CONCLUSIONS
 

In the last pages, the concept of time -one of the pillars of what we called the Paradigm of Mâya- has turned out to be outright logically indefinable: the definitions that are given of it define nothing, actually mean nothing and are self-contradictory. Secondly, it has turned out that the very experience, perception, representation of time does not exist in fact; and that, thirdly, it is impossible that anything corresponding or implying the concept of time appears, because that is intrinsically contradictory. Fourthly and lastly, nothing like time may exist, for reasons of logical impossibility.

A thoroughly analogue destructive critique of the concept of time can be performed with regard to the concept of space: space is indefinable because its definition presupposes itself (space is an extension in space, quite like time was an extension in time). You just need substitute ‘extension in space’ for ‘unit of time, duration’; the oppositions ‘here-there’ for ‘present/past+future’ and ‘there-there’ for ‘before-after’. The outcome will be the same: impossibility and unreality.
With regard to the concept of causation, we have seen in Chapter Two, when speaking of Hume, that the experience of causation never occurs and cannot possibly occur.

The concept of matter, and in general of a thing in itself, of beings beside consciousness, has been repeatedly shown as arbitrary and unwarranted, as we spoke about realism, idealism, immaterialism and metaphysics.

The opening up of a metaphysic theory can only be effected in general terms, as we pointed out referring to Berkeley, Bradley and Severino - that is, as the discovery that every being or meaning logically implies, as a necessary complement, the totality of being, in that we notice that the idea of being aware of a particular being, meaning, phenomenon, other than all other beings, meanings, phenomena, is self-contradictory (hence, that being aware is impossible), unless it implies the totality of meaning, of phenomena, of being. For Bradley, the discovery that the common thought concept of the manifest, of appearance, is illogical, self contradictory, impossible -that, is, the discovery that reality cannot be as we are ‘reading’, thinking it; and that it must be otherwise in order to abide by the principle of non-contradiction- is the legitimation and, at the same time, the proof of the significance of metaphysics - obviously a metaphysics altogether alien to the traditional, transcendent, realistic, religious one. A metaphysics that does not fetch the ontologically other (of a creator, a being transcending my consciousness, eternal, inconceivable, immanifest) but of the semantically different, i.e. the different (and logically consistent) significance of the phenomena, of a different conception of appearance and reality. Therefore, this ‘new’ metaphysics is clearly analogue to the upanishadic views about transcendental atmân and brahman as supreme, all-pervading reality - supreme because universal and true, not because transcendent and creating; and all-pervading because nothing exists beside it or other than it, and by no means in a naturalistic sense - like, for an instance, how the gravity field pervades all bodies - or in the sense of animism - which believes that all bodies are animated or conscious in that they have a soul or conscience ‘inside’.
Of course, this metaphysical approach can hardly make statements about the possible existence (let alone the feature and the demeanour) of beings corresponding to complex concepts such as ‘god’, ‘nature’, ‘karma’, ‘love’, etc.

When discussing solipsism and consciousness, we saw that it is impossible both to experience and to logically demonstrate the existence a particular sort of metaphysical beings or things in themselves, which also constitute a structural element of mâya’s paradigm of reality - namely self-consciousnesses (other than and external to one’s own) or other subjects; indeed, self-consciousness is a presence of an immediate identity; hence, I can know of and experience consciousness and ‘I’ only as mine own and never as someone else’s I or consciousness. The very meaning of ‘self-consciousness’ excludes otherness. I may only infer the existence of my sentient next and my being in a relationship to him, basing of what appears, on my phenomenal horizon; but this horizon is, after all, my own consciousness. It is merely possible a) to imagine that there are other subjects, other I’s, by analogy with one’s I and consciousness; b) to imagine to be in a relationship to them; c) to imagine to behave accordingly. My relationship to this fancied Mr. Other is, at any rate, internal to me. That is, it is no relationship. Indeed, relationship, intended as a relation between separated, selbstaendig beings, is logically impossible, as Bradley demonstrated. We have also seen, through Hillman’s contorted wording, how thought, whenever questioning the ultimate basis and nature of knowledge, ends up discovering that the latter has no basis outside of itself, nor needs any extra-mental referent. Positing such a referent would be, therefore, completely unwarranted.

With the disproof of both the experience and the existence of a res extensa (i.e., matter) other than and external to consciousness, the problem of the discrepancy between subjective knowledge and objective world (or between certainty and truth) is supplanted: as outer, material reality is recognised as delusion, reality is identified with the immediate content of consciousness or consciousness itself. We do not need bridge over to reality. We need solve the antinomies posed by the appearance of space, time, becoming, and so on.

And, once solved the problems of antinomies, there remains the even harder challenge to reach out of the phenomenal and logical immediate in order to ascertain the possible existence of positive beings beyond the bounds of one’s consciousness. Unless we succeed in this endeavour, the existence of anything other than one’s consciousness, God included, remains a mere desire, on the logical plane.

The propositions of sciences and religions, included those of the various and allegedly revealed scriptures, are mostly too gross and semantically undetermined in order to be logically verified or tested for truthfulness or falsity. They are mostly undemonstrated and indemonstrable, rich in contradictions. Even if they, here and there, do contain implications or enunciates that have a logical-philosophical meaning (whence it is possible, to an extent, to perform a logical-philosophical analysis and critique of them), they do not constitute at all organic logical-philosophical systems. When they attempt to engineer one, they can make something that caters for the psychological needs of a number of people, but they cannot make a true philosophy, as they are cognitively not free, tethered as they are to two received paradigms, that is: a) they must assume as true both the possibility and the content of revelation; b) they must share, at least to an extent (they cannot criticise freely) the paradigm of reality of the people they address to. Hence, they invariably construct systems for the rationalisation-reconciliation a posteriori of those two paradigms and their relation: theologies and theodicees.

The relation between reason and philosophy, on the one side, and faith and mysticism on the other side, has manifested to be a relation between incommensurable things and between different and incompatible functional modes of the mind, which, when in the philosophy mode, radicalises the criticism of every paradigm and is not interested in action or performance; while, when in the mysticism mode, must stick to received paradigms in order to act upon itself.

Science, in its various forms and degrees of formalisation (i.e., reduction to mathematical models), has been found to be not qualitatively different from, nor superior to, the so called alternative knowledges, save in that it, unlike these, sometimes discovers and admits to its own relativity and limits. Science has turned out to be, just like common sense and common sense theory and interpretation of the world, basically a set of beliefs, doxai, faiths, substantiated by accepting languages and paradigms shared by the social groups or sub-groups in which one happens to be rooted and with which one is more or less deeply identified.

Sciences and techniques generally function well even if they ‘see’ their own relativity and disputability. Religious faith, on the contrary, cannot take into account its own relativity and disputability for, in order to function, it needs the Erlebnis, or subjective experience, of infinitude, absoluteness - it needs the negation or unawareness of its own limits.

Sciences criticise and analyse, and sometimes disprove and supplant, some of the above-said languages and paradigms, until they undermine the partition of reality according to the mind-matter dualism: they lay bare their relativity, subjectivity, impossibility or inability to find an objective and final formulation. The world in which we live is much more an interpreted, believed one than a perceived one.

Nevertheless, sciences, like religions, work of necessity through some paradigm(s) and, hence, they are neither radical nor free; being bound to a function, a goal, they have to refer to some paradigm and language. Philosophy is distinct from science and religion for its unrestrained and unsparing critical attitude, which is not conditioned by any other goal. The true opposition lies, therefore, not between faith and science, but between pure reason, and science plus faith.

It follows, from the above, that, on the one side, (true) philosophy is unable to give emotionally and existentially satisfying responses to man’s issues - indeed, it does refuse and disprove that realistic paradigm -the ‘world- that generates and feeds those issues and all of human affections, values, will. Philosophy’s response cannot, therefore, be satisfactory, even if they can demonstrate the inconsistency of both the basic paradigm and human issues. On the other side, religions are able to give satisfactory responses on the emotional and existential plane -they provide in fact a whole array of them- but they neither can, nor need, be logically consistent or provide a real proof of the truthfulness of their tenets. And, above all, they neither can, nor need at all, be aware of their own cognitive limits.

 
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