TAGS: #satan
With the emergence of Post-modern Philosophy, being as embodying presence has been put in the back seat. Postmodern philosophers argue that there is no presence in the meaning of being and being as a semantic structure is devoid of meaning, being an empty signifier. Postmodern Philosophers wanted to deconstruct the presence of being in the LOGOS or the word as espoused by Christian World View. The problem of nullifying meaning of being, creates again a logo-centric semantic structure, a meaning of being as that of anti-being. Negation of being creates its own thought structure which implies a presence of non-meaning in being.
The presentation of non-being as implied in Postmodern Philosophy implies a non-presence. This poses some problems in philosophical thought. It's true that according to postmodern philosophers that when a text is probed in the meaning of language, it enters the stream of Binary Divide with a privileged center and marginalized periphery. When a text is deconstructed and the peripheral marginalization of meaning is brought out, the text enters another realm of becoming another center as the meaning of being.
Let's examine the structure of being a presence to meaning from a metaphysical point of view. Here I would like to take a metaphysical framework of the Christian World View. From a Christian World View the meaning of God as a being in the presence of meaning takes a double frame work of God being the Signifier and the Signified and thus we can say God is GOD. When the Bible is being read hermeneutically: LOGOS is assumed to be a presence as the meaning of being and that being a logo-centric God. Evil and Satan assume to become the connoted as a marginalized periphery. The Binary divide of God verses Satan is a symptomatic pathology of privilege and marginalization. Even though the Devil is marginalized, he or she is assumed a presence, an entity of being or a non-being. Even though LOGOS has been deconstructed, the presence of meaning in being cannot be wiped off. As a semantic structure it becomes the connoted and by faith and belief the meaning of being in GOD is sustained in life.
Now let's look at the structure of being from an Ontological point of view. Here I would like to take Sartre's Philosophical concepts and also analyze the structure of being from Freudian context. Sartre has bifurcated being into an Ontological structure as the being in it-self, the being for it-self and the being for others. The being in it-self is a primary referent of pure consciousness. Here Sartre has refuted Descartes famous dictum: Cogito Ergo Sum: meaning: I think therefore I exist, saying that Descartes was referring to a secondary aspect of consciousness: that of thinking, a consciousness which becomes a being for itself. It's hard to deny the presence of meaning of being as a primary vehicle of consciousness. Being is a presence of meaning and exists as consciousness and its denial as absence as a semantic construct is belittling of the meaning of being by postmodern philosophy. The second construct of Sartre is being for it-self. Being for it-self occurs when consciousness is directed towards an object or goal. Being for it-self is purposive and it can be cognitive as well as affective. Here Sartre also uses the concept of negation or nothingness. For example: I am expecting the arrival of a friend and he does not come: then I enter into a stream of negation. Negation also implies a presence or non-presence as the meaning of being. There is no pure emptiness in the conceptuality of being. The third of Sartre's concept was, being for others. It refers to eleemosynary aspect of human relationship. How can it be signified as being empty in presence? Meaning of being always signifies a presence of meaning in being. Even when being occupies a semantic structure, it becomes a vehicle of consciousness for the reader.
Next I would like to look at the structure of being in meaning from a psychological framework. The human mind is not a tabula rasa. I would like to enunciate the Freudian concept of the ID, EGO and the Super Ego. The ID, the primary seat of passions is controlled by the EGO and regulated by the Super Ego. Even its structure in deconstructive reading implies subversion. For example let's look at the maxim: deify the ID, glorify the EGO and subvert the Super Ego. Here also, being occupies a phenomenology of presence of meaning. Again, if we look at the structure of the unconscious, it is never static and it's a dynamic entity. The unconscious is a ceaseless machine. The very act of reading a text implies the placement of meaning in the structure of consciousness. Being as a structure of meaning is present with a signifier and a signified.