/lit/ - Literature

>>19392092
Bump for interest

I would rather read a tweet

>>19392092
>Aletheia, disclosure regarded as the opening of presence, is not yet truth. Is aletheia then less than truth? Or is it more because it first grants truth as adequatio and certitudo, because there can be no presence and presenting outside of the realm of the opening?
How am I supposed to know? Is this one of those Hegelian contradictions where they're both right?

"A man was journeying in the wilderness and he found Aletheia standing there all alone. He said to her, ‘Ancient lady, why do you dwell here in the wilderness, leaving the city behind?’ From the great depths of her wisdom, Veritas (Truth) replied, ‘Among the people of old, lies were found among only a few, but now they have spread throughout all of human society!’"

>>19393788
I've been thinking about this recently as I am going through Heidegger's lectures on thinking, following some discussions here.
I suppose the first question is "how significant is presence?" It seems that truth is not at all reliant on verification, certainty, nor even conclusion. "A conclusion from the possible to the actual is not valid." There is no necessity of a path, clearing, or field. In fact, a zone may be the precise opposite of a clearing of truth, in it there is only negative information, or a cursed falling away from truth. It is where not only one's thinking but the whole world has been " thrust up against a coarse lie." At most, the cataclysm of truth is only a possibility of return – it may be a strong, or even divine, possibility, but we know that man 's 'fear of truth follows his liking for it.'

In the myth, Prometheus is called away from his forming of Aletheia, the great vessel Truth. In his place, Dolus takes up the work and creates an exact copy of her. In this we see a strong relation to the myth of Epimetheus, who creates man as an afterthought, but through which great strength impels.
The test comes when Prometheus returns and gives the two statues life. Aletheia walks in fullness, with measured steps, while her copy, Mendacium, remained stuck in place. She had clay feet.

It would be all too easy to suggest that the message here is that of revealing. The lesson is really that distinction takes time, may only unfold where life is finally given, at that moment of judgement which creates everything or nothing – and where there is no in between. One may also wonder if Dolus has not performed some greater trick. Or perhaps Prometheus himself would see fit, since he too was a trickster and overthrower. In either case, in creation and the moment of revealing Aletheia is presented with an exact copy, before which thinking may only lead to a coarse lie, or perhaps a Third Copy – how those today all too commonly perceive Plato's forms.
Only a penetrating or patient vision could ever come to see the difference in Truth and its copy. And what is most significant is that Prometheus raises Truth up from the muck, same as with man. Insight is thus a gift of a material, or elemental, creation. It is raised up as a force in its own right; equal in every way to man and the living world itself.

>>19394329
This too is in all the myths, in which the great epics are introduced by the Muses, who admit that they may be telling a lie, or invoking some trick. Truth is a judgement, it grabs hold of the mind and wrests it into its world. Pygmalion being the great danger in this, he whose copy is given true measure and life. Daedalus too, who brings the greatest creations to life, is even capable of building entire cities of living statues – but then his son Icarus melts his wings, flying too close to the sun.
Perdix too, who can create through the power of vision alone, as if all technology were but a metamorphosis of the natural world. He is struck down by Daedalus, and saved by being turned into a partridge. Thus truth may become lost, and then find its return only through the most fated and concealed events. There is the most distinct polarity in all the tales of truth, yet they are brought together by elegant and subtle insights or acts. This is perhaps why the Deus Ex Machina seemed natural to the Greeks, but for modern man is a betrayal of artistic perfection, where all things and events must be thought through completely, the most insignificant detail given a life of its own. Each page, paragraph, or even sentence of a novel must be a copy of Aletheia, Pandora, or the ivory girl.
Yet, the modern artist also hates copies, they are a blight upon his infinite becoming and ingenuity, the endlessly unique image of himself that he projects as the perfect representation for the new species. Strangely, this striving also results in the "great garbage piles of associations" or the blurry globs that any child comes up with while waiting for his supper.

>>19394335
When reading the earliest Greek stories one finds that presence and revealing are not at all what they sought. To reveal is only to engage in the technical, measure in first movements which can easily lead away from Queen Truth. Another of the myths is that of Palamedes, who sees Odysseus being pulled in all directions by the chaotic plow led by ox and donkey. Modern science could tell us everything one could ever want to know about the movements of Odysseus -and more besides - including where he would end up, what different movements would involve the various animals of the earth, and even the potential of every last man - and woman - on earth to finish before or after him. But the simple and naive truth is that none of this matters, not in the least. The only significant thing is that Odysseus be returned to law, his oath. Placing Telemachus in front of the plow seems a silly or unartistic conclusion to the modern mind, but it speaks to the simplicity of the oldest tales and fables, those stories which held only the most essential elements as necessity. In this we will see how single fables hold more value than almost everything written in the 20th century.

Archimedes, too, speaks to this. And it is important to consider how even mathematics and the sciences have been subject to a Copernican turn, or disembowelment of the heavens. In the Cattle Problem it is not at all the answer that matters, and certainly not the calculations, which become lost entirely in the effort. It is only seeing and law that determine the course of thinking, of which one may only ever find questions or silence.
What is most powerful in the myths and fables is the single question asked, and often one which is difficult to put into words. The answer is similarly difficult yet simple, like Aletheia and her copy. And the path which truth takes is like that of the animal in danger, or the haunting memory: there comes a point where a decision must be taken without any looking back. One must come to accept judgement, metamorphosis, and hold to loyalty if not faith.
There also comes a time for certain flight, as in the judgement of Solon who sees the Donkey King. It is another way of saying that where one sees Mendacium without her feet he must be quick to find his own.