Chapter VIII - Conclusion?

	In this final chapter as a conclusion I would like to ask myself if this thesis had any other conclusions, or points, it would like to make, i.e., does it have a subtext or  a series of possible subtexts? In essence, what is the real conclusion, or what are the real conclusions, that might be drawn from this thesis as being relevant to the nature of this type of enterprise?
	Although I perceive both traditions to be instances of absolute philosophy, as defined by myself, it is obvious that both traditions go about this task with varying styles and varying degrees of self-consistency. To compound the difficulties both of these traditions, although relatively contemporary, come from different parts of the world and in the midst of their respective contexts adopt and reinterpret different historical forms of expression. Although the subject is a difficult one to consider I don't believe this comparison involved two incommensurable worlds engaged in their own forms of self-dialogue, or conversation. For a start both of these traditions have been successfully translated into a miscellany of languages one of which is English. At the same time both of these traditions address a number of problems, some of which were shared contemporaneously and which can also be shared non-contemporaneously today. In order to understand a form of human expression some form of appropriation must take place which as a phenomenon has its possibility constituted phenomenologically on the grounds that what has been intentionally formulated for someone else can be intentionally re-formulated for us. Moreover, as a hermeneutic process re-constitution can never be absolutely mistaken. Recognition of the intentional nature of that under examination in itself is a guarantee that any virtual dialogue with the author or authors of a text, and our interrogation of that text (and its virtual interrogation of us), can never be absolutely incommensurable. Without doubt a process of interpretation is a process and its initial stages must involve various forms and degrees of non-comprehension and semi-comprehension. Moreover, as a pre-understood context allows us to reconstitute a text and that that context is inescapably encapsulated in the very manufactured being of that text itself it follows that in our hermeneutic passage between the parts of that text and the text itself as a totality (also in the midst of our contextual constitution, or re-constitution, of its historical situation) thematization of meaning and meaningfulness can be realized that in its contextual-textual re-constitutional correlation allows us to establish, to a certain extent, to what degree a text has been successfully reconstituted by us for ourselves. Put metaphorically we might say that a text speaks, overtly or covertly, about its historical origins and context whilst, at the same time, our understanding of its cultural situation speaks to us about certain elements in the text that would at least be tacitly understood by the original audience envisaged by that text. When both of these voices speak together in a dialogue of meaning with a voice that becomes louder, and clearer, we find ourselves witnessing an experience of recognition that reinvests our hermeneutic appreciation of the text with more value that that invested in this process itself. Assisting this process, in equal measure to which the text is a product of (an aesthetical) style, this intentional directedness is dialectically provoked, and re-directed through resolution, to reveal its associated meaning and meaningfulness. This power of the text is also able to enrich our reading of it through an evocative non-intentional non-directedness although provocation shades into evocation, and vice versa.
	We assume a text has an adequate degree of intentional integration and that it has a certain desire to speak to us (and not just to its author or authors). When we find that the totality of that text, or some larger portion of it, invests a smaller fragment of it with a certain degree of intentionally directed meaning and meaningfulness that also, eventually, supports our more wider reading of that text then we must suspect, and perhaps assume, that we are actually finding in place the same type of intentional relationship of correlation that must already be in place between our reading of the explicit text and its implicit context, and vice versa. All of these levels of meaning must be in place for an adequate reading of that text. At the same time all these levels are embedded, or encapsulated in that text ready there for us to attend to the interpretation of the intentional nature of that text itself. Although the text can not be read purely through itself in our final hermeneutic treatment of that text we must return to the phenomenon of the text itself (after this process of hermeneutical treatment) and phenomenologically describe it through our reading it (as an intentionally constructed phenomenon).
	Textual expression can always be seen as the temporal instantiation and fixing of a style of discourse. Style is a deposited process for the creation, and the distinctive resolution, of intentional dissonance and it is the manifestation of this resolution that allows a text to express, and re-inforce, a certain degree of intentional directedness. Even a humble shopping list, with no aesthetic pretensions and no subtext, is itself the resolution of a number of relatively conflicting intentional desires. As a textual deposition it can be seen as the adopted resolution of those desires in a framework of various variables like e.g., the ability to carry those purchases, the amount of money that can be spent, time required, product availability, etc. What I am trying to suggest here is that all texts are the product of compromise, involve a hierarchy of often competing claims on the time of the author or authors (and the reader or readers of that text), and that no text can be absolutely self-consistent. However, for all that they express a certain distinct (but non-absolute) intentional directedness (or intentional directednesses) that is (are) constructed in such a manner with a certain degree of openness so as to allow its (their) virtual re-constitution.
	As textual depositions can be seen to declare their textual style, and as styles fall within certain genres, etc., it follows that a recognition of that genre, or style, allows us to begin a process of hermeneutical treatment. Our engagement with a text, therefore, can never be a process of absolute incommensurability! Likewise, through the dialectical resolution of the intentional pre-constitution of a text it follows that no text can allow a process of hermeneutical treatment that claims of itself an absolutely accurate interpretation of the same. For all we know an apparent shopping list, e.g., might actually be a poem, or a secret message in code, the listed discovery or inventory of the contents of someone else's shopping expedition that got lost or stolen, etc.
	In reality our engagement with a text falls between these two poles of incommensurability and absolute commensurability. Like a mine we extract from a text what we can, if we can, if we find it our desire to so engage that text. At some particular future point in time we either find we wish to disengage ourselves from the intentional being of that text, or, that we find it has no more meaning and meaningfulness for us, at present, to discover in this current state of apparent dis-concealment. Inevitably a text is disengaged. No text cannot be engaged, but, engagement of itself is no guarantee for the successfulness of that engagement. The interpreter of a text is somewhat like a person with a certain key for a certain lock. In some necessary measure the key must reflect the internal nature of that lock. Fortunately for us the text metaphorically presents us with both the lock and its key embedded in its text and its engagement of us involves our coming to see the correlational nature involved in our progressive unlocking of that text.
	I am sure that an understanding of the nature of an absolute-transcendental style of discourse is one way we can meaningfully unlock these two texts examined in this thesis and find for ourselves in the process the necessary structural-functional grounds for their comparison on the understanding that these two texts are essentially of the same genre. This does not imply that on a number of points they cannot be radically divergent in their presuppositions, arguments, conclusions and overall manner of their interpreting the religious dimension of our being in the world. 
	This type of research could be compared to a table with two bowls of entirely different fruit. On one level, a more basic phenomenological level, an accommodation can be claimed by virtue of the co-occurrence of the phenomenon of a bowl of fruit. On a higher level of phenomenological differentiation we could stake a claim for the apparent disconformity between these two phenomena by virtue of the fact that both bowls have different contents, namely, different types of fruit. In the last chapter I claimed a reasonable degree of accommodation between the first six types of transcendental discourse, and an increasingly distinctive divergence in our last four classifications. I do not wish to consider pre-conditional considerations as that would involve both historical and phenomenological accounts that go outside the terms of reference I have set for this thesis in my methodology. However, let me draw your attention to my equation of the nature of transcendental discourse with the nature of absolute discourse. In this regard I do not equate absolute with transcendent, or the immanent for that matter. In this regard, I believe, we either misinterpret a tradition whose discourse involves an apparently unqualified sense of the transcendent, e.g., as an absolute phenomenon in nature, or, that that tradition misinterprets the nature of its own discourse as absolute in style. Correctly, such an attitude is absolutist. No transcendental phenomenologist could adopt such distinct terms of reference and still claim that their style of discourse is anything other than absolutist (as opposed to transcendental). The very meaningfulness of the term transcendent cannot be completely demarcated from some sense of an immanent. On the other hand a transcendental point of view can take into account some form of transcendent-immanent relationship on the grounds that a sense of structure involves some sense of the transcendent and the sense of function involves some sense of the immanent, and that their collective correlation establishes some form of meaning-ful meaningfulness in this regard. Likewise, a phenomenalization of a particular discourse, or a discourse involving the sense of the absolute, in equal measure removes it from a transcendental perspective. Essential to this argument is the view that language is a multi-stratified discourse that generates its meaning and meaningfulness on, and between, these various levels (and historical layers of same level sedimentation) involving a number of bi-modal polarities of which one of the most important polarities to consider must be the trans-cognitive transcendental sense of constituting and a cognitive-phenomenal sense of the constituted. A transcendental dimension must go hand in hand with a phenomenal dimension in our experience and interpretation of the world. An absolutely purified transcendental domain would have no sense, make no sense, as there can be no real sense of constitution as constituting if there was nothing actually constituted. Even in the rarefied atmosphere of the transcendental that considers the meaning of constitution qua constitution, through processes of suspension (epoche) and reduction, is in the end only made meaningful through its reconstitutional return to the phenomenal instantiation of that constitution as that being re-constituted (in its re-simulation). Thus the operative transcendental concept of purification must be interpreted as qualified, i.e., as a process that is suspended and reduced only to such a level that allows the meaningful re-constitution of that under investigation. I perceive the taking of this position as removing the need for all talk of absolute grammars, absolute foundations and the like. The meaning and meaningfulness of the transcendental is discovered through the phenomenal, and, the meaning and meaningfulness of the phenomenal is discovered through the transcendental. Although absolute foundation are not necessary this is not an invitation for the relativist to insist on the intentional blankness, or tabular rasa, of the phenomenal world (of their intentional being) letting them read into it what ever they wish. Phenomenal reality straddles the only reality there is, namely, that which is generated between the ideal poles of self, object and world. This generation of meaning is only possible because these poles are only polarities, fundamental directions in intentional directedness. However, the non-absolutist vision of reality, for all that, is constituted, or more correctly, re-constituted on the relevant grounds of the pre-constituted. All phenomenal meaning and meaningfulness is structured in a functioning context and is a progressive affair in the ongoing enrichment of a sense of world. An appreciation of this enstructured-function is the province of a transcendental perspective - the realization of that transcendental appreciation being put into effect through a purification of that dimension through the removal of that which is non-transcendental in orientation. But, how is this purification possible if the transcendental and the phenomenal operate hand in glove together, only gain their meaning and meaningfulness through each other? Obviously, the complete removal of the phenomenal is going to cause a collapse of transcendental appreciation. 
	The simple resolution of this apparent dilemma, to begin with, is to invoke the non-destructive nature of the transcendental suspension. This suspension brackets the phenomenal expression of its constitution and allows us to translate the structural-functions within those brackets into transcendental terms of reference, i.e., in effect establishing a translation into a transcendental language. A transcendental language is already functioning within the stratification of a natural language and essentially concerns itself, in my opinion, with acts of judgment.  What is necessary, therefore, is a refinement of this specialized language already in situ through an understanding of the accommodation and distinction that takes place between it and the totality of the natural language. What I am also suggesting here is a form of rapprochement between phenomenology and philosophies that base themselves on an investigation of language. Moreover, I am also suggesting the need for a parallel transcendental psychology (of judgment) without, I will quickly add, slipping into some form of psychologism. 
	Transcendental experience also focuses upon essential states of consciousness identified (e.g., through the use of eidetic variation) and clarified through a purification of those distinctive presentations of that which is non-essential. Again, we may ask, is it necessary for this process to be taken to the extreme in order to know apodictically what we are dealing with, and, what it is that we are dealing with? Once adequate insight is achieved in our research, whatever form that might take, what necessity is there to proceed to a deeper level of examination? We must recognize, I believe, that there is a point in essential recognition beyond which our appreciation gains only in self-confirmed detail and not in substance. Moreover, that gathering of greater detail necessitates the investment of more time and energy which may be greater than the present needs of our circumstances or the usefulness of that gained from that added value. I perceive this process of essential recognition to be like the adding of small amounts of sea water to a glass of water and asking people what taste these people think they may recognize. Once the brackishness of the contaminated water is recognized the addition of sea water merely reinforces that identification.
 	It seems to me that both of these traditions stress a similar type of situation with regard to the prior need for study and reflection as one aspect in the preparation for some form of insightful process to arise. It may well be that in restructuring the mental horizon of the person there comes a point in time in which this distinctiveness of recognition, or re-recognition, spontaneously makes a phenomenal appearance after which additional detail merely reconfirms the sense of conviction originally arrived at. I don't wish to treat all forms of insight in such a mundane format but merely to suggest that essential recognition can occur (in the same manner as an act of judgment) without extreme purificational measures being put in place. Moreover, as a correction to that type of attitude that believes in absolute foundations through absolute measures of purification I would like to restate my point of view that the meaningfulness of essential recognition of enstructured-functioning is realized through the meaningful reconstitution of that phenomenon back into its context of presentation. To achieve this necessary contrast the simulational reconstruction of that phenomenon, in accordance with my heuristic device of the expanded hermeneutic circle, necessitates the deconstruction of essential structure in order to return structural-meaning back to its context of functioning-meaningfulness. Without being too subtle I feel the full ramifications of this point of view imply that the necessary cooperation between phenomenology and deconstruction arises in such a manner that deconstruction must take, and know, its place in the generation of meaning and meaningfulness. Deconstruction must deal with the already essentially-enstructured and must overlook, in both senses of that word, the boundaries imposed through the imposition of structure; an imposition that I might add, from the transcendental point of view, can never arise purely on the side of the transcendental sense of self, the transcendental object or the transcendental world. Without doubt carefully constructed processes of deconstruction will expose this type of formulation, and other types of formulation, that individually possess a lack of, or a non-existent difference  in, meaningful contrast, and, in the process, expose such pretensions to be absolutist, or relativist, or whatsoever, and, by extension, as a sham in transcendental terms of reference.
	Lastly, I would like to look at the ramifications this type of enterprise, as engineered by myself, has for the restoration of phenomenology, and, the need for a rapprochement between phenomenology and hermeneutics. Indeed, with respect to this second point, is a phenomenological hermeneutics, or for that matter a hermeneutical phenomenology, a contradiction in terms? If we perceive the nature of the phenomenological method to be essentially descriptive and the primary function of hermeneutics to be interpretive, and generally prescriptive in this endeavour, must we perceive these distinctive operations as mutually opposed? Or, if not in direct conflict, could they operate in parallel, or, in different directions without interfering with each other? Or, more importantly, could they actually engage in a process of mutual co-operation?
	If the practice of phenomenological description is a clarification and purification of description need this process be conducted in absolute pure terms of reference? Of course I have already answered that type of question. My previous resolution of this question discerned the phenomenological fact that descriptive insight, along with all other forms of insight (without taking into account the possibility of extra-sensory forms of experience), are realized in a state of recognition, as a type of re-recognition, that does not necessitate extreme measures above and beyond that necessary for the instantiation of that process of insight. I must conclude, therefore, that descriptions need never be subjected to a process of absolute transcendental-purification. Moreover, I would argue that, absolutely purified description would lack all meaning, and certainly all meaningfulness, through the lack of a (reconstitutional) contrast that would allow us to appreciate their absolute distinctiveness. However, this argument does not rule out an absolute-like sense of transcendental conviction realized through this re-recognition of essential constitution under relative-phenomenal conditions of research. Re-recognitional by virtue of the fact that the  constitutional structural-function of that under investigation is recognized to be constituted in such a manner as to allow us to recognize that recognition as a process of recognition. Such pre-constituted grounds for the recognition of constitutional recognition suggests that these terms of reference are, in effect, already pre-described, or rather, prescribed. Moreover, the nature of our descriptive quest is already intentionally directed towards that to be described in the hope of being able to describe better that already being looked for. This argument draws us on to conclude that in a sense we have already pre-interpreted what we desire to describe. However, our openness to the descriptive richness of the world of experience allows us to escape this otherwise closed vision of the hermeneutic circle. Moreover, the power of this descriptive aspect reinforces, and re-directs, the power of our hermeneutical interpretation. The resonance between these two poles of activity ensures an overall parallel performance of a collective powerfulness greater than the sum of its parts. The hermeneutic approach circumscribes, and focuses, the phenomenological performance of description, and, the phenomenological performance of description polishes the format of that hermeneutic programme. The style of this programme is realized through the careful placement of metaphor to model analogically the essential nature of that under investigation. The use of heuristic devices, I would add, is merely an extension of that type of process. It might be said, therefore, in this light, that the art of the phenomenological method is hermeneutical, and, that the science of hermeneutics is phenomenologically descriptive in orientation.
	However, the phenomenological method, as exercised through the use of this expanded hermeneutic circle (as a transcendental-phenomenological-hermeneutical circle), cannot be regarded as purely descriptive, i.e., as essentially-reductive. Full meaning and meaningfulness is realized, therefore, through integrated processes of suspensions, reductions and reconstitutions, and, that these moments must equally take their place on, and between, transcendental, phenomenal and hermeneutical levels of investigation. It is in this manner, with the above qualifications, that I would like to envisage, in all humility, a restoration of the phenomenological method (-ology). However, be that as it may, I feel it would be safe to say that as a transcendental phenomenology has been in existence for some time, ever since, at least, its use by the Neoplatonic and the Buddhist-Wisdom traditions; and other instances of non-absolutist absolute philosophy, we need not fear the possibility that the practice of such a discipline will soon meet with its complete, and sudden, removal from the stage of world thought.*

* One Final Footnote

	Does the transcendental-phenomenological method have something to say to modern philosophy? Nowadays it seems quite fashionable to write off absolute philosophy; concern ourselves with the subversion of subtexts; deconstruct all forms of confidence in philosophical method; insist on the endless spectre of absolute-difference; cast any, or every, interpretation on center stage for both the self-indulgent performance of a monologue and its reception of an indiscriminate applause; and, even endlessly speculate about the immanent demise of philosophy. May be I am too harsh in this general assessment and that, correctly, this critique in effect, is mis-placed or dis-placed? Perhaps we should be confident that any philosophical venture (or adventure) including this thesis, that strays too far from the phenomenon of our-being-philosophical will get lost, collapse and do us the service of self-deconstructing? So, before I too get lumped in with this list, let me see if I can recover some moral ground from my investigation of these two traditions.
	For a start, the non-absolutist absolute Buddhist appears to live quite happily in their vision of transcendental philosophy without fearing the endless spectre of absolute-difference, or the emptiness of emptiness. They successfully defended themselves from both the charges of eternalism and nihilism; along with the latter's close association with relativism. For this type of philosophy hermeneutics and phenomenology seem to be mutual, and valid, fields for investigation; the fruitful grounds for processes of phenomenological insight, and, the starting point for a process of self-reconstruction (after deconstruction their still seeing the person as a religious person in the world).
	Plotinus, for his part more or less unintentionally, through his thorough questioning, and the critical reformulation, of the metaphysical presuppositions of his (and our Western) world has shown us, through such efforts, that the transcendental-philosophical method is not really about the Absolute per se, but, a critique of the natural attitude that, in its turn, re-invests our-living-in-the-world with a greater sense of clarity; which thematizes a meaning and meaningfulness for the person trying to find their place in this natural world. Even though such an understanding may be flawed, indeed must be flawed, it can, as an interpretation, never be absolutely flawed! Moreover, in trying to understand  better what one is doing, who one is, etc., must surely help the person to purport themselves as a better person in this phenomenal world, and therein through the successful practical deployment of such theoretical understanding, defend the very value of the philosophical process itself!
	But the overall transcendental-phenomenological method appears to be able to establish, and recognize, the creation of value. I don't mean by this that transcendental-phenomenologists have all the answers, or any answers for that matter, but that their philosophical claim to possess methods for the establishing of a relatively more valid interpretation over a series of interpretations (as entailed in the natural attitude, e.g.,) should be taken seriously. This experience of relative apodicity revealed through such methods, to a certain extent, re-establishing the natural confidence the natural person already has as a person in the world.
	We now live in an age that can now no longer insist, quite reasonably, on absolute proof. But should this fact really shatter the confidence the phenomenologist has in their methods? Certainly no particular method can self-demonstrate absolute grounds for its own exercise. However, it appears to me, that the collective exercise of a number of phenomenological methods, or attitudes, can produce, and re-produce, a certain measure of satisfaction in one's research. I have already argued that the extreme imposition of a transcendental reduction is not necessary, or possible for that matter, in the performance of an adequate phenomenal description of meaning-structures. Likewise, I have argued that deconstruction is actually a process of reconstitution of phenomenal meaningfulness and not a process of self-deconstruction (although deconstruction will self-deconstruct if not supplied through a process of reduction). Thirdly, I have argued that suspension is a process that faces the already pre-constituted and never the inscrutable blankness of a phenomenal wall that the naïve philosopher thinks they will find in their vision of a search for origins, or foundations. To think, and act, in this latter vein will only ensure, for this type of short-sighted philosopher, that they interminably bang their heads against the senselessness of this type of project. Then again to try and look behind that metaphorical wall is just as senseless as we are already immersed in this phenomenal world (and the phenomenal only gains its sense through its contrast with the sense of the transcendental).  Lastly, we find it is the nature of interpretation to be re-constituted, for better or worse, but that the successfulness and power of the better interpretation must eventually exercise a greater dominion over the less successfully constituted, or re-constituted. Rather than fearing absolute-difference it finds the sameness of this phenomenal state of affairs (of interpretation) the very salvation for the transcendental-phenomenological enterprise. Absolute apodicity can never be achieved but a collective, truly critical, sense of conviction can be realized through our own careful efforts. That not all phenomena (-l interpretations) are equally the same (as an interpreted) phenomenon despite being (merely) the same (phenomenon of interpretation) from the transcendental-ultimate point of view! That the truth of all phenomenal interpretations arises through the conjunction of these two dimensions of the phenomenal and the transcendental even though, from the ultimate perspective of the absolute, these two dimensions, as two dimensions, can have no real (phenomenal) existence. Or, perhaps as Plotinus might state it, when transcendental-unity is divided in intentional consciousness:

Therefore Plato rightly understands that there is otherness and sameness when there is intellect and substance. For one must always understand intellect as otherness and sameness if it is going to think... But in general intellect is not simple when it thinks itself [or something else]...
	Thus, I would like to conclude, that from the transcendental perspective the interpretation of phenomenon and the phenomenon of interpretation are the same. However, this does not mean that any interpretive programme and its corresponding phenomenological programme investigating the same phenomenon need necessarily coincide, but, that when they do, or approach each other, then we can be safe in assuming that that research is essentially on target and mutual in its co-thematization. By these means I perceive the mutual co-operation between a phenomenologically descriptive programme and a hermeneutic interpretive modeling through the use of analogy, metaphor or heuristic devices, etc. Hence the transcendental possibility for an investigative format that is both phenomenological and hermeneutical in style(s) to function harmoniously. That by this type of insight we can understand the transcendental (reductive-reconstitutional) functioning of metaphor, e.g., beyond its introductory role in a transcendental mode of mere suspension. That metaphorical means are used in the modeling of the essential nature of the phenomenological description and a correlative modeling of the contextual environment of that phenomenal event, or situation, as it was discovered, or contrived, in its presentation. That this allows the necessary reconstitution of a meaningful re-simulation back into its (hermeneutically oriented) mode of presentation. That in effect through the use of analogy the phenomenon is interpretively and descriptively modeled in such a manner that the interdependent transcendental machinery (noetic-noematic correlation) of both modes eventually coincides in an adequate comprehension of that phenomenon. Thus although the transcendental dimension has no depth, and the phenomenal dimension is apparently superficial in its presentation, together these two dimensions allow us to realize the deeper meaning and meaningfulness of that phenomenon under appreciation as a phenomenon-there-for-us. Indeed, it is an apparent paradox that phenomenological and philosophical investigations (and all forms of research and experience) gain their depth from a transcendental perspective even though the transcendental dimension itself is without depth.
	However, the critical point of this footnote is that it is meant to be two-pronged, or two sided, in the impact of its critique. On one hand the lack of recognition, the fear, and/or the avoidance of the reality of a transcendental dimension by the absolutist philosopher should be exposed (or dis-concealed) by exposing (or re-vealing) the relative senselessness of their type of project (and re-writing it, or over-writing it/under-writing it, in transcendental terms of reference). On the other hand; and more important a criticism in the current philosophical climate in my opinion, the relativist who shows no depth in their ambition, or even a lack of ambition, should have demonstrated for their benefit that there can be no absolutely pure dimension of the transcendental (for-itself), and, that from the transcendental perspective the senses of transcendental and the phenomenal have the same reference! That under such circumstances the phenomenon of interpretation re-gains a natural depth in perspective. Or, as a closely allied tradition to the Buddhist-Wisdom tradition, namely the Madhyamaka, might have put it in modern philosophical language (re-paraphrasing Nagarjuna): 

Transcendental and phenomenal are the same from the transcendental point of view, and different from the phenomenal point of view.(?)

Endnotes VIII - Conclusion?