202209072321 📃 two antagonistic modes of speech∶ productive and spokesman

Two antagonistic modes of speech are explicable as subjective and objective. The former comprehends self-consciousness, whereas the latter comprehends other-consciousness. As antagonistic, each opposes the other and strives to replace the other. Thus, the two cannot subsist at the same time. Each checks the other as the two emerge. Their history in consciousness is as follows.

(1) An object appears. (2) Naive object-consciousness. (3) As limited by me. (4) Naive self-consciousness. (5) Which was stimulated by an object. (6) And is limited by it. At (6), we return to the object and it appears anew. In Thus, appearance/object/self-limitation is the dialectic of self-consciousness; self/stimulation/object-limitation is the dialectic of object-consciousness. The first is all that is essential to an investigator as a man, the second is all that is essential to the object investigated as an object. The man-object opposition in consciousness circulates about itself necessarily. The two cannot be held in view at the same time as a matter per se. Why? Because the self approaches the object and the object confronts the self. Each is a necessary moment of opposition to the other. Therefore, although self might well be the truth of both (as Hegel claims), in investigation it is merely a moment of the totality.

As the two dialectics circulate, a third appears throughout each circulation, which is essentially a master/slave/production dialectic. If self-consciousness takes the master-position, it undertakes scrupulous investigations of the object, for it is never sure of it. Slavish object-consciousness produces all the real work, under the task-mastery of self-consciousness. The self hereby conforms to the object. If object-consciousness takes the master-position, it undertakes egoistic self-aggrandizement of the subject, for every opportunity to aggrandize the subject is taken. Sure of the object, there is no room in consciousness for anything else but the subject. Slavish self-consciousness produces all the real work under the task-mastery of object-consciousness - the objects hereby conform to the self. Dependent upon one’s actions and interactions, one or the other dialectic will dominate. If self-consciousness dominates as master, the subject becomes a scientist. Hereby his ego is repressed beneath the infinite fecundity of investigations. If object-consciousness dominates as master, the subject becomes a spokesman. Hereby his ego is aggrandized as the infinite fecundity of speech. In the first case, investigation is unending; in the second case, speech-iteration is unending. In the first case, men are never satisfied with their objects because they are never satisfied with themselves. In the second case, men are never satisfied with themselves because they are never satisfied with their objects. That is, they continue their roles as spokesman because they (unknowingly) always misrepresent their objects in their speech - their consciousness is insufficient for such representation. Only the scientific consciousness is so sufficient. However, the scientist is never himself sufficient for representation in his work, and is thus always hesitant to publish it.

The scientist can only publish as spokesman, and the spokesman can only genuinely speak as scientist. In this way, the scientist-spokesman must be self-immolating as he approaches the object and self-aggrandizing as he publishes. The scientist-spokesman is never at once under the dual mastery of self-immolation and self-aggrandizing. To be so would, in some sense, to live a horrible contradiction. Such a man could never have his thoughts straight, for he could never affirm himself over objects nor deny himself before them. Such a man would be a bodiless flagellant, his whip passing through him without pain. The man would feel nothing with each whip, for he would be whipping himself for that which he does not have - a body which can feel. Rather, the scientist-spokesman must one day be scientist, another spokesman. He must transition between the two. He must, in a word, channel the spirit of each into himself, acting as that man would act. The scientist engaged in the mastery of subject-consciousness must see his objects outstripping him - he investigates. The spokesman engaged in the mastery of object-consciousness must see those objects living through him - he preaches. The scientist-spokesman is thus the investigator-preacher, the studier-exhorter.

Can one transition between such modes of consciousness throughout the same day? Or, must the time for transition be longer? The entrance into scientific consciousness must be as follows:

1. I want to know more and not be ignorant.
2. For knowledge is an end in itself.
3. And this is achieved through investigation.
4. Which hasn’t yet been taken because (1) have not meditated on it (2) I have not done it (3) meditation is the beginning of doing.
5. I must investigate.

Taking up knowledge as an end-in-itself which warrants investigation is the crucial move. The fundamental premise of the scientist is thus: “I don't know enough for truth.“ And, looming infinitely as truth does, the finite scientist can, indeed, never know enough. Thus, the subject-object divide collapses as, from the standpoint of the whole, the object masterfully subjects the subject before it. The gravity of this premise warrants the mastery of self-consciousness for the scientist - he lays prostrate before the infinity of existence. This often falls into an unhealthy malaise of self-insufficiency, depression, and suicide.

Conversely, the entrance into spokesman consciousness must be as follows:

1. I want to be recognized and not be invisible.
2. To feel that my work is meaningful and known.
3. And this is achieved through broadcast.
4. Which hasn’t yet been taken because (1) have not meditated on it (2) I have not done it (3) meditation is the beginning of doing.
5. I must broadcast.

Here, the feeling of meaningful work and being known which warrants broadcast is the crucial move. The fundamental premise of the spokesman is thus: “My work deserves to be known for me.”. Looming infinitely as the “I” does, the finite work can, indeed, never deserve-to-be-known enough. That is, the subject-object divide collapses as, from the standpoint of the whole, the subject masterfully subjects the object before it. The gravity of this premise warrants the mastery of the object-consciousness of the spokesman - he imbibes the object as though it were a divine stuff, feeling the infinity of existence, wishing to share it as though he were in ecstasy. This often falls into an unhealthy comfort of pseudo-self-sufficiency, mania, and narcissistic cultism (a social suicide).

Thus, like Augustine (although unlike him, for he was concerned with the interpenetration of rhetorical dominance and spiritual submission), I am concerned with the interpenetration of rhetorical dominance and material submission. Perhaps this is only an Augustinian thought post-Bacon. (Perhaps that assessment is all that I have said considered under the aspect of intellectual history!) Yet, Augustine spoke for the state and sought submission to God - perhaps only Hegel’s statal divinity is the middle term between these. I, contrarily, aim to speak for Nature and to submit to Nature, a nature that the human race is as yet creating. Where Augustine is a foundationalist both politically and spiritually, represented by the antagonism between the City of Man and the City of God, I am an anti-foundationalist on both fronts. I represent this as my being an agent of both. Perhaps, then, this is an Augustinian thought post-Kant, post-Hegel, post-Peirce.

Like Augustine, when neither is rightly practiced with full awareness in consciousness of the other, one falls into the deepest of contradictions and inner oppositions. James’ divided self thus becomes neither prophecy nor possibility, but actuality. For the realization of one’s own inner self-sundering through his or her dual desire for both truth and recognition means that neither can be forgone at the expense of the other. I am neither scientist like Curie nor spokesman like Emerson, but a scientist-spokesman like Marx. It is in doing both that I am both. Without doing either, I am neither. For I cannot be a scientist without even the smallest semblance of scientific recognition. I must thereby internalize the grammar whereby I can be recognized as such, and not yet as an outright spokesman. I justify this through the counterfactual: “If I had not been here, then this truth would not be known.” This again unifies the subject-object, albeit in a higher sense than above. Here, either investigation or broadcast could be warranted; thereby, both are. That is, I must investigate others’ declarations (perform literature review) to ensure that I am indeed original and I must broadcast to others’ my own declaration against them. This both/and premise is the absolute ground for one’s being a scientist-spokesman.

This both/and is thus the middle term which unites two opposing syllogisms. The first begins with the scientist’s premise and ends with broadcast - this is the total transition from science to speech. The second begins with the spokesman’s premise and ends with investigation - this is the total transition from speech to science. The scientist-spokesman’s premise, thereby, is always capable of rebutting the gravity of the scientist’s premise and that of the spokesman’s premise. It rebuts science by emphasizing the “I” who investigates, and it rebuts speech by emphasizing the “truth” about which investigations proceed. Indeed, it represents the subject-object relation in full - the “I”, even when directing truth, always knows that it is dependent on its truth claims and the “truth”, even when directing the scientist for investigation, always knows that it is dependent on that scientist so that it be uncovered. This thereby is the totality of scientific-spokesmanship - the counterfactuality of the I against the truths it discovers.

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