The Ubiquitous Nelsonian Manoeuvre of our paraconsistent hypostatic logics
I’ve always been especially drawn to theologians & philosophers who’ve embraced the Nelsonian brand of para-consistent logic.
One way, among others, to meaningfully relate the divine & human, i.e. nondeterminate & in/determinate being,
while properly eschewing both facile tertium quids and false antinomies (embracing one thesis or predicate while abandoning their contrarieties),
while holding fast to both identity & noncontradiction,
while preserving unity in difference by neither the mere blending nor destruction of constituent elements,
while avoiding the pseudo-tensions that arise from the false dichotomy of essentialism & nominalism, which are obverse sides of the same bankrupt epistemic – ontic coinage that only has purchase on crude determinisms & vulgar voluntarisms,
is to adopt a semi-formal heuristic,
that prescinds from pure necessity to probability for determinate being.
That’s the Nelsonian Manoeuvre, which can be conceptually distilled in terms of when one should & shouldn’t apply the principle of the excluded middle.
Empirically, the “laws” of excluded middle & noncontradiction refer to universally quantified propositions (all, some, many, few, most) & existentially quantified propositions (that).
Interpretively, the “principles” of excluded middle & noncontradiction variously hold & fold for modal propositions, where PEM folds for generalities, while PNC folds for possibilities, as well as for propositional subject-terms (object in/determinacy), where PEM folds for general subjects, while PNC folds for indefinite (vague) subjects.
Holding or Folding, then, means a “principle” does/n’t apply, interpretively, & not whether, empirically, the “law” happens to be true/false.
Our modal temporality, then, will include formal or metaphysically real distinctions. This all maps, somewhat, to both Scotus’ formal distinction & Peirce’s category of thirdness or 3ns.
Concretely, in the context of epektasis – theosis, this is all to recognize that, while “what” one is, quidditatively, has been determined, “how” one will be, expressively, remains decidedly probabilistic. This is also to say that, modally, noncontradiction holds but excluded middle folds, which means that our range of theophanic final potencies has been divinely determined, while our specific efficient – formal or volitional acts have not.
Differently put, on our epektatic – theotic journeys we will co-self-determine via our tropoi both how (not what) and how much (not whether) we will contingently express the essential whatness of our logoi. Some refer to these contingent tropic expressions of our substantial being, respectively, as our accidental being (howness) & relative being (howmuchness).
Our accidental beings are on epektatic – theotic journeys of howness as measured in terms of our tropic soul-craftings, as we co-self-determine – not what, but – how we’ll contingently express our essential whatness or logos.
Our relative beings are on epektatic – theotic journeys of howmuchness as measured in terms of our tropic actualizations of our substantial beings, as we co-self-determine – not whether, but – how much we’ll contingently express our essential whatness or logos.
Modal temporality as applied to Peircean categories can variously map to causes, where for:
2ns or actualities, where noncontradiction [PNC] & excluded middle [PEM] hold and act maps to efficient & potency to material causes;
3ns or regularities, where PNC holds but PEM folds and act maps to formal & potency to final causes;
1ns or possibilities, where PNC folds & PEM holds and act maps to our embodied connaturalities and potency to their indeterminacies.
Our epektatic – theotic journeys refer to those acts, then, whereby we reduce the infinite potencies of the thirdness or regularities or habits of – not the quidditative whatnesses of our substantial being or logoi, but – the soul-crafted hownesses & howmuchnesses of our accidental & relative being or tropoi.
What we are placing in a creative tension in our semi-formal heuristics, then, is the normativity of classical vs statistical correlations. The utility of our paraconsistent logics may not derive solely from the degree of consistency that we can preserve, abstractly, as we apply negations to otherwise jointly true statements and actual negations.
If & when those logics are aptly applied in the context of epektasis – theosis, it seems that their utility could be discerned in terms of formative spirituality, such as per the criteria of sustained authenticity, stability in the good & progressive self-transcendence. And, in how those processes can be fostered, hindered or stifled empirically.
Per a paraconsistent logic, our hypothetical predications can juxtapose – not necessarily & only the contraries of certain violent ontologies of being & nonbeing, but – the Absolute & relative perfections and Universal & particular manifestations of our harmonizing ontologies. If so, when theosis does go awry, while any vicious habits might situate themselves between our infinite potencies & theotic acts, however stubbornly so, they could only ever hinder but never obliterate, i.e. parasitize without annihilating, either the substantial being of our inviolable logoi or our reductive agencies, which remain primally & unalienably disposed toward the graced tropic realizations of our co-self-determined accidental & relative beings.
If & when those hypostatic logics are aptly applied in the context of epektasis – theosis, their utility could lie in helping us discern when we’ve deliberatively instantiated – not nonbeing, but – parasitic subcontraries, which when juxtaposed with the jointly true statements of our robustly harmonizing – not violent, Manichean-like ontologies – will reveal the sinful parturitions of our pseudo-hypostases, pary-postases or false incarnations. If such subcontrarieties can wound but never kill us, then our hope for healing & redemption can never be vanquished because our faith in life’s beauty, goodness & truth can never be extinguished. Love will ever remain accessible, synergistically, in our very next graced step.
The soul-crafted hownesses & howmuchnesses of our accidental & relative being via tropoi, then, can’t ultimately actualize nonbeing & evil.
And our tropic events are neither of pure necessity nor chance, chaos nor order, paradox nor pattern, discontinuity nor continuity, the random nor necessary, asymmetry nor symmetry, the indeterminate nor determinate. Neither are they subject to some amalgam of or choice between them. Rather, they are contingent & systematic.
Chance has meaning only when information is lacking, so probability deals with the epistemically unavailable, is an empirical notion subject to empirical methods and is assigned to arguments with premises and conclusions and not rather to events, states or types of same, although those realities are indeed statistically ordered.
I went to some length to concretely describe that above-mentioned Nelsonian move regarding when one should & shouldn’t apply the principle of the excluded middle in order to bolster my claim that the maneuver is rather ubiquitous in our tradition. It seems to me to be reflected (at least implicit) in Lonergan’s emergent probabilities, Abelard’s modal identities, Cusa’s coincidentia, Maximus’ sumbebekos, Peirce’s thirdness, Aquinas’ distinction between substantial (per analogia) and accidental / relative being (per noetic identity), Scotus’ haecceity & formal distinction, etc
Recently, Jordan Daniel Wood’s Maximian hypostatic identity & Timothy Troutner’s many Neochalcedonian explorations & explications very much evoke for me the Nelsonian Manoeuvre.
As a counter-example, it demonstrates why Brandon Gallaher has correctly assessed the failure of Bulgakov’s attempted antinomism. Gallaher prescribes the cure, too, as found in Joseph Bracken’s panentheistic process Trinitarianism. It’s always been my contention that Bracken’s all embracing cosmic society, which preserves natural transcendence while championing the concrete social Absolute of our intersubjective unitive doing (not some unitary being expressed in different modes), decidedly makes the Nelsonian Manoeuvre.
Well, that concludes my recent defense of hypostatic logics & dialectics, with my concrete appeal to the rather uniquitous Nelsonian Manoeuvre. A question must beg regarding who is this Nelson person, who has so pervasively shaped my metaphysic?
Why do I have to choose?
See everybody lose?
Walk around and sing the blues?
Well, darling, I refuse!
~ Willie Nelson
I am searching for a citation for this Maximian rendition, below. It speaks to the dynamics discussed hereinabove:
It is no accident, or rather, is foreordained blind inspiration that the Stagirite spoke both worse and better than he meant. For when he says that ‘indeed the inquiry or perplexity concerning what being (on) is, in early times and now and always, is just this: what is substance (ousia) (Meta Z 1.5, 1028b).’ he begs the question by his reduction of the problem of Being to that of one kind of substantial being. For the categorial determinations of the meanings of Being that have their focus or reference to a more fundamental kind of being are multiple. For as Tradition has taught us to see, there is another substantive mode of existing which is that of the personal mode of existence. The logos was in our tongue but we could not see. There are hypostases that are a personal mode of existence (tropos hyparxeos) that is the referent or fundamental kind of being that has characteristic manners or modes (tropoi) of being as modifications of the first-personal to be (eimi) that is the voluntary (thelesis) analogue to ousiological energeia and that can existentially realize (uparktikos) itself contranaturally, naturally, or supranaturally with their respective vices and virtues.