metaphysical views

What is Metaphysics ?

There is no fixed nature of reality, and assuming otherwise would be to neglect the ever dynamic ontology of our world. Reality, in my view, constitutes the ever shifting internal arrangement of different parts of reality, yet these parts are throughout the entirety of this shifting process interconnected. I stress that this arrangement is internal in that my philosophy has moved away from the Platonic and Christian tradition that there exists some great creator or perfect Form(s) beyond the reality we perceive everyday. My understanding of metaphysics is now heavily influenced by existential thought, particularly Nietzsche and Sartre, and Buddhist thought. My understanding of Nietzsche has been greatly enhanced through a book by the Italian philosopher/politician Gianni Vattimo, Nihilism and Emancipations. In this work, Vattimo argues that when Nietzsche declared the famous line, “God is dead”, he meant more than God and the Christian Dogma. He meant that all fixed and overarching notions of reality, which he calls the metaphysical, must be abandoned. Thus what Nietzsche truly meant was that replacing one dogma or metaphysic with another (let's say science or economics) fails to solve the problem. These metaphysical illusions of certainty, or horizons, as Nietzsche puts it creates competition between different metaphysics and impedes the potential for a metaphysical collaboration which illuminates the necessary linkages between the diversity of our subjective realities. This necessary and inherent interdependence and interconnectiveness is further supported and inspired by Buddhism which seeks to destroy the self not in any passively nihilistic sense but rather insofar that as long as we perceive the self as an isolated individual ego we will fail to recognize our connections with not only fellow humans but our environment in general. I will return to the Buddhist notion of self later in this section.

Another strong influence in my own understanding of metaphysics is Walter Mignolo, who writes extensively about what he calls the Colonial Difference. What I think Mignolo does a superb job of showing through his explanation and illumination of the colonial difference is that the realities of Latin America and Europe are not as distinct as is typically assumed. Europe wants to take all the credit for its colonial empires, which laid the foundation for their post-colonial economic oppression of third world countries. The truth remains that Europe was not the center of the world system (to use a term coined by the sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein) until after 1492. If it wasn't for the cheap labor and resources of Latin America, Spain, to give but one example, never would have become the superpower that it did. The point I'm trying to make here is that the ontology of Latin America and Europe were codependent following 1492. They wouldn't have existed as they did if it wasn't for their relationships with one another. This claim seems commonsensical yet just look at the philosophies of some of the great German philosophers such as Hegel, Kant and Habermas, and you will see that they perceived (and continue to perceive in the case of Habermas) Europe's dominance over the rest of the world as an individual accomplishment, as a competition in which they ultimately came out on top. Survival of the fittest arguments neglect that hegemonies rely on legitimating power just as much as accumulating it. Just look at how the Spanish conquistadors and European colonialism ad infinitum alleged that they were saving the natives' souls from barbarism by introducing them to Christianity. Furthermore, the more Europe seeks full credit for its colonial exploits, the more it is able to justify its intellectual and material supremacy of the rest of the world. Continuing headstrong into our post-colonial or post-modern era, by virtue of them being backwards we must save them through economic development. This logic is invalid in that it covers over (Mignolo) Europe's history of dependence on Latin America for the resources and labor necessary to build its empires.

Perhaps I got a little too much into the history here, but the point I'm trying to make is that cultures hardly ever exist in isolation from one another, especially in 2007. Presupposing otherwise leads to disastrous consequences both in the West's justification for economic exploitation and the clinging to cultural essentialism through both Christian and Islamic fundamentalist regimes. Just as important a realization is that cultures are not monolithic. There is no overarching Christian culture, for instance, that applies to all Christians, and to assume so would be to make a gross over generalization.

So what is the self? Am I real? Are you real? We are all real not because we are but because we are together. I never would believe this if it wasn't for my philosophical turn towards the East in my spring semester of my junior year when I took both Asian Philosophy and Focus on a Philosopher: Watsuji Tetsuro. According to Watsuji one is not fully human until one sees oneself (and acts as) both an individual and a member of a community, that is, what Watsuji calls Ningen. What is real is the connections and the incessant negotiations between individuality and sociality. “Ningen denotes the unity of these contradictions” (Watsuji, Ethics). Watsuji's notion of self was heavily influenced by Buddhism in that, as already mentioned, Buddhism sees the self as an obstacle so long as this self is perceived as isolated and independent from the greater social whole.

I look at myself and can't help but scowl in the reflection of my ego's hegemony. Every act's justification must please my self, even if indirectly, before addressing the needs of others. Perhaps merely seeing others and labeling others as others is my problem. They are in me just as I am in them. I think through language and what is language but an attempt to communicate with these others. Why have I been perverted? Must I take full responsibility for this clinging to the individual. Who shall lead the coup but my own volition.

Above all I must go through my ego for there is no escaping it. Why relieve suffering when you can use it. Go through it , trudge through it, breath it, bleed it, share it, laugh at it, feel it not to feel it.

To see the true self we must peel back its layers of self-deceit. We must uncover what has been covered over; in our history, in our theory, in our actions. To do both is to live. To die (to not slaughter the ego but to befriend it, to show it that it is not the sun but a planet and a glorious planet indeed) is to be born again in a new light, in a new role.

Perhaps the ego is ironically the source of altruism. According to Emily Dickinson, “The greatest compensation in life is that one cannot help another without also helping oneself”. I personally, do not consider this a compensation but rather an indication of our basic relational ontology. Our self simply cannot exist outside of its relations with other selves. We are like the jewel net of Indra in Buddhism, constantly reflecting the light of other beings, these reflections are in us in our necessary betweenness in the world.