Process Imagining

So, first let me say that I have been studying philosophy and religion for a good part of my life. It has been a fascinating journey so far. The areas of greatest interest that were instilled in my framework of thinking was this notion of difference and unity, with difference as a unifying piece. Roland Faber has taken the Deleuzian notion of univocity as being is difference, and has introduced a philosophical theology that is pure difference.

However, is philosophy about pure difference and truth? The paradox here is that truth, in the philosophical rendering, is one. There is a truth. The truth. And yet our reality is that truth is many. I do believe this was Faber’s point, and thus the need for a form of relativism. Relativism, unfortunately, has been given a rather evil connotation to it. How can one move towards the right truth if truth becomes relative? Where is the oneness? Thankfully, once again, one can rest on Deleuze as he pushes against any oneness, and states that there can be only more than one. There are always, at least two.

But what about philosophy? Why do we use philosophy if its pursuit was always, truth? The truth? Or is it about a certain type of wisdom that has truth in it? But aren’t there many truths, and thus many philosophies? Not categorized philosophies, such as philosophy of science, philosophy of education, etc., but rather general philosophies that affect each and every categorization placed upon it?

This is where the interest in sophistics has caught my attention. I have picked up several books by the author Barbara Cassin on the subject of sophistics. The one I am currently reading is Sophistical Practice: Toward a Consistent Relativism. In it Cassin talks about the other of philosophy, the non-philosophy if you will (although different from Francois Laurelle’s Non-Philosophy), that is sophistics. It has been marginalized, demonized, so that philosophy is enlarged, and yet within philsophy it uses the same tools as sophistics. Cassin introduces a “logology,” in which language is not simply a means of communication (medium), but is also a way of constructing reality and shaping our experience of the world.

Cassin’s reflects and emphasizes on the Sophists, known for their mastery of language and rhetoric and who were often criticized by philosophers for their relativism and their focus on persuasion over truth. Cassin argues that logology is essential for understanding the way that human societies work, as language is used to create and maintain power structures, to construct identities, and to shape our understanding of the world. Cassin also explores the ways in which language can be used to resist oppression and to create new possibilities for thought and action.

What is fascinating for me here is how this falls within the framework of process thought. Process thought has many veins, roots, etc., in which it can be used for. However, process always pushes against any one way of thinking, and therefore pushes back from even any one philosophy, any one religion, any one science. It stays in conversation with each, and through language, expression, performance, persuades the world. I would almost argue that Process doesn’t even fall within a philsophy, but itself is a betweenness, it is a way of thinking that is relativistic. It will always exist within prometheus and epimetheus, that is thought is always a thought that happens before and after experience itself. Sophistics as process introduces the non-philosophical with the philosophical, showing the constant deliberation that happens, not only within ourselves, but in all aspects of things.