Meontology

Problema categoriilor estetice, asupra căreia ne oprim în această lucrare, deși apare în istoria filosofiei universale încă de la Platon, nu a fost decât arareori luată în considerare cu atenția de care s-a bucurat, în câmpul logicii, epistemologiei și metafizicii, teoria conceptelor prime ale intelectului. Într-un anume fel, teoria categoriilor estetice a stat mereu în umbra teoriei categoriilor intelectului, motiv pentru care conceptul de categorie estetică nu a ajuns nici astăzi la o formă conceptuală stabilă. Există însă destule " locuri " ale istoriei filosofiei universale din care avem de învățat în ceea ce privește metodologia și constituirea categoriilor estetice.  După cum urmărim să argumentăm, interpretarea cateogriilor estetice din perspectiva instrumentelor filosofice contemporane ale hermeneuticii ne poate deschide o cale de înțelegere a modului de constituire al categoriilor estetice. Pe urma sugestiilor provenite de aici, vom încerca să gândim acest tip de categorii ca modalități originare de raportare la experiențele noastre nonjudicative în genere, așa cum sunt ele receptate la nivelul dis-poziției afective. Astfel, se prefigurează o posibilitate de gândire a modului de constituire al categoriilor estetice, precum și a principiul după care numărul lor poate fi determinat sistematic.

This paper utilizes Elliot R. Wolfson's analysis of Menahem Mendel Schneerson's thought in order to explicate the conceptualization of melody in Habad thought. Specifically its relation to the meontological Infinite, time-consciousness, and postmessianic messianism.
Firstly by clarifying key texts from Habad masters regarding melody showing that it is to be identified with the most transcendental strata of being and even with the Infinite itself. Following this the paper deals at length and in depth with the melody called 'Nigun Shamil' introduced by Schneerson in 1958 on Simhat Torah. Through contextualizing this melody in its surrounding teachings we are able to perceive how the linear-circular nature of melodic time interacts with a melody focused around exile and redemption and the performative function of melody.

Volumul de față propune o viziune de ansamblu asupra uneia dintre cele mai incitante teme ale esteticii filosofice contemporane, anume problema „atitudinii estetice”, prin compararea gândirii despre artă prezentă în două sisteme filosofice relevante pentru gândirea actuală – Lucian Blaga și Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Această problemă este pusă în contextul mai larg al dezbaterilor contemporane privitoare la raportarea postmodernă la lume în genere ce poate fi surprinsă în toate domeniile disciplinelor umaniste, dar și în științele naturii.

Principalul element de noutate al volumului constă în faptul că este primul demers din cultura română ce propune o interpretare sistematică, din punct de vedere hermeneutic, a gândirii estetice a lui Lucian Blaga și a lui Maurice Merleau-Ponty, pornind de la o nouă metodologie de comparație, numită de autor „comparația meontologică”. Una dintre virtuțile acestei metode de comparație este aceea că permite punerea în dialog a unor gânditori cu metodologii de lucru și cu presupoziții epistemologice radical diferite, luând în considerație experiențele non-judicative ce motivează și prilejuiesc interogația filosofică. Prin modul în care este structurat și prin tematica abordată, volumul se adresează atât publicului interesat de filosofie, cât și celui interesat de domeniul disciplinelor umaniste în genere – de la literatură și până la antropologia culturală și sociologie.

The Perception of Beauty in Plotinus. The Foreshadowing of a Meontological Way for the Constitution of Aesthetics. In this essay I tackle the problem of perception in the context of the plotinian philosophy, with an emphasis on the " psychological " mechanisms involved in the perception of Oneness, Goodness and Beauty. As I argue, these are " meontological " ideas that are perceived by the human soul through a peculiar power, namely an " ineffable consent " of the unity with the first principle. Subsequently, these impressions left by the idea of Beauty in our soul enter a special hermeneutical process through which they form the multitude of ideas populating the " intellectual world ". Following the steps of the platonic analysis of Eros and its epistemological role, Plotin rethinks the foundations of the Platonian epistemology and ontology, giving it a meontological turn which can be used to rebuild modern-day aesthetics as a rigorous philosophical science. Problema frumosului se pune în filosofia greacă încă din perioada presocratică când, în mediile pitagoreice, s-a dezvoltat o teorie a frumosului gândit ca armonie, simetrie şi proporţie 1. Această teorie, deşi neatestată documentar în forma sa iniţială, a constituit cadrele generice în care întreaga gândire estetică s-a mişcat de-a lungul Antichităţii, Evului Mediu şi al Renaşterii. Ea suferă însă de o oarecare neîmplinire structurală, anume aceea că lasă deschisă problema mecanismelor intime ale trăirii estetice. Cu alte cuvinte, în forma atribuită lui Pitagora, teoria frumosului ca armonie nu pune nicio clipă problema determinării modului în care noi percepem frumosul şi nici de mecanismele sufleteşti care sunt implicate într-o astfel de percepţie. De aceea, ea se cerea completată printr-o teorie a sufletului şi a facultăţilor acestuia de cunoaştere şi percepţie. O astfel de completare se profilează abia în epoca clasică a filosofiei greceşti, când Platon leagă percepţia ideilor în genere de trăirea estetică asimilată iubirii sau dorinţei pasionale (ἔρως) 2. Deşi filosoful atenian păstrează vechea concepţie pita

In this essay I contend that the differences between the newly discovered original version and the published version of Heidegger's "What Is Metaphysics?" lie in how they understand the Nothing (das Nichts). Whereas the published version conflates the Nothing with Being (das Sein) as no thing, or simply sees the Nothing as a characteristic of Being’s finitude, the original version examines the Nothing on its own terms. Being, even if finite, still maintains continuity with beings (das Seiende) as the Being of those beings. The Nothing itself, in contrast, marks a break with beings and their Being. The way in which it is interrogated must therefore also differ from the approach of the sciences (which treat only beings) and from ontology (which examines only the Being of beings). If ontology, as a scientific account of Being, still bears a resemblance to the sciences generally, Heidegger’s study of the Nothing as such in the original version leads him beyond not just the notion of philosophy as a rigorous science, but even the possibility of rational argumentation. Anxiety accordingly comes to play a greater role in this version. My essay begins with a discussion of the genesis and context of Heidegger’s lecture (§1). Then, in order to set up a comparison, I  provide a summary of the better-known published version (§2). After this I  explain how the two versions differ with regard to the themes of science and the university (§3), logic and thinking (§4), anxiety (§5), and ultimately the Nothing (§6).

Two major twentieth century philosophers, of East and West, for whom the nothing is a significant concept are Nishida Kitarō and Martin Heidegger. Nishida’s basic concept is the absolute nothing (zettai mu) upon which the being of all is predicated. Heidegger, on the other hand, thematizes the nothing (Nichts) as the ulterior aspect of being. Both are responding to Western metaphysics that tends to substantialize being and dichotomize the real. Ironically, however, while Nishida regarded Heidegger as still trapped within the confines of Western metaphysics with its tendency to objectify, Heidegger’s impression of Nishida was that he is too Western, that is, metaphysical. Yet neither was too familiar with the other’s philosophical work as a whole. I thus compare and assess Nishida’s and Heidegger’s discussions of the nothing in their attempts to undermine traditional metaphysics while examining lingering assumptions about the Nishida–Heidegger relationship. Neither Nishida nor Heidegger means by “nothing” a literal nothing, but rather that which permits beings in their relative determinacy to be what they are and wherein or whereby we find ourselves always already in our comportment to beings. Nishida characterizes this as a place (basho) that negates itself to give rise to, or make room for, beings. For Heidegger, being as an event (Ereignis) that clears room for beings, releasing each into its own, is not a being, hence nothing. We may also contrast them on the basis of the language they employ in discussing the nothing. Yet each seemed to have had an intuitive grasp of an un/ground, foundational to experience and being. And in fact their paths cross in their respective critiques of Western substantialism, where they offer as an alternative to that substantialist ontology, in different ways, what I call anontology.
Published initially online May 2017 by Continental Philosophy Review.
Published again June 2018 in Continental Philosophy Review, vol. 51, no.2

El texto que nos ocupa consta de las secciones IX, X y XI del libro De la filosofía de José Gaos escrito en 1959, que al año siguiente dictó en un curso de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la UNAM.  La negación, es considerado por Gaos, junto con los conceptos de existencia e infinito, como los conceptos fundamentales de la metafísica y de toda la filosofía. Pero es la negación por encima de los otros conceptos la instancia habilitadora del filosofar. En su análisis de la metafísica saca a relucir que es la inexistencia-concepto negativo por excelencia: «los conceptos 'no' e 'inexistencia' revelaron ser sinónimos'' y no la existencia la motivación última del filosofar: «si hay que dar razón de la existencia de lo existente [es] porque se concibe lo existente como inexistente, la inexistencia se revela un objeto de la filosofía más radical y decisivo que la existencia.  A esta prioridad gnoseológica de la inexistencia a la existencia puede darse en otra expresión: no habría ontología si no hubiese meontología». Gaos admite que su tesis de la prelación de la meontología sobre la ontología le devino como absolutamente verdadera tras leer el opúsculo de Heidegger "¿Qué es metafísica?".

This work explore the possible connection between Schelling´s books Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom,The ages of the World  and Philosophy of Art. Among these books a new conception about the Being (Sein) is developed, which include the rupture of the meaning of the Being as substance and substratum for a new comprehension of the Being as Will. This comprehension is anticipated in the lectures about art; due to the fact that in the book Philosophy of Art Schelling´s notion of conflict between liberty and necessity, beyond art, is an aesthetics preparation for grasp the whole entity as part of that conflict.

Keywords: will, art, ontology, substance, yearning, Schelling.

Esta tesis  tratará sobre la conexión entre el libro "Investigaciones filosóficas sobre la esencia de la libertad humana" y "Las edades del mundo" de Schelling y sus lecciones sobre Filosofía del arte, desde un posible nuevo aporte a la concepción del ser en general que se puede entrever entre estos dos libros. Con lo anterior quisiera apuntar al movimiento propuesto por Schelling en el mencionado escrito sobre la libertad que conlleva, entre otras cosas, a la ruptura del sentido del ser como sustancia a favor de la inauguración de la comprensión del ser como voluntad. Tal comprensión iniciada desde el libro de Filosofía del arte, que se erige como una preparación estética para asir lo existente, más allá de la mera obra de arte como portadora del conflicto originario entre libertad y necesidad.

Palabras clave: voluntad, arte, ontología, sustancia, ansia, Schelling.

Dintre toate problemele filosofiei, cea a nimicului este probabil printre cele mai fascinante. Ea însoţeşte întreaga istorie a fiinţei de la Anaximandru la Heidegger însă doar rareori este vizată ca atare de către gânditori şi, când este totuşi luată în considerare, pare a nu se lăsa gândită până la capăt. De aceea, nimicul intră în discursul filosofic, de obicei, sub chipuri străine. Avem de-a face cu nimicul ca nedeterminat (apeiron-ul lui Anaximandru 1), cu nimicul gândit drept contra-punere a fiinţei cu alteritatea (în Sofistul lui Platon 2), ca absolut, ca transcendent, ca străin, iar acestea sunt doar unele dintre chipurile sale. Potenţial, însă, nimicul poate lua forme infinite pentru că el este, la rândul său, infinit nedeterminat. Aşadar, o delimitare a nimicului pare că trebuie să strângă laolaltă toate aceste chipuri străine într-un singur gând, din care să răzbată, într-un fel, unitatea acestui fenomen. Printr-un astfel de demers ar trebui ca modul în care nimicul " se pune în lucru " (gr. energeia) să iasă la iveală în toată procesualitatea sa. Dar, simplul fapt că nefiinţa nu a reuşit să intre în discursul filosofic decât sub chipul alterităţii sale, cu o mască străină, nu este deloc întâmplător. Din contră, pesemne avem de-a face aici cu o trăsătură esenţială a acestui fenomen care merită cercetată mai îndeaproape: nimicul pare a respinge categorialul sau, ca să parafrazăm un gând a lui Heraclit, în spatele căruia putem presimţi umbra nefiinţei – nimicul iubeşte să se ascundă 3. Din clipa în care se încearcă descrierea nimicului, acesta ne scapă printre degete, metamorfozându-se pentru a putea intra în domeniul categorialului, însă, în acelaşi timp, ascunzându-şi faţa " adevărată " după feluritele sale ipostaze. Punerea în discurs, oricum ar fi gândită natura limbajului, implică anumite relaţii de categorialitate, implică delimitarea şi definirea obiectului intenţional al discursului şi implică o aducere la unitate a diverselor determinaţii categoriale, într-un întreg coerent cu sine. De aceea, faptul că nimicul nu se lasă prins pe sine de " plasa categoriilor " 4 , însă, atunci când pare că o face, el ni se înfăţişează sub un

This study aims at interpreting the concept of παρυπόστασις, as it is presented in Proclus's work De malorum subsistentia from a meontological point of view. Although this concept-central to the understanding of the various conceptions about the existence of evil from Late Antiquity and Middle Ages-has been for some time the source of various interpretations in the modern exegetic literature, its meaning is still disputed and its translations intro modern languages show that there is not yet a common base of understanding it. I will argue that, as far as the process of παρυπόστασις is concerned, it is more than just the "mode of existence" of evil. It rather is a necessary process through which our existential context is constituted and, although is neutral in itself, it creates to conditions for the existence of evil. Interpreted in this way, παρυπόστασις creates the context in which evil can occur in mortal souls because of their temporal nature and limited powers of cognition, making thus evil a metaphysical, epistemological and psychological phenomenon, not just an ethical phenomenon in the modern sense of the term.

This essay aims at revealing the meontological foundations of late neoplatonic thinking in the ineffable, yet unsurpassable, difference between the first principle and the ontological and ontic domains it originates from. This line of thinking, explicitly " forbidden " by the Greek philosopher Parmenides, can give us a hint on how we can study the non-judicative experiences of everyday life in a philosophical manner that uses the idea of " meontological difference ". I will argue that the concept of " meontological difference " , as it can be drawn out from the writings of Damascius, provides us with the possibility of interpreting the ineffable and the unknowable, in connection with a pre-existing conceptual context.

In his Laozi Commentary (老子注) and Structure of the Laozi's Subtle Pointers (老子微指例略), Wang Bi seems to identify the Dao with "absence" or "nothingness" (wu). Despite this identification, some modern commentators regard Wang Bi's Dao as a being. Other commentators deny that the Dao is a being but, nonetheless, seem to regard it as a reality of some kind. In contrast, I propose that Wang Bi's Dao is literal absence and that we need not reify this absence in any way. Wang Bi's descriptions of the Dao can be understood as metaphorical descriptions of mere absence. To support this proposal, I present an interpretation of Wang Bi's Dao and then apply this interpretation to the first section of Wang Bi's Laozi commentary and to the first section of the Structure of the Laozi's Subtle Pointers.

The paper uploaded here differs from the final published paper. For a view-only version of the published paper, follow this link: https://rdcu.be/cLiXd

Although Matila Ghyka is one of the Romanian philosophers who changed the way some of the most important artists and art theorists of the twentieth century practice art and think about aesthetics, his works remain almost unknown to the Romanian public and to the Western academic-philosophy tradition. I will argue that this state of affairs is caused by some of the cultural biases and preconceptions concerning the Pythagorean sources of Matila Ghyka's thinking, that define a large part of the contemporary philosophical community as a whole. In this essay, I will tackle two main preconceptions and cultural biases that have contributed to this reluctance that contemporary thinkers show towards a mathematical approach to art from a Pythagorean point of view and will try to sketch a way of surpassing them. The means by which this aim can be achieved is a new (meontological) approach to the concept of " number " , which lays at the heart of Ghyka's aesthetics and philosophy of art.

In this study I tackle the problem of the systematic character of Aristotle’s table of categories and their existential origin. My aim is to show that the ten categories can be reduced “morphologically” to a unitary existential aporetic horizon in which the theoretic attitude and the praxiologic one are intertwined at a pre-judicative level. In this way, we can gain a new phenomenological way of interpreting Aristotle’s logical writings and to view it as the basis of his metaphysics and ethics.

Résumé: Nous nous proposons, dans cet article, de saisir la corrélation entre certaines formes d’épochè et les réductions auxquelles elles ouvrent, ce qui correspond, tour à tour, à un type de concrétudes plus riches. Notre approche de la concrétude phénoménologique est ouvertement méréologique (i.e. il se tient dans les stricts termes de la 3ème Recherche Logique). Après une brève mise au point de certains concepts fondamentaux de la méréologie husserlienne, nous montrons à quel point la structure méréologique de l’attitude naturelle correspond finalement à l’ontologie sous-jacente aux Recherches Logiques. Ce n’est qu’ensuite que l’on osera une sorte de traduction méréologique de la transition à la phénoménologie transcendantale. Après avoir établi le sens profond d’une réduction méréologique comme pendant formel des formes concrètes de réductions phénoménologiques, on essaye de cerner la spécificité de la déshumanisation et réduction méontiques menées par Eugen Fink dans sa 6ème Méditation Cartésienne. Ce n’est qu’après que l’on sera à même de montrer (en introduisant le concept de désalignement transcendantal) comment et à quel point l’épochè hyperbolique (avec son invocation, en guise d’hypothèse, du Malin Génie) introduite par Marc Richir est susceptible d’ouvrir un nouveau champ de concrétudes, structuré selon un multiplicité de registres architectoniques.

Mots-clefs: concrétudes, concrescence, tout, partie, méréologie, Husserl, Fink, Richir, épochè, réduction phénoménologique, réduction transcendantale, rien que partie, réduction méontique, épochè hyperbolique, architectonique, Malin Génie, désalignement transcendantal.

This paper inspects one piece of “Egyptian treasure” in Fr. Sergei Bulgakov’s storehouse—Plotinus’s initially puzzling doctrine of intelligible matter—in order to clarify the triform taxonomy of “nothing” he limns in his early Unfading Light. Embellishing this Plotinian term of art beyond our author’s otherwise vague allusions to its “sophianic” implications promises to elucidate Bulgakov’s subtle distinction between emanation and creatio ex nihilo, even as it illuminates the Russian theologian’s recovery of Neoplatonic insights under the auspices of revelation.

David Chai’s latest work delves into nothingness and becomes a
groundbreaking rethinking of Zhuangzi’s worldview. In Zhuangzi and the
Becoming of Nothingness, Chai carefully explicates the metaphysics and
cosmology underlying the Zhuangzi’s philosophy. Chai breathes new life into Zhuangzi studies by showing modern scholars a way out of the
narrow-minded, well-frog-like proposals that the Zhuangzi advocates
nihilism or relativism, especially ethical relativism or epistemological
skepticism. The text is comprised of acknowledgments, an introduction, six chapters, a brief conclusion, copious notes, a bibliography, and a thorough index. It focuses on the cosmology, cosmogony, and meontological foundation or abyss that makes the world and universe possible. This work is the first of a trilogy; subsequent works will unravel the ethics and epistemology of the Zhuangzi.

In this study I propose an interpretation of the role the concept of κάθαρσις plays in Aristotle's philosophy as a whole and a sense in which we could talk about a "purging" of emotions through aesthetical experience in the field of fine arts. In order to reach this goal, I will try to argue two theses: 1) that there can be no unique aesthetical definition of κάθαρσις, because Aristotle treats this notion as a "conceptual metaphor" rather than a definable concept; 2) that there is a link, suggested by Aristotle himself, between κάθαρσις and the theory of causation, and that we can speak κατ' ἀναλογίαν about a certain kind of finalism of the "aesthetical causality" that has, as one of its moments, the idea of "purging".

This article explores the significance of creatio ex nihilo (“creation from nothing”) in dialogue with Stanislas Breton’s méontology. With specific interest in how the classic theological affirmation of divine “omnipotence” must be critically reinterpreted in light of the cross, the article develops Breton’s view that conventional conceptions of power, both human or divine, are not to be rejected outright but radically reformulated in terms of unconditional love (agape). Such an approach highlights the practical and theo-political significance of the doctrine, rather than viewing it in primarily speculative terms.

Wang Bi's Laozi weizhi lüeli (老子微指例略) is, along with Wang Bi's famous commentary on the Laozi/Daodejing, an attempt to unpack the Laozi's meaning. This is a translation of the first part (A1) of the Laozi weizhi lüeli, based on Rudolf G. Wagner's critical edition of the Chinese text.

There has been no challenge to ‘the tradition of philosophy’ in contemporaneity: philosophy has since evolved past the criticisms of the twentieth century. Indeed, contemporary philosophy is such a diverse pursuit that it is impossible to identify ‘the tradition of philosophy’. There is, however, an ontological philosophic metatradition. This ontological philosophy is inchoate, lacking a meontological pole. This pole can be provided by the spirituality of the east in the form of the philosophy of the Kyoto School, but first, philosophy must recognise this Zen meontology as ‘philosophy’ (哲学) rather than some other ‘thought’ (思想史).

Résumé: Cette étude tente de définir la conception du mal dans la pensée patristique orientale et dans la théologie ascétique byzantine en rapport avec la nouvelle vision ontologique élaborée par les auteurs byzantins. Les auteurs considérés aboutissent à une synthèse entre les positions de la philosophie ancienne à l'égard du mal, qui s'efforça de lui trouver une place dans l'ordre cosmique, et la position biblique, qui situait la cause du mal seulement dans le libre choix des créatures rationnelles (hommes et anges). L'élaboration de cette synthèse amènera les Pères orientaux à une systématisation capable de surpasser les limites de l'ontologie cosmologique ancienne et de bâtir une nouvelle vision de la réalité dans laquelle la volonté joue un rôle central. Dans cette nouvelle perspective, issue
de l'anthropologie biblique et des disputes christologiques, les dynamiques du mal trouvent explication dans le contexte de l'économie de la création et en vue du but de la déification trans-naturelle de l'homme, but dans le quel on peut reconnaître
le fondement doctrinal soit de la théologie soit de la vie ascétique byzantine.

In this essay I aim to analyse the main components of the interrogative act and to reduce them to their existential meanings by ways of hermeneutical de-constitution. Thus, I link the interrogative act to its affective and emotional foundations, so that a new theory of affectivity, based on meontological foundations, can emerge. As I will argue, every kind of interrogative act has its starting point in an existential and cognitive need that must be fulfilled and which, as a need, can be viewed in terms of a “lack” or “deficiency” in our own being. In this “interrogative logic,” the deficiency which originates the questioning can be understood as a kind of non-being, a strange element in the ontological constitution of the human being which has its own laws of manifestations. The emotional and affective domain of the human psyche is originated by this non-being which manifests itself by ways of a multitude of instances and can be viewed as the cornerstone of a new theory of human affectivity.

I decided to write this study after I have read Rorty's quirky interpretation of Sartre's philosophy scattered in the Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Its deficiencies had been pointed out by Vladimír Ješko´s article polemically entitled Sartre and Philosophy without Mirrors: Rorty had interpreted Sartre´s philosophy in accordance with his own epistemology as a criticism of the effort of natural sciences to render an objective reality exactly, while Ješko had argued that Sartre´s treatise had not even dealt with the issue of natural sciences.
My view is a compromise of these two approaches: Sartre had really dealt with the issue of natural sciences in Being and Nothingness, but only marginally, and he had not criticized them, at least not in the sense as Rorty has thought. Sartre had not shared Rorty's theory about the „relativity of all final vocabularies“ and we cannot even be sure wheather is it really science according to him, what has deprived us of responsibility for ourselves.
The passages of Rorty´s interest conversely demonstrate the legitimacy of traditional interpretations. According to them, a topic, which is the primary theme of Being and nothingness, is about freedom of subject. Rorty's disre-garding of this issue may indeed be a sign of the (intentional or unintentional) continuation of the postmodern attempt to exclude subject from a center of
interest in philosophy. Indeed, it will be shown that the contribution of authentically Sartres ideas is for contemporary philosophy far more important than that alleged attempt to discredit natural sciences.

Two major twentieth century philosophers, of East and West, for whom the nothing is a significant concept are Nishida Kitarō and Martin Heidegger. Nishida’s basic concept is the absolute nothing (zettai mu) upon which the being of all is predicated. Heidegger, on the other hand, thematizes the nothing (Nichts) as the ulterior aspect of being. Both are responding to Western metaphysics that tends to substantialize being and dichotomize the real. Ironically, however, while Nishida regarded Heidegger as still trapped within the confines of Western metaphysics with its tendency to objectify, Heidegger’s impression of Nishida was that he is too Western, that is, metaphysical. Yet neither was too familiar with the other’s philosophical work as a whole. I thus compare and assess Nishida’s and Heidegger’s discussions of the nothing in their attempts to undermine traditional metaphysics while examining lingering assumptions about the Nishida–Heidegger relationship. Neither Nishida nor Heidegger means by “nothing” a literal nothing, but rather that which permits beings in their relative determinacy to be what they are and wherein or whereby we find ourselves always already in our comportment to beings. Nishida characterizes this as a place (basho) that negates itself to give rise to, or make room for, beings. For Heidegger, being as an event (Ereignis) that clears room for beings, releasing each into its own, is not a being, hence nothing. We may also contrast them on the basis of the language they employ in discussing the nothing. Yet each seemed to have had an intuitive grasp of an un/ground, foundational to experience and being. And in fact their paths cross in their respective critiques of Western substantialism, where they offer as an alternative to that substantialist ontology, in different ways, what I call anontology. Published initially online May 2017 by Continental Philosophy Review. Published again June 2018 in Continental Philosophy Review, vol. 51, no.2

Deși idealul conștiinței filosofice este constituit de lipsa oricărui tip de prejudecată, există o seamă de tabuuri care marchează întreaga istoriei a filosofiei. Unul dintre ele este cel al cercetării sistematice și riguroase a fenomenului nimicului. Încă din vremea lui Parmenide, care, prin decret, a interzis orice incursiune filosofică pe calea care spune „că nu este” , meontologia, adică disciplina care-și propune să gândească neființa în toată originaritatea ei , este un tărâm al pierzaniei. Doar câțiva „rebeli” au avut curajul, până înainte de postmodernitate, să se avânte dincolo de „hotarele sigure” ale discursului ontologic trasate de „tatăl” tuturor filosofilor, Parmenide , și să încerce să gândească ceea ce nu poate fi gândit.

Pe de o parte, mânați de curajul pe care asaltul postmodern asupra prejudecăților tradiției ni-l oferă și, pe de alta, de survenirea unei linii de reflecție asupra nimicului în filosofia ultimelor decenii, am pornit într-o încercare de gândire meontologică a conceptului filosofic de lume.

In this study I analyse Adorno’s critique to jazz music form a
meontological perspective. To understand why the German philosopher found jazz to be a form of pseudo-artistic expression, a simple commodity produced by a music industry that has nothing to do with proper art, one must dig deep into Adorno’s “Aesthetic Theory” and “Negative Dialectics” to find out how the German philosopher views art as a whole and what presuppositions does his conception about jazz music, in particular, and pop culture, in general, imply. My main thesis is that Adorno did not resonate with jazz music because his philosophy implies that art is a form of negative dialectics that has to be understood solely through thinking (be it “rational thinking” or “affective thinking”).

Jazz music, on the contrary, is a dance music or a “somatic music”, which can be understood, not through contemplation or any „pure” act of
consciousness, but only by dancing, viewed as a form of „somatic” or bodily” knowledge. So, Adorno’s critique to jazz refers to another meontological conceptual archeology than classical music and other traditional expressions of art, this being the reason why he conceives jazz as a pseudo-artistic form of expression.