User:Pataman/William Desmond (philosopher)

William Desmond (philosopher) is an Irish philosopher who has written on Ontology, Ethics, and Religion. Former president of the Hegel society of America and the metaphysical society of America, Desmond is now professor of philosophy at the Hoger Instituut Vor Weijsbegeerte, also known as the Higher Institute for Philosophy, at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. In his three books: Being and The Between, Ethics and The Between, & God and The Between, Desmond works out an entirely new and complete metaphysical/ontological philosophical system based on what he calls the Potencies of Being and the Senses of Being. His most original contribution in his metaphysics is the notion of the "metaxological", which will be explained below. Desmond's program consists mainly in exploring the senses in which modernity has devalued being and what "to be" and "the good" might mean.

The Ethos
For Desmond the Human self always lives in what he calls the Ethos. The Ethos is the place where all our actions happen and where our ethical selving occurs. In The Ethos of Being, alternately known as the "chiaroscuro of the good" our self becoming takes place and is further embodied by one of the senses of being of the various potencies of being. The potencies of being are in turn expressed and embodied at different times by the Senses of Being, which are ways in which the different potencies can express themselves. The Ethos can be better understood as "a feeling of how we are in the world as a whole". We both generate and are generated by The Ethos.

In living in the milieu of the good-yet another way to characterize the ethos-we bring morality and concrete good through our power of affirming. Simultaneously, we receive the hospitality of the Ethos through what Desmond calls the "agapeic origin of the good" The Origin is the "original givenness that frees beings into their freedom" and must be understood as an agapeic gift which is overdetermined and thus cannot be aptly described or determined univocally or dialectically. As a consequence of this overdetermined origin as gift, we both generate and are generated by The Ethos.

The Potencies of Being
Within the Ethos there are seven Potencies of Being which can be described as the enabling powers which allow for our ethical selving. This "enabling repertoire of self becoming" has the "character of an endowment", and is thus seen as a gift. The potencies are not a program to follow, they simply are all together the powers from which ethical selving, expressed through particular Senses of Being, take their endowment.

The seven potencies are:

1) The Idiotic: By definition something which cannot be defined specifically. Related closely to the aesthetic, the idiotic potency is always with us as we dwell in the ethos. It is the potency of being present before all dianoetic reduction or understanding. As encarnate beings (thus related to the aesthetic potency) the idiotic concerns our pre-determined being.

2) the Aesthetic: Our being in the world is always encarnate. We live through our bodies and basic to our being is our embodied relationship with the world.

3) The Dianoetic: The rational potency of lawmaking and determination. The dianoetic potency looks at the world through laws and determinate formulas.

4) The Eudaimonistic: The sense of wholeness of how we are in the world.

5) The Transcendental

6) The Transcending

7) The Transcendent

The Senses of Being
Within the ontological matrix of being, the different potencies can be expressed differently through the senses of being. These ways in which to express the potencies help explore the relations of sameness and difference within the ethos. The four potencies are:

1) Univocal: This potency is that of intelligibility and identity. It is a potency most clearly seen as the driving force behind modernity. The univocal potency helps manifest intelligibility and gives determination to the ethos.

2) Equivocal: The equivocal potency is marked by its indefiniteness and difference.

3) Dialectic: characterized by mediation, the dialectic sense places emphasis on self mediated wholeness.

4) The Metaxological: From the greek 'metaxu' meaning 'between', the metaxological is a view of the ethos from the between as overdetermined. Emphasizing mediation, it leaves the between open (as opposed to the dialectical) and emphasizes the interplay between sameness and difference. The metaxological considers the between as overdetermined and does not attempt to constrict or define the between or the ethos as whole or progressing teleologically. It is a more robust consideration on the agapeic origin as overdetermined good

Critique of Other Philosophers
Different philosophers can be seen as embodying different potencies and senses of Being throughout the history of philosophy. Kant for instance is best defined as a Transcendental Univocalist. Nietzsche would come close to something like an aesthete. Hegel might be defined as a transcending Dialectician. Desmond believes however that all of these philosophers are somehow haunted by those potencies which they seek to ignore or devalue. There is a dialectics in Kant and there are equivocities in Nietzsche. "Metaxological vigilance" shows a clearer picture of the ethos than do any views that restrict philosophical considerations to the other senses of being and potencies.