Textual Narratives and a New Metaphysics

Raymond T. Shorthouse

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781138723337
  9781138723351
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351756983
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This title was first published in 2002: Drawing extensively upon recent developments in post-phenomenological philosophy, especially 'the textual turn' exemplified by Paul Ricoeur, Jacques Derrida and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, this book explores the role that textual narratives have in the possibility of reasonably affirming the intelligibility of the world. Shorthouse reveals how textual narratives can play a primary role in affirming rational meaning in a continuing hermeneutical process. Offering a radically new approach to metaphysics, Shorthouse demonstrates that rational meaning is ontologically grounded in terms of a transcendental viewpoint or perspective. It is this grounding which transcends the language and the self in a hermeneutical movement towards the affirmation of rational meaning. Revealing that the critical characteristic of reading a narrative is rhythm, Shorthouse explains how each narrative has a rhythmic structure, or prose rhythm, in relation to its semantic and figurative characteristics, activity and mood. Two key questions are explored: what kind of rational unity may be affirmed which does not close or suspend reflection? and what kind of linguistic mediation may generate an extralinguistic, or transcendental element in establishing an ontological grounding for this affirmation? The response to both these questions is presented in terms of textual sonority, where Shorthouse draws upon, and develops, Maurice Merleau-Ponty's notion of sonorous being.

Chapter 1

The Question of Presence

The Vulgar Notion of Presence

The ordinary, or vulgar notion of presence is the understanding that individual and corporate entities may be affirmed as being at hand on the basis of sensible, empirical evidence. An object, for example, a table, to be accepted as being present must be subject to sensate experience of sight and touch. Complex objects, such as a computer, may require a more critical demonstrative process but fundamentally the basis of any attempt to affirm that the object is present is sensible evidence. Even when the part played by language in rational descriptions of simple or complex demonstration of presence is recognized, the vulgar notion still retains the view that empirical experiences lies at the foundation. That is, it is the linguistic capacity of words and sentences in terms of any statement or description to provide ostensible reference as indications and expressions of empirical experience; it is the semantic characteristic of language to refer beyond language to entities and situations in the world that provides the medium for giving expression to presence.

Although this vulgar notion of presence does not go unquestioned in ordinary discourse, for example in the recognition that sense experience is susceptible to distortion and misinterpretation, it is, nevertheless, to all intents and purposes for everyday life, accepted as a sound basis for human perception and knowledge. Any discernable error of judgment regarding the presence of an object will be subjected to a disciplined rational analysis based upon sensible experience. The juridical system, for example, places circumstantial evidence under suspicion of judgment in contrast to clearly demonstrated eye-witness reports. And yet, philosophical debate has always raised radical epistemological questions about these matters. How is it possible to know what it is that sense experience is derived from? Can sense experience alone be the foundation for an epistemological judgment with reference to an object? Is the question of presence fundamentally an epistemological issue? What is the basis, if any, for affirming that something is present? If affirmation is not possible, does this mean that there is no way of knowing what if anything is present at hand? Or does it mean that there will always be an element of suspicion about the objects of thought and language? Is it only if there is a source of affirmation beyond sensible experience and the process of rational thought, a source beyond language, that the presence of things may be known? That is, is it only if there is a metaphysical foundation for knowledge of the objective world that presence may be affirmed? However, in the debates of modern Western philosophy, since the major work of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason in which he exposes the fundamental problem of the empiricist’s epistemological view of sensible experience, and attempts to demonstrate the foundation of transcendental idealism in the a priori categories of rational thought, there has been a development in the radical questioning of any metaphysical trace.

The Problem of Presence – Three Perspectives

In attempting to address this critical issue of presence, three possible approaches present a choice of perspective for analysis. Firstly, there is the cognitive process of rational thought. Does the key to the question of affirming presence, as Kant proposes, lie with the structuring and capacity of the rational mind? Or, secondly, should the critical perspective be focused primarily on the question concerning the possibility of direct or immediate access to the objective world in terms of sensible experience, intuition or some ontological condition which may be analysed and defined? Thirdly, there is the linguistic medium which may be understood to relate the first to the second. Is the critical clue to the question of affirmation to be found in the nature of language which may reveal either endemic suspicion, or the possibility of a hermeneutical movement towards affirmation of presence? The three perspectives cannot, of course, be separated, and each will involve an acknowledgement and account of significant issues relating to the other two. Therefore, in taking a linguistic perspective for this study it will be necessary to give careful consideration to the critical questions raised by processes of rational thought and its relationship with the world. Obviously, the latter immediately provokes the question, what is meant by ‘the world’, but this will be taken up in due course.

Metaphysical Assumptions

The fundamental problem of presence is the seeming impossibility of rationally affirming the absolute unchanging unity of particular entities on the basis of the ceaseless flux of temporal experience. To make the statement, ‘There is the table’, is acceptable in terms of the vulgar notion of things, but if the word ‘table’ in this sentence is an ostensible reference for the presence of the object, how is it possible for the word to affirm that presence if it is subject to a changing play of sensate experience in relation to positionality and temporal flux? If it is claimed that empirical experience cannot be the foundation of the word, or concept, but takes its capacity to affirm presence from the a priori structures of the rational mind – that the mind, as it were, is metaphysically constructed – this not only raises fundamental questions about the notion of presence, if, as according to Kant, there is no possibility of the rational mind deriving the source of its ability to conceptualize from empirical experience, but also provokes radical questions about the seemingly unquestioned metaphysical assumptions with respect to the a priori categories of rationality.

Language and Phenomenology

My approach to language in this study is in terms of a phenomenological analysis, and not grammatical structures. That is, it is the relationship of language to the way the conscious mind perceives objects as phenomena, how they appear in consciousness. The significance of this will be made clear in due course. What is important is that empirical experience is taken up into a givenness whereby a critical analysis may begin the process of questioning. This does not mean that consciousness, or some level of consciousness to be determined, may provide a kind of ultimate foundation in the manner of the Cartesian cogito ergo sum,¹ but it is the conscious mind which questions that is the location of givenness.² Empirical experience with respect to rational thought is mediated through the phenomenological structuring of the conscious mind. The sensate experience of an object, such as a table, in terms of sight which will include colour, size, shape, etc., may only be the object of rational thought through the mediation of appearance in consciousness: this is a table; the table is square and has four legs; it is a dining table. It is the appearance as the mediation of empirical experience of the object which is the givenness where the questioning must begin. To this end, the nature and structure of this appearance provokes the initial stage of the analysis.

Husserlian Phenomenology

In the context of the development of phenomenology, it is the appeal of Edmund Hussel ‘to the things in themselves’ which has provoked the debate, particularly with respect to Martin Heidegger’s ontology, around the issue of presence. Presence for Husserl – or rather the essence of pure being, or the thing-itself, ‘the judged state of affairs [Urteilsverheit] (the affair-complex [Sachverhalt]) ‘itself’³ – raises the question of what genuine grounding, what evidence can be taken for knowing that it is there. It is a question of uncovering what Husserl calls the final sense of science. As already noted, the task is to begin with the given, not with the Cartesian rational subject. The given, according to Husserl, is consciousness in which the objective world appears, and is the grounding of the cogito. What the given reveals is the problematic of knowing the thing-itself. If it is the grounding of the cogito in contrast, for example, to the transcendental Cartesian or Kantian subjects,⁴ then what is it that ensures a continuing affirmation of the presence of the thing-itself in consciousness?

Husserl is at pains to demonstrate that sense experience cannot provide genuine evidence for knowing the object itself. For example, consciousness is always subject to the modalities of being in the world. There are the spatial modalities whereby an object is experienced from particular positional perspectives. For example, a house cannot be viewed from all sides at once. Furthermore, the position determines the appearance of the building. Also, as Husserl writes,

(For example: the ‘modalities of being’, like certainly being, possibly or presumably being, etc.; or the ‘subjective’ – temporal modes, being present, past and future.) This line of description is called noematic. Its counterpart is noetic description, which concerns the modes of the cogito/ itself, the modes of consciousness (for example: perception, recollection, retention), with the modal differences inherent in them (for example: differences in clarity and distinction).

(Cartesian Meditations, p. 36)

Thus, there is no such thing as pure consciousness in relation to ordinary experience. In other words, the naïve or natural attitude, which implicitly tends to disregard the critical part played by spatial and temporal modalities of perception, takes empirical experience of tables, chairs, doors, and all entities in the world at hand as genuine evidence of the things-themselves, and consequently may be subject to sensible illusion. For example, a person walks into a room and sees an object for the first time and is uncertain what it is, and therefore moves to different positions concluding that it is indeed a table. There is of course some awareness of the influence of positionality, or perspective, but the dominant concern, for the most part, is to gain sufficient empirical evidence to make the judgment that the object is a table. But, according to Husserl, such judgments cannot be grounded in sense experience since the intentional, constituting nature of consciousness plays a significant and determinate role in the judgment.

Husserl: Expression and Indication

What, therefore, is the ground of consciousness? This is a question that for Husserl arises from his fundamental concern with the ground of science. That is, on what foundation is the logic of science grounded? To this end, in pursuing his phenomenological analysis, he defines consciousness as structured by phenomenal images in terms of Expression (Ausdruck), and Indication (Anzeichen);⁵ that is, images as signs both expressing meaning and indicating certain objects or states of affairs. In his analysis of these meaningful signs, Husserl is concerned to make clear that both expression and indication are related to motivation and intentionality of the thinking subject. For example, in Logical Investigations, Volume 1, he writes

A thing is only properly an indication if and where it in fact serves to indicate something to a thinking being.

(Logical Investigations, Vol. l, p. 270)

For this reason, it is the ‘thinking being’ that takes priority, and is essentially disclosed in the meaningful expressive nature of consciousness. In other words, consciousness is meaningful expression in terms of the synthetic activity of intuition and intentionality. Furthermore, meaning is expressed even when there is no object present, and, therefore, in this sense, no indication. There are, Husserl claims, two expressive acts which he calls meaning conferring and meaning fulfilling. He writes,

But if the object is not intuitively before one, and so not before one as a named object, mere meaning is all there is to it. If the originally empty meaning-intention is now fulfilled, the relation to an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 The Question of Presence
• 2 Presence and Metaphor
• 3 Metaphor and Narrative
• 4 Prose Rhythm: the Mediation of Sonorous Being
• 5 The Primordial Dialectic and Temporal Perspective
• 8 Reasonable Hope
• 9 A New Metaphysics
• Bibliography
• Appendix
• Index