1346. I have been struck by . . .

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I have been struck by what Marxsen says about the believer's "seeing," or "knowing," something "more," but not anything "other," than the nonbeliever. It suddenly occurred to me that something analogous could be said about what the metaphysician "sees," or "knows." She or he likewise "sees," or "knows," not anything "other," but rather something "more," than what all of us (can) "see" and "know" empirically. 

If, as Hartshorne says, the metaphysical is not alongside the physical but in it, to be experienced existentially and discerned, or known, by analysis, or "transcendental argument," then there is certainly an analogy with discerning, or knowing, the meaning, or significance, of a person or event. In both cases, the something "more" lies, not in what can be seen, or known, empirically, or empirical—historically, since, if it did, it would not be something "more," after all, but merely something "other," which is to say, something alongside, though on the same level as, what is visible, or knowable, empirically, or empirical-historically. On the other hand, the something "more" that is seen or known is, in both cases, something "real." This is so, at any rate, if the meaning, or significance, of things for us is, as Post says, "nonreductively determined" by the being of things in themselves; for then it is, in its own way, real, and "practical propositions" asserting it, being precisely propositions, are, in their own way, capable of being true or false (Bochenski). Similarly, the structure in itself of anything concretely real, although not itself concrete but rather abstract—indeed, as utterly abstract as only "transcendentals" (and, in their way, "existentials") can be—is also real. And yet neither way of being real is the way in which things that can be asserted empirically, or empirical-historically, are real. 

Given my basic understanding of it, then, one may define the "category mistake" myth makes simply as and because it is myth as (mis-)representing what is, in reality, "something 'more'" the idiom appropriate only to representing "something 'other.'"

5 May 2008