Projects

DISSERTATION

Universal Ontology of the Infinite Sphere

1. VISION: ΠΕΡΙ ΕΠΙΤΟΛΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΔΥΣΕΩΝ (On Risings and Settings), περι επιτολων και δυσεων

2. METHOD/ DYNAMICS: ΠΕΡΙ ΚΙΝΟΥΜΕΝΗΣ ΣΦΑΙΡΑΣ (On the Moving Sphere), περι κινουμενησ σφαιρασ

3. DOCTRINE: ΣΦΑΙΡΙΚΉ (Spherics), σφαιρική, or ΣΦΑΙΡΙΚῸΝ ΛΌΓΟΝ (Doctrine of the Sphere), σφαιρικὸν λόγον

Committee: Prof. Dmitri Nikulin (Chair), Prof. James Dodd. External reader: Dermot Moran (Boston College/ University College Dublin).

Universal Ontology of the Infinite Sphere develops the foundational schema of Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ late project of universal ontology (intermittently developed between 1939-1966) using George Spencer-Brown’s formal ontological paradigm (first published in Laws of Form, in 1969). The result is a coalescence upon the universal bond of an infinite center which is everywhere to an infinite sphere beyond being. Neither Conrad-Martius nor Spencer-Brown thematize an ultimate sphere. Both Conrad-Martius and Spencer-Brown thematize a symmetrical economy of metaphysical primordialities. The radical innovation of the dissertation is the use of the paradoxical yet well-defined idea of the infinite sphere as a framework for universal ontology. The infinite sphere is the single idea that holds an absolute singularity and its corresponding circumference at all scales, and also has enough room to include all other things within its compass and according to its settings.

UPCOMING ENGAGEMENTS

ALL OTHER THINGS

The dissertation is the main thing I am working on, but it also develops alongside other things that go into it and also develop into their own things. Some of these things become talks, publications, or even conferences. In somewhat random order, here are some of my key areas of focus. I might add to these some brief descriptions of other topics that are important to my studies, such as: theosophy and anthroposophy, theories of dimensionality, mathesis universalis, contemporary mysticism, and others. There are many. But for now, here are a few.

The Ancient Spherics
Esoteric Cybernetics
Agrapha Dogmata
The Ontological Phenomenology of Immersion/ Emersion
Universal Ontology
Hedwig Conrad-Martius
George Spencer-Brown (also see the Laws of Form website)
More to come! (site is always under development)

THE ANCIENT SPHERICS

Here are just a few hints at this topic, taking Peter Manchester’s phenomenological metaphysics as the leading thread: https://randolphdible.com/2023/06/22/notes-on-spherics-in-peter-manchesters-the-syntax-of-time/

There a few senses of the spherics (sphairikē, σφαιρική). Here are a few:

1. Standard Ancient Greek geometrical treatises called the spherics (with titles like On Risings and Settings, On a Moving Sphere, and simply Spherics, or even Doctrine of the Sphere) by such authors as Autolychus, Theodosius, Euclid, Eudoxus, Aristarchus, Archimedes, and others. These are mathematical texts that take astronomical spheres as their paradigm.

2. As an a priori discipline, spherics sphairikē, (σφαιρική), is sometimes called astrology in order to distinguish it from astronomy (astronomikon). The pure science of the sphere is distinguished from observational or applied astronomy. Plato emphasizes that the fourth of five pure sciences (pure arithmetic, pure geometry, pure stereometry, pure astronomy, and pure harmonics) propaedeutic to pure dialectic is “true astronomy” τῶ ὄντι δ̔ὴ φιλοσοφίαν (Plato’s “ta onti de astronomikon,” Republic VII 530a3). Aristotle also cites Eudoxus and Callipus when outlining the number of heavenly spheres in the context of spheres and kind of substance deriving from the prime mover/ first and fifth element/ prime matter. An esoteric reading not only of Plato but of Aristotle seems called for, given that the prime mover is a lot like the infinite sphere.

3. The lost spherics of myth. There is a curious mythological sense of spherics in prisca theologica et philosophia literature. In Diodorus of Sicily, Flavius Josephus, Pliny the Elder, and others, there is some discussion of the mythical Atlas, ruler of Atlantis, who “perfected the science of astrology and was the first to publish to mankind the doctrine of the sphere” (Jewish Antiquities, II.60). The myth elsewhere tells of “two pillars, one of brick and the other of stone,” which survived the great flood, and with which the Adamic knowledge of the sphere is preserved. Adam’s son Seth has his contributions to the myth, as does Enoch, and one can find this also behind the mythology significant to ritual theurgy, Freemasonry and other occulture, Egyptian Neoplatonism, etc.

Pierre Beaudry has written quite a lot on Josephus and the topic of a lost Egyptian spherics on his blog. He is coming from the Lyndon LaRouche Schiller Institute, which is utterly bizarre. Start here for that stuff: https://amatterofmind.org/Pierres_PDFs/PUBLICATIONS/1._PYTHAGOREAN_SPHERICS_Missing_Link_Between_Egypt_and_Greece.pdf

Theosophy, Anthroposophy, philosophia perennis, and the esoteric and original sense of philosophy (readily apparent in Plato, both exoteric and esoteric, but also in Aristotle’s sometimes neglected sense of ontology as theology), all have some ways of making the sphere the ultimate concept, but what I find most interesting is the methodological speculation that leads there and dwells around there. It is a lot like what they call clairvoyance.

2. ESOTERIC CYBERNETICS

Only a few sparks of light on this topic already exist, hidden as well as latent.

The etymology of the word cybernetics is well-known to have its early expressions in the Heraclitean employment, but what is not well-known is the reason for its roots lying yet deeper in the soil of mathematical mysticism in the concept of cuber-spinning or cube-nesting. This cube is intimately related to the universal concept of the sphere.

The cube (κύβος) of cybernetics (κυβερνητικός) should be connected not only to the sea-faring and flying metaphors but also to the ancient spherics.

Here are some loose notes: The cube (κύβος) and the spindle (νῆτρον). The sphere as the paradigm for the art of spinning (νῆσις) the cube (νηστική τέχνε κύβος). Ancient cybernetics should be seen in theurgy, especially in the image of fixation on the cross and the dimensions of the altar of sacrifice. Encompassing the cube within the sphere is an important image in all this. Spindle (νῆτρον) of the whorled.

3. AGRAPHA DOGMATA

Hans Joachim Krämer, Konrad Gaiser, and Giovanni Reale have contributed some exciting and revolutionary perspectives on ancient philosophy, hermeneutics, and on geometry and morphological ontology. I am especially interested in Reale’s doctrine of demiurgic intelligence (see his Toward a New Interpretation of Plato), and the “dimensionalenfolge,” the (ontological) dimensional sequence, from Gaiser’s 1963/68 Platons Ungeschriebene Lehre.

The Tübingen interpretation of Plato offered by Konrad Gaiser and Hans Joachim Krämer reconstructs the unwritten doctrine of an advanced system of philosophy that Plato taught to the initiated members of his Academy. Although there are a few introductions to this system that have made it from their native German into English translation, the Anglophone academy today lacks resources for understanding the metrological aspects of this system. Partitioning this system into an arithmological doctrine of principles (Prinzipienlehre), specifically the two principles of the one (monas) and the indefinite dyad (aoristos dyas), and the more geometrical aspect called the doctrine of the dimensional-ontological series of the point-line-plane-solid (dimensionenfolge), we can identify the need for a helpful exposition of the latter.

Texts:

Gaiser, Konrad. Platons Ungeschriebene Lehre: Studien zur Systematischen und Geschlechtlichen Begründung der Wissenschaften in der Platonischen Schule. 1963.

Krämer, Hans Joachim, ed. John R. Catan. Plato and the Foundations of Metaphysics: A Work on the Theory of Principles and Unwritten Doctrines of Plato with a Collection of the Fundamental Documents. 1990.

Nikulin, Dmitri, ed. The Other Plato: The Tübingen Interpretation of Plato’s Inner-Academic Teachings. 2012.

Reale, Giovanni, trans. John R. Catan and Richard Davies. Toward a New Interpretation of Plato. 1997 (1984).

4. THE ONTOLOGICAL PHENOMENOLOGY OF IMMERSION/ EMERSION

Inspired by Saulius Geniusas’ work on the topic of the phenomenology of immersion, which draws upon Theodor Conrad’s early phenomenology, and by the recent trends in technology (Apple Vision Pro) which make reality and virtuality thematic, I have found this area as an important route to the real-ontology and universal ontology of Hedwig Conrad-Martius.

See Geniusas 2022: https://brill.com/view/journals/jpp/53/1/article-p1_1.xml

And Geniusas 2020: https://philarchive.org/references/GENWII-2

My own first foray in this direction is the following recent talk, given in San Diego at the 2023 NASEP conference:

“Theodor Conrad and Hedwig Conrad-Martius on Versunkenheit: Psychological, Transcendental, and Ontological Phenomenology of Immersion,” Intuition, Creation, Duration, and Relativity, The North American Society for Early Phenomenology, University of San Diego, San Diego, California, June 2-4 2023. Available on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/R4nJ_YuDwyo

The conference presentation above represents the beginning of ongoing research and development of the concept of immersion in the philosophy of Hedwig Conrad-Martius. The talk can be found here: https://www.academia.edu/103668523/Theodor_Conrad_and_Hedwig_Conrad_Martius_on_Versunkenheit_Psychological_Transcendental_and_Ontological_Phenomenology_of_Immersion

Supplementary Material: Versunkenheit, etc. in the philosophy of Theodor Conrad and Hedwig Conrad-Martius: https://www.academia.edu/103669703/Versunkenheit_etc_in_the_philosophy_of_Theodor_Conrad_and_Hedwig_Conrad_Martius

This is only the beginning of an ongoing project, and this “Supplements” only treats a few of her works–there is more, and better!, instances of Versunkenheit in Conrad-Martius and her many other works. For example, in “Die Transzendentale und die Ontologische Phänomenologie,” Conrad-Martius writes “Aber anstatt das wirkliche Sein hypothetisch einzuklammern und dadurch die Welt (in der Reduktion) der wirklichen Wirklichkeit enthoben zu sehen, wird nunmehr das wirkliche Sein der Welt hypothetisch gesetzt und sie dadurch mit der selbsthaften Eingesenktheit ins Sein vorgestellt.” This represents another instance of immersion taking a central role in her method and the resulting doctrine.

5. UNIVERSAL ONTOLOGY

The dissertation is called Universal Ontology of the Infinite Sphere, and its thesis is that in the case of the infinite sphere, the simple elements of a sphere express a unique economy of metaphysical principles and powers. The simple elements of a sphere include its center, its periphery, and in the case of a moving sphere it also includes its poles, and its great circles. These elements are different in the case of the infinite sphere. Upon the elements of the infinite sphere we can map the components of a universal ontology, which is thematic in Conrad-Martius’ late and unfinished project of universal ontology, from which development we get the robust concept of universal ontology. Important aspects of universal ontology are also identified by Edmund Husserl in his various works, but in Conrad-Martius’ sense, we find this concept better developed and contextualized. In the formal ontological paradigm of George Spencer-Brown’s Laws of Form and in the cybernetic metaphysics that follows it we can find a formal ontological foundation for the project of universal ontology after Conrad-Martius. The synthesis of Conrad-Martius’ contribution with Spencer-Brown’s is something new, and can be illustrated by the idea of the infinite sphere and its unique properties.

The following works represent aspects of the project of a universal ontology within and beyond the developments of Conrad-Martius and Spencer-Brown.

“Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ Universal Ontology,” New Voices Talk Series: Phenomenology and Metaphysics, Paderborn Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists, May 3, 2023. Available at: https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/journals/journal/new-voices-talk-series-phenomenoloy-and-metaphysics-dible/?fbclid=IwAR1bKkegQt4_5f66C6fA5rZgbjn75vX0VvN9vwwoDwum-Av5YFcmeuwSLDI

“Universal Ontology and the First Distinction: Spencer-Brown, Husserl, and Conrad-Martius.” Laws of Form 2022 Conference. August 4, 2022. University of Liverpool. Available on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/S_b96-kZ5DA

“Universal Ontology and the First Distinction: Spencer-Brown, Husserl, and Conrad-Martrius.” Distinction: Journal of Form (College Publications). Expected in Fall 2023.