A PHENOMENOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION OF VALUE

A Series Of Papers 

On A Phenomenology Of The Experience Of Value

N.K.Tointon

(1989-91)

Index

i	Index
ii	Foreword

1	I    Being And Value: A Phenomenology Of The Experience 
Of Value
19	II   A Phenomenological Investigation Into The Nature 					Of Inauthenticity (As A Preparation To A 				Phenomenological Approach To The Theory 
And Practice Of Value Creation)
44	III  A Phenomenological Approach To The Theory Of 		
				Value Creation
68	IV   A Phenomenological Ontology Of Value
82	V    The Death Defying Act Of Transcendental Suspension
101	VI   Resolution Of A Fundamental Dilemma: The Treatment 
				Of Value In the Deontological-Pragmatic 					Controversy
120	VII  Methods In The Practical Application Of A 					Transcendental Philosophy For A 
Phenomenological And Existential Realization Of Value
141	VIII The Mapping Of Value
157	IX   Meditations On The Simulation Of Value
178	X    Ecological Value???
199	XI   The Value Of Culture?
228	XIIA The Value Of The Other: The Value Of Freedom And 					The Freedom Of Value?
247	XIIB The Value Of Freedom And The Freedom Of Value

266	Postword: On A Summarized Re-Examination Of The 					Expression Existential In The Light 
Of An Investigation Into Authenticity In Value Creation.

274	Appendix I - Economic Value: Some Thoughts On Its 					Simulation, Preservation, Reconstruction 
And Expansion.

A Foreword To This Phenomenological Investigation Of Value

	Most of the papers, or essays, contained within this volume were written in 1990. In editing them in 1991 I have made the decision not to overtly harmonize them with later developments of my thinking both as it would evolve during the writing of these papers and outside the ambit of the same. Rather, I would like to introduce some of the important conceptual structural-functions presented in this volume and then, in a response, summarize in what manner I would now differ in my latest re-presentation of the same; a facet of my work currently being taken up in my next collection of phenomenological papers on the subject of A Phenomenological Investigation Of Hermeneutical Value.
	Although this Foreword is titled a `foreword' more correctly it should be called a `postword' having been written after the writing of this volume. However, I have reserved the latter title of `postword' for a short concluding essay to help recreate a practical focus upon the primary objective of this volume, namely, a phenomenological understanding of the nature of value and, by extension, the subject of value creation itself. 
	The original motivation, or subtext, behind this collection was a desire to investigate the authentic creation of value as it manifests itself in the natural sphere of daily life. It was hoped that from such philosophical research certain rules could be discerned and applied in order to return an authentic meaning and meaningfulness to the exerciser of such existential procedures; such rules more preparing the ground for the spontaneous development of such appropriate forms of life. In one last attempt to re-address this issue, to instantiate this quest for real value, I have added a Postword in the form of a redefinition of the expression existential in the light of this desire for the practical realization of authenticity. 
	It is suggested by myself that should the reader wish they might like to read this Foreword (followed by a reading of the Postword) before dealing with any one particular paper in this volume (the first paper also acting in the role of an introduction to this subject as demarcated, defined and investigated by myself).

1.	A Brief Outline Of Fundamental Definitions Used

	In this series of thirteen papers, or essays, the theme of value is approached from a number of angles. In the first paper it is suggested that value is created and enjoyed in a personal dimension of dasein; a frame of reference that involves the phenomenal presence of a transcendental subject (without treating this sense of subjectivity, and intersubjectivity, in a phenomenalized manner. The phenomenal treatment of the sense of the transcendental as creating a sense of the absolutistic in distinction to the sense of the absolute when the sense of the transcendental is not subjected to a phenomenalistic reduction; a non-transcendental reduction to mere intentionality or constitutionalized structures or functions, or more correctly structural-functions).
	Let me put these terms into some form of simplified context. The expression phenomenal involves our taking at face value a distinctive form of experience (in its essential generality) and through the auspices of a transcendental suspension not concerning ourselves, in our phenomenological investigations, as to whether that phenomenon, or type of phenomenon, exists or does not exist in the natural world of interpreted everyday experience, etc. Such an attitude, involving a balanced suspension of valuational presuppositions, opens us up to the transcendental sphere or dimension of being, thinking and our being-thoughtful. The transcendental dimension in my understanding taking a number of overlapping aspects and being primarily defined as trans-intentional, trans-phenomenal and trans-constitutional. In order to appreciate the intentional nature of our cognitive appreciation of the phenomenal, I would argue that the transcendental sense of the trans-phenomenal, etc., must be invoked in order to find ourselves in a position to realize the phenomenal as qua phenomenal, the intentional as qua intentional, etc. The transcendental in this sense taking on a trans-intentional form of experience. To a certain extent, therefore, the transcendental can also be seen in a Kantian light as the active grounds that constitute the phenomenally constituted, etc. This transcendental activity forming the grounds for such an interpretation and is experientially entered and left via the transcendental suspension; such a state of affairs arising from a natural balance put in place in our appreciation of the cognitive dimension of the perceptual and the conceptual and involves a balance between contrary aspects of all forms of value - existence/non-existence, beauty/non-beauty, goodness/non-goodness, etc. Moreover, the transcendental suspension is also simulated and experienced when there is an informed balance put in place collectively between structure and function, parts and whole, analysis and synthesis, textual meaning and contextual meaningfulness, etc. These additional considerations being explored in a number of papers.
	The transcendental dimension involves the constitution of the phenomenal and to that extent cannot be separated from the phenomenal, both dimensions being like the two sides of a coin in this regard. However, from the perspective of the transcendental the sense of the transcendental and the sense of the phenomenal are equivalent, but, from the perspective of the phenomenal these two senses are not equivalent. Moreover, the absolute sense of the transcendental must not be phenomenalized or relativized by treating it as on a par with the phenomenological, the empirical, the material, the natural, the ontological, the epistemological, etc., etc.
	By epistemological necessity, as I have argued on a number of occasions, the appreciation of phenomenal experience, whether natural or phenomenological in orientation, must be transcendental. All forms of appreciation realize a type of value; engage some form of judgment. On this account then all types of value have the same transcendental form from the perspective of the transcendental. The type of value, therefore, can only be differentiated on the grounds of its cognitive approach. E.g., artworks should be viewed in an aesthetic frame of reference, matters of morality in an ethical frame of reference, etc., despite the epistemological fact, as interpreted in this volume, that the transcendental machinery of judgment has but one form or flavour.
	To systematically account for the different types of cognitive approach to value an archetypal phenomenology was proposed (in answer to the question what basic phenomenal facets of experience does the natural person, as a bare minimum, have in their dealings with various forms of value?). Value was seen to flow from the interaction of the intentional Object (as a transcendental object or state of affairs) in conjunction with an intentional horizon (as a transcendental context or World) which in turn is to found co-defining a sense of transcendental subject or Ego. Definition of all three parties being discovered and thematized through their mutual co-definition of each other. Distinctive forms of value arising through the dominance/suppression of one or two of those poles. As a consequence this volume gives an account of six distinctive type of value, namely, thematical, aesthetical, ethical, pragmatical, trans-thematical and ontical. These six forms of value being respectively concerned in my current opinion with the following fields, namely, matters of lexical and mathematical identity, manipulation and calculation, etc.; matters of aesthetics; ethical considerations; pragmatical involvement of an agent (or some form of transcendental agency); the semantic relationship between levels of horizon; matters concerning the quidity, or the what it is, of thematical identity in conjunction with its factual potentiality-actuality, etc., as to be found in its process development.
	These three moments of Ego, Object and World also constituting a complex multi-leveled hermeneutical circle between moments of analytically-orientated meaning and synthetically orientate meaningfulness (there being no textual meaning without contextual meaningfulness). 
	Lastly, in this section, let me note that an emphasis on the essentiality of meaning is phenomenological in orientation and aspiration, whereas, on the other hand, the emphasis on the contextuality of the synthetical realizes, I believe, a hermeneutical preoccupation. In the balance of both of those process-directions we have the existential perspective along with its spontaneity of judgmental decision and action. Hence the higher forms of value within this Schema of the existential, hermeneutical and the phenomenological all subsumed within the embrace of the transcendental.
	Let me now take a closer phenomenological look at these six forms of phenomenal value as entailed in the archetypal treatment of this subject.

2.	Archetypal Forms Of Phenomenal Value

Ethical
!
Ego

		Aesthetical		Pragmatical

   Object								World
     !								  !
  Thematical					 	    Trans-Thematical

Ontical

A.  Thematical Value: Archetypal Object-Object Interaction

	Subsumed under this form of archetypal interaction, involving the suppression of the co-definitional moments of Ego and World, are considerations of a calculative modality involving lexical, syntactical, mathematical, identificational forms of judgment, etc.. Positive interaction being asserted when there is a transformational correspondence between certain identified parties under the relevant forms of investigation associated with that type of thematical investigation. 
	Pre-essential considerations investigating the integrity, or gestalt integration, of those internally interacting facets involved in those intentional states of affairs. 
	Transformational correspondence occurring when a certain intentional feature, or set of features, imputed or named in one presentation is found, imputed, or named as being present in some other intentional state of affairs. Thematical value essentially thematizing a certain state of affairs by naming the total intentional object, or the parts therein, from a vocabulary of already pre-defined essential descriptions and/or nominal categories or linguistic units (e.g., a name using pre-defined letters and rules for sound pronunciation). Under such conditions a round-square, e.g., could never be thematized but that this fact itself could be thematized as only reaching a pre-essential state of determination.
	Essentially thematical value is created through the manipulation of pre-defined values at an intentional object to object level of interaction.

B.	Aesthetical Value: Archetypal Object-Ego Interaction

	Aesthetical value vis-a-vis artworks, artifacts of human performance or aspects of the natural world, being regarded as that type of value that arises from a suppression of the sense of horizon, or World, in an archetypal interaction of intentional object (or more correctly the intentional object as seen in its transcendental objectivity) versus the transcendental dimensions of subjectivity. This type of interaction investigating the evocative-provocative disposition and resolution of such aesthetic objectivity.
	To a certain necessary extent all forms of value (in its cognitive expression and in its cognitive treatment of intentionality) is the result of some form of evocative-provocative tension and the provocationally dictated resolution of the same. Routine evocation (of essential phenomenal structural-functions) realizing a sense of consonance whilst on the other hand the introduction of relative evocational difference realizing a sense of dissonance. The relational facticity of the phenomenal/(phenomenological examination of the) event being realized through the ongoing resolution of that tension; value being realized in and through the relational facticity of the relationship in its ongoing reconstitutional formation as a possible presentation in the natural sphere of operation.

C.	Ethical Value: Archetypal Ego-Ego Interaction

	Intentional interaction with an emphasis on the egotistical component and an inverse suppression of the moments of World and Object (although such features enter through the background associated with the hypothetical or realized activity of action and/or non-action and its associated hypothetical or realized responses that allow an act of ethical evaluation to proceed).
	Such evaluative activity concerning the form or forms of agency participating, e.g., the ethical reflections of an ego w.r.t. themselves, someone else; an agent versus a group of agents, or, an institution or more than one institution, a political entity or group of political entities, the neutral, hypothetical inclusion of divine and non-human forms of agency.

D.	Pragmatical Value: Archetypal Ego-World Interaction

	Intentional interaction between Ego and World with a suppression of the moment of Object. Essentially a harmonization of ones passage through this world conducted through a de-emphasis on the objects met in the course of such progress. Pragmatical value enlarging upon the degree of coherence or harmony present, the sense of power engaged through such resolution, etc.

E.	Trans-Thematical Value: Archetypal World-World 												    Interaction

	Intentional interaction considered at the level of the horizon with a suppression of the moments of Object and Ego.
Such value concerning itself with the ecological nature of systems within systems, the semantic passage from one meta-level of organization to some higher level of organization; the transformational shift from one frame of reference to a more encompassing frame of reference. 
	This level of evaluation taking place upon the satisfactory establishment of essential thematic value followed by forms of coherence, e.g., pragmatical evaluation. The model for this type of evaluation being the Tarskian semantic approach to truth value; i.e., if P' in the relative meta-level of formulation them P in the relative object-language level of interpretation. Realizing an emphasis on the ecological, semantical and the interpretational or hermeneutical. This type of truth evaluation being essentially transformational (versus the correspondence between the essential aspects entailed in thematical evaluation, the resolutional resonance of the aesthetical and the ethical, and, the coherence of the pragmatical and the ontical).
	My recent thinking on this aspect of value-formation taking the position as just stated that this aspect of evaluation is ecological in the sense of the involvement of systems/frame of reference/horizons within horizons; transformational and interested in semantical successfulness in a transition from one frame of reference to an associated meta-frame of reference; effectively a hermeneutical interest in interpretation rather than the phenomenological interest needed on the more essential-thematical/ontical levels of concern and operation.

F.	Ontical Value: Object-World Interaction

	An intentional interest conducted on the archetypal level between Object and World with an inverse suppression of the moment of Ego. 
	Although I have found it difficult to pin down precisely the nature of this type of interaction I believe it contains considerations of potentiality-actuality; an establishment of the degree to which a certain intentional object is able to function within its own sphere of orbit. Moreover, it essentially establishes the what it is that thematical value merely names and manipulates, etc., in a calculative fashion.

	In summary I would like to add that those moments that include a promotion of the Object involve some form of correspondence (between Objects, etc.), that a promotion of Ego involves some form of direct resolutional harmonization (and coherence?) and that those forms of value that promote the moment of World involve some form (of coherence and) transformational successfulness. That these three poles essentially form phenomenological, existential and hermeneutical moments respectively, and, collectively constitute the archetypal nature of the hermeneutic(-al) circle (as it attempts to thematize and articulate the specific and general nature of its current treatment of the transcendental-phenomenal limits manifested in the intentional expression of the life-world).

3.	Hermeneutic(al) Circle

	The hermeneutic circle has been defined as the application of a hermeneutical circle. The hermeneutical circle could be described as the net archetypal relationship generated between three poles of analysis, synthesis and their suspended balance which generate, in application, phenomenal simulation and phenomenological re-simulation of the former. Hence the hermeneutical circle in its generality could be described as phenomenal, the cognitive structural-functions of consciousness, existential, phenomenological, hermeneutical, and through the nature of the transcendental suspension as transcendental (which in turn has been described as trans-phenomenal, trans-constitution and trans-intentional), etc.
	This tripartite structure can be seen to re-express itself on a number of different levels in consciousness or gestalt horizons, aspects or perspectives, e.g., in textual treatment, in temporal appreciation, in an archetypal understanding of processes of harmonization, etc. These various aspects are noted, e.g., in the Paper 12b, section H. This same archetypal tripartite polarity can be used to relate phenomenological forms of research with those of a hermeneutical direction or preoccupation, etc.

	Let me now briefly note the subject matter and motivation behind these thirteen papers collected in this volume.

4.	A Brief Description Of These Collected Papers

	The first paper is essentially an introduction to this topic of a phenomenological appreciation of the nature of value and, by extension, the manner value can be created in an authentic mode. Noted in this paper is the phenomenological fact that value is created in a non-material, personal dimension of dasein. A Heideggarian approach is adopted. The subject of authenticity is introduced.
	The second paper concerns itself with a phenomenological investigation into the nature of inauthenticity. The complex role of the other is tentatively introduced and various forms of inauthenticity are indicated.
	The third paper concerns itself with an introduction to the sub-topic of value creation (although to be noted that authentic value is not so much created as allowed to naturally manifest itself from its necessary preconditions). Six archetypal forms of value, initially examined in Paper I, are further analyzed along with the concept of value transformation.
	The fourth paper philosophically and phenomenologically investigates the ontological nature of value. The concept of authenticity is further investigated.
	The fifth paper examines the phenomenological concept of transcendental suspension and in the process widen this concept to include the aspect of the existential along with their implication in the process of judgment whether authentically or non-authentically produced/reproduced. Two types of circus act are used as metaphors in an investigation of this aspect of our topic.
	Paper six investigates the controversial interrelationship between deontological forms of value realization and pragmatic/utilitarian approaches.
	The next paper enlarges upon the concept of a practical application of a transcendental philosophy. The momentary nature of value-creation is noted.
	The eighth paper concerns the mapping, i.e., the detection, discrimination and appreciation of the interaction between different forms of value. Forms of distinction are re-drawn and the archetypal nature of their interaction is also noted.
	The ninth paper is a phenomenological meditation on the simulation of value.
	Paper ten is a phenomenal examination of ecological value in an attempt to clarify the phenomenological nature of this controversial topic.
	The next paper, in a similar vein to the last, examines the value of culture. Hermeneutical considerations are also examined.
	The twelfth paper is divided into two presentations of the same topic with little overlap and examined from a series of different perspectives. The topic under examination is that of freedom and its phenomenal relationship to the experience of authenticity. These last two papers form, to a certain extent, a tentative conclusion to this topic and in the process linking a number of themes examined in this volume. The door is also opened to a phenomenological examination of the nature of hermeneutic value, an investigation currently in progress and as a series of papers forming a sequel to, or continuation of, this volume.
	A Postword re-examines the expression existential as defined in this research and its relationship to the authentic (re)creation of value.
	Lastly, I have appended  some thoughts on the topic of economic value applying a number of concepts developed in this volume.

Conclusion

	Hoping the reader finds some philosophical enjoyment in these series of interrelated papers. My advice is not to worry about small details, and become bogged down in their clarification, on the supposition that important points will be re-dealt with in an ongoing re-attention to detail and dissemination. Hopefully the reader will be patient with my `unraveling' of this topic and realize that the strength of philosophical thought is its ability to be modified and enriched the more deeply we engage ourselves in its critical investigation. The finished product in a sense loosing value to that extent it looses its existential fluidity, and adaptability, and becomes dogmatically fixed in the cannons of some dry inauthentic textbook. At the same time running the gauntlet of an interpretation that heads either in the direction of an absolutist formulation fossilized in logically fixed terms of reference or a creative free-floating performance without any location or thematized grounds beneath it. It is true that reality cannot be pinned down, on the other hand the reality of the phenomenal world has transcendental foundations that allow us to trans-phenomenally appreciate the intentional determination of our investigations in all its dialectical openness. But interpretation is itself a phenomenon as much as the phenomena it wishes to interpret are in each instance phenomenon in their own right. Moreover, in a simulation of this phenomenal-simulation, avoiding all metaphors of a representational modeling, the value of that phenomenon is also recreated. As value is experienced as a transcendental phenomenon it follows that from a trans-phenomenal appreciation of the phenomenon in question that the value of that phenomenon must also be re-created in its re-simulation providing we allow it to speak to us with this transcendental voice that it must possess in its engagement of us as a phenomenon there currently to hand in that phenomenal simulation of a-world-there-for-us. In order to appreciate the phenomenon as a phenomenon it must be overlooked but in our appreciation of the value of that phenomenon in our engagement with it, and its engagement with us, we must not overlook the value of that phenomenon as a phenomenon-there-for-us for the very thoughtful-being of the phenomenon is for it to be a value-there-for-us as much as it is a phenomenon presented in the unfolding manifold of time and space, causation and the realms of ego. Only a short-sighted reading of the phenomenon would misread it in the logically exclusive terms of reference appended to a materialistic or mentalistic overlooking of either, or both, the transcendental and phenomenal aspects of the life-world!
	Lastly, let me reiterate the point that although value has its origins in a transcendental dimension, being revealed and delivered through an act of judgment, it is then given a phenomenal foothold, or footprint, through the activity of the cognitive in its treatment of that act of judgment as a judgment already constituted. That only in a reconstitutional re-simulation of that gestational act of judgment can the authenticity of that original act be in turn re-simulated to that extent that it can be re-constituted and re-experienced. Failing that a transformational authenticity can be regained through the existential manner of its re-constitution; to that extent value is generated in sympathy with the essential nature of that relationship as it manifests itself in its relational context as a phenomenon selflessly witnessed, through transcendental suspension, by the transcendental subjectivity of that person, or persons, involved in that relationship. But, more correctly, such an existential receptivity is attuned to all relationships that ostensibly impinge upon those actors participating in that primary relationship and in this sense every relationship reflects the entire life-world, as the relationship of all relationships, albeit from its own particular point of view. Thus, in this manner, the transcendental world of value is simultaneously subjective, inter-subjective, and, by virtue of that intersubjectivity, virtually objective. However, an appreciation of such apparent objectivity necessitates the balanced exercise of our phenomenological powers of scrutiny and our hermeneutical powers of interpretation besides an intuitive appreciation of its existential revelation in and through a super-transcendental suspension that balances all three polarities of the Object, World and Ego (and all categories that run parallel to such an intentional schematization)...