Book 2: Human Enlightenment of the First Axial
2.B.1. Genealogy of the Philosophic Enlightenment in Classical Greece
Interlude to Ch. 15: Heidegger on "Truth"
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Scientific Enlightenment, Div. One Book 2: Human Enlightenment of the First Axial 2.B.1. Genealogy of the Philosophic Enlightenment in Classical Greece Interlude to Ch. 15: Heidegger on "Truth" ACADEMY | previous section | Table of Content | next section | GALLERY |
"Die Philosophie hat von altersher Wahrheit mit Sein zusammengestellt." (SZ., p. 212; "Philosophy has since antiquity associated Truth together with Being.") This applies to Sallis' statement that Socrates identifies "truth" with "being" when he takes these two to be the analogues in the noetic world to light in the visible world. Heidegger's statement is in fact true of all philosophies, in a way: Dao is "truth" and "being", in that it is the material source of beings but also determines the way they are and thus they way they show themselves as they are.
"Drei Thesen charakterisieren die traditionelle Auffassung des Wesens der Wahrheit und die Meinung ueber ihre erstmalige Definition: 1. Der 'Ort' der Wahrheit ist die Aussage (das Urteil). 2. Das Wesen der Wahrheit liegt in der 'Uebereinstimmung' des Urteils mit seinem Gegenstand. 3. Aristoteles, der Vater der Logik, hat sowohl die Wahrheit dem Urteil als ihrem urspruenglichen Ort zugewiesen, er hat auch die Definition der Wahrheit als 'Uebereinstimmung' in Gang gebracht." (p. 214; "Three theses characterize the traditional concept of the essence of truth and the meaning of its preliminary definition: 1. The 'locus' of truth is assertion (judgment). 2. The essence of truth lies in the 'agreement' of this judgment with its object. 3. Aristotle, the father of logic, has not only assigned truth to judgment as its primordial locus, but has also brought into current the definition of truth as 'agreement'.") This is the traditional, and common-sense, but derivative (abkuenftig) notion of "truth" which Sallis dismisses as not Plato's meaning of "truth" (aletheia) which is primordial and means "being" at the same time. "Aristoteles sagt: paqhmata thV yuchV twn pragmatwn omoiwmata, die 'Erlebnisse' der Seele, die nohmata ('Vorstellungen') sind Angleichungen an die Dinge. Diese Aussage, die keineswegs als ausdrueckliche Wesensdefinition der Wahrheit vorgelegt ist, wurde mit die Veranlassaung fuer die Ausbildung der spaeteren Formulierung des Wesens der Wahrheit als adaequatio intellectus et rei. Thomas v. Aquin... gebraucht fuer adaequatio (Angleichung) auch die Termini correspondentia (Entsprechung) und convenientia (Uebereinkunft)." (Ibid.) Note that this "traditional" notion of truth as the correspondence between the consciousness' consciousness of reality and the reality of which it is conscious is precisely the notion of "representation" -- truth "happens" when consciousness produces a "correct" representation of reality in speech, ideas, mathematical equations, drawings, etc. -- which later will be taken to be the essence of language and mathematical equations. That is to say, when we later define the evolution of consciousness in the aspect of its representational capacity and peculiarity, we are dealing with it on the derivative, having already covered the primordial level here.
"Was meint ueberhaupt der Terminus 'Uebereinstimmung'? Uebereinstimmung von etwas mit etwas hat den formalen Charakter der Beziehung von etwas zu etwas." (p. 215; "What does the term 'agreement' mean generally? Agreement of something with something has the formal character of a relation of something to something.") "Was ist das, im Hinblick worauf das in der adaequatio Bezogene uebereinstimmt?... Im Hinblick worauf stimmen intellectus und res ueberein?... Erkenntnis soll doch die Sache so 'geben', wie sie ist. Die 'Uebereinstimmung' hat den Relationscharakter: 'So - Wie'. In welcher Weise ist diese Beziehung als Beziehung zwischen intellectus und res moeglich?... fuer die Aufklaerung der Wahrheitsstruktur genuegt es nicht, dieses Beziehungsganze einfach vorauszusetzen, sondern es muss in den Seinszusammenhang zurueckgefragt werden, der dieses Ganze als solches traegt." (p. 216; "... for the clarification of the structure of truth it is not enough to simply presuppose this totality of relation, but one must inquire into the network [or context] of Being, which supports this totality as such.") So now the origin of this "correspondence" between "mental content" or "representation" and the "external reality" thus "represented" is to be sought in a more primordial "Seinszusammenhang" (the network of the process of be-ing).
Heidegger uses an example. "Es vollziehe Jemand mit dem Ruecken gegen die Wand gekehrt die wahre Aussage: 'Das Bild an der Wand haengt schief.' Diese Aussage weist sich dadurch aus, dass der Aussagende sich umwendend das schiefhaengende Bild an der Wand wahrnimmt... Wird etwa eine Uebereinstimmung der 'Erkenntnis' bzw. des 'Erkannten' mit dem Ding an der Wand festgestellt? Ja und nein... Vielmehr ist das 'nur vorstellende' Aussagen seinem eigensten Sinne nach bezogen auf das reale Bild an der Wand. Dieses ist gemeint und nichts anderes... Das Aussagen ist ein Sein zum seienden Ding selbst." (p. 217 - 8; "Someone with his back turned to the wall makes the true assertion: 'The picture on the wall is hanging askew.' This assertion demonstrates itself when the asserting person, turning round, perceives the picture hanging askew on the wall... Is something like an agreement between 'knowledge' or 'what is known' and the thing on the wall thus ascertained? Yes and no... Rather, the assertion which 'merely represents' is in accordance with its ownmost meaning related to the real picture on the wall. This is what is meant and not any other... The assertion is a Be-ing [comportment] toward the be-ing thing itself.") Such "Being toward the thing itself" is however a "discovery" (Entdecken) in which the thing is discovered, i.e. shows itself as to "how the thing is" ("... zeigt sich so, wie es an ihm selbst ist... wie seiend es in der Aussage aufgezeigt, entdeckt wird"; p. 218.) This discovery is moreover "the self-showing of the being in its selfness" ("sich zeigen des Seienden in Selbigkeit", ibid.) which is the primordial meaning of correspondence, representation, or expression (Aussage). Now this correspondence or "'expression is true' means: it discovers the thing-(being)-in-itself" ("Die Aussage ist wahr, bedeutet: sie entdeckt das Seiende an ihm selbst", ibid.). Hence "Wahrsein (Wahrheit) der Aussage muss verstanden werden als entdeckend-sein. Wahrheit hat also gar nicht die Struktur einer Uebereinstimmung zwischen Erkennen und Gegenstand im Sinne einer Angleichung eines Seienden (Subjekt) an ein anderes (Objekt)." (p. 218 - 9; "the being-true (truth) of the assertion must be understood as discovering be-ing [comportment that discovers]. Truth has thus not the structure of an agreement between knowing and object in the sense of a likeness of one being (subject) to another (object).") But there is a deeper level still. "Das Wahrheit als Entdeckend-sein ist wiederum ontologisch nur moeglich auf dem Grund des In-der-Welt-seins" which is "das Fundament des urspruenglichen Phaenomens der Wahrheit." (p. 219; "Truth as discovering-being is furthermore ontologically only possible on the ground of being-in-the-world" which is "the foundation of the primordial phenomenon of truth.")
This is how Heidegger obtains his famous interpretation of aletheia as meaning "unconcealedness" or "self-showing from concealment" -- "was die aelteste Tradition der antiken Philosophie urspruenglich ahnte und vorphaenomenologisch auch verstand. Das Wahrsein des logoV als apofansiV is das alhqeuein in der Weise des apofainesqai: Seiendes -- aus der Verborgenheit herausnehmend -- in seiner Unverborgenheit (Entdecktheit) sehen lassen." "Und ist es Zufall, dass in einem der Fragmente des Heraklit, den aeltesten philosophischen Lehrstuecken, die ausdruecklich vom logoV handeln, das herausgestellte Phaenomen der Wahrheit in Sinne der Entdecktheit (Unverborgenheit) durchblickt? Dem logoV und dem, der ihn sagt und versteht, werden die Unverstaendigen entgegengestellt. Der logoV ist frazwn okwV ecei, er sagt, wie das Seiende sich verhaelt. Den Unverstaendigen dagegen lanqanei, bleibt in Verborgenheit, was sie tun; epilanqanontai, sie vergessen, das heisst, es sinkt ihnen wieder in die Verborgenheit zurueck. Also gehoert zum logoV die Unverborgenheit, a-lhqeia." Ibid.) I have already interpreted logoV as meaning precisely Dao, that is, the source of being both in the material and formal sense: the classical meaning of Being as the substratum. Certainly the meaning of showing-forth from hiddenness is contained therein. And I adhere to the original, literal meaning of a-letheia as "un-forgetfulness" and of lethe as "forgetting" (from lanthanein, escaping one's attention or memory). Un-forgetfulness, i.e. anamnesis, means recollecting the source of being, and this in fact is precisely how Plato uses both terms (at least in Phaedo). Heidegger is, in my view, distorting the more simplified philosophizing of the Hellenes in order to fit it to his own philosophizing which is in fact far more specialized and advanced, and where Heidegger -- completing Plato's project -- gets at the bottom of why exactly things are as they are: the new, specialized meaning of Being. "Die Uebersetzung durch das Wort 'Wahrheit' und erst recht die theoretischen Begriffsbestimmungen dieses Ausdrucks verdecken den Sinn dessen, was die Griechen als vorphilosophisches Verstaendnis dem terminologischen Gebrauch von alhqeia 'selbstverstaendlich' zugrunde legten." (Ibid.) Hence I don't agree with this statement. The Greek notions of logos and alethia, at least before Plato, mean neither "correspondence" nor "unconcealedness", but are analogous in meaning to the Chinese Dao, the Egyptian maat, and a host of other such cosmological concepts designating the source and the order of things.
Now we must get back to that deeper level, Being-in-the-world (In-der-Welt-sein), on which the surface level phenomenon of truth, "discovery" (Entdecken), which itself makes possible "representation" or "correspondence", is based. Ignoring Heidegger's conception of the Greek origin of truth because it is incorrect, we must see how Heidegger has advanced beyond Plato in explicating why the world is as we find it to be. Now "Wahrsein als entdeckend-sein ist eine Seinsweise des Daseins" (p. 220; "Being-true as being-discovering [i.e. the comportment which discovers] is a manner of be-ing of Dasein."). The discovering Dasein (human being: Entdeckend-sein) and the thing discovered (Entdeckt-sein) in Plato are mediated through eidoi (thus in the preceding example it is through the eidoi of obliqueness, picture, etc. that we discover "the picture on the wall is hanging askew") which are given without further explication as to their origin, other than being referred back to the form of the Good and retained in our consciousness (soul) after our fallenness from the divine realm. Taking the ideas thus for granted, given once and for all, is the typical operation of the functional perspective, within which Plato operates. This referral to the Good on the side of decontextualization (Nature) has already been explained as corresponding to the project of modern sciences ("theory of everything"). Heidegger's contribution here is to supply the side of the primordial contextualization (worldhood) which makes possible still Nature through its decontextualization ("Der zeitliche Sinn der Modifikation des umsichtigen Besorgens zum theoretischen Entdecken des innerweltlich Vorhandenen", SZ, p. 356; "The temporal meaning of the modification of circumspective concern into the theoretical discovery of things present-at-hand within-the-world", BT, Macquarrie, p. 408). The surface level of this worldhood, discovery, is grounded, finds its condition of possibility, in the deep, primordial level of the disclosedness of the world or Being-in-the-world itself ("die Entdecktheit des innerweltlichen Seienden gründet in der Erschlossenheit der Welt." SZ, p. 220). The disclosedness of the world (Erschlossenheit) is thus "where eidoi originally came from" (or where equations describing the physical world came). "Erschlossenheit wird durch Befindlichkeit, Verstehen und Rede konstituiert und betrifft gleichursprünglich die Welt, das In-Sein und das Selbst. Die Strukture der Sorge als Sichvorweg -- schon sein in einer Welt -- als Sein bei innerweltlichem Seienden birgt in sich Erschlossenheit des Daseins." (Ibid. c.f. the structural diagram in the earlier exposition of the temporal structure of the testamental religiousness.) Thus the structural network of Befindlichkeit, etc., Sichvorweg, etc. is what generates all that intelligibility of the world by which consciousness understands the world and which Plato designates in "the functional way" as eidoi. Furthermore, this "network" generating truth, so to speak, belongs to the very structure (the very Being) of Dasein ("daß zu seiner existenzialen Verfassung Erschlossenheit seines eigensten Seins gehört", p. 221: "that to its existential constitution belongs the disclosedness of its ownmost Being"). Therefore, on this side, worldhood (Weltlichkeit) and its disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) -- but moreover temporality (Zeitlichkeit) -- correspond to the Good, whereas the eidoi themselves get transformed in the structural perspective of Heidegger into discovering ("Entdecken" as "eine Seinsweise des In-der-Welt-seins"). Why temporality also? Because while the source of truth (of intelligibility, of eidos) is the present In-der-Welt-sein, the source of In-der-Welt-sein is Dasein's concern for the future. Hence temporality (Zeitlichkeit) is the most primordial Truth (ursprünglichste Wahrheit).
While on the other side Plato's distinction between the philosopher who sees both things and the forms of things and the ordinary person who sees only things and lives in doxa corresponds (in the structural perspective) to, e.g. the physicist who sees an universal equation behind all particular, variable fallings and the ordinary person who takes these particulars for granted, on this side this distinction corresponds to Dasein in the authentic mode and the Das Man operating in the mode of Verfallen (fallenness), which is: "Das Aufgehen im Man bedeutet die Herrschaft der öffentlichen Ausgelegtheit. Das Entdeckte und Erschlossene steht im Modus der Verstelltheit und Verschlossenheit durch das Gerede, die Neugier und die Zweideutigkeit... Das Seiende ist nicht völlig verborgen, sondern gerade entdeckt, aber zugleich verstellt" (p. 222). In like manner the ordinary person unconsciously knows forms but does not explicitly know forms but only things, just as s/he does language. "[Das Seiende] zeigt sich [a thing shows itself together as this thing and the eidos of it] -- aber im Modus des Scheins [ambiguity of the thing, the mixed showing of eidoi]. Imgleichen sinkt das vordem Entdeckte wieder in die Verstelltheit und Verborgenheit zurück..." (Ibid.) Thus, in summary: "Die existenzial-ontologische Interpretation des Phänomens der Wahrheit hat ergeben: 1. Wahrheit im ursprünglichsten Sinne ist die Erschlossenheit des Daseins, zu der die Entdeckheit des innerweltlichen Seienden gehört. 2. Das Dasein ist gleichursprünglich in der Wahrheit und Unwahrheit" (p. 223). Moreover, this existence in both truthfulness and untruthfulness at the same time is inherent in the very structure of human existence, the very structure of Care, in Heidegger's scheme. ("Die existenzial-ontologische Bedingung dafür, daß das In-der-Welt-sein durch 'Wahrheit' und 'Unwahrheit' bestimmt ist, liegt in der Seinsverfassung des Daseins, die wir als den geworfenen Entwurf kennzeichneten. Sie ist ein Konstitutivum der Struktur der Sorge." Ibid.) Transcending the untruthfulness (corresponding to "overcoming illusion" in traditional philosophies) in Heidegger then is: "Daher muß das Dasein wesenhaft das auch schon Entdeckte gegen den Schein und die Verstellung sich ausdrücklich zueignen und sich der Entdecktheit immer wieder versichern. Erst recht vollzieht sich alle Neuentdeckung nicht auf der Basis völliger Verborgenheit, sondern im Ausgang von der Entdecktheit im Modus des Scheins." (Ibid. "Therefore Dasein must essentially explicitly appropriate what has already been discovered against the 'seeming' and disguise and assure itself of its discoveredness again and again. The new-discovery is never done on the basis of full hiddenness, but in departure from the discoveredness in the mode of 'seeming'.")
The Good in the primordial level, in the structural perspective, is Weltlichkeit, which will be summarized later. For now we focus on how Heidegger derives from the pre-reflective, pre-thematic everyday operative mode (truth as "Entdecktheit" and "Erschlossenheit") the derivative notion of "truth", "consciousness", or language-mathematical equations as "representation".
The essential distinction to be remembered is that the first, pre-thematic manifestation of truthfulness as in the entdeckende Aussage, "The picture on the wall is hanging askew" is ready-to-hand (Zuhandenes) where the two sides of a "correspondence" have not yet been differentiated, whereas the reflective adaequatio is of the manner of a present-at-hand (Vorhandenes) where there is a differentiation between the "two sides" (intellectus and res). The following description by Heidegger of how the transition happens from the pre-thematic to thematic consciousness is extremely insightful and illustrative of the evolution of consciousness even on the phylogenic scale.
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Das Sein bei innerweltlichem Seienden, das Besorgen, ist entdeckend. Zur Erschlossenheit des Daseins aber gehoert wesenhaft die Rede. Dasein spricht sich aus; sich -- als entdeckendes Sein zu Seiendem... [und] in der Aussage [e.g. "Das Bild an der Wand haengt schief"]. Die Aussage teilt das Seiende im Wie seiner Entdecktheit mit... Die ausgesprochene Aussage enthaelt in ihrem Worueber die Entdecktheit des Seienden. Dieses ist im Ausgsprochenen verwahrt. Das Ausgesprochene wird gleichsam zu einem innerweltlich Zuhandenen, das aufgenommen and weitergesprochen werden kann. Auf Grund der Verwahrung der Entdecktheit hat das zuhandene Ausgesprochene an ihm selbst einen Bezug zum Seienden, worueber das Ausgesprochene jeweils Aussage ist. Entdecktheit ist je Entdecktheit von... Auch im Nachsprechen kommt das nachsprechende Dasein in ein Sein zum besprochenen Seienden selbst. Es ist aber und haelt sich fuer enthoben einem urspruenglichen Nachvollzug des Entdeckens.
Das Dasein braucht sich nicht in "originärer" Erfahrung vor das Seiende selbst zu bringen und bleibt doch entsprechend in einem Sein zu diesem. Entdecktheit wird in weitem Ausmass nicht durch je eigenes Entdecken, sondern durch Hoerensagen des Gesagten zueeignet. Das Aufgehen im Gesagten gehoert zur Seinsart des Man. Das Ausgesprochene als solches uebernimmt das Sein zu dem in der Aussage entdeckten Seienden. Soll dieses aber ausdruecklich hinsichtlich seiner Entdecktheit zegeeignet werden, dann besagt das: die Aussage soll als entdeckende ausgewiesen werden. Die ausgesprochene Aussage aber ist ein Zuhandenes, so zwar, dass es, als Entdecktheit verwahrendes, an ihm selbst einen Bezug hat zum entdeckten Seienden. Ausweisung ihres Entdeckend-seins besagt jetzt: Ausweisung des Bezugs der die Entdecktheit verwahrenden Aussage zum Seienden... Das Seiende, zu dem [die Aussage als Zuhandenes &] entdeckende Bezug hat, ist innerweltlich Zuhandenes bzw. Vorhandenes. Der Bezug selbst gibt sich so als vorhandener. Der Bezug aber liegt darin, dass die in der Aussage verwahrte Entdecktheit je Entdeckheit von... ist... Der Bezug erhaelt aber durch die Umschaltung seiner auf eine Beziehung zwischen Vorhandenen jetzt selbst Vorhandenheitscharakter. Entdecktheit von... wird zur vorhandene Gemaessheit eines Vorhandene, der ausgesprochenen Aussage, zu Vorhandenem, dem besprochene Seienden... [W]ird die Seinsart der Beziehungsglieder unterschiedlos als nur Vorhandenes verstanden, dann zeigt sich der Bezug als vorhandenes Uebereinstimmen zweier Vorhandener [i.e. intellectus et res]... [And further more:] Wahrheit als Erschlossenheit und entdeckendes Sein zu entdecktem Seienden ist zur Wahrheit als Uebereinstimmung zwischen innerweltlich Vorhandenem geworden. (p. 223 - 5) |
The Be-ing among intraworldly beings, Concern, is discover-ing. To the disclosedness of Dasein however belongs essentially "talking". Dasein expresses itself; itself -- as discovering Be-ing towards beings... [and thus expresses itself] in "assertions" [e.g. "The picture on the wall is hanging askew"]. The assertion communicates beings in the "how" of their discoveredness... The expressed assertion contains in its "about what" the discoveredness of beings. This is preserved in what is expressed. What is expressed becomes as it were an intraworldly ready-to-hand, which can be taken up and further spoken again. [A culture does not simply consist of physical equipment, but of floating descriptions of things and events as well.] Because of its preservation of the "discoveredness" this assertion just expressed and which has become ready-to-hand has in itself a relation to the being about which it is the assertion. Discoveredness is in each case a discoveredness of... Even in the act of speaking-again [of what is already expressed] the speaking-again Dasein comes into a Be-ing toward the very being thus spoken-of. But it is exempted, and holds itself as exempted, from a repetition of the primordial discovery.
Dasein need not bring itself face to face with the being itself in an "original" experience and remains nevertheless in an Be-ing toward this being. The discoveredness is appropriated in large measure, not through one's own discovering, but through "hearsay" of what is said [about it]. Absorption in what is said belongs to the kind of Being of the One. What is expressed as such takes over the Be-ing toward the being discovered in the assertion. Should however this be appropriated explicitly with regard to its discoveredness, this means: the assertion should be demonstrated as "discovering." But the assertion expressed is a ready-to-hand, so much that it, as preservative of the discoveredness, has in itself a relation to the being discovered. Now demonstration of its "having-discovered-ness" means: demonstration of the relationship of this assertion preservative of discoveredness to the being... The being, to which [the assertion as ready-to-hand and] discovering has a relation, is either intraworldly ready-to-hand or present-at-hand. The relation thus presents itself as present-at-hand. The relation however lies in this, that the discoveredness preserved in the assertion is discoveredness of... ... The relation now itself acquires the character of presence-at-hand through its switching over to a connection between two present-at-hands. The discoveredness of... becomes the present-at-hand conformity of one present-at-hand -- the assertion expressed -- to another present-at-hand, the being spoken-of.... Should the kind of Being of the components of the relation be indiscriminately understood as only present-at-hand, then the relation shall show itself as a present-at-hand agreement between two things present-at-hand [i.e. intellectus et res]... [And furthermore:] Truth as disclosedness and discovering Be-ing [i.e. comportment] toward discovered entities has become truth as the agreement between intrawordly present-at-hand things. |
At this point as Heidegger has shown the derivation of truth in the sense of adaequatio from the primordial sense of truth as disclosedness-discoveredness he deplores the way in which what is the derivative (adaequatio) has been taken as the primordial ("Was jedoch in der Ordnung der existenzial-ontologischen Fundierungszusammenhaenge das Letze ist, gilt ontisch-faktisch als das Erste und Naechste." p. 225) This indeed has been the attitude of the scientists, where the abstract, decontextualized world of the structures (in the sense used in this work: opposed to functions or effects of the structures; e.g. chemical compositions, fermions and bosons, etc.) generated through the (derivative) representational devices of language and mathematical equations (expressions [Aussage] becoming present-at-hand) has been taken as the source of (or underlying) the equipmental lived world (tables, chairs, buildings) originally disclosed through non-thematic (non-explicitly conscious) comportment amids it (Sich-vorweg... als Sein-bei). In this work however I take the view that the structural world indeed underlies undifferentiatedly the lived world and is differentiated out gradually from the non-thematic comportment becoming thematic. That is, what Heidegger calls derivation here (Abkuenftigkeit) I consider "differentiation" (the thematization of the originally non-thematic consciousness [Dasein], the "differentiation of consciousness": thus is the meaning of "Modifikation des umsichtigen Besorgens zum theoretischen Entdecken des innerweltlich Vorhandenen"). This change of perspective will be explored later, along with the exposition of Weltlichkeit in general.
Postscript (continued from Introduction). This demonstration of the derivation of the present-at-hand representational function of an assertion from its original, non-thematic function as an expression of the discoveredness of something based on the prior disclosedness of the whole world enables us to understand even better the origin of religious fundamentalism, that phenomenon of literalization of the religious scripture (even the experience of God) into a "representation" of "things" (i.e. intrawordly present-at-hand objects, in the manner of which even God is so talked about) with which Eric Voegelin was particularly preoccupied. The symbolism of religious expressions comprising the Biblical scripture for example "preserves" in its "about what" the discoveredness of, e.g. God, and, also, the persons' be-ing toward God. Hence the original Generic Ancestral Ghost of the Israelite nomadic ancestral cult was gradually being "discovered" as monotheistic (i.e. precisely "generic"), contract-binding, then more and more universally binding for all peoples (instead of just Hebrews), and finally (with the prophets) graceful -- but still an Other like the Ancestor Ghost -- enough to rescue the degenerating world -- eventually with His own suffering ("debt-paying"), the salvator (so called, e.g. in Daniel, 6, 27: Daniel in lacu leonum servatur); and the stream of empirical events (histoire événementielle in the words of Fernand Braudel) were being "discovered" as having meaning in accordance with the "discovering" of God. This ensemble of "discoveredness" is preserved in what is expressed in the symbolism: these discovering participants (discovering be-ing toward the Ancestral Ghost formerly disclosed in the earliest mythic shamanism), because of their intellectual immaturity and weakness, and also because of the very nature of the experience of "discovering" -- in terms of interpersonal relationship with the Ancestor --, codified (preserved) their discoveries only in a narrative ([eschatological, salvational] drama) based on images of intraworldly things which first of all ensured the Otherness of divinity and which, secondly, as paradigmatic (in Voegelin's words), although more historical, i.e. empirically referencing, than earlier myths, was less so than the modern positivistic historiography (which strives to be a meaningless, pure representation, like a surveillance camera or journalistic report). This narrative (Aussage) at this stage was still living, "lived". The following generations however, when appropriating the Aussage as a ready-to-hand (symbolique of the original experience of discovering), did so in the mode of exemption from the original discovering. Since the appropriators were exempted from this, they proceeded to demonstrate the relationship of this Aussage to the discoveredness it preserved... Since they were not involved in the original discovering, their demonstration, their discovering be-ing (Entdeckende-sein) toward God via the narrative, took the form of a present-at-hand relationship between a present-at-hand representation and a "represented" in the manner of intraworldly present-at-hand objects. In the process the already personal experience of the Salvational Other degenerated to a present-at-hand being in the manner of an intraworldly object -- though transcendent over the intra-world -- which, remaining true to its original mode of the Ancestral Ghost, retained the personal character and still rewarded and punished, saved and damned, got angry and found favor in whomever. The narrative itself (Aussage, originally pensée symbolique) degenerated to a present-at-hand representation of empirical events like the mindless recording of a surveillance camera or of a journalistic report (pensée logique). The meaning of the words (the paradigm) was thus lost. Hence fundamentalism. In the West this process was crystallizing until its completion with the Protestant sects of Reformation (Calvinists and Puritans) whose "rationalization" of religion (in the words of Max Weber) meant basically the reduction of the originally ready-to-hand lived experience preserved in the scripture to a present-at-hand agreement between the book and events that were conceived like intraworldly empirical events; and furthermore the reduction of religious experience ready-to-hand to mechanical, present-at-hand (intraworldly) activities (intraworldly asceticism: innerweltlich Askese). From this lineage of degeneration then came these contemporary spiritually deprived, and really atheistic, Evangelicals.1
Footnote:
1. The Québecan theologian André Beauchamp has called many of what have passed as "Christianity" throughout history "atheism with Christian symbolism" (athéisme à symbolique chrétienne). This designation seems particularly suited to American Evangelism.
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