Terms like illusion, misrecognition, imposture etc., are freighted with a certain prescriptiveness, they exist inside a moralistic frame, a distinction between better and worse where it is understood that the better is what ought to be chosen. Even when they are toned down into the most cognitivist terms they retain this sense of referring to a being free to choose the truth, who would inevitably choose truth if only he were able to grasp it. Or again they may be coloured by desire in which case they evoke the predicament of knowing the good and choosing the bad, of enjoyment obliquely crossing the lines of verity. There are alternatives - affirm the absolute, affirm the relative - and thus the issue, or issuance, of one who faces such a choice. These elaborate self-references map everything you think you understand into the world of a volition, the hidden reality they presume is that of a volitional subject: you doing this somewhere. So you are urged to understand the inexistence of such a subject, but who would be so urged if not that very one? The only way to understand is to part company with all understanding, and then to part company with parting company, and so on. No desire can accomplish this, you can only find yourself thrown into it, in spite of desire, the never-ending and utterly amoral desire that preceded you and will doubtless survive you.
Monday, 1 May 2017
Terms like illusion, misrecognition, imposture etc., are freighted with a certain prescriptiveness, they exist inside a moralistic frame, a distinction between better and worse where it is understood that the better is what ought to be chosen. Even when they are toned down into the most cognitivist terms they retain this sense of referring to a being free to choose the truth, who would inevitably choose truth if only he were able to grasp it. Or again they may be coloured by desire in which case they evoke the predicament of knowing the good and choosing the bad, of enjoyment obliquely crossing the lines of verity. There are alternatives - affirm the absolute, affirm the relative - and thus the issue, or issuance, of one who faces such a choice. These elaborate self-references map everything you think you understand into the world of a volition, the hidden reality they presume is that of a volitional subject: you doing this somewhere. So you are urged to understand the inexistence of such a subject, but who would be so urged if not that very one? The only way to understand is to part company with all understanding, and then to part company with parting company, and so on. No desire can accomplish this, you can only find yourself thrown into it, in spite of desire, the never-ending and utterly amoral desire that preceded you and will doubtless survive you.
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