A Phenomenology of Renewal, by Tudor B. Munteanu. © 2006

Motto:

"The history of philosophy is the reproduction of philosophy itself. In the history of philosophy, a commentary should act as a veritable double and bear the maximal modification appropriate to a double" (Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, Preface -- translated by Paul Patton, Columbia University Press, 1994)

“I agree that renewal is possible, but only in the sense of nuance. (...) What is a modern artist? What is the meaning of renewal?  It is difficult to answer this second question, since nuances may be essential or just the result of some chromatic interplay” Petre Ţuţea, Aurel-Dragoş Munteanu , România Press, 2006.

(Note: navigate to notes and back by clicking on the roman numerals.)

A few memorable texts have managed to open the most fruitful ways of thinking through a typical reflexivity (i*) which amplifies the expression of their respective authors' penetrating minds. Moving with subtlety in the realm of ideas, all great philosophers induce a specific mode of understanding and describing reality, allowing us to reconstitute their worldview. Written with enthusiasm, surprisingly optimistic, The Philosophy of Nuances encourages a radical exercise of our knowledge and reflection. Only a daring, visionary spirit can provide such an encompassing perspective on the past, present and future human accomplishments within a few pages (ii). Through this veritable manifesto, Petre Ţuţea has managed to overcome the impasse of continental philosophy after the end of the Second World War.

The premise of his relatively short essay is our position in a changing cosmos. We are in the middle of everything, in-between things that amaze and provoke with their constant restlesness. We can neither grasp nor ignore them, after all we don't even know ourselves, because the universe is not our own creation. Much like a transparent prism, we see the surrounding light and its reflections, as modified by forms within and without. Our mind combines and compares these data, trying to find the source of all p h a e n o m e n a, but gets tangled in the multitude of abstractions, confusions and opinions. Natural events and the complicated stream of thought hide the order of their development behind an apparent chaos of heraclitean movement. The classical attitude was driven by the purpose of theoretical knowledge, our modern standpoint is more practical and utilitarian. Although he has managed to control nature, at least to a certain extent, modern man is troubled by incompleteness, limitations and by the dangers he unleashed or couldn't prevent.

In his synthetic attempt at a unifying worldview, Petre Ţuţea evokes a few currents of European thought with sources in Ancient Greece, i.e. the various philosophical accounts of change related to Heraclitus' aphorism, Ta panta rhei... (“Everything flows...”). Ţuţea provides the opportunity to compare these different speculative standpoints, then proceeds with the presentation and development of his own “philosophy of nuances” by simplifying, amplifying or rejecting certain aspects revealed through a forceful and perceptive style of exposition. While examining the philosophy of necessity and absolute determinism he underlines a few significant nuances, i.e. the mystical and materialistic viewpoints that see a certain way of life or a specific kind of knowledge as paradoxically liberating. To illustrate his considerations it would be sufficient to mention a mystical prayer, “Hold me in your bondage, Lord, so I may be free, forevermore” and the marxist assertion, “Freedom is the understanding of necessity (iii)”.

Exact knowledge belongs to God alone. Our knowledge and understanding is only precise (iv), even in mathematics, with its abundance of strictly determined results. On the other hand, any kind of spontaneity, or indetermination, whether it is real or just the consequence of our lack of information, threatens the stability of natural or artificial systems. Acknowledging our lack of exactitude, the philosophy of indeterminism moves toward increasingly nuanced description and precision, while the metaphysical attitude opposed to necessity develops into the philosophy of chaos seen as the complete absence of any type of value, in a gloomy universe, filled by darkness and dominated by its implacable destiny. The only aspect noted in this case, illustrated so well by Nietzsche's writings, is the strictly subjective aspect of psychological projections. Aristotelian and stoic rationalism are summarily rejected, because these approaches cannot explain the whole range of phaenomena.

One method of research is the art of questioning, a juridical type of dialogue i.e. the simplified form of dialectic. Due to the ambiguity of common language, on one hand, and the strictness of logic, on the other, this type of inquiry usually ends in a p o r i a. Some poets and thinkers try to escape the impasse through metaphor, or decision and ultimately, ecstasy. The characteristic eleatic attitude, or apophatic way, a philosophy of changelessness (v) is meant to end all restleness. Unfortunately, it also leads toward the inexorable extinction of the happiness and enjoyment experienced in everyday life and in the arts. Within the heraclitean river of our existence, we can choose between the nihilistic, dyonisiac movements practiced in specific forms of contemporary art, puposely drowning in weirdness and obscurity, and the fullness of living the mysteries of existence, through other forms of cultural and religious life that acknowledge the presence of something transcendent.

In this direction, the proper attitude of modern man is one of continuing search (z ê t ê s i s) (vi), which must be prolific. A true philosopher has to know what he wants, even when his outlook seems skeptical, as opposed to naïve optimism. Most often, this is a form of wakefulness, the beginning of knowledge, as in the socratic adage: “All I know is that I don't know”. After this fascinating peripatetic journey, analyzing with Ţuţea these important attitudes characteristic of european thinking - perfused, through the ancient greek intellectual medium, by the cultural influence of the far and middle east - we encounter the philosophy of nuances, an euporetic (vii) i.e. penetrating, “meaningful” way of thinking. The author, like some of the renaissance writers, unifies Plato's classical attitude with a specifically religious outlook. After all, modern thinking, driven by the hope of historical progress toward an unprecedented development of the arts, science and technology, cannot be understood without thinking of Athens and Jerusalem. All major political, cultural and religious aspirations of mankind were concentrated and refined in these two perrenial cities.

Ţuţea's unusual exhortation, written in a prophetic tone, pleading for “the unlimited development of science and technology” in Romania is a historical and political interlude meant to introduce the perspective announced at the beginning of the essay, and must be understood from the same synthetic point of view - as a reaction toward the sterility of theoretical systems, and the spiritual emptiness of authoritarian states that dominate either through massive power or the unmerited privileges acquired by primacy. But history, like nature, can be unpredictable. Science and technology have adapted by embracing the kind of innovative approach we find in the arts, and now offer an encouraging illustration of the renaissance described by Ţuţea. Many unexpected discoveries around the beginning of the twentieth century clearly showed the insufficiency of laplacian determinism and the limits of classical physics. A harmonious combination of theoretical research and experimentation with invention can lead to amazing leaps: modern physics opened the way to an exponential development of electronic and nuclear technology, and the number and quantity of resources has now become almost irrelevant.

Contemporary science has released the bounds that linked scientific thinking to Newton's universe. As a consequence, the kantian forms of perception and table of categories have lost their relevance, at least in their initial form. The accepted and confirmed interpretation of many different physical experiments has no use for them as such, therefore physics cannot support their justification. If the categories prove to be insufficient they can be nuanced, as Simmel described (viii), if there are too many, they should be “preserved in the attic (ix)”. Concerning this type of categories, Blaga states “their number is not fixed...” and, on the more profound structure that determines the appearance of all scientific and cultural styles, “The theoretical constructions of science do not appear in the pragmatic, biological order of things, although we would not deny this additional, peripherial function - they appear according to the spiritual schema and with due consideration to the framework of the overall, specific aim of our spirit. That is, within the horizon of mystery, toward revelation. Their meaning refers to the mystery, and their purpose is to reveal it. (x)” After all, as Kant stated, sensibility and understanding may well have a common source, (xi) and these considerations lead to the philosophical speculation of a possible synthesis of all our knowledge acts and faculties. The dialectic of freedom and necessity and the relationship between body, soul and nature, social and cultural forms and history cannot be understood without the existence of a divine, transcendent being who does not absolutely determine their harmonious movement, but rather sustains it. When it relies on experience in a wider sense, human knowledge is able to acquire a dimension that brings us closer to reality, and this is the only way to escape from circularity and immanence. An authentic existence in all respects can lead to a spectacular material and spiritual development we can hardly imagine today. These remarks, aspirations and expectations motivate and justify the philosophy of nuances.

Our sense of value is taste, with spiritual and physiological roots “within us and without”. Actually, all  senses are meant to value the data given in perception, which offers only specific aspects i.e. apparent forms of substance, the physical substrate of things - if we use the these terms in a strictly positivistic sense. Literally and figuratively speaking, taste is distinguished by its intimate connection with reality, while at a higher level of experience it overcomes the pure forms of physical perception, space and time. Only this gives us the capability to experience contents. Taste guides reason in its search for unity, i.e. essential forms, during the attempt to appreciate the harmony and refinement of acts or objects to be valued. It has a sufficient character, as opposed to our discursive reason; in all of its ordering functions (perception, understanding, judgment, legislation) reason operates through forms, concepts and categories, schemas and principles that are only necessary.

Although in principle they belong to the knowing subject, tastes or values are not completely subjective, and value judgments are endowed with a universal character, but lack the strength of formal logic. Logical reasoning fits the facts so well, since by definition these take place in space and time; at face value all facts are true - but mostly relative, irrelevant or inconclusive, when they don't have a deeper sense. Judgments and concepts applied to objects and events follow the logical relationships between the universal and particular, or the general and singular, respectively, and their formulation or instantiation can always be nuanced through the harmonious interplay of our faculties. Ontologically, we have to consider the relationship between form and content, and beyond it the presence of ontic wholes, the absolute models, i.e. platonic ideas. Ţuţea describes them as “The modality of divine thought (xii)”. Whether it happens through ecstatic intuition - which may be compared with a sudden jump into the absolute, a frequently criticized idea we mention with certain reservations - or revelation, our soul must be prepared for the contemplation of eternal ideas.

Through the function it performs in cultural organization and conservation, taste, much like reason, acquires an ethical capacity and the dignity of a faculty (in the sense of human aptitude). In this context – because tastes are sharpened in our everyday experience - Ţuţea underlines a problematic issue, the relationship between taste and truth, complicated by so many psychologically-tinted preferences and beliefs, most often presented as peremptory affirmations. If our senses are dumbed by to comfort and laziness, or we cannot find the time to nuance our inherited habits and prejudice, the latter will suddenly substitute our tastes, assert themselves subconsciously and lead us toward confusions, interminable debates or worse -  into tragically absurd situations, where the “banality of evil” is manifested with mechanical regularity. In the framework of the philosophy of nuances, taste is endowed with an educational role and helps us avoid the superficial game of illusion, irrelevance, purposelessness or simple formality.

A philosophical account that aspires toward completeness must coherently describe the multiplicity and variety of p h a e n o m e n a, without exaggerating or ignoring the irreducible forms and harmony   discovered in man and in nature. Ţuţea explains what theoretical aspects should be present in the framework of the philosophy of nuances. First, the overall chromatic character of nuances, i.e. the modes, patterns and gradations connecting all appearances and their combinations. These relate the subject and object at many levels of reality. Perceptions take place in accordance with physical and chemical properties and biological characteristics of things and organisms, i.e. the objects of our knowledge, but follow intersubjective chromatic rules and musical scales. We may always find unexpected correlations between all these levels, and strictly psychological or formal factors (feelings, states of mind, or forms of presentation etc.) are not decisive. However, if nothing appears or disappears in nature, and everything is conserved through change and equilibrium, the cosmic order and the renewal manifested by nuances may have a consoling effect.

The second aspect is simplicity and economy of thought, i.e. our tendency to unify all phaenomena. This would facilitate our understanding, memory and descriptive precision. We must also consider the idea of actual limit, because it circumscribes reason's tendency toward simplification. Since thought functions through representations, sometimes we encounter an opposite, complex multiplication of concepts that match our imagination, remembrance or the phaenomena encountered in experience. The central aspect is the principle of heraclitean actuality, l o g o s, of hidden harmony behind all movement, appearance and thinking. Change is a chance for renewal, which brings all the associated risks inherent in the essential or misleading interplay of nuances, with all the joys and disappointments that follow our attempts at personal affirmation, knowledge and control. The effort to understand the surprising diversity of the world and to know ourselves has the ultimate purpose of contemplating the creator in his creation, in the presence of “total reality”, to use Petre Ţuţea's expression.

As Ţuţea mentioned, the french neologism nuance developed from muance, a word that still means a significant change, movement, mutation or variation, from the latin m u t o (change, alteration, difference). In french the etymology goes back to mû, i.e. moved, literally and figuratively (in the sense of emotion). Modern dictionaries also mention the french verb nuer, i.e. to nuance, to sublimate, to refine, probably from nu, which comes from the latin n u d u s (literally, naked or figuratively pure, simple). In addition to many other mistakes and ommisions (xiii), some of Ţuţea's editors managed to erroneously transcribe even this important term, muance, which indeed can be found in Montaigne, as he mentions. To quote one relevant passage,

“Platon disoit que les corps n'avoient jamais existence, ouy bien naissance: estimant qu'Homere eust faict l'ocean pere des Dieus, et Thetis la mere, pour nous montrer que toutes choses sont en fluxion, muance [602] et variation perpetuelle: opinion commune à tous les Philosophes avant son temps, comme il dict, sauf le seul Parmenides, qui refusoit mouvement aux choses, de la force du quel il faict grand cas; (...) Heraclitus, que jamais homme n'estoit deux fois entré en mesme riviere; (...)” (xiv).

Another interesting reference is to Zur Farbenlehre by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, according to whom nuances are like shadows, a mixture of light and darkness (xv). His “theory of colors” was developed using an experimental method that has important affinities with the philosophy of nuances (xvi).  The artist in Goethe was moved by the c h i a o s c u r o practiced in Italy during the renaissance, and the scientist with philosophical acumen has treated the subject of spectral colors with subtlety, through complex variations of the apparently negligible but determinant factors, such as luminosity and contour. This refined approach with a pronounced empirical character should give second thoughts to those thinkers who, following Popper, minimize the phenomenological aspects of scientific theories, tying them to the supposedly autonomous imagination of scientific genius, after the strict, deductive-verificationist canons of kantian thought, so closely tied to Newton's physics (xvii).

Ţuţea repeatedly emphasizes the interdisciplinary character of research and inspiration. The Philosophy of Nuances is a thorough attempt to understand all significant issues, styles and systems from a philosophically relevant, unitary viewpoint. The subtlety of his approach allows for the progressive revelation of all reality, infused by divine energies that call for the participation of all our vocational capabilities. Even the historical and political considerations reiterated toward the end of the essay are a synthesis between the pious attitude toward the grace bestowed on the benevolent, and a pragmatic concern for the material conditions necessary for the normal spiritual development and the opportunities entitled to all free, prudent, patient and self-respecting nations. Petre Ţuţea is a strong and delicate thinker, like the man whose life and work deserve to be known and appreciated (xviii).

(i*) Reflexivity is used here as a technical term, in the particular sense of identity with the subject, as an exemplary, "live" demonstration of ideas presented in the text. It describes an organic phenomenon, a continuous but coherent differentiation that overcomes the presumed limits of an essay, the contours of a concept etc. The effect is "theatrical", i.e. an unmitigated participation in what is described and enacted. The nuanced  transfiguration of notions like "theory" and "practice" in the perspective of novelty, value, and lived experience opens up the possibility of overcoming all hypothetical and hermeneutic paradigms, neomodernist pragmatism and all philosophical consequences of humanism. 

(ii) “The Philosophy of Nuances” dates back to 1969. Petre Ţuţea (pronounced “Tzutzea”), born in 1902, was a journalist and economist with a PhD in Administrative Law from the University of Cluj (1929). In 1965 he was released from political prison, after spending a total of thirteen years in various Romanian communist jails and camps modeled after the russian gulag, under a regime of constant physical and psychological torture, such as daily beatings, mockery, intimidation and a particularily perverse kind of brainwashing known as “reeducation” through repeated “confessions” and humiliation. While enjoying relative freedom at an old age, he was constantly monitored by the dreaded romanian security services, modeled after the KGB, known as the Securitate, that interrogated him frequently, recorded his movements and conversations and confiscated a few of his early manuscripts. Commentators have improvised on Ţuţea's ironic remarks about the confiscated manuscripts, pointing out that philosophy students can now learn along with young historians by studying the Securitate archives.

After 1967 Ţuţea started to actively distribute a few carbon copies of his work to his small circle of friends, some of whom also helped in their transcription and sometimes managed to hire trusted typists, since copying machines were hardly accessible and tightly controlled. According to a decree passed in Romania, during the late 80's, even typewriters were supposed to be registered, while signature samples had to be provided to the authorities. Some of Ţuţea's manuscripts were published after 1989, but most of his books and essays, including The Philosophy of Nuances were edited without the attention due to a thinker of this caliber.

(iii) This statement appears in various works, e.g. Engles' Anti-Dühring and Lenin's Materialism and Empiriocriticism. While in some way materialism is closer to mysticism than idealism (because materialists acknowledge the reality of the world), it would be ridiculous and useless to take marxists seriously, because they are extremely tendentious. This is only for the sake of the argument.

(iv) Ţuţea often insists on fine terminological distinctions, and repeatedly points out the difference between exactitude and precision, real and concrete, creation and construction. There can be precision in measurement, and even more so in mathematics, but exactitude is perfect knowledge.

(v) Loosely translated, “the philosophy of absolute zero”. The Romanian expression, “încremenire”, literally a stoned state of mind, does not sound peculiar.

.(vi) This platonic term is emphasized by Eric Voegelin, a remarkable American thinker of German origin, well-known and appreciated for his philosophy of history, as developed in many significant contributions, e.g. New Science of Politics. Through a refined analysis of the existential tension that accompanies religious sentiment, Voegelin has discovered the prominent role played in history, politics and philosophy by modern forms of gnosticism, like totalitarian ideologies.

(vii) From e u p o r ia, a greek word used by Plato, meaning passage, the opposite of a p o r i a, impasse. Ţuţea does not use the first greek term, but quotes a beautiful characterization of the great Greek philosopher due to Windelband, who describes Plato as a penetrating thinker for whom life and thought were inseparable. This portrait also describes Petre Ţuţea, who was influenced by a current of Romanian philosophy called Trăirism, literally “Living-ism”, sometimes translated as "lived experience" - a philosophy of life and purpose, an original synthesis of vitalism and existentialism with religious overtones.

(viii) The german term used by Simmel, one of the most interesting and eclectic german thinkers, is Schattierungen and the word means “shades”, i.e. nuances. Although Simmel didn't outline a “philosophy of nuances”, Ţuţea acknowledged him repeatedly.

(ix) Ţuţea enjoys quoting this ironic remark, attributed to Max Planck.

(x) Lucian Blaga, Trilogy of Values I, Science and creation, from the chapter titled Two types of knowledge. Blaga is a major romanian philosopher and poet, who wrote three philosophical trilogies, The Trilogy of Knowledge, The Trilogy of Culture and The Trilogy of Values and an unfinished fourth, The Cosmological Trilogy. Each volume of each trilogy has a separate title, and together they comprise an original, innovative philosophical system, a major contribution to contemporary ontology, epistemology, the philosophy of culture, science and history. In addition to the usual categories of empirical knowledge, Blaga's system describes an entirely separate “matrix” of categories which, arising dynamically within the unconscious (seen as a metaphysical concept), determine the unity and variety of human values, attitudes and styles. His terminology is original, precise and difficult to translate. Blaga's poetry is available in English in its entirety, and some of his philosophical work is available in French. For more details, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian_Blaga>

Ţuţea discusses Blaga's philosophy extensively, then examines Kant's categories and their relationship to modern science in three chapters of his unusual book, Aurel-Dragoş Munteanu.

(xi) “...there are two stems of human knowledge, namely, sensibility and understanding, which perhaps spring from a common, but to us unknown, root...” Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, Introduction (Norman Kemp Smith translation).

(xii) Petre Ţuţea, Aurel-Dragoş Munteanu

(xiii) With very few exceptions, the treatment and reception of Ţuţea's work range from the insufficient to the disastrous. The all too many mutilated versions of his works contain unforgivable errors that change the sense of important terms and even entire sentences, in editions that have been put together in a hurry, without the care they deserve.

(xiv) Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, Les Essais (1595). Ed. P. Villey et Saulnier, Verdun L. Chapitre 12, p. 601

“Plato said that objects don't have existence proper, therefore are not created; reminding that for Homer the ocean was the father of gods and Thetis was their mother, to show that all things are in fluctuation, mutation and perpetual change: an attitude shared with all philosophers before him, as he mentions – except Parmenides, who does not accept that things can really change, with all the consequences that follow; (...) and Heraclitus [argued] it is impossible to step into the same river twice (...)”

(xv) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Zur Farbenlehre (1810).

(xvi) Goethe's criticism of Newton regarding the theory of colors is well known. The great poet and philosopher's phenomenogical approach was reevaluated after the failure of newtonian absolutism, since it was opposed to the abstractions characteristic of this mode of thinking.

(xvii) For a detailed analysis, see Neil Ribe and Friedrich Steinle, Exploratory Experimentation: Goethe, Land, and Color Theory în Physics Today (July 2002), <http://scitation.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_55/iss_7/43_1.shtml > to whom I owe the information presented in this paragraph.

xviii) Alexandru Popescu's book, Petre Ţuţea, Between Sacrifice and Suicide, Ashgate, London, 2004, deserves to be mentioned here as the current reference on the great thinker's life and work. We are eagerly expecting a romanian initiative to translate this valuable book.