Latour, Voegelin, St Maximus

 

As far as I remember from Voegelin he had the moto “the order of history is the history of order” Which meant that changes in the order of the soul (psyche)  leave their mark in major changes in the course of history (I think). He also was speaking about the increase in differentiation of the soul.

I wonder about the following:

Can we see Latour’s work as a further differentiation, as sheding light on  metaxy, giving symbols to orient in this reality?  So I read Latour as follows:

1.      Weaving is a pivotal practice, an archetype for Latour. Strings are also found to be important in St Maximus when he speaks about the human and in Voegelin’s presentation of Plato’s view of the human soul in the Laws. The later authors connect strings with music and with human’s guidance (the Platonic myth speaks also about a golden string coming from the gods). For Latour, the modes of existence have also a string-like character, they cross each other, they weave what exists. It seems that they weave in parallel the human and the non-human.

2.      For Latour all modes of existence participate in metaxy. They are all “gifts of God”, not just [REL]. So his philosophy can be seen as differentiating metaxy

3.      The notion of “instauration” is perhaps also a useful symbol for use in metaxy, since it stands between humans and the somehow autonomous beings whose motion is sign of each mode of existence.

4.      I think that in Latour there is is a difference between the beings that are instaured in each mode (or there is an effort to be instaured) and the “existents” which remind me the difference between noetic things and sensible things. The Beings are not really “grabable”. We perceive things that are left in their wake. Moreover the existents can be approached according to the direction of one mode of existence or another. I am reminded of the distinction between the sensible and the noetic things in St Maximus. Sensible things are more grabable but they also oblidge. Noetic things are more “sensed” but they are freer. In the eschata, both take new forms, as human freedhom takes a new form as well

5.      I also feel that Latour has transformed the view I had of the logoi of the beings that St Maximus was speaking of. Initially I was thinking of some kind of code instructions that fited to each being. But now the notion of hiatuses that have to be passed gives a much more dynamic, sensitive, responsive, open to further illumination, moving, view of the logoi of the beings. St Maximus also speaks about man as being “the most synthetic laboratory” of the logoi.

6.      In Latour as in St Maximus I feel a move away from narrativity towards the sense of “in medias res”. In the middle of action. There is time, there is judgment, there is uncertainty. Against a grand-narrative-narrativity like Origen’s.

7.      Latour speaks much less about the weaving of the modes of existence than St Maximus speaks about the structure of logoi. Moreover St Maximus writes in a clearly Christian context

So finally, for me, a semi-modern (and semi-educated, a commoner) I see here the opportunity of a language that can support beauty