A history of philosophy. Hypothesis, thesis, antithesis, parathesis, synthesis
HYPO-THESIS
Since a “material” actualization (sound or other) of a living being (its “action or act”), which would be neither conscious nor voluntary, can be anything one wants, except a discursive manifestation, that is to say, a discourse endowed with meaning, all philosophical discourse presupposes, as discourse, the Intention-to-speak. The “primordial” intention must be an intention to speak “as a philosopher” or to develop Philosophy discursively. From which it follows that no one can become and be a philosopher (even prosaic) without wanting it, nor therefore without first having (a priori) the intention of being or of becoming a philosopher. Before beginning to speak, and when one does not know what one is going to say, one must “know” (that is to say, be able to say) what Philosophy is and to be able to want to do it (and therefore to be able to say that he so wants to) by emitting a philosophical discourse, even any one. But since saying what Philosophy is is already part of the discursive development of this very Philosophy (not to say that all this development does nothing but say it), it is obviously impossible to intend to speak “as a philosopher” before having said anything. However and once again: it is impossible to say what Philosophy is without having previously had the intention of philosophizing and it is impossible to have this intention without having first said (if only to oneself) what it is to “philosophize”.
Now, ‘philosophizing’ can mean nothing other than discursively developing a philosophy in such a way that the completion of this development constitutes, if not the totality, at least a constitutive-element of the (developed) Philosophy. In short, one must have said what Philosophy is not only before saying it, but even before being able to want to do it or to have the intention of doing so (by conscious and voluntary definition).
At first sight, there is here an insurmountable (and even vicious, because circular) difficulty and it seems impossible not only to begin to philosophize, but even to have the intention to do so, nor therefore to realizing that there is no way to achieve such an intention (as we have just mistakenly believed). But a second view on the matter would easily allow us to see that this indisputable difficulty easily surmounts itself as soon as it allows itself to be observed. Indeed, if it is indeed impossible to say what Philosophy is without issuing (by saying it) a philosophical thesis, one can perfectly, if not easily, ask oneself WHAT THE FUCK?!
In other words, if it is impossible to philosophize before having asked oneself what Philosophy is, one can do it perfectly (and therefore do it, sooner or later, perfectly) as soon as this question has been posed. (by oneself or by another), since one already philosophizes (virtually) by posing the question in question.
Thus, the Hypothesis of the Philosophical Discourse is not (only) a simple intention to speak (which is a virtual discourse), but (again) an effective (or actual) discourse which is a Question, namely, the question of knowing what Philosophy is as such or whatever it is, even what is any philosophy whatsoever. As long as no question is posed (discursively) in the Universe, there is neither Philosophy in it, nor even the intention to philosophize, nor therefore the possibility of doing so. But as soon as a question is posed (discursively) as a Question, Philosophy becomes possible, because nothing prevents you from wanting to answer it as a philosopher (after having intended to philosophize) or from wanting to philosophize on it: to provide an effective answer is to actualize Philosophy.
However, the (discursive) answer to any question will only be specifically philosophical if it is vicious in the sense of circular. In other words, any question provokes a philosophical answer only if it is philosophical itself. Any putting into question is philosophical “in potency” because it can be “actualized” as a philosophical question. But it is only the philosophical question which is the “potential” of Philosophy, because it is only by and in the answer to such a question that it is “actualized”, this answer being the “act of Philosophy. Now, whatever the question, it is only philosophical if it (also) calls into question any answer given to it.
Conversely, any question posed can be trans-formed into a philosophical question, if, instead of supposing or even pre-supposing any answer, it re-poses itself in any answer that pro-poses (assuming that the question it answers presupposes it).
However, all the answers, whatever they may be, have (by definition) in common only the fact of being discursive. It is therefore only because it is answered discursively that a philosophical question can re-pose itself in each answer that one pro-poses to it. That is to say that the Question that is the philosophical Hypo-thesis calls into question the very fact that one speaks by answering it, whatever the meaning of what anyone else is saying about it.
Consequently, whoever poses a philosophical question (which, insofar as it is effectively emitted, certainly actualizes a discourse, but is nevertheless only a potential philosophical discourse or a simple intention, moreover conscious and voluntary, to philosophize) by this very fact bring about (among other things) the question of knowing what it means that it can be answered and therefore that it will be effectively answered sooner or later, the respondent being arbitrary and therefore able to be (also) the questioner himself. Or again, the philosophical Question that is the Hypothesis of Philosophy (or Philosophy, even Wisdom, as a hypothesis), is the intention to speak by saying (or re-saying) anything, on the sole condition of
speaking (also) of (everything) that will be said, in order to thus answer the Question posed to Philosophy by its hypothesis
If men do differ (“essentially “) from the animals, it is by the fact that they are the only ones able to talk, philosophers (humans) are even more human than the rest of mortals because they are even more verbose than the most talkative of profane speakers. Because if these are content to speak (to others or about something), the philosophers, not content with doing the same, speak in addition (to themselves and to others) of what they themselves say.
In other words, after having spoken as an individual, the philosopher continues to speak “qua” philosopher in order to answer (to himself and to others, who moreover ask him nothing) the question that he asks himself (being, moreover, the only one to ask it) with the hope of finding out what he “just” said, what he “did” when he said it and how he managed to speak correctly (or at least to be able to do so).
Now, the philosophical question (not being a “rhetorical question”) presupposes no answer and (unlike profane questions, which are answered by giving one’s “opinion” or opinion) it does not even suppose any “determined” answer. It asks what an “answer” is, whatever it is, and this whatever results in a (“determined”) question to which any answer is supposed to answer (to the exclusion, or not, of all the other answers or philosophical possibilities bearing on the meaning of “this or that answer” (by presupposing only that it has one, whatever it is) and not on its morpheme, because it is a question of discursive answer. Which means that for this Question, the meaning of a given answer can be detached from the morpheme given in this answer. Undoubtedly, a meaning detached from a given morpheme must be attached to another morpheme in order to be maintained in identity with itself as indeed a meaning. But it is obvious that the Question of any morpheme does not interest the Philosophical Question. However, it can ignore it only by admitting that the link between the meaning and the morpheme is “necessary” nowhere and never, and is everywhere and always ‘arbitrary’. For this Question, a given meaning can therefore be linked to any morpheme and this is precisely why it can speak ‘abstractly’ of the meanings of all morphemes whatever they may be.
Moreover, one and the same philosophical question arises about the meaning of any answer (meaningful, that is to say discursive in the proper sense). We can therefore say that the philosophical Question (one and unique), which is the Hypothesis of Philosophy because it obliges man to speak “as a philosopher” once he intends to answer it, is the whole of all the questions that arise about any meaning whatsoever, that is to say all the Meanings whatever they may be or about Meaning “ in general”, even as such. We can therefore also say that the Philosophical Question puts itself into questioning (with a view to a discursive answer [which will only be re-questioned if it submits itself to the question, so that any re-questioning will be nothing other than this very answer]) the one and unique Meaning, even “uni-total” Meaning of the Discourse as such, that is to say of the set of all (meaningful) discourses whatever they may be ( contradictory or not), by detaching this Meaning from the whole mass of morphemes (actual or virtual) to which it can be linked “arbitrarily” (either in its totality or in its internal negativity); then, after these two “contrary” or “contradictory” responses, a set of para-thetic responses (or, even “partial” responses, called “compromise” responses). And there will finally be a synthetic (or total, even ‘integral’ or ‘integral’) response which re-poses the primordial Question and answers it by re-giving all the answers given, so that it becomes impossible not only to give an answer other than this one, but also to re-question it other than by re-giving it as an answer to this re-posed question itself. Now, this definitive answer to the primordial philosophical Question is no longer Philosophy, but (discursive) Wisdom. For the set of philosophical answers to this Question is nothing other than the uni-total discourse that is the System of Knowledge, which completely and perfectly actualizes not only the philosophical Discourse, having as its aim and end the answer to the Question relating to the Concept, but still the Discourse as such, which realizes the intention of speaking; to say anything, provided that this has a meaning.
Having said this, it only remains for us to say briefly what can be the three dialectical “moments” of the development of Philosophy, that is to say of the discursive development of the meaning of the notion C O N C E P T , which have as their “origin” (or beginning) the questioning of the Concept as such and to a certain end (in the sense of goal and term), i.e., the definitive Answer” to this Question (re-posed then as sup-posed as pre-supposing the Answer in question). And we must, of course, begin by saying what is and can be the first of these chronological “stages” of the dialectical development of the Philosophical Discourse, which we have called
THESIS
In general, the dialectical Thesis is a Discourse (by definition “coherent”, that is to say not contradicting what it says itself in such a way as to reduce itself to Silence ) which, once completely developed (in the extended duration of the World-where-one-speaks, that is to say in the Universe which exists empirically), says all that can be said without anything contradictory about it. More particularly, we can call “positive thesis” or “thesis” for short, any (“thetic”) discourse of a speaking being who, on the one hand, speaks of something (to oneself or to anyone other than him) and, on the other hand, says everything he intended to say about it without explicitly contradicting any speech whatsoever (including his own) and
in particular, no discourse (including his own) relating to what he himself speaks about. In other words, a “thetic” discourse does not refer (explicitly or in act) to any other discourse which would contradict it by saying (explicitly or implicitly) something other or contrary to what it says. For the thetic discourse, any other discourse re-says what it said, or says nothing at all (since it contradicts itself).
Either a thetic discourse can be re-said or it can say another (thetic) discourse, but it cannot contradict any discourse whatsoever. Or again, a thesis properly so called, or positive thesis, is posed and re-posed by developing discursively in the extended duration of the Universe without its own development making explicit somewhere at any moment an anti- negative or even negative thesis or thesis. We can also say that the discourse which is posed as a thesis (that is to say without being opposed to another discourse and by sup-posing the intention to speak as an intention which pre-supposes it , being the intention to say precisely what it says by posing itself) has no “contrary thesis” and is therefore not itself, for itself, a contrary thesis: if it is, in fact and for us, as for itself, only one “thesis” (among several other “theses”) which speak of something other than it or which, if they speak of the same thing, re-say what it said or are re-said by it; it cannot be, in and for itself, one of the two ‘contrary theses’, even if, for us and in fact, it says the opposite of what another ‘thesis’ says, and which contradicts thus what it says. The Thesis and the Anti-thesis are two “contrary theses” only in and for the Para-thesis or as the latter, that is to say only by and for the parathetic Discourse which develops them in as co-existing or “simultaneous”, in a “syncretic thesis” or “by way of compromise” (while the Syn-thesis re-says them (successively) as successive). As such, the Thesis is one without there being, for it, several “theses”; and it is one and the same “thesis” without there being, for it, other theses. And this even if, in fact and for us, several other “theses” are proposed “at the same time” as this one (having been posed after it), which is then for us one of the “positive theses” and the one of two “contrary theses”, the other of which is a “negative” thesis, which denies the “positive thesis” in question. This being so, it is easy to see that a Thetic Discourse cannot deny (the existence, the reality or the being of) what it speaks of. Indeed, no one speaks of what “does not exist” (for him), except to contradict those who assert that “it exists” (if only for them). I would contradict myself if I were the first to say that such a thing “does not exist at all”: for how would I know “that there is” such a “non-existent” thing or, in general, something “non-existent”? Someone else has to come and tell me that “it exists”, so that I can talk about it myself, doing so only to contradict it and say (to him, as to me- same) that what he is talking about “does not exist” (everything one can talk about, speaking like me, being something else, so that one can only talk about something other than me by speaking differently, that is to say not by affirming, but by denying what we are talking about).
If then, by hypothesis, the philosophical Thesis speaks of the Concept, it can only speak of it by affirming it and it cannot deny it either explicitly or even implicitly. In other words, the intention to speak as a philosopher is actualized at first sight as a “thesis” which affirms (without contradicting anyone, or denying anything) that “there is something in this sense that we can talk about it (without contradicting each other) in the same (“coherent”) discourse, whose (“developed”) meaning can be “summarized” in a single sense CONCEPT, common to all notions CONCEPT , whose morphemes can be as we like, so that it could very well be that they are not the same in all hics et nuncs, when, on the other hand, each of them will exist-empirically as constituent-elements of notions which will all have one and the same meaning CONCEPT .
By definition, the Thesis can talk about the Concept by affirming anything, but it must not deny anything by talking about it. It follows first of all that it must say the same thing about it everywhere and must always say it again: that is to say that it speaks about it “necessarily”. But there is still something else to follow. What we say about the Concept in the Present is not what we said in the Past, even if we only say it again; nor is it what we will say in the Future, even if we say it again. Now, by definition, what is said in the Thesis of the Concept could not imply any “negation” whatsoever. In other words, what is said about the Concept is not affected by the fact that it is said, whether what is said about it is past, present or future. And since all that is ‘past’, ‘which is ‘to come’, is not yet, one cannot say of the Concept in the Philosophical Thesis either that it is past or that it is to come, and one cannot say that it is present only if we speak of a Present without past or future. Moreover, what is said here is not what is said elsewhere, even if it is re-said there, just as what is said elsewhere is not what is re-said here. .
Now, since the thesis of the Concept cannot imply any (explicit) negation, neither can it be affected by the fact that it is placed here or elsewhere. Consequently, one could not say of the Concept of the philosophical Thesis either that it is elsewhere or that it is here. Nor that it is this or something else, insofar as something else is not this and this is not something else. In short, we must say anything and everything that we can about the Concept, on the sole condition of being able to say it again everywhere and always, without having to say somewhere at any time that the Concept is this, but not this or that, but while not this, or that, it is here and not elsewhere or elsewhere and not here, nor even that it is anything anywhere or that it is everything everywhere, but that it is no longer what it was and it not yet what it will be.
In other words, the Philosophical Thesis will say that the Concept is all (whole) everywhere and everywhere (a single) all, being always present, without being able to say that it has a past or a future, nor that there is have a future and a past where the Concept is not present. Now, the Present which is present everywhere in such a way that there is never anywhere either a Past or a Future, is called “Eternity” (Aetemitas). We can therefore say that the Thesis of Philosophy affirms that the Concept is Eternity.
For the thesis of philosophy, the meaning of the concept CONCEPT is therefore ETERNITY and not CONCEPT, even if the meaning which is its own is in fact attached (arbitrarily) by it to the morpheme CONCEPT, to which we link (just as arbitrarily) a completely different meaning than the one which it attaches to it itself. Traditionally, Eternity has been defined as Nunc stans. Which means precisely that Eternity is the eternal Present, no longer capable of changing, while everything is created and there is neither Past nor Future in it. On the other hand, the Eternal is an eternal Presence, where the Past, the Present and the Future are distinguished from each other (as to “form”), without differing among themselves (in and by their “content”). The Nunc stans of Concept or of Being-given (thetics) is therefore something quite different from the (hic et nunc of Duration-extended which exists empirically, where what is present now succeeds (immediately) to what happened and precedes (immediately) what is to come. If the nunc of Extended-Duration is itself a duration of extended presence (that is, of the hic), the Nunc stans that is Eternity has neither extension nor duration of its own. For if it were extended, it would be different from itself, while remaining identical to itself. Now, the identity of the different is precisely the duration of the identical which is different from itself as extended. If the Nunc stans were extended or a hic, it would be a Duration: with or without its own differentiated structure, depending on whether the hic itself has one or not. In the second case, the constituent elements of Duration would be just as identical to each other as are those of Extent: the Past, the Present and the Future would therefore be distinguished without differentiation. In this case, the Nunc stans would therefore be the Eternal. But by no means would it be what it is supposed to be, namely Eternity, where there is no distinction between the Present, the Past and the Future. That is to say that the Nunc stans properly speaking (that is to say, Eternity) is a punctual nunc, without extension nor duration proper: it is the instantaneous presence of a hic without extension, which means a dimensionless Point . One can also say that the Concept, which is supposed to be Eternity, is (by impossible) Spatio temporality without authentic Spatiality: it is because the Spatiality is reduced to a single Point that temporality itself is reduced to a single Instant, which one can call, if one wishes, the Nunc stans. On the contrary, the Eternal is in a way Spatio-temporality without Temporality properly speaking: insofar as, in the Eternal, the Past, the Present and the Future are distinguished only as identical, they are the constituent elements of Spatiality and do not constitute true Temporality.
However, as its very name indicates, the Eternal is a “synthesis” (or, more exactly, a “parathesis”) of Etern-ity and Temporlityl. As in the Temporal, the Present is distinguished here from the Past and the Future, but it differs from them just as little as in Eternity. Thus, the Eternal is a “step” in the trans-formation of Eternity into Spatio-temporality. For when Eternity is trans-formed into the Eternal and then being trans-formed once again into the Temporal, the latter ceases to oppose Eternity (which is the “instantaneous” Point trans-formable into “eternal” Space) and abolishes it dialectically (that is to say cancels it, by preserving it and by sublimating it) by trans-forming it into Spatio-temporality. As a result, the Concept ceases to be that of the Thesis or of the
Anti-thesis, by henceforth becoming the Concept of the Syn-thesis: it is neither eternal nor temporal and instead of being Eternity, it is Spatio-temporality.
But if the discursive development of the meaning of the notion of the Concept can only reach its “end”, that is to say its term and its goal, in and by its de-finition as Spatio temporality, this development can only begin with the definition of the Concept as Eternity, what! is precisely the meaning of the philosophical Thesis.
Any “thesis” consists in saying that S “is” P, and nothing else (that is, without saying that S “is not” Non-P or anything other than P). Which means that S “is” P is everywhere and always, even “necessarily”: as soon as we speak of S, wherever it is, we say of him that he “is” P. Now, in and for the Thesis as such (which is the “thesis” of Philosophy), P means anything; or, which is the same thing, S is arbitrary. Thus, by posing and re-posing the Thesis, one says everywhere and always the same thing: the thetic Discourse (or at least its Meaning) is identical to itself to the point of not even having parts (simultaneous or consecutive).
It must therefore be said that the (so-called) thetic “discourse” is “punctual” or that it has neither duration nor extension. We can say, if we want, that it is the Nunc stans; or even that it is Eternity. And insofar as the S (supposed to be any) is said to “be” S (moreover whatever it may be) and this S only, that is to say insofar as the (thetic) Discourse [ only speaks for itself, being thus the discursive-development of the meaning of the concept C O N C E P T , the Thesis says that this meaning is ETERNITY. (qua morpheme)] is that which comes forward; and it is thus arises (to pick other words) by sup-posing the Hypo-thesis and by op-posing the Thesis or by contradicting it as
ANTI-THESIS.
Generally speaking, an antithetical discourse contradicts everything said by the thetical discourse to which it refers and which is, for it, a “thesis” contrary to its own and therefore a thesis which it denies. Antithetical discourse can therefore say that the thesis it supports is denied or contradicted by the thesis contained in the thetical discourse. Thus, for the antithetical discourse, the thesis that it contradicts can take on the aspect of a “negative” or even “negative” thesis, while what it says itself can seem to it to be a “positive” thesis, which negates a contrary thesis only insofar as the latter denies this “positive” thesis and because it does so. But in fact and for us, the antithetical discourse that contradicts what the thetic discourse (taken and understood in itself) is content to say and it is its thesis and not that of the thetic discourse which is negative because it negates a “position” pure and simple, that is to say occupying a place without any desire to attack or oppose, nor even with a view to defending itself against possible opposition or attack.
Undoubtedly, as soon as the position occupied by the thesis is attacked (from the position of attack taken by the antithesis), it thereby becomes a position of defense. And nothing prevents, of course, defending this attacked position by counter-attacking the attacking position. But it is then a question of a counter-attack, provoked by an aggression and not of a deliberate and unprovoked aggression. On the contrary, the position taken by the antithesis or the negating thesis is a position occupied with a view to the (unprovoked) attack of the “positive” position and it is only following a counter-attack from this that the “negative” position also becomes a position of defense.
Now, in the “particular” case of the Philosophical Discourse, the Thesis affirms (without denying anything) that the Concept is “Eternity.” Since the raison d’être of the philosophical Anti-thesis is the total negation of this positive thesis (the negative thesis being affirmed only insofar as it negates the contrary positive thesis), the negating thesis of Philosophy is to say that the Concept “is” Non-eternity. But since this second philosophical thesis is negative (Non-A) only because it denies the positive thesis (A), the Anti-thesis is posited “at the origin” [in and by its opposition to the Thesis which was posed by sup-posing the only Hypo-thesis, but which the Anti-thesis presupposes as already posed in the strong sense, that is to say in act and not in potency, even as an “intention” or as a simple “hypothesis”] as a negating thesis which contradicts everything that the positive thesis says, by saying that the Concept “is not Eternity.
However, by asserting itself by the discursive development of the meaning ETERNITY of the notion CONCEPT (which could have any morpheme, for example NOHMA) the Thesis affirmed that the Concept “is” the This ( ·which-is-not Not-that) or [which is the same thing] the That (which-is-not Not-this), that it “is” the Here (-which-is-not- not-No-elsewhere) or [which is the same thing] the Elsewhere (-which-is-not-Not-here) and that it “is” the Present (-which-is-nor -Not-past-nor-Not-future). By affirming itself by the discursive-development of its negation of the Thesis, the Anti-thesis must therefore “affirm” (by denying everything that the the Concept “is not” all this. Consequently, the philosophical Anti-thesis contradicts the Thesis of Philosophy [Thesis which it sup-poses as posed by sup-posing the Hypo-thesis, which the Anti-thesis also sup-poses, pre-supposes this Thesis or at least it alone] by saying [in a negating thesis] that the Concept “is not neither the This nor the That that it “would be” according to the words (affirmative or positive) of the Thesis. To deny that the Concept is This-tout-court would be to affirm that it is not-this, that is to say That. And to deny that it is That-tout-court would be to affirm that it is Not-that, that is to say This. If therefore the Thesis affirmed that the Concept is This or That, the Anti-thesis could not contradict it. Because by contradicting it, it would only be re-saying what the Thesis says (by reversing at most the order of its sayings, which is optional, though perhaps even “non-existent”, where there is neither Past nor Coming). To be able to contradict the Thesis by saying of this fact something else, that is to say the opposite of what it says, the Anti thesis must therefore deny not the This (the That) tout court, but the This (the That) which-is-not-Not-that (Not-this). The Anti-thesis of Philosophy thus consists in saying that the Concept is neither the This-which-is-not-Not-that, nor the That-which-is-not-Not-this. Now, insofar as to deny an affirmation is equivalent (from the discursive point of view) to “affirming” the “contrary” (which is, by definition, the negation of this affirmation), to say that the Concept is neither this That this, nor that This is equivalent to saying (thus contradicting the Thesis) that the Concept “is” the [or: a] This which-is-not-That = Not-Not-that) or rou: and] the [or: a] That which-is-not-This (=No-Not-this) . One could also say that the Concept “is” This-which-is-(= not-is-not, in the sense of: is not what it would be if it were not)-Not- that, even That-which-is-Not-this. But since “Not-that” means “This” and “This”-“Not that”, one would then say that the Concept “is” This-which-is-This, or even That-which-is-That, which would amount to posing two notions having the same meaning THIS (or THAT) and two “identical” morphemes THIS (or THAT) located in two different hic and nunc (moreover very close to each other, both like hic and like nunc). It would therefore not be a development of the (common) sense of these (two) notions. As soon as we want to develop it, we should substitute for one of the (two) “positive” notions this (or THAT) the “negative” notion (“equivalent”) N0N-that (or NoN-this) and would order it when the Concept “is” This-which-is-(a-) thus: This-which-is-not -not-That. By then replacing the split notion of the Concept (This or That) by its simple notion (That or This), one would say that the Concept “is” This-which-is-not-That, thus only re-saying what one had said while denying the Not-, instead of denying the is-not.
Consequently, in contradicting the Thesis of Philosophy, the Philosophical Discourse posits only one and the same Anti-thesis which is, as a Negated Thesis, the contrary thesis of the positive thesis (which says or affirms, if we want, the opposite of what the negating thesis says or “affirms” which denies it by contradicting it). But if the Thesis could say (“indifferently”) that the Concept “is” This-which-is-not-Not-that or That-which-is-not-Not-this, the two sayings having, in and for the Thesis, one and the same meaning, the Anti-thesis must negate this “or” without allowing it a proper meaning (or “positive”) and it must so act “in the strong sense of this word”. For the This-which-is-not-That means something other than the That-which-is-not-This. Consequently, the Anti-thesis can only contradict or deny everything that the Thesis affirms or says by saying (or, if you like, “affirming”) that the Concept “is” (“at once”), This-which-is-not-That and That-which-is-not-This Now, if the Concept “is” not only This, but also That, it is more adequate for the Anti-thesis, to say that it “is” not the This and the That, but a This and a That, taking the notion ONE not in the sense of ONE ONLY or (which is the same thing) of THIS, but in the sense of ANY-ONE and, therefore, of ALL. Thus, the Anti-thesis of Philosophy will contradict what the Philosophical Thesis says, speaking of This or That, by saying that the Concept “is” (the set of) all the This which-not- are-not-That and (of) all That-which-are-not-This. By contradicting in the same way everything that the Thesis says when speaking of the Here and the Present, the Anti-thesis discursively develops its negative (because negating) thesis in a way that is just as complete as the Thesis has discursively developed its positive thesis. And as completely developed (or fully, even perfectly actualized), the philosophical Anti-thesis will entirely contradict the Thesis of Philosophy (assuming the same hypo-thesis as the latter) by saying [or if we prefer: by “affirming” (with a view to denying what the Thesis affirms)] that the Concept “is the set of all the This-which-are-not-That and of all the That -which-are-not-This, each of which is in a Here-which-is-not-elsewhere and in an Elsewhere-which-is-not-here, all these This and That being Here and Elsewhere , as present in a Present which has and will have a Past, even when it itself will be the past, as when what presented itself in it as yet to come will be present, without there being any more Future for any Past or Present.
After having thus developed its negative thesis (at a positive pace, but with a negating effect), the Anti-thesis will be able to “summarize” its movement by saying that the Concept “is” Non-eternity. And nothing will prevent it from camouflaging the negative and negating character of what it says, by replacing the negative notion NON-ETERNITY by an “equivalent” notion with a positive allure, by attaching the meaning NON-ETERNITY to an (otherwise unspecified) morpheme that would not involve any element playing the role that the element NOT plays in the (this English here) morpheme NON-ETERNITY. It will nevertheless be able to explicitly contradict the Thesis by saying that the Concept “is not” Eternity, that is to say by denying what the latter says, but by “affirming” at the same time its own thesis which says that the Concept “is” something that we name but implicitly, thus comprising a negation of anything whatsoever. As a result, the Thesis will only be able to re-affirm what it says by denying what the Anti-thesis affirms and it will contradict it by re-saying in a negative and therefore negating form what it said positively without contradicting anything: it will deny that the Concept “is” this something that the Anti-thesis says it “is” and it will thus affirm that the Concept “is not”. In short, and quite in the end or qua the end of the whole process; it is the thesis itself that would contradict itself.
Originally, the Philosophical Thesis affirms (without denying anything) that the Concept (S) “is” Eternity (P). Which means (at least implicitly) that any S (whatever it is) “is” necessarily something (any P;, so that insofar as one says what it “is” , the same thing is said everywhere and always, whatever one says about it. Now, if a thesis says that S “is” P, the thesis contrary to the anti-thesis contradicts it by saying that S “is not” P, which means that S “is” Non-p. Now, if the anti-thesis says that Non-p is “Q, the thesis will contradict it by saying that S “is not” Q; which means, moreover, that S “is Not-q and therefore, if you will, that it “is” (P = Not-q). But if P is absolutely arbitrary (as it should be, when one only presupposes the Hypo-thesis which presupposes nothing at all), to say that S “is” Q is equivalent to asserting that S “is » P (Q = P). Now, an anti-thesis as such, even the Anti-thesis of Philosophy, can only contradict the philosophical Thesis by saying the “opposite” of what the latter says. And since this thesis affirms (at least implicitly) that S ‘is’ P necessarily, that is, everywhere and always, the Anti-thesis must deny it, by saying that S cc is not ‘everywhere and always’. always, that is to say necessarily P. Which means that S is P only at times (and in places); or, if you prefer, that S “is” P temporarily. And since, in the Philosophical Thesis, S “is” the Concept (which “is” Eternity), the Concept must be, for the Anti-thesis of Philosophy, itself temporal (and not Eternity. itself), since any S is only temporarily a P (whatever it is). Thus, when the Anti-thesis contradicts the Thesis which affirms that the Concept “is” Eternity, it denies it by saying that this same Concept “is” not ii! “is” ii Non-eternity. Now, in fact and for us, this antithetical Non-eternity is defined “positively” as the Temporal as such. And, in the Temporal, the Concept is Eternity for or in the Thesis, but in and for the Anti-thesis, it is not the case.
When the Anti-thesis posits itself by op-posing itself to the Thesis and therefore sup-posing it as already posited, Philosophy presents itself as two “contrary theses”, one of which affirms what the other denies, while the other denies what it claims. We could also say, more simply, either that each of them denies what the other affirms, or that each affirms what the other denies. Now, this-presence of two branches into which Philosophy is being divided, – this bifurcation of Discourse which sup-poses the intention of speaking “as a philosopher”, that is to say with a view to answering the question of knowing what the Concept is. , or – in other words – this co-existence in the Present of two contrary philosophical theses, is in fact and for us the presence (in the extended duration of the Universe) of Philosophy as actualizing itself (or discursively developing) as (or under the heading of)
PARA-THESIS.
In general, the discursive development of the Para-thesis begins as any discursive development begins, namely with an affirmation or a thesis. Except that the (positive) parathetical theses or the thetic Para thesis are content with a simple ‘preponderance’ of affirmation over negation (going little by little until the equalization of the two, with ‘primate’ or ‘cc priority” of the first). Similarly, the (negative) parathetical theses which contradict them and which constitute as a whole the antithetical Parathesis, are limited to denying the preponderance (or the primacy) of the affirmation, by affirming “the preponderance (or the primacy) of negation over position (but gradually moving towards their equality). Finally, the synthetic Parathesis develops into two contrary theses, which affirm both, and in the end balancing each other out.
Wee must see what all these discourses have in common as parathetical discourses. First of all, the “parathetic partiality” requires a “partialization” or a “dividing up”, even a “quantification” which admits the more-or-less simultaneous, that is to say purely satial. However, nouns lend themselves badly to it, not to say that they do not lend themselves to it at all: one is a nightingale or one is not, and it is just as difficult to be one a little or much, than to be only half so. On the other hand, the adjectives are, so to speak, pre-adapted to these sorts of splittings, being in a way pre-determined to the quantified mixtures of more with less or of equal with equal. Thus, it is even difficult to be red without being more or less so than another or, at least, as much as the others (who are also different). Moreover, all the paratheses have this in common that they trans-form the thetic and antithetic nouns in question into adjectives, with a view to subjecting them to the fragmentation which makes possible the double game they play with them.
Now, the Non- of the Anti-thesis cannot be adjective and therefore cannot be fragmented as such. It is not the Not itself which can be “no” more or less. The “no” cannot be attenuated and the nuance of the negation in the compromise is obtained by qualifying not the negation itself, but the adjective which is denied and which can effectively be or “mean” more or less what it is. Thus, when I want to deny that a thing is “positively” red, without wanting to say however that it is not at all, I say that it is more or less so and I can only say so. by shading this red and then choosing from a range going from the most dazzling or vivid pink (which is an almost red rose) to the most dull and faded pink (which is a white barely tinged with that same red which I deny, without denying it altogether). No- is just as little Yes as Red is Black or any other No-Red. But by transforming the “Red” into “red” I obtain something which I can say sometimes that it is Red, sometimes that it is Black and sometimes that it is in-between, located between the two more or less near or far from one or the other, even at equal distance from each of them.
In the case of the philosophical Para-thesis, this means that it is not the Non- of the antithetical Non-Eternity which must and can be attenuated in view of the Compromise, but only Eternity itself (affirmed or denied ). But to be able to do that, we have to adjectivize it. Thus, all the parathetical discourses of Philosophy whatever they are or, if one prefers, the philosophical Para thesis as such, will say that the Concept is (not Eternity, nor Non-eternity, but only) eternal. And it is by “infinitely” qualifying this “eternal” character of the Concept that the Para-thesis will finally be able to knock down its philosophical game.
Now, every adjective is a relation with its own substantive and therefore (by what does not coincide with it) with what this substantive is not [hence the more-or-less that the adjective implies and which becomes clear when one develops its meaning]. Whoever says “eternal” therefore asks (at least implicitly): “in relation to what?” And it is by varying (from this relation or from this relation, that one varies from more to less in terms of what is related to it, that is to say “the eternal” itself, as quality, not to say quiddity, of the Concept as “indefinitely”) that he Parathesis of Philosophy is speaking the language of what-so-such. For the “eternal” in the classic dentist may in fact be even shorter than the “little moment” of romantic lovers,. And how many discussions around the (relative) duration of “eternal love” or the “eternal return” that some have claimed to be able to love!
Be that as it may, if the Parathetical Discourse is, by definition, “contradictory in itself” and if the Concept is said to be eternal in and by the Parathesis of Philosophy, it is in this “eternal itself that must reside the “contradiction in the terms” that the parathetical theses discursively develop, both each for itself and all as a whole.
If there is something “eternal” on earth and in heaven, it is Eternity itself, since it is in this case the noun that has been adjectivized and to which the adjective in question relates in and by its very origin. To say that the Concept is not even “eternal” is therefore to say a priori that it is not “Eternity”. In other words, it is re-saying the Anti-thesis. However, the Para-thesis is supposed to be a compromise proposed by parties without conciliators of the Anti-thesis to the supporters of the Thesis. It must therefore be said, in view of this compromise, that if the Concept is not “Eternity”, it is at least “eternal”. It is only by saying it that one can initiate the development of the Parathesis, by “affirming” a truly parathetical thesis.
But so that the supporters of the Thesis do not simply re-say it in its original purity, by re-substantiating the adjective parathetic, it is also a question of finding among them lovers of compromise or of peaceful co-existence with the ex-party of the Anti-thesis, at the cost of abandoning thematic purity. In order to agree with the renegades of the pure Anti-thesis, the defectors of the pure Thesis, compromised in the parathetical compromise, must compromise this Thesis itself, saying that even if the Concept is “eternal”, it is however not “quite”! Eternity properly so called. In other words, all the protagonists of the Para-thesis must agree that the eternal Concept is Eternity “more or less”, but none must admit that it is “not at all”. for we would then fall back into the pure Anti-thesis, whereas it is also a question of compromising it in and by one and the same compromise, which is precisely the Para-thesis.
SYN-THESIS
The “infinite” character, that is to say in-definable as to its meaning, of the pseudo-discourse of the parathetic “synthesis” is due to the fact that the eternal Concept (understood as an “adjective” [ “substantialized”], that is to say taken as a relation) is put there in relation with Time alone. Now, If the Concept is “not Eternity”(substantive), but only the Eternal (“substantive adjective”), it can only be what it “is” in and by or, better still, as a relation to… or in a relation with… But if the Concept is eternal, its relationship with Time is also with the ‘eternal’, so that, in its (eternal) relation the Concept (ie as ‘conceived’) Time is itself ‘eternal’. Which means that Time is infinite or in-definite in this sense, that it has neither “origin” or beginning, nor “end” or final term, at least insofar as the Concept keeps a relationship with it and that it itself remains in relationship with the Concept. Now, the relation of the Concept with Time is its “incarnation” in the Discourse, while the relation of Time with the Concept is nothing other than the Meaning of this same Discourse.
Therefore, as a discourse, the Synthetic Parathesis of Philosophy is meant to be an “endless” discourse, thereby having an “indefinite” and “indefinable” meaning. This is why, in fact and for us, this Parathesis is only a pseudo-speech devoid of meaning, which is therefore equivalent to Silence. Undoubtedly, this equivalence is not established here, as it was the case with the Thetical and Antithetical Paratheses, at the end of this Discourse, precisely since it has no end. But because it cannot be completed, this equivalence is established from its beginning and is maintained as long as it itself lasts, that is to say “indefinitely”, since it can never be finished anywhere. Thus, although this Parathesis can “indefinitely” appear as a discourse and call itself being without ever contradicting it (since it can re-say it “indefinitely”), it is, in fact and for we, everywhere and always a speech taken from its meaning, that is to say a (pseudo-discursive) development.
Insofar as a philosopher himself proceeds to such a “formalization” (for example mathematically) of the synthetic Parathesis of Philosophy and nevertheless maintains the philosophical Hypo-thesis which is the intention to speak (philosopher) and not to be satisfied with the “symbolic” Silence” that is the “formalized” Parathesis in question, he puts this Parathesis in question (“by hypothesis” ) as a “philosophical thesis” and observes that it is not one. It is then that, speaking “as a philosopher”, he states the “thesis” of Philosophy which is the Syn-thesis of the latter.
In fact, the so-called ‘meaning’ of the supposed ‘synthetic’ or supposedly ‘synthetic’ discourse of the Para-thesis of Philosophy, is ‘infinite’ or in-definite and in-definable, that is to say it is a pseudo-meaning (of a discourse which has been deprived of any kind of a de-finite meaning) because the Concept which has been “adjectivated” and therefore put “in relation” with what is not itself, is something other than the Concept which would be said to be Time. Now, if the relation of the eternal Concept with Time produces an in-finite pseudo-discourse having only an in-definite pseudo-meaning, the relation of this same eternal Concept with Eternity had produced a speech which, in ending, contradicted everything it said.
Consequently, if we want, in accordance with the Hypo-thesis of Philosophy, to develop discursively a single philosophical thesis (and not two, one of which will contradict the other, as is the case of “contrary theses” developed by the proponents of the philosophical Thesis and Anti-thesis, as well as of the contra-dictory Para-thesis), and if one wants to be able to do it without contradicting at the end what one would have said at the beginning, one must give up putting the Concept in connection to or in relation with anything [which would be, by definition, something other than itself, since nothing can have a connection to, or a relation (at least “immediately”) with, itself].
Now, delete all the with respect to . . . or any relation with. . . is thereby to cancel any “adjective” whatever it may be. It is in and by the adjective (“eternal”) or, better still, it is as an adjective or as a substantive adjective (the “Eternal”) that the Concept is put relation with what it is not [and therefore, by repercussion (or in a “mediated” way), with itself, as placed in relation with what is, and by this very fact, in relation with itself and therefore to what it itself is]. To remove the relation of the Concept with anything whatsoever (whether with Eternity, which makes the Discourse “contradictory”, or with Time, which makes it “indefinite”), it is therefore necessary to strip this Concept of any adjective whatsoever, taking it and understanding it as such. Now, it is precisely in this way that the Concept has been understood and taken up both by the Thesis and by the Anti-Thesis of Philosophy.
From this point of view, the Syn-thesis therefore returns to the point of view of these and re-poses the Concept (or the question of the Concept, which is the Question of Philosophy) in such a way as they had posed it, i.e., before the Para-thesis de-posed it as an autonomous noun, with a view to pre-posing it to an adjective that would put it in relation to something other than itself. For the Syn-thesis, as for the Thesis and for the Anti-thesis, the Concept does not “relate” to…, but “is”…
Now, what is it for the Syn-thesis? First of all, just like the Thesis, the Syn-thesis says that the Concept “is…” and it does not say that it “is not… “, as the Anti-thesis said. Indeed, the latter was able to say it because the Thesis re-says it again at the moment when the Syn-thesis was.is about to speak. But if the latter said its “is not…” assuming only the “is…” of the Thesis, it would only be re-saying the Anti-thesis and would not be “synthetic” at all (not even in the pseudo-parathetical sense of this term). As for the Para-thesis, it is, by definition, already reduced to silence (even to its equivalent which is the pseudo-discourse, either “contradictory” or “indefinite”) at the time of the beginnings of the Syn-thesis, at least for the beginner himself. The latter cannot therefore deny what the Para-thesis claims to “affirm” or simply “say,” since the latter no longer says anything to it. It is thus that the Synthesis of Philosophy can only be presented as the Thesis was presented (in the origin of the Philosophical Discours), and which did not contradict anything or anyone, by saying only that the Concept “is…”, without saying that it “is not…” this or that or anything else.
Moreover, the Syn-thesis sup-poses the Para-thesis as a whole (that is, as already reduced to Silence, if only symbolic or formalized). Now, the latter as “synthetic” has de-posited Eternity (both transcendent and immanent) and pro-posed Time in its place, as a unique “term of reference” for the implementation of any relation whatsoever of the Concept, that is, to anything at all. If now the Syn-thesis re-poses Eternity after having suppressed the relation of the Concept with it, it would content itself with re-saying the Thesis of Philosophy and would only have to wait for the moment when it would be at its turn contradicted by a re-saying of the Anti-thesis. If therefore the Syn-thesis does not want, by definition or intention, to re-say neither the Thesis nor the Anti-thesis, if it cannot re-say the Para-thesis (that is to say, to put the concept into relationship of with something), since the latter says nothing and if, finally, it must by the force of things say or affirm something without contradicting or denying, all that it can do, all that it can speak philosophically (without contradicting anything) is that the Concept “is” Time. No doubt we can say that Time is not Eternity.
But to say that the Concept is Time is not equivalent to re-saying the Anti·thesis which says that it is Non-eternity. Because the No is in-definite as such and its de-finition depends solely on what is to its right (or to its left, if we read upside down). Now Time is defined in itself, since it has nothing to its right, nor to its left (except, if you like, itself, as past and to come) [and it could even serve to de-fine Eternity, if the latter were defined as Non-time, that is to say, for example, as Space]. In other words, if Time is Non-eternity, this is still something other than Non-eternity-which-is-Time, while Time is only what it is and nothing else. At least it is such for the Syn-thesis.
We can also say that Time is a Non-A which is a B, of which we can say not only what it “is not” (namely A), but also (and even above all, even above all or a priori) what it “is”. In other words, the Time of which the Syn-thesis speaks is what the Anti-thesis would contradict, that is to say, in fact, without contradicting the Thesis. It is by saying in a “positive” way what the Concept is which “is” the antithetical Non-eternity, that is to say by saying it without contradicting or without making use of the Non of a negation to say it, that the Syn-thesis says that the Concept “is” Time.
