how certitudes mingle

7/27/2019 How Certitudes Mingle

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Primordial forms, ordinary life and conflicts of knowledge in society

Human culture is home to a multiplicity of proposals for constructing forms of life. These

proposals base themselves on claims of fundamental insight into the nature of reality and the

fate of humanity. These claims often conflict with each other. Is humanity condemned to live

with these conflicts of certitudes or universalisms? Or should we just give up on certitudes? Can

we build life and institutions based on a cloud of incertitudes? If not, then how do we deal with

the problem of multiplicity of certitudes? Modernity offered some sort of solution by declaring

these claims and forms of life based on them as archaic and relegating them to private life.

In other words, our problem is how can certitudes mingle? It is a fact that certitudes do mingle

in human societies and cultures. We propose in this speculative exercise a kind of map for

understanding conflicts of knowledge in society. I have drawn upon some insights of twocontemporary philosophers in our backyard, Navjyoti Singh and Sunil Sahasrabudhey, though

not necessarily in ways that they will approve of.

Arche or Primordial Forms

Arche is a Greek term signifying origin. The term has both temporal and ontological

dimensions. It refers both to the one as the foundation and to the first as the beginning. The

term was first used by Anaximander to characterize apeiron. Apeiron is the boundless, un-

limited, in-definite power or principle which is prior to and responsible for the world. It also

came to be associated with chaos. In Anaximander, apeiron brings into being the entireexistence and rules over it. Parmenides banished this idea from his thought and later on,

Apeiron, or the whole idea of infinite, always posed a problem in western thought. It is

considered to be one of the greatest achievements of modern 19th

and 20th

century

mathematics that it has cracked the problem of the infinite.

If apeiron is the primordial stuff, arche is the primordial form. Form/Content or Form/stuff

relation is the stuff of our ordinary language. It is a way of conceiving reality by separating the

things that exist from the way or manner in which they exist. Things that have existence are

content or stuff and the way or manner of existence is form. Therefore, form is said to be

vacuous, not having an existence of its own. It is a way of conceiving of something unwavering

amidst multiplicity and change that characterizes reality. It is way of conceiving order or

arrangement in such a way that the multiplicity and change can be generated from its

operations.

Knowledge involves grasping the form. Form that is grasped has different content in reality and

in mind. The content is different in imagination and in reality, but the arrangement of content is


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the same. This sameness of arrangement accounts for knowledge. Therefore, form is a way of

conceiving of knowledge in terms of order in reality and grasping of this order.Forms have thepower of summary. Things may exist here and there, now and then, but they exist is certain

well-defined ways. In other words, they always exist in certain arrangements. This power of

summary is what makes form an ideal instrument of knowledge, since knowledge requiressummarizing power.

In search for knowledge with higher and higher powers of summary, one may therefore look for

some fundamental insight into the nature of reality which will light up the whole of existence.

Such a formal insight can be conceived in terms of a primordial form or arche. If forms are

ways of existing of stuff, arche or primordial form can be thought of in two ways:

One way of conceiving a primordial form could be to postulate a way of ways of existing or

form of forms. This kind of move implies that forms have some kind of existence, which

subtracts from the initial separation of existence from the way of existence that led to identifyforms in the first place. Moreover, such a move lends itself to infinite regress.

Therefore, it would be more appropriate to postulate a fundamental form that denotes a way

of existing of anything whatsoever. To exist is to exist in this way. One can say that Arche is the

way of existence rather than being the way of existence of this or that thing. Arche is thefirst

fold in reality which defines it for all subsequent existence and also for all subsequent

apprehending. But thefirsthas a two-fold meaning: it is first in terms of depth as well as first in

terms of origin. Arche is the one as well as thefirst.

Arche is the fundamental principle. In practical usage arche came to acquire the meaning offirst power, sovereignty and even political authority. In philosophical discourse it meant

variously the primordial stuff (apeiron, in Anaximanders case), the first principle, the principle

of knowledge, basis of being.

The Problems ofMany Onesand Many in the One

Archeis beset with the problem of the many ones.Arche is the one fundamental form which

encompasses everything but there are always manyformations in human culture that are

archaic. In other words, there are many proposals ofarche that appear in human cultures. Each

of these proposals entails a form of life, a vision of human origins and destiny. Since each ofthese proposals seeks to organize human culture around itself, is human species condemned to

perennial conflict or is there a way of co-existence which does justice both to the one and the

many? The problem is to conceive a form of human co-existence.


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We can put the problem in another way also.Arche is the locus of certitude around which

forms of life can be woven. In view of multiplicity ofarcheai, how does a certitude relate to

other certitudes? How do certitudes mingle?

Modernity attempts to solve this problem by the division between the private and the public.

Archeai, or proposals ofarche and practices following from it, are restricted to the private

domain of individuals. Public domain isapparently an-archaic, and is governed by contract and

competition, and probably, reasoning.Arche is reduced to a leisure activity and a mode of

individual expression rather than a form of life. When we enter the public domain, we shed all

archaisms.

There is a problem in such an arrangement. The public domain becomes haunted by an

ambiguity. Is it truly an-archaic, or is it governed surreptitiously by an archaic formation which

remains publicly invisible? Is France Catholic or republican? Or is there a difference? Is England

liberal or protestant, or both? Is modernity (or science) universal or western? Is political theorygoverned by theology, or metaphysics? A lot of critical effort goes into unmasking the

archaisms hidden behind the apparently an-archaic modern public sphere. Equal lot of effort is

spent on establishing the indifference and impartiality of modern arrangements towards

Archeai. But the ambiguity persists.

This ambiguity is best illustrated (and least discussed) in science, which is the knowledge-

formationpar excellence, integrally linked to modernity. On the one hand, science is the

domain of free inquiry, and on the other, it seeks explanations which align with specific

metaphysical propositions. This is resolved (or effected) by the post-enlightenment disciplinary

structure of science, where in each discipline one is free to pursue inquiry, but the acceptability

of explanation is governed by the overall disciplinary and metaphysical hierarchy with physics

as the most fundamental science. Moreover, as laymen we get an ambiguous message from

science, which puts us in a double-bind. We are told that search for knowledge involves a

disregard for authority and authoritative views. At the same time we are told that we are not

authorized to question science, since science is the perfect knowledge being pursued with

disregard to all authority. Science constitutes its own authority on the ground that it offers the

best institutional and methodological instrument to pursue knowledge without any regard to

authoritative views. This leads to an irreducible ambiguity in the meaning of science and

obscuring of the interrnal structure of authority within science. This double message emanating

from science leads to a double bind for society, similar to the case of a dominating father

ordering the son to be independent.

There is another problem with the proposals ofArche, which is internal to each one. A specific

proposal ofarche can at best point to a set of possibilities as far as weaving a form of life

around it is concerned.Arche requires renewal and translation. There is always the possibility of


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a contest when it comes to establishing the appropriate embodiment ofarche in terms of

concepts, norms, and institutions.

Many in the One arises, as the principle of the one itself multiplies into many. One

duplicates itselfand becomes many.There is the one and there are many representations of

the one. While the problem of the many ones gives rise to conflict about what is the truth,

the problem of many in the one gives rise to conflict about what is the true representation of

truth.

Communities and Knowledge Traditions

Arche is the principle of origin. The principle of origin itself has an origin. It is at a certain place

and time that a discovery or invention is made, or a fundamental, sweeping insight is earned, or

an original vision is articulated. Along with this insight itself, accounts of the origin of insight

also grow. Ifarche illuminates the origin of the world, then such accounts illuminate the origin

of the arche itself. Ifarche tells the story of the world, then such accounts tell the story of the

arche. If we shift our focus from the principle of beginning (arche) to the beginning of the

principle, we can view arche, along with the forms of life woven around it, as a knowledge

tradition.

If we turn around our description, and start with knowledge traditions that exist in society, we

can say that each tradition is rooted in a formal insight.Arche is a first, an origin, in another

sense; it is the origin of a knowledge tradition.

When we look at knowledge in the form of traditions with beginnings we discover that society

is densely packed with knowledge traditions. Underlying the life of a community is a multiplicity

of knowledge traditions each with an origin which may be formal in nature. In other words, a

community harbors a multiplicity of origins. These origins are organized in a hierarchy. Science

can also be seen as a multiplicity of knowledge traditions bundled in a hierarchy under the rule

of anArche.

The problem is not so much the conflict between archeai, but between hierarchies. These

hierarchies are permeable in the sense that the specific archeaido not limit themselves to a

particular hierarchy. They can spread into other hierarchies. In other words, traditions of

knowledge do not respect communal boundaries and established hierarchies of knowledge.

Viewed in this way, human culture is constituted by a myriad of knowledge traditions each with

a beginning. Human communities get constituted by hierarchies.

Ordinary Life


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Multiple origins could not be sustained in any form of life, if a form of life is constituted

entirely by an origin. There has to be something in the dynamic of human life which

transcends these origins, something which is not, and cannot be, governed or ruled by these

origins. Or else, the human life would be perpetually lived in the condition of waiting for

godot.

One can postulate ordinary life as that part of life which makes it free from the rule of an

arche. Ordinary life is beginning-less. Ordinary life is not bound to any proposal ofarche. In fact,

arche or primordial form, becomes the content of ordinary life. Arche is tested in terms of

whether a proposal can be sustained in day-to-day living. Human well-being can be assessed

only in terms of ordinary life. Ordinary life is not always just or true or beautiful, but it has

criteria of justice, truth and beauty.

Ordinary life is distinct from the extra-ordinary forms of life like life of the mind, life in art,

life in search of truth,life in the service of nation, though it is informed and enriched bythese. There is a substratum of ordinary life underlying all these extra-ordinary forms of life

which keeps making new demands and throwing up new questions to them. Extra-ordinary

forms of life keep inventing new rules of life, but ordinary life rules over all rules.

Truth, justice and beauty are not subject to arche. This implies autonomy for ordinary life and

for the protagonists of ordinary life. We can think of Gandhis last man as the protagonist of

ordinary life. There is three-fold autonomy of the last man, and therefore for every human

being. To say that ordinary life is not subject to arche but contains arche as content, is to say

that human being, the last man, is characterized by jural autonomy, epistemic autonomy and

aesthetic autonomy. These are ordinary powers of ordinary humans in beginning-less ordinary

living. These do not require any religion, any technology, any ideology, any infrastructure, for

their sustenance. These latter, in fact, emerge from the necessities of ordinary life and have

ordinary life as their end.

Avinash Jha

[Paper to be presented at CSDS Retreat, Ramnagar, December 2012]


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