The Philosophy of Meykandar
By Dr K.Loganathan 1995
Part III
3.0 Logic and Metaphysics
At the moment the scientific ethos throughout the world is constituted by the positive sciences with physics providing the model of a rigorous science. The closer a science approaches physics the more rigorous it is deemed to be. The onticals or physicals are singled out as the chief expression of rationality, neglecting the ontological and hence the metaphysical and hermeneutical. Thus it becomes imperative to work out the essences of the hermeneutic sciences, their logic and in what sense it is also an expression of rationality. For within the ontological there can be the irrational as much as it can be within the ontical. Just as the notion of positive science makes the ontical rational, so would the notion of hermeneutical science that of ontological. The LOGIC of Hermenutic Sciences constitutes the Logic of genuine metaphysics.
The notion of scientific rigor in the positive sciences is strongly associated with the notions of instruments, their reliability and validity. Each time a hermeneutic science emerges, the positivists bounce upon it with the questions: What are the instruments? How reliable are they? How valid are the measurements, the analysis? and so forth. There is here a presumption, as already pointed out earlier, that anything scientific would mean instrumental interventions and quantitative analysis. The physical sciences are such sciences and when the notion of scientific rigor available here is extended to the human sciences, the same demands are made without realizing that there is a shift in the seeing, from ontical to ontological. When this shift is taken into account, it is clear that it NOT that there is no scientific rigor but only that it takes a different form that needs to be worked. It is in working out this that we come to see the LOGIC of not only hermeneutics sciences but metaphysics as such. We shall do this by taking up samples of hermeneutic sciences where the notion of scientific rigor emerges most clearly within the framework of ontology and Temporal Analytics from which it cannot be dissociated.
3.1 TEXTS and ontopretations or The Notion of Utti
As we have already noted, the hermeneutic problems are problems already constituted at the genesis itself as onto-enigmas and which always presuppose the existence of TEXT and a particular reading of it. This does not mean only the verbal texts and such entities give rise to such enigmas. Every element of experience holds the possibility of being a TEXT or a brute factual data depending on whether the seeing is ontological or ontical. Every ontological seeing sees only TEXTS with their attendent duality of structure. TEXTUALITY is not an objective quality of a thing - it belongs to the seeing, where the seeing is ontological, that which is seen is a TEXT. It may be verbal or nonverbal productions of individuals or some kind of presentations made available to an individual the origins of which may be obscure (e.g. dreams). But all such TEXTS, by virtue of being seen as a TEXT have a Surface Structure that points beyond itself to a (or indicative of) Deep Structure having elements in it that in fact constitutes the textual character of the Surface Structure of the TEXT. The following are two examples of such TEXTS one verbal, the other nonverbal.
TEXT 1 : (Part of classroom instruction on Language in the primary school, first grade. The text is excerpt of a middle of an ongoing lesson, videotaped and transcribed)
1. Guru: Semua sebut [huu....] 1. T : All say [huu....]
2. SM : huuu.... 2. A.C : huu...
3. G : sekali lagii .... 3. T : Once again ...
4. SM : huuu... 4. A.C: huuu.....
5. G : Baik, Kumpulan A 5. T : Okay, group A
6. K.A: huu .... 6. G.A: huu ...
7. G : Semua dikumpulan B sebut 7. T : All in group B, pronounce it
8. K.B: huu .... 8. G.B: huu...
9. G : Baik,sekarang (sticks pictures 9. T : Okay now ( .... ):
the board): Ini gambar apa? What is this picture?
10. M : Pokok 10. C : Tree
(G) Guru : Teacher (r): Semua murid (SM) All children (A.C), Murid (M) child.
The Text 2 is from Family Portrait Test, similar to New BAUM TEST, species of ACCESS TESTS used in Agamic Psychology (Yoshikawa, K. Loganathan Mutarayan, 1985). A four year old male child who had problems in quantitative competence was asked to draw his mother, his father, himself as now and himself when big (or grown up). The drawings as produced by the child are reproduced below (eye-copies)
Text 2 A. Mother , large with arms. B. Father small, without arms. C. Self like father D. Self like father but bigger.
Both are Texts in the sense that they have a DUAL Structure, the surface and the deep, the meaningless scratches or scribbles and at the same time significatory or communicative of something. But the onto-enigmas do not emerge just by noting these features; the Texts have to be accessed appropriately so that one is not trapped by the ontic-enigmas (the phonological, syntactical; size, frequency, deletions and omissions etc). In Text 1 the onto-enigma emerges when the repeated occurrence of the discourse-marker `Baik, sekarang is noted and we raise the question: Why the repetition precisely in the manner it does in the TEXT? What is IN the teacher that compels him to doso ? Similarly in Text 2 . After noting that the drawn figure of mother is larger than father, and that while the mother has arms the father doesnt, an onto-enigma emerges when we raise questions such as: What is IN the child that makes him draw or represent his mother and father in the above different ways?
Such questions are what we shall call ontological or metaphysical , questions seeking to locate elements in the deep structures that would account for the observable in the surface structure of the Texts. There is a way of constituting the enigma itself so that instead of ontical, ontological questions are raised. For example in Text 1, when we note that while the utterance pairs (1,2), (3,4), (5,6), (7,8) have a certain completeness or saturatedness characteristic of them and the movement from one pair to the following non-disruptive or connected, at (9) however there is BREAKDOWN or DISRUPTION along with the introduction of something DIFFERENT. There is, in other words, a RECONSTITUTION of the nature of the interactivity itself which once recognized for what it is, gives rise to the ontological questions: Why so? and along with it the emergence of onto-enigmas.
In the smooth development of the interactivity this BREAK constitutes a departure and which through that causes the emergence of an onto-enigma. One who sees this and is caught by that onto-enigma, seeks out the elements in the D.S of the text, the elements that are there but hidden from view. Something in the text remains covered up and which he sees now as resisting his standing-under. He sees himself as having a BLINDNESS on account of which something remains unavailable to his SEEING. He initiates now what the hermeneuts have called interpretive movements, investigations into the implicative structures, semiological studies and so forth. But we shall avoid these and use the term onto-pretations (Tamil:utti, sk: ukti) instead for an important reasons. The interpretive movements or translational maneuvers above seem to be processes that do not affect the researcher as a person but only his understanding, which obviously is not the case. The onto-enigmas such as the above also disclose an aspect of his Being, in this case his Being as one who is IGNORANT, who has yet to SEE certain things that are there in the TEXT but which are covered up FROM him. The COVEREDUPNESS is NOT something DONE by the text; but something is so only because he has not yet that COMPETENCY that would enable him to SEE; provides him with that VISION that would allow him to SIGHT it immediately. The onto-pretations are maneuvers that would in fact remove or destroy this BLINDNESS or incompetence. They are, in other words, activities of LEARNING in the authentic sense, activities in which ones IGNORANCE is reduced, incompetence destroyed. The onto-pretations are educative and pedagogical and hence something quite different from the interpretations.
This destruction of Ignorance through the exercise of onto-pretations, it should be noted, proceeds in stages. Since this issue has been dealt with quite extensively elsewhere (K. Loganathan Mutharayan, 1993, 1995), we shall describe here only some of the essentials relevant to the task at hand. The BREAK in continuity, the RECONSTITUTION that becomes available for perception, allows us to see that the teacher at this point is in fact EPISODISING - i.e. constitutes the activities prior to this as now in the past and simultaneously presents or introduces some others, distinct from the earlier, as the ongoing. There is, in other words historicizing - constituting some events as now belonging to the past and others as belonging to the present with the implication that there may others yet to appear in the future. The teacher operates within a historical consciousness, with the three ektases of Temporality, the past, the present and the future as it has been noted by Heidegger.
But this is only a preliminary accessing prior to the really satisfying. That in such instructional situations the teacher historicizes and that in that way of Being he episodizes and that at that point we have the assertion of `Baik, sekarang are important insights or LUMENS as I have called them elsewhere. When after securing this, we push further our ontological inquiries, we begin to see the presence of a hierarchically organized INTENTIONS - act-specific, episodic, global and so forth. At the point of episodizing, there is the termination of an INTENTION underlying the ongoing kind of activities and the emergence of another at the same point that presents a different sort of activities as the ongoing and the presence of a Deeper Level Intention - the GLOBAL INTENTION - as the ground within which these episodic intentions arise. The sighting of all these hierarchically organized simultaneously present INTENTIONS as the real elements in the Deep Structure that in fact underlies the Surface Structures, provides that STANDING-UNDER that resolves up to a point the onto-enigma that sets the inquiry into motion. Similarly having grasped this and returned to the so called adjacency pairs and note a sense of completeness about them (e.g. in the pairs (1,2), (3,4) etc), we can sight an intention-fusion, the pupil owning up an intention thrown as for him by the teacher, accounting for the completeness we note. A teacher succeeds in teaching by throwing an intention in a manner a child can grasp it and own up as his own and effect an action. When in fact this happens we have such pairs as above, the ACT-TURNS, and when there is failure then only Quasi- Act-Turns.
While intentions are the elements of Deep Structure in the above sequentially organized texts, something different are sighted in text 2, the drawings and texts of a similar kind. The onto-enigmas emerge when we note the following features: the figure of mother is larger than that of Father, while the representation of mother has arms that of father doesnt, and the representations of himself as of now and later are similar to that father in being without arms. When we turn these observations into mere questions of representational competence, cognitive capabilities, perceptual skills and so forth we remain still in the ontical mode of Being and positively scientific. However when we see them as problems related to states of Being of the child that underlies such graphic productions we constitute the problem as onto-enigmatic, something requiring ontological and hence hermeneutic efforts. Such investigations disclose that the child is emotionally closer to the mother than father; a emotional closeness that emerges as Largeness of size in the figure drawn. There is attachment towards mother and simultaneously detachment from father. But however though more detached or distant from father, there is an imitative self-identification with father and not mother. (the absence of arms in both the drawings of father and himself) There is a self-understanding in which the child sees himself as similar to father and not mother.
The problem of the child, inability for quantitative operations, is related to this differential attachment to father and mother and the excessive protectionism of the mother (only mother has arms) towards the child. Further discussions of the issue will take us too far into Agamic Psychology, which is not our intention here. Sufficient has been said to indicate the thrust of hermeneutic sciences. The kinds of movements of understanding of the researcher whereby he SEES now elements in the D.S. - a hierarchy of intentions and intention-fusions in Text 1, differential attachments and ontological or imitative self-identifications in Text 2 are the kinds of movements in understanding strictly within the ontological frame of inquiry.
The gaining of SIGHTS through such onto-pretations, gaining darsanas after darsana as the Indian philosophers would say, is destructive of ones own IGNORANCE, a certain incompetence that is part of ones own ways of Being. The hidden-ness, the covered-up-ness, the mystery surrounding the text is no more. The opacity the texts exposed, the resistance to understanding it presented is no more. The researcher has OVERCOME these, has LIBERATED himself from them by going under them and standing there by these onto-pretations (or utties).
3.2 The notion of Agentive Cause and BEING as the Primordial. Agent.
The ancient Logos, which meant the expression of rationality, that which establishes a rational approach to inquiry, has been appropriated by the logical positivists and turned into mathematical logic and so forth where the ancient notion of axioms that meant an illumination has been re-interpreted as a self-evident principle. We have to return to the original sense of logos or at least provide another interpretation of it consistent with the ontological thrusts of hermeneutics to rescue these sciences from being branded as idiosyncratic expletives, only subjective impressions, mere introspective accounts and so forth (Deetz, 1973)
In order to expose how rationality or Logos expresses itself in hermeneutic sciences, we have to re-interpret also another important notion - causality - and describe how it is understood in the hermeneutic sciences where the seeing is firmly ontological.
In the positive sciences the notion of causality is worked out within events, as point-instances of reality that parade in a flux or world-states changing continuously and in that requiring different descriptions. The notion of causality is noted within such ontical presumptions - the events are sequential, and a causal connection can be noted between them where an earlier event or events simply or in complex ways serve to make the later events consequences of some kind. Such causation may be direct or indirect, immediate or distant. And furthermore they are said to be relative to each other: an event is a cause only relative to its consequences (see for e.g. Van Dijk, 1980 p.170) A significant feature of this elucidation of the meaning of CAUSE is that they are NOT SIMULTANEOUS - the event in being a cause is NO MORE when the event caused by it becomes available for observation.
We find that such a notion of CAUSALITY is unavailable in the hermeneutic sciences. The CAUSES are elements in the Deep Structure which cause agentively the observable in the Surface Structure that they are SIMULTANEOUSLY present.
Hermeneutic Sciences investigates TEXTS and all texts are dual in structure having a Surface Structure and Deep Structure simultaneously. The onto-pretations are NOT movements from events to events but rather from Surface Structure features to the Deep Structure elements that are causally linked to the first.
In the above analysis of Text 1, the onto-enigmatic event in the Surface Structure, the occurrence of Baik, Sekarang(Okay .now, Ta. cari ippoo) is understood in relation to an element B, in the Deep Structure (hierarchically organised intentions). Both A and B are SIMULTANE OUSLY present but NOT without any linkage or connection. There is an invariable concomitance between A and B. But not only that: we can also see that without B being there as the element of Deep Structure, there will NOT BE A as an element of Surface Structure of the text. This kind of causal connection is what we mean by Agentive Causation (Nimitta Karanam, in Saiva Siddhanta). The onto-pretations do not just furnish an IN-SIGHT into the being there of B in the Deep Structure but also that B is the Agentive cause of A. Thus such onto-pretations furnish knowledge of the kind: A because of B and only because of B. The element A is continually kept in sight, and through onto-pretations the researcher moves to sight B in the Deep Structure that would count as its Agentive Cause. The hierarchically organized intentions of the teacher of Text 1, the differential attachments of the child and his imitative understanding of himself in relation to his father in Text 2 are factors in the Deep Structure that are agentively (in non-anthropomorphic sense) related to the features A in the texts surface structures that constitute the onto-enigma in the first place.
The notion of agentive cause in a non-anthropomorphic sense, the Agentivity of the cause in a universal sense must be further explored in order to make it more explicit. B, the element of Deep Structure agentively causes A, the features A in the Surface structure of the text, in the sense that it is B that historicizes, brings forth into being-there, enpresents the elements A as realities, as entities in the world. Without B, there would not be being-in-the-world as such for the elements A in the Surface Structure. Without the hierarchically organized intentions, there will be no episodizations in Text 1; without the differential attachments of the child to his parents he would not have represented them in the manner he has done in Text 2. Such notions of causality, we should note, is present in some medical sciences, psychoanalysis and so forth. When the symptoms of a disease, physical or mental are noted, attempts are made to locate the causes. Such causes are those which are `responsible for the diseases the removable of which is what `curing is.
Now we should also note that, such onto-pretive movements, a search into the agentive causes, can go on further and further making the investigations more involved and deeper. But it cannot go on endlessly however for there comes point where a GROUND is sighted and sighting this and understanding it, the onto-pretations are dulled, the hermeneutic efforts foiled and made unnecessary. We can represent this kind of structure of the hermeneutic inquiries as follows:
((((A -> B) ->C ) -> D) ...... G )
We can raise many questions after securing this kind of structural relationships between the levels of structure of TEXTS and their relationship with the onto-pretations, kinds of illuminations reached at various levels and so forth. In the Indian tradition where such questions have been raised from ancient times itself, we have such texts as Tattuvaprakasam (~ 16th cent. A.D.) where an attempt is made to answer these questions in terms of the basic concepts of cariyai, kriyai, yokam, jnanam with other categories derived multiplicatively from these, all being such ontopretations. We shall not repeat it here as it is sufficient to note the relevance of the notion of Agentive Cause, its non-anthropomorphic sense and its close linkage with the notion of onto-pretation . For working that the rational principles of the hermeneutic sciences, the logos of such activities, we have to take into account this notion of Agentive Cause as something distinct from that of physical causation.
The immediate relevance of this notion for us here is that the Pati, the BEING is this GROUND, the Supreme Agentive Cause, the Nimitta Karanan, for the World as a Whole, THAT without the Agency of which the world will not have its being-there as such, a notion that Meykandar articulates with penetrating insights in the first sutra itself using Temporality as the clue for wrestling it out. The world as a whole is uLatu, is there as a phenomenal reality because of the BEING-AS-GRACE, BEING as aati, the primordial causal Ground and who is no other than the Agent of the dissolution of the world, BEING as antam, the Sangkaara KaaraNan. The ontopretations that locate the Agentive causes in Deep Structure that would account for the observable features of the surface structure are in fact a species of discovery procedures, that which lights up the Being of entities. They are strictly speaking ontological and where fundamental, metaphysical. The piramaNaviyal, the first part of Metaphysica Generalis of Civajnaana Bootam is in fact such an inquiry where piramaaNa is not a procedure that generates truth in a mechanical manner but ontopretations of a fundamental sort that discloses the Being of metaphysical entities. Thus piramaaNa, derivatively can be considered fundamental illuminations with regard to the Being of entities, the metaphysical realities as such. What Meykandar rediscovers or recovers is the insight that in the seventh century itself Thirumular articulated in Thirumanthiram - the notion that Pati, pacu and paacam are such metaphysical realities and hence the metaphysical world is inherently pluralistic, a notion that distinguishes Saiva Siddhanta from other darsanas.
This understanding is already in the bosom of EVERY HUMAN BEING but however something that remains concealed, hidden, unlighted, unillumined and so forth. Meykandar through his ontico-ontological turn to philosophy and the exercises of ontopretations of a very penetrating and fundamental kind, lights up so to speak, the world of genuine metaphysics and what beings constitute that world.
3.3 The Logic of Communications
The ontopretations that we have discussed is historically a development from the notion of utti in literary hermeneutics made first available in the last sutra of Marapiyal itself. But the utties there, enumerated as 32 in number are both of the learning and instructional type. The latter extensions of these to other more inclusive domains led to the distinction between `tan poruddu anumaanam and `piRar poruddu anumaanam, a distinction that was first drawn by the Buddhists Logicians around the 5th cent A.D. and which is also mentioned by Arunandi in his Civajnaana Cittiyar by way of elucidating the Logic inherent in Civajnaana Bootam. Having shown that the "tan poruddu anumaanam" are actually ontopretations, the movements of understanding in the ontological directions that discloses for oneself the Being of metaphysical realities, something that has to do oneself, learn by destroying the inner blindness that keeps the Being of metaphysical realities veiled up. We shall now consider the other aspect, logic inherent in the notion of "piRar poruddu anumaanam", logic inherent in the communicative behavior.
One difference emerges immediately. The act of communication in the hermeneutic sciences is not simply communication per se but rather pedagogic in nature. One instructs through the acts of communication and others who listen to it are students, and hence learners. It is within this inherently pedagogical situations that the notions `intersubjective confirmation, `objectivity and so forth must be worked out and the logic hidden within it brought out into the open. The researchers constitute a communicative community, where the assertions of one are taken up by others with the idea of incorporating into their language. For this purpose, in the positive sciences, they are tested with the view to refute them; and when the original assertion remains irrefutable then accepted, at least provisionally, and made part of the scientific register that forms the language of communication. In such a situation, the original assertion of the researcher, what is asserted by him - the scientific discovery - holds the possibility of also being re-discovered by another researcher and being re-asserted. Whatever asserted by a member of the scientific community should hold the possibility of being re-asserted by another. Such possibilities with respect to the scientific assertions or propositions constitutes OBJECTIVITY of the sciences, the non-idiosyncratic character of the claims. What holds the possibility of being asserted by all the members of the community, has to be necessarily objective, something there in the world as a fact.
In such a view of scientific community and communicative associations, there is NO HIERARCHICAL relationships. Any member is just as good as another - though there may be differences in skills, creative or imaginative capabilities and so forth, all are EQUAL in relation to the world that is researched. No one holds a position of personal authority, a special place of authority in the social relationships though one may be more respected than another by the excellence of contributions and so forth. But no matter how great, whatever asserted has to pass the crucible of experimental testing. The weight of scientific stature does not in itself confer the status of truth to what is asserted.
This may be a highly simplified description where a number of important details may be missing. However it is sufficient for our purposes here and note that such a view of scientific community and communicative linkage does not exist in the hermeneutic sciences though of course there is communication and agreement or disagreement among members. Correspondingly the notion of objectivity is also quite different.
While the positivistic scientific community is organized on the basis of asserting and refuting, the hermeneutic scientific community is organized on the basis of showing and seeing: one shows and another tries to see what is thus shown. Where SEEING become the same, where the challenger sees the same as that shown by the claimer, agreement becomes possible. Otherwise there can be either disagreement or suspension of coming to an agreement. The communicative situation is dialogic though in a sense quite different from that of Gadamer as outlined in his Truth and Method. We shall maintain that it is dialogic in the Indian Guru-Sisya sense i.e. dialogic that is simultaneously pedagogic. The claimer is hierarchically higher in view of having SEEN something that it has not been the privilege of others to see and therefore less developed than the claimer. The challenger is reduced to be a learner, someone requiring the assistance of another to see for himself something that is important that has not been his privilege to SIGHT so far.
The following scheme of the processes of seeing and making others see the same may help to make the issue clearer:
TEXT: the seeing in which whatever is seen including the stones, trees etc is seen as a TEXT_ANALOGUE and hence with DUALITY of Structure.
O.E : onto-enigma constituting movements of understanding, i.re the seeking of the D.S elements as the Agentive Cause for some S.T features
F : fact - the features in Surface Structure that serves the emergence of Onto-enigma
L : Lumens - in-sights that are illuminating attained by the exercise of utties or onto-pretations
MT : Metatexts : texts embodying the LUMENS attained, a secondary articulation that embodies metaphysicalinsights.
The METATEXT here is what is asserted by the hermeneutic researcher and it embodies LUMENS attained by him by exercising a series of onto-pretations. Through this not only has he accessed some elements of the Deep Structures of the text but also destroyed some IGNORANCE within himself. He has become a person more illuminated and thereby liberated than he was before.
Because of this he asserts from an elevated position, a position of some limited authority. Whoever challenges him, has to acquire the contents of this metatext, i.e. attain the same LUMENS as the claimer possibly by exercising the same onto-pretations or otherwise. Only on attaining the same LUMENS that he can see what the claimer claims. At this point agreement becomes also possible.
This explication of mutual agreement is very ancient in the Dravidian hermeneutic tradition and is termed `ottak kaatci in the Marabiyal of Tolkappiyam. It is within this framework that mistakenly a tradition or a religions scripture can be elevated to a position of authority, sometimes even that of absolute authority, a notion inconsistent with Pedagogic Hermeneutics as we shall show later. Such irrational elevations destroys the pedagogical that pertains to such genuinely hermeneutical. It prevents a genuine dialogue in which one shows what he has seen beyond the ordinary and another learns to see the same under instructions which are activities that initiate onto-pretations on the part of the other.
The logic underlying Civajnaana Bootam is logic of this sort. Each sutra is an assertion, an articulation of a fundamental illumination that Meykandar has attained. All others who read his texts and try to understand it become by virtue of it, his students and hence the necessity to LEARN in order to agree or disagree with him. Now Meykandar not only articulates as many mystics in the East but presents arguments that would help the readers to SEE what he has SEEN; i.e. Meykandar shows a certain thing by seeing which we may also see for ourselves viz. the AXIOM that the sutra articulates. These arguments have the logical structure of an Assertion (meerkooL), followed by a Reason (eetu) and supplemented with explications (eduttukkaaddu: arguments) which are presentation of theses all sequentially organized so that a cumulative understanding of them would help us to SEE the TRUTHS articulated in the main sutras. The sutras themselves in turn, we should note here, are organized in a sequential manner so that a cumulative understanding as a whole would lead to understanding Metaphysica Universalis, what the text as a whole is about.
Such a pedagogical logic was termed" kaaNdikai urai" in Marapiyal, a term which is derived from the expression `kaaNdikaa meaning "please you see" in ancient Tamil. KaaNdigai urai is a species of commentary in which the leader is led to SEE in steps the fundamental TRUTH articulated in the sutra. Tt is immensely rational for every Assertion is given a Reason that would justify the rationality of the assertion, a rational connection between the two being explicated by the edutuk kaddu, the udarana or arguments.
But now the question arises: What is the notion of VALIDITY , inherent to such a rational procedure? What make the Reasons given valid for agreeing with the Assertions? Along with this, what can be meaning of RELIABILITY in the hermeneutic sciences, if it has any application at all?
3.4. The Notions of Reliability and Validity in the Hermeneutic Sciences
We shall recapitulate the central notions briefly here to take up in a meaningful way how the notions of reliability and validity can be interpreted in terms of the essences of hermeneutic sciences. In all hermeneutic sciences we have
TEXTS that are double structured - with Surface Structure and Deep Structure in which some features of the Surface Structure has to be accessed ontogenitically in certain way so that onto-enigmas are allowed to emerge.
We also have:
a set of onto-pretaions (or utties) that we now see as activities that would disclose the presence of an element in the Deep Structure that would count as the Agentive Cause of that which is seen as an onto-enigma. The enigma is solved by sighting this Deep Structure element that in fact enpresents the hermeneutic problematic.
This results:
in the production of METATEXTS and along with it an elevated position to the asserter and who compels a pedagogic situation to emerge among a community of investigators. The metatexts embody LUMENS which are also sought by other hermeneutic researchers.
These are elements in relation to which the notions of reliability and validity have to be worked out. As we have already noted earlier, there are no instruments as such in the hermeneutic sciences and hence the instrumental senses of these notions are quite inappropriate here.
In relation to the central notion of TEXT in the hermeneutic sciences, it makes sense to talk of its reliability but not of validity. A TEXT is only something that is procured without any pre-judgements about its truth possibilities and hence beyond the reach of such notions as validity and so forth.
The TEXT can be reliable or not so, not in the instrumental sense but in the sense that:
a) it is attained or procured without doing any violence to its natural emergence, i.e. procured within the phenomenological attitude of letting-it-to-be, of constraining oneself from intruding into emergence of events and distorting it, and
b) it is procured with sufficient richness of textual structure so that it facilitates the accessing of certain Surface Structure features that serve as the LOCUS for the EMERGENCE of the onto-enigma that becomes the hermeneutic problem. For example, a transcript of an interaction that does not accurately capture, say the pauses and their duration may not be reliable in relation to noting some onto-enigmas and solving them
.
A text obtained intrusively or manipulatively is not reliable because it is DISTORTED and presents a false `picture of the situation. Such texts may mislead the nature of the inquiry, a researcher may chase after ghosts instead of truths. Imaginary and misplaced inquiries may be taken up resulting in discovering things that are inauthentic.
Now in relation to the onto-pretations, we cannot talk about either their reliability (as of the instruments in the positive sciences) and validity (as of the accuracy of the instrumental measurements) but instead only their EFFICIENCY. An onto-pretive movement is efficient, in the sense that it in fact locates the causally linked elements in the Deep Structure of the text and thereby eliminate the onto-enigma that necessitates it in the first place. They may be practical maneuvers (as in medical dissection) or mental acts as in the analysis of discourses, drawings and so forth. Whatever they are they issue forth in the production of METATEXTS the quality of which allows us to evaluate as to the efficiency or otherwise of the onto-pretations.
Where the METATEXTS are mediocre (note: not easy to define mediocrity), we can surmise the ontopretations and hence LUMENS attained are superficial, lacking in penetration depth and so forth. Some mainly impressionistic accounts and narratives are such metatexts. A metatext of outstanding merits (e.g. Being and Time of Heidegger, the Civajnaana Bootam of Meykandar etc) is recognized as having analytical acumen, immense depth and hence the exercise of onto-pretations that access very deep structures of the texts. The deeper the reach of the ontopretations the more valuable the METATEXT produced.
Now while the TEXTS are reliable or not so, the onto-pretations efficient or not so, the METATEXT as a whole in addition to being used for an indirect assessments of the onto-pretations, can rightly be said to be VALID or not so. It makes immense sense to talk of validity of a METATEXT. For the METATEXTS make claims about TRUTH and thereby invite judgements on the part of other researchers in the community. A valid text must describe only truths and avoid falsities and a metatext, as it is an assertion arising out of seeing Deep Structure elements that are there in TEXTS remaining however hidden or covered-up, what it claims are TRUTHS.
The notion of TRUTH here is quite different from an account of it in the positive sciences and elsewhere. A TRUTH is that which illuminates and hence a paramai, as the Nyaya philosophers in India would describe it, a LUMEN or lumen naturale of the medieval philosophers that illuminates the researcher, destroys a darkness in his understanding. It is also NOT a fanciful construction, an imaginative concoction of the researcher but rather something there in the TEXT though not in Surface Structure but in the Deep Structure and hence not visible for the ordinary seeing.
Hence we can say that a METATEXT is valid provided:
a) it articulates only the elements of Deep Structure that are accessed and are in fact accessible by any other through an ontological investigations of some features of the Surface Structure of the text in question, and
b) avoids the articulation of something spurious, something not substantiable from the TEXT itself.
These qualities come to prevail only when after constituting the onto-enigma, the researcher keeps in SIGHT that enigma resolutely and unfailingly in mind and moves ontopretively to the deeper and deeper layers and uncovers the Agentive Causes that would eliminate the enigma, make him understand the problem. Where the ontological GAZE ceases to be kept firmly, the ontopretations allowed to falter, waver and so forth, we may not have METATEXTS, that are valid. The extraneous elements that may thwart genuine ontopretations may be collective prejudices, personal biases, falling prey to fashions, unhealthy social pressures, fear of slander, of public wrath, of departing from tradition and so forth that Tolkappiyar calls vinai - the binding chains of REASON, of rational inquiry. The game one plays in the exercise of ontopretations that result in valid metatexts is almost a war, a war against the factors that may interfere and destroy the resoluteness with which one has to push the ontological inquiry to its finish.
Valid metatexts, it should also be noted, are also significant cultural achievements, the deeper the TRUTHS the more significant it being. In articulating deep seated truths, in circulating them linguistically, the language that accommodates it also becomes thereby enriched. Valid metatexts, in other words , add to the repertoire of TRUTHS that a language community as a whole possesses and thereby become culturally richer. The metatexts in this way interacts with tradition; reforms it, enriches it, making its texture more differentiated and penetrative. The tradition thus viewed becomes the repository of valid metatextual contributions, the foundation of culture. It is here that we have some resemblance with what Gadamer has called `fusion of horizons, the effectivity of history and TRADITION as authoritative in relation to the hermeneutic problems. Knowledge or what we have called here LUMENS are also understood as phronetic- practical wisdom of a sort.
At this juncture, it should be noted that Civajnaana Bootam is not simply one of these metatexts, even a profound kind but something that while accommodating them also goes beyond them and by virtue of which it is Universal Metatext of a kind and because of which it is a text in Metaphysica Universalis. The metatexts are productions of hermeneutic sciences and there can be any number of them. But that which accommodates both the ontical and ontological, the positivistic as well as the hermeneutic expressions of sciences and which tries to understand and explain both cannot be either ontical alone or ontological alone. It is beyond both and since it seeks to understand both it is appropriately not just a metatext but rather a Universal Metatext.
Since this issue is immensely relevant to understand Civajnaana Bootam, we shall attend to it briefly in the next section.