The . Antinomies

The links in the table on the left take you to sub-headings in this article.

The previous article, Contrasting Meaning and Value, used the example of meaning and value to illustrate the solution of philosophical paradoxes. Each person has two sources of influence acting on him/her : these being subjectivity and objectivity. So the solution of a paradox must reflect this fact.

The Nature of Paradox

When consciousness is thought to be a unitary phenomenon, then understanding the relationship between binaries such as Being and Becoming becomes problematical. Usually such relationships are relegated to the status of metaphysical paradoxes, which cannot be made intelligible by rationality. This lack of success in intellectual effort enables the seeker to downgrade reason and thereby justify his sole reliance on faith as the basis of his spiritual life.

However, all traditional metaphysical paradoxes can be understood once consciousness is accepted to be a sign system, which means that it is dual in its nature. Such paradoxes came to the foreground in philosophy through the ideas of Immanuel Kant, who called them the ‘antinomies’. For example, one paradox is : do we have free will, or is determinism all-powerful ? . The solution to a paradox is that one premiss resides in one member of the opposed concepts, and the contradictory premiss resides in the other concept.

I digress for a moment.
Language is a system of signs, and by using signs we can communicate ideas. The sign has two parts : a name plus an idea. These parts are termed the signifier and the signified. The sign is a compound of a word that signifies, and the idea in the mind which is the signified. [¹]

The signifier is the name, which includes the sound of that name.
The image of the object in the mind is called the signified.

Language is modelled on consciousness. Hence I view consciousness as a sign system too. The major difference between them is that language is primarily a static structure (it is difficult to change), whilst consciousness includes both dynamic structure (it is changeable) and static structure. [²]

For the normal person, the dynamic aspect of consciousness is the ego, since the ego is unstructured ; the static aspect of consciousness creates structure from the person's past, which centres on determinism or karma. Ego is the signifier, and karma is the signified. [³]

By taking consciousness to be a sign system, then the opposed concepts needed to solve a paradox are associated with the two determinants of signifier and signified.

I look at four Paradoxes

identity and difference
free will and determinism
essence and non-essence
cause and effect

In a previous article, Logic of Consciousness, I presented my ideas on the four forms of relative consciousness. I analysed binary relationships in order to derive the nature of relativity. If X is a variable and A and B are the two possible choices in a binary system, then there are four ways that X can have value. This led me to the following result : relativity implies that in a binary relationship, X is neither A nor B.

This idea can be generalised.
All philosophical statements of the form :

X is neither A nor B

where A and B are the only apparent alternatives, indicate the presence of relativity. This means that object X cannot be defined completely either by its similarities to A or by its differences from B. The signifier indicates difference and the signified indicates similarity.

A sign has two aspects, the signifier and the signified. One aspect is defined by difference and the other one by similarity. In this way the totality of the sign cannot be reduced to either similarity or to difference. A sign is a relative construction. The signifier indicates difference and the signified indicates similarity. So another way of expressing relativity is that it holds together similarity with difference.

a) Identity and Difference

Relativity holds together similarity with difference. Or, relativity means that identity is inseparable from difference.

What is distinctive? - identity or difference? The answer is : neither, because each is tied to the other. Identity is inseparable from difference because they are both part of the same relative consciousness.

John Blofield recounts an experience with an hallucinatory drug that verified for him several aspects of Buddhist doctrine. In particular he felt the truth that colours and forms, whilst differing from one another, yet were nevertheless the same even in their difference (Blofield, page 33). This is a fine example of the meaning of relativity : to be the same as others yet also to be different from those others.

b) Free will versus Determinism

A standard problem in ethics is that of free will versus determinism. Does a person have free will or not ? . The answer is that the will is neither free nor determined. Why ?

The use of free will within an ethical idealism has the function of removing weakness from the ego. But free will alone is inadequate for solving ethical issues. A psycho-analysis is also needed and it has the function of removing self-deception and determinism from the person’s sense of identity.

c) Essence and Non-essence

These ideas apply to the problem of essence. Does a person have an essence ? . Consider the baby’s task of creating his ego. He constructs it partly from the desires, attitudes and abilities that he incarnates with, and partly from the mother’s attitudes and emotions. If he constructed his ego solely from himself he would grow up to be a complete individual in any manner that he chose, and therefore have no pre-determined essence. If he constructed his ego solely from the parents’ influences he would become completely social, and thereby have an ordained essence (essence = his objective structure of fixed beliefs and fixed values). The factor of transference means that when the baby grows up he will be neither a complete individual nor completely social. [4]

The signified mode (or karma) is the objective aspect of consciousness ; it can be considered to be ‘essence’. Whereas the ego (the signifier) has no essence since it is pure subjectivity. Consciousness is neither completely essence nor completely non-essence. Hence :

The person has neither essence nor non-essence. So the concept of essence is a relative one. This is a variation of Sartre’s idea that existence comes before essence. All that a person has which is completely his own is his existence.

d) Cause and Effect

The concept of cause and effect can also give rise to an apparent paradox. Reason is used to analyse things into the categories of difference and identity. Is the relation between cause and effect a relation of difference or of identity ?

If the effect is the same as the cause,
then that effect is a duplication of the cause, since nothing new has been created. Therefore the idea of causality loses its meaning.

If the effect is different from the cause,
then something new seems to appear ; but where is the continuity ? . How can one thing give rise to another thing which is different from it ? . There is a disjunction between cause and effect.

In both cases, the idea of cause is problematic. However, the idea is problematic only because it is tacitly assumed that cause and effect should be a unitary phenomenon. When we make it a binary phenomenon, the paradox disappears. Cause is a relative objectivity and the effect is a relative subjectivity.

If something is a relative phenomenon then it can never have a unitary reality. It always has to be binary in its nature. The whole of creation is a relative product. Hence there is nothing in creation that can have a unitary existence.

Limitations to Logic

Kant considered that the antinomies were natural contradictions in our reason. This view is false. The apparent contradictions arise from the attempt to apply non-relative logic to relative concepts.

Because modern analytical logic was ‘liberated’ from the psychological ideas of theorists such as John S. Mill, so it has to face the necessary consequences : it cannot analyse metaphysical and ontological issues. Non-relative logic (that is, analytical logic) can handle mathematics and technological requirements, but not meanings, nor values.

Analytical logic is primarily based upon two operations :

either X = A

or . . . . . . X = not A

These operations cannot always be applied to relative propositions. To argue that two relative terms are identical is often fallacious, and to argue that two relative terms are different can be fallacious as well. They may be identical in the signifier but different in the signified, or vice versa. Conversely, if a logical argument leads to contradictory results then we are likely to be dealing with relative terms.

The world is a relative world. The world is a world of relationships. Therefore causal processes are relative processes. Since cause is relative then so is the effect. The problem for a logical analysis is that relative objects have no distinct beginning and no distinct end. Relative things are neither completely objective nor completely subjective.

What a relativistic argument implies is that from any particular perspective then either X = A or X is not = A.
But as the perspective changes, so too does X.

Logical analysis cannot deal with terms that are changeable. As the term changes so it slips free from the confines of analytical logic.

All past philosophical ideas, all past philosophical solutions to problems, are subject to change and reformulation as the intellectual vocabulary develops. The emphasis needs to change from logical analysis to conceptual analysis.

If we want to make full use of the intellect, we need to recognise that it combines rationality with intuition.

Intellectuality is a relative aspect of consciousness.

The number in brackets at the end of each reference takes you back to the paragraph that featured it.

[¹]. The terms "signifier" and "signified" are introduced in the article Semiology. [1]

[²]. The idea that consciousness is a sign system is presented in the article Structuralism. [2]

[³]. The idea that a person is the sum of ego and karma is presented in the article Existentialism and Psychology. [3]

[4]. Issues that face the infant when it is trying to create its ego are described in the articles Bonding and Transference, on my websites The Strange World of Emotion, Discover Your Mind, and The Subconscious Mind. See the Refs & Links page for the addresses of these sites.

Fixed beliefs and fixed values produce psychological structure, which can be considered to be essence. See the article Existentialism and Psychology. [4]

Books

Blofield, John
The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet. Causeway Books, USA, 1974, or Allen and Unwin, 1970. [footnote, page 33 ].

Copyright © 2002 Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved

The copyright is mine, and the article is free to use. It can be reproduced anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.

Ian Heath
London, UK

www.relative-mindmatter.co.uk

e-mail address:
ianheath5.rmm<at>relative-mindmatter.co.uk

If you want to contact me, use the address above but replace the <at> by @

It may be a few days before I am able to respond to correspondence.