A Phenomenological Ontology Of Value

Introduction

	In this paper I wish to answer the question what is value? In this investigation I would like to go about this task by questioning the meaning of four related questions, namely, what is the value of value, what is the value of being, what is the being of value and what is the being of being? Resolution of these questions is not however the primary motive of this paper, rather I seek more to use them in a mediative fashion in order to expose the structures that I believe underlie the nature of value as an experiential fact in our daily existence and the nature of the relationship between a world of being and a world of value. The question what is value is a task whose investigation could not be conducted in one paper. My attempts to answer this question here should be seen in this light as another approach to this topic. In this particular endeavour an archaeology of value is undertaken in order to perceive what forces are operative, in the structure and structuring of value, and in whose presence our daily lives are given meaning and meaningfulness, i.e. a sense of personal value. In the process an ontology of value will be outlined from a phenomeno-logical point of view.

	In a previous paper I noted that the question that involved the form what is the x of x resulted in a philosophic position of saying that the answer is non-x. This did not involve a nihilistic reply but rather an explicit recognition of the richness of an absolute perspective that sees the ground of the phenomenon x as equally immanent and transcendent to the same. 
	In another paper I took this question what is the x of x to have two senses, namely, as an absolute position with no cognitive sense, as just recounted, and as a phenomenological question that seeks to investigate the essence of that type of phenomenon that involves an x-likeness. In answering this primary question what is value we can then place ourselves in a better position, through our understanding, to experience value and to apply our insight in such a way as to transform the relatively valueless to hand in our daily existence into the relatively valuable.

I.	 What is the Value of Value

	Taking this question in a phenomenological mode we ask ourselves what is the essence of value although tempered by an absolute perspective we realize that ultimately this answer is beyond a cognitive dimension and must be realized in experience to correctly answer our question. Only retropsectively can the cognitive deal with what has already occurred in conscious experience, even though, paradoxically this dealing with history is done in the immediacy of the present.
	A first essential feature must be the fact that value is experienced in a personal dimension (dasein or life-world). Without the element of the personal there could be no value created, recognized, evaluated or transformed.
	What is it then that is experienced in a personal dimension that is called value.
	Rather than ask the sub-question what is the phenomenal essence of value let us ask instead why is value valued? Such a question is also implicit in this question what is the value of value? Could the world for the person be just a series of routines involving little or no choice? Must the individual or society set out to seek some form or manner of meaningfulness? Why, let us ask ourselves, must there be a quest for value? If indeed value is valued how is value to be valued?
	Let us imagine the following two situations. A native of the Amazon jungle stumbles upon a large gold nugget. He picks it up. Notices its unusualness and then happily throws it away as too heavy to bother with. Now let us imagine a seeker of gold is prospecting and in their travels comes across this discarded nugget. Instantly he recognizes his discovery to be a gold nugget and realizes that this object is a very large nugget of considerable value that will realize a considerable fortune when sold to the gold merchant or bank.
	In the first instance the Indian native discovers a gold nugget but perceives little or no value associated with the same. On the other hand the gold prospector not only discovers a gold nugget but also recognizes its relative worth in the commercial world that he is a part of. Discovery of the potentially valuable object in itself is not enough for one to recognize what possible worth it might have. For the nugget to be valued it must be recognized as a desirable object in a particular frame of reference. Without this particular frame of reference and an evaluation in the light of this context value is not discovered even though the object itself has been discovered. In a sense therefore value is re-discovered.
	In asking the question why is value valued we therefore must take into account the fact that value is discovered in a constructed frame of reference where that value is sought and seen as desirable, desired as desirable. Translated this question becomes why is value, in general or in particular, desired? In the context of our story about the gold nugget we might safely speculate that the gold nugget was not desirable in itself so much as for what it could indirectly do for us. In this case its being able to be converted into money which in turn could be converted into something more directly desired by some person or group. Therefore the value of value potentially resident in some object-state x is dependent upon the indirect or direct desirableness of that object-state x.
	In turn a decision that recognizes the desirableness of a certain object-state x is grounded on a platform of pre-arranged choices. In this case of the gold prospector we can determine their set of choices to involve the fact for them that the convertibility of gold is desirable and that their searching for the same is a practical possibility that they are prepared to enter into. Therefore the discovery of the gold nugget for the prospector is more a re-discovery or recognition that the value of gold has value for them.
	The question could be posed if a collector of gold nuggets or gold objects sought only to collect the same and never to realize the worth they know is resident with such substances is the real value of the situation for them resident with the objects of their collection or in the pleasure or pleasures discovered in their act or fact of collection. Again it would seem that the gold collected is indirectly valued and that in this case what is more valued is the act or fact of collection and not the gold per se.
	It would seem therefore that value is valued in some context that is so constructed by or for a person or group that recognizes what is directly or indirectly desirable for that person or group. It would also seem to follow that this construction of this context is founded upon a sequence and hierarchy of choices although in practical terms of reference these choices will most likely include those competing with each other for our attention in the same moment or period of time and those fluctuating in time in their intensity and direction of associated desirability. The important point to note is this necessary ingredient of choice.
	An act of choice can be entered into along the following lines of approach. An act of choice would seem to imply some degree of ability to choose in the first place, to possibly choose well, to be not bothered too much in our act of choice, to not choose well, to make our choice but not act on it, or to simply make no choice in the first place. These avenues of possibility implicating in some fashion our ability to evaluate the situation to hand and to act or not act upon that evaluation assuming such evaluation, as a prior choice, has already been put in place. Our analysis so far has in some measure also answered this other question as to what is the essence of value. Implicated in the resolution of this problem is an element of a constructed context, execution of choice and an ability to evaluate these choices in the light of our desires without restricting the latter to mere gut reactions to the world entertained in actual and possible states of experience. In an active world of value life is given an overall sense of purpose through the delineation of our choices and the realization of the same. Value being either directly desired or indirectly desired while, conversely, the non-valued being either directly or indirectly not desired.

II.	 The Being of Value

	In answering this challenge lets us enquire first as to how value is experienced?
	As argued elsewhere value is experienced in a personal dimension, in a world of life or life-world, in a dimension of dasein. Moreover it is experienced in conjunction with a world of choices and their evaluation. It would seem sensible at this point in my paper to formulate a provisional conclusion to the effect that value is constructed and recognized in a world of judgment. That the being of value is revealed in and through our intentional being being involved in an horizon of expectations constructed and realized through a sequence and hierarchy of choices.
	Let us reflect upon the following situation.
	A certain individual comes into a shop and states "I am looking for value." The shop assistant, a little concrete in their thinking, enquires as to what they wish to buy? Again the person states "I am looking for value, some value for my money, so where do I find it?" It is explained to them that value cannot be bought but might be found in what they buy.
The question is again posed as to what they might desire among the stock to hand in this type of shop. Again the person states they "seek only value and if necessary will go elsewhere to obtain it." 
	They certainly were right to go elsewhere but not in the sense intended. Obviously value per se cannot be bought. However value might be found in that bought if what was sought was desired, recognized, obtained and found measuring up to the ideal sought.
	It would be safe to say that value is not found in the spatio-temporal world of being although indirectly it might be found there in association with that sought.
	A certain painting might be considered to have value, thought to possibly be valuable. Intrinsically it appears to have great aesthetic power or value. Taken to the auction house we discover its convertibility into hard cold cash to be quite considerable. Can we still say the painting itself has considerable value or that in a certain context it has value? Can we hold that this painting might have considerable aesthetic value in itself and also be valuable in a fashionable sense as well?
	The intrinsic value of the artwork resides in the depth and degree of successfulness of the resolution of dissonance entertained and organized by our perceptual and intellectual reception of that artwork from a transcendental point of view, i.e. from the point of view of the judgmental relationship itself. The aesthetic power reflecting the facticity of that relationship to be and express itself as a totality above and beyond the mere summation of its participating parties, this aesthetic power provoking and evoking an aesthetic response in related measure to its inherent and associated aestheticality. Additional to this degree of successfulness is the addition of apparent classical or non-classical allusional features that also enrich our experience along with an understanding of the genre or the background of the type of art being entertained. In effect we come to recognize a hierarchy of aesthetic factors of varying degrees of intrinsicality and contextuality in the construction, and in our reconstruction, of that valued object. What light does such an understanding cast upon the being of value?
	In an answer to this question let us for the present be more concerned with the possible intrinsic valuation and evaluation of this work of art. As discussed in another paper aesthetic value is one of six kinds or fields of value. In distinction to ethical forms of value or pragmatical forms, etc. the aesthetic basically involves the relationship of an intended artwork (or natural state of affairs) with an agent able to perceive that work of art (or natural state of affairs) as a potential work of art (or as an aesthetic phenomenon). The relatively intrinsic aesthetic power of a potential work of art or object-state of affairs being resident in the relatively dissonant structures encoded in the relatively consonant totality of that artwork or object-state subject to the relative successfulness of the resolution of those tensions therein enclosed in the psychic body of that artwork or object-state. The emphasis is placed upon the relativity of these facets of consonance, dissonance and resolution; their entertainment realizing the relatively intrinsic aesthetic value of that artwork. A relativity of aesthetic value where quantification is directly related to our ability to assess and measure the overall powerfulness of that resolution.
	Two question that might be posed at this point of time involve the following considerations. Can a particular field of value be chosen and the individual exercise their freedom of choice only therein, and, could the decision of executing no choice be actually enacted or successfully acted out?
	It would be soon obvious that the adoption of one and only one field of value would distort our manner of being in the world. If we were to only operate from an aesthetic stand point, e.g. how long would we survive in this world? Then again the extreme adoption of a pragmatic point of view can only disturb our ethical being in the world, etc. Our enplacement in this world through the eyes of both ourselves and that of others is to all purposes multi-valued and to refuse to be otherwise must diminish, if not threaten, our being in this world. We find this more healthy attitude reflected in language when we deride someone as a mere pragmatist, as a moralist, an aesthete or as an effete, etc.
	Then if an individual decided that it would be their choice to make no further choices, to enter into and exercise no more value-judgments, how would such an individual be in this world. Our very survival is a value-dependent judgment. Particular acts of non-choice are possible but the global replacement of such an attitude is not a possibility freely open to us. Such an attitude is effectively that of death or suicide with all the lose of choice that overwhelmingly seems to present itself to the individual as an individual in the world. The choice not to choose effectively means in the end a loose of choice not a suspension of choice.
	One must conclude therefore from a consideration of these last two questions that in regards to the being of value, as an individual in the world, that we can neither restrict ourselves to one form of value nor be able to freely adopt and to continue to adopt an attitude that sees our refusal to exercise and execute some sense of value evaluation. That the being of value as it comes to manifest itself in the life of the individual necessitates an openness to all the forms of value available to the individual in the world along with an acceptance that the global refusal of our exercising of choice is not a possibility freely available to us. That to all purposes our freedom to not choose is the only freedom not available to us. At least in the formulating of our choice its possibility remains open to us even if that is not practical under the present circumstances. It follows that in having the freedom to choose we may either choose well, not be bothered much in the exercise of our choice, or exercise our choice improperly or inauthentically. Or we may wish to make no choice but that in general terms of reference we cannot deny an equation of freedom with a necessity to exercise some degree of choice in global terms of reference.
	In re-asking ourselves the question what is the being of value we might like to tentatively answer that value is located in the personal dimension of choice along with all forms of judgmental evaluation exercised therein. Moreover, through its psychological nature it cannot be referred to in spatio-temporal terms of reference except indirectly or in association. Lastly, value is recognized in a constructed world of evaluation sequenced and hierarchically structured in keeping with the nature of the psyche and its spectrum of needs and aspirations in our engagement with a world as a world of value. As everything that is to hand has some form of value it would follow that in and through our relationships the world of being must also, in its being there for us, also be a world of value. In essence, therefore, the being of value is the value of being found there for us in the midst of our relationships in the very manner that we make our entrance into, our residence in and our exits from those engagements.

III.	 The Value of Being

	What value has being, or more correctly, what value has that-being-being-for-us?
	Let us imagine the following situations.
	The arrival of a baby in the world and its experience of a coldness or overheatedness outside the regulation of the womb, pangs of hunger and all the general unsatisfactoriness of a world barely found to hand for it...
	A mother of the same baby who must struggle to look after both herself and her child...
	A father of that child whose chosen profession is writing but whose talents have not been widely, nor adequately, recognized.
	From the point of view of the baby the world is not always ready to hand in the manner its simple desires would like to dictate. From the point of view of the mother rearing a child without adequate means, and all its frustrations entailed, the world is equally a place barely to hand. Likewise for the father who as a struggling author tries to support his family in the manner he knows best but which is barely sufficient for his survival let alone the life of the family as a family. In each case we might ask ourselves what is the value of being for that child, for that mother, for that unrecognized author? 
	First we must recognize an almost unwritten principle is at work in our evaluation of being in the world, namely, the tacit acceptance of the principle that life is sacred or has infinite value. Even to a non-religious person their agreement with the religious person would most likely be fundamentally the same. Why should we regard being as intrinsically valuable? Under what conditions might we, or might some of us, find ourselves taking a differing position in this regard? Or under what conditions do we all generally come to an intuitive agreement on such a principle? These are correctly moral, existential or spiritual decisions that the person must decide for themselves hopefully allowing the seeds of the situation to declare themselves and resolve any difficulties in our decision making processes relevant in this area of our concern. Absolute-like principles should, I believe, be used as a guide if necessary or relevant but not interfere in our situationally determined ethical reflection and judgment.
	Then again we might like to work from the point of view as perceived in the normal everyday conditions for existence and ask ourselves why we might regard existence as valuable, as having value? I do not claim nor wish to answer this question with the degree of certainty that appears to be demanded by its formulation. However, in posing this question we might at least come to a recognition of this tacit principle that if it were allowed to operate blind would in effect distort our judgment of ethical-value, etc. As argued elsewhere value-judgment must not be distorted through the intervention of pre-judgment although our act of judgment necessitates an enriched contextual field that would allow us to incorporate our customs, reflections and expectations pre-conditional to the actual act of value-evaluation. Correctly our pre-conditional attitudes should be exposed to a transcendental suspension, and reduction, in order to open ourselves to the rich depth of our relationships and, I believe, the seeds of existential judgment therein already contained. A question posed always has the beginnings of the correct answer to such a quest, at least, by implication, the correct direction to travel in to determine the nature of our sought after solution.
	On the subject of our freedom to be ourselves let us examine the following considerations.
	Perhaps worldly existence is merely a stage with actors that are merely automata, the simple tale of fools that for a period of time strut upon this stage, this worldly roundabout, and them drop off or return to the wings to be heard from no more? Could a world of automata possess value? 
	Might not this world, seemingly susceptible to a crude vision of science, be purely deterministic in its causal operation? Could such a world have real value? One might say, with little depth of analysis being brought to bear, that if all the world was set up in a deterministic fashion but appeared to posses value then to all intense purposes value is present if only as an appearance? However, we have already reflected upon the nature of value and recognize that our freedom of choice is limited only by our inability to put a permanent global state of non-decision in place as a suspension of choice. Therefore, limited as our freedom might be, still we have a fundamental freedom of choice even if the world barely supports us in our being here.
	With his fundamental value associated with our inherent decision making ability, if accepted, we can perhaps still ask ourselves as to what value this child, this mother and father might have, and collectively, what value this family might possess? However, I believe that such a question is correctly invalid as it here stands formulated. If we seek to determine an answer that is to be expressed in some form of spatio-temporal terms of reference or in some other form of worldly characteristics, causal or egotistical, then I believe that we are not only asking the wrong question, but more, we are expecting the wrong sort of reply or response to meet our request. If value can be found in association with worldly phenomena but is itself not directly reducible to such a function how could such a question be either answered or shown to be invalid when its presuppositional construction is practically inappropriate? Obviously the form of this type of question appears to have a sense that seems to be exactly intended but that without a doubt such a state of affairs comes about through our natural association of value with artefacts in the spatio-temporal material world. But the essential nature of value as a phenomenon cannot be directly reduced or deduced from these association it has for us.
	In a previous paper I attempted to demonstrate that we have a miscellany of attitudes towards value that were fundamentally mistaken. I sought to show there that value could be neither sought nor found, could not be possessed, donated, demanded, dispossessed, simulated, added to, divided, obstructed, lost or diminished nor be destroyed. That in effect such an attitude if correctly put in place was completely counter-productive to the realization of value. In a similar fashion to evaluate the value of a life, or a situation lived in this world, our approach must not be one that attempts to cognitively or materially translate value into terms that are fundamentally antithetical to the nature of its phenomenal being. As value is discovered in a relationship and in our relational entertainment and evaluation of that relationship it follows that only in relational terms of reference can we truly come to terms with the ontological nature of value. In a better understanding of the question we should perceive value as being experienced in our understanding of the relationship itself and that only in so far as we can enter into that relationship with an engagement in those terms of reference are we able to intuit the value of the same. That being the case the value of the relationship then comes to also reflect our involvement and also altogether reflect the richness that that relationship both possesses in its current actuality but also possesses in its potential inheritance, development and consequential implications, etc. A task not with out some degree of difficulty but one for all that in which we often engage ourselves in with a certain degree of authenticity. As an automatic reflection of our engagement in which the flavour of the relationship in all its nexus and praxis of potentiality is intuitively revealed to us in equal measure to our concern for the same. A taste that allows us to realize, whether we are directly aware or indirectly aware, of the good faith or bad faith we have purported towards the phenomenon of that relational situation. I am sure that in reflection, to some degree or other, we are allowed to recognize and realize the value of existence and the existence of value, allowed to recognize not only the being of value but also the value of being.
	To answer this question therefore, as to the value of being, we are lead to an analysis of the general nature of the relationship and as to the general nature of relational consciousness itself recognizing that we cannot draw an absolute distinction between these two aspects of the relational, a distinction essentially between the content and the process of the relationally orientated act of consciousness. Personal being realizes value in the  realization of relational-consciousness as it comes to hand for them. Value presenting itself as a transformation of being before the transcendental sight of personal being: authenticity of value arising when the relationship is allowed to manifest and unfold in its its own unraveling of implicit value with inauthenticity of value arising to that degree the relationship is imposed upon by influences outside the ambit of that relationship. The value of being recognizing this necessary degree of inherent authenticity that must be resident within a relationship in order for that relationship to manifest as a relationship. That in essence value is a recognition of this authenticity allowed to develop at the center of the personally involved relationship regardless of the form or kind of value so engaged in. Value reflecting the concern exercised on the behalf of that relationship by the person or persons engaged in that relationship. Let us now address our final question as to the being of being.

IV.	 The Being of Being

	As value is resident within a personal dimension let us translate this question what is the being of being by what is the being or personal being of personal being? As already indicated we must address the relationship between relational consciousness as experienced in an act of judgment with the nature of the relationship currently engaged in by that person? A phenomenological examination of this process of relationally orientated interaction would, I believe as I have already indicated, allow us to construct an ontology of value. Moreover, an insight into the nature of the mechanics and the dynamics of value would then enable us to better understand the creation, recognition, evaluation and transformation of value. In an understanding into the transformation of value from the relatively inauthentic to the relatively authentic we stand to gain a greater quality of life both for others and for ourselves recognizing in the process the value that we naturally place upon value however misguided we often are in the exercise of this interminable ambition. An ambition that gives life meaning and meaningfulness along with its preservation of life and conservation of institutions that support this continuation of personal and social identity.
	To a certain extent in a recognition of personal being we must also recognize a dimension of non-personal being. If we treat both realms as a realm of being and treat it to a phenomenological investigation then such a position allows us to introduce no dichotomy between our relational consciousness on one hand and the being of the relationship engaged in on the other. Relational consciousness by its very nature cannot be directly reduced to intellectual or material considerations nor to egotistical considerations. However, in our cognitive-conceptual treatment of the same we prepare the pre-conditional ground for our engagement or involvement in the conditional experience of the process of the relationship itself as it enters into experience as a relationship. It is in the phenomenal midst of the relationship as engaged in itself that value is experienced which as a post-conditional consequence ensures in the unfolding of that relationship an after taste of value for ourselves through such interaction. Such a revelation reinforcing our intuitive evaluation of the good faith or bad faith we have entered into in the exercise of that relationship. The quality of the concern of that relationship for itself, as is allowed to be exercised by the person, through its intellectual and material re-cognitivization, investing all relevant parties with a proportional share in that concern demonstrated by that relationship for itself. And it is through its indirect concern for us through the direct concern it has for its self in a world of dasein that we come to experience this value as if it is meant for us in this world of being, both personal and non-personal. The process of personal being being personal being is in reality a surface phenomenon that interfaces the apparent objectivity of a world of relationships and the apparent subjectivity of the relational level of conscious experience. Then a depth of being is realized through our ability to transcendentally detach ourselves from an immersion in an interface of these two directions of world and self, and therein enjoy the vicarious serendipity of the phenomenal revelation unfolding before the exhilaration of our attentive attention, valuing therein the self-evaluation of the continuous revaluation in the creation of such value and in the self-transformation of such value-creation. In this natural expression of a transcendental detachment and reduction and the exercise of spontaneous evaluation in association with an appropriateness in unpremeditated response value is continuous created or born giving life a certain degree of authenticity in meaning and meaningfulness as we trace our passage through this world of being that engages our personal involvement and self-unfolding. 	
	Expressed in a metaphor such a process could be likened to that sense of wonder and enjoyment experienced in the unwrapping of an unexpected gift generously given to us by some rich uncle or benefactor but which in continuously being unwrapped continues to fascinate us as long as the gift itself is never exposed to our final inspection.

Conclusion

	In conclusion I would like to outline in a provisional form or format an ontology of value as I believe it can be phenomenologically delineated and investigated. In this paper I have attempted to articulate such an ambition by listing some of those essential features that I believe characterize such a fundamental absolute ground transcendent to and immanent within this stream of personal being, or, personal-being-in-this-world-in-that-world-found-there-for-us. In a series of sentences I shall list and briefly define, or relate in the form of an equation, some of these characteristics...

1.	That value is discovered in a personal dimension for without a degree of self-involved commitment there can be no sense of value.
2.	That value gives the person both a sense of meaning and also a sense of meaningfulness along with a preservation and unfolding of identity both personal and social.
3.	That value is created through the being of the relationship which as a phenomenon correctly transcends the relatively subjective and the relatively objective as well as the relatively inter-subjective.
4.	That value is the product of two aspects of the relationship in experience, namely, the presence of relational consciousness and the open involvement of that consciousness in the experience of a relationship in the treatment of a relationship as process with content.
5.	That value is created at the psychic or experiential centre of that relationship and reflects the facticity of the relationship as an expression of the totality of that inter-dependent relationship above and beyond the mere summation of its participant parties.
6.	That value is created through the ongoing resolution of dissonance in the context of a background of relative consonance and that the power of the resolution is equivalent to the facticity of that relationship.
7.	That the value of a relationship as a relational process is essentially recognized through its engaged re-creation and its self-critical and self-referential ability to engage us in its essential re-creation.
8.	That the authentic evaluation of a relationship as a relational process is essentially conducted and clarified in the midst of its creation or re-creation without the distortion of pre-determined forms of judgment, a state of affairs effectively rediscovered through some form of transcendental suspension and reduction.
9.	That evaluation conducted in the terms of reference of the relationship itself is appropriately capable of its own association of unpremeditated responsiveness as a reflection of the concern it has for the phenomenal being of itself and the indirect concern it has for its participating parties.
10.	That authentic value is always resident at the center of the relationship however inauthentic its predetermination or egotistical distortion.
11.	That the transformation of inauthentic value into a state of greater authenticity involves a recognition of those means central to that relationship that ensure the initiation, exercise and completion of the realization of that process.
12.	That the being of value is essentially transcendental in its epistemological-ontological location and authorizes the phenomenological nature of its phenomenal being as it is made to reveal itself through the phenomenal being of its relational instantiation.

	In this paper I asked the question what is value? Through the auspices of subsidiary questions a complex picture was allowed to emerge. In the panorama pictured the locus of value was seen to be found at the conjunction of personal being and non-personal being centered in the concern of the relationship currently involved or engaged in. It was implied that a clear and distinct appreciation of value necessitated an openness to the relationship itself without the distortion of predetermined forms of judgment, e.g., etc. 
	That, finally, value gives meaning and meaningfulness to the individual as an individual in society along with the freedom that is exercised in and underlies such phenomenal expression and which in its process of continuous unfolding gives being to value and value to being. Moreover, with the ceasing of ongoing resolution value ceases to be value becoming merely phenomenal being with the implication that the value of value is without value, although to be valued, and that value cannot be preserved except as an illusion in the world through its ongoing re-creation.

				Noël Tointon, Sydney and Leura, 30/4/90.