The Ontology of Mystery
Since I began the mental journey that eventuated in Triadic Philosophy I have been aware at some level that the refusal attributed to the deity by the author of the story of Moses and the Burning Bush lies most probably at the very foundation of knowledge. Which is to say that whatever foundational “deity” there may be, said deity is shrouded in the frustratingly clear statement I am I and its logical extension I will be who I will be. In other words to penetrate the cosmos, the creation, is to be lost in a sea of mystery or, better said, found to be creatures whose condition is to be always confronted by mystery.
The liberating thing about this insight is that it is a universal truth. It is something with an ontological heft. It is beingness. And I make bold to suggest that the reason for this is not some anthropomorphic coyness but rather the possibility that what we might think of as foundational is in fact the reality in which we live move and have our being. Triadic Philosophy puts it this way. Reality is all — all we know and all we do not yet know.
I have shied away from saying that mystery is ontological because I believe it is more all-embracing than ontology itself, if that is possible. And it would be possible if we came to regard mystery with the degree of veneration that is its probable due.
Now does this simply hallow ignorance and suggest we can proceed as know-nothings into the uncertainties of life? By no means. We are to explore reality to the extent we can. We are in the infancy of such exploring.
Those who explore with more assiduity — the Einsteins among us — seem to emerge with the sense of values that are the guiding values Triadic Philosophy infers and thus to advocate a world beyond the binary confines of its conflict-ridden past.
The passage from Peirce below — which is consecutive within this ongoing text — suggests two things.
The continuing importance of the “metaphysical” (what I might call the real).
And the fact that we have a way to go to prove our value-based ontology. To prove it we must argue that our values can and do produce measurable, communicable, clear and definite results.
That tolerance and helpfulness and democracy do in fact work together for good, defined as the reduction of harm, defined as the conscious inflicting of hurt and humiliation.
That non-idolatry works as an underlying basis for the sane affirmation of both our fallibility and out continuity as a universal global community.
And then there is the matter of how we can know this metaphysical (real) situation, to the extent that we can. This is the fact of consciousness and its attribute, the capacity to converse with what we may call our higher self or what I am coming to call the Primal Word. The names for this are many but the basic truth is that to the extent that we can penetrate mystery it is this ongoing conversation that enables it.
Peirce: CP 2.35 Cross-Ref:††
35. Such is my rude notion of what the method is to which Hegel endeavors to impart exactitude. Vague applications of it recommend themselves to my faith; but I have never met with an attempt to state a transcendental argument with precision which began to convince me. At any rate, when I reexamine the logics of more or less Hegelian tendency which have appeared in the last quarter of a century, I must decline to allow any weight to such flummery. I do not mention earlier German works, because they are still worse.
