from the glacier

Philosophy has followed an interesting strategy since its inception with the ancient Greeks. In all of western tradition the thinker has attempted to describe the world [ousia, presencing, substance, the world of appearances, the subject, nature, physis] metaphysically. By metaphysically, of course, we mean in terms of anthropomorphisms [eidos, idea, essence, res ipsa, forms]. This has trickled down into the modern sciences, where "laws" exist in physics, where evolutionary biology is the norm [permit a Nietzsche quote: "one should not confuse nature with Malthus."], where Chemists talk of "attraction" and "repulsion". The deviancy of this position perhaps is not clear; man thinks, "I am man, I think nature as man, impute my will on the face of creation - how could it be otherwise?" The scientist see great strides in human understanding, for we have kicked the gods out of nature. Unfortunately, we replaced them with man. So, either:

A: The deconstructionalists are correct. Everything is understood in terms of man, but man communicates [thinks] by language. Therefore we should deny everything but linguistic analysis and symbolic logic. These two suffice to explain the universe.

or:

B: We force the de-humanization of nature. We deconstruct our own way, pushing aside man and all that he wills, impugns onto nature. Why seek to understand the laws of nature? This only seeks to understand how we think nature should act.

I, for one, choose B. If we meditate, circling round and round this thought, we see the overfull, needless excess that is the world: disharmonious, unthinking, unpatterned. A violent, nonsensical mash of unrelated happenstance. This should be the beginning of our metaphysics. Once we realize that our science, our sciences, are only understanding ourselves [the oughts of nature] we then clear the way for authentic thinking - an actual encounter - with what is.