Gaping of matter
Gaping can be only the characteristic of the spirit. Matter, indeed, functions by filling up holes. It is true that nothing exists concretely which is not ‘built', from the atom to the most complex form of life, from the burst stone of the prehistoric man to the prowess of the advanced technology, from the first babbling of the language to the more sublime poetic or mystical words. Every thing is articulated, built, structured, destructured, restructured. However human essence emerges through the destruction of constructions. It is not in continuity but in rupture. It arises on the side of the other.
Already doesn't the concept of matter - i.e. ‘matter’ such as recovered and understood by the spirit - aim beyond itself? Materia, mater, this `from what' all is built. But what is finally this `from what’? The matter of a table, for example, it is the wood from which the carpenter `builds' the table. But isn't wood itself already `built'? Which is thus the ‘matter’ of wood? A possible answer: it is `wood fibers'. But which is the matter of these fibers? You have to go back to sciences. The biologist will answer: it’s large cellulose molecules. Which is the matter of cellulose molecules? The chemist will answer: it’s oxygen, hydrogen and carbon atoms. Which is the matter of a carbon atom? The physicist will answer: it’s atomic particles. Which is the matter of the particles? The micro-physician will hesitate. Perhaps will he speak about `grains of energy', of ‘electric charges', `fields', `quanta', `quarks', `particles of charm'… all designations covering formulas of mathematical type. One is finally very far from the ‘matter’ as we can feel it. Perhaps the ‘black hole’ can be paradigm. Already in the simple `matter' is hiding and appearing an astonishing gaping.
The spirit is where it is not. It is not in fullness; it is in vacuum, a vacuum crossing the fullness from end to end. Spirit is gaping. It cannot be defined (latin: de-finire), i.e. you can never encircle it. Can only be encircled what is materially ‘substantial’. ‘What’ spirit is remains always evanescent. Is only left its ‘that’, (that it is), the infinite openness of the act of its sudden appearance.
The spirit emerges in the gaping of matter. Fortunately nobody never discovered the spirit at the point of a scalpel. The spirit surges up from matter like a negation in the middle of an assertion, like a criticism within consistencies, like a question in the concert of answers, like humour in the midst of seriousness and certainty.
The specific human dimension is not just an ‘ingredient’. It bursts out through a ‘no’. All the naturalisms of the world would like to suppress this scandalous `no' and bring the human reality back into the ‘yes’ to nature and reason. Thus, for example, structuralisms…
The matrix space of specific humanity opens in the gaping of the simple nature. This gaping is not empty. It is rich of something ‘other’. As if a `no' resounded there and protested there. And this protest testifies that such a negativeness is rich with building power. This gaping is carrying out an originating function, negative of what is and founder of what must be. Things are to be denied so that the form can appear. Objects have to be denied so that the function appears. Facts have to be denied so that law can appear.
Such a space is open on an infinity of new possibilities. But this gaping is at the same time organizing. Space is actively `formant', informing, structuring, systemizing. It governs practically and theoretically the specific human realm from its most elementary forms to the most elaborated ones. Starting from a same and single fundamental process, various ways open.
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