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Contradiction constitutes the diabolical. ... The diabolical presents as essential what it simultaneously denies or renders impossible, so that we co… - D. C. Schindler
" "Contradiction constitutes the diabolical. ... The diabolical presents as essential what it simultaneously denies or renders impossible, so that we could say that it is the very essence of the diabolical, ontologically considered, to make "empty promises." The diabolical proffers an object of desire while at the same time undermining the conditions under which that object could be attained in actuality. It is not only perverse; it is perversity itself, because its turning toward what is other than itself is in fact nothing more than a turning toward itself. This is what we have meant by saying that it points in two directions at the same time: δια-βάλλω. The essential per-versity of the diabolical comes perhaps most intensely to light in the fact that it is, so to speak, precisely the nature of the diabolical to present just itself as the solution to the problem that it itself generates.
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About D. C. Schindler
David Christopher Schindler (born December 22, 1970) is an American philosopher and translator, specializing in metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of religion, and moral and political philosophy. Son of the theologian David L. Schindler, his work falls in the broadly Neoplatonic tradition, though he is also associated with Thomism, certain strains of German Idealism, and the Communio/Ressourcement school of theology.
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David Christopher Schindler
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Additional quotes by D. C. Schindler
Instead of enjoyment, there is labor, instead of goods, there are uses, instead of substance, we have property, instead of property, we have money, instead of bonds, we have boundaries, instead of connection, we have contract, instead of order, we have regulation, and so forth. Locke's political theory represents a conquest of the ordering principle of human life, which then allows that principle to retain its rule only if it changes its meaning.
Because man has no relationship with anything—other people, the world, God—that is not mediated at some level through the will, a reinterpretation of the meaning of the will and its freedom will inevitably be what Nietzsche called a "revaluation of all values." What is at issue is not simply a new hierarchy of values, a replacement of higher values by things previously held in lower esteem, but indeed a transformation of what it means to value and be valuable tout court, ... a transformation of the meaning of goodness and its principal mode of manifestation. It has been said that Darwin's late modern interpretation of evolution stands as a "universal acid": the inner logic of his idea eats away at all other traditional ideas, not only on the biological level but also on all levels of human existence; it dissolves everything in its wake. One might say that the notion of modern liberty we are discussing is even more radical and therefore more subtle in its effects. It is not so much an acid as a sort of alchemical reagent. Instead of dissolving things, it leaves them standing, but eliminates their original essence, their native goodness, transforming realities into gold—that is, a conventional representation of value without any organic relation to its own given nature. There is nothing at all left untouched by this transformation.
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