Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 12:22:50 +0800
From: Paul Bains <P.Bains-AT-murdoch.edu.au>
Subject: RE: dialectic


Nathan, for a variety of reasons it is difficult for me to say too much now.
New baby due on monday (keeping the numbers up) and work commitments....

However, i should have said that relations are univocal in their being as
known (as objective relations). _Objective_ relations (relations as known)
are neither mind-dep nor mind-indep, altho they are capable of being either
mind-dep or mind-indep in a given case. 
The interesting development is from the ontology of relations to a doctrine
of signs which is prior to any categorial schema. Any schema presupposes the
action of signs. Anyway more later on that.

Here's an example::

"Two lovers travelling to meet one another at 1900hrs are involved in a
whole network of physical and objective relations, and some of the physical
relations in which they are involved are as objective, i.e. physical
relations of which the parties are well aware. At precisely 1845 unbeknownst
to the young man who continues toward his appointed and agreed rendezvous,
the young woman is struck by a meteor and instantly killed. At that moment,
whatever physical relations she was involved in as such ceased, for physical
relations require the existence of both terms in order to exist. The
objective relations, of course being sustained not by the dynamics of
physical being as such but by semiosis, are, as objective, unaffected by the
dramatic change in circumstances-except in this important particular: those
of the objective relations which were _also_ physical became, at 1845hrs,
_only_ objective, though, for want of knowledge of the changed
circumstances, the young man continued to rush on at 1850hrs just as he had
been rushing at 1840hrs, so as not to keep his lover waiting." (John Deely,
The Human Use of Signs, 1994).


The univocity of being and non-being in cognition. 'Being, the immed.
indeterminate, is in fact nothing.'

I came across the following yesterday and will try to use the advice: Start
with a simple example or shut up.

"Finally, allow me to give you some advice about work: it is always
worthwhile, in the analyses of concepts, to start from very simple, concrete
situations, and not from philosophical antecedents _or even problems_ as
such (the one and the multiple etc);for example for multiplicities one could
start from 'what is a pack?' (different from one animal), what is an
ossuary?................Excuse the immodesty of these remarks." (Extracted
from: Deleuze, lettre preface to Jean-Clet Martin, *Variations*, 1993).

Interesting that Jean Wahl starts *Vers le Concret* with remarks on Hegel
and the expression 'it's night now'. 'Should we conclude with Hegel that
language reveals the non reality of the concrete, that the concrete is an
intention that is destined to never be realised.?' 








At 01:25 PM 1/13/99 -0000, Nathan wrote:
>
>> What is occurring here is a distinction btwn things and objects whereby
>> something can occur only physically, only objectively (as known) and
>> physically and objectively. The trad mind-dep/mind-indep couplet becomes
>> related within objective being. How is this possible? Through an
>> understanding of the univocity as known of being in relation. Which i
>> might
>> get to sometime.
>> 
>	Would you be willing to get into this now?  Duns Scotus's formal
>distinction is indeed used to stitch the two together (by linking common
>nature and haecceity), and formal distinction is clearly related to
>univocity.  But the two are not the same.
>
>	Univocity, as a conceptual first known, allows one to establish a
>relation among quidditties -- both divine and physical -- because it is
>indifferent to the distinction between finite and infinite.  This provides
>an alternative to the analogous conception of being, which unwittingly
>presupposes a knowledge of God (you can only establish an analogy between
>things which are already known, so using analogy to get closer to knowing
>God puts the cart before the horse).  Among Scotus's main points is that
>univocity (1) is not a generic unity, and so has nothing to do with the
>identity of a genus; (2) does not apply to specific or individual
>differentia, except through virtual inclusion.  I don't know what it means
>to say "univocity as known of being in relation" given these points.
>
>	Formal distinction appears here as well, but in two separate ways.
>First, after the derivation of other transcendental perfections which are
>similarly univocal, Scotus argues that the differences between these
>perfections when they are in infinite mode, are still compatible with divine
>simplicity.  The other use is in terms of individuation, where common nature
>and individual difference are formally distinct, but this follows from the
>analysis of real similarities/real differences by which Scotus holds that
>there must be real unities less than numerical unity.
>	Ockham's attacks on formal distinction tend to collapse these two
>uses.  Hence he argues that the because nature and individual difference are
>only formally distinct, they too would be compatible with divine simplicity,
>which would invoke a real rather than merely conceptual univocity between
>God and creatures.  That is, I think, incorrect, since common nature and
>haecceity were derived by Scotus on the basis of real relations between
>created, finite beings, and God by definition does not participate in them.
>(His other attack, btw, is even more ridiculous:  if we accept formal
>distinction we will be unable to distinguish individuals on the basis of
>identity and contradiction -- a ridiculous attack because it insists on a
>correspondence between reality and our cognitions which Ockham himself
>always attacks.)
>
>	Nathan
>	n.e.widder-AT-lse.ac.uk
>
>