Mentaphysics is in fact the “theory of everything” craved for by Science and thought to be had by Religion. Only a Philosophical “system” can be a true theory of everything. For this to be known the relation of the three in their triadic dialectic of equality with Philosophy as the “primus inter pares” must be understood – and it can be so known only “philosophically”.
Science is limited by mathematicals (#’s = Pythagorians) which is a language of the “imagination” and “quantity” and by matter which cannot really “be” a proof – proof is here only a process and hence without Limit. If it goes beyond this it goes beyond Science to teleology and “final causality”.
Religion is limited to already knowing as “imagination” – a descended ideality and hence a “form-alism” (Plato).
Ultimately the limits of quantity and quality – Science and Religion – cannot give an adequate “theory of everything” because they do not theoretically represent everything.
Philosophy can know this and has the “self-limitation” of existence as ὄν Ϛωή νοῦϛ [being, life, mind] as the πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν, ὀικείωϛ δὲ ἐν ἑκάστῳ [everything in everything, each according to its nature]. “Metaphysics” and “epistemology” are not properly philosophical terms – only imaginary. “First Philosophy” and “Skepticism” are better. Mentaphysics – the theory of everything – can only happen after the discovery of philosophy, religion, and science – this has taken three thousand years of theoretical work. It is all compressed in early Greek philosophy to Aristotle and has now been decompressed into historical actuality and can now be understood as we come to know history historically and understand the containment of chaos within cosmos.
Mentaphysics is not a theory in the scientific sense. There is no possibility of empirical disproof as Science is within the orbit of actuality – as is Religion – and Philosophy. Goodness, Truth, and Beauty are instantiated throughout the Being and Life of Reality and can be thought noetically but only experienced linguistically dianoetically – that is in Time which is contained chaotically in Eternity as comprehending Cosmos. There is no “beyond” the noetic but also there is no noetic without the dianoetic within. As human we are within the already present, the actual within which the potential is infinite. Our beholding is not a making but an understanding that can become a knowing.
The human phenomenon in Time has a history and until very recently – in the last five decades or so – we have not had the possibility of comprehending our temporal journey – our historical fall into time – historically. When “history has a history” its dialectic can become an actual self-understanding.
The discovery of Philosophy by the ancient Greeks was the true Initiation of the Journey. It culminated in the Self-Contemplation of God as the Ϛῷον [living being] in a zoocentric chain – a cosmic circle endlessly alive, pulsating with existence and needing no explanation – simply in love [ἐράω] with and within itself. All randomness, all infinity and all evil are contained as non-existent potentiality within eternal always perfecting actuality. A perfect contemplative existence fueled in its life of lives by the love of the Goodbeing – endlessly True and Beautiful. This Self-Knowing as Actual is the first actual human knowing what knowing IS.
But this human participating in temporal existence opened up a Pandora’s box. There is no providence, no acknowledgement of imperfection to be fixed – of a suffering to be consoled. With the self-conscious understanding of understanding itself comes a new knowing of the tragedy of mortality. A longing for immortality and its actual rather than just imaginative possibility begins to take root.
The demand for providence cannot give up the self-consciousness now discovered but it cannot transform human need to cosmic demand. At first it tries to continue the austerity of philosophical form – of idea and number as primary – but philosophy has already made this impossible philosophically. The result – the true birth of Religion. Belief systems have always been part of the human condition, but with the birth of Philosophy is also born – at first implicitly – ever to become explicit – the difference between “believing” and “knowing” – between Philosophy and Theology. Before Philosophy there is no thinking about thinking only being and living and wishing. Now with “thinking the believing” Religion as a separate theoretical system – separate from the first discovery of theoretical system, Philosophy – becomes for humans in history in time actual. Almost a thousand years of effort on top of and alongside of about a thousand years of philosophical effort which is not yet conscious of its evolving as religion and we have Theology no longer Philosophy but Religion. The Philosophical universe requiring no existential explanation is now compressed into a God which contains all pre-existently and as triadic creates the pre-existently from not-being to being as existent infinitude in Time infinite in Movement infinite as Triadic self-expression in which providence saturates history with the promise of an actual immortality in Time become Eternal. The Realism of Philosophy has morphed into the Ideality of Religion – explanation now requires Proof – the Non-beingness of the cosmos of human being hangs by the thread of participation.
But ideality cannot be proven only believed – but a reversion to Philosophy gives up not only immortality but worse – providence. The logos [Λόγοϛ] discovered by Philosophy which understood the universe as Good, True, and Beautiful and in no need of existential proof had been transferred to God in return for immortality, providence and consolation. But the transferral must be believed – for realism the material and the ideal are abstractions [ϕαντάσματα] from substance(s) which require no proof. τὸ παν [the All] just “is”. But now consciousness is self-aware of the Limit of belief. But there seems to be no need to give up the new found comfort of a creation which is certainly a Logos, which, because by definition by itself is certainly intelligible as divine product, can undergo proof. Science is truly born, and Idea turns into Matter.
Like the universe of Philosophy which is full of gods and of Religion which is ultimately a triune God, the sensible universe seems to need no actual existential explanation. But – there is a rub. Cosmos and consolation must be given up. What is found to substitute is that matter – never findable in itself – can be stroked and manipulated endlessly because it has no teleology other than what ones humans give it. And so we can be like gods but only mortally. We can make life better because we are the measure. This is the third and final theoretical position – the instantiation in Time of the acceptance of contingency and possibility as endless – we are the masters of a destiny with no purpose.
The Reality of Philosophy is knowledge – The Belief of Religion is consolation – the Disbelief of Science is freedom.
Until in the phenomenology of humanity these theoretical possibilities – and they are only possibilities – actually occur in time, it is impossible to understand their relation.
Hence Mentaphysics can now be discovered. And this discovery is the discovery of how these are the only three possible theoretical positions and of how they are really actually unable to stand alone but are irreducible aspects of a triadic dialectic of equality which are also at the same time One. All together they are how things “are” – how beings are all Being – all “existing”. How the intuitive insight of the ancients is fully actual – is ἐντελέχεια – how πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν, ὀικείως δὲ ἐν ἑκάστῳ is the actuality of the only possible universe.
Philosophy, Religion, and Science are not only not irreconcilable but are without reduction all aspects of one Existence which is fundamentally Good, True, and Beautiful. Knowing this is knowing Mentaphysics.
What would constitute a proof? Experience but how? Well, the universe, τὰ πάντα, our planet, its flora, fauna, oceans, air, your own life and consciousness and relations, are all proofs.
Mentaphysics is not only a WAY but it is specifically Philosophy, not religion and not science specifically but then again they are together one intricate theoretical network. It is just that mentaphysics is the actual awareness of this intricacy and irreducible unity and difference.
Knowledge and Experience are something that each person has to make their own. And it requires not only talent, but unrelenting continuous joyful effort over a long period of time. Potentially it can be for everyone but actually it is unlikely. The knowledge of Mentaphysics is already the living actuality of the universe – so for anyone to know it is not immediately practical or even in a sense useful but it is its own wonderful reward.
Because Mentaphysics is ultimately so complicated and difficult it means a lot of deep painstaking study in a lot of fields. It is not Religion and not Science and is Philosophy very specifically. It is not belles-lettres or antiquarianism or New Age eclecticism, theosophy or some form of eastern mysticism or gnosticism. It is simply νόησις νοήσεως νόησις [thinking thinking thinking] as real actual living reality [Ϛῶον as ἐντελέχεια] experiencing experience experienced. It is the astonishment [θαυμασία] of waking up everyday and seeing feeling the instantiation of goodness, truth, and beauty not abstracted but ecstatically present.
Further it is important to realize from the start that completeness and system are not options – that randomness, purposelessness, ἄλογος, insanity, evil – are not independent and can never prevail. If they could there would Be nothing – BUT THERE IS IS.
