In this chapter we focus our attentions on archaic Ionian thinking, and will seek the roots of the dichotomy between rational and hermeneutical thought. Before doing so it is necessary to take a short terminological detour. We have already given an account of what should be understood by “rationality”. But we owe the reader some hint concerning the complementary notion of hermeneutics. We shall understand it in terms of contemporary phenomenology: each cognitive circle starts with some pre-understanding, which can only lead to explanation and understanding. Any newly-achieved understanding becomes ammunition for the next hermeneutical circle. “The essential feature of the circular movement of philosophy does not lie in running around the periphery and returning to the point of departure. It lies in that view of the centre that this circular course alone can provide. The centre, that is, the middle and ground, reveals itself as such only in and for the movement that circles it. The circular character of philosophical thought is directly bound up with this ambiguity, an ambiguity that is not to be eliminated or, still less, leveled off by means of dialectic.” (Heidegger 1995, 187).
Today, we are in possession of detailed and multifarious material concerning the structure and function of organisms; at the same time we witness a practically absolute absence of any attempt to grasp life – both in its singularity and in the manifold of its expressions.
S. V. Chebanov 2005, 347
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Notes
- 1.
We mean the lineage from Thales to Hippocrates, with Heraclitus as its outstanding representative.
- 2.
The topic is to a great extent elaborated by J. von Uexküll; e.g. 1956 (two works from 1934 and 1940).
- 3.
See, e.g. Heraclitus (B 91): “You cannot step twice into the same river; for fresh waters are flowing in upon you”, and a similar quotation in Plutarch (De E apud Delphos 18, 392b): “‘It is impossible to go into the same river twice’, Heraclitus said; no more can you grasp mortal being twice, so as to hold it. So sharp and so swift its change; it scatters and brings together again, nay not again, no nor afterwards; even while it is being formed it fails, it approaches, and it its gone.”
- 4.
A notion of Anaximandros (610–547 BC); he, however, apparently did not use the word physis.
- 5.
Clemens of Alexandria, Stromata V, 109–110.
- 6.
For Origenes, God was an unconditional, eternal, atemporal, non-corporeal, and therefore unknowable “being”, the ultimate cause of all being and becoming.
- 7.
“Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus. This can be taken to mean: truth is the correspondence of the matter to knowledge. But it can also be taken as saying: truth is the correspondence of knowledge to the matter. Admittedly, the above definition is usually stated only in the form veritas est adaequatio intellectus ad rem (truth is the adequation of intellect to thing). [ … ] Throughout, veritas essentially implies convenientia, the coming of beings themselves, as created, into agreement with the Creator, an ‘accord’ with regard to the way they are determined in the order of creation” (Heidegger 1993a, 117--119).
- 8.
Later, however, the same author engages reverse gear, by saying that science even has the ability to “devise laws of history that can foretell something of the future of mankind ” (Wilson 1998, 215).
- 9.
Heraclitus B 123.
- 10.
Chebanov (2004, 341) appropriately states that most of contemporary medicine is, in fact, merely veterinary medicine of the species Homo sapiens.
- 11.
But for exceptions. For example, Descartes in his famous parable (Meditations, II, 30) takes the wax as what is a complement of something “out there” and something in one’s mind. Similarly, Husserl takes the “fragrant rose” as his beloved example, instead of cups.
- 12.
We take this word by order to differentiate from ordinary, statistical, random “chance”. Contingency is a chance recognized as a challenge to undertake something.
- 13.
See, e.g., Sofocles, Oedipus tyrannus, 1080, 1527, etc.
- 14.
Even then we cannot speak of total application of rationality as we have witnessed it since the 17th century. For example numerals, besides being simply “numbers”, they represented also deeper symbols behind particular letter-signs: “1” symbolized a point, “3” a plane, “9” justice, “10” deity, etc.
- 15.
With repeated attempts to derive moral laws from the laws natural; see, e.g. Monod 1979.
- 16.
See the concept of being-together [Mitsein] elaborated by Heidegger and discussed in the next chapter.
- 17.
See numerous examples from biology – from atavisms to mimetic phenomena (Chapter 6).
- 18.
Heraclitus C 2, 15 (in Hippokrates, De alimento, ed. E. Littré).
- 19.
“If you leave me, I won’t perish; if you leave me, you’ll perish” – says Mother Land in a Czech patriotic poem.
- 20.
Strictly speaking, there exists a single exception from the synonymy when Plato speaks about the very idea of the Good (to agathon); in all other places, however, both words are interchangeable.
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Markoš, A., Grygar, F., Hajnal, L., Kleisner, K., Kratochvíl, Z., Neubauer, Z. (2009). Roots of Rationality and Hermeneutics. In: Life as Its Own Designer. Biosemiotics, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9970-0_1
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