ts23. (09.08.2008) Thing in itself. Criticism of "Res" by M Heidegger (*Ïð132*). The triplet of Latin terms res adversae, res publica , res secundae as one of the symbolical manifestations of the idea of creative triad. Two ways of implementation of creative triad in the chain of current events, deeds - "selection of a deed" (function of priest, oracle) and "implementation of the selected deed" (chief’s function).
First, several extracts from this well known M Heidegger’s work.
"… these ancient German words, thing and dine, become name for the state of deeds; they name that what in this or that way deals with, touches a man, what is really meant. The thing that is really meant, is called res by Romans; in Greek it means to talk about something, discuss it (we mean X_r_ei`_s_i_st__(Greek.) - 1) language, speech; 2) announcement; 3) testimony; 4) tale, legend - *Äæ18.36.2, 282.* - À.Ñ.) ; res publica does not mean a "state", but what a fortiori deals with everybody in the nation, "captures him and so becomes an issue for public discussion. It is because res means something that touches us, word combinations res adversae, res secundae could appear – the first is what touches people in bad way, the second is what is favourable to people.
Certainly, dictionaries correctly translate res adversae as "bad luck" and res secundae – as "good luck", but dictionaries say too little about what the words as they are said are for thought."
Heidegger considers Latin res and its versions – also Latin causa, Roman la cosa, old German dine and German das Ding, English thing and cause, French la chose, Slavic veszcz, vecze as a results of aspiration for reflection in the language such category as "the thing that deals with, touches people; circumstances; casus, problematic event; the issue that needs meeting of people to resolve it". Extracting the dominant of this semantic spectrum, Heidegger says: "by the word res Romans name what in this or that way touches a man. The touching is real in res...". Then Heidegger notes that Romans did only the first step in learning what means Latin res, and had no time to go further. That was caused by impact of later Greek philosophy, then as the result res was replaced with the ens borrowed from Greeks - "present as set and presented. While real peculiar content of thing, res, in its initial Roman perception as "touching", is shadowed."
According to Heidegger, this process of loss of wisdom of ancestry (let me be a bit ironical: moreover, wisdom of the best ancestry (brave Nordic Romans) under the impact of ancestry (licentious Greeks) - A.S.) went on further in medieval times. And in Kant’s works, in general, it turns into "thing in itself". Quote Heidegger: "Character of this "in itself " says to Kant that thing in itself is the thing without relation to human perception, i.e. without the confrontation due to which it (thing) exists for the consciousness. "Thing in itself ", conceived strictly after Kant, means a thing, which in no way is a thing for us, since it exists without any confrontation to human idea that could meet it."
In addition, beside irony, and that in this premise, similar to well-known concept of "Golden Age", or "Eden before the Fall", or Talmudical statement"modern wise men are dwarfs on shoulders of giants - wise men of the past", necessarily pertained to any manifestation of gnosticism law is revealed. Namely. Final of evolution for a Gnostic – it is obtaining of unitarity, world-wide unity lost as a result of certain evolution errors or machinations of dark powers. It automatically generates the concept of initial happy unity of gods and humans, things and notions. So Kant according Heidegger gets on shoulders of giants – early Roman wise men that "touched" gods, obviously, in the same way as things touched humans.
Though declaring existence in the past of now lost direct touch of that is res, Heidegger ignores the principle, which vice versa opposes (moreover both in the past and nowadays) possibility of individual, isolated, of purely original pithiness manifestations of essence – either in form their identical touch-res-it to a human, or later principle ens qua ens (essence as essence). This is the principle of through heterogeneity, which can be formulated as follows: each essence is revealed only in interaction with alternative essence, in the contact zone of heterogeneitic system (see *smm Heterogeneity.*).
While completing destructive part and starting constructive work, I must admit that Heidegger by calling notions "contact, touch" the dominant of semantic environment of the Latin lexeme res and its equivalents in other language traditions, only slightly touches the essence of this complex notion. Thus he did not realize that not res should be the original object of studies, but indissoluble triplet "res adversae - res publicae - res secundae". Actually res is only short conventional symbol of this triplet, it in general can be removed from the names of the components leaving only "adversae - publicae - secundae". This triplet is a symbol of unimodus "asymmetrical linear heterogene", namely: "alternative 1 – contact zone of alternatives (that’s why lexeme that denotes "common" is there) - alternative 2". It’s possible to say that content of names of the both alternatives is the same, namely - "those opposite each other; contrary; other, another", i.e. "alternative". But two different phonetic forms have been chosen, two synonyms. It permits, besides the same main meaning, to contribute additional already different meanings to both alternatives. More often these additional senses are treated as "negative" (adversae) and "positive" (secundae). Moreover, since reading of the triplet-symbol goes from the left to the right, chronological semantics appear - "beginning - midpoint - end". Together they enable such an interpretation of the symbol: "from evil through interaction of things to better".
Often such triplet-symbol complex, model of heterogeneitic system is shortly called creative triad. We’ll also use this term. As for the lexeme res, then, I repeat, it is just a shortened name of heterogeneitic system or creative triad.
Furthermore. This creative triad does not exist on its own, in semantic vacuum, but is in the flow of earth life events, developed in linear time. I.e. here the principle of through heterogeneity works, and even such a general category as creative triad reveals its essence in interaction with the other general category – linear flow of events. Moreover, as we’ll see, this essence of creative triad is manifested in different ways depending on the mode this triad is included in the flow of events.
The simplest, single-dimension model of the linear flow of events is the following chain:
"...beginning of the thing-deed + the thing-deed itself + end of the thing-deed + transition to the next thing-deed + beginning of the thing-deed and so on.…"
As it has already been noted, creative triad can be superpositioned on the flow of events in different ways, on this or that triplet of consecutive phases of the flow of events development in linear time. We would emphasize the two ways of superposition, which seem to be the most important:
Creative triad as model of performing the chosen deed
res adversae + res publicae + res secundae
" beginning of + the thing-deed + end of the + transition to + beginning of
the thing-deed itself thing-deed next thing-deed the thing-deed …"
res adversae + res publicae + res secundae
. Creative triad as model of choosing the next deed
I.e. the flow of current events in this model looks as the chain of implemented lots, completed geneses of things-deeds, which change each other. During this implementation of each genesis, bringing it to its completeness as well as choosing of the next thing-deed occurs due to the two different manifestations, implementations of the creative triad, which ensure cause-and-effect relation between the separate links of this chain, thus creating casual integrity of the chain, transforming it into what we call, depending on our Weltanschauung (world view) - evolution or implementation of the creative concept of the Creator.
Hence in the casually integral flow of current events, in this linear model of evolution, controlled flow of events, two implementations of the creative triad can be found. One is linked to the selection of a deed, and the middle component here is a transition-span from the completed deed to next deed. The second implementation of the creative triad models algorithm of performing already chosen deed. Here the deed itself is the middle component, which is developed in time from its beginning to its end, effect.
In archaic communities these two variants of creative activity are embodied in the power of oracle-priest and in the power of chieftain. The chieftain asks for advice from the oracle, priest, wizard, - this classic plot of many eposes is an idealized model of the two creators cooperation in ancient communities.
Where the chieftain “ends”, the oracle “starts” and vice versa. The chieftain is the “ruler of everyday life”. The oracle, priest is the “ruler of holidays”. If consider relativistic time determined by the development of events, then the time of the oracle, priest where the completion of deeds is a predecessor of their beginning is reversed to the time of the chieftain, which flows from the beginning of a deed to its completion.
Digression.
Seems that state of oracle, priest is perceived as more distinctly ”mid-heterogeneous”, than that of the chieftain. Since the chieftain is the one who implements the chosen deeds, he implemented heterogeneity in the span between the beginning and the end of a deed, and such implementation to the great extent was determined by the will of not the priest, but by the algorithm of the deed itself, which as a rule was a routine repeated many times. So the extraversal asymmetrical linear heterogene could be a symbol of the chieftain: "À1 and À2".
As for the oracle, he did the selection of the next deed much more independently, much more freely. So the intraversal asymmetrical linear heterogene could be a symbol of the oracle: "à & c". Moreover, the contrast of alternatives in this heterogene, namely, previous and next deeds could be very high, very often much higher, than the contrast between the beginning and the end of a routine deed, which often is perceived as practically guaranteed, predicted effect of the beginning. This meant that asymmetry of “oracle” heterogene was higher (that’s why I denoted alternatives of the “oracle’s” heterogene with different letters).
So, if we are based on the proposition according to which the direction of the flow of events development was from negative to positive (e.g. it happened when the community progressed, successfully developed), then the oracle’s role was considered to be higher, than the chieftain’s one.
That is why, when as the result of successful development of the community, empire building process started and the authority of the community rulers inevitably grew, it in particular was manifested by fusion of the oracle-priest’s and ruler’s roles, and the ruler-chieftain became charismatic ruler with distinct and various entourage. Appropriate changes occurred in symbolism. Symbols of “king’s” power, i.e. power of a charismatic ruler, priest-ruler took distinct heterogeneity: two-blade axes, double eagles with the orb and sceptre in paws.
End of Digression.
Literature
Ïð132. Heidegger M. Res. 1950. Ðîñ³éñüêèé ïåðåêëàä : Õàéäåããåð Ì. Âåùü. - Èíòåðíåò-ïóáëèêàöèÿ.
Äæ18.36.2. S;ownik grecko-polski. T.II. - PWN, Warszawa, 2000.
Translated by Victor Tarasjuk.