An Open Letter Discussing some of my Latest Thinking on the Subject of Truth

Dear Michael, 
	        Thanking you for your latest emails. I am somewhat reluctant to discuss my latest thoughts because of their complexity, the amount of time it would take just to introduce them let alone discuss them with the degree of detail they deserve. Consequently, I fear, I do not have, both for the present and the foreseeable future, an audience for their dissemination. Forgive me, therefore, if I burden you with the following exposition. You did ask me why I have been silent. Hopefully, at the very least, I shall be able to impart some of the excitement I have experienced in the last few weeks in this most recent revolution in my own thinking on this complex topic of truth….

	About twenty-five years ago I developed a hermeneutic device or stratagem, a heuristic technique, for dealing with cognitively entertained entities, and their interactions, like ideas, thoughts of square-circles, imaginary images, perceptual images, facts, actual facts, ideas of images, etc. At Otago University, under Professor Tichy, I was even allowed a whole seminar session to discuss this ‘theory of existence.’ 

	Basically I proposed a resonance continuum between six orders (of cognitively entertained existence) with non-integrated thoughts at one end and actual facts at the other. Our ability to epistemologically migrate in our cognitive attention through these orders established the nature of what we were actually dealing with in accordance with the nature of those orders assuming that it was proper in each individual instance to actually enter those orders claimed for those epistemological events. These rules of engagement being, primarily, a device for introducing philosophical clarity in our arguments, helping us to ‘locate’ exactly what we are dealing with. E.g., the so called ‘thought’ of a square-circle could never, by transformation, become a fact or an image or let alone an integrated idea of the same because the thought itself could never be a coherent, integrated whole. On the other hand the thought of a particular square is a coherent concept which furthermore can be seen or imagined and treated as a possible fact in the world (of facts) at some time or other in accordance with the apparent nature of the evidence claimed for such an instantiation.

	However, in my phenomenological examination of the hermeneutic circle, about ten years ago, I shifted from a linear understanding of the same (as a relationship between parts and wholes, and vice versa) to a tri-polar, circular approach. Recently, superimposing these six orders upon a more detailed six-fold understanding of the hermeneutic circle as developed by myself I noted that each shift from one order to the next involved a different type of judgment, e.g., aesthetical, logical, etc., and that, collectively, all six types of judgment (as previously delineated) gave me a profoundly integrated theory of truth determination on a scale not had before and only previously hinted at in a, more or less, ad hoc, intuitive fashion.

	Thinking outside this system, or any other, what role, we might ask ourselves does this type of device have in respect to the so called real world, the world of reality?

	In my last paper, on the subject of truth (“Is Truth a Big lie?”), and enclosed as a separate attachment, I resurrected another concept from this same period of my philosophical development, namely, the concept of the picture-tool. Our metaphors seem to mirror the world. In what way could they picture the world if the metaphor is in terms of language and the world is in the terms of its own concrete, non-linguistic facticity? I recently resolved that dilemma by re-writing the world as a text, in the broadest sense possible, and as we then have two texts, namely, the world and the picture tool, they can then be fruitfully compared, etc., as one text with another text. In what sense then can a heuristic device, a system of thought engage the world and not be dismissed merely as an artifact of our own subjective consciousness and intersubjective consciousnesses? Gadamer, interestingly, notes that no text can be found to be absolutely impenetrable as a text. Our recognition of it as a ‘text’ has already established our interpretative path towards our understanding of it as a product that has already been subjected to a process of intentional formation. On the other hand, we must not claim that we have traversed or could ever traverse that path in its entirety, that in that process we are now in possession or could ever be in possession of an absolutely definitive understanding of the intentional formation that produced, or reproduced, that object. That even the creator, or re-creator, of that text could never make such a claim. Indeed, it is obvious, however, that just such a person should have a pretty good idea of what they were up to, and, indeed, other persons reviewing such work might also have a pretty good idea of what was meant. Such understanding must always be left as provisional in complexion and treated with a certain degree of respect. In this light let us be happy to know that we are most likely right most of the time, but, never absolutely certain at any time! With such winning odds most of the time who would want to bet otherwise, place a bet on absolute certainty, that will-o-wisp that has beckoned far too many philosophers, even some of the most respectable, to venture past the limits of reason out onto the quick-sands to build dogmatic, speculative fabrications that cannot be authentically lived within.

	However, it still behooves us to ask, what value has a particular picture-tool, heuristic device, interpretative stratagem… that might allow us to rationally choose it at the expense of some other picture-tool, etc? The answer to that question, I believe, lies in the relative power or fruitfulness of that text to interpret and assist our passage through this world of subjective and intersubjective meaning and meaningfulness. As an investment if it were to produce a dividend greater than the degree of capital invested then obviously it would, and should, meet with our approval. Moreover, if a certain device produced and reproduced, in comparison to some other reading, a greater degree of dividend within that task to hand then in relative terms of reference we would naturally find our support gravitating towards such an interpretation at the expense of all other, infinite ways of ‘sighting’ that situation.

	So what are these six orders now to be treated in a circular, nonlinear fashion? First, however, let me delineate the hermeneutic circle, map its archetypal configuration in terms of the ego, the world and the various types of judgment that can be found within it.

	In perception there is the field of awareness and the awareness of some object-state within that gestalt field. Moreover, our awareness of these two poles of activity demands an awareness of these awarenesses of fields and objects that, in turn, cannot be reduced to the same. Hence, in archetypal terms of reference, we can introduce the polar fictions of world and object, and, an ego without writing or re-writing these archetypal polar concepts in pure uni-modal terms of reference. Indeed, we must argue that ‘as all meaning is determined through relationships’ that their interrelationships alone determines their meaningfulness and all sense of definition can only arise mutually and co-dependently. Hence, in this light, an ego, e.g., is defined by its relationship with an object and the field in which that object in turn gains its sense of determination. That I see a visual object, e.g., makes me a visual perceiver. As a visual perceiver I am thus not the object seen nor the field in which it is differentiated as distinctively different enough to be seen as distinctly different from that field (or ‘world’ of that object). Using this same argument, on an archetypal level, we can say that ‘the ego is not the object nor the field (world), that the object is not the ego nor the field (world) and that the field (world) is not the ego nor the object.’ This is not to say that the ego is absolutely different from object and field (world) because then no grounds could be postulated for their interaction in the first place! Our three parties, therefore, must remain mutually co-dependent.

	The hermeneutic circle, in my opinion, should be seen as being grounded on just such a device. ‘Parts’, that ‘object’ or those ‘objects’ being focused upon, is or are to be read within the ‘field’ of the ‘whole’, that field appropriate to this task to hand. Hence in the reading of a book, words are seen within sentences, sentences within paragraphs,  paragraphs within chapters, chapters within a book, a book as an item in the field of its more closely related genre or genres, acts of reading as taking place in a literary field, etc. In such a scheme, depending on context, parts and wholes can become substituted one for the other and vice versa. Consciousness of these various intentional acts of interrelation interposing a sense of self into this now tri-polar archetypal relationship. Hence the relationship between ego, object and world (or field) can be metaphorically described as a triangulated, and hence, circular affair as depicted in the following diagram:

Ego

Object            World

	From work done on a phenomenological clarification of an intuition into the distinctive types of judgments available to the person I came to discern six types, namely, essential judgments, aesthetical judgments, ethical judgments, pragmatical judgments, hermeneutical judgments and factual judgments. Moreover, I proposed that these six judgments in their distinctiveness could be argued on archetypal grounds as depending on which of these three archetypal factors of ego, object and world were being focused upon. 
E.g., a focusing on an object or objects at the expense  of the sense of an ego(s) or the sense of a world(s) instituted essential judgments, i.e., judgments whose nature concern the relationship corresponding between ‘things,’ names, lexical items, mathematical entities, logical equations, etc. 
Then it seemed obvious to me that the ‘relationship’ between an ego and a thing is essentially an aesthetical relationship.
That the relationship involving an ego or egos with respect to themselves or each other, individually or collectively, was basically an ethical relationship.
	But the relationship of an ego or egos to the world around them was a matter of pragmatic concern.
	While a relationship between fields was essentially a matter of hermeneutic interpretation, etc., i.e., a matter of establishing the meaningfulness of one frame of reference with some other. 
	Lastly, the relationship between world and object was a relationship that attempted to determine the factual status of that under examination, how that object or thing cohered in our integrated and collective understanding of the world.

	And this gives us the following scheme:

Ethical

Ego
Aesthetical			Pragmatical

Object            World

Essential				Hermeneutical
Factual

		My recent insight was to map my linear ‘orders’ onto this circular schema. Let me now briefly introduce my six orders and then show what insights can be gained from this mapping onto these six types of judgment generated in this hermeneutic circle based upon my appreciation of the nature of this archetypal relationship between ego-object-world.

	In a linear perspective we have the following scheme in a diagrammatical form:

subsistent         subsistent	     existent 	      existent	   subsistent        subsistent

10	,	20	;	30	:	40	;	50	,	60

Pre-Essential	      Essential	         Concepts       Percepts	       Possibles	    Actuals

non-integrated	     integrated				           non-integrated         integrated

	    Thoughts		           Cognitive-Processes		     Factuals

      localized  products 		       functions	                     globalized   products

Rather than define these terms let me demonstrate how they interact instead. 

E.g., the conceptual content or product of an idea (localized with respect to that idea itself) is essentially its thought content. It can be seen to subsist ahistorically as a ‘subsistent’ whereas the idea as a process can therefore be seen to exist as an ‘existent’ (in consciousness – my terminology). The idea as an intentional process has as its content an intentional thought. These thoughts are either integrated as a (n objective) complex or not integrated as an (objective) assemblage. The 30 (read ‘third order’) idea of a ‘square-circle’ can not be entertained as an integrated idea because this state cannot be entertained beyond its 10 status. The pre-essential content of ‘squareness’ and ‘circularity’ cannot be integrated within the objective-complex that tries to entertain them. Therefore what we have, and can only have, is a loose, non-integrated assemblage of such pre-essential content.
On the other hand, the thought of ‘a red apple’ can be entertained as an integrated localized thought. Such content can be entertained in the form of an idea and in this case in the form of an image as well. 
Some ideas do not translate into images and they can only possess a third order of existence as their ‘highest’ form of ordered existence, e.g., the idea of a concept cannot be non-metaphorically imagined.
Do all fourth order images, because they can be envisaged as images, translate into 50 possible states of affairs? No! Although I can imagine myself typing this letter at my desk and at the same time sipping iced orange juice at the beach ten miles away that cannot be translated into a 50 state of affairs although individually both of those scenarios can be so translated. And which one is the actual state of affairs – unfortunately myself who has felt compelled to type this convoluted essay in medieval-like ontology.

However, now for me comes the fun part. Having shifted from a linear perspective to a circular one and mapping this ordering of existence upon this complex reading of the hermeneutic circle just what is to be gained? In my opinion – a deeper theory of truth that integrates, in great detail, these six types of judgment along with a host of other insights!

Let me briefly demonstrate this:

Establishing the constituents assembled in an non-locally integrated  thought is essentially an ‘essential’ type of cognitive operation, one that deals with the manipulation of logico-lexical items in the framework of analytical-like equation or set of equations. And here we have a correspondence theory of truth albeit on a logico-lexical level of exposition!

Moving from a 10 to a 20   looks at the coherence of essentials in their establishing a complex from an assemblage. That at this level we are primarily dealing with an aesthetical theory of truth, an approach that investigates the harmony experienced between the constituents that comprise that objective (be it the thought of a thought or the complex thought of a work of art).

Looking at the existential functioning of an idea means we are primarily entertaining its experiential relationship, i.e., its ethical ramifications whether that envelops ourselves only or is extended to include others, institution, the relationship between institutions, countries, other forms of life, other worlds, the cosmos, forms of the divine, etc.

On the other hand, imaging is primarily a relationship between us and the world, a projection of content into a certain field of apparent experience. Hence, in this regard, our pragmatic interest!

A concentration upon the field qua field, either with respect to itself or a set of other fields of meaning and meaningfulness implies a hermeneutic interest, itself based on a semantic level of epistemological awareness! (I am thinking here of work done by Godel, e.g., in meta-field m2 if P2 then P1 as a definition of T (truth) in m1).

	Lastly, an investigation of  how a potential state of affair coheres globally with the rest of the world (from a textual-hermeneutical point of view) realizes an apparent determination of actuality.

Hence my ordered analysis in a circular format can account for these six forms of judgment giving us, in the process, an integrated, and complex, theory of truth.

Over the last twenty-five years I have looked at the transformations within and between these six orders from the first to the sixth. A question is now posed: what exactly in the nature of the direct transformational relationship between the sixth order and the first, and vice versa? I have been thinking about this for the last two weeks. As a result I have come to the conclusion I can now integrate another piece of my previous work, namely, the concept of a universal mapping of (our embodied) consciousness. Let me explain…

Pre-essentials in a localized non-integrated state represent distinctive ‘essences’ in a phenomenological sense. E.g., our experience of saltiness is a distinctive, essential experience with phenomenologically distinctive boundaries (or, perhaps better expressed by saying, at least a distinctive ‘core’) whose relative boundaries are discovered, or re-discovered, through eidetic reflection upon each ‘type’ of experience. E.g., fresh water tastes fresh. Add a few grains of salt and it will probably still taste fresh. Keep adding a few grains of salt one at a time and tasting it there will come a point in time when the water will taste brackish. Thereafter, with the addition of more salt, that judgment will only find a stronger sense of confirmation. Brackishness cannot be confused with sweetness and vice versa (unless the sense of taste is overridden by the sense of smell, or, the person is subjected to hypnosis). It would appear that consciousness is distinctively mapped and this mapping in turn is distinctive accommodated. E.g., the visual field is a complexly integrated number of sub-fields concerned with colour, distance, perspective, edge discrimination, focus, a detection of movement, an ability to perceive form or the pragnatz of an object-state, an ability to recognize and name objects, etc. So in archetypal terms of reference we might say that the archetypal visual field can perceive archetypal object-states through the accommodated conjunction of a number of distinctive sub-fields. These integrated fields in turn also being subjected to higher levels of epistemological-organizational integration, etc. In effect forming a universally distinctive mapping of consciousness in archetypal terms of reference. How is this complexly integrated depth of mapping realized? To answer this question I would say that the embodied individual is basically wired in just that fashion and that this can be re-cognized and reconfirmed through our phenomenological research. Extensions of this mapping into a cultural domain also being achieved through a culturally pre-determined mapping superimposed upon the same, a facet of intersubjective experience already embedded in a sense of a lived language. And where does this sense of an integrated superimposed cultural mapping come from apart from this already pre-determined integration of the embodied psyche? Nowhere other than this sense of a global integration of our sixth order wherein all differentiated actual states of affairs perceived as such are already coherently integrated in our mapped sense of our represented appreciation of ‘actual reality!’ The ‘world’ is as if a text bound in the form of a book, one vast, substantial volume, with only a few of those pages loosely held therein….

The use of metaphor does pose one problem to this idea of the distinctive mapping of our textual reality. If eidetic reflection confirms a distinctive and encompassed sense of sweetness, e.g., how is it possible to move to the aural sense field and declare a piece of music (using lots of chords with thirds and sixths?) as a sickly ‘sweet’ piece of music? How is it possible metaphorically to go beyond these distinctive boundaries and make just this type of a seemingly incommensurable comparison? Do we truly understand what is meant here when we recognize such language? The use of language is full of such metaphorical muddling of this distinctive mapping and yet our understanding is not equally muddled and confused as a result! With metaphor we need to take a dash of metaphorical salt for we never loose sight of the denotation of our metaphors, e.g., making the mistake of adding a dash of sweet music to our breakfast cereal (despite the fact that some people like to ‘digest’ fine music with a meal).

Without giving an in depth phenomenological analysis of metaphorical experience let me quickly say that it is the connotational aura of the root phenomenon that is transferred in the act of comparison and not the denotational center of such a phenomenon. A ‘sweet’ piece of music is ‘enjoyed’ just as the phenomenon of sweetness is, more or less, enjoyed. A sickly sweet piece of music is ‘enjoyed’ in just a similar fashion as the phenomenon of too much sweetness is ‘enjoyed rather less’ through an over stimulation from an excessive exposure to that phenomenon of sweetness. In such a comparison an evocation of the experiential aura of that phenomenon is, in effect, induced and virtually replicated.

To put it another way, the nature of the relationship between the 10 and the 60 is this, that, although pre-essentials are not globally and externally integrated in the thought-objective this mapping is already present internally to those pre-essential constituents by virtue of their reflecting the coherence of certain possible states of affairs already pre-determined in our cultural world to be actual states of affairs, as provisionally true facts, i.e., actuals. Moreover, this internal constitution allows us to bring together certain pre-essentials and not others. So ‘apples can be red’ but squares can not be circular (although it is possible to have rounded edges and for it to be progressively morphed from one state to the other, our mental sense of set (in a geometrical field) can only entertain one possibility at a time). Hence the overwhelming ‘ontological priority’ with the actual over an Aristotelian sense of the possible (a relatively dominant Western philosophical bias to some extent already pre-reflected in the numbering of these orders but, in turn, undermined by the circular nature of this later re-analysis).

From this deeper analysis of the archetypal hermeneutic circle and a number of other tricks of the trade developed by myself I find I am in possession of an awesome theory of truth that in its embrace can be found integrated a number of the insights that one would expect to find in a comprehensive theory of truth. Such a vista had left me speechless, but, now, I need to find an abundance of words in order to follow up the ramifications of such a complex understanding and further research its potential to release a value, that, I am sure, is, by far, greater than that merely invested in its construction. But, if you have come this far in my letter, I shall, in time, let you, the reader, be the better judge of that….

Wishing you all the best for the New Year.
						           	         Noël in Sydney, 9.1.00.

Postscript

	One of the interesting consequences of this hermeneutic/heuristic device is the ability to diffuse a number of philosophical controversies. E.g., the naturalistic fallacy, the so called confusion between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ can be seen to be a confusion of the actual-factual 60 (or the descriptive 10) and the prescriptive 30. Similarly the deontological-pragmatic dispute in ethical determination can be seen to be a confusion between the 30 and the 40. In effect, any confusion between these orders results in its own potentially distinctive controversy.

	What role can be played in the exercise of a critical philosophy by this device? For a start we can see that on a deep level there can be no confusion of these distinctions as the processes of the hermeneutic circle, and all forms of judgment found therein, must involve the same (transcendental) machinery. In other words forms of accommodation must be found, and can be found, between these orders on a deep level. This is as our intuition would appear to teach us in our everyday experience of the world in the world of life (the best guide that there can be!) (and by itself an explanation why these controversies should arise in the first place). E.g., we may like to think that 20 aesthetic judgments are not to be influenced by 30 ethical injunctions. Aesthetic content should not colour our aesthetic judgments. A play about murder is not necessarily an immoral play by virtue of that content. On the other hand a snuff movie reviewed by a normal person should elicit feelings of intense moral disgust that would quickly disestablish any aesthetic value thought present before the realistic nature of that movie was realized.

	Another interesting divide, apparently dichotomous, is that between 10 quantitative assessment and 20 qualitative assessment. Can qualitative value be evaluated without recourse to some form of quantified comparison? If quality is to be assessed how is it to be done in a quantitative frame of reference? Obviously on a deep level of analysis this must be possible but on a superficial level, almost by definition, this pursuit is practically impossible. How is it possible then to interconnect these two levels of ‘experience’ and develop critical rules for this type of engagement? Much of our professional lives these days has been infected with a faulty business model that believes, quite short-sightedly, that forms of practice can be evaluated through the use of a list of carefully chosen indicators that can quantify, directly or indirectly, the value of the acts of performance delivered therein whereas, it is my belief, that such indicators can only be used retrospectively to reinforce your already pre-formed judgments in this matter of taste (and that necessitates true forms of ‘supervision’ rather than impossible acts of ‘quantification).’

	Another divide that interests me very much is that between 50 possibility versus 60 actuality and the nature of their interrelation given the theoretical observation and epistemological belief that there can be experienced no pure form of actuality and no pure form of potentiality. Given this ‘epistemological fact’ that no form of identity can be experienced outside its field of gestalt contrast what are the consequences for this intermixing in experience of these logically distinctive states?

	So we have a map and the means for interrelating these various orders among themselves in order to determine, in general or particular circumstances, whether these ordered distinctions should be enforced, or, accommodations and transformations between the same that can be theoretically constructed and practically permitted. Noël.