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This article was downloaded by: [New York University] On: 20 February 2014, At: 08:31 Publisher: Taylor & Francis Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK AJOB Neuroscience Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uabn20 The Revisability of Moral Concepts Nada Gligorov a a Mount Sinai School of Medicine Published online: 04 Oct 2010. To cite this article: Nada Gligorov (2010) The Revisability of Moral Concepts, AJOB Neuroscience, 1:4, 32-34, DOI: 10.1080/21507740.2010.514882 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2010.514882 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the "Content") contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions AJOB Neuroscience researchers to judge whether brain-injured patients have this capacity, neuroscience can help to establish whether these patients meet the criterion of personhood. In addition, imaging showing brain dysfunction correlating with impulsive behavior can inform judgments of moral and legal responsibility that cannot be decided on behavioral evidence alone. Neuroimaging data may aid legal experts in assessing how impulse-control disorders affect behavior and whether they warrant full responsibility, mitigated responsibility, or excuse. These examples illustrate that neuroscience should not be judged by whether it preserves or threatens the contested concepts, but by whether it clarifies the conditions under which they obtain. Kaposy claims that our valued concepts "might require the rational refusal to believe discoveries of neuroscience that put them in doubt" (23). As matters now stand, there is not enough neuroscientific evidence to undermine the ideas that persons are natural kinds and that they have free will. Nevertheless, it is possible that future neuroscientific discoveries will show that unconscious brain processes completely control our thought and behavior. This could mean that personhood and free will, as we now define them, are illusions that enable human organisms to adapt to and survive in the environment. It would be irrational to ignore this knowledge and not revise our conception of who we are. If we are not essentially persons who act on the basis of conscious will, then it would not be contradictory to question our commitment to these concepts. It would also be irrational not to revise our ethical practices in the light of this knowledge. Suppose that a number of functional imaging studies indicate that brain processes constrain the choices open to a human agent at any given time. As a constraint, this would limit the scope of agency and the content of responsibility, what we are responsible for. Although this would not explain away free will and responsibility, it could mean that we are less free and less responsible than previously thought. Such a discovery may or may not occur in the foreseeable future. But it behooves us as rational beings to be open to this possibility. Neuroscience need not force us into a state of cognitive polyphasia, where ethical reasoning conflicts with a neuroscience-influenced understanding of human beings. Unless one accepts substance dualism and libertarianism, any such conflict is more apparent than real. If one accepts the view that persons are constituted by their minds and brains and can be the authors of their actions despite deterministic or mechanistic processes in the brain, then neuroscience does not warrant giving up our belief in personhood and free will. Empirical considerations pertaining to the brain and normative considerations pertaining to human agents should not be seen as competing but complementary. The psychological and behavioral criteria that ground personhood and free will can be informed by knowledge of how the brain enables the mind in mediating consciousness and the capacity for reasoning and decision-making. Neuroscience does not have the last word, though, since it is human agents who determine the metaphysical, moral, and legal significance of information about the brain. A proper interpretation of the philosophical implications of neuroscience shows that it does not threaten to eliminate our valued concepts and practices but can help us to gain a better understanding of them.
REFERENCES Farah, M. J., and A. S., Heberlein. 2007. Personhood and neuroscience: Naturalizing or nihilating? American Journal of Bioethicse– AJOB Neuroscience 7(1): 37–48. Greene, J. 2003. From neural 'is' to moral 'ought': What are the moral implications of neuroscientific moral psychology? Nature Reviews Neuroscience 4: 847–850. Greene, J., and J., Cohen. 2004. For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 359: 1775–1785. Kaposy, C. 2010. The supposed obligation to change one's beliefs about ethics because of discoveries in neuroscience. AJOB Neuroscience 1(4): 23–30. Wegner, D. 2002. The illusion of conscious will. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. The Revisability of Moral Concepts Nada Gligorov, Mount Sinai School of Medicine The rise of scientific explanation for natural phenomena has produced some of the most exciting problems in philosophy, such as the problem of free will and the mind and body problem. Those philosophical areas seek to explain how free will and consciousness can exist in a natural Address correspondence Nada Gligorov, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medical Education, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Box #1076, One Gustave Levy Place, New York, NY 10029, USA. E-mail: [email protected] world that seems to be determined by mechanistic laws. Advancements in neuroscience further highlight this problem because, unlike physics, the object of study is various aspects of human psychology, including our ability to be conscious, rational, and free in our decision making. The 32 ajob Neuroscience October–December, Volume 1, Number 4, 2010 D ow nl oa de d by [ N ew Y or k U ni ve rs ity ] at 0 8: 31 2 0 Fe br ua ry 2 01 4 Obligation to Change One's Beliefs About Ethics aforementioned concepts feature prominently in commonsense psychology, and because of that the revision of those concepts in accordance with neuroscience is often met with animosity. Kaposy (2010) argues that moral norms relying on free will, personhood, and rationality should not be revised in accordance with neuroscientific discovery because they play important moral and social roles. I argue that most concepts, including moral ones, are a web of changing beliefs shaped by various sources of information, including scientific discovery. As there is continuous, bidirectional influence between science and commonsense, the strength of our current commitments cannot be the basis for an argument against their revision in accordance with neuroscientific discovery. The philosophical literature has mostly settled on two ways in which concepts can be altered: They could be revised or reconceptualized. Revision of concepts could occur in the following way: Imagine we endorse a theory much like our current commonsense psychology that predicts and explains human behavior by utilizing concepts such as free will, personhood, and rationality.1 Imagine further that a different and new theory proposes to explain and predict human behavior by positing physical entities such as brain states, much like current neuroscience. If the two theories are compatible, the new theory could reduce the old theory (for more on this issue, see Churchland 1989, 48). The concepts of the old theory, here commonsense psychology, would remain. A successful reduction of commonsense psychology would vindicate the entities endorsed by that theory because it would provide additional proof that free will and rationality have a physical instantiation in the brain. Reduction of free will would not require the elimination of that concept. It would, however, entail some revision of the original conceptual framework. For example, reduction could make it true that free will is localized in the brain and is a physical process, so the concept would have to be revised to include that fact. Commonsense psychology and neuroscience, however, could be incompatible, which would preclude the reduction of one theory to the other. In that case we would have to opt for the elimination of one of the two dueling theories. Incompatibility between theories arises when they posit disparate ontologies. For example, if commonsense psychology is committed to the view that free will cannot be a physical process, or that free will cannot, by definition, be subject to the workings of a determinist natural law, then any theory that is physicalist or deterministic would be incompatible with commonsense. The incongruity between the two theories would further entail that one of them is false and its conceptual categories illusory. In such cases, the better of the two theories would win and we would have to reconceptualize to the wining theory. Kaposy (2010) cites Green and Cohen as espousing precisely such a view; 1. The view that commonsense psychology is a theory has been defended by Churchland (1989, 2–6). For opposing views, please see Searle (1992, esp. 58–63). the authors predict that people will get used to an entirely different way of interpreting and explaining how humans make everyday decisions, whereby all our decisions are a result of a mechanical process. In this scenario, the winning theory would be neuroscience. An incompatibility, like the one just described, between commonsense views about the nature of moral concepts and the neuroscience of morality is unlikely. Arguments for elimination of our moral intuitions presume a type of essentialism for moral concepts. In order to create opposition between our moral intuitions and neuroscience, one needs to support the claim that we can specify a steady endorsement of a particular commonsense view about the nature of moral concepts, which is unlikely to change in the future. In other words, in order to argue for the elimination of a particular concept, that concept should be well defined. Given that all attempts to specify necessary and sufficient conditions for notions such as free will, personhood, and even rationality have failed in the past within the philosophical literature, it seems even more unlikely that we can find consensus on those issues in commonsense. One can, as Kaposy does, approximate a view based on our current use of those moral terms: how we speak of them, to whom we attribute them, and how they feature in our explanations of other people's behavior. But any such rendering of our moral intuitions would not be enough to argue that our intuitions entail the strict commitment to particular features of moral concepts. An additional problem with determining our intuitive moral commitments is correctly drawing the scope of commonsense and distinguishing purely commonsense conceptions from philosophical or scientific ones. We see this issue illustrated in Kaposy's article. The examples given for the definitions are either drawn from philosophical writings, such as the Kantian definition of rationality, or they are neurophilosophical conceptions like Patricia Churchland's compatibilist definition of free will. It is unclear how we could determine with any certainty that Kant's notion of rationality is more representative of commonsense then is Churchland's adjusted definition of free will. Furthermore, if we were to expunge both philosophical and scientific influences from our moral notions, one could wonder whether anything would remain of our concepts (for further discussion see Gligorov 2007, esp. chap. 2). Even if we could settle on a commonsense view of moral notions, our current commitment to those concepts cannot be an indication that those will remain the same in the future. Neuroscience has already influenced our ideas about mental states. A particularly conspicuous change in commonsense is the piecemeal abandonment of the Cartesian view of mental states. In Descartes's view, mental states are characterized as conscious and nonphysical states. Although nowadays there is still great diversity of opinion, we can claim with some conviction that most people would agree that the locus of their mental states is in the brain. Thus, any importance that we had previously ascribed to the notion that mental states are nonphysical has changed October–December, Volume 1, Number 4, 2010 ajob Neuroscience 33 D ow nl oa de d by [ N ew Y or k U ni ve rs ity ] at 0 8: 31 2 0 Fe br ua ry 2 01 4 AJOB Neuroscience over time. Another obvious conceptual shift resulted from the popularization of Freud's writings and has affected how we see the relationship between consciousness and mental states. Freud's theory shaped our commonsense by introducing the category of unconscious mental state into our everyday parlance. Nowadays people often refer to unconscious thoughts and motives, and accuse each other of "Freudian slips." It should not be assumed, however, that the interaction between scientific and commonsense views is unidirectional. Neuroscience of morality finds its basis in commonsense notions of moral concepts. Any localization, for example, of mental states in the brain begins by relying on intuitive notions of the nature of those and uses them to draw correlations between our manifest psychology and its underlying physical causes. Sellars (1991, 20) argues that scientific views are the "offspring" of commonsense, with the caveat that scientific conceptual frameworks are not restricted by commonsense. In this view, the complete revision of moral concepts is in principle possible, but the more correct characterization of the relation between moral intuition and neuroscience is that of continuity and mutual influence. As Kaposy (2010) correctly points out, free will, personhood, rationality, and other such notions feature prominently in our moral norms and guide our social expectations. We expect people to act rationally; we assume that they have autonomy and can make decisions for which they can assume responsibility. But given that our commonsense categories have changed in the past, their current prominence is not enough to argue against their revision. The extent to which neuroscience will shape our conceptions about ourselves is an empirical claim yet to be verified, but religion, philosophy, and science have shaped our beliefs in the past, and it seems likely that they will continue to do so in the future.
REFERENCES Churchland, P. M. 1989. A neurocomputational perspective: The nature of mind and the structure of science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Gligorov, N. 2007. Eliminative materialism and the distinction between common sense and science. PhD dissertation, City University of New York, New York. Kaposy, C. 2010. The supposed obligation to change one's beliefs about ethics because of discoveries in neuroscience. AJOB Neuroscience 1(4): 23–30. Searle, J. R. 1992. The rediscovery of the mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sellars, W. 1991. Philosophy and the scientific image of man. In Science, perception and reality, 20. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview. Clarifying Conceptions of Freedom: Kaposy's Argument Against "The Inference" William Smith, Emory University Chris Kaposy's article "The Supposed Obligation to Change One's Beliefs About Ethics Because of Discoveries in Neuroscience" (2010) targets a common "inference" among neuroscientists and ethicists. Kaposy puts "The Inference" this way: "Scientific discoveries x, y, z imply that we ought not to believe claims in our ethical lives that are inconsistent with x, y, z." He claims this inference is increasingly deployed to eliminate the ethical concepts of free will, persons, and selves in light of neuroscientific evidence; he argues against it with two claims. First, he asserts that rationality requires the concepts that are attacked and concludes that we cannot be under a rational norm to eliminate a concept Thanks to Cicely Chen for reading a draft of this paper. Address correspondence to William Smith, Emory University, School of Medicine, 444 Burlington Rd, Atlanta, GA 30307, USA. E-mail: [email protected] grounded in rationality (henceforth, the "Freedom Is Rationally Necessary" claim). Second, he claims that the practical value of these concepts warrants belief therein whether or not scientific evidence undermines their epistemic warrant (henceforth, the "Freedom Is Practically Warranted" claim). Both claims strike me as naive in terms of active debates in the literature on free will and responsibility. In my view, Kaposy neither presents the best versions of these claims nor acknowledges responses that opponents of these views have been making for some time. Take the "Freedom Is Rationally Necessary" claim. Kaposy claims that we cannot be rationally required to 34 ajob Neuroscience October–December, Volume 1, Number 4, 2010 D ow nl oa de d by [ N ew Y or k U ni ve rs ity ] at 0 8: 31 2 0 Fe br ua ry 2 01

International Journal of Academic Engineering Research (IJAER) ISSN: 2000-001X Vol. 2 Issue 10, October – 2018, Pages: 19-27 www.ijeais.org/ijaer 19 Bitplanes Block Based Lossy Image Compression Abdelatief H. Abouali HICI, Computer Dept., El-Shorouk Academy, Cairo, Egypt, Email: [email protected] Abstract: In a former paper [21], an exact image compression based on bit-planes blocking was proposed. The proposed algorithm uses two bit codes for block representation. The outcome of the encoding process is two streams: Main Bit Stream, MBS and Residual Bit Stream, RBS. The algorithm core is searching for the greatest block of Unicode to encode in main stream and if not found until size of two by two then it will be kept as is in residual stream. In this paper, a lossy version of that algorithm is presented. The change in the base algorithm is in the definition of the unary-code-block is eased to be above certain percent. The percent is varied from plane to another as their contribution to image power varies. The testing of the proposed algorithm shows comparable results. Image degradations seems restorable even for high compression ratios. Keywords: bit-planes, image blocks, exact-image compression, encoding, decoding. 1. INTRODUCTION The success of multimedia and image processing based systems, in many cases, is highly tightened to effective encoding to digital images. Demands and the volume of digital images used in systems currently in use within the domains of : education, security, social medial, health care, retail storage, industry quality assurance, entertainment, law enforcement and many others is huge and subject to grow [13]. Therefore, effective storage, processing, transmitting, and recall needed for the development process to continue. To date, human effective storage, processing, recognition, indexing, and recall is far above all developed methodologies and devices man made. The encoding process is an effective representation, in computer vision systems, that increases system capacity to store, access, exchange, and process digital images. Image encoding is achieved by the removal of one or more of the basic image data redundancies: Coding, Interpixel, and Psychovisual [4-5]. Coding redundancy is due to the use of non-optimal code words. Interpixel redundancy results from correlations between image pixels. Psychovisual redundancy is the existence of data that is insignificant to the human visual system (i.e. visually non-essential). Encoding techniques require decoding process to retrieve the compressed image for further use by applications. In video compression, association of frame images, abstraction, and relationships adds more significant encoding step to sets of frame images [6]. Image compression techniques are exact and Lossy[7]. The exact compression techniques assure the retrieval of the decompressed image typical as the original. Lossy compression techniques allow controlled loss of power. The exact image compression techniques include, pixel packing, run-length, Huffman, LZW, arithmetic and Area coding. Lossy techniques includes Transformation Coding, differential, Vector Quantization, object based, Fractal, Block truncation coding, and Sub band coding [8-12]. Good encoding scheme means: low order of algorithm complexity for both encoder and decoder, high signal to noise ratio, high compression ratio, ability to decode at varieties of scales without additional distortion, parallelization ability, as well as the ease to implement software and/or hardware. The well-known encoding algorithms, such as JPEG and MPG, employs a set of basic encoding schemes such as Huffman, differential, quantization, and run-length [13-14]. Block based image compression schemes are numerous as dealing with whole image as a processing unit costly. Blocking coincide with images reality that are connected blocks/labels. From the well-known block based algorithms JPEG, and fractal. In JPEG the blocks are transformed to frequency domain, using DCT, followed by reduction to insignificant blocks, then quantization followed by differential and entropy encoding. Blocking offers JPEG two main advantages low cost transformation and reduces the possibilities of having higher frequencies components. Fractal image encoding based on establishing similarities between small block, ranges, and larger blocks, domains. The blocks similarities enabled the use of the iterative function systems which is the base of fractal encoding. Other blocking schemes could be found in [14-17]. Image Bit-plane is a bit pixel decomposition of an image matrix. Therefor a gray image of n-bit gray resolution contains n-planes. Least Significant Bit Planes, LSBP, contain less significant information compared Most Significant Bit Planes, MSBP. Figure (1) shows the original versus the bit-planes for 8-bit boy and Lena pictures. The bit-planes was a rich topic for both enhancement and compression algorithms as plane-pixels contains only two values 0, and 1. So, The Run Length Encoding, arithmetic and progressive transition are used in bit-planes taking the advantages of binary and similarities of adjacent bits within the same plane [18-20]. International Journal of Academic Engineering Research (IJAER) ISSN: 2000-001X Vol. 2 Issue 10, October – 2018, Pages: 19-27 www.ijeais.org/ijaer 20 Figure (1) Lena, pepper original and bit-planes for 8-bit gray In this paper, a lossy version of former proposed exact compression/decompression algorithm based on successive block test then encode or divide process is proposed. The algorithm uses two-bit structural encoding together with residual block storage. The encoding is two phases. In the first phase three codes are used and in the second phase third code is consumed in an adaptive run length encoding, for more optimization. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: The proposed basic encoding/decoding is described in section 2. Tests, results and discussion are in section 3. Section 4 is the study conclusion. 2. THE PROPOSED ENCODING/DECODING ALGORITHMS The proposed algorithm is a lossy version of a former proposed exact encoding/decoding algorithm [21]. The exact encoding and decoding algorithm are in appendix A, and B consequently. The modification is limited to the encoding process. So, the decoding process is the same for both exact and lossy. The change to the encoding is in the consideration of block all zeros and block all one. The consideration is eased from all one's and all zero's to above certain percent. Planes contributes differently to picture energy, figure (1). Consequently, percent's considered to vary from a plane to another. That is, for a given square block of size, SB with non-null count (BNNC) and block one's count (B1C) the block is considers all zeros only if: - ,0BNNC and p iBNNC CBBNNC   )1( (1) Also, a block is considered all one's only if: - ,0BNNC and p iBNNC CB  )1( (2) ip is plane allowance percent. That is, in the lossy version encoding algorithm the switch case check all zeros' refers to equation (1). Similarly, check of all one's refers to equation (2). Table (1) shows how much of accepted different bits for different block sizes on different percent's. Corollary(1): The allowance percent ip of 0.5 at a plane will lead to the plane encoded as only two-bit either 00' or 11'. That comes from the fact that a plane either one code is more than the second, or equal to. In both cases it will be considered unary code block. Consequently, RBS will be null. Corollary(2): The percent 0.5< ip <0.75 at a plane implies that the RBS nibbles will contain only the hex codes {3,5,6,9,A,C}. In the encoding process, blocks coded or split process until 2x2 size. At this size with that percent range one bit is allowed to have different value for block to be encoded as unary-code block. So, residual will be the case of codes equal counts. Table (1): Accepted different codes for a block size per percent 2x2 4x4 8x8 16x16 32x32 64x64 132x132 256x256 97% 0 0 1 5 20 81 327 1310 94% 0 0 3 12 51 204 819 3276 91% 0 1 5 20 81 327 1310 5242 88% 0 1 7 28 112 450 1802 7208 85% 0 2 8 35 143 573 2293 9175 82% 0 2 10 43 174 696 2785 11141 79% 0 3 12 51 204 819 3276 13107 76% 0 3 14 58 235 942 3768 15073 73% 1 4 16 66 266 1064 4259 17039 70% 1 4 18 74 296 1187 4751 19005 67% 1 5 20 81 327 1310 5242 20971 64% 1 5 22 89 358 1433 5734 22937 61% 1 6 24 97 389 1556 6225 24903 58% 1 6 26 104 419 1679 6717 26869 55% 1 7 28 112 450 1802 7208 28835 52% 1 7 30 120 481 1925 7700 30801 3. EXPERIMINTAL RESULTS AND DISCSSION The used test set of images is the same as of [21], aerial, cameraman, woman-house, Barbara, Lena, and house, Figure (2). The colored ones changed to gray using Matlab' rgb2gray' function as the performance noted to be same for both colored and gray. The percent array in our experiments International Journal of Academic Engineering Research (IJAER) ISSN: 2000-001X Vol. 2 Issue 10, October – 2018, Pages: 19-27 www.ijeais.org/ijaer 21 was based on the fact that loss on the higher planes implies great loss in image power. The outer high planes, 7 and 6, assigned high and equal percent's. Considering the implications of Corollaries(1,2), other plane i percent is set in accordance with the rule ip = max( 2 1ip ,0.52). Figure (3) shows the ease percent for planes of our experiments. The highest planes percent's varied from 0.99 to 0.80 with 0.005 decrease step. Assuming ),( yxf is original image matrix of size , MN, are the matrix dimension, maxq is the peak gray, and ),( yxfp is decoded image matrix. Then, the used metrics in our study are: Compression Ratio, sizeimageencoded sizeimageoriginal CR    Mean Square Error, MN yxfpyxf MSE y x * )),(),(( 2    Normalized Root Mean Square Error,     y x y x yxf yxfpyxf NRMSE 2 2 )),(( )),(),(( Peak Signal to Noise Ratio dbMSEqPSNR )/)((log10 2max10 Aerial Cameraman Woman-House Lena House Barbara Figure (2) set of images used in the study Figure (3) Experiments ease percent per planes. The former setup made up 39 experiments done on the six test set images mentioned before. The results are summarized in figures (4) and (5). The figures are the compression ratio against NRMSE, and PSNR. The overall shows house was the best and the aerial the worst. The rest four performance is between the two. The overall performance is comparable with reported in [22-24]. International Journal of Academic Engineering Research (IJAER) ISSN: 2000-001X Vol. 2 Issue 10, October – 2018, Pages: 19-27 www.ijeais.org/ijaer 22 Figure (4) compression ratio against NRMSE Figure (5) Compression ratio against PSNR For more focus on the performance figure (6) presents the first seven experiments on each of the test set images. Table (2) presents numerically the corresponding compression ratios. The compression ratios compared to the visual noted distortion is also comparable to recent researches [16] [23]. There is no blocking problem or areas of severe distortion could be noted. The nature of noise looks to be within the reach of filters. Moreover, filters could be designed to partially remove the noise. Figure (6) Decoded images for the first 7 experiments International Journal of Academic Engineering Research (IJAER) ISSN: 2000-001X Vol. 2 Issue 10, October – 2018, Pages: 19-27 www.ijeais.org/ijaer 23 Table (2) Compression Ratio's associated with figure (6) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Aerial 1.672 1.892 2.171 2.347 2.573 3.009 3.154 CameraMan 2.600 3.153 3.902 4.451 4.981 6.085 6.700 Woman's House 2.569 3.058 3.681 4.064 4.522 5.443 5.858 Barbara 1.987 2.298 2.714 2.983 3.297 3.894 4.129 Lena 2.061 2.415 2.891 3.195 3.566 4.248 4.585 House 2.910 3.598 4.626 5.657 6.776 8.742 9.807 For more clarification to the performance, compression ratios more or equal to (3,5,10,15,20) are selected and the decoded images are in figure (7). The images degradation for even the 20+ is relatively low. There are no significant blocking effects on the recalled images. The results are comparable to the reported in [22-24]. Figure (7) decoded images at compression ratios more than (3,5,10,15,20) To sum up the results in numerical form for the 39 by 6 experiments, the two extreme perfomance cases were selected and one of the average performnce are displayed in Table (3). The table show that a significant compression ratios could be reached with comparable NRMSE. Also, there are many cases where there is a significant increase in compression ratios while insegnifcant changes in images degradation. Keeping in mind that the algorithm does not include neither transformation nor multiple iterations that International Journal of Academic Engineering Research (IJAER) ISSN: 2000-001X Vol. 2 Issue 10, October – 2018, Pages: 19-27 www.ijeais.org/ijaer 24 makes it comparable and appealing compared to others. Discussion The presented algorithm offers a lossy compression technique with significant features compared to others. The algorithm performance is comparable to others. The algorithm is of minor differential to the exact version. In fact, the exact is a special case if the percent vector is set to 100%. All the image properties positively affect compression ratio discussed in [21] applies since the core algorithm is the same. Also, preprocessing with low pass filters positively adds to algorithm performance Table 1: Compression ratio NRMSE for Worest, Best, and Average Aerial House Camera Man CR NRMSE CR NRMSE CR NRMSE 1.6728 0.0304 2.910609 0.020399 2.600351 0.02498 1.8922 0.0455 3.597839 0.031459 3.153668 0.029818 2.1716 0.0741 4.626655 0.042435 3.902665 0.036539 2.3477 0.0818 5.656909 0.044654 4.451493 0.043716 2.5736 0.0862 6.776373 0.053694 4.981358 0.055194 3.0090 0.0973 8.741921 0.064381 6.084980 0.066724 3.1549 0.1016 9.807658 0.068514 6.700679 0.073272 3.2454 0.1255 10.60624 0.079719 7.062354 0.075402 3.6107 0.1340 11.10826 0.079535 8.047274 0.08861 3.9924 0.1467 11.97551 0.090987 9.327474 0.09604 4.1626 0.1525 12.43567 0.097699 9.715153 0.10329 5.2331 0.2098 15.134461 0.100695 12.41359 0.11142 5.3096 0.2116 16.774532 0.115704 13.10982 0.11634 5.4645 0.2168 19.130409 0.132555 13.58012 0.11977 5.8733 0.2188 19.667191 0.134330 14.54012 0.12450 6.0075 0.2239 21.39776 0.138675 14.94081 0.12713 6.2881 0.2439 22.238 0.142236 16.3467 0.14284 7.2050 0.2483 24.9233 0.143216 19.0907 0.18284 7.3697 0.2498 26.5032 0.143577 22.27127 0.20088 7.7786 0.2503 27.073 0.14317 22.77631 0.2091 8.3605 0.2526 30.333 0.169856 26.2039 0.2168 8.8570 0.2755 30.88 0.17039 26.41914 0.21689 9.0809 0.2851 34.551 0.198642 27.42235 0.21492 12.1069 0.2941 41.7626 0.2035 43.902 0.2657 12.3688 0.2990 42.8164 0.20317 47.4468 0.26891 12.6646 0.2993 44.326 0.20919 49.7379 0.27094 12.8499 0.3049 44.326 0.209199 51.73554 0.273481 13.6313 0.3074 46.1034 0.210977 65.40518 0.277392 14.2408 0.3075 47.15244 0.211869 69.06705 0.278211 14.5333 0.3049 47.26295 0.211979 72.70669 0.27795 19.6916 0.4790 58.15084 0.201913 91.98035 0.282861 20.0761 0.4736 58.7174 0.202904 96.00585 0.284234 20.2131 0.4736 60.92121 0.205302 98.08942 0.285546 21.3681 0.4724 67.47593 0.208756 104.5856 0.286996 23.0913 0.4721 69.27695 0.210641 106.1526 0.287084 23.3942 0.4724 70.364783 0.213492 108.18984 0.289048 28.5544 0.4736 90.974839 0.2210526 121.50359 0.290525 29.7232 0.4732 90.974839 0.2210526 137.42804 0.293213 31.5115 0.4584 115.0258 0.2216756 266.00101 0.299966 More complex adaption could be considered such as dropping RBS for equal code cases. In this case, the neighbor blocks could be used heuristically to infer the codes position. Also, successive plane encoding could consider more detailed process. Such as, while encoding planes in sequence starting from the MSBP and for block B in plane i there could be bits that known it will be recovered different. The difference could be 0 recovered as 1 or the opposite. Case of 0 recovered as 1 set all corresponding bits of planes i-1 to 0 to zero and vice versa. This raises the probability of having significant distortion and will enhance the apparent patches that exist in the recovered images Figure (7). Also, considering more detailed percent vector that allows per block size per plane percent could reduce the apparent patches. These changes and others could be the considered in further studies since it requires more investigation and specifications. 4. CONCLUSION A block based lossy image compression is proposed. The proposed algorithm is generalization to former presented algorithm. The generalization is easing the cases of blocks consideration as unary-coded. The algorithm was tested against six well known gray 256 level images. The easing percent used is plane dependent. That is, ease percent array of size equal to the image number of bit-planes. The tests used variety of easing percent to allow range of compression ratios. The performance of the algorithm found to be comparable with others. REFERENCES [1] Tinku Acharya and Ajoy K. Ray, Image Processing: Principles and applications, Wiley-Interscience, 2005 [2] V.P. Baligar, L.M. Patnaik, G.R. Nagabhushana, High compression and low order linear predictor for lossless coding of grayscale images, Image Vis. Comput. 21 (6),2003. [3] D. Salomon, Data Compression: The Complete Reference, third ed., Springer, New York, 2004. [4] D. Salomon, A Guide to Data Compression Methods, Springer, NewYork, 2002. [5] Sonal, Dinesh Kumar, A study of various image compression techniques, Annual Conference on Learning Theory, COLT 2007, San Diego, CA, USA, June 13-15, 2007 [6] Jens-Rainer Ohm, Gary J. Sullivan, and Heiko Schwarz Comparison of the Coding Efficiency of Video Coding Standards-Including High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC)', IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology (Volume: 22, Issue: 12, Dec. 2012), pages 1669 1684 [7] A.J. Hussain, Ali Al-Fayadh, and Naeem Radic, Image compression techniques: A survey in lossless and lossy algorithms, Neurocomputing, volume 300 26 July 2018, Pages 44-69 [8] Rafael Gonzalez, Richard Woods, Digital Image Processing 3 rd edition, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. [9] Tzu-Chuen Lu and Ching-Yun Chang, A Survey of VQ Codebook generation, Journal of Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing, Volume 1, Number 3, July 2010. International Journal of Academic Engineering Research (IJAER) ISSN: 2000-001X Vol. 2 Issue 10, October – 2018, Pages: 19-27 www.ijeais.org/ijaer 25 [10] ABDELATIEF. H ABOUALI,‖ OBJECT-BASED VQ FOR IMAGE COMPRESSION ―, Ain Shams Engineering Journal, Vol. 6, Issue 1 (2015) pp. 211216 [11] A. H. Abou-Ali, S. M. Abd-El-Moetty, B. Earl Wells, ―RE-CONFIGURABLE HARDWARE BASED FRACTAL NEURAL PROCESSOR‖, The international conference on parallel processing, PDCS-2006, 2006, CA USA. [12] Priyadarshini K S, G S Sharvani, Prapulla S B, A SURVEY ON PARALLEL COMPUTING OF IMAGE COMPRESSION ALGORITHMS JPEG and Fractal Image Compression, International Conference on Computational Systems for Health & Sustainability(CSFHS) 17-18 April 2015 [13] A. Murat Tekalp, Digital Video Processing 2 nd , Prentice Hall NJ, USA 2015 [14] Mehwish Rehman, Muhammad Sharif and Mudassar Raza, Image Compression: A Survey, Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology Maxwell, 2014 [15]Surendar Chandra, and Windsor W. Hsu, Lossless Medical Image Compression in a Block-Based Storage System, march 2014 Data Compression Conference [16] Nanrun Zhouab, Aidi Zhanga, Fen Zhenga, and Lihua Gongac, Novel image compression–encryption hybrid algorithm based on key-controlled measurement matrix in compressive sensing, Optics & Laser Technology, volume 62 October 2014, Pages 152-160 [17] G. R. Jothilakshmi, R. J. Christilda, A. Raaza, Y. Sreenivasa Varma, V. Rajendran, "Extracting region of interest using distinct block processing method in sono-mammogram images", 2017 International Conference on Computer Communication and Signal Processing (ICCCSP), pp. 1-7, 2017. [18] P. Praveenkumar, L. Kala, R. Nisha, K. Thenmozhi, J. B. B. Rayappan, R. Amirtharajan, "Hungarian sculptured Discrete Gould transformed bit planes-a double puzzled image", 2015 International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI), pp. 1-4, 2015. [19] Ya-Pei Feng and Zhe-Ming Lu, an efficient hybrid feature for edge-preserving based on block truncation coding and tree-structured vector quantization with edge orientation classification of bit-planes, International Journal of Innovative Computing, Information and Control ICIC 2018 ISSN 1349-4198, Volume 14, Number 3, June 2018 [20] Jungrae Kim, Michael Sullivan, Esha Choukse, and Mattan Erez, Bit-plane compression: transforming data for better compression in many-core architectures, Proceeding ISCA '16 Proceedings of the 43rd International Symposium on Computer Architecture Pages 329-340 [21] Abdelatief H. Abouali,‖BITPLANES BLOCK BASED LOSSY IMAGE COMPRESSION‖, International Journal of Engineering and Information Systems (IJEAIS),Vol. 2 Issue 10, OCTOBER – 2018, Pages: XX-XX [22] Mehmet Utku, Gaurav Sharma, A. Murat Tekalp, ‖Gray-level-embedded lossless image compression‖ signal processing: image communication, Elsevier, volume 18, 2003, 443-454 [23] Ghadah Al-Khafaji, ―image compression based on quad-tree and polynomial ―, international Journal of computer applications, Volume 76 No. 3, August 2013. [24] Rajasekhar Reddy , Ravichandran KS, Venkatraman B, Suganya SD,‖ A new approach for the image compression to the medical images using PCASPIHT‖, Biomedical Research 2018; Special Issue: S481-S486 Dr. Abdellatief Hussien Abouali Received B.Sc. from the MTC computer engineering 1984 presidential Honored, Master degree from collage of engineering Cairo University in expert systems, and received Ph.D. the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) USA, Multi-class vector quantization for neural network design. Served in air force research in development till end of 2012, with many applied researches in areas of computers and computers based systems. Working for ElShrook Academy computer science department, Cairo, Egypt. Fields of interest image processing, neural networks, and machine learning [email protected] , phone :+201120647588 [email protected], [email protected] International Journal of Academic Engineering Research (IJAER) ISSN: 2000-001X Vol. 2 Issue 10, October – 2018, Pages: 19-27 www.ijeais.org/ijaer 26 APPENDIX A: Encoding Algorithm Assume that given a square (or squared, null expanded) image matrix I of pixel resolution NxN , nN 2 (or null expanded to closest size satisfies the condition) with q bit colors/grays. Therefore, the image contains q bit-planes ),.......,,( 110 qppp of size equal to .I Definitions:  Divide a square Block B of size 2m , m is divisible by 2, that starts at location sysx bb , as }4,3,2,1{),,,( BBBBSetblockproducethatbbmBDB sysx each of size 2/m and their start locations are )2/,2/(),2/,(),,2/(),,( mbmbmbbbmbbb sysxsysxsysxsysx  consequently.  For a block B: B1C and BNNC are the block 1's count and None Null Count consequently.  Block B is said to be all zeros if block B1C=zeros.  Block B is said to be all ones if B1C=BNNC.  Encoding process of block B of size m that starts at location sysx bb , as BENC(B, sysx bb , , m ) which output plane streams MBS and RBS. BENC (B, sysx bb , , m ) { If m=2 RBS=RBS+ row-scan (B) else {SWITCH (B1C (B), BNNC(B)) Case all zeros: MBS += '00' Case all ones: MBS +='11' Otherwise MBS +='01', m/2). , m/2bm/2,b, BENC(B4m/2), , m/2b,b, BENC(B3 m/2), , bm/2,b, BENC(B2m/2), , b,b, BENC(B1),,,,( sysxsysx sysxsysx  sysx bbmBDB If size ((RBS + MBS) >= plane size) {RBS=rowscan of the plane; MBS=NULL; Return;} } Where are the main bit-stream and residual bit-stream of the sub-block i, i € {1,2,3,4}, the four subblocks of the main block out of the DB() function. Basic Encoding(I) { MSB, RBS set to NULL for all planes. I 0p N 1p N 1qp N } Appendix B: Basic Decoding: The encoded file header contains original image resolution that yields the number of bit-planes and the original image size. The size is squared and expanded to satisfy the former condition. Then a stack is initialized to recover planes through the decode block DECODEB (MBS, RBS). DECODEB (MBS, RBS) { While (stack is not empty) { Popup , sysx bb , , m If Block intersection with original image matrix is ɸ then continue Read from MBS stream two bits into tb Case tb=00 set block to zeros Case tb=11 set bock to ones Case tb=01 If m==2 read from RBS four bits to set row wise block bits. else International Journal of Academic Engineering Research (IJAER) ISSN: 2000-001X Vol. 2 Issue 10, October – 2018, Pages: 19-27 www.ijeais.org/ijaer 27 m/2). , b,(bpush m/2), , bm/2,(bpush m/2), , m/2b,(bpush m/2), , m/2bm/2,(bpush ),,,,( sysxsysxsysx sysx  sysx bbmBDB } } The decode procedure has two binary streams MBS, RBS and is as following: - If MBS is NULL row bit-set from RBS else { N). , (0,0push stack DECODEB (MBS, RBS). }

ENACTIVE VISION (for L. Shapiro, ed. ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF EMBODIED COGNITION Erik Myin University of Antwerp, Department of Philosophy, Centre for Philosophical Psychology & Jan Degenaar University of Antwerp, Department of Philosophy, Centre for Philosophical Psychology, and University Paris Descartes, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception 1. Enactivism and the sensorimotor account Enactivism, ever since its first formulation by Varela, Thompson and Rosch, has always laid great emphasis on organism/environment interactions as the proper framework for studying cognition. Minds have to be understood as ―enacted‖ by situationally embedded living organisms. By proposing this approach to minds, enactivists have explicitly opposed themselves to cognitivists, who take representation as their central posit (Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991). Thus, it is claimed that cognition is, rather than representation of the world, ―the enactment of a world and a mind on the basis of a history of the variety of actions that a being in the world performs‖ (Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991: 9; see also Thompson 2007). True to the enactivist motto that ―a path is laid down in walking,‖ the role of internally stored rules and representations in accounting for cognition is thus replaced by an embodied history of interactions. By taking up this position, enactivism reveals itself as committed to a strong notion of embodiment. Such a concept has to be distinguished from other senses of embodiment. One way to use ―embodiment‖ is to emphasize the role of the particular properties of the body in shaping our cognitive capacities. Thus, to give a rather trite example, it could be argued that having ten fingers lies at the basis of the decimal system, so that even mathematics has a basis in the body. Such a use of the notion of embodiment is in no way incompatible with a traditional cognitive science approach, in which computations and internal representations are assigned a key role for explaining our cognitive capacities. In particular, one could conceive of the specifics of the body as constraining the form or content of our representations or computations. In the sense of ―embodied‖ at stake here, ―embodied‖ is used in contrast with ―representational,‖ such that saying that some capacity is embodied is to deny that it involves internal representations. One could argue, for example, that people embody the rules of their native language, in the sense that the rules are manifest, and only manifest in their utterances, or other practical dealings with language. The structure of language then is implicit in the 2 practices; it is spread out in time, not represented anywhere. Of course, one could not embody rules without having a body engaged in the relevant, rule manifesting, activities, but the emphasis here lies not on the specifics of that body, but on what could be called the primacy of embodiment over representation. We will take enactivism as stating that cognition is embodied in this strong, or ―radical‖ sense (Chemero 2009, Hutto & Myin 2013). In the domain of perception, enactivism has become associated with the so called sensorimotor contingency approach presented in O'Regan and Noë (2001). Vision, according to the sensorimotor approach ―is something we do, rather than something that happens in us‖ (O'Regan & Noë 2001). The approach rejects the view on vision as aimed at producing ―faithful metric-preserving replica of the outside world inside the head‖ (O'Regan 1992). Instead, seeing is conceived of as an ―exploratory activity,‖ ―attuned to‖ sensorimotor contingencies, or ways in which sensory stimulation changes with movement-such as when a retinal image changes when one walks around an object. Seeing a scene or an object is, in the sensorimotor approach, comparable to feeling a surface or object, where the experience is of the whole surface or object, despite the fact that momentary tactile stimulation is limited to the fingertips making contact only at particular places. Sensorimotor theorists have argued that the idea that vision should be understood as temporally extended interaction is supported by the insights it provides into the nature and character of perceptual experiences. According to the sensorimotor approach, perceptual experiences owe their identity to the patterns of sensorimotor contingencies typical of the kinds of organism/environment interactions those experiences normally arise in. For example, tactile feelings of hardness or softness are determined by particular patterns of experiences one has when engaging in such activities as squishing a sponge or pushing a brick wall. Similarly, that expertiences of seeing differ as a class from experiences of hearing is due, according to the sensorimotor theory, to patterns of sensorimotor contingencies specific to vision and audition, such as that in seeing, but not in hearing, stimulation from a particular source stops when one turns one's head sideways, or closes one's eyes. The crucial role played by patterns of sensorimotor contingency in shaping perceptual experience has been seen as supported by findings on adaptation to distorting or inverting glasses, as well as findings of experiments with sensory substitution devices (Hurley & Noë 2003; Noë 2004; O'Regan 2011). For it seems that experiential change here follows on the heels of adaptation to patterns of sensorimotor contingencies. The sensorimotor approach has been met with strong opposition and criticism, often formulated as criticism of enactivist approaches to perception generally (e.g. Block 2005; Prinz 2006, 2009). Critics of the sensorimotor approach have been puzzled, both by general claims about the role of sensorimotor contingies in shaping experience and by the appeal to phenomena such as sensory substitution and distorted vision. Some critics have reached the verdict that these phenomena support the sensorimotor approach in no way whatsoever. They have further held that the sensorimotor claims regarding the determination of experiential quality fly in the face of the simplest observations about experience in imagery, dreaming or paralysis, in which experience seems radically disconnected from any presently obtaining patterns of sensorimotor interaction. We will discuss the sensorimotor approach in the light of the broader enactivism as sketched above. We shall argue that spelling out the sensorimotor theory along enactivist lines, replacing representation by attunement due to a history of interactions, allows for a truly 3 distinctive sensorimotor approach. This enactive sensorimotor approach is in perfect harmony with evidence about core phenomena such as vision with inverting glasses and sensory substitution. Moreover, an enactive sensorimotor approach allows for the accommodation of experiences such as in dreaming and perceptual imagery. 2. Enactive sensorimotor vision Let us first return to the sensorimotor contingency account, as presented in O'Regan and Noë (2001). ―Vision,‖ it was said there, is ―a mode of exploration of the world, mediated by knowledge of (...) sensorimotor contingencies‖ (p. 940), the latter being characterized as ―the structure of the rules governing the sensory changes produced by various motor actions‖ (p. 941). It was emphasized that the knowledge involved is ―implict,‖ leading to a view of perception as a ―skillful activity.‖ The sensorimotor approach was presented as being opposed to approaches based on the assumption ―that vision consists in the creation of an internal representation of the outside world whose activation somehow generates visual experience‖ (O'Regan & Noë 2001: 940). In order to get a firmer grip on the sensorimotor approach, it is helpful to look in some more detail at how the sensorimotor approach has been applied to a number of perceptual phenomena, in O'Regan and Noë (2001), and on later occasions (e.g. O'Regan 2011). As a first one of such, consider expanded vision. By ―expanded vision‖ is meant the kind of visual experience as when standing in front of a scene and overseeing it, looking at a large screen, or holding a book opened in one's hand and having the experience of seeing both pages. Expanded vision is characterized by the experienced spatial and temporal continuity of what is seen. Essentially, seeing a scene is having the feeling of being in roughly simultaneous visual contact with a certain extent of the world. Though expanded vision comes very naturally to us, certain by now well-known facts seem to stand in the way of a straightforward explanation of it. One relevant fact is that subjects are not continuously accessing the whole scene in the same high-quality way, due to such factors as differences in the spatial distribution of receptors in the retina, and the presence of the blind spot (O'Regan 1992, 2011). The absence of homogenous simultaneous access is further highlighted by results from studies on change blindness and inattentional blindness, for they show that large changes in a scene can go unnoticed, for example when other changes are particularly conspicuous. One way to explain expanded vision in the face of these facts it to relegate the homogeneity to something like the ―internal representation of the outside world‖ (reiterating O'Regan & Noë 2001). An inhomogeneous and gappy retinal image would be ―filled in‖ to produce a homogenous complete representation, to which or through which simultaneous access would still be possible. The sensorimotor approach denies the need for such an inner simulacrum of temporal or spatial continuity. Instead it accounts for continuity in terms of sensorimotor regularities. One should not be misled by the fact of instantaneous access: perceivers have high quality momentary access to only limited parts of the scene, while momentary access to other parts of the scene is of low quality. What is crucial, according to the sensorimotor approach, is that perceivers are set up to react to sudden changes in visual characteristics, so that, normally, 4 any such significant change will not go unnoticed, but will lead the perceiver to focus on it. The trick to a successful change blindness experiment is to tamper with this ―grabbiness‖ or ―alerting capacity‖ (O'Regan, Myin & Noë 2005) of environmental changes, by introducing an even larger visual alteration such as a blank screen between two pictures of a scene before and after changes. Seeing the scene in an expanded way, then, is not the consequence of an expanded representation, but of one's capacity to interact with the scene. Next, consider seeing an object. Sensorimotor theorists, following Donald MacKay, have compared the visual experience in object vision to the tactile experience of holding a bottle. The actual tactile contact with the bottle is only limited to where the fingers touch the bottle. Nevertheless, the experience is of a bottle, and not of disconnected bits of hard material. Again, one could invoke a homogenous representation to account for the experience of the whole object. Again the sensorimotor approach prefers an account in terms of being ―attuned‖ to a sensorimotor pattern (O'Regan & Noë 2001). The experience of feeling the whole bottle is then explained by the fact that one is attuned to the changes in stimulation that will occur when one makes certain movements. No representation needs to mediate, underlie or be causally involved in such a state of attunement. The same is claimed for seeing an object. To perceive a 3-D object currently seen only from one side as a 3-D object, one then does not need a representation: it suffices that one is attuned to the kinds of changes in stimulation that will result when either the object moves or when one moves with respect to it. Thirdly, take seeing a color. It is a well-known fact, named ―approximate color constancy,‖ that we more or less see the colors surfaces actually have, even if the stimulus that reaches the eye is a product of both the surface's color and the contingent current illumination. Color experience is not a response to the local light as it currently reaches you; it is sensitive to a permanent surface property. A fundamental challenge for color science is to explain how this can happen. An enactive sensorimotor approach to color experience, in line with the accounts of expanded vision and object vision above, hooks on to the temporal extendedness of color perception (Broackes 1992; Noë 2004; O'Regan 2011). The permanent property of color is identified with a reflectance profile: the way the surface reflects light under different lighting conditions. One can find out about the reflectance profile property by moving the colored object around or by observing surfaces under changing lighting conditions. Over time, one becomes sensitive to the underlying reflectance profile of a surface on the basis of minimal cues. Just as one can recognize a familiar person from a glimpse, one can recognize a reflectance profile on the basis of the behavior of the surface in a minimal set of lighting conditions. Such a minimal set, moreover, is almost always available, as it exists when different nearby objects reflect differently on a surface (Ruppertsberg & Bloj 2007). In short, being capable of seeing colors then consists of being attuned to reflectance profiles, or to the changes in stimulation one would receive under various circumstances (see Phillipona & O'Regan 2006). This way of looking at color illustrates the overall sensorimotor take on the qualitative character of perceptual experience. The sensorimotor approach claims that both the character of sensory qualities within a modality, such as the difference between softness and hardness, as well as differences between the character of modalities as a whole, are determined by differences in classes of sensorimotor contingencies typical of perceptual interactions. The experiential quality of softness differs from the quality of hardness, because of the different effects of pressing or squeezing. Similary, touch differs from vision, among other things because tactile, but not visual experience of an object comes to an end when immediate bodily contact is lost. 5 In the different cases of application of the sensorimotor approach surveyed in the above, the notion of ―being attuned to sensorimotor contingencies‖ has played a prominent role. This raises questions about its precise meaning. What does it mean that a person is attuned to the sensorimotor contingencies of ―red‖ or ―softness‖? A way of answering that question offered in O'Regan and Noë (2001) appeals to the exercise of the ―mastery‖ or ―knowledge‖ of sensorimotor contingencies, building on the already mentioned characterization of ―vision as exploratory activity mediated by knowledge of sensorimotor contingencies.‖ A problem with an appeal to knowledge is that it allows a representational interpretation, while the representationalist framework was resisted in the context of inner simulacra accounting for expanded vision. On such an interpretation, having knowledge about sensorimotor contingencies involves representing those sensorimotor contingencies. Perhaps the specification, in O'Regan & Noë (2001) and elsewhere, that the knowledge is meant to be ―implicit,‖ is aimed at excluding such an interpretation in favor of an approach based on practical know-how, or skills. However, as pointed out by Daniel Hutto, insisting that knowledge is meant to be ―implicit‖ is not compatible with supposing that the knowledge plays a ―mediating‖ role (Hutto 2005). An appeal to mediating knowledge would imply commitment to an intermediating representational stage. Consistency with the initial nonrepresentationalism of the sensorimotor approach can be regained by conceiving of ―attunement to sensorimotor contingencies‖ as embodied in the strong sense mentioned at the beginning of this entry. Attunement to sensorimotor contingencies then means that an organism has acquired, on the basis of a history of interactions, a sensitivity in its perception and action for the ways stimuli change with movement. In line with the strong notion of embodiment, the development of perceptual attunement is not conceived of in representationalist terms: the past is not playing its role in the present as represented past – as mediated by representations of the past. Enactivists relying on the strong notion of embodiment will insist that what a history of attunement has yielded is just that: attunement. Of course, attunement is attunement to certain external conditions. Call this the external aspect of attunement. Moreover, attunement is impossible without changed conditions in the organism. Call this the internal aspect of attunement. The mere existence of external and internal aspects of attunement do not necessitate representational descriptions, however. It is not because an organism has become attuned to certain circumstances that it represents those circumstances by some internal means. This is obvious in noncognitive evolutionary adaptations: a bird's wings partially constitute the bird's internal conditions for moving appropriately in an aerial environment, but this does not imply that the bird or its wings represent these external conditions. Analogously, in the cognitive case, there is no logical need to describe the internal conditions that mediate cognitive attunements as representing the external circumstances of attunement. The upshot is that, once the strong notion of embodiment is adhered to, a historical or developmental aspect comes to the fore, in a nonrepresentationalist shape. Representationalists cannot deny a role for an organism's history, but they may insist that an occurrent representation of the past needs to stand in for the real past, if the past is to yields an influence now. An enactive sensorimotor approach-that is, one defining attunement in the strong sense of embodiment-denies that the changes laid down in an organism's history need to be representational. Without being representational, these changes can still retain their causal powers and allow for a bridge between the past and the present. 6 The enactive sensorimotor approach thus has the advantage of offering a reading of ―attunement to sensorimotor contingencies‖ which is consistent with the antirepresentationalism present in the sensorimotor analysis of expanded vision, object vision, and the experience of properties such as softness or color. 3. Attunement in action How does the enactive sensorimotor position relate to evidence to which sensorimotor theorists have appealed, in particular findings about adaptation to distorting glasses or about sensory substitution? Critics of the sensorimotor approach to perception and perceptual awareness have challenged it on this front, claiming that neither findings about distorting glasses or about sensory substitution confirm the sensorimotor approach (Block 2005; Prinz 2006; Klein 2007). By means of lenses or prisms, the light entering the eyes can be inverted in a left-right and/or an above-below dimension. This introduces systematic changes in the perceiver's visual sensorimotor interaction with the environment. It has been reported that after extensive wearing of inverting glasses (within 6-10 days), visual abilities can be re-acquired and one may once again learn to see where things are (e.g. Stratton 1896, 1897; Taylor 1962; Kohler 1964; Dolezal 1982; but see for example Linden et al. 1999 for negative findings). A phenomenon consistently reported throughout the literature is that, on first wearing inverting glasses, the stability of visual experience breaks down with head movements, as if the scene moves in front of one's eyes. This confirms that visual experience depends on sensorimotor contingencies, or on the relation between sensory stimulation and bodily movement (Taylor 1962), and not on sensory stimulation alone. For since sensory stimulation is only spatially inverted, dependence on sensory stimulation only predicts inverted, but not unstable experience. Over the days, free-moving subjects adapt to the new situation and movement of the head no longer disrupts visual stability. The subject has become attuned to the novel sensorimotor contingencies, so that environmental movements lead to a distinctively visual experience of movement of the scene, while movement of the perceiver's own point or direction of view does not. The crucial role of sensorimotor contingencies is further evidenced by the finding that, when studies use a chin rest to avoid head movement, adaptation is very restricted. Indeed, it seems that only adaptation of proprioceptive experiences-and no adaptation of visual experience- takes place in studies in which subjects perform actions when head movements are thus avoided (for some examples see Harris 1965). We can make sense of this by distinguishing kinds of sensorimotor contingency, such as those related to exploratory activities such as looking from performatory activities such as grasping (Gibson 1964): genuinely visual adaptation to wearing inverting glasses depends strongly on active visual exploration. It is also clear that the distortion brought about by glasses affects different kinds of sensorimotor contingencies differently. Since the early reports of Stratton (1896, 1897), the focus of analysis in inversion studies has often been on the altered relation between vision on the one hand, and touch or bodily experiences on the other. However, inverting glasses introduce a conflict within spatial vision itself (Degenaar 2013). Head movements and eye movements involve different patterns of sensorimotor contingencies, some of which are changed and some of which remain unaffected under the distortion. A subject wearing the 7 glasses has to adapt to the altered patterns, while leaving the existing attunement to the unaltered patterns intact. Instead of leading to a prediction of a complete ―inversion of experience‖ (Klein 2007), a sensorimotor position thus leads to the expectation that experience, while certainly changing in systematic ways, will also retain continuities with experience before the goggles were put on. Sensorimotor theorists have emphasized that the sensorimotor view of vision as a set of sensorimotor capacities naturally allows for partial adaptation, and have pointed to such observations as that wearers of distorting goggles might have learned to see the positions of moving cars correctly, while still seeing the license plates as in a mirror (O'Regan & Noë 2001; O'Regan 2011). Partial adaptation challenges the idea that vision is based on a unitary image or representation in the brain. It is thinking of vision in this distinctively nonsensorimotor way which leads to an expectation of ―re-inversion‖ of experience. The contrast between this way of thinking and a sensorimotor approach becomes even stronger when the latter is of the enactivist variety, for an enactivist sensorimotor approach is more fully, or at least more explicitly, nonrepresentational. Sensory substitution devices enable a new mode of interaction with the environment, for example by transforming an image recorded by a camera into a pattern of tactile stimulation on the subject's skin (e.g. Bach-y-Rita 1984) or into a pattern of auditory stimulation (e.g. Auvray et al. 2005; Auvray, Hanneton & O'Regan 2007). It has been found that after practice with such tactile-to-visual or tactile-to-auditory substitution devices, in some cases blind or blindfolded subjects report the experience of objects in distal space, and describe vision-like experiences such as that objects increase in apparent size on approach. Following a training period, persons using a sensory substitution device have been found to acquire such capacities as involved in locomotor guidance, object localization, and object categorization (see Auvray & Myin 2009 for further information and pointers to the literature). As in the adaptation to inverting glasses, active exploration is required here: subjects must be able to control the camera in order to develop this kind of spatial experience (Bach-y-Rita 1984; Auvray et al. 2005). Sensorimotor theorists have referred to this adaptation as evidence for the approach, because it shows the pivotal role of sensorimotor contingencies in visual behavior and attunement. If a set of sensorimotor contingencies-such as those concerning change in size upon approach or retreat-are transferred from vision to touch then they seem to enable vision-like behavior and experience once the subject is attuned to the contingencies. It is this positive point which is key: that, despite the novel modality these contingencies become embedded in, strikingly, they are able to entrain behavioral and experiential change. Critics of the sensorimotor approach have always been keen to point out that many, or at least some, aspects of experience remain linked to the modality the sensorimotor patterns are transferred to (e.g. Block 2005; Prinz 2006, 2009). Such an objection to the sensorimotor approach disregards that the approach, just as was the case for inverting glasses, predicts a mixture of continuity and change in experience after having learned to perceive with a sensory substitution device. Sensory substitution devices add to the sensorimotor repertoire of the stimulated sense, without destroying the repertoire already present. Existing functionality-existing attunement to sensorimotor contingencies-remains in place. To the extent that aspects of the experiential character remain those of the old' modality, this can be explained by the persistent attunement to the old' sensorimotor contingencies. In other 8 words, the sensory modality a sensory substitution onto which the device is grafted, can show a level of ―tenacity‖ (Myin, Cooke & Zahidi, in press), or a lack of deference to the new sensorimotor context (Hurley & Noë 2003). 4. Derivative experience This nuanced sensorimotor perspective on inverting glasses and sensory substitution exemplifies how experience, at any moment, is a product of both the current stimulation and currently obtaining sensorimotor contingencies, and attunement due to a history of interactions. This basic tenet of the sensorimotor position allows it to meet an often formulated complaint that the sensorimotor approach cannot account for perceptual or perceptual-like experience under circumstances in which occurent sensorimotor interactions differ from those characteristic of the experience. The range of cases invoked by critics includes dreaming, visual imagery and the perceptual experiences of paralyzed people. Invoking these as counter-examples to the sensorimotor approach neglects the explanatory role played by the history of interactions. An appeal to this history of interactions, and the process of attunement it entrains, is essential in the sensorimotor account of all forms of perception. The fact that one feels the whole bottle on the basis of minimal sensory contact, precisely transcends one's currently occurring sensory stimulation because of one's previous exposure to the sensorimotor contingencies of touching and exploring bottles. Because of this history, one is familiar with, or attuned to, a general pattern of sensorimotor contingencies typical of bottles, characterized by such regularities as that one will encounter more hard stuff when one slides one's fingers to either side. Dreaming, visual imagery and experience in paralysis, then, are cases in which the explanatory balance tips more fully in the direction of past sensorimotor contingencies. What one experiences under such circumstances is dictated almost exclusively by one's attunement to previous interactive regularities, rather than by one's current stimulation. In the sense in which the character of experience in such circumstances is due to past, rather than to current interactions, such experience is derivative. The derivative status of experiences in dreaming, imagery or paralysis, far from revealing them as being distant from sensorimotor interactions, in fact shows them to be deeply entrenched in them. 5. Conclusion An enactive sensorimotor account can answer common criticisms, and it has been shown, for example by the investigations of Philipona and O'Regan (2006) on color, that the approach offers rich prospects for empirical expansion. Of course, there is need for further clarification and elaboration of the theoretical basis of the approach. Relevant steps are taken for example in the work of Buhrmann, Di Paolo and Barandiaran (2013) on the key concept of sensorimotor contingencies. The above makes clear that the sensorimotor approach, spelled out fully along enactivist lines, offers a strong, substantive and fruitful perspective on perception, for vision as well as for other modalities i . References 9 Auvray, M., Hanneton, S., Lenay, C., O'Regan, J.K. (2005) ―There is something out there: distal attribution in sensory substitution, twenty years later,‖ Journal of Integrative Neuroscience, 4 (4), pp. 505-521. Auvray, M., Hanneton, S., O'Regan, J.K. (2007) ―Learning to perceive with a visuo-auditory substitution system: localisation and object recognition with The vOICe',‖ Perception, 36, pp. 416-430. Auvray, M., Myin. E. (2009) ―From sensory substitution to sensorimotor extension,‖ Cognitive Science, 33(7), pp. 1036-1058. Bach-y-Rita, P. (1984) ―The relationship between motor processes and cognition in tactile vision substitution,‖ in Prinz, W., Sanders, A.F. (eds.) Cognition and Motor Processes, Berlin: Springer-Verlag, pp. 149-160. Block, N. (2005) ―Review of Alva Noë, Action in Perception,‖ Journal of Philosophy, 102, pp. 259–272. Broackes, J. (1992) ―The autonomy of colour,‖ in Charles, D., Lennon, K. (eds.) Reduction, Explanation, and Realism, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 421-465. Buhrmann, T., Di Paolo, E., Barandiaran, X. (2013) ―A dynamical systems account of sensorimotor contingencies,‖ Frontiers in Psychology, 4: 285. Chemero, A. (2009) Radical Embodied Cognitive Science, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Degenaar, J. (2013) ―Through the inverting glass: first-person observations on spatial vision and imagery,‖ Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences (in press). Dolezal, H. (1982) Living in a World Transformed: Perceptual and Performatory Adaptation to Visual Distortion, New York: Academic Press. Gibson, J.J. (1964) ―Introduction,‖ Psychological Issues, 3 (4), pp. 5-13. Harris, C.S. (1965) ―Perceptual adaptation to inverted, reversed, and displaced vision,‖ Psychological Review, 72 (6), pp. 419-444. Hurley, S.L., Noë, A. (2003) ―Neural plasticity and consciousness,‖ Biology and Philosophy, 18, pp. 131-168. Hutto, D.D. (2005) ―Knowing what? Radical versus conservative enactivism,‖ Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 4, pp. 389-405. Hutto, D.D., Myin, E. (2013) Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds Without Content, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kohler, I. (1964a) ―The formation and transformation of the perceptual world,‖ Psychological Issues, 3 (4), pp. 19-173. Linden, D.E.J., Kallenbach, U., Heinecke, A., Singer, W., Goebel, R. (1999) ―The myth of upright vision. A psychophysical and functional imaging study of adaptation to inverting spectacles,‖ Perception, 28, pp. 469-481. Myin, E., Cooke, E., Zahidi, K. (in press) ―Morphing senses,‖ in Matthen, M., Stokes, D., Perception and its Modalities, New York: Oxford University Press. Noë, A. (2004) Action in Perception, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. O'Regan, J.K. (1992) ―Solving the real' mysteries of visual perception: the world as an outside memory,‖ Canadian Journal of Psychology, 46(3), pp. 461-488. ----- (2011) Why Red Doesn't Sound Like a Bell: Understanding the Feel of Consciousness, New York: Oxford University Press. O'Regan, J.K., Myin, E., Noë, A. (2005) ―Sensory consciousness explained (better) in terms of corporality' and alerting capacity',‖ Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 44, pp. 369-387. O'Regan, J.K., Noë, A. (2001) ―A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness,‖ Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, pp. 939-973. 10 Philipona, D.L., O'Regan, J.K. (2006) ―Color naming, unique hues, and hue cancellation predicted from singularities in reflection properties,‖ Visual Neuroscience, 23, pp. 331339. Prinz, J. (2006) ―Putting the brakes on enactive perception,‖ Psyche, 12(1). ----- (2009) ―Is consciousness embodied?,‖ in Robbins, P., Aydede, M. (eds.) Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ruppertsberg, A.I., Bloj, M. (2007) ―Reflecting on a room of one reflectance,‖ Journal of Vision, 7 (13): 12, pp. 1-13. Stratton, G.M. (1896) ―Some preliminary experiments on vision without inversion of the retinal image,‖ The Psychological Review, 3, pp. 611-617. ----- (1897) ―Vision without inversion of the retinal image,‖ The Psychological Review, 4, pp. 341-360; 463-481. Taylor, J.G. (1962) The Behavioral Basis of Perception, New Haven: Yale University Press. Thompson, E. (2007) Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Varela, F.J., Thompson, E., Rosch, E. (1991) The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Further reading The sensorimotor approach to perception has been developed in somewhat different directions by Kevin O'Regan and Alva Noë, for example in the recent books Why Red Doesn't Sound Like a Bell: Understanding the Feel of Consciousness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011) by Kevin O'Regan, and Out of our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness (New York: Hill and Wang, 2009) by Alva Noë. Among other divergences, O'Regan's book offers more links to empirical research, while Noë's book tries to adavance a case for the idea that consciousness in not confined to the brain. Evan Thompson's Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007) has a chapter in which Thompson, one of the founders of enactivism, offers a sympathetic, but critical assessment of sensorimotor enactivism. Finally, Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin's Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds Without Content (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013) presents arguments for construing enactivism and the sensorimotor approach in a radical, representation or content-eschewing way. i The authors warmly thank Kevin O'Regan for his very useful comments on this text, and for continuing discussion relating to many of the topics dealt with here. For financial support we are grateful to the Research Foundation Flanders (project ―Computation reconsidered‖, G0B5312N), the Research Council of the University of Antwerp (project ―Imagery as Perceptual Activity‖), and the European Research Council (Kevin O'Regan's Advanced Grant ―FEEL‖, 323674).

/21/11 1 The New Pair by Ferdinand Fellmann The times when we considered separation from our partner as the height of autonomy are over. For younger people in urban areas, the freedom of being single still has its allure. But the exclusive relationship, either as a pair or even as a married pair, has regained its attraction. Obviously, the traditional roles, the economically dependent woman who stands by the side of the „strong man‟, no longer represent the pair bond. Both partners now have their own career and their own, often differing, political convictions; yet in the public realm they appear together and demonstrate their preference for being together. As the "couple-look" becomes a common component of society as shown by Barack Obama and Michelle, the perfect symbol of the New Pair, the following questions become increasingly urgent: What holds the New Pair together? Is the relationship merely a matter of convenience and can it be terminated at any time? What contribution does intimacy make to the pair bond when sexuality at the present time is treated by both genders as relatively uncomplicated and inconsequential? And finally, is the rehabilitation of the pair contingent on their desire to have children, which promises many young people a piece of authentic life in this cold risk-society? These questions are not merely relevant to psychology but are fundamental for philosophical anthropology. To understand human nature it is indispensable to look at the differences between sexes and the mating systems. Getting to the evolutionary bottom of these questions is a valuable endeavor because it shows that the pair is an integral component of the human world. It will never be obsolete, but must continually be re-programmed. Despite the introduction of marriage „for love‟ in Romanticism, the civil marriage remained, until the late 20th century, internally influenced from the division of labor and bound to the dominating sexual morals of the patriarchy. It is thus not surprising that marriage and family would be perceived as shackles with the progressive emancipation of woman and her newly found equality in the workplace. Since both partners now stand economically on their own feet and woman‟s self-confidence is no longer inferior to man‟s, the pair bond is relieved of external factors and can be experienced entirely as a site of affection. Whether or not home life is really so free and harmonic, as it appears outwardly, can be doubted. Daily 2 quarrels are all too familiar: each stands for the fulfillment of his or her own desires and intimacy is transformed into a matter of negotiation. However, despite all of the disadvantages, which could well be phenomena resulting from the transition itself, one thing is for sure: the New Pair stands for love that is for love‟s sake. Current external factors are still in play, but they do not constitute the deeper motivation for pair-bonding. This is due to the polarity of genders. Despite the widespread fear of inequality that leads many intellectuals to deny that differences between men and women exist, the difference makes the pair essential, at least as a permantent yearning. That most continue to yearn for the New Pair relationship, even after a painful separation, is empirical confirmation of the essential nature of the pair. In the sexual revolution of 1968, and in particular with the introduction of the birth control pill, sexuality migrated from marriage (where it often had a dreary, joyless existence) to free love. Sex without commitment or consequences, as it was celebrated by Erica Jong in her Fear of Flying, constituted the highest form of individual autonomy. But that was only for a short time. With the removal of taboos, sex became an article of consumption that could never bring about the satisfaction promised in the advertisement. It became increasingly clear to young men and women that new partners brought variety but no real emotional enrichment. These disillusioning experiences lead to a rehabilitation of the committed pair relationship. The New Pair moves far away from free love, yet without returning to the compulsory marriage of former times. Both partners have learned to act out their sexual needs and erotic desires within the committed relationship. The pair itself is, in no way, in shackles; contrarily, it is a stimulant for unanticipated satisfaction. Instead of repeating again and again the common rituals of fleeting encounters, the long-term relationship offers a space for an intensely experienced, multi-faceted sexuality. Curiosity and fear, desire and pain, and surprise and disappointment make up the ambivalence of normal sexuality, experienced by man and woman together in the pair. Each recognizes in the reflection of their partner previously unknown personality traits and feels confirmed in his or her own individuality. Personal identity, when formed from the decision to take a life partner, is a prerequisite for values such as fidelity and solidarity; these values paradoxically prove subversive in western open societies. These values immunize one against the repression of social structures and make one resistant to the seduction of the hidden 3 persuaders in the consumer marketplace. We have thus arrived in a time in which the New Pair has become a site of civil resistance. It sounds paradoxical: the pair-bond as the source of personal autonomy. This apparent contradiction is resolved if one takes into consideration that autonomy is more than mere moodiness and obstinacy. „My way‟ leads to an end only if it can be followed by someone else; if not, it leads to autistic solipsism. When a man and a woman interact intimately each partner feels good for being accepted in his or her entire individuality. And that is not all. To the polarity of the sexes belong more than two: the common child. Evolution has laid this in the genetic cradle of man and woman. This biological radical was not always present in the mind of modern man. During the sexual revolution of 1968, children were perceived as troublemakers. Not only by men, but also by women, both of them intent on discovering their own body as an erogenous zone. For the „new woman‟ the desire to have children signified her subjection to biology, which she had used every means possible to overcome. It is not surprising then that a Letter to an Unborn Child attained cult status for feminists. Despite the momentary win for feelings of self-worth that came from the sexual revolution, the desire for children cannot be suppressed in the longterm. And the alternative, to prove autonomy as a single mother, was also not ideal. The burdens of the fatherless child are too heavy, especially for the children of divorced parents. The way is again free for the return to the pair with children, where man and woman mutually realize their desire for a child. The common decision for a child is emotional and an enormous gain for both. The emancipated woman can connect sexuality and pregnancy and experience eroticism, and the man profits from this expansion of Eros, far beyond the act of conception. The father experiences the phases of the pregnancy and birth as part of himself and is now free to express his caring emotions, previously only entitled to the mother. This continues in the common raising of the child; the ideal of a generative sexuality between the parents appears to become a reality. What could be a more creative way of life than being in a loving pair with equal partners and experiencing a close connection with your children, in which everyone‟s needs are fulfilled? Obviously, the New Pair, as every other form of life, also has its dangers, and they should not be concealed. The intense emotionality, which also involves the children, can lead to the elimination of two important differences: the difference between man and woman and the difference 4 between parents and children. Empathy and mutual understanding strongly bind those involved together, but differences also have a social function that is all too often underestimated. As the polarity of the gender brings together the parents, the parental authority marks the limits which are necessary for the development of the child. It is thus detrimental for both sides if parents discuss their emotional needs too intimately with the children. A type of teddy-bear love emerges that leads to the adult‟s infantillization and the self over-estimation of the child. To avoid this, differences must be maintained and enacted. Without differences no society can develop the social dynamic needed in order to deal with the challenges of the times. Here, philosophical anthropology should remember that the modern denial of differences in nature robs humans of the very foundations of humanity. References Fellmann, Ferdinand. Das Paar. Eine erotische Rechtfertigung des Menschen. Berlin, 2005 (English Translation in progress) Fellmann, Ferdinand. "The Origin of Man Behind The Veil of Ignorance." Forthcoming in Biological Theory, The MIT Press 5:3,

UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT A NEW THINKING ABOUT GOD: FROM THE DASEIN TO THE DAGOTT Carlos Arboleda Mora* RESUMEN Este artículo trata de reformular las relaciones filosofía-teología rotas desde la Edad Media, mostrando cómo la crisis de la metafísica conceptual y representacionista y de la ontoteología tradicional, han permitido, con la ayuda de Dionisio y del neoplatonismo, repensar la ontología a través de la teología negativa y de una vía mística. Ya desde Heidgger se llega a ver la realidad como un don del cual la filosofía indicaría la posibilidad ontológica y la teología su realización efectiva. Así, el Dasein heideggeriano, ABSTRACT This article attempts to reformulate the broken philosophy-theology relationships since the Middle Ages, showing how the crisis of conceptual and representational metaphysics and traditional ontotheology have allowed, with the help of Dionysus Areopagite and the neo-Platonism, to rethink the ontology through negative theology and a mystical way. Since Heidgger the reality is seen as a gift from which the philosophy would indicate the ontological possibility, and the theology, his effective accomplishment. In this way, * Doctor en Filosofía de la UPB, Licenciado en ciencias sociales de la Universidad Gregoriana de Roma en 1980. Magister en Historia de la UNAL de Colombia. Profesor de la Universidad escritos / Medellín Colombia / Vol. 19, N. 42 / pp. 019-051 enero-junio 2011 / ISSN 0120 1263 20 superada la sombra del ego, podría ser Dagott, es decir, pura apertura a la donación de Dios. PALABRAS CLAVE Ontoteología, Dionisio Areopagita, Neoplatonismo, Dagott, Dasein, Filosofía de la religión. the heideggerian Dasein, once the shade of the ego is overcome, may be Dagott in other words, pure opening to the God's donation. KEY WORDS Onto theology, Dionysus Areopagite, NeoPlatonism , Dagott, Dasein, Religion s Philosophy. Introducción Una metafísica renovada es esencial para la teología actual, pues no se puede hoy hablar teológicamente si no hay una nueva forma de pensar, un nuevo camino que nos lleve al mostrarse del Ser o Incondicionado. La filosofía y la teología han de tender puentes entre ellas, pues las dos tienen como tema al hombre y sus resultados no pueden ser contradictorios ya que son "diferentes momentos de una pasión común, diferentes voces en una común canción" (Caputo 2006 69). La filosofía y la teología nacieron juntas y sólo cuando el hombre creyó que era potente y que podría alcanzar la felicidad solo, construyó su propio sistema en el que Dios sobraba y, por tanto, sobraba la teología. Pero también sobró la filosofía, pues el hombre era creador técnico y científico y no necesitaba de reflexiones inútiles e improductivas. Hoy se va viendo que la filosofía y la teología pueden marchar juntas y que lo que la primera propone como posibilidad, la segunda lo da como efectividad y realización. Bien se sabe que la filosofía y la teología más originarias se dan antes y en los presocráticos, cuando el logos era místico y no racional conceptual. Allí se vislumbró el misterio del ser que estaba presente desvelándose o que se desvelaba estando presente. El acceso al ser era celebrativo, místico, de plena unión con él. Orgiástico, si se quiere, pero real y lejano, sólo la celebración lo hacía presente, sin necesidad de ayudas conceptuales. La CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 21 verdad del ser se vivía y celebraba, no se conceptualizaba. Sus enseñanzas emanan de la experiencia original que no separa lo vivido y lo racional: El saber científico conoce al mundo como grupo de entes sujetos a manipulación; la ciencia se interpreta a sí misma como técnica racional al servicio del dominio sobre el mundo. La physis es un objeto más y la razón se reduce a razón instrumental. Heidegger se pregunta por la base de un saber que identifica su destino con la capacidad científica y técnica de dominar. En opinión de Heidegger, hay una pérdida de aquella arkhé que los Presocráticos consideraron fundamental: la diferencia entre el ser y el ente. La crítica es que ha habido un olvido de esa diferencia y haber concebido al ser como si fuera un ente más. Las condiciones que determinan trascendentalmente la única imagen que el hombre moderno puede tener del mundo y de sí mismo, expulsan de la realidad todo lo que no es cosa; a lo que corresponde necesariamente la valoración de la ciencia físico-matemática como saber total que garantiza la realización efectiva del dominio y la explotación universales (Pagallo 2005). La creencia occidental del progreso filosófico hizo que se pensara en la superación de los presocráticos y se volviera al concepto que retiene y contiene al Ser como una superación de los primitivos filósofos y teólogos. Pero en filosofía y teología no hay progreso como en las ciencias exactas, lo que hay es siempre una vuelta reflexiva sobre lo más originario del ser humano. Uno de los aciertos de Heidegger es haber replanteado el regreso a los orígenes como un volver al pensar original y plantear como tarea contemporánea, un pensamiento más original o nueva manera de pensar. Ese regreso lo hace Heidegger pensando en la angustia de una humanidad afectada por la cienciocracia moderna que olvida que los entes pueden salir a la luz porque la Luz es la que dispone el Lichtung (el claro) donde se manifiestan los entes; la ciencia, por el contrario, ilumina los entes y oscurece la humanidad del hombre, pues en su afán de dominio, se aleja de la Luz y oscurece el mundo. El hombre mismo es ese claro donde se da la manifestación más primaria y esencial del ser mismo y olvidar esto, es olvidar el ser mismo del hombre: ser el lugar donde se manifiesta el Ser. El análisis del hombre es, por tanto, obra de la filosofía UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 22 y de la teología, como el lugar de la manifestación y así el hombre viene a ser el centro, pues su razón de ser es la manifestación del Ser en él. Pero lo que para Heidegger es el Da-sein, el Ser ahí, para el teólogo es el DaGott, el Dios que ahí se manifiesta. Dios se manifiesta en el hombre, vive en el hombre, se da al hombre, es la razón de ser del hombre. Exagerando un poco, se puede decir que cuando muere un hombre, es Dios mismo el que muere allí. 1. La ontoteología y la idolización de Dios. La crisis provocada por los Maestros de la sospecha, retomada por Heidegger en su crítica a la metafísica occidental, hizo estremecer la cultura occidental, pues se pensó que era la última palabra en cuestiones de metafísica y de teología. La crítica filosófica llevada a cabo por ellos, hizo creer que la metafísica era cosa del pasado y que no había posibilidad de un pensamiento más allá de la ciencia y de la tecnología. Sólo era posible pensar en términos científicos, experimentales y sujetos a verificación y repetición. La teología, al tratar con realidades no demostrables en forma racional, se trataba de una invención ideológica. El fenómeno religioso podía deconstruirse, pues era mera ideología, neurosis, ansias de poder, proyección de las aspiraciones humanas, negocio burdo. Esta crítica fue tan demoledora que algunos filósofos y teólogos aceptaron sin más sus conclusiones. Así surgieron los filósofos faranduleros que repetían que la única tarea digna hoy era completar la crisis de la metafísica, luchar contra las religiones y vivir en las comodidades del sistema capitalista. Sólo quedaba el reino de Disney World. Los teólogos crearon una efímera pero rentable Teología de la muerte de Dios donde se enseñaba cómo vivir en un mundo sin Dios y en un universo secular y posteísta (aunque plantearon problemáticas que contribuyeron a la nueva forma de pensar a Dios). Era mejor vivir en una "esfera de la privacidad" con todas las comodidades tecnológicas y sin compromisos morales que implicaran una molestia a la calidad de vida moderna. Lo más central de dicha crítica, sin embargo, no eran esas posiciones burguesas sino la demolición de la metafísica CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 23 clásica por obra de los maestros de la sospecha en su enjuiciamiento de la conceptualización, de la representación y sus consecuencias en la metafísica teológica, dejando así sin piso todo fundamento de la teología y de la moral. Heidegger acepta y confirma dichas críticas al mostrar el olvido del Ser en la metafísica tradicional, pero afortunadamente hace una propuesta de una nueva manera de pensar que abrió un camino que hoy muchos filósofos empiezan a recorrer. Heidegger hace una crítica de la metafísica occidental por su explicación del ser y su concepto de verdad que se manifiestan en un olvido del Ser tal como se ve en la ciencia, la técnica y la reducción del arte a pura estética. Esta metafísica comienza en Platón a partir de la realidad de la idea del Bien como fundamento y continúa en Aristóteles, cristianos y modernos. Descartes, con la idea del sujeto y de la representación (autoconciencia del ser humano, cogito), inicia la época de la imagen del mundo donde el ser se encuentra en su imagen construida por la subjetividad. La idea de fundamentación logra su plenitud en Leibniz con el principio de razón suficiente. Sólo lo que es puesto en un representar fundamentado puede tener valor de ente. En Kant sólo puede ser cosa lo que pueda ser considerado así por el yo según las categorías trascendentales. Según éste, sólo hay realidad cognoscible dentro de la subjetividad y la fundamentación (juicios sintéticos a priori). El yo plenamente autoconsciente condicionará toda objetividad y se logrará el saber absoluto en el concepto hegeliano. En Nietzsche, tratando de ser antimetafísico, continúa la subjetividad como se ve en la voluntad de poder. La metafísica se deja distinguir en él de modo más claro, como la metafísica de la incondicionada subjetividad de la voluntad de dominio. El dominio actual lo ejercen la técnica y las ciencias contemporáneas que son la metafísica moderna. La metafísica tradicional continúa presente, según Heidegger, en toda ontología trascendente o cristiana, en las ideologías, en las filosofías de la vida, en la técnica y la ciencia. Las críticas de los maestros de la sospecha no eran definitivas o insuperables. Los grandes maestros de la sospecha no han eliminado a UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 24 Dios sino sus conceptualizaciones históricas y cristalizadas en términos de una época o cultura. Han ayudado a purificar la idea de Dios más que a certificar su muerte. Dios no ha muerto sino los conceptos sobre Dios que han elaborado las culturas. Lógicamente, la muerte de los conceptos ha conllevado la crisis de los grandes relatos que se afincaban sobre ellos y de las instituciones que los encarnaban, especialmente en Occidente. Los maestros de la sospecha atacaron los conceptos para construir una nueva forma interpretativa más saludable. Se trata de una deconstrucción de lo existente para expresar en una "crítica de la resistencia" lo que no marchaba más y allí proponer algo nuevo. Las críticas de los Maestros de la sospecha son críticas hechas dentro de la misma cultura. Propiamente no se alcanza a negar la posibilidad de Dios, sea lo que éste sea, sino las concretizaciones culturales de la idea de Dios. Son los grandes iconoclastas en cuanto testigos de la idolización de las religiones por la solidificación de sus símbolos. Cuando la conciencia de la instrumentalidad e historicidad de los símbolos se pierde, se instala en las culturas la convicción de la existencia objetiva de ciertos conceptos o imágenes, que son así objetivados o sustancializados. Es como un integrismo simbólico en filosofía y teología. Las religiones pudieron haber convertido los símbolos en metafísica inmutable, el status quo en principio perenne y amarraron la hermenéutica a una clave conceptual anclada en una época histórica. Los maestros de la sospecha derribaron los ídolos pero no el sentido ni la profundidad. En este campo les faltó radicalidad; o la intuyeron y no sacaron todas las consecuencias. Tal vez, llegar a la contemplación les cortó el aliento, pues era muy peligroso afirmar la posibilidad del sentido en un mundo en que reinaba la modernidad y en el que cualquier atisbo místico era considerado un regreso a la inmadurez o a la minoría de edad. El papel de la metafísica, en palabras heideggerianas, ha sido el establecimiento y el mantenimiento de un fundamento de los seres (Arboleda 2010). El ser como presencia plena, representada y definida CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 25 conceptualmente que fundamentaba toda vida y toda afirmación de los entes es el proyecto histórico de la metafísica occidental, pero en ese proyecto histórico se confunde la universalidad del ente con su particularidad. Desconoce así la diferencia ontológica y se olvida del ser. La metafísica es la época del olvido del Ser, olvidar la diferencia entre el Ser y el ente. No se despliega la diferencia ontológica o se piensa esta diferencia desde el concepto de participación y representación. Esta representación es la presencia, no como presencia del Ser sino como presencia del ser del ente. El Ser es conceptualizado como ser del ente y se olvida el Ser. El destino del Ser es el olvido del Ser que es ser el ser de los entes, constituir los entes, unificar y diferenciar los entes y simultáneamente ocultarse tras los entes ya constituidos. El olvido del Ser, el olvido de la diferencia ónticoontológica, impide y olvida indagar por la verdadera esencia del Ser. Así los filósofos se olvidaron del Ser y hablaron de los entes. El mismo Dios queda reducido a un ente, considerado dentro del horizonte de aparición del ser de los entes. Un ser atemporal y ahistórico que se da de una vez y para siempre, negando la historicidad y la multiplicidad. Se entiende más como ousia fija que como physis desbordante que emerge o como aletheia que se descubre y desvela. Se olvida el sentido de emergencia y descubrimiento, y se da preeminencia a la presencia y a la permanencia, en el sentido de lo duradero (ousia) (Thomson 2005). ¿Hasta qué punto el Dios de la teología cristiana es el Dios de la metafísica fijista? Hay que hacer un análisis histórico crítico del uso de las categorías metafísicas en la teología. También hay que preguntarse si el Dios de la teología conceptual es el mismo de la Escritura. Aquí hay que investigar si las afirmaciones teológicas hechas bajo forma de conceptos corresponden a lo que expresa la Escritura. Es difícil armonizar el Dios de la Escritura con el simple, inmutable, actualizado, completamente existente Dios de la formulación conceptual dogmática. Se ve que mucho del contenido y las categorías teológicas conceptuales son más de la metafísica que del Dios de la Escritura y más fijadas en la ousia que en la manifestación o en el don. Así los teólogos se olvidaron de Dios y hablaron de él como ente. UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 26 2. La teología de la muerte de Dios. La teología de la muerte de Dios, aunque fue un movimiento sensacionalista y de corta duración, tuvo su importancia en la génesis del nuevo pensamiento sobre Dios. Sus antecedentes están en las críticas de Comte, Feuerbach y Nietzsche, pero lo que en ellos fue crítica profunda, en estos teólogos fue un movimiento situado en los marcos de la secularización, la filosofía analítica y una aceptación acrítica del racionalismo moderno. Sin embargo, tiene semillas que ayudan a la purificación del nombre y la imagen de Dios en un mundo culturalmente agnóstico. Se inicia con Gabriel Vahanian (1961) que acusa al cristianismo de confundir humanitarismo con Reino de Dios, reduciendo la vida cristiana a una convivencia cívica y a un desarrollo económico y social. Se ha olvidado a Dios y se quiere reducir el cristianismo a una búsqueda de vida en paz y desarrollo. La muerte de Dios se debe a que se ha reducido a un dato cultural, cuando en realidad, siguiendo a Barth y a Calvino, Dios es el totalmente Otro irreducible a una cultura. La solución está en negar las posibilidades racionales de encontrar a Dios y predicarlo en forma absoluta sin mezclas culturales o racionales. El aporte de Vahanian es interesante, pues indica que la vía racional moderna no es camino para llegar a Dios. John A. T. Robinson publicó un libro de amplia circulación Honest to God (1963). Él encuentra que hay un abismo entre la cultura modernasecular-científica y las formas expresivas del cristianismo. La causa está en el lenguaje metafísico usado que está lejos del lenguaje moderno. La solución está en una reinterpretación radical del cristianismo en términos de relaciones humanas y de amor mutuo donde se manifiesta la profundidad de Dios. Hay que hablar de relaciones humanas y no de un Dios muy por encima de los hombres. Importante en Robinson es su llamado a una praxis del amor aunque lo haga en términos de una metafísica tradicional (por eso fue atacado de antimetafísico y agnóstico) que le impide conocer y llegar hasta la fuente de ese amor. CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 27 Estos dos autores se sitúan en la línea menos radical de la teología de la muerte de Dios, que sería la continuación de dos teólogos, Friedrich Gogarten y Dietrich Bonhoeffer. El primero, con una teoría acerca de la secularización. Gogarten (1971) influye al aceptar teológicamente la secularización distinguiéndola del secularismo. La secularización no era negativa, pues era simplemente dejar al mundo ser mundo, siendo la expresión de la libertad del cristiano ante la modernidad, libertad que consiste en no dominar el mundo sino en servir al mundo desde la defensa de la humanidad frente a las pretensiones de los sistemas totalitarios. No hay que pelear con el mundo, sino servirlo desde una visión humanizante sin pretender dominarlo con posiciones políticas cristianas o con partidos confesionales. Hay que liberar al mundo del mito y de la mística, para dejarlo ser mundo. Esta posición, muy del agrado de una sociedad capitalista y en desarrollo, sin embargo, es una renuncia al papel de Dios en el mundo. De alguna manera, es rendirse antes de dar la batalla contra el agnosticismo y la clausura de la humanidad en una visión recortada de la razón. El segundo, Bonhoeffer, buscaba un cristianismo sin religión, no individualista, lejano del sobrenaturalismo metafísico, y buscando un cristianismo kenótico (el Crucificado como imagen central de Dios, Dios que se oculta en la cruz). Bonhoeffer se sitúa así en la génesis de la nueva forma de pensar, pues hace un rechazo del dios metafísico: Veo de nuevo con toda claridad que no debemos utilizar a Dios como tapaagujeros de nuestro conocimiento imperfecto. Porque entonces si los límites del conocimiento van retrocediendo cada vez más –lo cual objetivamente es inevitable-, Dios es desplazado continuamente junto con ellos y por consiguiente se halla en una constante retirada. Hemos de hallar a Dios en las cosas que conocemos y no en las que ignoramos. Dios quiere ser comprendido por nosotros en las cuestiones resueltas, y no en las que aún están por resolver. Esto es válido para la relación entre Dios y el conocimiento científico. Pero lo es asimismo para las cuestiones humanas de carácter general como la muerte, el sufrimiento y la culpa. Hoy hemos llegado a un punto en que, también para estas cuestiones, existen respuestas humanas que pueden prescindir por completo de Dios. En realidad –y así ha sido en todas las épocas-, el hombre llega a resolver estas cuestiones incluso sin Dios, y es pura falsedad que solamente el cristianismo ofrezca una solución para ellas. Por lo que al concepto de UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 28 "solución" se refiere, las respuestas cristianas son tan concluyentes (o tan poco concluyentes) como las demás soluciones posibles. Tampoco en esto es Dios un tapa-agujeros. Dios ha de ser reconocido en medio de nuestra vida, y no sólo en los límites de nuestras posibilidades. Dios quiere ser reconocido en la vida y no sólo en la muerte; en la salud y en la fuerza y no sólo en el sufrimiento; en la acción y no sólo en el pecado. La razón de ello se halla en la revelación de Dios en Jesucristo. Él es el centro de nuestra vida, y no ha "venido" en modo alguno para resolvernos cuestiones sin solución. A partir del centro de nuestra vida, determinadas cuestiones desaparecen, e igualmente las respuestas (estoy pensando en el juicio sobre los amigos de Job). En Cristo no existen "problemas cristianos". Pero basta ya; acaban de estorbarme de nuevo (1983 218). Pero luego vendrán los teólogos más radicales. Paul van Buren afirmará que no hay razones intelectuales para el cristianismo y que éste sólo es una actitud ética de preocupación por los demás. Más allá de lo que ha representado histórica y éticamente, el cristianismo no es nada más (1963). Heredero de la filosofía positivista del lenguaje, vió que el contenido de la teología no era experimentalmente verificable y por eso no podría ser un lenguaje verdadero y ontológico. La Biblia como lenguaje no tiene sentido ni su historicidad es verificable. Lo único verificable en Jesucristo era que: "era un hombre libre capaz de entregarse a los otros, allá donde estuvieran" (Id. 121). Los discípulos tuvieron una experiencia sicológica y "empezaron a poseer algo de la libertad de Jesús; y esa libertad comenzó a ser contagiosa..." (Id. 133-124). La tesis de van Buren se rinde totalmente ante la filosofía analítica, excluye cualquier tipo de metafísica y de trascendencia y ni siquiera abre el camino a otra reflexión. Para él, el cristianismo es una historia más dentro de las múltiples historias que hay en la humanidad. La Ciudad Secular de Harvey Cox (1965) es una aceptación de la llegada de la secularización. Con razón puede considerarse uno de los padres de la teoría de la secularización. Esta se caracteriza por la libertad del mundo frente a lo religioso, el pragmatismo filosófico y político y la profanidad como algo subsistente en sí mismo de tal modo que las cuestiones últimas no tengan ninguna interferencia en las soluciones políticas. El hombre ha tomado el mundo en sus propias manos y es el responsable de la historia sin relación a nada trascendente. El hombre "se ha liberado CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 29 de la tutela religiosa y metafísica, para apartar su atención de otros mundos y volverla hacia este". (Id. 17). Más importante que la metafísica es la política pragmática al estilo de Norteamérica. Es un prolegómeno al pragmatismo contemporáneo de los EE.UU. Es una rendición ya plena al pragmatismo estilo Richard Rorty. No hay metafísica sólo queda la acción política más o menos correcta. Pero el mismo Cox tuvo que reformar su posición cuando vio la crisis de la teoría de la secularización. En los últimos años del siglo XX, el resurgimiento religioso le obligó a repensar su posición. Su libro Fuego del cielo: el surgimiento de la espiritualidad pentecostal y la reconfiguración de la religión en el siglo XXI (2001) es una reconsideración del libro escrito treinta años antes. La observación del crecimiento del movimiento pentecostal que se convierte en el fenómeno religioso más importante del siglo XX, lo lleva a mirar el fracaso de la teoría de la secularización, el renacimiento de la religión y la aparición de un movimiento religioso que se convierte en una nueva Reforma para el siglo XXI. Importante, en este último libro, es su contribución a que se piense la religión como una experiencia mística que puede abrir el campo a una nueva reflexión filosófico-teológica que recupere el papel de la experiencia por encima de la teología y filosofía conceptuales. Luego llegarían los teólogos más incisivos de la teología de la muerte de Dios pero que se alejan más de una posición trascendente hasta el punto de que pueden ser llamados ateos. Simplemente aceptan la crítica de los siglos XIX y XX a la metafísica y a teología, la dan por cierta y comienzan a vivir en la sociedad posteísta, poscristiana y plenamente secular. El cristiano simplemente trabaja por un mundo más justo, sin más razones. William Hamilton (Altizer y Hamilton 1966) propone no ir más allá de la ética entendida como lucha por la justicia y por el orden. El hombre ha alcanzado su madurez y no necesita ya de la compañía de Dios y el hombre debe asumir su responsabilidad temporal. Realmente Dios ha muerto, es una pérdida verdadera y no se espera que vuelva el Dios cristiano, por tanto, la espiritualidad de la teología radical es la política. Altizer (1967), en cambio, opta por un misticismo secular. Comienza por aceptar las críticas a la ontoteología realizadas por los filósofos del siglo XIX pues ellos permiten descubrir el verdadero rostro del cristianismo. UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 30 En la perspectiva del destino histórico ateo de nuestro tiempo, un tiempo en el que la participación a la condición universal del hombre exige la asunción de una vida sin Dios, no está fuera de lugar plantear el problema de la necesidad de un ateísmo cristiano contemporáneo. Mi estudio acoge esa necesidad elaborando un análisis teológico basado sobre la visión del cristianismo de Blake, Hegel y Nietzsche. (Altizer y Hamilton 1966 23). La teología debe abandonar su forma religiosa, repudiando plena y coherentemente la búsqueda de un algo sacro primordial, y al mismo tiempo la negación religiosa y el rechazo de lo profano; porque, en la medida en que la teología permanece unida a un Verbo primordial y trascendente, permanecerá cerrada, fuera del presente y de la actualidad humana de la historia (Id. 77). En el pensamiento de Altizer Dios ha muerto para que viviera el hombre y ya no hay nada más que esperar. Se reduce a un humanismo interesante pero sin ningún aspecto de trascendencia o de posibilidades futuras de pensar a Dios. 3. Una nueva manera de pensar Hubo un momento en que se creó un clima de desesperanza en las posibilidades de la filosofía, y se cayó en una actitud pragmatista que llevó a la filosofía farandulera y al repetirse de la imposibilidad de encontrar vías de salida a los desafíos de la modernidad. Pero el mismo análisis de Heidegger abre el camino de una búsqueda mística procedente de Dionisio Areopagita como se ve en sus obras del llamado segundo Heidegger especialmente en los Beitrage. La influencia de Dionisio Areopagita en Heidegger es mostrada por Derrida en Cómo no hablar. Denegaciones, donde "recordaría sin embargo lo que en el pensamiento de Heidegger podría asemejarse a la herencia más cuestionadora, la repetición a la vez más audaz y más libre de las tradiciones que acabo de evocar (Platón, neoplatonismos, Dionisio)" (Derrida 1997) y es que Heidegger, de alguna manera se basa en la teología negativa, en el no-ser, en el rayo luminoso, el problema de Dios y el ser. Muñoz Martínez (2006) sitúa los siguientes puntos de contacto entre Heidegger y Dionisio: CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 31 un nuevo pensar que aunque normalmente se había atribuído a Heidegger, Dionisio ya lo había intentado con la teología apofática (Id.). Heidegger asume la teología negativa que revela los límites y fronteras de la razón y la incapacidad del lenguaje racional para acceder al Principio de todas las cosas. Se trata de buscar una nueva manera de pensar fuera de la ontoteología. Abandonar las representaciones indica entrar en otro pensamiento fuera también de la representación y del concepto, como lo hizo Dionisio en sus obras. En lo que se puede llamar el segundo Heidegger (el de Besinnung, Beitrage...) se da la misma estructura de búsqueda: el Ser se da en el evento sin hacer ruido. La teología mística de Dionisio es una experiencia, no una técnica ni una lógica racional, que se expresa en símbolos que dicen algo y luego lo niegan, hay semejanza y desemejanza, logrando expresar algo el símbolo eminente (hyper). El pensar heideggeriano tiene mucho de experiencia con el Ser, o mejor, de experiencia del ser. Es una experiencia mística del Ser que se tiene si se está a la espera, si se está en el claro, si se está disponible en el momento del paso del Ser, y que se expresa de manera más clara en la poesía, no en el lenguaje científico. El poeta es el decidor del ser con símbolos que no agotan ni definen el Ser, sino que lo muestran. "Se podría decir que Heidegger piensa en muchas ocasiones a la manera de la teología negativa" (Id. 43). Gelassenheit) como despojo, renuncia y abandono, le llega a Heidegger a través del "desapego" de Eckhart, como la humildad fundada sobre la nada. La serenidad es el desapego del pensamiento representativo y renunciar al querer vinculado con el horizonte. En Heidegger no es una renuncia voluntaria al querer, como en Eckhart, sino permanecer totalmente ajeno al querer. La serenidad es el estado de permanecer abierto a la Apertura o consumación del UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 32 total abandono que permite la apertura del mundo a Dios en el fondo del alma y la prueba de que el mundo está abierto a Dios allí donde el hombre ya no es él mismo (Libera 2000). Eckart es influenciado por Dionisio Areopagita en este sentido. (Deja los sentidos y las operaciones del entendimiento; deja todos los objetos sensibles e inteligibles, y universalmente todas las cosas que son y que no son. M.T I, 1). Para Dionisio, Dios es una suprema nada sobre la cual no se puede decir algún concepto. Escoto Erígena confirma que Dios no es un ser, porque si es un ser quedaría limitado en una definición. Eckhart sobre este camino habla del desapego como la condición de la apertura a la nada de Dios. Ese desapego es la condición para que Dios se manifieste o, en Heidegger, para que el ser pueda ser visto en el Lichtung. quitando todo aquello que a modo de envoltura impide ver claramente la forma encubierta. Basta este simple despojo para que se manifieste la oculta y genuina belleza. M.T. II). Así mismo, en la misma línea de los antiguos griegos, Heidegger plantea la verdad como aletheia o progresivo desvelamiento o manifestación. Dionisio y el neoplatonismo serían la oportunidad de repensar la ontología, a través de la teología negativa y de una vía mística: Heidegger, al final de su trayectoria, en lo que se llama la vuelta (Kehre), llegó a ver el ser, la realidad, como un don, como un regalo. Incluso le quita ese nombre tan abstracto, por metafísico, que es el de ser, y lo veía como acontecimiento, como acontecer (Ereignis). El acontecer es lo más gratuito que hay, en el doble sentido de que se da porque sí, sin más, y en el de que es algo que hemos de aceptar e incluso agradecer. Esto suena a veces a resignación, y por eso se habla de esta etapa de Heidegger como una etapa mística. Y, al modo de muchos místicos, al menos de una corriente en la historia de la mística, Heidegger adopta una actitud de silencio ante lo indecible, lo inefable. Lo que se llamó teología negativa, o, quizá más propiamente, ontología negativa, pues también del ser puede haber una mística; la ontología ha estado vinculada a la mística (Beauchot 2010). CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 33 La filosofía neoplatónica, especialmente Plotino y Proclo, entra al cristianismo con Dionisio Areopagita y con éste llega hasta hoy después de haber tenido una gran influencia en Occidente, a través de Eckart y Dionisio el Cartujano. Heidegger recibe la influencia del Areopagita y de Eckart. Los posheideggerianos y la filosofía francesa actual adoptan, mutatis mutandis, la filosofía neoplatónica especialmente en dos puntos: su rechazo a la metafísica occidental moderna racional-conceptual y su tendencia mística de abrirse a la manifestación del ser más como bondad o caridad que como ente. Bergson, Brehier, Blondel, Trouillard, Festugiére, Saffrey, Hadot, Henry, Marion... son algunos de los que han buscado por esta línea (Hankey 1999). Marion, por ejemplo, encuentra en Blondel la conversión de la voluntad o caridad por la cual se iría a Dios sin caer en la ontoteología. Esta teología sin ontología, Marion primero la descubrió en una relectura del neoplatonismo de Dionisio Areopagita como lo muestra en su libro El ídolo y la distancia (1977). También Agustín influye en Marion con su búsqueda de Dios bajo el nombre de caridad y no bajo el concepto de ser. Así Marion hace una síntesis de Dionisio, Agustín, un santo Tomás neoplatonizado y un Heidegger releído para afrontar los problemas de una concepción de Dios metafísica ontoteológica. Jean-Luc Marion considera que hay que superar el horizonte del objeto y el del ser. Éste ve que la crítica de los Maestros de la sospecha, entendida como crítica a la Ontoteología, es una manera de acabar con los ídolos conceptuales de la razón y abrir el camino a la manifestación del fenómeno saturado. Marion trata esto en su libro Dios sin el ser (2010). Esta concepción de Dios sin el ser, la ha encontrado Marion en el neoplatonismo de Dionisio Areopagita. El ídolo es la comprensión de Dios bajo conceptos, sean éstos antropomórficos o metafísicos. Pensar a Dios como ente supremo o como ente fundamento de la ética es idolátrico. Pero aún pensar a Dios sobre el fondo del ser en su diferencia del ente es idolátrico. Dios sería pensado a partir de una precomprensión humana, la del ser. UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 34 ¿Retroceder de la metafísica a suponer que llega el pensamiento dado al ser en tanto que ser, basta para liberar a Dios de la idolatría... o al contrario, la idolatría de la causa sui no reenvía a otra idolatría... más discreta... y por tanto, más amenazante? [...]. Más allá de la idolatría propia de la metafísica, opera otra idolatría propia del pensamiento del Ser en cuanto tal. (Id 58-65). La solución, para Marion, es pensar a Dios con el término de amor (agape). El amor se da y se da sin condiciones. El donador se abandona completamente a la donación hasta coincidir donador y donación. Y darse completamente sin precomprensiones o comprensiones, es amar. El amor excluye al ídolo, pues en el movimiento del darse, el sujeto no cubre al otro con su conceptualidad sino que se abandona totalmente a él, hasta dejarse determinar en esta donación. Ya no se trata de pensar a Dios desde la conceptualización humana, sino desde el donarse: El amor no se da sino abandonándose, transgrediendo continuamente los límites del propio don, hasta trasplantarse fuera de sí. La consecuencia es que esta transferencia del amor fuera de sí mismo, sin fines ni límites, impide inmediatamente que se deje agarrar en una respuesta, en una representación, en un ídolo. Es típica de la esencia del amor –diffusivum sui– la capacidad de sumergir, así como una marea sumerge las murallas de un puerto extranjero, toda limitación, representativa o existencial del propio flujo; el amor excluye el ídolo, o mejor, lo incluye subvirtiéndolo. Puede también ser definido como el movimiento de una donación que, para avanzar sin condiciones, se impone una autocrítica permanente y sin reservas (Marion 2010). A partir de lo anterior se inicia el trabajo de "ampliar los límites de la razón" para superar la razón científica y dar cabida a una razón que incluya la donación de lo invisible. El neoplatonismo se ha convertido en un camino de búsqueda para superar las críticas a la ontoteología. Esto requiere una nueva manera de pensar. Y es lo que inaugura Heidegger. Un pensar abierto, casi místico. Pero que no se encierra en el concepto clásico, religioso y teológico, de mística. Un pensar místico que atraviesa las regiones de la poesía, el arte, el evento, para encontrarse con la CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 35 saturación de lo inconceptuable. Es el habitar poético del mundo. Desde Duméry, Trouillard y Stanislas Breton, en el reciente pasado francés, se busca una línea antimetafísica y quizás posmoderna. Luego Jean Luc Marion, tomando a Dionisio y releyendo el argumento ontológico de Anselmo, encuentra en la caridad el camino a un Dios sin el ser. Henry lo trata por el sendero de la inmanencia material de la vida y Lévinas por el rostro del otro. Se trata así de responder a las cuestiones levantadas por la Modernidad contra el Dios conceptual. Los franceses han tomado la delantera en esta reflexión. Posteriormente, los anglosajones se han introducido en el campo (por ejemplo, John Milbank, A. H. Amstrong, E.R. Dodds). Como se ve en la historia de la filosofía francesa de los dos últimos siglos, ha sido una fenomenología hecha por clérigos en su mayoría o por filósofos allegados a alguna confesión religiosa (Por ejemplo, Pierre Aubenqueprotestantey Jean Luc Marion –católico–). Esto ya hace plantear una pregunta. Será únicamente esta reflexión cuestión clerical de relacionar la fe con la teología, ¿o es el fenómeno saturado, el darse del fenómeno, una estructura universal de la reflexión filosófica? En este último sentido lo plantea Marion pero debe seguir la discusión (Arboleda 2007). 4. Del Dasein al DaGott. Para Marion, responder la cuestión ontológica (¿Qué es el ser?), transforma la reflexión en ontoteología por eso propone dejar que la manifestación sea la que indique el camino. La pregunta subyacente para Marion es: ¿Dios se ha revelado como Ser o como algo más? Asumir que se debe revelar como ser es ignorar la manifestación que se da del fenómeno saturado. Los seres particulares son tales porque son llamados y constituidos por el Otro. Es importante para Marion la respuesta a la manifestación, más que hacerse la pregunta que implica una respuesta del Otro como ser. Dios es sin el ser, es la proposición del francés. Actuando así, subvierte el sistema jerárquico de fundamento y fundado. UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 36 El problema de la muerte de Dios en Nietzsche es uno de los puntos de partida de Marion. Este cree que puede acabar con el ídolo conceptual que es el dios de la metafísica, abriendo el espacio a la verdadera manifestación. Dios debe ser pensado sin el ser. Y debe ser pensado con el único concepto que permanece posible fuera de la diferencia ontológica. El concepto de amor (ágape). Para lograr esta tarea, Marion esclarece fenomenológicamente el "ver". El ver permite desvelar la posibilidad de visibilidad de lo invisible (los fenómenos saturados, incluyendo la estética). El somete la objetividad y la cuestión del ser a la tarea de ser llevadas al extremo. Así radicaliza la reducción husserliana a partir del yo constituyente, pero también la heideggeriana a partir del Dasein. Busca una reducción pura a lo dado como tal, por un interlocutor originario, interpelado por la donación misma. Este es el cuarto principio de la fenomenología. Es el concepto de donación: el fenómeno es un don, un dado, un fenómeno saturado, hasta ahora no reconocido por la fenomenología pero sí presente en la mística, la estética, la historia, la poesía. Este fenómeno es aquel en el cual la intuición excede el concepto y la efectividad precede a la posibilidad. El sujeto (adonado) es el que se recibe a sí mismo cuando recibe el don, el dado. Si recibe el don como no ser, no será ya más Dasein sino Da-Gott o aún Da-Gegeben. Marion trata de refundar la fenomenología. Un nuevo comienzo de la filosofía. De acuerdo con Heidegger, hay dos comienzos históricos filosóficamente hablando. El primero es el descubrimiento (desvelamiento) del ser en la primera filosofía griega, rápidamente olvidado por la preocupación por el ser. Y el segundo, es el comienzo que se da con el trabajo de Nietzsche, aunque, dice Heidegger, éste no logró la plena emancipación de la metafísica (1999) Marion, de alguna manera, se presenta en la línea de este segundo comienzo, tratando de superar a Heidegger. La fenomenología no sería una escuela o doctrina filosófica sino un nuevo método para filosofar lleno de aperturas y posibilidades. Este nuevo método estaría representado, entre otros, por Paul Ricoeur, Michel Henry, Marc Richir, Marion, etc. También la filosofía de Lévinas participa en esta refundación. Su mirada del otro, entraña una redefinición radical de la intencionalidad, una emancipación CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 37 de la intencionalidad objetivante y del ver fenomenológico. Todos estos "herejes" de la fenomenología plantean una arquiética, una arquignosis, una fenomenología hiperbólica y metafórica, y un nuevo sujeto pasivo y adonado. Se apura la reducción hasta que es cancelada. La posibilidad de la fenomenología se lleva al exceso. Y se lleva al extremo a Heidegger. Es el uso extremo del Beiträge zur Philosophie heideggeriano. No es que el Ser o la Vida sean algo, con una esencia que se da, sino que el Ser (Heidegger está inspirado en Meister Eckhard y quizás Dionisio) "es" pura donación de sí. Supone una radicalidad total pues la iniciativa es del fenómeno saturado incondicionado e inabarcable y el sujeto es radicalmente pasivo. No hay conceptualización sino simbolización permanente de lo que se manifiesta siempre diferente. Heidegger ya había puesto en cuestión el problema del sujeto constitutivo kantiano. "¿En qué consiste esta puesta en cuestión? En una revolución radical: la subjeti(vi)dad no reconoce ya por objetivo la objetivación del objeto, porque el instrumento último de esta objetivación -la intencionalidad- no apunta ya, como para Husserl al llevar a término el proyecto kantiano, a la constitución de objetos, sino a la apertura de un mundo" (Marion 1993 440). El sujeto no está como espectador constituyente del mundo, sino que es arrebatado por el mundo que se abre y se abre en la medida en que el Dasein hace la apertura mediante su propio éxtasis. "El éxtasis del Dasein consiste en que, lejos de fundarse sobre su esencia o de fundar su esencia en sí mismo (según las dos postulaciones, kantiana y aristotélica, de la subjetividad), él es el ente a quien le va, en cada caso, nada menos que su ser; mejor aún: el ente para quien, cuando le va su ser, está también en juego el ser de todos los demás entes" (Id.). El Dasein es el sucesor y heredero del sujeto constituyente y se convierte en el ser propio que constituye la propia vida en la que está en juego el propio ser. Ese ser mío se da en la resolución. Ésta anticipa despejando el ser del Dasein como cuidado y permite buscar el sentido del ser por venir. La UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 38 resolución aparece y se prepara en la angustia, la duda y la muerte. Estas son experiencias fenomenológicas que abren extáticamente hacia la nada. Pero que según interpreta Marion, en Heidegger se da una reminiscencia del sujeto constituyente pues la autenticidad exige la conciencia del Dasein como constancia de sí mismo expuesto a la nada. El éxtasis del Dasein, aunque en un primer momento, suprime el yo kantiano o cartesiano, en un segundo momento, restablece la autarquía del Dasein, idéntico a sí mismo por sí mismo. Y esa autarquía imita, la autoconstitución y la permanencia en la subsistencia. "Sobre el Dasein sigue planeando la sombra del ego" (Id. 445). Heidegger no da el paso de la superación de la autoconstitución del sujeto aunque ha planteado la apertura del mundo por el éxtasis del sujeto. Está servida la aporía de quien llama y es llamado al mismo tiempo. Heidegger en La carta sobre el humanismo, parece cambiar cuando invoca la "apelación por la cual el ser reclama al hombre como la instancia fenomenológica de su manifestación. Al contrario que en Sein und Zeit, donde la apelación vuelve siempre a ser una apelación de sí mismo, aquí la apelación reclama, en nombre del Ser, al hombre, desde el exterior y de antemano" (Id. 448). Y el hombre instituido por la llamada del Ser, se constituye en el Reclamado. "¿Qué pasa con este sujeto así entendido? Es una revolución radical" (Id. 440). Lo que está en el mundo no son objetos constituidos por el sujeto, sino que el sujeto está como abrumado por lo que encuentra. El mundo no es la suma de los objetos constituidos por el yo, sino que es apertura a lo que se da. El Dasein no constituye al ser, sino que se arriesga al ser que se manifiesta y el ser para la muerte es el arriesgarse a ese aparecer que lo constituye y que no es constituido. La fenomenología recoge ese reto, qué sucede al sujeto? Al sujeto le sucede la interpelación. Esta instituye al interpelado. ¿Qué o quién interpela? Se dan varias respuestas: Dios (en la teología), el otro (Lévinas), la vida (Henry), el ser (el acontecimiento en Heidegger). Son respuestas posteriores simbólicas. Si en el momento de la reclamación se conociera al interpelante, se volvería a la plena intencionalidad y a CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 39 la construcción del que se da. Se estaría de nuevo en la ontoteología. Si no hay sorpresa en la interpelación es porque se conoce quién es el ser, el otro, Dios o la vida. Vuelvo a ser un yo constituyente. Pero el total anonimato del apelante y la facticidad humilde del interpelado garantizan la gratuidad del don (Id.). Gratuidad que resuena y se pierde, se pierde pero deja huella, huella que es símbolo pero no esencia. El apelante se manifiesta al interpelado, lo constituye, y de ahí, el interpelado puede responder. La subjetividad es una subjetividad finita, no constituyente sino recipiente de una fenomenalidad encarnada, afectada, inmanente. El ser es el aparecer al sujeto que recibe ese aparecer. Se afirma la irreductibilidad del ser del ego a la objetividad, pues desaparece la intencionalidad y se llena de intuición. Esta refundación de la fenomenología hace de la conciencia, no la condición de la manifestación, sino la manifestación originaria. Es la fenomenología de la esencia de la manifestación, fenomenología de la manifestación inmanente, fenomenología de la vida, el amor, la carne. Esta fenomenología relaciona el logos y las cosas en el fondo de la inmanencia. Entran allí a funcionar la sensibilidad y el pathos. El arte, la pintura, la poesía, el dolor y el sentimiento son lugares donde la experiencia tiene su propio sentido y su propia razón, pues es donde aparece el aparecer. En la obra de arte, por ejemplo, está el fenómeno que aparece y que está por y para aparecer, dándose simplemente en forma saturada. En el proceso de donación, se cuestiona que toda experiencia humana sea una interacción entre el sujeto y el objeto. Hay la experiencia de unidad que se podría llamar de apabullamiento del sujeto por la inmensidad del don. En el método fenomenológico tradicional, la intencionalidad es central y asume que el sujeto y el objeto de conciencia son distintos. La premisa básica, llamada intencionalidad, significa que el acto de pensar es un acto que afirma la unión que existe entre el sujeto pensante y el objeto del pensamiento. Hay un esfuerzo por parte del sujeto para poder conocer al objeto. En la experiencia del don, en cambio, no se actúa con UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 40 los métodos cualitativos o cuantitativos de la investigación científica, sino con la experiencia de lo dado profundamente. En ésta, se abandona lo externo (epojé), y hay un sentimiento de que el ego es trascendido. El yo queda abrumado, sin fronteras, como diluido en el universo, de tal manera que la dualidad entre sujeto y objeto queda superada. El sujeto es agobiado por la experiencia y como ésta no es una experiencia cognitiva, no se puede expresar en conceptos. No hay palabras para expresar en términos de reducción fenomenológica, lo vivido. Sólo se expresa en términos negativos: no tiempo, no espacio, no relación. La intencionalidad queda reemplazada por unas estructuras de experiencia que se pueden expresar como sin tiempo, ni espacio, ni conexión con algo. Es una experiencia total de pasividad, en la que no se piensa o se elaboran conceptos. El sujeto y el objeto son uno? Esa es la conceptualización general de la experiencia, pero va más allá de eso. Hay una inadecuación en el mismo método fenomenológico para dar razón de tal experiencia. La experiencia del fenómeno saturado hace posible entender el estado de un yo kenótico. La fenomenología trascendental tiene que llegar al exceso de la fenomenología radical. En ésta, la epojé fenomenológica coloca entre paréntesis toda preconcepción para poder reducir todo el material experiencial a su pura esencia. Reinterpretar la experiencia con base en las propias preconcepciones o teorías es un error lógico y metodológico. Esta epojé no es una premisa en el proceso de deducción, sino una actitud vital, una fenomenología práctica que lleva a la pura experiencia. Esta experiencia no es contraria o distinta a la razón, sino que es su plenitud. La razón, desde la modernidad, se quedó en los fenómenos pobres de intuición (y potenció la ciencia experimental), dejando para otro tipo de conocimiento como la fe, lo relativo a lo trascendente que no era construible por el Yo. La radicalización de la fenomenología abre de nuevo el campo a la potencia de la razón, aunque con un yo receptivo y no potente. San Juan de la Cruz indica el método fenomenológico de ese proceso y muestra el resultado. La dificultad con San Juan es que ha expresado su camino con un lenguaje que puede ser el de la ascética y la religiosidad, y así se ha entendido. Despojando a sus obras de la CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 41 intelección piadosa que se ha hecho de ellas, se encuentra un método que es completamente comparable al de los nuevos fenomenólogos franceses. La reducción fenomenológica, eidética, trascendental y egológica tiene allí su residencia aunque haya que hacer un trabajo de traducción del lenguaje ascético-virtuoso y de sus connotaciones culturales al filosófico. La experiencia transmitida por él, es profundamente racional, en sentido amplio, y presenta una epistemología del misticismo como recepción del don. En un contexto epistemológico, el estado de negatividad del alma puede considerarse como la condición de posibilidad de una directa intuición del fenómeno. La negación presupone la pasividad del sujeto y la actividad de quien se revela. Esta actividad es la divina infusión o sea la plena donación o plena intuición. Superando las dos analogías o símbolos principales utilizados por San Juan de la Cruz, el amante y el esposo, se puede ver el amor como expresión de esa relación entre el sujeto y el donador. Aunque se puede pensar que es una mística o una donación irracional, la mística de San Juan de la Cruz muestra la posibilidad real de la donación. Marion presenta la estructura fenomenológica de la donación y San Juan de la Cruz su realización. Es otra forma de presentar la razón, no ya como la que domina, sino como quien recibe. El ejercicio de la simbolización hace que la razón tenga un papel importante en la reflexión sobre la experiencia de la manifestación. La donación es una apelación que "me" constituye. El momento de la apelación me constituye en "me" o "a mí". Llamado, desaparecido todo yo, soy invadido por la interpelación. Hay un desastre del yo y se constituye el "a mí", el interpelado, el llamado. Este tiene cuatro características: convocación, sorpresa, interlocución, facticidad (Marion 1993). El interpelado siente una llamada de sometimiento. Sin ninguna intencionalidad o reflexión previa, se anula la subjetividad en aras de una llamada anónima. Es sorprendido por un éxtasis que no es cognoscitivo (pues el sujeto no despliega un objeto ya constituido o conocido) sino que es oscuro, éxtasis impuesto, soportado, subyugante. No hay conciencia UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 42 original constituyente sino sorpresa de una llamada que no se sabe de donde viene. No es una admiración metafísica dada en la subjetividad, sino una admiración inmanente dada al yo paciente. Esa apelación "me habla" sin conceptos, simplemente "se me da" constituyéndome en interlocutor que no contesta sino que "sufre" una interlocución, es la reducción fenomenológica a lo puramente dado. Esa interlocución produce o hace reconocer la facticidad. Todo humano es convocado, llamado, "interlocutado" desde antes de su nacimiento. El hablar del interpelado es oír pasivamente una palabra sin conceptos pero que crea alteridad y "me" constituye en "llamado". Es oír una llamada no conceptual que sólo es llamada, don, apertura al aparecer de la llamada gratuita. Se constituye el hombre como "dotadodonado" con capacidad de responder, lo que mantiene la "diferencia". El llamado no es el apelante, sino el receptor de la llamada que lo constituye "otro" distinto al apelante. La llamada no proviene del apelado pues sería clara y distinta, y, en verdad, es oscuramente clara o claramente oscura. La autenticidad radica en la pasividad de la recepción, la inautenticidad en la constitución del yo fuerte. La primera confirma la verdad de la constitución por el llamado, la segunda la limitación a lo que el yo pueda constituir. El interpelado difiere del apelante y, por tanto, difiere también de sí mismo, no es un yo sino un otro, el otro del interpelante y el otro de los interpelados. El retraso entre la percepción del llamado por parte de los interpelados y el llamado del interpelante, marca también la diferencia entre los dos. El interpelado es un retrasado ante el continuum del llamado. ¿Quién es el interpelante que "me" constituye? Aquí hay un problema con los autores tratados. De alguna manera, introducen la intencionalidad al decir que es el Ser (en el evento), Dios (en las religiones), el Otro (Lévinas), la Vida (Henry), el Amor (Marion), Cristo (Tillich). Hacen una aproximación simbólica al interpelante. Este es anónimo, oscuro, profundo, innominable... que no se puede colocar en una instancia regional como lo simbólico, aunque éste es la única manera de nombrarlo precariamente. Por eso, la propuesta apofática salvaguarda el anonimato del interpelante y permite que en el evento se manifieste el mismo en forma diferente cada CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 43 vez y no se pueda agotar su realidad ni entender su esencia. La filosofía permanece como tarea siempre antigua y siempre nueva en un proceso de hermenéutica de la llamada, indagando por el aparecer y por el don, sin agotarlos ni reducirlos. El anonimato del interpelado garantiza la labor sin tregua del filósofo: el darse y el perderse de la donación hace que no necesite fundación pues se cumple en el resonar y se cumple también en el perderse (irse sin dejar huella ni nombre). El recurso a lo simbólico, de manera inmediata en la filosofía, haría que estuviéramos fundando la apelación de nuevo en la metafísica, o reduciéndola a conciencia de la inmanencia. En verdad, se revela en la inmanencia como sorpresa de alteridad, pero no se confunde con ella y sólo sería, en este caso, un epifenómeno sicológico o patológico, y se conocería de antemano el quién de la interpelación. No es el resultado de una intuición obsesiva deseada o profundamente dirigida. Como dice Marion: "la reclamación no tiene que hacerse conocer para hacerse reconocer, ni identificarse para ejercerse" (Id. 455). Pero ahí está la labor del filósofo: buscar más allá del ser pero no con la razón que desembocaría en una teodicea, sino en el exceso de una extática erótica. El inicio de la filosofía no es la pregunta por el ser, sino la admiración o asombro por la realidad total que no se expresa en conceptos de ser. Este es un símbolo posterior a la experiencia del aparecer del fenómeno. La realidad es revelada, manifestada, donada. La filosofía racional luego trató de domeñarla a través del logos conceptual. Este hizo del ser algo único y unívoco, dejando al símbolo y a la metáfora el papel de simples expresiones retóricas, cuando en verdad acogen (imperfectamente) la totalidad de la realidad siempre nueva y reveladora, pero siempre oculta e indecible. La physis ama el ocultamiento y lo que se manifiesta son sus apariciones (Heráclito Frag. 123). La filosofía occidental ha pretendido su aprehensión intelectual y por eso le ha quedado únicamente el concepto preciso como solución descuidando el pensamiento simbólico. Este exige que en el fondo haya una pneumatología, una revelación. Así la nueva metafísica es una poesía, poesía erótica del aparecer y del aparecer como interpelado por la cuota mistérica de lo que da y se oculta. La filosofía es una mística, poiesis de UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 44 la experiencia extática de la presencia del fenómeno total. Poiesis siempre posterior a la experiencia de la facticidad y la sorpresa. La experiencia de la que se ha venido hablando es una dimensión humana. Siempre se da en la humanidad como vía de acceso a la realidad, pues la filosofía como aprehensión total y conceptual del ser es una tarea posterior de los filósofos. Primero han estado la mística (cerrar los ojos para ver) y los misterios (orgía y frenesíembriaguez ante el abandono de la razón). No es propiedad de una determinada religión ni es una experiencia únicamente religiosa, aunque las religiones se han apropiado de ella arrebatándosela al hombre. Esto era claro para los griegos órficos: la iniciación mística permitía a los filósofos comunicarse con el más allá. Esta comunión con el más allá es la vivencia extática misma, de naturaleza poética, que produce el entusiasmo filosófico para poder "ir más allá". "En una noche oscura, con ansias en amores inflamada, Oh dichosa ventura, salí sin ser notada, estando ya mi casa sosegada", expresará San Juan de la Cruz. Es el platónico "dar la espalda al mundo", dejar aparte el intelecto y sumergirse en lo báquico como denomina Marsilio Ficino la tarea de la teología mística en Dionisio Aeropagita (Ramos 1992). Este dejar aparte el intelecto no es rechazarlo pues la experiencia no lo anula sino que lo deslumbra. Es una iluminación del intelecto racional, pero no una iluminación racional del intelecto o un reemplazo del intelecto racional. El exceso es posible, la cultura podrá simbolizar la manifestación en un juego orgiástico de simbolizaciones que permitirán la hermenéutica remitiéndose al fenómeno que siempre se revela en forma diferente. Sean vida, libertad, amor, incondicionado, alteridad... el juego de los símbolos dirigirá la cultura que vive en el exceso de la manifestación, la posibilidad de la profundidad. La filosofía primera es la donación de la profundidad y la hermenéutica es la simbolización múltiple de su aparecer. Es un pensamiento difícil de comunicar pero hay que mantener la pasión por testimoniarlo: Dios es el que se manifiesta al hombre y por eso éste es "Dios ahí" (Da-gott). El ser ya no entendido como ser sino como donación de amor, es el propio manifestar o dación, y es su relación con el recipiente. El darse significa la esencia misma de la donación, pues el CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 45 amor es concederse. Heidegger lo entendía como darse del Ser (de ahí sus restos metafísicos), pero en Dionisio y Marion, es el darse del dar, darse del Hyper-ousia, darse del amor, darse de Dios. El hombre es el recipiente, la apertura que es llenada con el darse del amor, es el guardián del amor recibido. Esa es la humanidad del hombre: ser el ahí del amor, en términos creyentes, ser el ahí de Dios. El hombre no es pues un objeto biológico, ni siquiera un animal racional, sino que es el ahí de Dios (Da-gott) 5. Unas conclusiones para seguir pensando Dionisio Areopagita seria pues el nuevo medieval contemporáneo que permitiría el acceso a los fenómenos que no caben dentro de la razón científica y ayudaría a comprender la situación humana hoy. Hay unos puntos comunes de reflexión que quedan planteados con la relación Dionisiomística medievalHeideggerfenomenología francesa: La posibilidad filosófica y la efectividad teológica de una experiencia de Dios. Punto importante pues tiene muchas implicaciones en filosofía y en teología. Por una parte, se salvaguarda la posición filosófica de la fenomenología de seguir pensando la posibilidad de la manifestación del ser y se conserva la propiedad teológica de hablar de la efectiva revelación de Dios. Pero, por otra parte, abre una fuente de reflexión interesante: ¿hay una estructura ontológica originaria humana que permita hablar de la posibilidad de acceder a Dios por parte del hombre? En San Agustín y en Heidegger se dan las bases de esa estructura y de esa posibilidad. La estructura ontológica originaria, según Agustín, está fundamentada en la preocupación o inquietud1. La vida es preocupación por la "vita beata", es decir, por la autenticidad, en términos de Heidegger, que busca la salvación. La existenciariedad (anticipación de las posibilidades), UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 46 la facticidad (encontrarse arrojado en el mundo) y la caída (posibilidad de perderse en la inautenticidad debido a la delectatio (tentación) son tres elementos cooriginarios de la preocupación por la felicidad. En esa estructura originaria late y lucha por salir el deseo de Dios. La vida es movilidad vital fáctica y su esencia es la preocupación por lo que verdaderamente hace feliz al hombre. Hay un anhelo "esencial" por lo definitivo que da sentido a esa movilidad vital. En otros términos hay un anhelo que indica una apertura a otra cosa que no sea fáctica ni histórica ni finita. Podría ser lo que Heidegger llama la pregunta por el ser, tarea infinita y que sería la apertura a la manifestación del ser, o manifestación de Dios en otros filósofos. Una definición sencilla del hombre es que es una apertura que necesita ser llenada, un espacio a la espera del acontecimiento plenificador. El hombre es una esperanza abierta a una manifestación de algo más allá de él mismo. Si esto sea un existenciario ontológico, es tarea tanto de la filosofía como de la teología investigar su consistencia. La posibilidad de una crítica definitiva a la ontoteología desde la concepción autorrevelatoria del fenómeno saturado. La crisis actual de las religiones institucionalizadas radica en gran parte en la concepción ontoteológica del Ser supremo y en la esclerosis dogmática de sus creencias. Una vuelta a la comprensión de lo Ultimo como fenómeno saturado, a través de la mística, salvaría la absoluta transcendencia de Dios, la plenitud de su manifestación aunque inabarcable, y la historicidad dogmática de las religiones. Si definitivamente se ha enterrado la ontoteología, la tarea de la filosofía y la teología es volver a la experiencia. La experiencia de lo que puede llamarse el Incondicionado o el fenómeno saturado se da al hombre continuamente. Si es innombrable e indefinible en su esencia misma o en el instante de su manifestación, no lo es en el acto hermenéutico que sigue a la revelación o manifestación. La experiencia de la manifestación es universal y permanente, pero la interpretación de ella por parte del recipiente es histórica y cultural. El incondicionado se manifiesta siempre tal cual es, es decir, total y excedente, magnífico pero inagarrable, colma todas las intencionalidades del hombre y desborda todo horizonte de CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 47 comprensión. Así la experiencia siempre es total e incompleta al mismo tiempo. Se tiene la experiencia de la totalidad pero no se logra asimilar toda su magnitud. Dios se da en sí mismo, en lo que él es, pero el hombre no logra asimilar toda su manifestación. Por eso, sigue la interpretación que tiene dos etapas. Una primera etapa es poética. Se trata de expresar lo que es Dios en términos como unión, matrimonio, luz, vida, amor, belleza, claridad...En la segunda etapa se expresa en los términos de la cultura o sea en forma hermenéutica. La hermenéutica trae la experiencia a una forma comunicable dentro de una cultura. Se sitúa en una historia y en una tradición donde es significativa dicha experiencia por la semejanza o desemejanza con otras experiencias recordadas en la cultura. Esta tradición se convierte en forma autenticatoria de la experiencia tenida, y si lo es, se considera parte constitutiva de la misma tradición. Pero como situada también históricamente, tiene algo que decir al momento mismo de la comunidad donde se realiza. La experiencia se sitúa en la comunidad pero es novedosa para esa comunidad. De lo contrario, se estaría repitiendo la tradición o legitimando una coyuntura. Toda experiencia es novedosa pues está situada en la tradición y al mismo tiempo la confronta con nuevas adquisiciones. La solución que aporta Dionisio a Heidegger y a los fenomenólogos al hablar de la simultaneidad de la manifestación y el ocultamiento. Sólo una manera de pensar distinta a la de la metafísica tradicional, una manera de pensar encarnada en la razón mística, permitiría el acceso al misterio, misterio que se revela plenamente en cada manifestación, pero que se oculta de nuevo en su darse. Queda así salvaguardada la nueva metafísica de toda idolatría conceptual, histórica e integrista. El testigo de la manifestación, sujeto pasivo, elabora su experiencia con los símbolos que incluyen lenguaje, cultura, historia, pero que son siempre y constantemente hermenéutica del don. La dinámica de la manifestación y del ocultamiento siempre salvaguardan la "distancia" de Dios que se revela pero sigue siendo oculto. En términos sencillos, sólo "pedazos" o "rasguños" de Dios se captan en la experiencia mística y esos pedazos UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 48 o rasguños alimentan la historia de las comunidades, obligándolas a vivir siempre en la esperanza. El ya y el todavía no, indican la libertad de Dios y alimentan los esfuerzos humanos. En cada revelación Dios se da pero todavía no es el momento de su dación definitiva. Así se asegura la vida en la tierra, vida alimentada por la posibilidad siempre presente y siempre futura de la salvación. Esto cambia el sentido del tiempo, como lo muestra Heidegger en su análisis de las cartas paulinas. El cristiano primitivo no vive en el tiempo cronológico de lo que pasó y lo que vendrá. El cristiano vive en la tensión dialéctica entre lo que ya está dado sin estar completo, y lo que vendrá aunque ya está aquí. La esperanza se convierte en la seguridad de que la promesa ya está realizada aunque todavía no se ve claramente su cumplimiento. Así todo momento es ya el segundo advenimiento a la vez que impulsa a que se haga presente su plenitud. No se sienta el creyente a esperar lo que se espera, sino que siente que lo esperado ya está aquí en medio de las luchas y dificultades del presente. El carácter de la ética originaria que surge en el acto de revelación. Uno de los problemas graves hoy es el de la fundamentación de la ética. La manifestación del don, revelación del fenómeno saturado, continuo trato con el misterio del ser o de Dios, apertura al acontecimiento o Evento, fundamentaría una ética humana integral, sea que la hermenéutica entienda lo manifestado como Ser, vida, amor, el otro, luz, u otro símbolo histórico-cultural. Pero sólo una experiencia de Absoluto fundamenta una ética originaria. Bibliografía Altizer, Thomas. The Gospel of Christian Atheism. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966. _____. Toward A New Christianity: Readings in the Death of God . New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967. CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA e 49 Altizer, T. y William Hamilton. Radical Theology and the Death of God. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966. Arboleda Mora, Carlos. Profundidad y cultura. Del concepto de Dios a la experiencia de Dios. Medellín: Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, 2007. _____. "Dionisio Areopagita y el giro teológico de la fenomenología". Pensamiento y Cultura. 13,2, (2010): 181-193. Beuchot, Mauricio. Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas de la Universidad Autónoma de México. 2010 <http://www.filosoficas. unam.mx/~afmbib/mayteAFM/Ponencias/19001.pdf>. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Resistencia y sumisión. Cartas desde la prisión. Salamanca: Sígueme, 1983. Caputo, John D. Philosophy and Theology. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2006. Cox, Harvey. The Secular City. New York, MacMillan, 1965. _____. Fire from heaven: the rise of pentecostal spirituality and the reshaping of religion in the twenty-first century. Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2001. Derrida, Jacques. "Cómo no hablar. Denegaciones". Derrida, J., Cómo no hablar y otros textos, Proyecto A, 1997, pp. 13-58. Edición digital de Derrida en castellano. http://www.jacquesderrida.com.ar/textos/ como_no_hablar.htm (consulta enero 10 de 2011). Gogarten, Friedrich. Destino y esperanza del mundo moderno, La secularización como problema teológico. Madrid: Marova, 1971. UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT 50 Hankey, Wayne John. "French Neoplatonism In The 20th Century". Animus. 204. 4 (1999): 135-167 Heidegger, Martin. Estudios sobre la mística medieval. México: FCE, 1997. _____. Contributions to philosophy (from enowning). Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1999. Libera, Alain de. Patxi Lanceros y José María Ortega. Pensar en la Edad Media. Barcelona: Anthropos, 2000. Marion, Jean-Luc. L'idole et la distance, Cinq etudes. Paris: Grasset et Fasquelle, 1977 _____. "El sujeto en última instancia". Revista de Filosofía. 6. 10 (1993): 439-458. _____. Dios sin el ser. Castellón de la Plana: Ellago, 2010. _____. "La conversion de la volonté selon 'L'Action'". Revue philosophique de la France et de l'Étranger, 177.1 (1987): 33-46. Muñoz Martínez, Rubén. Tratamiento ontológico del silencio en Heidegger. Sevilla: Fénix Editora, 2006. Pagallo, Giulio F. "¿Para qué Presocráticos?". Apuntes Filosóficos. 14. 27 (2005): 217-218. Ramos, Jorge. "Un acceso filosófico a la noción mística de gracia en san Juan de la Cruz." Estudios 28 (1992): 15 Ene. 2011 < http:// biblioteca.itam.mx/estudios/estudio/letras28/toc.html > CARLOS ARBOLEDA MORA 51 Robinson, John. Honest to God. Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1963. Thomson, Ian. Heidegger on ontotheology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Vahanian, Gabriel. The Death of God: The Culture of Our Post-Christian Era. New York: George Braziller, 1961. Van Buren, Paul. The secular meaning of the Gospel. New York: Macmillan Co., 1963. UN NUEVO PENSAR SOBRE DIOS: DEL DASEIN AL DAGOTT

I s M o r a l i t y R e l a t i v e ? Michae l Garnet t Birkbeck College, University of London 1. Confessions I used to be a moral relativist-I used to think that moral judgements could be true or false only relative to a culture. Not just that: I used to think that moral relativism was obviously true. I struggled to understand how anyone could not be a moral relativist. Denying moral relativism, I thought, meant thinking that you were in possession of the one, true, universal, objective morality-and who could be so arrogant as to think they had that? I mean, maybe if you were religious you might think you had that. But even then, there are many different religions, and religious teachings require interpretation; and so who could be so arrogant as to think that they, out of everyone in the world, had hit on the one true interpretation of the one true religion? My mother is a social anthropologist, someone whose job it is to study different cultures, and growing up I was keenly aware of the huge differences in moral ideas and outlooks between different human societies. As a kid I'd sit through dinner parties listening to my mum and her anthropology friends swapping stories about the distant peoples with whom they'd lived: the things they'd had to eat (live grasshoppers and stewed goat's placenta were particular standouts), the different kinds of family structures they'd been welcomed into, and the different ideas about ethics and the cosmos that they'd learned about. For as long as I can remember, then, I've known that the ideas I happen to have about things like property, marriage, suicide, homicide, incest, cannibalism, the natural world, and so on, are mostly just local to me and to my little corner of the world. So how could I not have been a relativist? Perhaps I could have believed in a universal, objective morality if I'd been ignorant of the extent of these 2 cultural differences-if I'd somehow thought that everyone in the world shared more or less the same moral ideas as me and the other white, middleclass Londoners in my neighbourhood. But I wasn't ignorant: I had a front row seat at the theatre of human cultural diversity. So to believe in a single true morality I would have had to believe, arrogantly, that somehow I (along with the rest of my 'tribe') had some special access to the moral truth, a special access denied to everyone else on the face of the planet. What could possibly justify this? After all, it's simply an accident of birth that I grew up to have the moral ideas that I have. Had I instead grown up on a Fijian island, or deep in the Amazon basin, or in rural China, I would have had an utterly different moral outlook. Clearly, I had no better claim to the moral truth than anyone else. And that's why I thought moral relativism was obviously true. But I'm not a moral relativist any more. So what happened? What happened is I studied philosophy. Philosophy showed me that I was muddled about what exactly did and didn't follow from these facts about cultural diversity and disagreement, and it helped me to see everything more clearly. I eventually came to understand that, of the various things I thought about this topic, some of them were correct, but weren't moral relativism; and some of them were moral relativism, but weren't correct. It took me a few years to get this all straightened out in my head. What you're reading now is my attempt to pass some of this on, to give you a shortcut through the thicket. This is the essay that I wish I'd been able to read after sitting through those anthropology dinners, my head spinning vertiginously at exotic tales of cultural difference. 2. Nobody's Perfect So what did I learn? One of the most important things was this: that believing in a single objective true morality doesn't mean that you must also think that you're the final authority on what it contains. Morality needn't be any different from anything else on this score. We all make mistakes, we all get things wrong (sometimes badly wrong), everyone is fallible, and no one can speak with final, absolute certainty about anything, morality included. To think that there's an objective morality, you needn't think that you can never 3 be wrong about it. (In fact, to think that you can be wrong about it, you maybe have to think that there's an objective morality-or otherwise there isn't anything to be wrong about. I'll come back to this later.) All of this flows from a basic distinction that's enormously important not just for ethics but also for philosophy as a whole. It's the distinction between, on the one hand, the nature of reality itself and, on the other hand, our knowledge of that reality; or, more briefly, between metaphysics and epistemology. Let me first try to illustrate this with a non-moral example: the existence of God. Here's one question: Does God exist? This is a metaphysical question. It's a question about the nature of reality itself. Now, here's another question: Can we know whether God exists? That's an epistemological question. It's a question about the nature or possible extent of our knowledge. And these are very different questions. They have independent answers. If God exists, then he exists whether we know it or not. And if he doesn't, then he doesn't exist even if people think they know that he does. The existence of God is an objective matter-either God's up there in the heavens or he isn't-and it doesn't depend on what we think or what we know. God's existence (or nonexistence) is the objective state of the world that we're trying to discover. The same applies to morality. One question is: Is there a single objective morality? That's a metaphysical question, a question about the nature of reality itself. Another question is: What can we know about this objective morality? That's an epistemological question, a question about what we can know. Just because you think there's a single objective morality doesn't mean you think you know everything, or even anything, about it. Of course, if you believe in a single objective morality then you've probably got some ideas about what you think it involves. But you needn't be very sure about this, and you certainly needn't think you can never be wrong. This is a view that philosophers call fallibilism: the view that our ideas and beliefs might be mistaken. You can be a fallibilist about all kinds of things. For instance, you could be a fallibilist about science: you could think that even our best scientific theories might be mistaken. (Nearly everyone, and 4 definitely all scientists, are fallibilists about science.) Similarly, you could be a fallibilist about morality: you could think that even our best moral theories might be mistaken. The crucial point is that being a fallibilist about morality needn't make you an anti-objectivist or a relativist. It's possible to think both that there's one true objective morality and that we're often mistaken about what it consists in. To be an objectivist about morality, you don't have to arrogantly assume that you know all the moral truths. In fact, it's pretty difficult to be a fallibilist about morality without being an objectivist. Suppose that I, an objectivist, say: 'I think that abortion is morally permissible; but I might be wrong'. What do I mean? What I mean is this: first, that there's an objective morality; second, that my best guess is that this objective morality tells us that abortion is morally permissible; and, third, that it might not-that for all I know it might, in fact, tell us that abortion is morally wrong. Now suppose that you, a moral relativist, say: 'I think that abortion is morally permissible; but I might be wrong'. What do you mean? Well, you can't mean that you think that objective morality might in fact tell us that abortion is morally wrong-because you don't think there is an objective morality! So what then? Maybe you mean that you think most people in your culture think that abortion is morally permissible, and that you might be wrong about what they think. But then you're not really admitting to the possibility of a moral mistake after all. You're just admitting to the possibility of a sociological mistake. The problem is that if there's no objective moral standard to test your moral claim against, then there's nothing that it can really mean for that claim to be right or wrong. This is, of course, part of the moral relativist's whole point: that there's no such thing as 'objectively right' and 'objectively wrong'. But, if so, then not only can you not say 'I'm objectively right'; you also can't say 'I might be objectively wrong'. Each is as meaningless as the other. In order to be wrong, there must be something to be wrong about-and that means (perhaps) that there must be some kind of objective morality. 3. Toleration and Respect So rejecting relativism doesn't mean thinking yourself morally infallible. Nor, I also came to understand, does it mean thinking that you're justified in 5 imposing your own moral views on others against their will. Moral relativism doesn't have a monopoly on toleration and respect for other cultures. In fact, counterintuitively, moral relativism often gets in the way of toleration. This is the second thing philosophy taught me to see more clearly about this topic. Let's take an example. Suppose that I think that polygamy (that is, the practice of having two or more husbands or wives at the same time) is morally wrong. Suppose that someone else (let's call her Beth) lives in a place where people practice polygamy and, like the majority of people in this place, doesn't think there's anything wrong with it. Suppose further that I believe in a single, objective moral truth. So, presumably, I think that it's an objective fact that polygamy is morally wrong, and I think that Beth is just in error about this. That seems disrespectful of her and her culture. Even more worryingly, it seems that I would therefore be justified in intervening in her culture and trying to stop the polygamy, possibly by force. (After all, didn't I just say (for the purposes of this example) that I think polygamy is objectively morally wrong?) By contrast, a moral relativist could be able to argue that Beth and I are both right: that polygamy is morally wrong for me (relative to my culture) but morally permissible for Beth (relative to hers). Moral relativism therefore seems to offer a more tolerant, 'live and let live' approach to these kinds of disagreements. Indeed, moral relativism arose in Europe partly as a reaction to an earlier colonial perspective, according to which the moral codes of other cultures were considered inferior to the supposedly correct moral attitudes of the Europeans, and therefore in need of changing (if necessary, at gunpoint). In this context, moral relativism played an important antiImperialist role by denying that any one culture was inherently better than any other. But you don't need to be a moral relativist to be able to challenge these sorts of racist colonial attitudes. I can think that I'm correct about polygamy, and that Beth is wrong, without thinking that I therefore have any right to impose my views on her against her will. For instance, I might think that in addition to telling us that polygamy is morally wrong, objective morality also tells us 6 that we must tolerate and respect other people and their cultures. Put differently: the problem with the forcible imposition of European values on other cultures might be that it is intolerant and disrespectful and coercive and unjust-where these are objective moral facts about colonialism. What's more, moral relativism can actually make it more difficult to criticise these sorts of colonial attitudes. That's because most 19th Century Europeans believed that they were justified in imposing their 'superior' values onto their 'backward' colonial subjects. So, relative to their culture, it was right for them to do this. Far from helping to show what's wrong with forcibly imposing your views on someone else, therefore, moral relativism can end up justifying it. This suggests that in order to condemn 19th Century European colonial attitudes, we need to do so from outside 19th Century European culture-and that, in turn, suggests again that we may need some kind of objective moral standard. 4. Context Is Everything If morality isn't relative, it must be universal: instead of applying only to certain people in certain places at certain times, moral truths must apply to all people in all places at all times. But, the relativist might ask, what moral truths could possibly have this kind of universal application? This problem is especially serious if we think of morality as a collection of simple rules, such as 'Do not steal', 'Do not kill', and so on. It just doesn't seem credible that rules like this could really apply to all people at all times. Indeed, we can all think of contexts or circumstances in which rules like this have exceptions. Take 'Do not steal', for instance. This seems like a pretty good moral rule as applied to you or I standing in a clothes shop thinking about shoplifting. But if someone were lost and starving in the wilderness, and she came across an empty and deserted cabin, would it really be wrong for her to go inside and take a tin of beans from the cupboard, if this would save her life? We might say: the moral rule 'Do not steal' doesn't apply to a starving person out in the wilderness, even though it does apply to us in a clothes shop. Or that it's true for us, but not true for her. And that, presumably, is moral relativism. 7 Here's another example of the same kind of thing. Suppose that you visit a distant culture, and you find out that they practice cannibalism. Not just that: you find out that they eat their own parents. (They don't kill their parents; they just eat them once they're already dead.) Pretty horrifying, right? If you asked around in our culture, I'd expect that almost everyone would agree that eating your own dead parents is morally wrong. But suppose that, as you get to know these people better, you also come to understand more about this practice. You learn that, for them, eating someone is a sign of enormous respect. You find out that they believe that by eating someone, by literally taking their flesh into your body, you enable them to live on through you, and you give them further life. You see that this is something they do as part of their funeral ceremonies, and that it has great cultural and emotional significance for them. Eventually, you're not quite so horrified by it. (I don't mean it's something you'd think about doing yourself-just that you can start to understand a bit why they do it.) Now, consider the following abstract moral question: 'Is it morally permissible to eat your own dead parents?' Well, it depends. In the context of our cultural beliefs and ideas, it almost certainly is wrong (if someone did that here, we'd be in Silence of the Lambs territory). In the context of these other cultural beliefs and ideas, though, it maybe isn't wrong. So the answer to this question depends on your culture. And that's just moral relativism, right? Well, no. Not in the way that term is normally understood. Specifically, accepting this needn't require anyone to give up the idea that there is one true objective universal morality. All it requires us to give up is the idea that morality consists in simple rules. And that's something we should give up anyway. Morality isn't simple; it's highly complex. The morality of an action depends on all sorts of subtle factors, including the motivations and beliefs of the person acting, the circumstances in which they act, the likely further effects of their action, and so on. All of this and more has to be taken into account when making moral judgements. But that doesn't mean that the standards we use to make such judgements, and the judgements themselves, aren't objective. It just means that they're complicated, and sensitive to context. 8 Once we accept that morality is complex, we'll no longer expect it to give us simple, universal rules like 'It's wrong to steal'. We'll expect it to give us more nuanced, particular judgements like 'It's wrong to steal clothes from a shop when you already have plenty of clothes' and 'It's permissible to steal unwanted food to save yourself from starvation'. (Even these still aren't nuanced and particular enough-they themselves are open to exceptions- but you get the idea.) And there's no reason to think that these more specific judgements can't be utterly objective and universal. These judgements (or more specific versions of them) might apply to all people in all places at all times: for instance, to anyone lost in the wilderness, regardless of time and place. So this isn't yet moral relativism. To distinguish it from relativism, philosophers call it contextualism. It's the idea that moral judgements must always take into account the particular context of their subject matter. Looking back, many of the anthropologists I grew up listening to over dinner weren't really relativists, but contextualists. Their main worry was about people blundering into foreign cultures, taking one look at the local practices, and forming strong moral judgements about them based only on simple rules derived from their own unexamined cultural ideas and beliefs. But you don't need the idea that there's no objective moral truth or that morality is relative in order to explain what's wrong with this. You only need the ideas that moral judgement must be sensitive to context, and that it normally takes a lot of time and effort to understand a foreign culture. 5. It 's Personal So here, at its most basic, is what philosophy taught me about relativism: that the reason I thought moral relativism was obviously true was that I didn't actually understand the alternatives. I thought that if you weren't a moral relativist, then necessarily you believed in some kind of universal objective ethics; and that if you believed in a universal objective ethics, then necessarily (1) you thought you knew all the answers, (2) you thought you were entitled to impose your beliefs on others, and (3) you thought that moral rules just applied everywhere regardless of local context. I now know that none of this is true. Moral objectivism doesn't commit you to any of these 9 things. You can believe that morality is objective without thinking that you're the final authority on all moral questions (just as you can believe that science is objective without thinking that you're the final authority on all scientific questions). You can believe that one of morality's objective requirements is toleration and respect for others. And you can believe that morality yields judgements that depend on the particular circumstances of a given case, and that they are no less objective for that. Here's another thing I learned. When I was younger, I assumed more or less that all reasonably intelligent, worldly people were moral relativists. (How could they not be?) But I then discovered that at least out of philosophers- the very people whose job it is to think carefully about these questions- virtually no one is a moral relativist. Moreover, this isn't because every philosopher believes in an objective morality. Far from it. It's because moral relativism isn't the only theoretical option, even for those who reject objectivism. Indeed, there are plenty of philosophers who completely reject the idea that moral judgements can be objective, but almost none of them are relativists. How so? Well, it's all very well rejecting the idea that morality is objective. But this just leads to another issue, which is what people are up to when they make moral claims and act on the basis of moral judgements. If there's no objective morality, then what on earth are they doing? Relativists have an answer to this, which is that people are talking about and acting on moral ideas that are true (or false) relative to their own cultures. But that's not the only possible answer. Some philosophers think that people aren't really talking about anything, but are instead just expressing their own personal subjective feelings. This view is called expressivism. Others think that people are talking about objective morality-there just isn't any objective morality actually out there, so they're making a mistake, like when people used to talk about witches or dragons. This is the error theory. (There are other theories too.) All of these theories-relativism, expressivism, error theory-share the idea that there's no objective morality, but they disagree over what, in that case, 10 people are actually doing when they engage in moral practices. And relativism isn't a popular option, even among anti-objectivists. Why not? Let's look a bit more carefully at the moral relativist's distinctive idea. This is that moral claims can be true and false, but only relative to different cultures. So, for example, 'stealing is wrong' might be true relative to modern English culture, but false relative to some other culture. This means that, if I'm a member of the one culture-if I'm a modern Englishman-then 'stealing is wrong' is true for me, whereas if you're a member of the other culture then it's false for you. But what is a culture? Where does one culture end, and another one begin? For example, are England and Scotland different cultures, or are they parts of the same culture? (Or London and Yorkshire? Or East London and West London?) Relatedly, how do you know which culture you belong to, and so which moral claims are true for you? I'm English and Cuban and Russian and American. When these conflict, who decides which morality applies to me? And what about disagreement within cultures? Not everyone in England (or in rural China or in the Amazon basin) shares the same moral code. So what then does it mean exactly to say that some moral judgement is 'true relative to English (or Chinese or Amazonian) culture'? Who decides what is true relative to a given culture? The root problem here is that cultures aren't always discrete, homogenous, easily categorisable entities. (In fact, many anthropologists nowadays don't even use the term 'culture'.) What's more, cultures aren't the only determinants of our moral identities. Our moral outlooks are shaped not only by our cultures but also by our positions within them, like our class, gender, race, sexual orientation, disability status, and so on. Indeed, not all moral relativists are cultural relativists. For example, some Marxists think that moral claims are true and false relative to different social classes, and others have thought the same about a wide range of other factors. All of this leads to the thought that morality isn't relative only to culture, but to all of these things (after all, picking out just one category over the others would be pretty arbitrary). But what happens then, as we go down this road of pulling more and more demographic categories into our relativist theory, is that we 11 gradually move away from the idea that moral claims are true and false relative to different groups, and towards the idea that moral claims are true and false relative to different individuals. At that point, 'this is true for me' stops meaning anything very different from just 'this is what I think'. And so we seem to lose sight of the distinctive, central idea of relativism-that moral judgements are true and false relative to different groups-and end up just with the idea that different people have different moral beliefs, something we already knew. In short, while moral relativism seems to lead to all sorts of problems about how exactly to define the relevant groups, and how to decide which moral claims are true relative to which groups, other kinds of anti-objectivism don't. And that's one of the main reasons why even anti-objectivist philosophers tend not to be relativists. (Or course, both expressivism and error theory have problems of their own-but that's a story for another time.) 6. Concluding Thoughts If I were to go back in time and give philosophical advice to my past self, it would be this. First, take very seriously the idea that there might be a single, universal, objective morality-that idea's not nearly as ridiculous as you think. Second, if after careful reflection you conclude that morality really isn't objective, then consider adopting some other kind of anti-objectivism in place of relativism. It may save you a lot of trouble. Unfortunately, I'll never be able to give this advice to its intended recipient. But I hope, at least, some of it has been useful for you.

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