What is Truth? Post-Christianity and Metaphysics Pt 5

Hello Everyone,

First let me say, apologies for being a bit silent on here in the last few weeks. There are few reasons for that. One being that I have been super busy finishing the edits on my new book coming out late June/early July. My goal was always to publish a follow-up reader after STTKW. Safer was a 30,000 foot look at all this stuff and this next reader, I'm honored to say, is a collection of 40 Patreon pieces that break some of it down. I had to spend quite a bit of time thinking through which ones I thought would be best for a volume like this. And, of course, they needed editing and footnoting. But, honestly, I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for supporting the work I do on this platform. I only have you to thank for the second book and I say as much in the acknowledgements. I will reveal the title to you here, for the first time, Reconfiguring: A Collection of Post-Christian Thoughts and Theologies.

The second reason is I find myself on a side of the spectrum I swing to occasionally. I often say that this post-Christian life can bring you to one of two points. It brings you to the end of all you thought you knew, leaving the world wide open for discovery. The sky is no longer the limit but beyond! And you spend your life exploring to that end. Or it brings you to the end of everything and you are just done; exhausted and no longer interested. Because you have come to a certain type of end and you do not feel the need to explore further. Both are legitimate, acceptable, and okay. I usually live within the former but every so often I find myself on the precipice of the latter. And whenever I am there I don't like it. It doesn’t feel good or life-giving. It is easy to experience burnout among all of the podcasts, interviews, content creation, publishing, social media, etc. It is soul destroying to try and keep up with the Jones’ in terms of likes, reviews, articles, and creating the most hype. I get why people do it. And I do it to an extent. But only to the point where I feel I'm still being true to myself. It is why I haven't posted anything on social media for a while—both personal and professional. Because I am tired and it doesn't seem fun anymore, which makes me sad because it used to be one of my favorite things to do.

In any case, I don't know what the solution is. I've been feeling overwhelmed by a lot and not in a good place to create for you. And you don’t deserve anything less than my best. But with that being said, I have a few final things I want to say about metaphysics and then I'm going to put the series to bed.

What people don't often realize is that at its most basic and from its inception, metaphysics is one of the traditional four main areas of philosophy. The other three are ethics, logic, and epistemology. According to Stephen Mumford, “it is only one aspect of reality… and only one kind of understanding…” Metaphysics is only and simply one way of looking at the nature of reality. It is a labyrinth. And while some of us might make it closer to the end than others, there is really no finish line. But the search gives us hope. And it makes us believe, and supports our belief, that while we know we may not achieve the end that the end does, indeed, still exist. And this we live our lives for.

Mumford says, “Metaphysics, while it’s concerned with the world, it is not so much concerned with that part of it that can be observed.” Some might read this and then turn their attention to what can be observed. But the answers don’t lie exclusively there either.

Perhaps part of the answer, in which we first realize there is no real answer, is lowering the aim of such a task. Thinking in either of these binaries truly limits our experience of and in the world.

Aristotle proposed a theory and doctrine that he called First Philosophy. Which came to be known as the branch of philosophy metaphysics. Yet when Aristotle talked about such concepts he often used the phrase we translate as after physics. He knew there was more. This was his exploration to that end.

Many metaphysicians today don’t think it is possible or plausible to be post-metaphysics. But if we are to continue on in our quest for knowledge, even if that means unknowing or knowing less, shouldn’t we be speaking in terms of ‘after after physics’? Or ‘after metaphysics’?

Are we so boring and uninventive that we must return over and over again to the same philosophical lenses?

During the course of this series I have mentioned the work done by Armen Avanessian in his book, Future Metaphysics. He talks about the process of thought: “obstruction, negation, speculation.” He says, “all thought begins with an abstraction from the intuitively accessible world.” He says this “alone has a metaphysical component.” But as we move onto negation (engaging something based on its distinctions and is opposite from other things) and continue through to speculation (rethinking our relationship to the world based on new findings) he says “the new emerges not with reflexive recourse to what already exists or has already been thought, but only through further alienation.”

He calls this “Future metaphysical speculation.” It isn’t about “the mind coming to itself, but always becoming something else, always in the process of alienation from itself.”

This is always the aim, isn't it? Transformation towards otherness, toward the unknown, by which it becomes known, in which our journey towards otherness in the unknown starts again. Towards what Avanessian calls, “Ceaseless transformation of the world and self.”

So call it what you like—metaphysics, after metaphysics, future metaphysics, but don’t call it too familiar because the goal is alienation and transformation. Alienation from what we were, transforming towards what we are becoming, and ever living in the tension of those in between places we mostly live.

And with that we move on.

Until next time,

Your Maria