An Introduction to The Ontology of Being
Causal and Acausal Being
According to The Numinous Way, what exists – Being, the source of beings – is both causal and acausal. That is, philosophy, understood as an ontology of Being, is or should be the study of both causal and acausal existents: of those beings whose being is causal, of those beings whose being is acausal, and those beings whose being is both causal and acausal.
By causal is meant that aspect of Being which exists, has being in, causal Space (of three spatial dimensions) and in causal, linear, non-recurring, Time. By acausal is meant that aspect of Being which exists, has being in, acausal Space (of a currently unspecified number of non-spatial dimensions), and in the non-linear, simultaneity, of acausal Time.
Hitherto, the study of beings has been somewhat hindered by the error of abstraction. The limitation – the error – of abstraction is that all abstractions, by their nature, are causal; based upon the linearality of causal Time and the limitations of causal Space, whose dimensions are spatial and thus distinct from each other (conventionally, and geometrically, at right angles to each other).
That is, abstraction is the process whereby beings are described in causal terms, as separate, or individual, entities, or existents – in terms of a linear, non-returnable, Time and a separation of linear dimensions – which entities can be referred to, be compared to, or can be defined by means of, some abstract construct which is said to have the ideal being, or form, or be the genesis of, such discrete entities or existents.
That is, abstraction posits Being as a collocation of, or groups of, separate and specific beings which can be categorized according to, or included in, or which belong to, some generalization, some pure or idealized form [ εἶδος and ἰδέα ] of all such specific and separate, separated, beings; with these separate and specific beings all possessing the quality of – being subject to – the linearality of causal Time, that is, having the nature of existing, of having being, in a linear way, so that there is assumed to be some progression, or some linear change, or the possibility/potentiality of such linear change, in such beings.
One aspect of this assumption of linear progression – of a causal-only change of being – is that of πόλεμος [as a revealing of Being, for instance], one manifestation of which is said to be, or can be described as, a dialectic. That, from such a dialectic, from such πόλεμος, there is or there can be understanding and knowledge, and what has been termed “progress”. or, expressed another way, such dialectic is a means to understanding and knowledge and thus an important mechanism by which “progress” can be obtained.
The error of abstraction leads us to perceive our being as in separation to or from other beings (human and otherwise) and to posit that we, as existents, are discrete, and independent of other beings. That is, that we have a self; or that it is in our very nature, as human beings, to be a self, and which self is contained in, limited to, the causal space and causal Time – the causality – of our individual physical body, and which body is in separation to other such bodies, ontologically, physically, and otherwise.
In a similar way, knowledge has been considered to a knowing of – or a process of linearly becoming aware of or progressively accumulating such knowledge of – such causal abstractions and what they denote, represent, or contain.
Such perception, and such a type of knowing, are but a limited, causal, view (dependant on causal Space and causal Time) – and do not include any awareness of, or any understanding of, the acausality of our being, as humans. As such it is lifeless, an un-numinous, abstraction, and what derives from it is a covering-up of the numinosity [1] of our being.
For our being, as human beings, is both causal and acausal. That is, it is numinous, possessed of Life, and Empathy – the use of the faculty of empathy – is a means whereby we human beings can perceive and know the acausality of our being.
Empathy is, by its nature, an apprehension of acausality, and an apprehension that moves us away from the limitation, the error, the restriction, of abstraction – from the illusion of a discrete self-containment (the self) – and restores us to our numinous being. This numinous, this empathic, apprehension or knowing, is one of connexion, and which connexions manifest the acausal Time and the nature of acausal Space inherent in acausal being.
Thus, with the knowing deriving from empathy, there is knowledge of ourselves, of we individual human beings, as but one nexion, one connexion, to other human beings, and to all beings which possess acausality, that is, which presence or manifest Life, and thus are alive. For it is the possession of acausality – of acausal being – that distinguishes what lives, from what is non-living. Empathy, therefore, places us in relation to – as connected to – other human life, and all existents which are alive, and implicit in such empathy is the cessation of causal presumption.
Our relation to other living beings – which empathy uncovers – is thus one of interconnected being, where we affect, and are or can be affected by, other life. That is, there is a symbiosis; a living connexion of acausal simultaneity. Hitherto – often because of abstractions, the illusion of self-hood, and our failure to use and develope our faculty of empathy – we have been mostly unaware of, or have ignored, this symbiosis, how we affect or can affect other living beings because of our inherent acausal nature, and how other living beings affect or can affect us, directly and otherwise.
Thus, this knowing of ourselves as but one, finite – one microcosmic – nexion has certain consequences, ethically – in relation to how we relate or, can relate to, or perhaps should relate to, other human beings and other life – and philosophically. Here, we will only consider the ethical consequence of such acausal knowing.
The Immediacy and Acausal Nature of Empathy
One important consequence of empathy is that since the knowing that empathy provides is of acausality, of what has acausal being and thus lives (that is, what is essentially numinous) and is presenced by acausal and not linear Time, such numinous knowing cannot be abstracted out from the immediacy of the personal, causal, moment that is the genesis of that knowing. That is, it is dependant on what lives, on the living being apprehending such knowing. To attempt to abstract it would be to obscure, to cover-up, to denude of numinosity, such knowing, given the causal nature of all abstractions. That is, it would be to distort it, re-interpret – or attempt to re-interpret it – according to causal linearity (causal Time) and causal separation.
Hence, such numinous knowing cannot form the basis of any abstract theory, of any dogma, of any ideology, of some religion – to be applied to or used by others – for all such things are abstractions, devoid of numinosity.
One practical consequence of this is that there cannot be any numinous theory of ethics, or of such things as what has been termed politics. What is ethical is simply what empathy reveals and consequently inclines us toward – which is ourselves as a nexion to other life, our connexion to other living beings, and thence a sympathy, συμπάθεια, with those other living beings: συν-πάθος.
The Ethics of Empathy
The knowing of ourselves – as one affective and affected microcosmic nexion – makes us aware of the propensity of living beings to suffer [ πάθος ] as it can makes us feel, present us an awareness of the potentiality of, that suffering of theirs as if it were our own, as indeed, acausally, it is, given the simultaneity of acausal Time.
There is thus, or there can be, with empathy and its development, a translocation of ourselves, from what we regard as our self, toward and into other living beings, with this translocation being independent of causal, linear, Time. That is, the distinction we make – and which abstraction inclines us to make – between “them” and “us” no longer exists, for this distinction is fundamentally an illusion, a forgetting or a covering-up of, or a suppression and ignorance of, our own acausal nature.
Importantly, this συν-πάθος is independent of causal, linear, Time – that is, it is not limited to what we may be aware of or observe in the immediacy of the moment, but includes the potentiality of other living beings to suffer, and an awareness of past suffering.
Thus, given this acausal translocation of ourselves, given this συν-πάθος, empathy moves us or inclines us toward a knowing of compassion and thus to the understanding that the cessation of suffering is the most practical manifestation, or presencing, of what is ethical. This is the desire, the intention, based on acausal knowing, not to inflict suffering upon or contribute toward the suffering of other living beings, human and otherwise.
David Myatt
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