An Analysis of Finitude - Part Two.

Continued........

Further to thoughts about the unthought, speaking generally of the forms of the unthought and of the unconscious, it may be said that they have not delivered a great deal in the way of positive knowledge concerning ourselves; even though, however much we desist from conceiving ourselves on a reflective plane, it is the unconscious that necessarily presents itself to the scientific thinking that we then must put to use. To borrow some more Foucauldian terminology, his own method of analysing knowledge he termed 'archaeological', the subject matter of which is 'discourse', a wide ranging term incorporating books, and artefacts, or the spirit of the age, (assuming there to be such), but it is discourse that is to be analysed precisely at the level of things as they are expressed; that is to say, at the level at which statements have their conditions of possibility, which is to say, we are not to concern ourselves with the vestiges of what is in other respects a concealed or unknown psychology, or spirit, or a comprehensive or enveloping historical idea, but rather with the very groups of relationships within which all of these other elements acquire their sense, their conditions of possibility.

The archaeological method thereby describes discourses in terms of the conditions of their materialization and development, as opposed to their more profound significance, one might say to their overshadowed or eclipsed meaning, their propositional or logical content, their articulation of an individual or a collective psychology. And then perhaps we will attain more in the way of positive knowledge concerning ourselves; the object of the archaeological method is the description of the positive, verifiably extant facets of discourse; much like an archaeologist describing a physical artefact or an ancient monument.

At the level of archaeology the human being and the unthought are contemporaneous; the human being is incapable of describing itself as a configuration in the episteme without thought at the same time discovering, both within itself and without, at its very boundaries and yet also in its essential foundation, a constituent of darkness, a passive and lifeless impenetrability within which it is ingrained, an unthought which this darkness encompasses completely, yet within which the darkness is also ensnared. The unthought is not entrenched in the human being as some kind of withering, mummified nature, nor as a multi-levelled narrative of past events; rather, it bears a relation to the human being that is one of alterity, or otherness; the unthought is present not only as kindred but as duplicate; it is not generated by, nor within, the human being but synchronically juxtaposed to the human being; that is, it is there, correspondingly innovative; there is this inescapable twofold character; an undefined and cryptic territory readily interpreted as a dark cavernous expanse in the essence of the human being; an unparalleled and impenetrable stronghold in the history of the human being; connected to the human being in a totally contrasting manner; at the same time external to the human being, and a prerequisite to human nature; that is to say, a shadow projected by the human being as it comes forth into the illumination of knowing; whilst also something of a murky blemish by which the human being may in addition be known.

But the unthought has attended the human being, voicelessly, unremittingly, but never more than as a persistent and persisting double, and has thus never been the object of deliberating thought of a self-determinative manner. But then, given the very abstract character of Foucault's unthought one could discern it in complementary form, albeit with an interchanged or transposed designation, in that for which it represents both the shadow cast and its otherness.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1770 – 1831), distinguished the 'in itself', that which is considered separately from other things, and which can refer to unreflective forms of consciousness, and is mere potentiality; and the 'for itself', which is actuality, that which is determinate and which relates to other things; it is explicit rather than merely implicit.

Arthur Schopenhauer, (1788 – 1860), gave priority to the will, the workings of which are often hidden: 'Every passion, in fact every inclination or disinclination, tinges the objects of knowledge with its colour ... most common of occurrence is the falsification of knowledge brought about by desire or hope'. The power of the unconsciousness of the will is thereby implied; as Schopenhauer explains, the intellect 'does not penetrate into the secret workshop of the will's decisions'. As it happens, 'the intellect remains so much excluded from the real resolutions and secret decisions of its own will that sometimes it can only get to know them, like those of a stranger, by spying out and taking unawares; and it must surprise the will in the act of expressing itself, in order merely to discover its real intentions'. One can read into this a foreshadowing of Sigmund Freud's, (1956 – 1939), Fehlleistungen, faulty actions; we may acquire some knowledge of the will by catching it out, taking it by surprise, in its very acts of self-expression.

Later, Hans Vaihinger, (1852 – 1933), was to claim:

'The organic function of thought is carried on for the most part unconsciously. Should the product finally enter consciousness also, or should consciousness momentarily accompany the processes of logical thought, this light only penetrates to the shallows, an the actual fundamental processes are carried on in the darkness of the unconscious. The specifically purposeful operations are chiefly, and in any case at the beginning, wholly instinctive and unconscious, even if they later press forward into the luminous circle of consciousness…. '

For Karl Marx, (1818 – 1883), the complementary to the unthought is alienation, a concept taken and then developed from Hegel, for whom alienation was the process whereby two things that belong together become separated; through its activity, for instance, humanity creates a culture which it is then confronted by as an alien force. The human being is thereby no longer at home in the world it occupies. One might then suppose that the unthought had a beginning in history; the great religions, together with social and political theories of the ages of civilisation, suggest as much; that at one time in the past human beings lived in harmony, and then, for whatever reason, there was some kind of breach in such a harmony, humanity became alienated in the world, foreigners in their own land; though perhaps at some time in the future this alienation will be overcome and humanity again will live in harmony with itself and with nature.

In Edmund Husserl, (1959 – 1938), the complementary to the unthought is to be found in the notion of sedimentation; the implicit, that which is neither effected nor phenomenologically actual; that which is sedimented. Sedimentation is the building up of successive strata of meaning over time; and thus science can lose its way during the course of history as earlier theories and concepts become submerged under later ones, so that their initial motivations and the relations of later developments to anterior ones become obscured and are no longer remembered. For Husserl such a process can be arrested and its detrimental effects redressed by uncovering the immersed beginnings; a sort of phenomenological archaeology of a kind that compares with Foucault’s attempt to uncover historical a prioris. Practising mathematicians thus present their results sedimented beneath layers of higher and higher mathematical theory.... a notion that practising mathematicians themselves may take issue with; in which case, perhaps sedimentation is better understood as the uncritical acceptance of a concept or theory that has become so standard or commonplace that no one ever ponders questioning it; in such a manner did formal geometry manifest itself to Galileo.

In all these case, the seemingly eternal and infinitely replete duplicate manifests itself to reflective thought in the manner of a darkened, eclipsed projection of what the human being is in its factuality and authenticity; and yet it also adopts a role of a preparatory foundation upon which the human being must get itself together and recollect itself to secure its truth. For though the duplicate may be close by it is at the same time alien, and the role, the true undertaking, of thought will be to deliver it as near to itself as possible; for Foucault the entirety of modern thinking is suffused with this necessity of thinking the unthought, of reflecting upon the contents of the in-itself (unactuality and implicitness) in the form of the for-itself, (actuality and explicitness), of finally terminating the human being's alienation by means of bringing into harmony its own essence with itself; of making explicit the boundaries to our perspective, that is to say, the horizon that furnishes experience with a backdrop of immediately present and neutralized evidence; of lifting the veil of the unconscious; of becoming wholly preoccupied with the muteness of the unthought, or, alternatively, of exerting oneself to apprehend its endless murmur, as one becomes aware of the background hum of a fridge, which can then no longer be ignored.

But then, if we accept this particular kind of analysis of our own finitude, one could discern the complementary to the unthought anywhere. One could read it into Fyodor Dostoyevsky's, (1821– 1881), story 'The Double', which centres upon the internal psychological struggles of a governmental clerk. The protagonist, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, ('Goly', meaning 'naked' in Russian, he is without clothes, metaphorically speaking, nothing is hidden), repeatedly comes across another person that is his exact duplicate, in appearance that is; personality wise, the doppelgänger is assertive, quarrelsome, extroverted, whereas Golyadkin is weak, servile, introverted.

And our hero with no clothes is searching for an identity, in which case the tale may certainly be read as an analysis of finitude, a human will seeking to freely express itself, but instead having its identity obliterated by the bureaucracy and suffocating society in which it finds itself. As a kind of defence mechanism to rid oneself of undesirable impulses and aspects of the self, such undesirables may be externalized and projected onto others. Melanie Klein, (1882 – 1960), described a process of projective identification, whereby parts of the self may, in unconscious fantasy, be considered as impelled into place within another person, and further, the individual has fantasies about what he or she has even done. The relationship continues, between the projected aspects of the self and with the person into which they are projected. Golyadkin is feeling persecuted by his duplicate, while also identifying with it; he feels a need to control it while being controlled by it. His projective mechanisms are operating at such an intense level that he is left feeling internally drained and empty, a spiritual bankruptcy that renders him vulnerable to the slightest attack from another. In particular, to follow through the thought of the unthought in terms of boundaries to a perspective, an horizon furnishing experience with a backdrop of immediately present and neutralized evidence, together with the human being's overcoming alienation by means of bringing into harmony its own essence with itself, Golyadkin is in particular trouble here, because the boundaries in question are his own psychic boundaries, about which he is so very much uncertain. Where does Golyadkin end and the other begin? Confusion reigns, between inner and outer reality, fantasy and reality, dream and waking life; the boundaries between self and non-self are slackened, and at the end of the tale Golyadkin begins to see many replicas of himself, has a psychotic breakdown, and is carted off to an asylum by Doctor Rutenspitz, who says to him scornfully: 'You will haf official quarters, with firewood und Licht und service, which you do not deserf'. (Golyadkin's doctor is German, by the way, I am not sure if any great significance is to be attached to that); and the final line reads: 'Our hero shrieked and clutched at his head. Alas! This was what he had known for a long time would happen!'

What is it that he had known for a long time would happen? In analysing finitude two themes recur, that of grounding, and that of boundaries, or horizons, both of which emerge in a curious passage in Friedrich Nietzsche's, (1844 – 1900), 'The Gay Science'; another madman is here accusing humanity of killing God:

'Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning lighted a lantern and ran to the market-place calling out unceasingly: 'I seek God! I seek God!' - As there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why! is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea voyage? Has he emigrated? - the people cried out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. 'Where is God gone?' he called out. 'I mean to tell you! We have killed him, - you and I! We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness?'

Making explicit the boundaries to our perspective, the horizon that furnishes experience with a backdrop of immediately present and neutralized evidence, is the mark of modern thought, according to Foucault; but for Nietzsche there no longer is any backdrop, or grounding, or foundation; merely an horizon of the infinite. And what is meant by that? And by drinking up the sea?

As Juliet said to her Romeo:

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep. The more I give to thee,

The more I have, for both are infinite.

('Romeo and Juliet', Act 2, Scene 2).

Having left the land and sailed out into the open sea we have destroyed the land behind us, the land that connects sea to sea; which is to say, we have foresaken all possibility of standing upon solid ground. God is dead, groundings or foundations are no more, the horizon is infinite. Unless, of course, the ship itself represents a new kind of grounding, such is the problem with metaphors of this kind. But with all land destroyed the ship is now floundering in infinity; the sea stretches out infinitely. And the madman continues:

'Oh, the poor bird that felt free and now strikes the walls of this cage. Woe, when you feel homesick for land as if it had offered more freedom - and now there is no longer any "land".'

The bird once felt itself to be free, but now beats against its cage; the cage that is the indefinite infinite. And let us not suppose that sailing into the sea with its infinite horizon thereby gives us freedom, any temptation to return home being of no avail, for such a return journey is now impossible. For what can be more confining than being confronted with an infinite horizon? And having drunk the sea, we no longer have anything to sail upon. As for the possibility of discovering new seas, 'To New Seas' is the title of a poem by Nietzsche:

Thither - I wish to go, and I trust

Myself forthwith, and my grasp.

The sea lies open, into the blue

Drifts my Genoese ship.

Everything shines new and newer for me

Noonday is sleeping in time and space - :

Only your eyes – tremendously

Gazes upon me, Endlessness!

The 'Genoese ship' refers to Columbus, of course, sailing towards undiscovered lands; in the face of the infinite, humanity puts trust in itself. But if land represents ground to stand upon in terms of philosophical foundations, then to search for new seas implies searching for new foundations; but not foundations to stand upon, rather foundations that are like a shore upon the horizon that we sail towards, and perhaps never reach, in the search for new values; values that are then truly ours. And yet we have drunk up the sea; we are placed within an infinite expanse of an indefinite sea, but without the sea, so to speak. Following the death of God, both sea and shore are eliminated; and if there is no common shore to guide humanity's voyage, then what's to be done? Humanity no longer situates its values in the divine, supernatural, eternal realm, that shore that once provided compass to humanity in its finitude. Despairing and desolate, humanity is homesick for land that had seemingly proffered a greater freedom, but the land has gone. And the sea has gone; the horizon is infinite, the eternal shore has disappeared; as a consequence humanity loses its grip on its finite world also; its being no longer plays itself out within a space enclosed at both ends by an eternal, divine realm; search for new values we may, and at our own discretion, but always with a view to the infinite nothingness that lies before us.

But then, there is an alternative analysis of our finitude, one that pierces through our finite and temporal conditions in quite a different manner; that which is provided by Søren Kierkegaard, (1813 – 1835). 'Temporality, finitude', said Kierkegaard, 'that is what it is all about'.

To be continued ….....