“Dasein is a being that does not simply occur among other beings. Rather it is ontically distinguished by the fact that in its Being this Being is concerned about its very Being. Thus it is constitutive of the being of Dasein to have, in its very being, a relation of being to this being” …
— Martin Heidegger
“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come” …
— John 16:13
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us”…
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Is Truth a Divine light of Being that illuminates the idea of Being (Rosmini)?
A modal logical relationship (i.e. necessity (idea of Being — Rosmini) & possibility (conscious self)) which enables Human Beings through the Gift of Reason (Paine) and our embodied phenomenological experiences in the World (Heidegger) to discover new relationships of meaning (Peirce) that reflect the possibility of knowing (Kant) what exists (Aristotle)?
“The choicest gift of God to man, the gift of reason; and having endeavoured to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason; as if man could give reason to himself”…
— Thomas Paine
Truth as the light that illuminates Metaphysics — the Study of Being — the Science of Reality.
Truth as the light that illuminates the relationship between this Being (Dasein) — the Conscious Self — with Being (Sein) (Heidegger).
“Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man’s only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth”…
– Ayn Rand
Truth as the light that enables intelligibility — the possibility of a mind dependent representation to understand the necessity of a mind independent Reality (i.e. everything in the act of Being (Aristotle & Aquinas) — the full metaphysical continuum (Synechism) of Being (Peirce)).
If essence is the true nature or whatness of a thing (Aristotle) — grasped not by the senses but by the intellect — and truth is the actual reality of something, the way it truly is (Aristotle), then can we say that essence is the intelligible abstraction of Being (i.e. the interpretation of a mind-independent reality (i.e. act of Being (Heidegger) (Rosmini)) via a mind-dependent representation (i.e. idea of Being (Rosmini) (Peirce)), whereas truth is the manifestation of that Being as it truly is (i.e. act of Being)?
In other words, Essence (i.e. Being as Understood — Possibility — Epistemology) is the soul’s mirror of Being (i.e. the Perceiving Subject understanding of Being brought to Consciousness — Epistemological) whereas Truth is the light by which Being (i.e. Being as it is — Necessary) illuminates itself (i.e. Being’s own disclosure — Ontological).
The Teleological Unification of Being, Knowing and Meaning
“Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him”…
- John 4:7
By contemplating the rich intellectual ideas of both 19th Century Italian Priest, Theologian and Philosopher Antonio Rosmini and 19th-20th Century American Philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce an opportunity exists to restore and extend the long Christian Theological and Ancient Greek Philosophical intellectual traditions of Western Civilisations and move beyond the dyadic ways of understanding Reality (e.g. Idealism & Materialism, Dialectical Materialism, Scientific Positivism and Historical Materialism) anchored in the Primacy of Human Consciousness (e.g. Gnosticism, Idealism, Nietzschean Perspectivism) and Primacy of Man (e.g. Marxism) that have become the dominant intellectual framework across Globalist Elites & the Intellectual Orthodoxy — the intellectual substrate of Modernity and Post-Modernity that has led to a crisis.
“The instrumentalist idea of well-being is just a transposition from the vertical dimension to the horizontal dimension of the Augustinian idea that human love is infinite and cannot be satisfied by any finite good. The ascent to God is replaced by the idea that one can conquer the world, that each individual is entitled to do so. This entitlement has no bounds because the subject, having been called into the world without his assent, feels entitled, almost as a compensation for this call, to infinite satisfaction within the world itself. But, of course, an individual man cannot fully realise this conquest. He can reduce other people to his own instruments, but makes himself their instrument in turn, in a cycle of mutual instrumentalisation” …
– Augusto del Noce
“That is, the hubris of science, or scientistic totalitarianism, originates from the fact that modern science knows only “horizontal causality”, since it searches for laws as constant relationship between phenomena, i.e., it studies reality as a system of forces, not of values” …
– Augusto del Noce
Both Rosmini (Triadic of Being) and Peirce (Semiotic Triadic) ideas imply:
- Human beings are not passive observers of Reality, but active participants;
- Truth and Meaning are not inert states but dynamic relational processes of Becoming; and
- The Telos is not just knowledge, but recognises that ideas have consequences. In other words, there is a teleological dimension (an ought (value) of Being(Rosmini)) that is missing from the modern and post-modern (Idealism: Materialism ) intellectual interpretation of the nature of knowledge that should guide both our act of Being**** and idea of Being**** (e.g. embodiment of love and goodness in the world).
[ **** Note — Rosmini’s moral dimension to Being is directly related to Truth (i.e. Being’s own disclosure) and therefore influences the contemplation and application of Reason. Ideas that align with Kant’s critique of Pure Reason. A recognition of the need to go beyond a proto-phenomenological understanding (i.e. experience is structured by the subject) of Reason (Verstand) and beyond the speculative functional elements of Pure Reason (reine Vernunft) to a unified moral form of reasoning that captures a Unity of Being and Divine Order.
Kant distinguishes between:
- Verstand (Proto-Phenomonological Understanding (i.e. experience is structured by the subject)) — Unity of Representation (appearances) by means of rules. This is the faculty that organises sensory experience using concepts and categories (such as causality, substance, etc.) into coherent knowledge. It operates within the realm of possible experience and is responsible for making sense of empirical data; and
- Vernunft (Pure Reason (reine Vernunft) & Practical Reason (praktische Vernunft ). Unity of rules by means of principles: This is a higher-order faculty that seeks ultimate principles and unifying ideas beyond experience. It tries to go beyond the limits of possible experience, leading to metaphysical inquiry (pure reason) such as truth, being, reality and existence, together with the exploration of foundational questions of human agency (practical reason) such as ethics and morality.]
It represents a post-Cartesian metaphysics of embodied mind, moral responsibility, and semiotic mediation — a vision in which to know is to love the truth (Rosmini — idea of Being), and to love is to become true (Rosmini — ought (value – will & morals ) of Being and act of Being.
Ideas that recognise that God (Creator) is the ultimate source of Truth & Creation and that there is a Divine Order of Things.
Ideas that recognise that it is through the act of Being (Aristotle — Heidegger), the idea of Being (Kant — Rosmini — Descartes), and the moral ought of Being (Peirce — Rosmini) that we begin to know, act and embody the Truth.
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (Jesus answered)” …
— John 14:6
Redefining Truth Beyond Correspondence
“Traditional spirit means affirming the primacy of Being, the primacy of the unchangeable… and the Ontological value of the principle of non-contradiction (which, not by chance appears in the 4th book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics as the end point of the critique of Sophistics)”…
— Augusto del Noce
The foundational of ideas of both Rosmini and Peirce can be synthesised into a higher-order understanding of the relationships of Being (This Being (Dasein) to Being (Sein) — Heidegger), Knowing (idea of Being — light of Reason — form of intellect — Rosmini ), and Meaning (Perceiving Subject, Sign and Object — Peirce ) that combines Christian Theology & Ancient Greek Philosophy and represents arestoration & continuation of the unfinished work of the Medieval Scholastics.
A transformational metaphysical (i.e. Study of Being — Science of Reality ) ontological understanding of Reality beyond a correspondence Theory of Truth ( i.e. Ontology: Epistemology — Materialism: Idealism ) to a triadic teological understanding of Reality anchored in the intelligibility, will and act of Being:
- Theosophy (Rosmini): Ontology: Epistemology: Axiology or Peirce Synechism (i.e. the full metaphysical continuum of Being) and Phaneron (i.e. everything that has the appearance of Being mediated via the totality of phenomena to Consciousness) which can be expressed through Anancasm (Necessity): Tychism (Chance): Agapism (love, laws and evolution)
- Meaning (Peirce): Perceiving Subject: Sign: Object (Semiotic Triadic and Pragmatic Maxim)
- Being (Rosmini) : Real Being : Ideal Being : Moral Being
- Teleology (Rosmini & Peirce): Rosmini — Truth/Good (Telos) : Being : Free Moral Agent or Peirce — Normative Sciences — Esthetics (Telos — Intrinsic — End — Ideal Ends) : Ethics (Bridges Means to an End) : Logic (Reason — Instrumental — Means)
Rosmini’s innovation was in unifying different dimensions of human being — intellect (Ideal Being), action & agency (Real Being), and morality & will (Moral Being) into a philosophical framework grounded in Being.
For him, truth is the recognition of Being, and moral action requires aligning the will with that truth. In other words, both human freedom and moral responsibility are dependent on recognising this metaphysical relationship of Being.
“Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality”…
― Edmund Burke
In other words, Rosmini’s ideas reflected a renewal and extension of the Medieval Scholastics' attempts to integrate Christian Theology and Ancient Greek Philosophy into a Metaphysics anchored in Being that combines Ontology (act of Being), Epistemology (idea of Being) and Axiology (ought (value) of Being).
A Divine Teleological Order of Being.
Peirce’s innovation lies in his semiotic-phenomenological ( i.e. phaneroscopy -whatever is present to the mind) relationships of intelligibility, wherein the understanding of Being becomes accessible through the mediation of signs. By structuring experience into conscious categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, he provides a framework for understanding how meaning arises from the interaction between mind, world, and interpretation. In doing so, he offers a dynamic reconciliation between the idea of Being (as intelligible) and the act of Being (embodied lived experiences participation in Reality) and at the same time, through his Normative Sciences identifies a Teleological hierarchy (Esthetics, Ethics and Logic). In particular, Esthetics transcends conceptual abstractions or practical effects by providing an Ideal End (esthetic goodness — kalos (beautiful, noble, good)) as a Telos whilst recognising the role of Ethics (pursuit of the Ideal) as a bridge to mediating and reconciling the instrumental nature of Logic. His idea of Agapasm, which is inherently teleological, draws the Universe towards that esthetic goodness through its normative impulse — a selfless, unconditional love, benevolent, and generative force. An evolutionary fabric towards harmony, co-operation, complexity and order.
“Philosophy springs from the love of being; it is man’s loving endeavor to perceive the order of being and attune himself to it. Gnosis desires dominion over being; in order to seize control of being the Gnostic constructs his system. The building of systems is a gnostic form of reasoning, not a philosophical one”…
- Eric Voegelin
