Of late, philosophy appears to have become a business of trends, including trend watchers who make us aware of what counts for these daysâhot and what not. There are trends that promised to be the next big thing but now seem passĂ© such as deconstruction (which seems to have passed its sell-by date), but also trends that grow from older fads such as neo-Thomism. Nostalgia can be a trend too: endlessly and voraciously scavenging in texts of yore, looking to apply old insights in new contexts. Philosophical trends make philosophy not only a business but also an epochal practice: there is a time for this, and then there is a time for that. What would it mean to stand outside of all of this? How is one ever not in the business of doing philosophy, not in the business of following the latest trends and not in the business of reducing philosophy to its merely epochal concerns? In such a case, one would be an outsider who transcends the business of the day whilst donning a mischievous grin. Culture is replete with images of outsiders, and many believe themselves to be one of these. Perhaps the literary most pronounced outsider is Dostoyevskyâs anonymous protagonist in Notes from the Underground. In raising the middle finger to polite society, he puts himself on the fringes, shamelessly abusing all others. Not coincidentally, Nietzsche felt immediate kinship to Dostoevskyâs most misanthropic character. Both of them were in recognition of the overwhelming strength and authority of the business of the day, but refused to blend smoothly within it: âOf course I cannot break through the wall by battering my head against it if I really have not the strength to knock it down, but I am not going to be reconciled to it simply because it is a stone wall and I have not the strengthâ (1918, p. 59). I have come to believe that such outsiders are parasitic upon the insider, desperately seeking recognition through their dissidence. Ultimately, these blend into epochs of their own; they will have their day like Schopenhauer who in his old age finally received the recognition he believed to deserve. Nietzsche said of God that He is not now our taste. Are the outsiders Nietzsche , Dostoyevsky or Schopenhauer now our taste? Or have we, as Nietzsche suggests at times, forsaken all discerning taste and have now become voracious gluttons incapable of saving ourselves for the finer things?
For sure, William Desmond is an outsider in the business of philosophy, but not in the same way as the agonal rebellion of a Nietzsche or the nihilism of Dostoevskyâs man of the underground. Desmondâs thought is not parasitic upon existing ways of doing philosophy and not in any trend or business, though he does clearly enjoy kinship with phenomenology and its theological turnings, dialectical philosophy and neo-Thomism. He is this, and more. In a word, William Desmondâs philosophy is metaxology, and metaxology is metaphysics. Metaphysics is not only not now to our taste, but it is not a matter of tastes of trends. Metaphysics is of all times and of none; there is always a time for metaphysics, but no specific time from which to do metaphysics. Perhaps this is the cause of why Desmond has been slow to receive mainstream attention, simply because of standing outside and above such mainstream? Metaphysics is attentive to its own history, but it is not exhausted by its history. This is so because metaphysics must always start again from wonder, which Plato told us is the true beginning of all philosophy. But if wonder is the beginning of philosophy, is there a way for thought to move beyond wonder determinatively? Can we just take wonder as a brief moment of perplexity that can be determinatively overcome by scientific or dialectical thought? Is there a return to wonder after wonder? And is our philosophical attempt at determinacy then not chastised by its inability to cut the cord with wonder?
These are some of the issues that are at the fore of metaxological philosophy: a metaphysical and therefore timeless returning of philosophy to wonder, again and again refreshing thought beyond its self-complacent systematics. These brief introductory pages hope to serve as an initial guide through the maze of metaxological philosophy. Even Dante did not stop short at one guide and neither should the student of metaxology. After our initial descent with Virgil in this introduction (though, hopefully, not into inferno), the chapters to follow serve as the outstretching hand of Beatrice, hoping to ascend from Purgatory towards Paradise. At the end of the book, this guide, too, will have to be left behind. Hopefully, Saint Bernard is awaiting in other work.1
According to a well-known anecdote, Martin Heidegger was once asked which term in the title of his opus magnum Being and Time was most important. His impish response was âandâ. Metaxology is in some ways similar to Heideggerâs playful response, as its focus is first on intermediation. Metaxology is Greek-English, a logos or speaking from the metaxu or between. But when one says the word âbetweenâ, one is immediately asked: between what and what? Like Heidegger, Desmond is not primarily interested in the two or more terms to which a relationship should be coordinated (although these surely play a role of importance), but with the very idea of relationality itself. The between is an openness or porosity, a space of passing and communication. In one place, Desmond defines it as âan ontological milieu that is overdeterminate: both indeterminate and determinate, taking form in a plurivocal interplay between otherness and sameness, openness and definition, and yet excessive to final fixationâ (EB 1).
What does it mean to philosophize from the between, from this space where different views, ideas and passions transverse? This means that one is attentive to the singular identity of any idea but also the dialectical, even non-dialectical, relationality of things. Philosophy has taken some time to come to think of relationality on a par with identity. In the beginning of philosophy, and even still today in some circles, much of philosophy has fancied its binary oppositions: being and non-being, intelligible and unintelligible, good and evil, and so on. Desmond opposes such easy binary opposition as, borrowing a phrase from Blaise Pascal, an overindulgence in esprit de gĂ©omĂ©trie rather than the subtleness of esprit de finesse. This is unsurprising because Desmondâs initial fame came as a student of Hegel, who was renowned for his search to overcome binary opposition. Hegelâs one-time philosophical compatriot Schelling would even point out that the âmain weakness of all modern philosophyâ was that it âlacks an intermediate conceptâ which results in that âeverything that does not have being is nothing, and everything that is not spiritual in the highest sense is material in the crudest sense, and everything that is not morally free is mechanical, and everything that is not intelligent is uncomprehendingâ (2000, p. 64 [286]). To think of reality in terms of simple opposition is simplistic. There is a constant going-over and going-under, a dialectical back and forth between abstract oppositions. All things exceed simple determination in pre-established systems of rationalist intelligibility. With and after Kant, philosophy started to stress relationality and dialectics over simple, univocal determinacy.
Metaxology takes its cues initially from dialectical philosophy, but as one repays a teacher poorly by remaining ever faithfulâor so Nietzsche says in Thus spoke Zarathustra2âso Desmond has said his farewells to Hegel after taking his inheritance. He senses there to be something amiss with dialectical thought Ă la Hegel. The stress is there on dialectical self-determination, which leads easily towards a higher sense of determinate univocity, not fully true to the challenge of thinking otherness as otherness. This is Desmondâs main qualm with Hegel even before Hegelâs God: A Counterfeit Double?3 where God, as the capitalized Other, is turned into the developmental progress of historical self-determination through spirit (Geist). Hegel might have thought that he overcame Kantian dualism by rethinking and revamping the absolute in terms of world history but, in truth, while Hegel might have believed this to be a step forwards, it is not progress. Something of the other as other is lost here, which leaves open the door for a potentially tyrannical appropriation of otherness by means of an over-reaching of dialectical self-mediation. One might even ask if the theodicy of Hegelâs God is one that justifies all on the slaughter bench of history.
This is not the only sense of dialectical philosophy to be sure, as, for instance, the Socratic or Platonic practice of dialogue is more apt to escape potential tyranny. Hegelian dialectics had then a good point of departure, but it did not make it to the finish line unscathed. It is time then perhaps for Hegel, Schelling and even Nietzsche to pass the relay stick to different ways of thinking about the community of being, being good and absolute being. This would have to be a way of thinking that is mindful of (absolute) difference, but open to infinite mediation and revelation. There is intimacy and familiarity in the between, but also mind-boggling strangeness. All of this is to be accounted for as intelligently as possible. In one place, such an approach is described thus: âIt lives between peril and crux. As a figuring of the primal ethos, it divines the nature of the togetherness, the absolved relativity, with heed to the difference, and without forgetting the transcendence of the divine and its reserves. We need a finessed, transdialectical logos of the metaxuâ (GB 117). In order to come to such a rethinking, we are in need foremost of two things: a phenomenologically robust account of wonder, astonishment and perplexity and a community between philosophy , religion and art.
In a number of places, Desmond outlines what could be called his philosophical method. This is not alike to a methodology that navigates from research question to resultsâas one is forced to write in âresearch projectsâ these days. Instead, this is a method that is wary of the f...