� Concerning Determinism and Contingency

ἀρχὴ γὰρ τὸ ὅτι[.] —Aristotle (NE 12, 1095b, I.iv.7)1

By limning the consequences of a most basic (epistemic) choice—fate or fortune— this chapter tenders the general framework of the ma tter under consideration. Simultaneously serving as an initial overview, it provides a (thematic) sketch of the conceptual, methodical, and applicative studies to follow.

�.� Chance and Providence (Generally and Particularly)

in incerto iudicium est, fatone res mortalium et necessitate immutabili an forte volvantur. Quippe sapientissimos veterum quique sectas eorum aemulantur diversos reperies[.] —Tacitus (Annals. IV–XII. 188–190, VI.xxii)2

The question as to whether events are (wholly) determined or fortuitous remains a perennial problem to lifeforms of a certain consc iousness—both from a universal perspective, and with regard to specific cases. In one way or another, any being of a sustained recollection—as is simultaneously capacitated for reflecting on, and extrapolating, potential causalities—will not infrequently face (be affected by, or forced to confront) this conundrum.3

�� 1 “the starting-point or first principle is the fact that a thing is so” (NE 13, 1095b, I.iv.7). Cf. the trans. by Rolfes/Bien: “Denn wir gehen hier von dem ‘Daß’ aus” (Nikomach. Ethik 5, 1095b, I.ii). From a rhetorical perspective, Trimpi accentuates: “We begin, always, with the an sit” (Muses 361). See Waldenfels (175); von Fritz (“Die ἐπαγωγή” 641; 662–663). With Pascal, Blumenberg urges “feste[s] und unbeirrte[s] Hinsehen auf die faktische Situation des Menschen” (“Recht des Scheins” 421). Cf. Schaeffer: “admit where we stand” (“Literary Studies” 271). Küpper: “das Sagen des Faktischen” (“Ordnung” 209). Aquinas stresses: “it is obvious that, if all particular things vanished, their universals could not endure” (250, III.i.75.6; with 253, III.i.75.13). 2 “judgement wavers[:] [i]s the revolution of human things governed by fate and changeless necessity, or by accident? You will find the wisest of the ancients, and the disciples attached to their tenets, at complete variance” (Annals. IV–XII. 189–191, VI.xxii). See Pfligersdorffer (1–2). 3 “Man cannot live without having thoughts about the first things” (Strauss Natural Right 91). “All men naturally [‘φύσει’] desire knowledge [‘τοῦ εἰδέναι’]. […] other animals live by impressions [‘φαντασίαις’] and memories [‘μνήμαις’], and have but a small share of experience [‘ἐμπειρίας’]; but the human race lives also by art [‘τέχνῃ’] and reasoning [‘λογισμοῖς’]. It is from memory that men acquire experience […][;] it is through experience that men acquire science and art […]. Art is produced when from many notions of experience a single universal [‘μία

Open Access. © 2020 DS Mayfield, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110701654-002   Determinism and Contingency

For particular results might presently be sans ready and reasonable explanation as to their coming about. On occasion, this status may (seem to) be permanent—at least as far as the human eye and mind are concerned. Even so, the knowing of causatives—be they definitive or probable—is not merely a matter of curiosity, but often of vital import.4 By and large, it will be beyond doubt that the (ultimate) grounds of certain events are not always (directly) intelligible. Yet there may well be matters whose workings remain inaccessible not only to a given lifeform, but to any—whether factual or simply conceivable. Sheer chance is a possibility indeed (or theory). Along the lines of said infinite query, one might pose the ensuing experiment of thought. Should there be gods (or one thereof), are they (else he, she, it) causally omniscient; if so, only in hindsight, or also regarding the future; and would the latter necessarily translate into a total predetermination of all affairs.5 May a god be (deemed) subject to time at all (or to aught, for that matter), without violating other assumptions about the divine; and if decidedly supratemporal, can a deity even conceive of sequential relations—and could there be something that such a being cannot do.6 In more down-to-earth terms, the word ‘accident’ is regularly applied to cases where the cause is known and certain, but a particular effect was not—or is said to not have been—willed, by some or all of the concerned. Seeing that love and death are taken to dominate human lives, traffic-related incidents or ineffective birth control might be considered instances of momentaneous evidence. As to the former, a blend of circumstantial conditions—be they ultimately uncontrollable (seasonal precipitation, limited visibility, lightning), or feasibly

;; καθόλου’] judgement [‘ὑπόληψις’] is formed with regard to like objects” (Aristotle Met. 1–9. 2–5, 980a–981a, I.i.1–5; see “Post. An.” 256–261, 100a–b, II.xix). “Thiere […] haben […] bloß anschauliche Vorstellungen, keine Begriffe, keine Reflexion, sind daher an die Gegenwart gebunden, können nicht die Zukunft berücksichtigen” (Schopenhauer WWV I. 213, II.27). Cf. subch. 3.3; the onset of ch. 4; as well as 12, herein. 4 See Aristotle: “we aim at understanding, and […] never reckon that we understand a thing till we can give an account of its ‘how and why’” (Phys. 1–4. 129, 194b, II.iii). 5 Cf. “we ascribe to the gods the capacity to see all things” (Aristotle “Poetics” 81, 1454b, §15). 6 Heuristically, see Normore’s indispensable synopses of affine speculations (“Future” 363; 377–378; 381; passim; “Divine” 16). Cf. Boh (“Omnipotence” 194–195; and spec. 207n.); Grant (539); Korolec (639). Withal, the—decidedly human—principle of (non)contradiction need not be applicable to anything otherworldly (and likely does not hold good). See Blumenberg’s cultured caveat: “Es kann vernünftig sein, nicht bis zum Letzten vernünftig zu sein” (Arbeit 180–181; cf. Dierse 296). As to defining a “supreme being” (wholly) ex negativo (here with reference to Aristotle): “not subject to conditions of time, place, matter, dimension, or change of consciousness” (Wicksteed/Cornford xvi; with xxx). Cf. subch. 4.4, herein.

Chance and Providence   maneuver-, manageable (moving obstacles, leaping animals, defective parts, inapt maintenance)—could chance to coincide with incompetent, imprudent, inattentive, irresponsible conducting on the part of some or all of the involved. Regarding mammalian intercourse, the humanoid variants may appear to prioritize other uses than the reproductive (whether social or hedonistic); partly also since offspring might not be desired or advisable—at a given point; or at all. When nature has its way even so (as it will), the term in question tends to be employed, although nothing was ‘accidental’, strictly speaking. The word merely signals that the regular biological outcome had not been intended—or even been unwanted—by one or both of the agents implicated.7 Societally, their unwillingness to acknowledge, and so legitimize, said effect may have far-reaching consequences; especially regarding processes of naming (hence communal prestige) and heredity (the material legacy, in particular)—to say nothing of the surgical recourses taken by some.8 Yet as concerns causal relations, naught is in the dark. For the requisite exchange of fluids must have been performed by respectively capacitated beings; and at a fruitful time.9

;; 7 As is his habit, Freud takes pleasure in having it both ways: “wenn man den Zufall für unwürdig hält, über unser Schicksal zu entscheiden, ist es bloß ein Rückfall in die fromme Weltanschauung […]. Wir vergessen […] gern, daß eigentlich alles an unserem Leben Zufall ist, von unserer Entstehung an durch das Zusammentreffen von Spermatozoon und Ei, Zufall, der darum doch an der Gesetzmäßigkeit und Notwendigkeit der Natur seinen Anteil hat, bloß der Beziehung zu unseren Wünschen und Illusionen entbehrt” (“Leonardo” 210). See Rorty (Contingency 22); Vogt (679, 679n.–681n.). For a Medieval take, cf. Küpper (“Medical” 119–120). 8 See Aristotle (Rhet. 48–49, 1360b, I.v.5); Strauss (Natural Right 103–104; 148). To some extent, the historical institution of marriage (pre)determines, and so protects, against human willfulness—especially as far as the male part is concerned (mater certissima). What occurs outside said socio-moral confines tends to be considered accessory, hence sans entitlement to a full (or any) communal status (depending on the resp. culture). The fact that the latter may still be granted post factum signals the ultimate contingency and precarity of nominal sanctions (incl. the possible dissolution of wedlock, and adoption). Generally, see Küpper (“Moderne” 136–137, 136n.; “Fiacre” 264–265; “modernidade” 207–208); and Beecher: “Women always know who their own children are, men do not. The male mind seems to come equipped with a genetic disinclination to invest in offspring who do not pass into futurity some of his own genetic coding, at least not without negotiation. Women, by contrast, are genetically endowed to seek the highest caliber of sperm in order to gain for their offspring every selective advantage in a hostile and competitive world” (110). See subch. 7.2.3, herein. 9 “the semen is not yet potentially a man; for it must further undergo a change in some other medium” (Aristotle Met. 1–9. 451, 1049a, IX.vii.3); “it is not a matter of chance what springs from a given sperm, since an olive comes from such a[…] one, and a man from such another” (Phys. 1–4. 145, 196a, II.iv; with “Parts of Animals” 72–75, 641b, I.i); “[a hu]man [being, ‘ἄνθρωπος’] is begotten by [a hu]man [being]” (Phys. 1–4. 165, 198a, II.vii; likewise Met. 1–9. 338–339, 1032a,

  Determinism and Contingency

Perhaps this—hardly infrequent—sample may be taken to a more kathólou plane. There are such as maintain that the existence of humankind is due to, and determined by, the will of some supreme being(s). Others hold that said mammal is ‘simply there’; hence could just as well not be. Life in general might obtain by virtue of sheer chance, rather than being down to divine design. Withal, not few would fain have been wanted (or even chosen) by a celestial originator.10 The infinite query as to whether humans be a fluke of Nature, a stroke of (bad) luck, or created and determined—followed by the whys and wherefores—has a corollary. It involves not simply this characteristically narcissistic species—along with the world it has made its own, and for itself. The universe is implicated, as well. Was it planned and well-wrought—as a beautifully ordered, eternal cosmos; else with a (fixed) beginning and end.11 Is it the result of an accidental—perhaps even ultimately inexplicable—implosion, clash, deviation of atoms. Terminologically, the various schools of (natural) philosophers or scientists differ significantly over time—and to date. Yet the basic problémata propelling their countless and sundry investigations do not seem to have changed (much). Theoretical and practical disciplines as diverse as chemistry, physics, biology, geology, archeology, astronomy, theology, philosophy, anthropology, history, literature (et multa caetera) have felt called upon to approach—often, to try and answer—these fundamental questions from their specific angles; and in their several languages (be they scientific or speculative): how, why, or whereto does (respectively can) the world and humankind exist (at all).12 Such or related queries are downright vital for one discipline in particular.

This is the gauge [more literally, the measure, yardstick] for every [variety of] moral philosophy: it must […] render comprehensible, how we cope with that which we

;; VII.vii.3; 348–349, 1033b, VII.viii.8; 352–353, 1034b, VII.ix.5; 456–457, 1049b, IX.viii.5; “Met. 10– 14” 129, 107a, XII.iii.2; 135, 1070b, XII.iv.8). The dictum is something of a keynote throughout the corpus; as well as in the Peripatetic tradition. Cf. e.g. Alexander of Aphrodisias (46 with 182, §169.21, VI; 46 plus 182–183, §170.2–3, VI; 71 and 198, §193.10, XXIII); also Bröcker (259–260). 10 “contingent beings require the existence of something necessary and therefore eternal” (Strauss Natural Right 89). See Küpper on the view that “‘things just happened’” (“Ordnung” 173n.); also Mayfield (Artful 142; 206n.). 11 On the fundamental variance between Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian conceptualizations of the world, see Blumenberg: “kosmisierte Vorsehung und eschatologische Heilserwartung sind innere Widersprüche” (“Teleologie” 675). Without a Creator (God), the given cosmos is sans beginning and end; or else, onsets and expirations are conceived of as pertaining to an iterative, unending cycle (as in the Stoic ekpýrosis)—with the seasonal qua model. 12 As to the latter, cf. Blumenberg (Beschreibung 511); plus subchs. 5.1.1, 5.2.1. For the probable difference between ‘natural’ and ‘agential’ contingency, see subchs. 3.2, 3.4, 3.5, herein.

Freedom of the Otherwise  

experience as the agency countering ours [‘die Gegeninstanz unseres Handelns’]; hence how we can manage to live with chance[—]with that which strikes us[;] and, harder yet, with that which we ourselves are. (Sommer “Zufall” 112; trans. dsm)13

.
Freedom of the Otherwise

even among chance events [‘τῶν ἀπὸ τύχης’] we find most awesome those which seem to have happened by design [‘ὥσπερ ἐπίτηδες’][.] —Aristotle (“Poetics” 62–63, 1452a, §10)

Thetically, many may wish to maintain that they are by (some) design, hence necessary. Yet in descriptive terms, this cannot be certain—at least not to everyone. The universe and man are contingent—to the extent that they need not be; or no longer; nor specifically in this way.14 Everything could also (and always) be not at all, or else—and perhaps is so (already).15 For what is time, anyway. This reasonable—since not ultimately resolvable—hesitation may conduce to theorizing, hypotheses; and proffer possibilities for perceiving and (re)describing given matters from various perspectives: a conditio sine qua non for Skepticism and rhetoric alike. It renders freedom of thought and choice conceivable. In such a view, even somebody’s opting for total determination would be subject to contingency: it might as well be else (in time). Nor is one bound by past impressions, notions, convictions. Beliefs are provisional; persuasion possible.16 As hinted, that humanmost of queries—a potential liberty of choice or will— is plausibly implicated in the issue at hand. If all things were (pre)destined—any wish, word, work inevitable—there neither would, nor could, be such freedom.

;; 13 His “Phänomenologie der Kontingenz” (“Zufall” 97–101; here 99) will be of heuristic value. 14 Such as would instinctively balk at said possibility might (not) wish to be reminded of the irrefutability that—as of the twentieth century—this conceited species has acquired the means for utterly eradicating itself not only from, but along with, the face of this earth. “Die Menschheit hat sich selbst in die Lage gebracht, sich […] zugrunde richten zu können” (Amslinger 181). 15 Diachronically, the question of determinism or chance has been undecidable—any given answer having been subject to contingency. 16 This paragraph condenses the present study’s condition of possibility, as well as its descriptive foci. The first and foremost general quality to obtain via training in oratory is a capacity for arguing ‘also on the other side(s)’—the qualified formula being Quintilian’s (“in utramque partem vel in plures”, Inst. Orat. 3–5. 156, 3.11.2). See subch. 8.4, herein. While utilized to differing (and nominally impartial) ends, a Skeptic comparably encounters (or rather, aims at finding) the complementary claim to any assertion, thereby to reach a probable equivalence of their relative force (isosthéneia)—hence attain to some (or a certain) mental balance (epoché). Cf. Küpper (“Recusatio der Moderne” 406n.; 410n.; 416, 416n.); Pawlita (111–112, 111n.; 134).

$  Determinism and Contingency

Even should the latter demonstrably be the case, it may well seem preferable to opt for not seeing it so—considering the consequences.17 For every deed would then be done of necessity, voiding any form of personal accountability.18 Certain ethical notions—responsibility, restraint, regulation, reproof—could not but be meaningless.19 The same as reining it in, granting oneself a liberum arbitrium is a condition of possibility for humanitas.20 This choice would involve not having to take the question of fate or free will as so facile a dichotomy.21 Should some sort of finalistic Providence be presumed, beings of this proud species are still at liberty to refrain from passively resigning themselves thereto—even, or especially, should their every effort still be futile.22 By contrast, if all is perceived as happenstance, the totality (or tyranny) of such liberty might lead to sheer irresolution—hence a form of stagnation not altogether unlike acquiescing in one’s allegedly determined lot.23 Be the choice as it may (by chance or design): the qualified, hence equitable, view is an option one is also free to adopt. If prone to believe in the absolutism of fate, there will still be no need to act upon said assumption unswervingly—even should all deviation be in vain, being part and parcel of one’s destiny.

;; 17 See Alexander of Aphrodisias (69–70, §191.2–26, XXI); in Sharples’ politic words: “It would be less dangerous for men to believe wrongly that they had the power of choice when all was in fact in accordance with fate, than for them to believe that all is determined when in fact it is not” (35, as to XXI). D. Laertius logs a similar stance for Epicurus: “It were better […] to accept the legends of the gods [‘τῷ περὶ θεῶν μύθῷ’] than to bow beneath that yoke of destiny [‘εἱμαρμένῃ’] which the natural philosophers have imposed” (Lives II. 658–659, X.133–134). Smith glosses: “He could hardly have made his point more forcefully than that” (xxxiv). See subch. 10.2.4, herein. 18 It cannot be excluded that some might choose to call this the highest ‘freedom’: not indeed ‘for’ anything—but ‘from’ answerability. Then again, the latter is only conceivable ex negativo. Cf. Mayfield (Artful 66n.; 214, 214n.; incl. further references). 19 Blumenberg refers to “die vernünftige Unerträglichkeit der Vorsehung” (“Grenzfälle” 70). On the (Aristotelian) nexus of (deliberate) “action” and “responsibility” (or “ethics”), see Küpper (“Ordnung” 214; trans. dsm). 20 Cf. and contrast Strauss (Natural Right 130; 132–133). As far as assessable, the only irrefutable proof of free choice (or will) is the potential verifiability of the datum that some may indeed seem capable of choosing to accept utter determinism as true. Withal, human animals are evidently capacitated to think (or dream) up the notion of a liberum arbitrium. Irrespective of (belief in) its ‘actual’ obtainment, said process and sheer conceivability will be a performative act of liberty. 21 Not to mention the fact that “willing and necessity can coincide” (Korolec 638). 22 Ancient Greco-Roman and Germanic mythologies offer countless variations on such a state of play; in all likelihood, most other cultural contexts will, as well. 23 Generally, cf. Blumenberg on an “Absolutismus der Freiheit” (GKW III. 709). In their extreme forms, the completely opposed models for explaining the world—as utterly (pre)determined or contingent—can thus lead to similar results; at least on the surface, if not in fact.

Freedom of the Otherwise  %

Likewise for preferring “naked contingency” (Blumenberg Arbeit 681; trans. dsm): one cannot be externally constrained to abstain from self-determination— deliberately limiting that manifest freedom to do as one (might) please.24 Ultimately, there may well be cases where fatum and fors seem (to become) indistinguishable in effect: for instance, when two or more—otherwise separate— causal chains or motivations convene in fact (along Aristotelian lines); while their conjoint result appears to be accidentally the same as in the (then hypothetical) case of their not having come across one another. Sardonically, Hawthorne’s speaker gives precisely such a coincidence:

my fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain an idea of committing suicide, and, altogether beyond his hopes, meet with the good hap to be murdered. (41, ‘The Custom-House’)25

Aristotle offers a basically comparable account for what evinces a tendency to be referred to as (the semblance of) poetic justice:

fearful and pitiable matters […] arise above all when events occur contrary to expectation [‘παρὰ τὴν δόξαν’] yet on account of one another. The awesome [‘τὸ (…) θαυμαστὸν’] will be maintained in this way more than through show of chance and fortune [‘ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτομάτου καὶ τῆς τύχης’], because even among chance events [‘καὶ τῶν ἀπὸ τύχης’] we find most awesome [‘θαυμασιώτατα δοκεῖ’] those which seem to [‘φαίνεται’] have happened by design [‘ὥσπερ ἐπίτηδες’] (as when Mitys’ statue at Argos killed the murderer of Mitys, by falling on him as he looked at it: such things seem [‘ἔοικε’] not to occur randomly [‘οὐκ εἰκῇ γίνεσθαι’]). And so, such plots [‘μύθους’] are bound [‘ἀνάγκη’] to be finer [‘καλλίους’]. (“Poetics” 62–63, 1452a, §9)26

;; 24 On “contingency” qua “freedom or liberation from the pressure of regulations”—and as “the enabling structure for pleasure”—see Küpper (“Ordnung” 205; trans. dsm). Plausibly, Blumenberg asks: “Kann man wissen, daß man allmächtig ist, ohne sich darin zu erproben?” (“Grenzfälle” 72). Whatever the answer, it will have to involve a potential capacity for consciously curbing one’s putatively absolute authority—rather than experiencing another’s act of doing so. The latter is the problem of Genesis 3 (and of the Old Testament in its entirety); a purposive, if not premeditated relinquishment of almightiness the conditio sine qua non of the Gospels. Yet Paul’s Pharisaic retractatio (hence the Church he founded) successfully restores the previous view of a deity diffident as to its omnipotence. 25 The above may seem to be an additionally overdetermined variant of the ensuing, probably somewhat less uncommon cases: “the arrow hit one who stood by and not the man aimed at; or, one who frequented a certain place was the only one who did not go there on a certain occasion, while those who went there then for the first time met their death. All such instances appear to be examples of good fortune [‘εὐτυχήματα’]” (Aristotle Rhet. 58–59, 1362a, I.v.17)—depending on the perspective, (as a matter) of course. Cf. subch. 2.4, herein. 26 The paronomasía of “ἔοικε”, “εἰκῇ” will be performative—spec. as paired with “ἀνάγκη” in

&  Determinism and Contingency

While said structure is not unlikely to feature myriad refunctionalizations, its most pleasurable version in the German tongue comes from Schopenhauer (as one would expect).27 His variant imagines someone who,

during an attempted break-in, by a coincidence, meets with an accident, e.g. in the pigsty, into which he enters forcibly at night to abduct its usual denizen[;] in the latter’s stead, he encounters [another animal], whose guide has stopped in at this tavern [that] evening[—a] bear, approaching him with open arms. (“Grundprobleme” 458, I.v; trans. dsm)28

.' Discursive Tendencies

Dicet aliquis: ‘Quid mihi prodest philosophia, si fatum est? Quid prodest, si deus rector est? Quid prodest, si casus imperat? […]’. Quicquid est ex his, […] vel si omnia haec sunt, philosophandum est[.] —Seneca (Ep. 1–65. 104, XVI.4–5)29

;; their immediate vicinity. Cf. “the chief cause of awe” is “the irrational [‘τὸ ἄλογον’]”—and said effect “is pleasurable [‘τὸ δὲ θαυμαστὸν ἡδύ’]” (“Poetics” 122–123, 1460a, §24). See Fuhrmann (Dichtungstheorie 35; with 41; 76). Also Oesterle: “in the Poetics, contingency is shown to be necessary for tragedy” (10); plus Küpper’s qualifications (“Mimesis” 44). Cf. Bubner: “Das Zufällige überrascht, weil es wie absichtlich aussieht” (Geschichtsprozesse 36). On the (regular) nexus of the álogon and chance in Aristotle, see subch. 3.3. Rhetorically, it will often be needful (sc. expedient) to pass off accidents as actually by design (cf. Rhet. 100–101, 1367b, I.ix.32; with Freese “Intro.” xxxviii–xxxix). See subchs. 3.1, 3.4, 4.2; plus the onsets of chs. 4, 7, 8, 13, herein. 27 Cf. “Der andere große Rhetoriker der Philosophie”—besides his self-styled student—“ist […] Schopenhauer” (Blumenberg Die nackte Wahrheit 30). “Nietzsche ist ein eminent rhetorischer Philosoph” (Realität 57; the former with Nietzsche “Unzeitgemäße [KSA 1]” 335–427, III.1–8). 28 “[d]er beim Versuch eines Einbruchs, durch einen Zufall, verunglückt, z.B. in dem Schweinestall, in den er bei Nacht einbricht, um dessen gewöhnlichen Bewohner abzuführen, statt seiner den Bären, dessen Führer am Abend in diesem Wirthshause eingekehrt ist, vorfindet, welcher ihm mit offenen Armen entgegenkommt”. Needless to say, little else will be the natural case with respect to ‘animal encounters’ at large: more often than not, someone gets ‘embraced’. See Mayfield (“Philosophical Animal” passim; spec. 62–69); with Blumenberg, for the humane alternative (Löwen 89). Generally, cf. Aristotle (Phys. 1–4. 158–159, 197b, II.vi); subch. 3.4, herein. 29 “Perhaps someone will say: ‘How can philosophy help me, if Fate exists? Of what avail is philosophy, if God rules the universe? Of what avail is it, if Chance governs everything? […]’. Whether the truth […] lies in one or in all of these views, we must be philosophers” (Ep. 1–65. 105, XVI.4–5). More literally: ‘one is to philosophize’. Cf. Pfligersdorffer (3n.).

Discursive Tendencies 


While it will typically be possible to give the fundamental ground swell of most (historical) discourses as far as the universal question of providence or chance is concerned, it is almost always a matter of general leanings, rather than a categorical choice; and even where the latter might be asserted, allowances toward the other extreme are usually tendered between the lines (if malgré soi).30 Hence a dominantly determinist discourse is likely to make tacit concessions to contingency, and vice versa. Not infrequently, such may result in a certain interlacing, where one tendency is used to explicate the other—resulting in something like a circular dynamism perpetually fueling itself. This quasi complementarity may be exemplified by recourse to telltale claims on the part of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The first declares:

nothing […] is ABSOLUTELY accidental[,] however; but even the most contingent [event] is merely [something] necessary having taken the long way around[.] (PP I. 215; trans. dsm)31

For the determinist, chance is but a detour—and one of man’s understanding, at that. By contrast, the later philosopher—an avid reader of the former—observes:

The human [being] of the highest intellectuality and strength feels up to every contingency [‘Zufalle’], but also entirely within the snowflakes of the coincidences [‘Zufälle’] therein; he denies the rationality in every sequence[,] and tauntingly brings to light the accidental [‘Zufällige’] about it. (KSA 11. 501–502, 34[243]; trans. dsm)32

Taking his liberties with reason, Nietzsche abstains from explaining chance away. Using the flexibility of contingency against (strict) logic, that thinker of

;; 30 As to Aristotle in this regard, see Sorabji (Necessity 3, on Th. Gomperz). 31 “Nun ist aber nichts ABSOLUT zufällig; sondern auch das Zufälligste ist nur ein auf entfernterem Wege herangekommenes Notwendiges” (PP I. 215; with “Grundprobleme” 394, I.iii). Cf. Mayfield (Artful 108n.); generally, Sommer (“Zufall” 100). To avoid confusion with the temporal sense, the initial “Now” is not trans. above. Schopenhauer’s declaration is clearly marked as a rebuttal of the opposite view: “Nun”, “aber”; plus the superlative (“das Zufälligste”), as modified by the comparative (“entfernterem”). One might inquire whether determinism is only possible ex negativo. The literal rendering of the complex phrase referring to the detour would be: “having come near on [sc. via] a more remote way” (trans. dsm). 32 “Der Mensch der höchsten Geistigkeit und Kraft fühlt sich jedem Zufalle gewachsen, aber auch ganz in den Schneeflocken der Zufälle darin; er leugnet die Vernünftigkeit in jedem Nacheinander und zieht das Zufällige daran mit Spott ans Licht”. Cf. Mayfield (Artful 358n.). As regards the wor(l)dplay likely to be involved, see König on “the relation of the verb ‘zufallen’ (to ‘fall to’ someone) to the German word for ‘accident’” (87; infinitized; his context concerns Szondi). In the above, Nietzsche’s vivid evocation of ‘falling’ snowflakes—all forever unlike one another—may well be outperforming the Epicurean imagery concerning the otherwise regular rain of atoms, with only the slightest deviation (clinamen). See the ensuing gloss.

 Determinism and Contingency deviance emphasizes the enduring remainder of any equation (as it were).33 For, despite its diachronic (and increasingly zealous) attempts at mathematizing the world, no form of scientism has been—and probably none will ever be—able to dissolve the world into numbers (much less ceaseless sequences of 1s and 0s). A ‘capacity for facing any contingency’ liberates humankind to design, craft, and ultimately determine its own world:

The immense mass of the accidental [‘Zufälligem’] contradictory disharmonious idiotic in the current world of man points to the future: seen from the future, this is its [sc. humankind’s] currently necessary field of work, where it may create, organize and harmonize. — Likewise in outer space[.] (KSA 11. 209, 26[228]; trans. dsm)34

What may (still) seem contingent in advancing will—likely, to all appearances— have been turned into necessities in hindsight. Chaos is a chance (not to say, cháris); every crisis a kairós.35

;; 33 There is an Epicurean weft, as a matter of course. On slight atomic deviation, cf. Lucretius (112–119, 2.216–293); spec. “at times quite uncertain [‘incerto’] and [in] uncertain places, they swerve a little [‘depellere paulum’] from their course […]. For if they were not apt to incline [‘quod nisi declinare solerent’], all would fall downwards like raindrops through the profound void, no collisions would take place […]: thus nature would never have produced anything” (112–113, 2.218–219, 2.221–224). On said “theory of the swerve (παρέγκλισις, clinamen, declinatio, inclinatio) of atoms”, see Smith’s gloss: “Lucr[etius]’s account […] is the fullest […] we have. Epicurus, influenced above all by Aristotle, rejected the determinism of Democritus and believed in the freedom of the individual will, and the theory of the atomic swerve was designed to explain free will” (112n.–113n.). For harsh criticism of Epicurus and the “swerve [‘de via deducat’]”, see Cicero (“De fato” 212–215, IX.18; with 214n.–215n.; 216–219, X.21–XI.23; 242–245, XX.47–48; De Fin. 20– 23, I.vi.19; 30–31, I.viii.28; also “De Nat. Deorum” 64, I.xxiv.66, “concursu quodam fortuito”; 70, I.xxvi.73, “de inclinatione atomorum”). In the latter, it is supposed that “Epicurus” construed (or ‘found’) this “swerve” (“declinare paululum”), in order to ensure human agency (else “nihil fore in nostra potestate”); hence as “a device to escape from determinism [‘invenit quo modo necessitatem effugeret’]” (“De Nat. Deorum” 66–67, I.xxv.69; with “De fato” 216–217, X.22). Cf. also Noller (pasim; spec. 30–33). Generally, see subchs. 3.2, 4.4, 10.2.4, 11.1.1, and 11.1.3, herein. 34 “Die ungeheure Masse von Zufälligem Widerspruch Disharmonischem Blödsinnigem in der jetzigen Menschen-Welt weist hin auf die Zukunft: es ist, von der Zukunft aus gesehen, das ihr jetzt nothwendige Arbeits-Feld, wo sie schaffen, organisiren und harmonisiren kann. — Ebenso im Weltall”. Cf. Mayfield (Artful 358, 358n.). The second term in Nietzsche’s asyndetic enumeration is actually already a noun. The above rendering gives it as a nominalized adjective for reasons of euphony only. Withal, it cannot be excluded that the philosopher is also making a semantic pun (if not a point), since—in the sequence given—the very word “contradiction” is also morphologically the odd one out. For he might as well have used ‘Widersprüchlichem’. 35 Cf. chs. 7 (spec. 7.2.2–7.2.3) and 13.1, herein.

Conceptual Précis 
'

Ultimately, it is ‘poietic’—sensu lato et etymologico—acts as transform in- or accidents into something deemed humanly expedient (at a given point in time).36 As above, Nietzsche’s accent tends to highlight the diachronically dependable ties of contingency with a concept(ion) of the future:

Viewed forward[,] all our events may seem like nothing but the concord of chance [‘Zufall’] and nonsense: in retrospect[,] I for my part cannot any longer make out aught of either as regards my life. (KSA 11. 652, 40[46]; trans. dsm)37

Looking back, one is free to focus on ‘roads not taken’—or on the fact that one happens to have come by some indeed.38 Among the sundry benefits of hindsight will be the possibility to simply redescribe every accident as necessary—whereby this quotational excursus may seem to have arrived at its Schopenhauerian onset. If this be so, it is with a decisive difference. For Nietzsche characteristically stresses human agency: not universal—but self-determination. To say naught of contingency’s necessarily being subject to itself: hence perchance both at once.39

. Conceptual Précis

Is the idea of chance merely a function of our ignorance? Is there room for free choice of the will? For unactualised possibilities? For the idea of things being up to us? —Sorabji (“backgrounds” 16)40

;; 36 See chs. 3, 7, 9, herein. 37 “Vorwärts gesehn mag sich all unser Geschehen nur wie die Einmüthigkeit von Zufall und Unsinn ausnehmen: rückwärts gesehn weiß ich für mein Theil an meinem Leben nichts von Beidem mehr ausfindig zu machen” (KSA 11. 652; with 55, 25[158]). Cf. Mayfield (Artful 358–359, 358n.); subch. 4.4; and Bubner: “In der Retrospektive hat sich das Kontingente zum Sinnvollen gewandelt. […] Jeder Erzähler neigt dazu, den […] Ereignissen eine Logik zu unterlegen, die die Eingängigkeit und Überzeugungskraft der Erzählung sichert” (Geschichtsprozesse 45). 38 See Frost’s resp. poem (‘The Road Not Taken’, 105; spec. v.1–3, 14–16, 19–20). The answer to the dilemma of its lines 2 and 3 (“And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood”) is vicariousness: letting others take the alternative route(s) in one’s stead; resp. delegating them to do so—thereby to also experience these by proxy, spec. in narrative or poetic form (“I shall be telling this”, 105, v.16). The work as a whole may thus provide a mediated familiarity with solitary living (see 105, v.19)—to such as prefer the herd. 39 While necessity cannot be else, contingency itself is contingent: it may be otherwise(d)— counting necessary. See subch. 3.7, herein. Cf. Marquard: “die menschliche Wirklichkeit ist überwiegend das Zufällige, das, was auch anders sein kann. Aber wenn es anders sein ‘kann’, dann – wenn auch zufälligerweise – ‘ist’ es häufig auch anders: die zufällige Wirklichkeit – zufällig – ist vielfach so und auch noch anders” (Gewaltenteilung 87). Necessary, say. 40 The context of said and further queries being ‘Boethius’ inclusion’ of “a whole range of topics

  Determinism and Contingency

To review these exploratory remarks, it may seem expedient to gather some of the concepts strewn about; and, at least provisionally, render them necessary by interrelation with further terms in use. Determinist tendencies may be signaled by the words fate, lot, destiny, Providence (typically a Christianization of Stoic prónoia), et caetera.41 Contingency has countless aspects and (corresponding) names, as well: coincidence, fortuity, accident, happenstance, hazard, inter alia. While it seems to have known but one goddess of Chance (Týche, Fortuna, plus the abstract terms autómaton, casus, fors), Ancient polytheism regularly refers to the personifications of (usually) three Fates: Moirai in Greek, Parcae in Latin, the Norns in Germanic lore (hence the ‘Wyrd Sisters’ in Shakespeare).42 The (Medieval) Wheel of Fortune will be a mixed image, blending both bents: one might rise by chance; but the downward movement is inevitable. Whereas Pagan gods were mostly held subject to fatum themselves, monotheistic religions tend to make their Deity either a (total) determinator, providentially meting out each and every body’s destiny; or an instantiation of utter contingency, in that His—humanly inaccessible—volition simply decides at whim.43 While occasionally tying in with folklore as expedient coloring, philosophers have generally tended to systematize (in an attempt at controlling) the otherwise unruly. Most notably in this respect, one encounters the terms týche, autómaton, symbebekós, dynatón, endechómenon (inter alia) as related to the question of chance sensu lato in the Stagirite.44 His main examples concerning the accidental involve an involuntary meeting of two (and potentially more) causal chains: for instance, a treasure has

;; […] at issue between earlier Stoic determinists and Aristotelians” (“backgrounds” 16). Neither only between them; nor will said ‘issue-taking’ ever cease, while humankind subsists (as such). 41 For his purposes, Sorabji defines “determinism” as “the view that whatever happens has all along been necessary, that is, fixed or inevitable” (Necessity ix). 42 See Shakespeare (Mac 139, I.iii.32; plus 126; 128n.; 139n.). With Simek (306–307, s.v. ‘Nornen’). Naturally, many cultures share the idea that (all) things are predetermined by certain powers; that nothing is (actually) accidental; that one cannot escape one’s destiny; etc. Memorably, Tacitus observes: “Ceterum plurimis mortalium non eximitur, quin primo cuiusque ortu ventura destinentur” (Annals. IV–XII. 190, VI.xxii). 43 As will be the case occasionally, this tautology is deliberate. Concerning the above, see Homer, whose ‘Agamemnon’ avers: “but it is not I who am at fault [‘ἐγὼ δ’ οὐκ αἴτιός εἰμι’], but Zeus and Fate and Erinys, that walks in darkness, since […] they cast on my mind fierce blindness […]. But what could I do? It is a god that brings all things to their end. Eldest daughter of Zeus is Ate who blinds all” (Iliad 13–24. 340–341, 19.86–92; plus 344–345, 19.136–137; and Ammonius 94, §131.11–16). With respect to the variants of monotheistic deities, see subch. 4.4, herein. 44 Cf. Wetz (“Begriffe” 27); as well as ch. 3, and 4.5, herein.

Conceptual Précis 
 been buried precisely in the place where another wishes to plant a tree.45 Or else, a shingle drops from a roof—just as someone is walking by.46 As used by Aristotle, the verb ‘symbaínein’ (‘to come together’, ‘to come to pass’) tended to be Latinized as ‘contingere’, ‘to touch (to)’; respectively ‘contingentia’ (from the participle).47 Kant gives these as ‘zufällig’ and ‘Zufall’ (‘that which befalls’); under certain circumstances, ‘contingency’ (‘Kontingenz’) could thus be used interchangeably with ‘chance’.48

;; 45 See subch. 3.1, herein. These paradigms are (altogether) commonplace; hence may be found in may loci after—and apart from—Aristotle. Generally, cf. Waldenfels, speaking of “de[m] sprichwörtliche[n] Schatz im Acker” in an affine context (82). 46 Facing a world of (sheer) contingency, Blumenberg puts suicide into perspective by citing— and commenting on—an anecdote in Hebbel’s diary: “Heute ging ich unter einem Maurergerüst vorbei. Da fiel es mir ein, es würde mir, wenn ein Stein herunterfiele und mich erschlage, sogar in dem Fall unangenehm sein, wenn ich schon die geladene Pistole, mit der ich mich im nächsten Gebüsch erschießen wollte, unterm Rock trüge. […] Der Selbstmörder, in der christlichen Tradition aus nie ganz geklärten Gründen ein Verworfener, ist doch der wahre Nachfolger der ‘Vorsehung’ als des ins Christentum gewanderten Stücks Stoa. Denn worauf es ihm ankommt, zeigt Hebbels Grübelei am Rande des Todestriebs im Münchner Elend: Er will nicht ohne Absicht sterben. Gleichgültig, wer sie hat, könnte man hinzufügen: die Weltvernunft oder die eigene. Der vom Maurergerüst fallende Ziegel ist der ewige Beispielsfall des Gegenteils: der unvernünftigen Absichtslosigkeit. Dagegen begehrt noch im letzten Atemzug auf, wer sich im nächsten seinen eigenen Tod zugedacht hatte. Nun ist auch der Dachziegel nur ein Repräsentant für die vernünftige Unerträglichkeit der Vorsehung […]. Was mag in dieser hintergründigen Absicht, dem wartenden principium rationis insufficientis, für ihn noch stecken? Das war es, was Epikur gegen die Stoa aufbrachte und ihn den Dachziegelzufall in Gestalt der Weltatomstürze bevorzugen ließ: Man brauchte sich nicht zu sorgen, ob man Günstling des Logos sei oder nicht; alle waren gleich, wenn sie unter dem Maurergerüst der Welt hindurchgingen. Der Epikureer ist der, der ohne Harm unterm Zufall des Falles von allem und jedem vergeht und der eigenen Absicht im Dahinschwinden so wenig nachtrauert wie der einer Gottheit. Dazu war Hebbel der prägnante Gegentypus und mußte es sein. Denn: Die Tragödie wird unmöglich, wenn der Zufall seine Dachziegel oder Atome streut” (Lebensthemen 60–61). Cf. the Hawthornean passage given in subch. 2.2. Said “Dachziegelzufall” will be a typically Aristotelianizing example for chance. Generally thereto, see Küpper (“Episteme” passim; “Ordnung” 191, 213–214, 213n.; plus 173–174, 180, 180n.–181n., 194, 217, 217n.; passim); also vis-à-vis this amorously induced suicide: “Melibeas Freitod verweist auf nichts, und er verdeutlicht als solcher, daß die Welt der Kontingenz die der absoluten Referenzlosigkeit und Beliebigkeit ist” (“Ordnung” 193n.; with 193; and 189n., 198). On the latter, as well as in general, cf. chs. 6 and 10, herein. 47 See e.g. von Graevenitz/Marquard (“Vorwort” xiii); Wetz (“Begriffe” 29); Sorabji (Necessity 4; 6n.); and subch. 4.5, herein. 48 Cf. “Kant [‘setzte’] den Begriff Kontingenz mit dem Ausdruck Zufall gleich. Seither werden beide in gleichem Sinne gebraucht” (Wetz “Begriffe” 29; with Graevenitz/Marquard “Vorwort” XIII; Vogt 21–22; 60–61; more generally, M. Sommer “Zufall” passim).

  Determinism and Contingency

Above, Nietzsche has variants of the same word in each case, while the translation—for semantic reasons—tenders three English ones.49 In said lingua franca, the term at issue is a Janus word potentially, which is ultimately due to its Latin etymology. For the phrase ‘to be contingent (up)on’ indicates a specified nexus, causal dependency; hence signifies the precise opposite of ‘by chance’.50 At least three facets, views, or versions of chance have been advanced so far. First, it is typically linked to the coming—qua realm of the possible, being as yet undetermined (the futura contingentia insinuated in Nietzsche’s lines). Then, an accident may appear to be the (unintentional) meeting of several causal chains (as with the treasure and the tree). Finally, the world as such, and any lifeform therein, might as well be otherwise, or not at all—in the Leibnizian wording: “cur aliquid potius quam nihil” (cited in: Blumenberg “Sokrates [2001]” 110).51 The editors of Poetik und Hermeneutik XVII offer a variety of classic(al) attempts at defining the concept at issue:

‘Contingens est, quod nec est impossibile, nec necessarium’ [‘contingent denotes that which is neither impossible nor necessary’][;] or: ‘Contingens est, quod potest non esse’ [‘contingent denotes that which may also not be’][;] or[:] ‘contingens est, quod potest aliud esse’ [‘contingent denotes that which may be (something) else’]. The non-necessary is thus contingent: that which could have not been[,] or could have also been else. (Graevenitz/Marquard “Vorwort” XI; trans. dsm)

In again other words: contingency signifies something that is generally possible—though not (yet) actual, or determined; that could also be not at all, else no longer; or (respectively and) that may well be otherwise.

. Synopses of Chapters 3 to 13

Others apart sat on a hill retired In thoughts more elevate and reasoned high Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end in wand’ring mazes lost. —Milton (“Paradise Lost” 41–42, II.557–561)52

;; 49 See subch. 2.3. Also Wicksteed’s gloss (at Aristotle Phys. 1–4. 141n.); Sorabji (Necessity 4–5). 50 In general, cf. the entry in Merriam-Webster (s.v. “contingent”); Mayfield (Artful 158, 158n.). 51 Approx. ‘why something rather than nothing’ (trans. dsm). See also subch. 5.1.1, herein. 52 Thus the poet—as to the pastimes occupying the Fallen Angels in (his version of) Hell. An affine gloss on Teskey’s part tenders a general observation: “freedom demands discipline” (“Paradise Lost” 41n.; referring to II.550–551, where demons are said to “complain that fate /

Synopses 

In the beginning is contingency. Human life is susceptible of changing suddenly, shifting inadvertently, of appearing differently, varying unpredictably, of being altered deliberately, advancing fortuitously, commencing or ending accidentally, of a certain malleability. In theory, any human being is potentially capacitated to conceive of—and convey—the chance, view, fact that matters may be elsewise, or not at all. With respect to other lifeforms, such might be said animal’s distinctive characteristic.53 This state of play is both an everyday phenomenon, and an indispensable prerequisite for exceptional innovations in culture and science. Contingency is the condition of possibility for any of the arts—be they dominantly concerned with thinking, crafting, or enacting. While their scope and method may differ, the (f)act of reckoning with—and taking advantage of—contingency renders rhetoricians and philosophers associates after all. In said regard, Aristotle and Blumenberg will be exemplary, hence provide the framework. Between these diachronic bridgeheads, various readings applying the nexus—the affinity, the rivalry—of rhetoric and contingency to a selection of Ancient and (Early) Modern texts and thinkers are intercalated. Special attention is given to Seneca, Quintilian, Rojas (Celestina), Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Gracián, Fontane, and Marquard. Treated in certain segments to follow, authors or personae of particular relevance also include Plato, Protagoras, Gorgias, Agathon, Diogenes of Sinope, Epicurus, Cicero, Horace, Livy, Ovid, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Augustine, Boethius, Thomas Aquinas, Montaigne, Bacon, Hobbes, Lichtenberg, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Poe, Hawthorne, Pater, Wilde, Husserl, Valéry, Benn, Wittgenstein, and Borges (inter alia).54 To provide a ready overview of the study at hand, succinct summaries for each of its ensuing segments are here offered in one place. Like the present, the following abstracts are tendered as tentative spotlights—for heuristic purposes.55

;; Free virtue should enthrall to force or chance”). Rackham opens his foreword to Cicero’s de fato with the above lines from Milton (“Intro. [Fate]” 188). 53 More fundamental than that Classical “capacity for rational judgement”, it will be said animal’s awareness of—and reckoning with—contingency that “makes” it “significantly more independent of” its “environment than other beings” (Korolec 629; infinitized). Cf. ch. 12, herein. 54 This list is provisional; does not reflect the relative frequency of citation; see the index also. 55 In the subsequent digests, references and glosses are reduced to a minimum (as per the genre). Parenthetically, certain paragraphs signal the present study’s corresponding subchs. Perusal of the latter cannot be substituted by these synoptic shortcuts.

$  Determinism and Contingency

Chapter 3: Aristotle’s Contingency

Leitfigur […] ist Aristoteles, dem ein […] unüberbotenes Verständnis des Zufallsbegriffs attestiert wird. —Joas (12)56

In the form of an exploratory commentary, the initial chapters on theory deal with Aristotle’s conceptions of chance, otherwiseness, possibility (and affine terms) specifically in his Physics (3.2, 3.4) and Metaphysics (3.1, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6); the Magna Moralia, Eudemian Ethics (3.3); as well as in de interpretatione (3.7). The set of issues associable with contingency sensu lato may well involve ‘automatisms’, symptoms, ‘spontaneities’, accidents, coincidences, fortune— inter alia. The qualifications ‘necessary’ and ‘usually’ tend to provide yardsticks for assessing the latter ex negativo. The first subchapter (3.1) limns and varies Aristotle’s iconic examples—of the treasure and the tree; of tempests or pirates. The second (3.2) proceeds to the philosopher’s theory of causality, with emphasis on its socio-linguistic basis. Generally speaking, material might fail to arrive at a specific shape. Initiatives may miscarry. Obstructions could hinder an expected or desired course. Not infrequently, referring to an occurrence as accidental has the function of attributing a ground to something that would otherwise not appear to have one. Syn- or diachronically, there seem to be three basic proclivities in said regard. Apart from the extreme ascriptions—utter fate, sheer chance—there is a third: human inscrutability. Mayhap, Aristotle’s sober mind inclines toward a relative variant of the latter. At any rate, he pertinently observes that the fortuitous was, and remains, a noetico-linguistic phenomenon; hence must be reckoned with. The Stagirite takes týche seriously, describes it poly-perspectivally. In more than one sense, chance is an incalculability (3.3). The word can function qua shorthand for not being able to give a more precise—or any—cause. Fortune contrasts with what is always or generally. Occurring unexpectedly, out of place, sans limits, it appears counter to reason, order. Throughout Aristotle’s œuvre, the fact that something is—or might be—qualified as ‘álogon’, ‘aóriston’, ‘ápeiron’, ‘átakton’, ‘átopon’ tends to serve as a signal for a corresponding attribution. As per human standards, chance might seem inestimable. Certain cases appear undecidable. Assumptions, anticipations, ascriptions vary. So does what is considered to be out of the ordinary. Mayhap, týche itself is contingent. It could be otherwise—or not the case at all: “fortune is […] not the

;; 56 “Credited with […] nonpareil insight into the concept of chance, Aristotle is […] [the] guiding figure” (trans. dsm). Cf. Vogt (109; with 128, 144, 146).

Synopses 
% cause of all the things of which it seems to be” (“Eudemian” 465, 1248a, VIII.ii.19). Taking on a life of its own, a potential for elseness can be used to curb the phenomenon at issue. This appears to be Aristotle’s angle: he will take advantage of any means as might aid in not letting chance get out of hand or mind. Fortune and rationality are acutely opposed. In a logical view, contingencies are exceptions, describable ex negativo only. Then again, such is precisely a form of regularity. Reason seems capacitated to verbally conceive of—though not actually to grasp—its own negation in the form of týche’s utter irrationality. To a disciplined mindset, the very notion that the infinitely illogical disorder associated with the fortuitous have priority or supremacy regarding the lógos cannot be acceptable. Hence the Stagirite’s rationale comes rather close to the assumption that the appearance of chance may be due to human (in)capacities. The latter being a given, it must be rational to reckon with unaccountability (3.4). One refers to said phenomenon (týche, autómaton) when an occurrence does not meet—else goes against—conditions of (relative) necessity or regularity. As always in Aristotle, linguistic usages—floatational parlances—are the first touchstone. The common belief that týche appears ‘unfathomable’ is appreciated as plausible—incidental causes being indefinite, evasive, inscrutable. In line therewith, it will appear inconceivable that an indeterminate quantity of potentially accompanying aspects could actually be appraised. A strict science of chance must seem implausible. Then again, the corresponding phenomena are (always) assessed as exceptions, gauged from the negative—nothing constant or normal being attributable to týche. In this way, the philosopher does provide a certain rationalization of something (apparently) unreasonable. While a human involvement seems needful for discerning the phenomenon at all, it is in hýle that Aristotle locates the most fundamental root of contingency (3.5): “the cause of the accidental is the matter, which admits of variation from the usual” (Met. 1–9. 303, 1027a, VI.ii.11). Its capacity for being otherwise offers the condition of possibility for týchai and téchnai alike. Seeing as chances display a tendency to go along—and interfere—with virtually anything, the extent of accompanying qualities is incalculable. To the Stagirite’s mind, accidents seem byproducts, side effects. Paradoxically speaking, coincidences could appear inevitable, in a material world. Repeatedly, Aristotle insists that—quasi by definition—there can be no science of accidentals (3.6). Then again, proximate descriptions of various phenomena associable therewith do form part of his theoría and epistéme. Chances are exceptions—hence not exempt from being approached ex negativo. Since words have a communal presence—signaling noetic possibilities— there are téchnai as not only reckon with, but downright handle the respective

'&  Determinism and Contingency impressions, articulated assumptions. Mayhap, all is reasonably causal indeed— and the casual sans fundamentum in re. Yet it does have such in mente et lingua. Contingency conduces to sophistry. Needless to stress, its protagonists manage týche otherwise than could seem suitable to ‘lovers of wisdom’. The world as experienced by human animals appears to allow exceptions to a variety of rules. Few things—if any—are sans concessions or qualifications. Particularities being countless, strict epistemai cannot actually state or anticipate each and every possible extraordinariness. Even so, there are versatile téchnai— focused on adapting to ever changeable circumstances. Concerned with the accidental above all (see Met. 1–9. 299, 1026b, VI.ii.4), Sophistics and its art of rhesis are performatively capable of anticipating or integrating irregularities into their relatively flexible forms of order; specifically by leaving a certain leeway for contingencies. The wide field of fortune is an orator’s playground; and rhetoric the art of (exploiting) chance. This study’s initial chapters on theory are provisionally concluded by a close reading of the arch-text regarding future contingency (3.7). Qua set of procedural rules, logic is designed to counter an attitude of ‘aught goes (if it does)’. Given the need for such a discipline, it will be unlikely that all transpires of necessity. Humans are—act on the basis of, produce—contingencies. Their causalities are prone to elseness. Deliberation does occur—could impact events. Entailing practical reasoning and rhetoric, Aristotle’s logical treatise points beyond itself. Total determinism is but a provisional experiment of thought therein. The Stagirite employs the noted example of a potential naumachía to exemplify the contingency of the future. If something (past or generally conceivable) is not (the case) at present, it could occur (again), at other points in time; or fail to do so. Issues are always resolvably certain in an artificial system for ordering the world. Yet a rational(istic) approach cannot but be the exception in a human lifeworld—rendering needful the aforesaid discipline on occasion. From the angle of the everyday, logic is incidental. Unlike the art of decontextualization, oratory will be perspectival. A chance event is such to someone. Viewpoints are accidentals, as well. Rhetoric exploits contingency.

Chapter 4: From Aristotle to Quintilian, and Beyond

A God with freedom of choice is a deliberating God, even if only for an instant. —Courtenay (249)

The ensuing subchapters pertaining to this study’s theoretical part are concerned with Aristotle’s pragmatic writings, primarily the Nicomachean Ethics (4.1) and

Synopses  '

Rhetoric (4.2); as well as with their impact on the further course of said art and moral philosophy—notably in terms of quality (4.3). Two remaining segments outline the fundamental alteration of (the Stagirite’s take on) contingency caused by the Judeo-Christian discourse (4.4); and tender a general—taxonomic, diachronic—synopsis regarding the phenomenon under scrutiny (4.5). One cannot but proceed from what is at hand. For any animal, the givens are sense impressions—ever prone to change. Acting on their basis—spontaneously, deliberately—the human variants may seem contingency incarnate. Advancing by chance means not having or knowing a (pertinent) rationale. Yet any technical procedure is likewise based on the possibility for matters to be (made) else. As far as Aristotle is concerned, the past is always—and commonsensically— assumed to be necessary (4.1). Via assorted techniques of accommodation and insinuation, an orator can virtually persuade the relevant audience or readership that—in various possible senses—the bygone is otherwise, contingent (4.2). Qua circumstantial art, rhetoric’s mind- and craftful elasticity might actively accommodate chance particulars: singular, rare, extraordinary, erratic, irregular, haphazard, indeterminate, vague, indefinite instances; arbitrary, inconsistent, illogical, unreasonable notions. At any rate, induction will be the ‘way to go’. Variabilities being the playground of said téchne, one could take Aristotle’s naumachía as an oratorico-deliberative case subject to refunctionalizations. Along such lines, even a putative necessity of the past could be rendered contingent—as the case may be. Experts of elusive virtuosity in everything, Sophists reckon with elsewiseness—and exploit chances—at all times. Virtually any accidental can be conferred upon a given fact or phenomenon. Accordingly, questions of quality will be dealt with en détail (4.3). Ever is it needful to ascertain where one stands; or the issue at hand: an, quid, quale sit. Having asked ‘whether something is at all’, ‘what a given thing is’, the reply to the query as to ‘the ways something may be’—‘the makes it could have’—is the fulcrum of rhetoric (Quintilian Inst. Orat. 6–8. 236, 7.4.3). Circumstances will be considerable; contexts critical; a potential for otherwiseness decisive. The condition of possibility for flexible verbal processing is contingency: aught may be else, even simultaneously; or not—seeming so from one angle, but not from another. While said phenomenon is typically thought to concern future matters specifically and only, rhetoricians have always freely and methodically exploited its infinite potentials with respect to things present and past, as well. Mindful of humankind’s experiences with contingency, Sophists might cause mere possibilities to seem probable, literally plausible; craft credibility for sheer eventualities; render likely any ‘maybe’ as could prove expedient in a given case.

'
 Determinism and Contingency

This eloquent process is also susceptible of the reverse. An orator is able to effect a conjectural factuality for what would else appear to be logically excluded; to endow fabrications with an air of conceivable authenticity; to render contingent what had been, or seemed, established; and to pass off otherwise patent fictions as potentially self-evident. In the (virtual) realm of wordcraft, anything is—and naught im—possible. Audiences are the relevant measure—and ‘Truth’ precisely whatever might be received as such. By virtue of qualifications, said art capitalizes on any potential, presumed, incidental aspect—to serve a current purpose with utmost effectuality. Rhetoric proceeds from, thrives on, the assumption that aught is—may be given the impression of seeming—possible; that what is taken for granted might be else. Traditions, authorities, certainties are not exempt from otherwiseness. Little wonder that Aristotle’s notion of contingency would eventually be subjected to what it describes (4.4). While the Stagirite’s philosophy—defining chance ex negativo, bounding it as an epiphenomenon—remains the measure for Scholastic theorizing of all couleurs, Augustinian additives decisively change the state of play. The concept becomes metaphysical—turns into a theological issue. From a human viewpoint, the Deity’s will seems utterly contingent. All things created thereby—hence the world in its entirety—may well be otherwise; or not (else no longer) in any way soever; and not excepting the past. Accordingly, Christian discourses alter the Stagirite’s respective theory at its very foundation. The potential for otherwiseness becomes elemental outright. It is Blumenberg’s merit to have brought this phenomenon’s structural significance and continuing virulence to the forefront of scholarly attention. With Nominalism’s Augustinianizing ‘ultimatization’ of Divine omnipotence, the all- purpose formula for their Deity—‘quia vult’—affects the world, and matter itself. Universes are susceptible of being altered, multiplied, deleted, undone. Discursively speaking, that most profound change in conception is sedimented in the era’s records. Certain Early Modern texts might be seen as downright ‘staging contingency’ (see Küpper “Ordnung” 176; 206). After the Christian superstructure had also been stripped away—virtually in Celestina, effectually in Machiavelli, implicitly in Montaigne and Shakespeare—whatever may have remained was sheer chance, a potentially unbounded otherwiseness. Human beings are forced—or free—to proceed plus ultra. When dealing with contingency ambulant—to wit, the animals in question, especially their actions—all is practically indeterminate. In such a world, there can be no definitive measures—let alone answers. Any roots or reasons potentially perceived by humans are of temporal, sectoral, partial relevance only.

Synopses  ''

This marks the basic premise of moral philosophy, statecraft, and rhetoric alike: causalities are contingent (virtually, in fact). All comes down to will alone. The set of phenomena associated with chance sensu lato is of transtemporal import, brisance—having dominated human minds at all times. With the Augustinian additives, the issue appears to have taken on a special virulence— which continues to be confronted and processed in various disciplines to this day. A heuristic synopsis thereof is tendered in the subchapter provisionally concluding the theoretical part overall (4.5). While the contingent is typically given as ‘neither impossible nor necessary, capable of being not at all, or else’ (see Graevenitz/Marquard “Vorwort” XI), it is needful to signal the term’s diachronic polyvalence. A semantic inventory might comprise týche, autómaton, symbebekós, sýmptoma (inter alia); plus associated and affine concepts or phrases, dynatón, endechómenon, endéchetai kaì állos échein, say. Withal, the ensuing attributes tend to have a bearing on descriptions of fortune sensu lato: logically inaccessible, unaccountable, inexplicable, rationally unjustifiable, arbitrary, infrequent, indeterminate, et caetera. Diachronic attempts at facing (up to) chancefulness comprise denial, delimitation, domestication, downplaying, as well as (pro)actively dealing with the phenomenon in question. Even so, the concept entails an accent on praxis and agency. For contingency enables human liberty—including the freedom to acknowledge its force; or treat it to temporary necessities poetically.

Chapter 5: Induction and Contingency

Hee must read many; but, ever the best, and choisest: those, that can teach him any thing, hee must ever account his masters, and reverence[.] —Ben Jonson (639–640, l.2507–2509)57

Methods are pragmatic ‘ways to go’. Elsewiseness entails an epagogic one— proceeding from, processing, exploiting what is at hand. The world as known to human animals is a realm of contingency—the former ambulant exemplars of the latter. Their brain seems capacitated to be thinking in said terms. Once perceived, there appears to be an unwillingness to let chance reign unchecked. Being inconvenient, downright threatening, virtually all human activities are aimed at provisionally regulating chaos, entropy, the fortuitous. Ever has said

;; 57 Referring thereto, Trimpi accentuates a “liberal classicism” (Plain Style 46); as well as a “resiliently versatile” one (Plain Style 143–144). See Schaeffer: “it is impossible to place too much importance on reading widely” (“Literary Studies” 277).

'  Determinism and Contingency animal attempted to bring disparate conditions under control: by virtue of myths, mores, nómoi, rituals; by works of art, religions, and philosophies; by scholarly, speculative, scientific approaches; et multa caetera. Replete with randomness, caprices of all sorts, the past appears a bottomless fund of the haphazard. In a diachronic perspective, téchnai try to rule—týche does. Blumenberg describes a “culture of contingency” as being “shaped by the basic thought that what is need not be” (Sorge 57; trans. dsm). A rhetorical one is formed on the assumption that what was is not necessary either. Thinking in terms of otherwiseness seems capable of destabilizing almost anything—rendering it a potentially hazardous capacity. At once, it amounts to a prerequisite for liberty—guaranteeing noetic independence; plus a certain leeway for assorted implementations. The methodical part (5) traces Blumenberg’s noetic paths, as reflected in his scholarly approach and writerly écriture. The philosopher’s modus operandi— decisively displayed in Beschreibung des Menschen—yields the impression of a composed and vivid descriptiveness. It is concerned with approximating the manifold issues under scrutiny from various perspectives—a conditio sine qua non for rhetoric. As his Phenomenological writings evince, said process expressly takes up Husserl’s theoretical praxis—particularly the technique of ‘free variation’. In effect, it amounts to ‘infinite descriptive labor’. Marked by detours, Blumenberg’s egregious discursiveness is a performative articulation of his procedure. Varying McLuhan’s noted motto, one might suggest that said ‘method is itself the message’—meaning, the myriad trails taken (5.1). A world of “naked contingency” (Arbeit 681; trans. dsm) will yield an increasingly entropic diversification of functions, ‘chaotized’ senses—a textual, virtual, factual realm of polyvalence.58 A pluralization of pathways and perspectives—using indirections, approximations—may seem feckful. Decidedly human, works of art are modes of dealing with, and offsetting, otherwiseness—being as polysemous as that which is tackled, by modeling, mirroring, depicting, reenacting the same. They provide testing environments, designed for provisional—heuristico-exploratory, poetico-playful—maneuvers. Literature sensu lato marks one among the possible dispositifs for coping with the contingent conditions anyone could encounter in the world at large. Likewise, science or scholarship will be courses and orders of facing—as well as tentatively managing—else- and chancefulness. Rhetoric offers an arsenal of tools and devices for handling changeable data actively, poetically. Deliberately

;; 58 On the concept of ‘chaoticization’, cf. Küpper (Discursive 12–13; 14n.; 16; 262; 267; 269n.; 270; 279–280; 287; 292); and the ensuing abstract (ch. 6).

Synopses  ' interpreting, or manipulating, (im)mediate perceptions, hermeneutics will be one way to attain a—momentary, ever makeshift—impression of orderliness. The versatile technique of ‘free variation’ already yields a crafted form of polysemy. Blumenberg has recourse to textual records withal. He refrains from canceling out humankind and history; does not Phenomenologically ‘reduce’ the lifeforms contingently enacting a respective perceiving. Limning from sundry angles, stances, points of varying distance, description is diverse, processual, multi-perspectival quasi by nature. Any such procedure factually produces a sequence of concurrent facets—phenomenistic polyphonies. At once, the resultant pluralism of readings amounts to an enactment of liberty. Remaining work in progress, Blumenberg’s limning modus marks a stylistic and scholarly choice—rhetorically effectual with a view to evidentia. Entechnic descriptiveness enacts his philosophy; and serves as an expedient means for provisionally handling sheer contingency. The method is the message: to engage in said process a professional statement—and of purpose. With respect to Goethe, Blumenberg refers to “Beschreibungskunst” (Goethe 74). It may well be applied to the philosopher himself (5.2). Nor will the latter’s virtuosity in said performance be in question. Hence the choice of method might be motivated; its artful application elucidated. By tracing Blumenberg’s accustomed modus operandi, one might aim at limning the condition of possibility precisely of his descriptions (5.2.1). A general state ‘replete with definitions’ appears to tender the background—setting into relief the philosopher’s procedure as counter statements: formally, in tendency. Definitional excesses are likely to be encountered in self-contained systems advancing deductively. The “absolutism of truth” (“Wirkungspotential [1971]” 27; trans. dsm) represents a status quo that Blumenberg parries—indirectly, with equilibrating effect—by virtue of the inductive, craftfully discursive, memorably illustrative, plausibly significative, elegantly balanced, deliberately open-ended, unbounded and abundant, effectually ‘infinite labor’ of legible descriptions. In a realm of elseness, matters may signify multiply, variously. Cultural and natural products are subject to the same dynamics. Human animals begin with aisthéseis—random, entropic experiences. Facing sundry data, epagogé is their habitual path. Said process can start at any point within a contingent continuum. In such a world, heuristically semioticized exploits occur partially, plurally, by the way. Sedimented diachronically, provisionally valid verbal trouvailles are conceivable, since chance can never be excluded a priori. The contingent—trans- temporal, -disciplinary, -personal—plenitude of thoughts, words, views is itself a field of action and labor for an inductive method. A given dictum is a particular datum. Being phainómena also, they may be treated to sakely descriptions.

'  Determinism and Contingency

Anybody is ever already embedded in cultural contexts, networks; hence cannot but encounter contingently accrued sentences floating therein. In the semioticized residues of diverse téchnai, one is facing another chaotized field of týche. Qua grounding material—to be taken up in variform ways—Blumenberg collects sundry sayings; and specifically hypomnémata concerning human animals. His rhapsodic inventories are relatively random, though associative— documenting and conveying a heuristico-dispositive praxis. Being instances of a ‘more general specific’ or ‘quasi universal’, essais limning ‘what it means to be human’ are themselves particular(itie)s. Alignable with a rhetorical, Aristotelian, Montaignian modus operandi, Blumenberg proceeds inductively, from singulars—in their very contingency, peculiarity. Expedient regarding natural and cultivated material alike, diversity, variation, polyvalent contexts can be taken into account by virtue of an epagogic approach. With this provisional state of affairs qua contrast agent, one may address the process as such—its particular artfulness, especially the rhetorical facture (5.2.2). Should descriptions per se tender (virtual) rejoinders to a definitionous condition in philosophicis, this measured change of method will likely also articulate itself in effectually formulated expressions concerning the procedure in question. Seminal loci in said regard can be encountered in Zu den Sachen und zurück. Attentiveness is to be crafted, induced, by virtue of approximative limning. Either will be vectorial; both are also interminable. The theorist’s respective essais— artfully wrought, marked by variform iterations—yield a most refined impression. Blumenberg logs “rendering attentive” qua “function of description”—giving said practice as a counter statement: “Nothing is being taught, nothing assigned as a lesson, nothing introduced and no one conducted, nothing promised[,] let alone prophesied, neither hope raised nor fear aroused. This instead: attention is being called to” something perceived, by virtue of “description” (Sachen 182–183; trans. dsm). This craftful statement of purpose is particularly performative. Precisely in its indirection, inductivity, interminability (being ‘limitless labor’, legibly), Beschreibung defuses ‘methodologies’ as deprioritize sincerity, due diligence, scholarly probity, equity; as presuppose the objective sans respect to the path. Descriptiveness is open in terms of its results; conceivably impartial; susceptible of variation. It is generally augmentable, extendable—amenable to delegated elaboration. The makeshift, provisional, tentative, contingent (‘ever also else, potentially’) is not simply a stylistic device and strategy. These mark the philosopher’s modi operandi per se; his ways of proceeding—of working. Rejoining to a state full of deductions, definitions, Blumenberg’s limning art may be motivated as a counter statement—submitted by someone, who likewise “desires nothing else than to be describing outright” (Lebenszeit 31; trans. dsm).

Synopses  '

Chapter 6: Contingency and Cynicism in Celestina

Calculation implies care, not caution alone[.] —Mansfield (Modes 25)59

This reading explores ramifications of the cynical stance and statement in the Early Modern masterpiece commonly called Celestina (~1499 to 1514). An instant bestseller in its day, said drama—otherwise entitled (Tragi)Comedia de Calisto y Melibea—was swiftly renamed after its cynosure: a morally appalling, while vexingly appealing character of crafty prudence, awe-inspiring astuteness, virtuoso eloquence, ruthless rationality, and utter self-interest. The work in question is located at a nominal and discursive threshold—its initial versions having been written at some point during those world-historically decisive 1490s. A partly collaborative effort apparently, this oratorico-dialogic play is written to be spoken, heard—performed as a socio-rhetorical event (6.2). Set in a strikingly vivid world of love-sick nobles, venal servants, clueless parents, prostitution, superstition, pervasive greed, thorough corruption and deceit, the protagonists candidly express their motivations in asides and to each other—providing ample material for the rhetorical study of cynical statements. By recourse to Diogenes the Dog—ostentating scorn for everyone, anything— one may describe the latter with a view to Classical, philosophico-anthropistic, politico-rhetorical, generico-literary implications (6.3). Employed ad hominem, the function of such utterances is primarily agonal. In addition to well-nigh any disadvantageous connotation possible, ‘cynicism’ evinces a tendency to signify that all human conduct is routinely driven by immediate self-interest only. In everyday parlance, the term is typically innocent of benign associations. Descriptively, cynical remarks have a specific quality. While their matter will be downright appalling to most—vulgar, brutal, inhumane—the artful make may yield a certain appeal; a conflux of refined (per)form(ance) and immoral content. Ethical preferences are subject to otherwiseness. What is judged acceptable varies. Communal values, social status, established norms are contingent. This is of import regarding the phenomenon at issue. For cynicism flaunts its variance with the expected, prevalent. Taking pride and delight in its artful immorality, it is describable qua willfully, ostentatiously transgressing, vociferously negating a respectively given nómos. The corresponding protagonists proceed from the assumption of chancefulness. Everything might as well be else, or not at all.

;; 59 Cf. Kablitz as to “de[n] kalkulierte[n] Einsatz des Verstandes, des Wertvollsten, über das der Mensch verfügt” (“Alterität.” 231).

'$  Determinism and Contingency

Likewise in Celestina—a rhetorico-dramatic “mise en scène of contingency” (Küpper “Ordnung” 206; trans. dsm). This “miscarried comedy” (“Ordnung” 204; trans. dsm) stages týche in various manifestations; as well as diverse human responses to a thoroughly entropic state of affairs (6.5). Underwriting, as well as permeating the plot, Fortuna seems the only ground and catalyst for what occurs. To the play’s personae, the latter looks like the last remaining power governing the universe. Its force intersects with their various intentionalities randomly, at irregular intervals. Events are ‘serialized’, occur in haphazard fashion. Not actions, trite accidents determine this drama decisively. What occurs is chanceful, incidental, sheerly fortuitous. A considerable awareness thereto is also characteristic for cynicism qua stance; and may well seem conducive to corresponding utterances (6.6). Reckoning with the future’s contingency, or perceiving it in hindsight, tends to ‘chaotize’ the systematic; to corrode the durability—hence the value—of what happens to be customary. In said regard, Scripture and Ancient moral philosophy may serve as tentative benchmarks for general observations. A relativizing, flouting, deriding of the conventional will likely be perceived as cynical. At once, such statements—and the corresponding stance—could be seen as attempts at countervailing chancefulness; qua forms of contrarianism, ‘poetically’ confronting the volatility of conditions. Contingency can erode or remove the directives of propriety. Where Fortune reigns unchecked, naught will seem stable, established—nor hold good for longer than an evanescent whim. Assorted unethicalities—the vulgar, crude, explicit, seductive—may happen to be declared ‘natural’. Limitless greed, rampant amor sui, a pure pursuit of pleasure might be rationalized. Within a consummately chanceful world, the sole standard of some plausibility is sheer will. In exploring the functions and effectuality of cynical comments (6.6.1), it is needful to stress the presence of pragmatic implications. The play is downright riddled with a veritable copia of elegant innuendos, reductive valuations, abysmal inversions, immoral imperatives, elaborate callousness, sententious incitements to obscenity, ruthless unscrupulousness, shocking ingratitude, terse disrespect, relished blasphemy, inhumane derision, shameless free speech. All but nothing appears to be sheathed in silence. The pervasive practice of parrhesía—especially in the frequent asides—conduces to cynical irreverence. A rhetorico-dramatic tour de force, this Renaissance masterwork of wordcraft is consummately refined as a whole. When unethical contents are referred to, their artfulness is quasi guaranteed—leading to the sort of reception intimated. As concerns a corresponding stance, Celestina may well qualify as a cynic— albeit not tout court (6.6.2). She self-servingly calculates on the contingency of

Synopses  '% the conventional; counsels animalistic bearing, while arrogating godlikeness. The bawd’s self-assertion is insistent; her tactics of acclimatizing unprincipled, sans regard for norms or other human beings. With a view to personal gain, she cunningly deceives any alter at hand. By the official standards of her textual time, this procuress is a paragon of virtually any form of immorality. Addressing timeless concerns of the conditio humana, the rhetorical drama by the name of Celestina stages a realm of sheer contingency and will outright. Struggling, achieving, failing, striving more, said animals work for themselves— in the here, now, and this world; not for a beyond.

Chapter 7: Brutal Latencies. On the Crafting of Political Union

Et ces monstres de silence et de lucidité […] apparaissent comme l’Intelligence elle-même, en tant que bête et animal impénétrable, qui tout pénètre. —Valéry (“Eupalinos” 112)60

Early Modern politico-theatrical discourses—dependably foundational for the governmental and dramatic arts of the present—have a tendency to deal with given states of fragmentation, predicament, or crisis by virtue of a politic strategy as also happens to be particularly expedient in performance: ‘speaking to the (and those) present in terms (and by way) of the past’. In Gracián’s wording: “Hase de hablar a los presentes en los passados” (Oráculo 217, §210). Both Machiavelli’s cunning comedy Mandragola (1518), and Shakespeare’s decidedly dramatic Lucrece (1594), are ultimately grounded in the same political narrative: the paradigmatic crafting of a Republic at the most critical moment in Roman history. Proving an Occidental turning point for times to come, the latter continues to be of factual and conceptual significance. Such express, comparable recourse—in Southern or Northern Europe, at the onset and end of the sixteenth century, in otherwise dissimilar circumstances— will hardly be sans implications. The Florentine consigliere and the London playwright are staging a political statement, whose significance transcends the particular confines of their—historical, socio-cultural, theatrical—settings. Proceeding inductively, the present reading elicits, and warily advances, the more universal planes—hence the potentially diachronic (re)applications—latent in these Early Modern politico-dramatic particularities.

;; 60 “diese Ungeheuer von Schweigen und Helligkeit […] erscheinen wie die Intelligenz selbst, als das Tier und das undurchdringlich Tierische, das alles durchdringt” (Eupalinos [Rilke] 79) .

&  Determinism and Contingency

The story of Lucretia and Brutus displays a tendency to be taken up from the West’s ‘(virtual) cultural networks’ at moments of extreme calamity.61 Its being a foundational and frequently reworked myth already in Antiquity will ensure the adaptable narrative’s continued availability. Faced with countless diachronic uptakes, manifold transformations, the tale and its ramifications seem downright exemplary for what Blumenberg generally describes as ongoing processes of rhetorico-mythical reworking (7.1). To facilitate approaching a text’s transtemporal refunctionalizations in an expedient manner, it will be needful to tender the narrative structure for Lucretia’s Ancient case. The floatational presence of contingent variants provides the condition of possibility for tentatively eliciting a quasi ‘basic mythos’ (see Arbeit 192). While Machiavelli utterly refunctionalizes the story, Shakespeare’s uptake and reworking recognizably retains many features of various previous versions (7.2.1). Contingencies cannot be prevented—but may be handled differently. Like Celestina, Lucrece would typically have been recited aloud in its contemporaneous setting (7.2.2). Early Modern recipients read with their ears (so to speak). The Ancient matter is theatrical per se; and Shakespeare’s variant a decidedly oratorico-dramatic work. In terms of content, most critical efforts have tended to center either on the violator, or the titular protagonist. Such foci would seem to deprioritize the circumstances and upshots. For the lady—by producing an expedient state of potential otherwiseness from an accident—delegates the political advantages to be taken. Recycling raw chance, her prudent discipline functions as a catalyst; and Lucius knows how to use it. As in a rhapsodic relay, the rhétor takes over from Lucrece—detailed by the latter, effectually speaking in her stead. Crises might be contingent. There are also no kairoí like them. While Mandragola’s elegant levity and libertinism may well outperform the Principe’s, this eminently stageable comedy is still among the most popular plays of all time (7.2.3). From beginning to end, Machiavelli’s dramatic subtlety deals in diverse kinds of delegation and deceit. Withal, the Florentine consigliere utterly reworks the Latin myth. Rather than staging a state of war and violence, the play is almost entirely about rhetorical indirection, craft, fraud. Extortion and duress are replaced by guile, persuasion. In Mandragola, this distinctly Machiavellian shift of accent affects all levels; and highlights potential latencies by way of comparison. Unlike Tarquin, the male part is ready to wait for his chance; and able to coopt others with a view to bringing it about. Most significantly, nothing happens against the lady’s will.

;; 61 For the conceptualization in question, see Küpper (Cultural Net passim).

Synopses  

Besides, the Early Modern playwright foregrounds a fact (latently) present in Ancient versions: Lucretia is a political actor always already. By virtue of thánatos or éros, her body—qua corpse or incubator—is the condition of possibility for the incisive ‘midwifery’ on the part of Lucius (or Lucrezia herself)—a ‘deliverance’ yielding a ‘Republic’. Mandragola may well be staging its female protagonist qua embodied hybrid of the prudently decisive actors in the Latin tale. The latter’s personae appear to handle their respective situations or accidents in an ad hoc manner. Machiavelli’s characters adapt to settings or coincidences they have been inciting and shaping all along. Any given—whether fictive or (supposedly) factual—could conduce to reading the universal plane implied therein. From the detailed and diverse, one might proceed to the global. Catalyzed by a variety of contingencies (accidents, passions, chances taken), the myth at issue displays a highly critical state—acutely perceived, expediently exploited, by one (wo)man’s virtue and virtuosity: any crisis a kairós.

Chapter 8: Otherwise. Rhetorical Techniques of Contradiction

one cannot be certain of what can be otherwise. —Normore (“Divine” 22n.; with context)

Facing a world of contingencies—hence conflicting thoughts, facts, slants—will be a recurrent experience of most any human animal. Once the notion of otherwiseness has taken hold, it could display a tendency of affecting— perchance reshaping—nearly every thought, word, or performance. Stimulated by its disciplined awareness, methodical exploitation of else- and chancefulness, the téchne’s basic dynamics are of an adversative, antithetical, gainsaying character: what is need not be (thus). Appearing to be the case, it may well be else. Virtually anything can be ‘otherwised’ rhetorically. Not all options are as humane as those advancing by virtue of speech (be its make as it might). Grounded in its reckoning with contingency, the praxis of wordcraft enables effectual contradiction. As Aristotle stresses (at Rhet. 32–37, 1358b, I.iii.1–6)— conflict, opposition, objection, confutation are critical to all its genera. In view of a tradition dominating each and every aspect of oral and written cultural production for well over two millennia, any theory of gainsaying will have to reckon with the rhetorikè téchne—as a starting point, or one of departure. Proceeding diachronically, and focusing on the culturally formative role of oratory in (Late) Antiquity and Early Modern times, the present chapter accentuates the fundamental role assorted practices and devices of contradiction perform within the various rhetorical traditions—a decidedly agonistic system of


 Determinism and Contingency diction from its earliest emergences in Hellenic courts of law, Sophistic eristic; and throughout its diverse phases of consolidation or reappropriation. Its segments concern the cultural role of Ancient and Early Modern oratory (8.2); tender a taxonomico-descriptive synopsis of terms, usages, techniques, and phenomena of gainsaying (8.3); discuss the functionality of argument in utramque partem with a view to a rhetorical poetics of contradiction (8.4); and present case studies concerning Augustine, Machiavelli, Gracián (8.5). Along said lines, one might describe a variety of craftful maneuvers pertaining to oratorical refutation: such as gainsaying by failing to do so, treating allegations to silence; by implication, qualifying, deflecting, reverberating; et caetera. Qua degreeful and contextual art, rhetoric will ever reckon with contingency: circumstances change; results may vary. Special attention is given to Quintilian’s elucidation of the altercating reciprocity between confirmation and refutation (8.3.1); as well as to assorted tools and modes of contradiction (8.3.2)—including a classic case in point (8.3.3). Probably the only conduct outperforming a qualified and habitual reckoning with positional contingency is provisionally enacting it (8.4). A dynamics of contention and contradiction informs the oratorical art’s vital principle of developing a general capacity for arguing “in utramque partem vel in plures” (Quintilian Inst. Orat. 3–5. 156, 3.11.1). A habitualized ‘pro et contra on all sides to any question’ may take place virtually, in one mind. This elemental practice presupposes reckoning with, and exploiting, else- and chancefulness. Said technique offers the operative groundwork towards a rhetorical poetics of gainsaying. Positional contingency is vital to the téchne’s initial emergence, discursive history, continued application, and lasting effect on other disciplines. Eristic tendencies—polydirectional práxeis—might serve heuristic purposes. Should things not be otherwise, they could still be made to seem so—all views being contingent, prone to vary. Rhetoric is an art of appearances: the effectual is the factual. Words craft and produce the state of play or affairs. What may be uttered might as well be redescribed. Few tools are likely to perform perspectival contingency as strikingly as paradiastolé. Anything could be elsewise(d). The cultural relevance of oratory in Ancient or Early Modern lives and texts cannot be overestimated (8.5). Evincing the endorsement and adaptation of artfully oppositional techniques, brief case studies of works by Augustine (de civitate Dei, Retractationes), Machiavelli (Il Principe, Discorsi), Shakespeare (Measure for Measure), Gracián (Oráculo manual) are submitted as suggestive instances towards a more general poetics of contradiction. The segments on Augustine and Machiavelli (8.5.1) highlight a discursively induced, paradigmatic gainsaying—especially with a view to its structuring

Synopses  ' potentials. Both authors exhibit consummate skill in confutation. The Florentine downright frankly takes the oppositive side—antagonizing what would otherwise be deemed the ‘better’ (traditional, moral) argument. In the Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia, Gracián focuses on contradiction in differing settings and from various angles (8.5.2). Oratorically, effects depend on contexts. The latter are subject to chance and elseness. Under cultural conditions, the contingencies most frequently encountered are precisely others. It takes an artful rhetorician to know—hence potentially counteract—one. The Early Modern Jesuit presents acts of gainsaying as an operative art form toward various ends: qua tentative ruse, craftful alternative to coercion; as an investigative device, a policy for inviting further opposition. His aphorisms advocate contradiction qua verbalized (or tacit) antidote; as an agent of interpersonal warfare; an (auto-)pedagogic technique—among other uses. Human affairs are dominated by various sorts of elsewiseness—chance, diversity, assumptions, affects, circumstances, temporality. Rhetoric reckons, copes with—even exploits—contingency: things could be different, including standpoints. Its tools are polytropic, can be functionalized in sundry ways: heuristically, anticipatorily, catalytically, dispositively, tacitly, by implication, inversion. Tentatively describing calculated oratorical techniques and dynamics of contradiction may well conduce to a rhetorical poetics of otherwiseness. While wordcraft does not always kill with kindness, it often gainsays with ostensive sweetness. Based on a human faculty for elseness, the profuse field of artfully refined refutation will be a politic choice for tentative tillings. Rhetoric’s condition of possibility is reckoning with contingency; its gauge, victory.

Chapter 9: Make Life Art—An Immoral Imperative

Sunt quibus alarum levitas vaga verberetque ventos[.] —Boethius (“Phil. Consolat.” 420, V.v.4.metrum)62

While humans are taken to be temporal beings constitutively, there are still options at their discretion, specifically as far as quality is concerned: philosophizing being one option; another to make life art. In manmade environments, chaos or chance can indeed be changed into form and order. Entropy might be the last word. Others may precede it.

;; 62 “There are those the lightness of whose wandering wings beats on the winds” (“Phil. Consolat.” 421, V.v.4.metrum). See Ps 139:9 (KJV; resp. 138:9, Vulgate); whereof there is no like.   Determinism and Contingency

Whereas the complementary aspect—‘unmaking’ life altogether—is treated in the ensuing (10), the present chapter (9) deals with potentials for qualitative alteration; and investigates the ethical implications of a craftful rendition of life. In said respect, Nietzsche’s contemplations on living with a view to art—qua decidedly against morality—might serve as theoretical starting points: “being something akin to a work of art, existence is not even under the jurisdiction of morality” (KSA 11. 553, 36[10]; trans. dsm). Life’s potential aestheticizations are manifold. Options include vital shaping, superficial ornamentation, a correlation of outward form and stance within; plus outsourced renditions. For a receptive perspective—being another’s reader, observer, even connoisseur—will be of particular virulence also. The latter is insinuated by Lord Henry’s praise for Dorian: “Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets” (Wilde “DG [1891]” 179, XIX). Like the decay and recycling of particulars, matter is a given; but so is its potential for elseness (9.1). Even the inevitable might be seen, taken, made to appear otherwise. As rejoinders to life’s contingency, ‘amor fati’ or ‘plus ultra’ have seemed effectual. For the time being, concentrative, distilling devices could balance a natural limitedness and finality. Quality prevails over mortality. Considering the vast demand for intensity by proxy, some are societally compelled—or freely choose—to artify their lives (9.2). Techniques may well have a vital dimension—and immoral implications. If totalized, such a poetics might be beyond the pale—inasmuch as it would ignore others. The alleged ‘autonomy’ of art could come down to the coveted tyranny of its maker. The condition of possibility for refinements and makeovers is this animal’s constitutive capacity for otherwiseness: matters may be made to differ— including one’s own. Human crafts are among the fundamental “attempts at coping with contingency” (Marquard “Apologie” 130; trans. dsm). Experience seems to be a series of fortuities. In this world, the views of men are plural, not equal (9.3). Nor is such unsanitary. Ever will it be sobering to see things with a difference. From a rhetorical perspective, it may well be possible to deem, perceive, or enact everything in other ways than the given or apparent. Under said conditions, the past is as contingent as anything. Aware of a potential for elseness, one could also choose not to act upon it—and practice performative ignorance. As in Nietzsche, the immoral aspect pertaining to the reciprocity of life and art is brought out by Wilde’s epigrammatic flippancy— which ostentatiously explores and exploits any unethical potentials. Answers to chance’s reign of terror differ considerably, especially by virtue of their relative effectuality (to say naught of ethicality). While the moral arts are gregarious in nature and scope, a vital poetics will be singular (9.4). In a world of

Synopses   consummate contingency, living in accordance with one’s own craftful nature will be just as well and reasonable—though not to everybody else. Human art— or rather, its maker—inclines towards intensity, exclusivity, totalization. Such cannot but conduce to immoral implications. The imperative to ‘make life art’ may yield a tendency to atrophy any form of ethicality. Within a world of flux, stabilizing something is grounded in a prior state of contingency: even the patent fact of permanent variation may be otherwise. Art means to provide a framework for, impress a certain form on, a given material. At a more comprehensive level, the narrator’s or poet’s role in rendering life literarily—articulating all its aspects in an aestheticizing fashion—merits attention; and specifically with regard to refined renditions of ethical extremes such as problematic physical matters, suffering, death (9.5). When raw material is reduced to a terse form, the resulting work—wrought with brutal, ruthless stuff—will be received as cynical, thanks to this veritable simultaneity of cultivated make and unethical content. To the extent of being comprehensive, an artful rendition of life is constitutively immoral.

Chapter 10: Life Being Brief (No Need to Cut it Short)— Concerning Blumenberg’s Senecan Affinities

brevity is power, earthbound[.] —Alford (Poetic Attention 2)

Discerning that even inevitabilities are susceptible of being taken otherwise, philosophy marks a decided cultivation of the distinctly human capacity for positional and perspectival contingency. In the case of certain animals— specifically those rumored to be rational—there appears to be a capacity for actively, knowingly, verbally altering their state of affairs: performing life artfully, say (9); or terminating it deliberately (10). During its brief history of presence (by a universal scale), humankind has dealt with death in differing ways; and is rather likely to carry on doing so. There is contingency even in the inescapable. For it may be seen otherwise—given a different reading. Like this world, words are subject to contingency. Being changeable, they may be different, not surface at all, or no longer. Inasmuch as matter is eternal, elseness will be unending. Yet its enabling effects must expire with the particular subject thereto. While alive, it empowers humans to take mortality in more than one way. Said enfranchisement includes virtual (aesthetic, rhetorical, poetico-hermeneutic), as well as factual options. Volition being natural, the animal in question will be at liberty to leave.

  Determinism and Contingency

Naturally possible, it cannot be excluded that certain life forms freely lend an artificial hand to their own leave-taking. A potential perception of contingency also enables preemptive conduct—having a hand in the change as must come anyway. It will be advantageous to deliberate thereon from a safe distance. There appears to be a tension between life’s being brief to begin with; and acts aimed at deliberately cutting it even shorter. Hence a tentative description of the various positions adopted in Antiquity concerning the capacity for showing oneself out might be complemented by reflections on its jarring with the fact that everybody’s time is limited anyway. Differing drastically from monotheistic religions, the Ancient, especially Stoic(izing) practice of self-induced departure is primarily a question of mode and manner; hence a matter of moral philosophy (10.2). Supporters of said School not only elaborated on the respective reasons; but also walked their talk indeed. Even so, the needful point of departure remains Plato’s ethopoetic version of Socrates (10.2.1). Ventriloquizing for the latter, the former has recourse to the notoriously elusive term ‘necessity’, which might signal a justified suicide. Throughout the tradition, this rationale will be taken up, and varied selectively— as applicable to the dogmatic or rhetorical needs at hand. Cicero’s reworkings may seem exemplary in said regard (10.2.2). Venerable models are not beyond replacement—all conventions being contingent. At last, willfulness—even tedium—could appear as plausible grounds for self-induced departures. Rationalizations tend to end up looking natural. In Epictetus, showing oneself out ahead of time marks an exit strategy based on personal preference and tolerance (10.2.3). If a life according to one’s ethos or intellectual desires—redescribed as ‘katà phýsin’—seems viable no longer, taking one’s leave is passable, Stoically requisite even. Whereas said diatribist promotes making a reasonable stand forbearingly (while one might), the decisive word on voluntary egress still remains that death is free for all. Any (noetic, physical) state may be conceived (of) as possibly else; or not at all. Being contingent, views will vary. Seneca shows considerable competence in tentative perspective taking (10.2.4). His dependable accent is agency—especially with respect to the otherwise unalterable. What remains a way out in Epictetus amounts to answering the door in Seneca. While not exactly invited, the ‘guest’ is not unwelcome. In this perspective—and never sans rhetorical relish—higher reason might justify a virtuously self-inflicted departure. Freedom of will is said orator’s ultima ratio: autonomy above all. He rejects that anything should inhibit this liberty. Seneca’s characteristic voluntarism seems to decidedly exceed Stoicizing tendencies (to say naught of Plato). He pushes plus ultra in his affirmation of acting wholly at one’s pleasure, should the

Synopses   bottom line be concerned. Suicide is justified as a device enabling freedom. In absenting oneself, the means is sheer volition; the aim, liberty—at all costs. Then again, the latter is a thoughtful independence mainly (as philosophical musings will display). The human mind may meditate on contingency—even while enacting it in so doing. Matters might be seen as being else (for better or worse)—including no longer at all. The sheer conceivability of suicide— irrespective of its endorsement—seems to quasi ‘necessitate’ otherwiseness, while ‘casualizing’ determinism (at least noetically). Seneca’s insatiable love of liberty leads him to endorse an Epicurean element: the ultimate contingency of voluntas. Its very existence may well be sheerly accidental; its choices coincidental, if not fortuitous altogether. Its capacities—and caprices—include virtually appresenting other wills. It seems able to discern—and free to negate—itself. Having no patience for the absolutisms of dogmatic rigor, Blumenberg is able to tie in with the Imperial Roman—precisely on account of his libertarian tendencies (10.2.4 to 10.3). Stressing the central issues of necessity, freedom (also from life), and contingency, his comparatistic setup signals the extent to which the Stoicizing orator may well be using said School against itself. In Seneca and Blumenberg, the exit strategy is offered as a liberating experiment of thought (10.3.1). Its cathartic effect does not depend on putting it into practice—on the contrary. Open-ended deliberations on leaving can function as a provisional failsafe: should matters become unbearable, there is a way out. While a capacity for such insight will vary, time does tend to seem short, once noticed. Life is already fleet by nature—why even care to curtail it artificially. This issue, intensified by Seneca, is latent in most discussions of suicide (10.3.2). Brevity is vital throughout Blumenberg’s œuvre. Inasmuch as worth tends to be assessed by relative availability, the added value of life lies precisely in its transience. Likely, thrift, speed, intensity are among the more effectual rejoinders to man’s shortcomings. Answering to scantness, economy might aim at maximizing or saving a given good. Not to dissipate one’s resources will be complementary to making the most of them. Withal—and especially in this matter—Blumenberg’s approach is both rhetorical and anthropistic. Hence brevitas in terms of content may be related to that of form (10.3.3). Any life of labor is likely to deplete a limited being ultimately. Knowledge that relief is always already on the way could give pause, and so release ancillary energies. From certain vantage points, there can be no rationality in abridging deliberately what tends to end rather sooner than later. Then again, life is not (so) reasonable. In view of physical necessities—and human inhumanities—to forego being forced might come to seem most sound. In

$  Determinism and Contingency view of said animal’s (ethical) limitations, the act of sacrificing sheer extension to a needful excision could rest on natural grounds. Before ceasing, almost anything may yet be else. All matter being subject to contingency, the human form holds a potential for manipulating it—virtually at will. Like changes, denials, redescriptions of the given are enabled by a capacity for thinking in said terms: one might see things differently; else refuse to do so. Keeping in mind that matters could always be otherwise—or not at all—will likely amount to a virtual independence from circumstances (10.4). They tend to be susceptible of partial modifications; failing that, at least of rhetorical redescription, diverse assessments, differing vistas. Wordplay may come down to adding another alveolar lateral thereto. Contemplation itself—as well as the act of notation—already alters a given state of affairs (if virtually). Facilitated by contingency, noetico-verbal experiments may well have a liberating effect—precisely per se (not to mention actions taken). Finding and using suitable substitutions is an art in itself. Despite it all, options remain available. Said relief is not revoked by whether or not they are put into effect.

Chapter 11: Blumenberg’s Rhetoric—With a Case Study on Fontane

dos cosas: sutileza y erudición[.] —Gracián (Agudeza II. 392, XXXIV)63

Conceived as an exploratory take on the philosopher’s œuvre by way of the téchne kat’ exochén, this reading has recourse to Blumenberg’s rhetoric in theoretico- discursive (11.1), applied (11.2), and poetico-hermeneutic (11.3) regards. Said philosopher is a rhapsodic thinker, writer; precisely not a systematician: neither in general, nor of wordcraft in particular. His écriture marks a mise en abyme of its basic condition of possibility: an awareness as to contingency. Proceeding along the lines of Blumenberg’s noetic pathways—as sedimented in his works—a saying by Nicholas of Cusa may seem utile: “sola humana arte” (cited in: “Nachahmung [2001]” 13). Like phainómena, sententiae are contingent: hermeneutically, hypoleptically; in contextual encounters with one another. Via the technique of free variation, such coincidences might as well be crafted. A Blumenbergian leitmotif, said motto may be taken as a distillation of his thought (11.1). For it epitomizes ground swells and specific accents, intellectual

;; 63 “two things: subtlety and erudition” (trans. dsm). See the parallels in Gracián (Arte de ingenio 311, XXXIII; spec. with 217, XVI; plus Agudeza I. 193, XVII).

Synopses  % or intertextual commitments, fundamental choices and basic procedures of his œuvre: the manifold interrelations of this world, humankind, and art (sensu lato). In a temporal realm, contingency is inescapable: almost everything may well be else, or not at all (11.1.1). Like its denial, change will attract attention; and could become the chief or sole concern of this animal’s curiositas: ‘quod supra vel infra—nil ad nos’ (see Legitimität 276n. plus 354n.). While exploring the limits, sounding the depths, said remark’s polysemy centers on that which lies between: ‘what is above or beneath—naught to us’. A human, pragmatic focus will be on this world. Be it supra, infra, nihil—the constant is that nos precisely. Then again, diverting attention from a given matter to some tertium (below, beyond, or else) may be functionalized with a view to clarifying one’s present position. By seeing things otherwise, one might first of all perceive what is actually at hand. Enabled by contingency, perspective taking is also a means to ascertain—and indirectly (re)confirm—a given observer’s current stance and focal points; as well as their potential elseness. Said mode may be exploited methodically. Blumenberg’s écriture displays a respective habit. Be the forays and indirections as manifold, mutable as they might—or even downright metaphysical momentarily: the philosopher’s basis remains the world at hand; its problematic animal; the latter’s forms of craftiness. Like the Socratic, this “philosophy” is “of human things” (Legitimität 284; trans. dsm)—in all its phenotypes (11.1.2). Endorsing a virtually Promethean mode, it deals—and is concerned—with thought qua ‘brought back down to earth’. For the time being, it will be vital to remain matter-of-fact. Such sobriety is exemplarily propounded by Aristotle’s pragmatic nexus of rhetoric and an entechnic moral philosophy. In said respect, Blumenberg’s Aristotelico-Moralistic hypolépseis mark a most evocative uptake, offering qualitative reappreciations and varied elaborations. In order to temporarily prevail within a realm of contingency—and over its týchai—a ‘cave-made’ arsenal of téchnai, assorted forms of indirection, will be needful (11.1.3). Blumenberg’s characteristically inductive approach, discursive ductus, virtuoso rhapsodies may well tender a mise en abyme thereof. The philosopher credits detours with a culturing effect. The pragmatic art of wordcraft and affine techniques exert a humanizing influence—tacitly, subcutaneously refining the animal in question. Diachronically, rhetoric has proven its expediency qua cultural attainment. Relieved thereof, said species is unlikely to still be free for anything else. Like týche, téchne exploits the fact that—in this world, based on matter— things may be else, or not at all. In a realm of contingency, even plowshares might cut like swords—it being said animals that use tools (or waive handling them).

&  Determinism and Contingency

Blumenberg takes the art as an all-purpose perspective on—and adaptable approach to—factuality. Qua set of variable techniques and coping strategies (including the solace of sound-mindedness), this modus operandi simultaneously articulates a bearing toward the world that reckons with contingency. The extent to which the philosopher’s noetico-verbal processing is oratorical may be inferred from his habitually attending to the other side(s) also. At once, he endorses sedimented elsewiseness by a diligent culture of memoria. The œuvre yields a conservatory for the scope of human ways in thought and performance. Blumenberg advances a rhetorical take on the scholarly, scientific, aesthetic matters dealt with. In so doing, his perspective on the téchne comes into view, as well. To tentatively describe the philosopher’s written practice of eloquence, heuristic recourse to its first three ‘offices’ may seem suitable (11.2). Induced by immense industry, Blumenberg’s erudite inventio is supra- disciplinary, decidedly Humanistic (11.2.1). Withal, functional thinking and disposing will be as arch-oratorical as structuring one’s writings in utramque partem vel in plures (11.2.2). Mindful of positional and perspectival contingency, ‘free variation’ might noetically perform, and verbally enact, a (virtual) changing of viewpoints, a ‘simulation’ of conceivabilities—characteristic for Blumenberg’s noetic pathways and the economy of his écriture. In certain respects, the standard formula ‘in other words’ may be taken to condense the tasks of inventio, dispositio, elocutio—being a heuristic guideline for finding variants; a tentative principle of selective repetition, judicial variation; and a subtle or pregnant reminder that a given diction may well be else (11.2.3). With a view to learning wariness, the téchne kat’ exochén remains the most time-honored means. By virtue of refined irony, elaborate understatement, sundry delicacies between the lines, Blumenberg enacts elocutionary indirection emphatically, employs a poetics of the en passant—much like Montaigne, Fontane. Tentative, makeshift, contingent formulations are downright distinctive for the philosopher’s poetic conduct. Accentuating the very humanity of writing, his cultivated diction ‘hesitates’. Blumenberg’s écriture is tantamount to tarrying turned textual. Taking advantage of potential latencies, subtilitas might be perceived qua prudent abstinence from over-articulation. Contingency allows for diverse modes; including via others—or their texts— in order to say or insinuate something else withal. The philosopher’s applied reception yields rhetoric in action. He may be read as a reader of readers—here, Fontane (11.3). Said hermeneutics is a performative poetics simultaneously. Lives of cultivated perusal turn into written ones—elucidating those of others. The formula “hellhörig lesen” (Vor allem 39)—suggested and practiced by Blumenberg in his reception of the Ruppinian writer—might be seen as précising

Synopses   a prudent reader’s condition of possibility generally speaking. Even so, anyone having perused said virtuoso prosaist may well wish to consent that his écriture renders requisite an exceptional attentiveness to the all but elusive silences—to its tacit insinuations, a poet’s restrained delicacy, artful discretion. Blumenberg’s intimation of “Fontanes Subtilität” (Vor allem 32) is pertinent beyond the immediate plausibility of its descriptiveness, in simultaneously pointing to the rhetorical genus subtile—ostensively characterized by a smooth purity, flowing svelteness, lithe elegance. Yet precisely in its plainly evident simplicity, seeming effortlessness, said style attains to the artful desideratum par excellence: to be concealing the very craft involved. Hardly would it be an overstatement to deem Fontane the paragon of Germanophone literature in this respect. For legion are the cases where “a phrase, from which one does not expect much[,] […] may mean too much – or not more” (Blumenberg Vor allem 83; trans. dsm): contingency in application. By way of induction, one might lift particular instances to a plane of greater generality. Dexterity, artful concealment downright exemplify the subtle style. Be it Effi’s covert superbia or Wrangel’s latent ira, a writer in the genus subtile but insinuates—leaving, tacitly delegating, any eliciting of conceivable implications to the recipients. Matters may be viewed differently; or fail to be perceived at all. Blumenberg’s reading of Fontane is singularly valuable in describing— bringing out, to the fore—the latencies of the latter’s écriture. This philosopher’s acute essays evince the effectual interplay of reading and writing—the hermeneutic potential of a poetic approach to a grand writer of subtle prose.

Chapter 12: Blumenberg’s Fauna

L’élégance inattendue nous enivre. —Valéry (“Eupalinos” 130)64

Everybody’s matter has been else; hence is likely to change again. Contingency is not sans foundation in experience. Positions differ in space, time. Views vary. The virtual ability to think in terms of otherwiseness—abstracting from a current stance and angle—will likely be the distinctive trait of that occasionally rational animal, which has swerved from nature’s presentist course. These are lifeforms with a potential—and sometimes actual—capacity for adopting the

;; 64 In Rilke’s rendering: “Die Eleganz, auf die wir nicht gefaßt waren, hat etwas Berauschendes” (Eupalinos [Rilke] 100). To say nothing of Χάρις incarnate.


 Determinism and Contingency viewpoints of others, and speaking on their behalf. In all probability, said maneuvers are only possible where a spatial distance does obtain. Contingency is the condition of possibility for such vicarious and delegative techniques. Not only things may be otherwise: “Man is an extreme shifter of standpoints” (Blumenberg Beschreibung 879; trans. dsm). The animal addicted to perspective taking neither could, nor will, let it be; or anything, for that matter. Grounded in its perception of contingency, the empirico-elemental capacity for adopting various viewpoints becomes particularly unmistakable when involving rather different lifeforms. Implementations are encountered in literary representations especially. The latter also allow for rhetorical ventriloquisms, giving voice to a respective alter’s stance and angle. This reading (12) proceeds from a theoretical section (12.2)—concerned with the conditio sine qua non for such essays of noetico-virtual vicariousness—to an exploratory application of said human capacity par excellence (12.3). Blumenberg accentuates that—as regards an “experience of the other”— Husserl’s Phenomenology “extends” to all lifeforms (Beschreibung 272; trans. dsm). It will comprise a virtual “appresentation” of their corresponding bodies (Beschreibung 314; trans. dsm); hence semiotic habits and conduct (12.2). Insofar as an experience of other animals does take place, some kind of parity—beyond factual differences—will obtain. Virtual accommodation is possible. If a gradual likeness can be perceived or effected between (apparent) lifeforms, appresentation is basically feasible; hence could occur on occasion. Be its make as it may, any alter’s inside remains inaccessible in its immediacy. Tending not to accept their limitations—while advancing plus ultra in all matters—the animals at issue will not be hindered by the inevitable, but opt for seeing things otherwise. Evinced by their hypertrophic activities—in the arts and crafts, theoretical or practical sciences, in philosophies and stories—human beings tend to go further beyond in potentiality also. A capacity for contingency is the catalyst; and a liberation from the constraints of spatio-temporal proximity. While it is fundamentally unfeasible to access the immediacy of another’s ‘interior’ directly, it may be provisionally approached. Articulations conceived and written with a view to the experiences or thoughts pertaining to other lives remain “hypothetical” (Blumenberg Beschreibung 275; trans. dsm; see 315). Thinking in ‘subjunctive’ terms will be grounded in the human capacity for contingency: even the unchangeable may be altered in thought and theory. Enabled by said awareness, the Phenomenological technique of free variation defuses definitional fixations by virtue of possibilities and simultaneities. In a close reading, Blumenberg’s animals are described by recourse to phenomenistic thought experiments: contingent, provisional, artfully articulated

Synopses  ' perspectives on other lives—tentatively taken, and varied freely (12.3). Where direct and immediate perception of some interior is (currently, generally) unattainable, a virtual—theoretico-vicarious—(re)presentation can compensate for a factually impossible one. Narratives relating to other animals implement the capacity to virtually shift one’s stance and angle. The technique of free variation represents that most fundamental human possibility in application. The one procedure still more expedient than argument ‘also on the other side’ will be a pluralization of perspectives. The Blumenbergian essai in question amounts to a mise en abyme. For readerly appresentation performs precisely the proxying procedure intratextually described. A poetic fiction may well take the place of a constitutive inaccessibility— ‘filling’, even ‘animating’ it. Since such attempts deliberately abstain from laying claim to factuality (much less truth), they are capable of conserving the sine qua non of oratory and practical philosophy alike: liberty—for all of the involved.

Chapter 13: Virtuosity and Effectuality

Phèdre, Phèdre, l’impiété manque de grâce en ces lieux. Ici n’étant point de foudre, le blasphème n’a point de mérites… —Valéry (“Eupalinos” 111)65

Virtuosity marks a general potential for elseness in application. Any form of craft comes down to a polypurposive endeavor. Its condition of possibility—as well as its prime target—is contingency. Arising, changing, perishing, reviving—variable are the things of this world. It is observable that matters tend to—hence may—be otherwise. Certain animals might have (had) a hand therein. The rivalry of téchne and týche is Ancient. Not even the most consummate craft could obliterate Fortune. While artifice aims at countering accidents, the casual will always also be of human make, at least in part. Anything this versatile animal interacts with obtains a technical quality. Ever are said lifeforms deluged by details and data. Quasi inevitably, much remains chanceful. Yet making sense is vital. Fortuities may appear providential. Should there—just so—happen to be no grounds, they might be crafted: téchne and týche could become indistinguishable. Imitating, exploiting Fortune— devising accidents, ostensive coincidences—has proven expedient for millennia.

;; 65 “Phaidros, Phaidros, die Gottlosigkeit ist ohne Anmut an diesem Ort. Es gibt hier keinen Blitz, und so ist die Lästerung ohne Verdienst” (Eupalinos [Rilke] 78).

  Determinism and Contingency

With respect to the animal in question, a realm of sheer contingency is the best world possible. Mindful that matters might be otherwise(d), humankind will push any perceived frontier into an ever receding beyond. Of global application, the polytropic téchne offers a protean conglomerate of versatile—elastic, expedient—designs and devices to said end (13.1). Storing, preserving, imparting, insinuating, advocating the arts of (noetic, emotional) manipulation, rhetoric amounts to an impartial arsenal open to all. Qua praxis, it forms, frames, shapes, deploys, reworks a (tangible or virtual) material. To be reckoning with otherwiseness marks the noetic condition for verbal virtuosity. Advantages are to be taken; of linguistic contingencies withal. The fact or view that aught may well be else—or not at all—might be exploited at whim. Any artifact will be an attempt at impact. Said focus is decidedly rhetorico- Sophistic. In an early treatise influenced by Poe, Valéry asserts: “Literature is the art of toying with the soul of others” (“technique” 1786; trans. dsm). With respect to a manipulator’s craftfully handled power over his ‘material’, the parrhesiastic philosopher speaks of “cette brutalité scientifique” (“technique” 1786). Said poet’s relish could not be farther from Kant’s horror at oratory’s crafty wiles—seen to ‘move humans like machines’ (at KU 221n., B217, [328], §53). As always, resentment is poor counsel. Hence his attempt at ostracizing rhetoric will be baseless (13.2). Diachronically and de re, a strict severance of poetry from the latter seems untenable—there being no fundamental difference in technique. Effect is the overriding objective—whether in poetic or oratorical contexts. Apodictically curbing the art’s elasticity has never succeeded. It remains a protean, universal téchne—capable of accommodating the requirements of most any situation. The specific application of generic tools is contingent. Instruments are indifferent to their handlers. Employing rhetorical modes for anti-oratorical claims has been philosophy’s distinctive characteristic since Plato—though few attained to his artfulness in this form of professional malpractice. His attacking the téchne qua devious, inveigling, manipulative must not conceal the plain rhetoricity of Kant’s basic standards. The theorist has—and takes—an interest in construing art as free therefrom. His respective postulate might be inverted: aesthetic products seem effectual to the extent of conceivably (or covertly) projecting their ‘disinterestedness’. When dazed by the ingrained unworldliness of Enlightenment moralizing— or nonplussed by the furor of Romanticist Platonizing—recourse to certain Ancient and Early Modern takes is likely to have a sobering effect (13.3). Literary virtuosity, technical skill, effectual manipulation, are elementally circumstantial. Environments matter. Milieus differ. Material is contingent. Even venerable themes and authorities are susceptible of being (made) otherwise.

Synopses  

Else- and chancefulness being free for all, Machiavelli effectually employs— or abuses—highly floatational themes and tales (13.3.1). To the extent that the history of humankind is on record, the Florentine will surely be among the most virtuoso manipulators—in textual respects, as well. Like an Athenian aristocrat before him, the consigliere artfully ventriloquizes on all sides—placing feckful words into the mouths of manifold personae. If Machiavelli’s manipulation of Scripture had seemed mala fide, Gracián’s practicing the audience management he preaches will hardly fall far behind (13.3.2). Throughout, the Pocket Oracle employs and performs what it counsels. Its aphorisms offer a wide array of techniques for accommodating recipients. Ear- or eyeful repetition with variation will be the most frequent tool for tampering with audiences, readerships. Moreover, there is always also the device of voicefully sugarcoating each and all. Rhetorically, human resources pertain to settings. Being material, they might be modified deliberately. Masters of highly cultivated poetics, Poe and Valéry accentuate and advocate a willful manipulation of contingent recipients. Sophistic affinities being quasi explicit, the Francophone practitioner and theorist articulates his stance with considerable harsh- and frankness—candidly stressing the measure of impact above all (13.4.1). Valéry’s mode, drift, and focus are plainly rhetorical. With respect to a downright virtuoso recipient handling, Poe’s “Philosophy of Composition” will be pivotal (13.4.2). The process described is arch-oratorical: an assembling, combining, refunctionalizing of extant shapes, devices, set pieces—with utilitas always in view (“totality, or unity of effect”, “Composition” 677). What humans are ever already primed for is subject to otherwiseness. Moods and minds may well be tampered with deliberately—influencing, stimulating, manufacturing a recipient’s present state of heart or head. Contingent conditions permit varied iterations. An artist might deliberately allow—and, to a certain extent, provide—for the space and time this takes. Poe’s descriptively verisimilar, theoretico-performative poetics repeats with variation the very theory—and terms referring to the precise process—it describes. Like any matter, internal affairs are subject to contingency—perchance, a fortiori. What can be else naturally—might also be manipulated artfully: effects are in- and producible. From the perspective of poets, this state of play yields the variable terrain, whereon their virtuoso rationality may well assert its supremacy. Considering Machiavelli’s interplay of poetics and power politics—or Gracián’s courtly synergy of textual artifice and pragmatic counsel—Kant’s doctrine cannot but seem unworldly. In a rhetorico-technical—hence syn- and diachronically polyfunctional—perspective, a purposively ‘depragmatized’ take on literature can never actually apply, having no fundamentum in re.

  Determinism and Contingency

Technically, one is facing downright human, resourceful, expedient modes and maneuvers for rendering virtually anything likely, compelling, memorable. Audience management, artful fraud—a suave employment of force—would seem the cultural way to proceed. All things considered, ‘lógos’ will be just another paradiastolic term for expedient forms of indirection. Matter being contingent, so are the forms temporarily impressed: they cannot but differ (like agents); but might as well be otherwised deliberately. Makers may have (had) a hand therein. Manipulation is the nature of art. Art is human nature. Techniques will be versatile, reapplicable, polyfunctional—per se indifferent to handlers, milieus: but human beings are never so (not even natural scientists). Depending on the context, similar virtuosities may yield divergent, incompatible reactions, verdicts, corollaries. For said animals are contingencies to the same.

. Provisional Notes on Method

Le doute n’est pas un état bien agréable, mais l’assurance est un état ridicule. —Voltaire (Correspondance XV. 265, §8098)66

heuristische Verfeinerung[.] —Bubner (Geschichtsprozesse 145; trans. dsm)67

In approaching the complex of redoubtable phenomena at issue, the present study proceeds along Aristotelian lines. As far as is assessable from the extant works, the Stagirite addresses the matter of contingency sensu lato time and again, in various contexts, and from different angles. Whereas a basic drift is discernible in said attempts—taking seriously, while not overstating, týche—they are not thoroughly streamlined in all details and taxonomies. The reasonably neat terminologies encountered in tertiary literature do not map onto the field in question conclusively. Chance will also—perhaps especially—have its say in theoretical efforts at detaining (let alone defining) it. There can be no teleology of týche.68 Ever dealing with decidedly human quest(ion)s, the ‘history’ of philosophy neither is, nor could be, a linear process.

;; 66 In the same letter of Nov 28, 1770 (to Frederick William II of Prussia), Voltaire cites (t)his notorious line: “Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer” (Correspondance XV. 265, §8098; cf. 265n.). See Blumenberg, de re (Matthäuspassion 101; plus Zambon Nachleuchten 76). 67 “heuristic refinement” (infinitized; trans. dsm). 68 Cf. and contrast von Graevenitz/Marquard (“Vorwort” XII; still, but a ‘working hypothesis’); with Rohde, perceiving “historisch variierende[…] Ausprägungen von Kontingenz”: “Es gibt offensichtlich kontingenzaffine Epochen” (54); i.e. in terms of the resp. conceptualizations.

Provisional Notes on Method  

While spiraling mayhap, the returns are manifold; likewise the natural amnesias, willful obscurings, literal reinventions. Taking its bearings from Aristotle’s mode and suggestions, the endeavor at hand will emphatically not tender a grand récit. Being plausible, diachronicity is a rhetorical tool—not a token of truth; or else but a temporary one. A historical order(ing) is prized in terms of dispositio precisely. For it accommodates noetico- cultural habits prevalent in the West. Even so, there is art in the roundabout also. Concerned with theory, the present study’s first part (chapters 3 and 4) uses a basically diachronic organization (for the time being). It commences with a commentary on Aristotle’s expediently politic attempts at describing contingency from various angles; proceeds to Quintilian’s rhetorical take on ‘accidentals’; offers an outline of developments from Augustine to Medieval and Early Modern Nominalism; and provisionally closes with a conceptual précis, mainly by recourse to scholarship situated at the turn of the millennium. Dealing with methods, the second part (chapter 5) could not but feature a transtemporal cast. Approaches may be honed; bents recur, remain. A rather cyclic design is inscribed into the very concept of ‘techniques’ or ‘modi operandi’. Concentrating on rhetorico-poetic applications, the third part combines the vectorial and iterative. The studies on Celestina (6), Mandragola, Lucrece (7), are related thematically, historically. Contradiction—whether artful or everyday—is an anthropine phenomenon as old as speech itself, hence of transtemporal import (8). The same will go for a performative mise en scène of life per se (9). From a ‘philosophistic’ perspective, the fourth part opens with deliberations concerning the timeless query of human brevity—answers to which are arranged in a tentatively diachronic manner (10). Blumenberg’s rhetoric (11) takes history as a fund of possibilities, a workshop of the mind: refinements are likely, subtleties conceivable—but will also be lost and found, along the way. Virtually putting oneself in another’s place (12) downright instantiates the anthropic capacity for suspending or transcending temporal limitations. Faced with otherwiseness ambulant, virtuosity will be paramount at all times (13). Proceeding from Aristotle’s topico-methodical waymarks, the present study tenders a phenomenistics of contingency sensu lato. Its four parts—theoretical, methodical, applicative (rhetorico-poetically, philosophistically)—offer attempts at circling in on something shifty, indefinable. Such elusiveness seems to call for inductive, provisional, thematic, polyperspectival, descriptive approaches.69

;; 69 Cf. Aristotle as to “expect[ing] that amount of exactness […] which the nature of the particular subject admits” (NE 9, 1094b, I.iii.4; “den Grad von Genauigkeit […], den die Natur der Sache zuläßt”, Nikomach. Ethik 3).

$  Determinism and Contingency

Accordingly, the applications in parts three and four—concerned with a mise en scène of elsewiseness, with noetico-poetic performances in the face, and by virtue, of contingency—can be perused separately; in a different sequence; combined with other segments. While chapter 6 patently resonates with 7 and 9— as does the latter with 10—the methodical considerations in 5 also link to 10, 11, 12. Sections 7, 8, and 13 are fundamentally affine. Since any given order will be provisional, this study’s dispositio may well be otherwise(d)—yielding further interplays between rhetoric and contingency. Potential rearrangements are delegated to the reader’s interests and discretion. In view of its tendency to seem plausible, a vectorial principle of organization will be of rhetorico-heuristic value. Aiming at a phenomenistics of chancefulness sensu lato, the endeavor at hand cannot but have a thematic bent and bearing. Withal, a Skeptical abstinence from theticalities, teleological metanarratives would likely render last words out of place, whence this work will end as it began.