositions–Philosophy implicity presupposes the meaning of three terms: Self, Thought, and Being, which amount to presupposing the form of representation or recognition in general.

“Everybody knows what it is to ______ before any concepts”

(2) The postulate of the ideal, or common sense (common sense as the concordia facultatum and good sense as the distribution which guarantees this concord);

(3) The postulate of the model, or of recognition (recognition inviting all the faculties to exercise themselves upon an object supposedly the same, and the consequent possibility of error in the distribution when one faculty confuses one of its objects with a different object of another faculty);

The Recognition Model

• convergence of faculties on same object
• thought is convergence

Cogito

• philosophization-conceptualization of common sense                                                     
• subjective principle of the collaboration of faculties                                                             
• unity of the subject grounds unity of the object

Common Sense

• Provides the form of the Same 
• Provides the norm of identity for the pure self and unspecified concept                                    

Good Sense

• Provides the norm of distribution for empirical selves and qualified objects
• Determines the contribution of the faculties

(4)The postulate of the element, or of representation (when difference is subordinated to the complementary dimensions of the Same and the Similar, the Analogous and the Opposed);

World of Representation/Recognition/Reproduction/

1. Identity-‘a conceived identity’ gives us the form of the Same for recognition                                    
2. Opposition–‘an imagined opposition’–comparison of possible predicates and their opposites in a series traversed by memory and imagination which collaborate to rediscover the same                                                                                                           
3. Analogy–‘a judged analogy’–distribution of: highest determinable concepts and relations between determinate concepts and their objects                                                    
4.  Resemblance–‘a perceived similitude’–perceptual continuity                                         

Four branches of the Cogito:  

• I conceive                                
• I remember       
• I imagine
• I judge    

On Representation and Kant an Intermezzo:

Double danger

1.Recognition ties philosophy to insignificant instances about thought                           

2.Recognition is always recognition of established values

Kant 

• transcendental illusion was a threat to Cogitatio Natura Universalis                                   
• illusion internal to reason ≠ error                                                                                          
• temporally fractured self ≠ substantial self                                                               
• Kant chose the implicit presupposition over consistency                                                         
•  multiplication of ‘common senses’ vs. overthrow                                                  
•  critique of use of the faculty not knowledge, morality, reflection, faith themselves

(5)The postulate of the negative, or of error (in which error expresses everything which can go wrong in thought, but only as the product of external mechanisms);

The Error Model ‘misrecognition’ is the only negative of thought                                              

• Error is the reverse image of orthodoxy, failed attempt at ‘truth’                                         
• The failure of ‘good sense’ within intact ‘common sense’                                                       
• Other negatives(madness, stupidity, malevolence)  are ‘mere facts’                                  
• contrived situations: simple questions with independent propositions for answers      
• Philosophers have tried to supplement this concept, but always within the image of thought:
• “repentences” “complications” of that model superstition, stultitia, illusions of reason, alienation, vulgarity & stupidity                   

The Stupidity Model–(bêtise) “Tyrant institutionalizes stupidity”                                               

•  Stupidity is the specifically human form of bestiality                                                               
• Cowardice baseness cruelty stupidity are transcendental structures of thought as such (not mere facts)                                                                                           
• Stupidity is the faculty for false problems:                                                                             
• Inability to constitute, comprehend, determine a problem                                                  
• Stupidity is a transcendental problem: How is stupidity possible?                                       
• Stupidity is possible due to the link between thought and individuation                          
• Individuation is before species before I/self                                                                          
• It involves fields of fluid intensive factors                                                                                    
• The indeterminate is the pure ground of individuation                                                         
• The stupidity-relation: individuation brings the ground to the surface but can’t give it form; determinations separated from living form                                                                   
• On this passive ground, everything is violence

(6) The postulate of logical function, or the proposition (designation is taken to be the locus of truth, sense being no more than the neutralized double or the infinite doubling of the proposition);

Nonsense vs. Error:  Nonsense, uninteresting unimportant banalities imagined to be profound, ordinary points taken to be extraordinary, badly posed problems, are far more common than errors in real life.  This fact needs to be thought philosophically–it is not a ‘mere fact’

Traditional picture:                                                                                                                     

• sense–condition of the true and the false ( where we assume condition>conditioned)                                    
• non-sense–neither true nor false                                                                                            
• expression–what a proposition says: idea                                                                                
• designation: what a proposition applies to: object–only designation  is T/F

New Picture:

• condition–must be condition of real experience not possible experience                         
• truth–production  within sense not adequation , genitality not innateness                    
• sense–proposition-designation is within sense                                                                              

What is Sense? How to deal with Sense?

• Sense points beyond itself towards object                                                                                      
•  Designation is limit of series of ideal connections that make up sense                              
•  The object is limit of sense series                                                                                                   
• Sense is the genesis/production of the true, truth is the empirical result of sense          
• Sense vs. signification–sense-Idea                                                                                
• signification–concepts and manner of relation to object conditioned by field of representation                        
•  as loquendum–empirically sense can’t be said, transcendentally it can                         
• Only nonsense expresses itself and sense                                                    
• 1st paradox of sense-proliferation of names                                                                     
• Extract the double of the proposition≠proposition, formulator, object                               
• The double is the complex theme of the proposition                                                                  
• Is it the infinitive/participle form? ideal events (to be alive, living)                                     
• this procedure leads to complications (impossible objects)                                             
• Is it the interrogative form?                                                                                                                
• but questions are traced from presponses                                                                              
• interrogation presupposes common sense distribution of roles                                          
• has issues but leads us back to the problem as source of sense

The Problem

• sense comes from complex theme=set of problems and questions                                     
• problem and sense are extra-propositional genesis of thought 

(7) The postulate of modality, or solutions (problems being materially traced from propositions or, indeed, formally defined by the possibility of their being solved);

Philosophical Illusion: True problem is solvable problem.                      

Dialectic

• Was defined as the art of problems and questions by Aristotle                                               
• Dialectic loses power when it traces from the proposition                                                       
• Aristotle says the only difference is phrasing                                                                              
• When dialectic becomes powerless, it falls under the negative (Hegel)                               

Lies about Problems: 

1. That they are given ready-made.                                                                                              
2. That they disappear in solutions.                                                                                               
3. That True and False begin only with solutions.                                                                             
4. That True and False only qualify responses.

Problems are true or false, well posed or badly posed. We must think this philosophically.

What should be most valued in relation to thought:

• The real genesis of the act of thinking                                                                                             
• The sense of truth and falsehood    

Rectifying the natural illusion:                                                                                                                     

1. A Solution is true or false insofar as the problem is true or false.                                          
2.  A Problem gets its solution in proportion to its sense.                                                             
3.  A Solution follows from the determination of a problem.                                                      
4.  A Problem is the site of originary truth and genesis of derived truth.                                 
5.  Nonsense, false sense, misconstrual are related to problems.                                               
6.  Stupidity is the false problem faculty.                                                                           

(8) the postulate of the end, or result, the postulate of knowledge (the subordination of learning to knowledge, and of culture to method).