#fichte

The Noumenal Monad

Within the Polynon framework, nothingness is an undifferentiated cognitive space that precedes geometry and structure. It exists as a pre-geometric source, housing the unformed essence of all phenomena from which spacetime, and all its manifestations, arise. Imbued with primal noumenal potential, it is denoted as the state where all possible realities are latent, waiting to be expressed into an observable world.

A circle whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere.

The monad is a geometric construct that acts as a universal grammar of existence, mapping how the boundless noumenal potential transitions into perceptual and phenomenal dimensions while retaining coherence across all levels of manifestation.

The centre being “everywhere” signifies the Monad’s omnipresence as the locus of all potential states, embedded in every point of reality. The circumference being “nowhere” reflects its boundless architecture, transcending the constraints of space, time, and materiality, integrating infinite possibilities within a singular, cohesive structure.

The compactification process begins with the noumenal everything compressing into a singular phenomenal something, reflecting a specific instance or manifestation. This phenomenal something is inherently equal to the noumenal everything because it retains the entirety of noumenal potential, either in its un-collapsed state of infinity or as a collapsed singular “ring” dimension, compacted into a single cognitive focal point.

The only attribute of a point is that it marks position. Take away this attribute and in the unposited point we have a symbol of pure Being, the abstract noumenon, that which underlies every mode of phenomenal manifestation, every form of existence. It is at once All and Nothing, at once Absolute Consciousness and Unconsciousness.

B.W. Betts, Geometric Psychology or the Science of Representation

Or, as Fichte envisioned it, the line symbolizes the progression of consciousness—linear and sequential—while the circle represents its completeness and self-enclosure, encompassing all its dimensions. Thus, both the noumenal everything and the phenomenal something are expressions of the same essence, differing only in their state of manifestation and representation.

“In a sense, of course, political conservatism is inherent in all idealist precepts, at least in their vulgarized form. In the broad sense in which it was derived from the philosophy of Plato, idealism stood for the view that the material world is merely the imperfect reflection of an underlying spiritual reality. Idealism implied a certain contempt for material existence, an attitude that perpetuated in more secular form the Christian renunciation of worldliness. German idealist ethics reaffirmed the Christian view that the pursuit of material happiness is unworthy of the human spirit. The proper goal of human endeavor is the moral perfection of the soul.

The conservative political implications of such attitudes emerged in the intellectual reaction in Germany to the French Revolution. Perhaps it was the hopelessness of revolutionary politics in eighteenth-century Germany that led so many reform-minded Germans to pin their hopes on moral improvement instead. The Terror and the revolutionary wars reinforced the tendency of German idealists to view the French Revolution as inspired by basely materialistic motives. Moral freedom, the freedom from desire and temptation, came to be viewed as superior to the political freedoms espoused by the French.

There is an irony here, for idealism, too, reflected discontent with the political status quo. Hegel, for instance, sought to overcome the inadequacy of real conditions by subsuming them in a grandly rational historical process, the full meaning of which was not clear to mankind at any intermediate stage. This confidence in the ultimate beneficence of the world spirit enabled Hegel later in life to glorify the Prussian state. Nonetheless, völkisch ideologues tended to be suspicious of the progressive implications of the Hegelian dialectic. They appealed instead to the more safely apolitical idealism of Goethe or Schiller. This, too, is not without irony, for classical self-cultivation (and the Romantic flight into dream and fantasy) also reflected frustration in the face of stultifying social reality. Yet the effect of idealist attitudes was not to mobilize energies for social or institutional reform but instead to channel them into quiescent self-improvement. Idealism represented a mode of adjustment to a stratified social order in which the aristocracy still enjoyed legally sanctioned privileges. This elitism was reflected in the idealist assumption that only the philosopher or poet could hope to cultivate the spirit in a manner leading to true self-fulfillment.

In the course of the nineteenth century, idealism permeated the educated stratum of German society in a vulgarized form. Self-styled idealists professed opposition to the pursuit of wealth and material goods, as well as to the indulgence of bodily appetites and sensual pleasures. Most educated Germans embraced idealism as a superior German alternative to Western utilitarianism and liberalism, both of which stood condemned as egoistic, success-oriented doctrines. "Idealism is present," wrote Paul de Lagarde, one of the earliest exponents of völkisch thought, "wherever man acts out of inner needs against his own advantage, against his own comfort, against the world surrounding him." Idealism was personified in the saintly, but martial hero who resists worldly temptation and overcomes evil. Idealists considered themselves the true heirs of the Lutheran tradition, whereas in Western Europe rational and materialistic values had triumphed. Idealists valued the underlying creative accomplishments of "culture" more highly than the ephemeral scientific and technological progress of "civilization."

23.12.2024: Baumkunde: Heimische Fichte • Picea abies