The Value Of Culture?

1.	Introduction

	In this paper I wish to investigate the phenomenon of cultural value, or i.e. the value of culture. From an appreciation of current and historical perspectives it would seem to be a commonly held assumption that culture has value, is something to be valued? More often than not most people would consider their own culture to be valuable witness the sacrifice people pay in war for the preservation of their cultural identity. 
	Traditionally, taking a simplistic perspective, each culture, during periods of adequate self-functioning,  would be automatically and non-reflectively considered by its participants to be that culture which should be the most valued. Moreover, we would expect from the members of that culture that they would, more often than not, and again in a non-reflective mode, assume that the rest of the world would see the world in the same, or similar, way as those people of that culture collectively came to see their world through their way of seeing (as it was differentiated and structured for them by the constitution and the constituting power of that culture). We could say in these hypothetical terms of reference that it would often come as a shock for one culture to fully realize that its way of seeing was not the only one let alone necessarily the best in the market place. No doubt in this collision and interaction of cultures new cultural growth was catalyzed leaving the world a richer place through these complex processes of exchange, osmosis, rejection, selective acquisition, wholesale cannibalism, re-appropriation, or whatsoever, etc., that might have taken place between these different and potentially competing world-perspectives. 
	It is a common phenomenon to find people from one cultural or socio-economic background misreading the behaviour, current or historical, of another person or group from a different cultural or socio-economic background. We are witness here to a natural misreading especially when the forms of cultural expression are the same, or similar, but the original intent of that expression is quite different in different cultural contexts. Moreover, an appreciation of those forms of expressions can only be first appreciated in terms of one's own cultural terms of reference (and so no culture or person could be correctly accused of a mere eclectism in this process of uptake). However, the point I would like to make here is that it takes a certain degree of reflection before the person is able to stand aside from their own ingrained perspective in order to appreciate that there can be another way of seeing and that other ways of seeing and expression can have their own forms of validity or appropriateness. That only when the essential structural-functions of that society, or phenomenon, are re-constituted for that person by that person can an aesthetic self-rectifying appreciation of that cultural world, or phenomenon, be inwardly appreciated metaphorically? This is a process that takes time but once an essential form of understanding is reached further comprehension merely add detail to this holistic appreciation further rectifying the centering of this intuitive and existential awareness. Existential in the sense that the simulation or re-simulation of this process of essential appreciation has the power to self-constitute an effectively direct or inward awareness of that phenomenon under investigation and rectify its own eventual appreciation?
	It is rare for cultures to become geographically and/or temporally isolated for long periods and cultural insulation can only be a relative affair. It would be my contention that for a society to survive in the long term extra-cultural influences must regularly infiltrate by some means into that culture and, vice versa, but that in the final analysis a society must re-constitute its own (historical) essence to maintain its own cultural identity (through language, ritual, dance, custom, law, food, architecture, art, etc.).
	Of course for any culture to seriously consider its culture to be pure and uncontaminated by foreign extra-cultural elements would have to mythically rewrite itself, re-write its perception of history in order to remove or downplay these otherwise obvious inter-cultural influences. Needless to add, perhaps, through the integrational nature of culture an appropriation of cultural elements would take place that might obviate the necessity for a culture to blatantly rewrite and distort this practice of a textual rethematization of themselves. Of course all societies are going to formulate in some form or other an official version of their development along with a rationalization for the same but normally these patterns of explication would be open to a dialectical process of rectification that would restore some degree of authenticity to those texts or potential texts? Hence the value of an historical appreciation in its illumination of the origins of current developments in the continual re-constitutional self-development necessary for the existential continuation of an institution of some form.
	Nowadays, there is a type of person, growing in number, who sees good in many traditions and who is prepared to attentively listen to a number of selected cultures and even to absorb and adapt various features from them although, correctly, this process of cultural appropriation is in continuous play overtly or covertly to some degree or other most of the time. This century it seems to be the vogue to collect cultures, perhaps through an intuitive appreciation of the fact that we might have lost some of our own cultural roots and our traditional being-at-home-in-society. We nail foreign artifacts to the wall, collect exotic works of art, perhaps enjoy various forms of ethnic dance, listen to the authentic re-creation of ancient and not so ancient musical genres, in the privacy of our own homes read the translations of wonderful texts from the past, speak or read a second or third language, eat different styles of food on a daily basis, etc., etc. However, in this age of multi-media informational input this earlier form of parochialism is being watered down by an acceptance that perhaps other cultures can be equally valuable if not, collectively, more valuable than one's own? Certainly an appreciation of other cultures can give to us, if only indirectly, a better appreciation of our own culture.
	If indeed culture is valuable what is it about culture that allows us to perceive it as valuable or rather as being valuable? Do cultures have a Gross National Product or some cashed our equivalent? How would we evaluate this Gross Cultural Product, or, as I suspect our suspicions are already raised, is the idea too gross to contemplate without some shudder of disbelief. Will we, one day, be witness to a world that is finally taken over by a gang of calculating, inhuman, philosophically naive, hypothetical-model playing economists endlessly pondering the indeterminable value of the invaluable? It seems to me to be a sad fact of life these days that company balance sheets appear to have even less resemblance to the financial and institutional reality they are suppose to numerically reflect. Alas, whereas philosophers once received the ear of enlightened monarchs now a later succession of priests, doctors, lawyers are then followed in miserable turn by that breed of cost-accountants and their more short-sighted ilk in the political sphere and other hangers-on!
	Rather than question the value of culture we could perhaps turn the question around and enquire after the culture of value. A model springs to mind of that of a community of yeast cells furiously reproducing producing some form of alcoholic beverage with all the stale fragrance associated with that type of process. However, this reversed question is a good one and so let me answer it in the hope that we might be able to appreciate this apparent phenomenon of cultural value. In asking the question how is value created we might find ourselves in a better position to consider this topic and discover if culture has some form of value and if it does in what form it might possibly take? No doubt each issue raised will initiate many other considerations, much like these multiplying yeast cells, and so, with your permission, let me follow up some of these possibilities as they present themselves.

2.	What is Culture?

	A first point to note is that without people there could be no manifestation of culture! In this regard cultural value is quite different from scientific and ecological value because it is conceivable, in superficial and provisional terms of reference, to imagine a world of various objects and states existing independently of the person (however much the life-world intentionally structures such hypothetical reflections). Let me quickly establish this contrast through the introduction of an heuristic device I shall call the phenomenological circle. 
	In previous papers I have discussed an ontology of value. Although treating the phenomenon of value as having one transcendental form, the same transcendental mechanics and dynamics saw a differentiation of value on a cognitive level that took six forms of expression dependent on the type of cognitive input introduced prior to the creation of that value in an act of judgmental appreciation. Adopting a tripartite scheme of a provisional intentional object-state, an agent as the self-conscious intender of the former and a context or horizon of intentionality that allowed for that act of phenomenal appreciation to take place should let us draw the following conclusion? On realizing that these three facets in the act of intentionality would co-define each other the conclusion could be reached that we had a circle-like nexus of meaning-relationships that constituted therein all intentional meaning and meaningfulness (and thus all allied forms of value). For convenience of expression we could simplify the designation of these three intentional moments or aspects by the appellations of Object, Ego and World. 

Ego 
(Transcendental Ego)

*

		Object				World
 (Intentional Object)                  (Intentional Horizon)

	As explained elsewhere six cognitive forms of value could be recognized by the combination of these three factors with either themselves or one of the other two parties in pairs although more correctly the same complete transcendental-psychological machinery was being exercised throughout (when examined from a trans-cognitive perspective). Let me list these six forms of value, namely...

1.	Object-Object.......Thematical Value.
2.	Object-Ego..........Aesthetical Value.
3.	Ego-Ego.............Ethical Value.
4.	Ego-World...........Pragmatical Value.
5.	Object-World........Ontical Value.
6.	World-World.........Trans-Thematical Value.

	Thematical value includes those domains of essential manipulation that involve logic, mathematics, physics, lexical equation and identification, etc. Aesthetical value involves the aesthetical appreciation of a natural or non-natural state of affairs. Ethical value involves some form of endo-personal or inter-personal interaction with an emphasis in our appreciation on the nature of the relationship involved. Pragmatical value involves an appreciation of the passage of the person or persons, of an organization or organizations, in their transformation through their relationship with the world as met by the participants of that relationship. Ontical value is an existential, or more specifically, a factual appreciation of a certain state of affairs under investigation. Lastly, trans-thematical value is that value involved in the contrast and appreciation of thematical value and forms of more complex post-thematical value .
	More important for our understanding of the nature of culture is our realization that cultural value is centered on the Ego moment of our phenomenological circle; scientific value and ecological value being centered respectively on the moments of Object and World. However, being centered on does not imply that culture has no relationship with either intentional objects or states, or, the phenomenon of the world as it is found to present itself in the context of a certain culture. Without doubt the nature of the landscape, e.g. has important ramification for the experience and expression of a culture. Moreover, without a healthy relationship with a world of scientific value (in the broad sense as previously indicated) and a world of ecological interaction a culture would quickly undermine its own existential sense of presence and re-constitutional continuation.
	Trivial as it might seem it is an important point to realize that without the involvement of the person there could not be a world of culture. At the same time this world of culture cannot, and should not, be reduced to either a world of science and/or a world of the ecological or cosmological. Cultural space is just as palpable a domain as that of the intended object and its ecological field of introduction and contrast. For example, grinding down a painting into dust-like components is not going to discover the essential meaning of the painting. Likewise, a pile of discarded painting piled up on a rubbish dump and eventually used as landfill is equally not going to let us discover the nature of their intentional meaning for the potential-person(s)-in-that-society-painted-for. However, let someone walk past that rubbish dump who has only the slightest appreciation of the meaning intended for a world of painted artforms, as a subset in the world of culture, and let them espy these maltreated cultural artifacts. Surely they will stop for a few moments, at least, look at these relics in an appropriate fashion and lo and behold discover something of the artistry in its intentionality to be as (potential) works of art for someone, for some culture or for the world of culture in general. Imagine, as I myself would like to sometimes fantasize that, e.g., a great collector's paintings were placed in a large packing crate for protection or storage, get mislaid and eventually find themselves, let us say, on this rubbish dump. You find yourself passing quite by accident, look over and see what looks like a real Monet. On closer inspection you find a half dozen more and a number of other favorite painters, each one in your estimation a masterpiece. No longer do you find yourself merely looking at, or looking past, rubbish. One's inspection is now deeply involved in a state of aesthetic reflection and no doubt also in a pragmatical mode in your planning how to appropriate, if only for a short time, these great works of art in an attempt to rescue them from their maltreatment as rubbish (with the general lack of associated value therein entailed other than the prospect to be treated as rubbish along with its humble evaluation and immanent threat of non-conservation and potential destruction). This dimension of that-discovered-by-the-person-for-the-person, as an ontological plane that structures personal forms of appropriation, was designated by Heidigger as the world of dasein (or there-being, that being-there-for-the-person). Although an equation can be made between dasein and the Husserlian life-world (through the fundamental underlying equivalence of transcendental-psychological machinery in the structuring of all forms of value) I would prefer to see the latter expression as the a priori ground for our three worlds of cultural value (the world of dasein), scientific and ecological value. In a sense the life-world structures a world of dasein which in turn structures our understanding of that absolute dimension of the life-world that grounds the phenomenal constitution of experience in that world of dasein and its extension into the worlds of the scientific and the ecological. In this sense the life-world is not only pre-scientific but also pre-ecological and pre-cultural!

3.	Cultural Monadicity

	As a rough definition a world of culture could be defined as that relational space that appropriates the person and in turn is appropriated by the person in such a manner that the essential nature of that culture for the members of that culture is synchronically coincident (and diachronically is coincident through some form of transformational connectivity). A particular cultural world is, in a special philosophic sense, monadic for a number of reasons. 
	First, the monad is not to be treated as a substantive entity even though it can and has a powerfulness of phenomenological presence to constitute intentional object-states and in turn re-constitute the intentional horizons in our appreciation of those types of intentional object-states. Second, that monadic state of affairs is brought about through a commonality of those members which in reflecting each other re-constitute that commonality. Third, through interaction, those members must have entered into such an interaction on the grounds of a common nature that allows them to enter into that interaction. Fourth, not only is the relational space in its essential identity established at the level of the effective entelechy or cultural monad but that a temporal sequence in the cultural constitution of that cultural world is also accumulated and accommodated in the hierarchical structuring and functioning of that cultural monad or world. By such means that particular cultural world is given depth and existential richness along with an element of the dialectical through its accumulation of divergent stands in the temporal constitution and re-constitution of that world of cultural. Fifth, that in the holistic presence and monadic-like organization of a distinctive cultural world we discover a sense of power realized in equal proportion to the degree of ongoing resolution and harmonization of cultural dissonance, therein entertained. The power of that culture reflecting jointly and collectively the degree of dissonant presence entertained and the successfulness of the ongoing resolution of that dissonance. By dissonance is meant those elements at variance with the overall consonant nature of the relational totality, e.g. difference, competition, distance, stress, strain, conflict, discontinuity, thematic variability, unpredictabilty, non-conformity, gestalt contrast, etc. Sixth, this monadic presence is correctly an illusion because it is only through the re-constitution of that cultural world that it can continue to be a living presence in the world. Re-constitution continuously, or rather, on a momentary continual basis, re-simulating its presence and hence a culture can never be directly involved in the world apart form manifesting itself through the presence of the person and thence through a community of like-minded persons. However the metaphorical life of the culture, if alive, is through the spontaneity of expression constituted by that world of culture as expressed through the person or through the community. Seventh, the distinctiveness of the relationship can be given a presence in the material world of space and time through a re-investment of the facticity of that relationship. Facticity being seen here as that degree in which a relational whole is phenomenologically greater than, or different from, the sum of its parts. Eighth, monadic in the sense that it is not impossible for the participants of that monad to co-possess, possess at the same time, other different cultural backgrounds, influences and perspectives and still remain a member of that original cultural community. Ninth, and lastly, monadic in the sense that not only is there an appearance of a distinctive force associated with that particular culture but that that culture has the power to constitute its own appreciation and re-constitution.
	A culture is the means and the medium for the resolution of interpersonal differences in all their possible manifestations. The culture determining various probable and preferable modes for the resolution of such conflict in our experience of various senses of otherness. Perhaps one of the reasons why there is little ostensive dissonance in society under normal circumstances is that much of the dissonance that is naturally present is adequately and appropriately dealt with  through the auspices of pre-learned responses. Only when those responses cease to be effective, themselves actually cause conflict or cease to adequately resolve processes of conflict, are we brought to the boundaries of our cultural world in order to re-adapt ourselves to the task of a new re-constitution of our cultural matrix and its structure of prevalued responses. Although, correctly, all responses should be spontaneous and appropriate in their responsitivity normally the person has an adequate repartoire to fall back on under normal circumstances. New routines in turn becoming institutionalized in inverse measure to the degree of re-constitution and self rectification entered into?

4.	Cultural Aesthetics

	Perceiving culture as a phenomenal force in the world and occupying a certain spatio-temporal relational space also allows us to experience, once we have some essential understanding of the essential-structural elements of this phenomenon and their reconstitution in this relational space, the overall aesthetic of that culture. Moreover, this cultural aesthetic, once thematized can be seen as imprinting itself on all products and processes of that culture in accordance with the degree of distinctiveness in the identity of that culture and in accordance with the aesthetic ability of those cultural producers to produce and reproduce artifacts in keeping with the overall demands of that culture. 
	For example in the world of Baroque music I find a parallel between the clarity, precision and transparency of sound called for and the search for clear and distinct ideas as formulated in the philosophy of Descartes, e.g. Then again, every age has its distinctive artifacts that characterize the essential nature of that era. I believe that a recognition of this is an important element that differentiates the collector, as the connoisseur, from the mere hoarder or pretentious acquirer. An artifact, or antique state of affairs, of great beauty having this essential nature of its times stamped more profoundly upon its phenomenal presentation in such a manner, through the aesthetic power of its constitution, to allowing the receptive mind in its re-constitution of that object-state, or series of similar object-states, to experience something of the essential flavour of that culture in that period of time.
	This type of experience can also indicate specific cultural influences through the dynamic interaction of cultures. E.g., early Gandharan Buddhist sculpture appears to reveal a pronounced Greek influence although such influences are also well integrated or appropriated into the Indian-Buddhist context.
	It behooves the politician who aspires to be successful that they listen attentively to such a phenomenon and in realizing the aesthetics of a culture, in both  static and  dynamic senses, find themselves capable, armed with the existential power of such knowledge, to allow that political process to realize its own teleological ends in the most appropriate manner possible!

5.	The Process Of Cultural Resolution

	A culture can be seen as that relational space centered upon the transcendental being of the person as a person in society in the world (in a world constituted through the science of that culture, and v.v.). Ego is co-defined by World and Object. Each of these three aspects or moments of this phenomenological circle constitutes the others, through the virtuality of each aspect not one of these three aspects can define itself. As a culture has been defined as a complex relational space it follows from previous phenomenological analysis of the nature of the relational that the relational being of that culture must result from the ongoing resolution of dissonance in that complex relational space. That accepted then we must regard culture as the complex process of resolution in a society that establishes the facticity of that culture. Following through on this insight brings us to a point that allows us to comprehend that both the being of culture and its functional status as that which mediates between intentional objectivity and intentional horizons in turn colours these two aspect-polarities helping the person in society to establish a particular place in the world. In this light culture can be seen as those pathways promoted for the resolution of cultural dissonance for the person-in-society and between societies. In this manner other cultures can also be seen as constitutive of a non-isolated or non-insulated culture through the informative contrast cast by those other cultures in their relationships with that culture. Every distinctive facet can be seen in this light as an intentional-like decision made by that cultural psyche in order for that culture to define itself through the differences generated in its interaction with other cultures and between polarized aspects of itself, valued or disvalued, in the course of its historical unfolding. This use or invocation of a cultural psyche can be circumvented to a certain extent by allowing influential individuals enact these thematic changes in cultural direction although, it could also be argued that, the interaction of a series of minds realizes a virtual and relational entity or phenomenon that takes the apparent characteristics of that interactional field along with a sense of presence in the world through its relational instantiation in the world to some degree or other however minimal that materialized expression. However, the other side of the coin is that a cultural awareness of some feature possessed by another culture desired by the former sees the appropriation of the same. This appropriation can never be in the form of a one hundred per cent pure import although given time and an adequate essential understanding by that culture and that imported phenomenon can reassert itself through an existentially rectified re-constitution of that phenomenon.

6.	The Essential Encapsulation Of Cultural Contextuality

	It might be argued, with the appearance of a philosophic reasonableness, that as no intentional object-state can be read without the prior constitution of an adequate and appropriate horizon or field of context? But can an horizon in its infinite depths be constituted that could adequately perform this seemingly impossible phenomenological task, moreover in our judgmental appreciation of this situation could we ever subject this horizon to a radical and thorough transcendental-psychological suspension as argued for by the Husserlian phenomenologist?
	Essences can never be discovered through a transcendental or non-transcendental form of radical suspension and reduction if either of those processes were to be carried out to an extreme degree. The necessary depth of analysis need only be reached that adequately exposes those essential features (and thereafter further reduction is quite unnecessary). Moreover, through the monadic-like nature of essential interaction each distinctive essence in its exposure reveals the entire phenomenal field, albeit from its own point of view. In like fashion an essential appreciation of the background or horizon can also be intuitively appreciated obviating the need for the complete thematization of a contextual field of contrast in its infinite potentiality (which, in these terms of reference, would be an impossibility). Then an interaction between these two directions of thematization can be suspended in order to allow them to interact in such a fashion as to constitute and re-constitute the phenomenon under investigation. As the phenomenon must be able to be constituted and re-constituted, in order to entertain such a state of affairs as a phenomenon, it stands to reason that an adequate relationship must be entertainable between the interrelated intentional object-state and its field of intentionality.
	Essences must not be reified, except provisionally, and indicate only retrospective fictions in this regard. Likewise intentional fields of appreciation must also, through their apparent unity of presence e.g., also possess a certain retrospective ficticiousness. Moreover, as a field is the exponential accumulation of interactions then as that field it must reflect in turn the essential nature of the thematizations that have been realized within its ambit. So an investigation of essential components must reveal something of their horizon and vice versa with respect to the essential structuralization of that intentional field. Therefore, essential investigation are going to reveal to a certain extent contextual influences and vice versa. 
	A great artist, a great person of culture cannot escape their roots even though they may transcend them through some form of profound re-constitution. One's own culture can be transcended but cannot be escaped! However, as all cultures are part of one family interaction is not only possible (as between members of a family) but also necessary (in order for there to be one human family), the person being constituted through this relationship  with all the hallmarks of an individual humanity from the point of view of that person.

7.	Cultural Encapsulation In Cultural Production

	Earlier in this paper it was discussed that the totality of the cultural world could be aesthetically reviewed as a distinctive presence in the world. Moreover, the integral power of that culture also has the inescapable tendency to condense itself in the productions undertaken by that culture to the degree that that producer is working within the limits of that culture. Further, such a totality also has the dynamic possibilities of imprinting itself on the processes and consequences initiated by that culture. Beautiful artifacts have the power to powerfully re-constitute for us, in our phenomenological and non-phenomenological investigations, the essential flavour of that particular culture. Careful phenomenological investigations should be able to reconstitute the essential and overall constitution of that background from a careful inspection of all essential-like constructions. It is my belief that this is one feature at work in the phenomenon of collecting artifacts, antiques and antiquities and also allows us to explain the ability of experts to determine the authenticity of those apparently original artifacts, etc. It is also a good reason for cultures to promote an historical awareness of that culture by that culture through the connection (or transformation connectivity) that can be discovered through a collection of key-artifacts constituted by that culture in its historical unfolding.
	As each culture condenses itself through its artifacts produced within its midst and consequentially imprints itself on other cultures we should discover from a carefully and skillfully approached phenomenological appreciation of some cultural phenomenon the manner in which that phenomenon structures itself and finds itself being sedimented in experience and cultural memory. In this regard no phenomenon can be superficial, or mere appearance. On the other hand this phenomenological depth allows us to transcend a representational approach to the nature of phenomenal being. Moreover, an authenticity of presentation is also imprinted upon the being of that phenomenon that in turn allows us to determine its factual or ontical status (without regard to mysterious entities, things-in-themselves, etc.).
	All meaning is intentionally structured but intentions are realized through a trans-intentional suspension. In our attempting to interpret the essential-phenomenological nature of some phenomenon all comprehension must proceed from a re-constitution of a relevant background field in keeping with the original cultural presentation of that phenomenon. To this extent all interpretation either within a culture or between cultures is hermeneutical and re-constructive. All forms of valid appreciation necessitate the reconstruction or re-simulation of essentially the same contextual field of original presentation. As previously argued this reconstruction or re-simulation is possible through the use of an adequate number of essential facets being allowed to interact together and realizing their own cultural expanse.
	One could imagine the discovery by alien life-forms of a collection of vinyl record. How is this type of cultural artifact to be correctly interpreted? The primary intention behind the production of these discs is that they are meant to be heard and this hearing necessitated some form of apparatus that will allow us to realize this task. The point of this analogy being that in the re-simulation of intentional meaningfulness reconstruction of the apparatus, as its field of context, is vital to our being able to entertain the primary intentional nature of these artifacts. Moreover, in our extension of this analogy we must also appreciate the fact that the music in its re-simulation, in the playing of those discs, itself is in need of a contextual appreciation in order to meaningfully appreciate the same. However, some prior musical educational exposure might allow us to bridge the gulf between the music of different cultures first heard for the first time by members of the other cultures? 
	An analysis of this type of phenomenon, in the communication and interpretation of various forms of media, should allow us to accept the reasonable natural position that communication is possible both within and between different cultures and that processes of interpretation must occur in order for this type of process to be successful. Commensurability is therefore not an absolute problem! It would appear to be one of the great features of our minds that they can entertain connections between such an array of diverse phenomena as found in natural experience. Not only can an individual connect experiences of different type within their own mental lives but also connect different types of experiences in evidence within and between cultures. Is it only in virtue of our humanity that such a rapport can be established or is it through the power of phenomena that they can re-constitute both the experience of those intentional object-states and the associated horizons of context that allow us to appreciate the same?
	Perhaps a way round this dilemma just posed is to realize that the person is a person-already-in-a-community which in turn as a culture is a culture cultured in a world of culture. A monadic perspective would obviate the need to answer this dilemma in the logically segregated terms of reference as presented. However, the problem remains how the apparently incommensurable can be communicated and re-interpreted with a synchronicity of intent that transcends the barriers of time, space, culture, language, imperfections in communication, etc.

8.	The Hermeneutical Interpretation of Culture

	The phenomenologist insists that intentionality is horizon dependent. The question can be posed how is it possible for communication to take place when a similarity of horizons cannot be taken for granted? How is a coincidence of horizons to be constructed, and, if this coincidence is not present is some form of communication at all possible?
	Earlier I argued for an encapsulation of contextuality in essential terms of reference. That through the monadic nature of relational space the integrity of that relational field pervades the entire region with the same essential impression, albeit, a difference of perspective dependent upon the point of reference in that relational domain. Thus to a certain extent an essential representation of that horizon is already bound up with the production of that relational field. In time the reception of a number of products of a particular field of context is going to restore some form of relational meaning to their appreciation in keeping with the original nature of that context of production. Moreover, an essential re-construction of that field is also possible through the introduction, thematization and re-constitution of that field. Further, through the dialectical nature of this relationship, or dialogue, a rectification of meaning is possible that is self-guaranteed once all necessary conditions are fulfilled for the establishment of this reconstruction. 
	However, it is the case that we cannot take for granted that all intentionally created productivity in one culture or field of context has the same intentionality in the manufacture of apparently similar production from some other field or context. And in converse fashion we must not assume that the appearance of different forms of production necessarily imply radically different forms of intentional content both structurally and functionally. But as the psyche can integrate its diverse range of experiential phenomena, and, both individuals and cultures can enter meaningful and significant processes of communication we must ask ourselves how is it possible for different parties to successfully interpret each other?
	In the communication of a text the text itself cannot be the sole object of the act of communication. The overall intention(s) of that text and which ostensively motivated its production, cannot be read at the level of the mere text. A reconstitutional synthesis must be put into effect that allows the receiver and interpreter of that text to reconstruct this overall intent. To this extent such communication can not be considered merely one-way and in this regard a dialogue can be considered to be in place. The interpreter must continually transcend the text in order to appreciate this transcendent dimension of that text. Putting themselves in a form of resonance with the hypothetical author or authors that are assumed to have produced that text. The interpreter must put themselves into some form of hypothetical relationship with the author(s) of that text in order to appreciate, through a continual questioning, clarification and self-rectification, its assumed fundamental and original intent. The same type of phenomenon is at work in the interpretation of music, poetry and other forms of art. In reading a normal musical score it can never be really the case that a mere reproduction of the notes into sound could capture the real musicality of that score? Even if such a score was contrived without an audience and their differences in perspective the reception of that mechanical reproduction cannot be experienced in exactly the same way either by different people at the same time or by the same person at different times. However, the mind attends to its appreciation of patterns, distinctive phenomenal elements, etc. and from these components reconstructs its appreciation of the same through the lens of its own experiential background (as it answers and checks its hypothetically expected responses to its hypothetical questions as thought to be discovered in or from the text in this hypothetical dialogue of apparently mutual questioning assuming that the author or authors are also assumed to be asking explicit or implicit questions of the reader in their vision of how the reader or readers might go about an interpretation of their text). Piece by piece like a jigsaw the person enters a process whose intention is to realize the meaning and meaningfulness of that having been already constructed being reconstructed. In keeping with this jigsaw analogy we can also see if our puzzle is incorrectly pieced together by either the manner of the fit between those pieces or discontinuity in the overall visual content therein supplied. In this process of doing the puzzle the puzzle has, if it is intentionally constructed correctly, the ability to rectify our exercising of this process. Closer attention should reveal to ourselves if the individual harmony between the pieces and the overall harmony of the puzzle itself is adequately resolved in those partial and total terms of reference. A resolution of any disharmonious relationships letting us approach more closely the intentions behind the puzzle to be as a puzzle. 
	Of course not all apparent puzzles need necessarily conform to the expected intentions signaled by a pile of pieces that look like a possible puzzle. Pieces could be missing, various puzzles could be mixed up or the whole affair could be a setup or for some other purpose not currently appreciated. Under normal circumstances, however, the puzzle is self-rectifying in so far as when a misfit is discovered the process of doing the puzzle continues until such a time the process of resolution is complete and feels completed. 
	The moment the puzzle is completed it ceases to be a puzzle and soon looses our attention. In like fashion once information is transmitted and received, or perhaps more correctly shared, the mind looses its interest in the former task and moves on to some other.
	It seems that all processes of communication, textual and non-textual, are processes of interpretation. That the process of interpretation is a hermeneutical task in so far as interpretation as a process can never occur in or on mono-dimensional terms of reference. As a process of judgment the information to be transmitted and the information to be received as the pre-constituted (or the about to be constituted) must be exercised in a state of transcendental-psychological suspension. A number of reasons can be put forth for this claim. First, a process must be met in the present moment and transcendental-psychological suspension allows the mind to concentrate its attention and exercise its concentration in the ongoing unfolding of the present moment. Second, a process necessitates the initiation of that process and this reinforces the claims in my first point. Third, informational appreciation necessitates the co-processing of analytical reduction and re-constitutional synthesis in order to supply a reciprocity of meaning-contrasts. Moreover, the time status of these last two process-components being past-orientated and future-orientated respectively also necessitate a meeting in the present moment in order to balance these two orientations and allow the process of judgment to constitute itself (through the prospectivity of re-constitution).
	Using the arguments that the pre-constituted is met  through suspension and that processes of analysis necessitate the meaningful contrast of simultaneous processes of synthesis and vice versa and that the latter cannot be conducted without a third party (namely the suspension of the preconstituted discovered in that relational situation) we can create a second heuristic device of the phenomenological triangle. 

					suspension

*
^
!

*                    *
	   analysis						synthesis

	Continuing with this device we can produce arguments that link these three moments with those entailed in our phenomenological circle. That suspension allows us to enter the relational process of judgmental appreciation. Appreciation is realized through a contrasting process of analysis versus simultaneous synthesis. Moreover, we can make the following three equations...

	Suspension..........Present-time..........Ego.
	Analysis............Past-time.............Object-State.
	Synthesis...........Future-time...........World.

	 Through the virtuality of these three sets of moments or aspects and their consequent co-definition of each other we can collapse them basically into one archetypal triadic formulation. Implicit in this overall equation, I believe, is the following insight that a suspension (whether transcendental or non-transcendental in scope) applies directly to the Ego, reduction (whether transcendental or non-transcendental in scope) applies directly to Object-state and that a re-constitution applies directly to the World (whether transcendental or non-transcendental in scope). Correctly, therefore, a suspension directly applies only to the sense of self, a reduction to the sense of object-state, and a reconstitution directly applies only to the sense of world, in fact, establishes an experience of a world. Consequently, contra-phenomenological arguments that invoke an impossibility in the suspension of an infinite background are in this respect correct but not for the right reason. The act of suspension (whether transcendental or non-transcendental in scope) must not be confused with the act of reduction which by right belongs to the sense of the intentional object-state. However, on the other hand, these three moments or aspects co-define each other and so from this point of view no real distinction can be made in this regard! A properly organized phenomenological investigation must therefore realize the co-definitional accommodation between these three aspects and the cognitive distinctiveness of other aspects in the act of phenomenological appreciation. Then through encapsulation the horizontal background can be subjected to a de facto suspension. Likewise, both the integrated complex sense of self can be reduced and re-constituted, and, and the many layers that make up a complex sense of world can also be reduced and subjected to suspension, etc.
	Interpretation cannot be merely the redirecting of us from a mis-understanding of the communicated text or non-text. In our facing this line of demarcation between understanding and non-understanding our questions already posed imply some degree of understanding in our facing the pre-constituted nature of that form of communication. So in the light of this perspective understanding is a thematization of an understanding already present. To some extent communication is very much like a process of Platonic recollection. Our ability to recognize that which is already pre-constituted, in its structure and function, allowing us to find a beginning to this process of interpretation. Moreover, the integrity of the text or non-text in a sense, through the ongoing thematization and rectification of the (hermeneutical circle, both at the level of the object-state and its field of context) allowing us to finally reach an essential understanding of that transmitted text or non-text (if that possibility is realizable).
	Once a point of recognition is realized and that recognition is recognized to be a potentially correct or valid state of recognition our essential reception of that being communicated is merely refined. The important point that can be drawn here is that in any form of recognition that finds itself being self-validated is not the rectification of a mis-reading of the text or non-text but a clarification of an already implicit, or explicit, essential reading, self-rectification then taking the form of a centering of the interpretation through its ongoing essential thematization and clarification. The monadic nature of personal existence in a world of culture in the world of culture pre-establishing the transcendental grounds for communication not only between the thoughts entertained by an integrated complex sense of self but also those interactions between synchronically and diachronically treated persons, groups and/or institutions. Confronted with the appearance of a puzzle we find that phenomena have a depth of presence already in place that allows us to experience, in the form of a self-questioning hypothetical dialogue, the manner in which an informed harmony can take place between these apparently disparate parties and the transmitted elements of information exchanged in the relationship or de facto relationship. This sense of an apparent dialogue being assisted through our experiencing this mutual passage of increasing coincidence between the transmission and its reception that appears to be taking place in successful communication. Involvement in the process of communication and interpretation also necessitating an imaginative transcendence of the text or non-text and an artfulness of interpretation that clarifies the essential components along with their contextual capsulation, aesthetic reflection, essential reduction, field re-constitution, intentional re-simulation, etc?
	In essence through suspension judgment thematizes itself though simultaneous processes of analysis (or in a more radical form - reduction) and processes of synthesis (or in a more radical form - re-constitution). All moments or aspects entering into a productive phase of co-definitional thematization. Re-constitution ensuring an engaged productivity that is also capable of an appropriate, creative and existential responsiveness to the situation at hand!

9.	The Evolution Of Culture

	A culture could be seen to be in a state of balance if these three world of the cultural, scientific and the ecological were equally emphasized and appropriately developed. But as all things are never equal, through the dynamic nature of an equilibrium, society would more than likely stress one of these orientations at the expense of the other two.
	It is obvious a state of development necessitates some form of construction engineered through a process of structuring. Moreover a process of structuring is hierarchical if only in the sense that it is necessary to differentiate the developed whole from its parts or those parties that helped to re-constitute that developed state of affairs. In our previous analysis of culture we noted its centering on the Ego moment of our phenomenological circle - without the potential presence of the person there could be no culture. In our combining and integrating our phenomenological triangle and our phenomenological circle we should come to realize that this moment is equally a moment of transcendental suspension as well as meeting  a transcendental sense of ego (in a trans-subjective-intersubjective mode) hence the centrality of the Suspended-Ego for an essential understanding of culture. From a transcendental reduction of this moment of the suspended-ego (and its transcendental re-constitution) a phenomenological analysis should be able to be conducted on the psychological structuring behind the complex sense of self experienced by the person-in-society. In the distinctional and accommodational interrelation of less complex senses of self a psychological map should be able to be constructed in such a manner as to be able to reveal the nature of these complex interrelationships.
	As a society is a community of individuals and as a relational whole is constituted by the nature of its involved parties it follows that the nature of that society must to a certain degree reflect the psychological development of those individuals. This avenue of research being open to a sociological-phenomenology through a re-constitution back into a social-cultural context of the research developed in a psychological-phenomenological mode. A complex sense of self accepted, and also the possibility that individuals can change the nature of their psychological profile, then it follows that the nature of that society is open to the possibility of change reflecting psychological developments in its members. Distinctive changes in and between psychological phases in development must find some reflection in the overall constitution of the appearance of that society. Assuming that the more influential members of that society have more influence and that phase changes in the members of those elites are distinctive then it follows that the overall nature of society might be seen to change in keeping with the phase changes experienced by those elites. Such a proposal is put forward in an attempt to explain how societies in the course of their cultural history, often in periods of changing educational standards, can cease to appear relatively cultured and resurrect barbaric practices quite at odds with previous standards of civilized behaviour. Rather than attempt to carry out such a proposal let me merely sketch out a basic psychological map that might allow us to research this area of concern and in the process establish the constitutional structure of the ego that allows it to function as person. E.g. as that primitive sense of self involved in sense reception, motor activity, subject to mood, a person of sense perception, as an intellect, as a person who can entertain an act of judgment and initiate an exercise in freewill, participate in society, etc., etc. A shifted emphasis on any one of these distinctive aspects would probably have distinctive consequences for the collective expression of social behaviour.
	These points are raised in order to demonstrate that the nature of the cultural psyche does reflect to some degree the overall nature of the individual psyches that go to constitute that particular society and its culture (or cultures) and mix of sub-cultures. Moreover, it would be my contention that the individual psyche has many layers or levels of organizational material and that various forms of conflict and various kinds of resolution can confuse this complex picture. Further, that it is possible for the individual, and their society, to find themselves at cross purposes through the various influences these levels or layers in organization have upon the overall function of the individual or society. In the evolution of society and its creation of value it stands to reason that that creation of value will be in keeping with the nature of that society and that only forms of value appropriate to the nature of that society could develop and have an influence in turn in the development of that society!
	However, in the reconstitution of society a society must re-inspect its own cultural roots and in the midst of its own cultural being promote what is necessary for its development and refinement and remove what is now no longer considered to be necessary or that which acts as an impediment, break or weight to its existential evolution. Existential in the sense that the culture has a certain power of its own to initiate behaviour, etc. and that this power is capable of exercising its own possibilities for good or bad and that influential individuals in that society need to be aware of the potential changes in phase in that society that might take place through moments and periods of chaos, crisis or catastrophe.
	A forward looking society needs to adequately reflect (through its elites) on its historicity of its being, as the being it became, in order through such reflection (through reconstitutional synthesis, etc.) to discover its future unfolding for itself in such a manner as to enhance the nature of the value-creation in that society or culture. In this regard I am reminded of Confucious' saying to the effect that we should learn from the past in order to recontinue what was good in that society and bring such patterns of behaviour into the present and thence into the future for the advancement of that society and enhancement of value experience by those individuals in that society.
	A culture as that already constituted must to a certain extent be able to existentially rectify itself by virtue of the existential nature of that pre-constitution.

10.	The Self-Establishment Of Cultural Value.

	How could a culture left to its own devices manage its own value-creation?
	The person born into a culture immediately meets the pre-constitution of that culture and its inherent value-creation. In the necessary continual re-constitution of that culture by that culture there must be directly associated with that culture the continual creation of (a) cultural-value in keeping with the nature of that culture. An appropriate creation of value can only take place through a suspension of value and a process of informed re-constitution that allows the situation to hand, in our cognitive understanding of it, to re-discover its own responsiveness through an understanding of that relational situation as intuitively understood from the perspective of that person. Not every person in the same relational situation need respond the same way, a variety, if not an infinity, of responsive modes being pregnant in that situation although certain responsive pathways are going to be more appropriate than others. Metaphorically we could say that each situation has the seeds of its own resolution.
	Mere suspension of itself is not going to be productive in the resolution of relational dissonance. However, the mere instantiation of a suspension should provoke the spontaneous presence of an emphasis on either a reductive-analysis or a re-constitutional-synthesis. An adequate response necessitates the necessary degree of adequate essential information that would allow the situation to existentially realize its own resolutional pathway. This pre-conditional research being developed through mini-judgmental states establishing the essential overall appreciation of the situation to hand prior to its conditional suspension that allows the latter to be productive in its responsiveness.
	A successful re-constitutional-synthesis necessitates a successful prior reductive-analysis, and v.v. Along with the necessity for a state of transcendental-psychological suspension we should realize that the productive creation of value in a state of authenticity is discovered through the dynamic equilibrium that finds itself put in place between these three moment or aspects of our phenomenological triangle-circle or phenomenological schema. Moreover as these three moments are in themselves only virtual through co-definitional thematization it follows that to instantiate an emphasis on any one it is necessary to introduce and balance a simulation of the other two. So to initiate our active entry into this phenomenological schema all that should be necessary is to introduce and balance a sense of analysis with and equal sense of synthesis. From this point of modal equilibrium (between psychological projection and injection) and an increased state of concentration a state of suspension should be spontaneously transformed into a state of transcendental suspension. Then from that point of view synthesis or analysis of the already pre-constituted can be arranged through an equilibrium between suspension and analysis or synthesis respectively (in transcendental-psychological terms of reference).
	Although this procedure does indeed sound artificial it is an attempt to understand how we should be able, from the development of our powers of reflection, to find ourselves naturally working our way from pre-conditional research to conditional research and its post-conditional responsiveness and (its critical appreciation). In this delicate dance about the center of the life-world (for us) through a balancing, thematization and centering of the facets of this phenomenological schema a state of existential authenticity should be allowed to emerge from the experiential depths of our being capable of allowing us to adequately appreciate the ongoing unfolding of this world of phenomenal being from the wonderful depths of its mysterious presence in all its appropriate richness of revelation and responsibility.

11.	The Culture Of Value?

	How is value to be cultured? How is value to be created in a spirit of authenticity?
	In this metaphor of our culture of yeast cells furiously reproducing we have the image of these cells actually creating themselves. In a like image, I believe, we must also see value as self-reproductive through an ongoing re-constitution of value already pre-constituted and sedimented in culture and resident as an effective trace in the psyche as an accumulation re-processed and sedimented in the psychological being of the person as a person-in-that-society.
	Although virtual these complex fields of value-creations sedimented in the virtuality of the psyche have a semi-independence or existential-like being through the effective forcefulness of those factors through the co-definitional thematization of that complex field in its totality and as a virtual member in the totality of culture. Even the world of culture is a virtual field through the co-definition arrived at through the thematization of a world of scientific value and world of ecological value.
	It stands to reason that in restructuring our world, to that extent we can through our existential rethematization of the same, that it would follow that a more existential responsiveness on our part would result from a decrease in the field distortions inauthenticity laid down in the sedimentation of our personal cultural-psyche. This transformation in holistic and partial terms of reference of this value sedimentation is possible on the grounds that an inauthenticity of value-creation is not an absolute inauthenticity of value-creation. Productivity must have an existential core and it is this aspect of our sedimentation that is re-discovered and re-interpreted. Moreover, this process of transformation is assisted through suspension because the forcefulness of our semi-interdependent value-creation is therein paralyzed, made inoperative, disconnected from an active re-constitutional phase until such a time a more appropriate transformed state of value creation is put in place. 
	Again this change of heart indeed sounds artificial but this model is proposed to account for the fact that the individual develops and through their development usually becomes more appropriate in the execution of their responsibilities to themselves and to society, etc. Further, most people experience a sense of moral dilemma, e.g. only on the edges of their moral experience suggesting that a body of experience has accumulated that allows for our passage through this world to be generally unproblematic. Likewise, our responses as members of various cultures normally find an effortless exercise. This integrity being assumed even by people of people whose lives are equally led in the ways of inauthenticity and exploitation of their fellow humans, the object-states of this world and of the world as a whole. Honour even among thieves generally sets an optimistic prospect for the authentic transformation of our fellows although such a transformation can only occur if our transcendental-psychological machinery is intact and non-interfered with. Let me at this stage outline some important points that I belief should enter our understanding on the nature of value-creation in a culture of value?
	The creation of value is something created by the being of value itself when allowed to transform itself along more authentic lines of development. Field distortions need an existential minimalization, suspension and/or re-construction. Our situational value-creation, e.g. our situational ethics, aesthetical-appreciation, pragmatical programmes, etc. all necessitate an adequate essential and contextual appreciation of the relational situation to hand. Our existential development necessitates that we find appropriate examples of such conduct, meet with guidance and experience a successfulness through our practical involvement in this deliberate desire to cultivate ourselves and transform and refine the world of culture that supported us and which in turn we must support through our re-constitutional re-sedimentation. Through a conditioned responsiveness we must learn to develop our appropriateness in society and in such a manner that our appropriation is exercised as an example, to the best intuitive ability we have, before the look and meaningful contrast of the other. Our powers of concentration must be developed to that extent that allow us to respond with that degree of authenticity and selflessness necessary to meet an appropriate and productive state of transcendental-psychological suspension. Lastly, a dynamic state of balance is necessary in the exercise of our passage through this world as a person who is a bearer of culture inherited from the world of the other because although this weight of responsibility is profound we must become neither a slave to the past nor a mere servant to this idea of being authentic! Authenticity can only be realized through the spontaneity of our transcendental being and not through the mere desire to be authentic! Our desire to be authentic must itself be suspended even if the relational situation calls us to appear inauthentic before the look of the other. 

12.	The Value Of Culture?

	In the development of a transcendental-psychological suspension we must learn to develop a sense of detached-absorption or absorbed-detachment. In developing our powers of concentration and reflection we increase our overall degree of gestalt integration and therein our existential powers of responsibility, a responsibility that is given to us and shared by  the relational situation to hand as it presents itself to us in the world. In our being absorbed we find ourselves entering the ongoing stream of the affective and the cognitive with a one-pointedness in intentional directedness. In our detachment our transcendental-psychological sense of self is allowed to unfold in the ongoing revelation of its own being, a being that is a being thoughtful in the world and our being being thought in the world. On an affective and a cognitive level of consciousness we could say in the Heidiggarian sense that we are thrown into the world, moreover, from the level of judgment itself in a transcendental-psychological level of consciousness we could say that we are extracted at the same time from the material being of this world and given a sense of value that transcends being a mere object in the world. In this ec-static state we realize our freedom to be as a person who is a person-in-a-world-of-culture. Herein lies the value of culture. Through a cultural dimension, in a state of balance with a world of scientific value and a world of ecological value, we take our entrance as a person with all the potential infinity of value therein to be realized through our relationships in this world of egos, object-states and pluralistic and hierarchically structured world-horizons. Through the utter simplicity of our being being being discovered through our realization of a transcendental-psychological suspension  we find ourselves as a  thinking thinking thinking with no real ontological difference between our being-thoughtful and our thoughtful-being.
	Without a world of culture the person could not realize a sense of distinctive personality as a person-in-society. Without the refinement of culture and its continual re-constitutional advancement the person as a mere object in the world would not be able to discover a sense of meaning and meaningfulness above and beyond those material terms of reference. For the person to feel worthless or valueless they must have already experienced a sense of value, a sense of being valuable otherwise they could not have experienced a sense of loss. 
	It is through the sanctuary and sustenance of a world of cultural value that the person uncovers a sense of meaning and meaningfulness in their being thrown into a world of being (through their various intentional projects) and in their simultaneous ecstatic exit from the same as a person of potentially infinite value as that person in a world of culture. A world of authenticity being discovered through being authentic, an authenticity discovered through the suspension of being authentic. An authenticity whose a priori constitution is founded and grounded in the absolute transcendental dimension of the life-world fleshed out through the manner we purport ourselves in this world of lived experience as lived though the engagement of responsibility and the responsibility of engagement. An authenticity that enhances our being in this world realizing the value of culture and the culture of value!

	   		    Noël Tointon, Sydney and Leura, 30.12.90.

Appendix I -
Diagrammatic Representation Of The Phenomenological Schema

[Present Time Orientation]
{Modal Equilibrium}
World Of Culture
(Ethics: Ego-Ego)
Suspension

EGO

(Aesthetics: 			    *	        	(Pragmatics:
   Ego-Object)						        Ego-World)

	OBJECT							WORLD

Reduction/Analysis				  Synthesis/
								     Re-Constitution
(Thematics:			   			  Trans-Thematics:
	Object-Object)						   World-World)
World Of Scientific Value          World Of Ecological Value
{Projection}					  {Injection}
[Past Time Orientation]		     [Future Time Orientation]

(Ontics: Object-World)
............................................................

1.	Short Title, e.g. EGO, for Transcendental Ego.
2.	Phenomenological Mode.
3.	Type of Value from Cognitive Perspective.
4.	Type Of World.
5.	Psychological Mode.
6.	Time-orientation.