Panagiotis (Panajotis) Kondylis (Παναγιώτης Κονδύλης) - The multi-dimensional Enlightenment

1) The Enlightenment in the framework of new-times rationalism (Die Aufklärung in Rahmen des neuzeitlichen Rationalismus (1981) – Ὁ Εὐρωπαϊκὸς Διαφωτισμὸς (1987))

2) The new-times critique of metaphysics (Die neuzeitliche Metaphysikkritik (1990) – Ἡ κριτικὴ τῆς μεταφυσικῆς στὴ νεότερη σκέψη [Greek text Parts I – III by Kondylis] (1983) [Part IV; 2012 Greek text not by Kondylis])

"Naturally, the protagonists or supporters and adherents of the [[French]] Revolution did not understand this same Revolution as, and make this same Revolution out to be, a piece of usual prose pertaining to power politics, but understood it as, and made it out to be, a radical political and intellectual(-spiritual)-moral/ethical turn in the history of mankind; seen in this way, the French Revolution constituted the practical realisation of that which the Enlightenment had thought and dreamed about. Just as naturally was, however, the fact that the foes of the Revolution started from an organic connection or binding between the Revolution and the Enlightenment – only with reversed signs, i.e. symbolism: in their eyes, the Revolution represented and constituted the loathsome and atrocious, but unavoidable upshot of a long undermining of the estate-based-Christian values by a minority of power-hungry [power-thirsty] intellectuals, who managed to mislead the masses, and by invoking abstract universal ideals, to erect and establish their reign of terror." {{HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! We've seen it all before (if we know our History)!!! The reality is, though, that the Losers or Vanquished are just as "power-hungry" - it's just that they LOST!!!}}

"... the Enlightenment appeared to be intellectualistically oriented in the sense that its norms and values constituted mores, institutions, laws, etc. of autonomous Reason, which did not (necessarily) depend on experience, but commandingly or flippantly (depending on how one judged the matter) ignored or rode roughshod over the great chaotic diversity of empirically given data, facts); the social embodiment of this Reason or this self-conscious intellect making the world better was none other than exactly the intellectual – from the philosopher to the militant journalist." [[How about that! I wonder why since about c. 1900 or WW2, depending on the country, a certain (near) monopoly in ownership or control of, or at the very least GROSS OVER-REPRESENTATION in the Mass Media... !!!]]

"Similar objections could be raised against the fifteen years older work of Cassirer, who indeed following Dilthey, does not want to accept the Romantic reproach of the ahistorical intellectualism of the Enlightenment, but instead attempts to force and squeeze the great variety of the history of ideas into what he calls the Enlightenment’s thought form." [[Make sure you read Kondylis's critique of Cassirer very carefully! It goes to the crux of many of the misunderstandings of the Enlightenment, which keep on being repeated, at times with much fanfare and publicity, until today... (Adorno and Horkheimer did a neo-Romantic "job or hit" against or on P. Hazard and E. Cassirer, using old conservative anti-Enlightenment notions for their own polemical and political purposes)...]] [[P.K. translated probably Cassirer's best, or at least most interesting, book into Greek, and I have a great deal of respect and a lot of time for Cassirer. An outstanding mind, whatever the flaws, far superior to today's (comparatively illiterate) Clowns of "the Academy"...]]

[[It goes without saying that Newton and the Enlightenment were not per se, first and exclusively, about "Science"; "Reason" as rational thinking in the sense of (systematic) "philosophy", formally-logically seen, is something found in many eras and cultures; "Humanism" as a movement in Western Europe, coming from the Hellenic World, existed some two to three centuries before the Enlightenment; and the idiotic ideology of "Progress" is more or less present in much earlier Religious and other Utopian thought schemas... So why wouldn't anyone expect a (semi-)Retarded Tribal Warrior, who looks Uglier (though probably not as Ugly as me for most people) than the Ugliness of his Brain (which is very, very Ugly), who "just happens" to Sit in one of the World's "Great" Universities, to write a whole lot of moronic, imbecilic, downright stupid,... gibberish about...? Of course, that a Tribal Warrior would Fanatically Support His Tribe, first and foremost, by Hiding and Wrapping Up Grossly Disproportionate Accumulations of Power Behind and In Fanatical Particularistic Concerns of Control etc. vis-à-vis Universalistic Bullshit is a very Human Thing to do. Those of us though who belong to other Tribes, Dead or Not, of course will go our own Ways... the Strongest shall Prevail until the next Strongest comes along... I personally admire the Ancient Culture, or rather Ancient Cultural Roots, relative (but never absolute) Racial Homogeneity and Ethno-Patriotic Ferocity of the Chinese... Will they be able to pull it off?... The Parasitical Flea, some say, (at its Head) needs to be put out of its Misery (it is so disgustingly Ugly that it has to go for that Reason alone... those remaining, some say, can have their ethno-state if they are able to keep it...)... And if the Chinese don't do it, the APE = Anomie is coming for Everyone... Some of Hsiao-Hsien Hou's movies show that Most Admirable, Even Beautiful LOVE a People have for their People, Culture and Collective Identity, even though Civil War has caused so much Pain and Heartbreak... WHAT has just been written here could be seen as "totally irrelevant" to P.K.'s text on the Enlightenment. In ones sense it is, in another sense, P.K. himself emphasised that, grosso modo, one way or another, everything is connected to everything, since it is all human. Questions of Power, Culture, Knowledge, Identity, Meaning, Understanding, etc. are always intertwined... particularly when it comes to (historically) very strong ideological currents such as the Enlightenment, with exclusively strong Roots in North-Western Europe, which will perhaps or probably get some kind of an ideologically one-dimensional Revival/Spin to counter-balance the Manias and Hysterias of the imperialistic Globo-Homo Zio/Anglo/Franco/(Germano)/(?Russo?)-NGO/SJWs etc.,... Because when things go "too far" one way, then an attempt will be made to "bring things back" to... Common Sense... and I wonder for what purpose, and in whose interests?... And who will GROSSLY DISPROPORTIONATELY be there again... in all their GROSSLY DISPROPORTIONATE Disgusting Ugliness... HAHAHAHAHA... Of course, Science qua Science could not care less about how Power is distributed/taken (GROSSLY DISPROPORTIONATELY) and to whom... nor does Science care about who made good or great movies, and who is Beautiful and who is Disgustingly Ugly etc.,... all Science does qua Science is describes and explains... that's why P.K.'s texts are infinitely more important, and provide so much Pleasure to the... Reader... as Connoisseur...]]

[[Have a Read of this! Do you understand how much descriptive-scientific value is contained in so few words - away from all the Bullshit which Dominates both "vulgar" and "learned" discourse in today's Western societies?]]

"The investigation into the development of the Humanities in the Age of the Enlightenment likewise brought materials and facts to light which conclusively and definitively destroyed the Romantic – contested and disputed indeed for his part by Dilthey – yet surviving legend of the ahistorical positioning of the allegedly intellectualistic Enlightenment. The renewed readings or even the rediscovery of texts like for instance those of the Scottish School, from the point of view of question formulations and central themes which the modern social sciences posed and raised, showed that the Enlightenment had not merely left the old court historiography behind, but also political historiography (Hume, Gibbon), and could establish historically founded sociology. The opening up of the historical world in its material rootedness and great diversity was without doubt an intellectual(-spiritual) acquisition of the 18^th century, which only during both of the centuries following it brought its fruits to full fruition. This ascertainment had to, for its part, make the conclusion compelling that the historical constructions believing and having faith in linear Progress, to which one was accustomed to simplistically reduce the historical thought of the Enlightenment, constituted only one side or one aspect of the actually proffered spectrum in historical positionings and general attempts at interpretation. Relativistic or sceptical positions, which were not merely opposed to the first-named (believing in linear Progress) positions, but very often also interwoven with them, by no means constituted a slighter or negligible and unimportant part of the same spectrum. Relativism and pessimism were recognised as organic constituent elements and parts of Enlightenment historiography (Vyverberg), and if this phenomenon could not be explained straight away and not always lucidly, then, at any rate, the indication of this was an additional cogent and valid reason to seek an overall picture of the Enlightenment rich in nuances and content."

"Nonetheless, already the fundamental (and familiar) contrasting and contradistinction between Reason and Revelation or Authority let us recognise that the invocation by the Enlightenment of Reason has a purely polemical or negative character, which again implies that a unifying way of looking at the Enlightenment movement may be undertaken only with regard to its demarcation against the Church-theological foe, although the latter was not combated and fought with the same emphasis and with the same arguments by all Enlighteners (i.e. Enlightenment thinkers, philosophers, journalists, propagandists, et al.). However, the polemical-negative agreement regarding the invocation of, or appeal to, Reason against Revelation and Authority was not translated and converted inside of the Enlightenment into a positive agreement over the concrete content of this same Reason; the suggested content-related definitions and determinations of the concept of Reason as well as of Nature by various thinkers and currents on each and every respective occasion, vary and differ considerably from one another, or they are in fact diametrically opposed to one another, so that a positive unification of the Enlightenment under the aegis of Reason, to which all [[sides]] nevertheless appeal, cannot be managed. If we want to make a certain definition of the concept of Reason our own and use this same definition as our measure, yardstick and guiding principle, then through that we would be merely announcing our readiness and willingness to identify ourselves with the self-understanding of a certain wing of the Enlightenment movement, and to sacrifice descriptive procedure and method in favour of normative options and choices."

"In a time in which God was still not dead, the threat to the spirit through

 the rehabilitation or even the ontological autonomisation of the senses 

and sensoriality had to have an effect as a threat to the normative and the

 ethical in general. This impression would have possibly disturbed less the

 great majority of Enlighteners, who let themselves be influenced by it, if

 it had not put in the hands of the theological opponent an effective 

weapon, which understandably made the dissolution of the traditional 

hierarchy of values out to be the nihilistic dissolution of every value and 

every norm. Under the concrete circumstances of the 18th century, the 

whole Enlightenment had to in practice defend itself against the suspicion

 of atheism or of nihilism, if it [[incl. its various sides, factions, schools, 

groups, etc.]] wanted to get a hearing in society. The struggle carried out 

inside of the Enlightenment over the form and extent of the rehabilitation

 of the senses and sensoriality is therefore at the same time a dispute 

(quarrel, wrangle) over the better strategy and tactics for the handling, or

 at any rate, neutralisation of the theological opponent." [[Oh my God!!! My life roughly coincides with USA geopolitical and culture Hegemony/Imperialism in which my parents uprooted themselves in their "total madness" from a Vastly Superior Culture (subjectively seen) to be immersed in the Barbarian Culture of the Satanic Circus Monkey (which has now taken over their place of birth too) (subjectively seen), which "just happens" to have GROSSLY DISPROPORTIONATE input from a particular group: i.e. the more sophisticated elements of the "F?? ?????" are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT when they say that there is a particular "discourse" or "narrative" of History, which if questioned, let alone ridiculed, means you are a "N???" (in other words, particular elites are protecting particular GROSSLY DISPROPORTIONATELY DISTRIBUTED forms of Power and Use all their Means to behave just like, mutatis mutandis, mainstream Theology did in 18th century Europe...). On the other hand, what the "F?? ?????" does not understand is that their Proposals for the transformation of Society would inevitably lead to, one way or another, whether they are successful (very unlikely) or not (very likely), to a great deal of Heightened Anomie, Bloodshed, Violence, Hell. Yet, things are even worse, because the current Satanic Circus Monkey course is Leading Inevitably to Heightened Anomie, Bloodshed, Violence, Hell. Which means our children (which we should never have had) or grandchildren, are all FUCKED. The only Hope (to avoid the worst, and obviously not all conflict, strife, war, etc.) is to come to an agreement with China (and Russia and India and...), avoid nuclear/WMD war, and then every Sphere more or less Shut its Borders and concentrate on sustainable national/Sphere-oriented production of food, goods and culture, whilst also lowering the world population (particularly in Africa, Arabia and West Asia) drastically - it is very, very, very doubtful, to say the least, that things can be steered that way...]] 

"In view of that, – and once more, against the one-dimensional interpretations which always directly or indirectly start from a normativistic concept of the Enlightenment – we must make a double distinction. First, there is to be differentiation between the Enlightenment in the sense of intellectual(-spiritual) currents, which want to replace theological with a, as far as possible, secular and immanent explanation of the world, and, the Enlightenment in the sense of certain norms and values which defend not only against theology, but also against the scepticism and nihilism coming from the womb and bosom (from within) the Enlightenment itself; because the confession of faith in an immanent interpretation of the world does not necessarily mean also a confession of faith in a certain scale of values, unless one comprehends the concept of nature or of man normatively, as the great majority of the Enlighteners did." [[And of course Western mass democracy features dominant norms and values pertaining to "self-actualisation", which centre on individuals, compared to yesteryear at least, doing (relatively speaking) whatever they like,... as long as certain crystal(lisation)s of Power are not affected, within which a particular group of people "just happens" to wield (yeah, it's like magic!) GROSSLY DISPROPORTIONATE forms of Power.]]

"The rehabilitation of the senses and sensoriality sparked off the conflict between the causal element and the normative element. Logically, this conflict could be dealt with and gotten over, and indeed either by means of the abolition of the normative (this is what the nihilists did), or by way of the in principle separation of Is and Ought,[1] or sensoriality (the senses) and Reason (this was the path Kant went down). The mainstream of the Enlightenment could not and did not want, nevertheless, to accept both these consistent solutions: without the normative [[element or dimension]], the Enlightenment mainstream possessed nothing upon which it could prop up and support its social claim of leadership, whereas dualism not only entailed a resurrection of intellectualism, but would also make newly discovered (human) Nature as the source of norms unusable, and through that, possibly would enable or in fact make absolutely essential a new reverting to the supra(over)-nature for the foundation of ethics.        

[[Enlightenment moral philosophy and its teaching of the naturalness of Man, and anti-ascetic morality, were used against the teaching of Original Sin and God etc., so "post-modernists" should perhaps be more grateful towards a, or rather the, HUGE STEP taken to move, along with changing social conditions, to today's "normal" and "absolutely obvious" main world view]]