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Tag: Metaphysics

Image.

Published on February 27, 2026

What is an image? It seems to me to be that composite oneness in which signifies or is assumed by the substance of what is. The image in which a tree assumes, simply exists, and so it is. The cat, which is irrational, animated, and moving is perceiving other images but not concerned with its own.

Why then, is rational Man concerned with his own image? Perhaps it is because of his rationality, and him having the capacity to be aware that the image staring back at him in the mirror, is actually him. It seems then, this gift of self awareness, to know oneself, and being conscience, can also be a trap. For, is it not unreasonable, to assert that the more a man looks at his own image, his entire world becomes fixated upon that image, which signifies himself? Thus, the motions in which he starts, begin to revolve around that image: decisions, thoughts, affections, inspirations, schemes, plans, anxieties, etc. It seems to me, that without realizing it, a man’s whole metaphysical perception, and understanding, becomes self-centered, because of the enamoring one suddenly develops in the act of being concerned with one’s own image. This must be vanity. Now multiply that by years and years of habitual ‘self-checking’ as it were, and you end up with a shallow man, whose whole ontological understanding is literally skin-deep.

On the contrary, assume now that this same man were to crucify this vain habit, and began to look outward, at the images before him. Of the created images of nature, of the irrational beasts, and other rational Men made in the image of God. It seems obvious to me, that taking one’s attention off oneself, and placing it outward, in exitus, is necessary for charity. If one’s perception is self-less, then the questions seems to change to: “How can I serve these other images I see? How can I help them?”

Therefore, looking less in the mirror, seems to heal the ego, and kindle a fire of charity, while being guarded by the watchful vigilance of humility in self-abasement. Starting with avoiding unnecessary and habitual “self-checking”.

EAR

Silence.

Published on February 9, 2026

Silence does not equal approval. To assert otherwise is false, an equivocation, and a logical fallacy. To assert such, seems to conceal a deceptive and desperate desire to survive at the cost of one’s neighbor. It is as if to say: “I will fall, but you will fall with me”. Such absurdities should be called out for what they are and not be conformed to. The defense seems to be to object and not grant such an assertion. For the moment we grant such a fallacious lie, we give power to someone else to assert over us. As if the sophist has the power to define things as being contrary to what they are, what they signify, and how we understand them. Silence is not affirmation, or negation, it is neither. If it is neither than how can it be of necessity, actuality, or potency? Silence is nothing, neither what is not, nor not what is. Therefore, it must be humility, the immoveable essence from which all things derive. To enter into silence, is to enter into the timeless and humiliating place of nothing. For from nothing everything came to be, because God spoke. So, silence is not approval, or privation; if it were either, then there would be no need of the Truth. And what kind of reality is that? Absurd.

EAR

M.

Published on January 14, 2026

I think just getting past the switching of naming conventions was a huge breakthrough for me. My confusion on the actual positioning, or rather the assumed signification of M, was a mess from the beginning. My assumption of its inherent alphabetic sequencing, as if it were univocal to the function of A, and then – with that flawed assumption – tracking the conversion of the major premise as if M is now posterior to N because it was originally prior pre-conversion. All these things were distorting my perception of the premises, their relationships, and their implications to the conclusive propositions. Nothing made any sense, and it only got worse during the subsequent reductions of invalid demonstrations.

Towards the end of my intense first line-by-line study on Chapter 5, all my notes were corrupted because of this error; but after getting into another dialectical tennis match with the tutor for clarification, and wrestling past my ignorant equivocation of M as if it were the subject, instead of the predicate, finally my error revealed itself, and then the light began to shine on everything I had previously stumbled through. There was an immense clarity as I re-wrote the notes, and with the proper terms defined for ‘NMO’, viz. M being properly understood as the middle term, I could then properly understand each line from Aristotle in a way that was not apparent before. I was able to ask the tutor more intelligent, and nuanced, questions and give more logical interpretations on sentences that were difficult to understand at first glance.

EAR

Aristotle, Prior Analytics. Book I, Chapter 5.

Devotion.

Published on January 12, 2026

It seems that the rational soul’s active and conscious, renunciation and rebuking of prior thoughts, premises, and memories of a past life once lived, are necessary acts and daily affections: in order for the man to effectively pursue wisdom, peace of mind, ordered reasoning, and any kind of clear dialectic investigation. All of these aforementioned seem to be the prior cause to the devout life, as taught by St. Francis de Sales in his treatise for the laity, “Introduction to the Devout Life”.

If these privations, negations, and contrary dianoetic conceptions of the soul are not actively purged out and fought against, they seem to be like weeds which infect the garden of the soul that is actively attempting to plant, cultivate, and nurture fruitful ideas that bring the soul to perfection.

The nosegay ejaculations of devotion as collected personally during the meditative ascensions in purifying imperfections in the soul seem to be the key to return to the contrition, soulful stirrings, and resolutions as experienced during a full meditation in God’s presence.

To enter into God’s presence through meditation, or at least to become aware of His omnipresence, seems to be the purpose of acts of Faith, Hope and Charity. To remember the negations of the past life lived, and vigilantly defend one’s disposition, and subsequent affections caused by them, must be acts of Reasoning and Logic. Reasoning is needed to purge useless thoughts; whereas Faith, Hope, and Charity are necessary for God’s grace to fill that purged vacuum.

These things seem to work in tandem, and are both needed to bring about the purification, illumination, and – Lord willing – perfection of the hapless rational soul. In moments of emergencies, and crises, these must be opportunities to employ these acts of the soul and intellect, reject false premises void of evidence, and allow God’s grace to penetrate and transform the adopted soul, and prevent self-destruction. I.e. they seem to be invitations to permanently cement these small ascensions up the ladder of divine ascent and imprint these fruits into the soul. This is unbelievably difficult, not only to remember, but to act on in the heat of the moment. Once again, bringing our attention to what Aristotle teaches as being effective in energy, or in the moment, what is necessarily now. If we cling to this, perhaps we can more effectively, and efficiently grow in true devotion, and reasoning. There is a mysterious balance of co-operation, and submission here.

“Vacate, et videte quoniam ego sum Deus; exaltabor in gentibus, et exaltabor is terra.” (Psalmus 45:10)

EAR

Earth.

Published on January 10, 2026

A mystery it is, that we seemingly were generated into time, out of an abyss of nothingness, into a world far more ancient than ourselves, of which has witnessed the generation of substance, and subversion into ashes of countless hylomorphic rational beings, whom in their toil made many things, and left remnants of their presence here, for time and new generations to see, but not care.

“Ecce mensurabiles posuisti dies meos, et substantia mea tamquam nihilum ante te.” (Psalmus 38:6)

We were never needed, this ancient Earth existed, and will continue to exist, prior and posterior to our short time here; and yet, here we are. If we were never needed, how could the purpose of our existence in necessity be anything but an invitation to stewardship: which presupposes wisdom; which presupposes reason: which presupposes active study. Otherwise, whatever our hands touch will destroy, when it is devoid of reason, of wisdom.

“Verumtamen universa vanitas, omnis homo vivens.” (Psalmus 38:6)

I think this is evident by the way this ancient Earth is treated by us, this home of ours, in which we have cast aside our reasoning and seem to exploit in perpetuum, whilst rejecting the very invitatory vocation we were purposefully designed to assume responsibility of. They speak of going to Mars, and for what? As space is a vacuum, so any community devoid of reason, philosophy, wisdom, and theology, would be also of a vacuum, that by natural consequence, could be filled by something unbelievably devastating, privative, and contrary to reason.

The end would be the same though, after running that irrational course, a man would simply return to ashes and make room for the next generative hylomorphic being. Would that one, continue the damage done, or willfully break the cycle, and walk the paths of the ancients? Only time will tell, and time seems to be something that is merely accidental to the Earth we’ve come into.

Quid superbit terra et cinis? (Ecclesiasticus 10:9)

EAR

Slugs.

Published on January 7, 2026

What is this unwillingness to speak up? This desire push things on other people, to not share the burden, but watch someone else suffer for the sake of your own comfort, laziness, and illusional peace of mind? Why do people do this? I think it comes from an unwillingness to take risks. To make oneself vulnerable to defeat, or possibly victory. So, like a bunch of fat slugs, we hide in our little holes and deflect, redirect, forward, and forget. This can’t be human, or normal behaviors. It seems to be a sign of a culture that is slowly dying and imploding on itself. A culture and society that is devoid of reasoning, logic, and wisdom, ethics too.

In this cesspool of sloth, everyone is operating in this mode but pretending to act as if they are indeed acting upon anything at all. Yet, when one calls things out for what it is, feathers get ruffled, feelings get hurt, and tenured positions become threatened. Passive aggressive toxicity rises, and enemies are made. The very same enemies who, prior to you speaking up, were your friends when they were permitted to shove their responsibilities onto your desk, your inbox. Now, no longer.

The cost of this is the deprivation of the victim’s peace of mind, his willingness to serve is exploited, and the freedom to study is slowly taken away from him. This is a great paradox, a culture that prides itself on being scientific and learned, becomes the very black hole which destroys any contingency for the higher things that it imagines itself to be promoting.

EAR

Deserts.

Published on January 6, 2026

Deserts seem to be the place, where a man’s intellect and heart are tried, and tested, by an arid desolation that permeates to the core of one’s entire being. They also seem to be a reminder of the place that one left behind, when pursuing wisdom, and the incarnate Word. Though to be completely honest, a desert must not have been apparent to one prior to taking up the labor of seeking wisdom, and the grace of baptism. We must have been severely distracted, blissfully ignorant, or in serious denial of the severity and danger of this condition.

It seems to me there are a few options in response to this season of aridity: distraction, despair, or persistence. To distract is to be in denial. To despair is to be buried alive. To persist is to grow. It also seems that this desert never really goes away but lingers as we are reminded of what we left behind. Perhaps as we persist in wisdom, this reminder of the desert only grows more painful, and distasteful when it presents itself. It’s as if to go back to it, would only bring greater torment, because your eyes have opened to the truth, and you cannot unsee, or unlearn what you now know.

So, the only option is to persist and go on. To do anything else, seems unbelievably unreasonable, and irrational.

EAR

Mnemonics.

Published on January 4, 2026

Had I not stumbled upon the mnemonic chart of syllogisms, as used by the Renaissance masters for their students at that time, I would have been utterly lost in this chapter. I honestly could not figure out, why in the world Aristotle would provide all these different examples of invalid syllogisms, and not provide one demonstration of a valid one with predefined terms from natural philosophy. I was trying to understand the point and purpose of this. Every example he provided did not make any sense to me and felt very absurd to even reason with: “Some horse is no white, no crow is a horse, therefore no crow is white.” I kept asking myself, “So what? That, ‘no crow is a horse, while some horse is not white?’ What does that have to with a crow not being white? It has nothing to with it; these things are irrelevant and prove nothing about each other.”

Learning of Barbara, Celarent, Darii, and Ferio shed light on this question. It was such a huge breakthrough for me. Once I learned their propositional order, then it became a piece of cake to simply diagram out each syllogism in my notes and see why these were not working. In fact, I was able to quickly recognize what was universal, particular, privative, categoric, and the quick determination of the validity of each demonstration. I also noticed a commonality between the four perfect first figure syllogisms: viz. B A, C B, C A. Coming back to my original conundrum of not understanding why he demonstrates these as he did: it seems that he is showing us examples that are wrong, in order to make what is true more apparent to us.

Aristotle, Prior Analytics. Book I, Chapter 4.

EAR

Necessity.

Published on December 31, 2025

What is necessary seems to be a convergence point for the intellect to enter into, in order to be transfigured by what is in energy, in order to be at rest and at peace. I.e., what is necessary is what happens right now. What is priority is right now. What happened before, or what could happen later, are useful to know, in moderation. It seems to me that an unhinged, wild mind is incapable of resting in what is in energy now and is tormented by what was or what could be. Perhaps without training in Prior or Posterior Analytics, there would be no possibility of a human mind, naturally predisposed for analysis, to escape this inevitable fate of insanity. This seems to be the great parody of the human rational faculty. Indeed, it might be the reason why some, by consequence of their decisions as new independent and young adults, suddenly find themselves distracted by various earthly things in order to relieve themselves of the potency of insanity by way of unhinged abstractions.

Therefore, I think peace seems to be tied to what is necessary right now; yet, to defend that peace, I think one needs to be trained in how to properly deal with what was and what could be. Having both of these—a condition of being present while being absolutely capable of entering into inductive or deductive abstraction, regressively or progressively to deal with whatever comes—is essential to living in the way we were designed to.

EAR

Conversions, & contingencies.

Published on December 19, 2025

I could not understand what the difference was between the fact that a necessary universal privative proposition is converted, and a contingent universal privative proposition is not converted. I thought that perhaps the answer would be revealed by asking figuring out why this was the case metaphysically. So, I went down the rabbit hole and tried to do an abstraction, and brought it to the tutor: “Why are universal privative propositions impossible? I reason that it is because even if A and B were not, the fact that they are, begins from somewhere, or some inductive universal predicate, or point of origin. E.g. every man is not every rock, and every rock is not every man, but both exist, and so therefore, they can’t mutually and indefinitely exclude the other into subversion.”

I overstepped myself, and the tutor tried to clarify and reel me back, while citing from Posterior Analytics, and later chapters in the Prior Analytics. I was not having any of that, so after a dialectical tennis match, I felt utterly lost, and that was not a good feeling. With a shattered brain the tutor finally brought me back to my original question, and demonstrated in a way in which clarity returned, and I could see again: “… the key difference between the conversion of necessary and contingent universal privative propositions lies in their logical necessity and how their conversion relates to syllogistic validity. First: “A is present with no B” being the necessary, and the second: “It happens that A is not present with any B” being the contingent.”

EAR

Aristotle, Prior Analytics, Book I. Chapter 3.