Why Being? File: Why Being.doc

Why elect to consider being fundamental to the investigation of all reality?

The nature of being is not specified in advance

As will be seen, this reason is compelling

It is implicit in the nature of an investigation that what is under investigation is not given in advance. That is, it is not just the qualities of what is under investigation are not known but it is the very object that is not known. Consider materialism. Even if materialism is valid, it should fall out of the investigation of reality rather than given in advance. To specify that all reality is a substance such as matter or that it is a substance at all is to prejudice the investigation at the outset. Even if materialism is valid, nothing is lost by being more general at the outset and in the end our conviction of the validity of materialism will be strengthened for proper reasons

That the nature of being is not specified in advance is inherent in the meaning of being: being is that which is

The nature and qualities of being will fall out of the study and, therefore, we will have more confidence in the results

The procedure is similar to that of algebra where the unknown is named. Naming the unknown is conceptually efficient. Using a single letter such as x to denote an unknown quantity is mechanically efficient and the mechanical and conceptual efficiencies are mutually enhancing; analysis abounds with empowering combinations of symbolic –conceptual and mechanical– efficiency. In naming the unknown, and recognizing it as unknown, algebra empowers mathematics. This is because although the value of a quantity may be unknown, a function of its value may be known and naming the unknown makes working with what is known to inferring a value of what was unknown more efficient. Similarly, name the unknown real ‘being’ empowers metaphysics – the study of all reality. As it will turn out there is both a formal or logical and a psychological empowerment. Even though the nature and qualities of being are unknown, by naming it we accept and are comfortable with this fact and this is a useful preliminary to investigation and discovery. In properly using the concept of being, we escape the burden of –entrapment in– metaphysical prejudice. Mathematics can be seen as a chapter in algebra; metaphysics can be seen as another chapter

The procedure of discovery is as follows. Naming enables talk of being. Although we do not –may not– know being as being, we know –may analyze– some aspects of being and may infer the nature of being or, at least, some aspects of the nature of being. What we will infer and what will be the mode of inference, also, is not given in advance. The ‘space’ of discovery is multi-dimensional. At the end or in the process of investigation, we may receive illumination. We do not know this in advance but we may evaluate it at the end or in process. Even when we come back to the same point, there has been illumination: there is a contribution to the ongoing ‘conversation.’ If we are fortunate, discovery will be in the form of wide ranging and concrete results. We should not be surprised but we will not be devoid of wonder if we do get such results. For, although we sometimes encourage humility due to our assumed finiteness in the face of the infinite is it not a violation of that humility to even assume, without knowledge, that we are indeed finite?

The meaning of ‘being’ equates it with what is real

This reason is logically compelling though not essentially distinct from the previous one

The meaning of being is not a mere sign pointing to what is real. To be is to exist. It is therefore intrinsic in the meaning of being from its use that it connotes what is real. From among alternative concepts, the meaning of being suits it well for the connotation of the real

There are extensive traditions in the study of being

Examples are the metaphysics of various traditions, the epistemologies of various traditions that may be seen as investigating the being of knowledge, the various beings that are investigated under metaphysics: knowledge, God, soul and spirit, human being, value – the desirable and the feasible, the universe and cosmology, forms and universals, logic…

This reason is practically though not logically compelling

The theory of being is empowering in the investigation of two fundamental investigations

Another practically compelling reason. If the object is the study of what is ‘important’ in any sense that is more than immediate, this reason is also logically compelling

1.       Every significant problem of metaphysics

2.       Every significant problem or concern of our world – of human being and other beings in our world

An example of a concern is:

What is the being of knowledge? What is the nature of science?

Before one can talk intelligibly about the validity of knowledge, it is essential to know something about the nature of knowledge. For example, is validity a or the mark of knowledge? Even pragmatism holds validity to be a concern of knowledge and the mark of knowledge while it holds that the measure of validity is not intrinsic to knowledge but is in its results. Yet it holds that validity is a mark of knowledge while it holds that a fundamental importance of knowledge is in action. If, however, the importance of knowledge is in action and in-process, perhaps validity is a local but not a universal mark of knowing. Regarding science, it is commonplace in the twentieth and the early twenty-first centuries to make sweeping claims regarding the nature and usefulness of science – it is the only real knowledge vs. it is marginal relative to real human concerns, it contains the solution to all human problems vs. in the cultivation of science and technology lies the destruction of all value. Yet, what is science. Is it a discrete endeavor or is it continuous with everyday human activity? If the latter, it would not be science that is ‘dangerous’ but the way in which it is cultivated and, perhaps, the way in which it is idealized that is dangerous

The investigation of being is crucial to these concerns:

The results and approaches to the investigation of being impact the investigation of knowledge

Knowledge is an aspect of being. It has been suggested that knowing and being are identical. The investigation of being will illuminate the meaning of this suggestion and its validity

Is the enterprise of knowledge something that can be separated from being and becoming? Is it possible to set up knowledge so that its criteria are independent of its relations –roles, effects– in being? Our answer will be that independent criteria are locally but not universally possible and that while the local roles of knowing are interesting and important, their universalization may result in a ‘blind alley.’ The conclusion that may be drawn is that cultivation of knowledge as knowledge is valuable but needs supplement by cultivation of being-as-being in which knowledge as such plays an occasional role

What are the roles of criticism and imagination in knowing? And why does critical philosophy have widespread though not universal appeal? Conclusions regarding the nature of knowledge are relevant to these concerns

What is the being and significance of the elements of metaphysics – for example, of forms and universals and of logic?

A number of the foregoing concerns are applicable here. Additional considerations arise:

The meaning or use of every term under investigation, though related to its traditional meanings may change in the course of the study. There are those who suggest that use alone determines meaning and that any attempt to transcend given use leads into useless speculation and ‘philosophical confusion.’ Anyone who thinks thus may be reminded that, while speculation may be confused and futile, there was a time when there were no words, no uses, no meanings. This is not to say that the potential for such words did not exist but merely that they were not yet actual in this world. Every word, every element of knowledge introduced must have been introduced as a hypothesis – as speculation. It is absurd to say, witness increment in both factual and conceptual knowledge, that this process has come to an end

The meanings of terms are not isolated but every term is part of an understanding as a whole. Therefore, even in a fixed system of understanding, the meanings and uses of individual terms need not be fixed and there may be more and less efficient selections of terminology and distributions of all meaning among the individual meanings. Additionally, as understanding grows it is not merely through accumulation of facts but also in the comprehensiveness of the being and the quality of the world. I.e., the system of understanding expands and grows; the expansion is not necessarily monotone but there are also contractions from the excesses of earlier understanding. Therefore, while there are roles for new terms and new meanings, some older meanings become discarded or should be discarded. Thus there is place for fluidity in meaning and use in the expansion and contraction of understanding and in the interplay among individual terms and their meanings. This situation may be summarized by say that the system of concepts constitutes an interactive and dynamic field of concepts

We will find new interpretations of important terms from classical metaphysics. These include ‘form,’ ‘logic,’ and ‘universal’ that retain what is essential in the old significance but at the same time sheds much of what may have been tentative, problem and indeterminate about those terms and their meanings

Simultaneously, we will discover essentials regarding being in general and human being in particular

A general principle is that meanings may change as discovery and analysis deepen and broaden the understanding of the real and when they do, the earlier meanings are not completely discarded but are given context, i.e. their limits are made clear as they are ‘included’ in the new