Markus Gabriel argues that the world does not exist because the world as an ultimate frame of reference must stand outside all the interconnections of ordinary occurrences; however, frames of reference are occurrences that only happen with respect to other frames of reference.
This argument begs at least four questions that Gabriel boldly goes forth in his book to answer: 1. What sort of object is a frame of reference? 2. How and why does anything exist at all? 3. Where are we humans without an ultimate or over-arching frame of reference? 4. How do we humans find or gain meaning in a world of relative frames of reference? I sketch Gabriel’s answers later on.
A Disclaimer: the wording I am using to frame the questions and main argument posed by Gabriel is my wording rather than his own, specialized terminology. One piece of his terminology is important, however, namely his use of ‘fetish.’ In fact, one of the novelties in Gabriel’s book is to use the psychoanalytic concept of fetish to dissect the reverence shown towards the natural sciences as opposed to the humanities and arts. A similar fetish is seen in the reverence shown by many philosophers to naturalism as the most up-to-date intellectual outlook for the intellectually honest and open thinker.
The argument against naturalism as a fetish and for a new outlook on the humanities in general, and religion and the arts in particular, occurs mid-way through the book in Chapters IV and V. Naturalism, according to Gabriel, assumes that there is an ultimate frame of reference for everything—all occurrences—and that the natural sciences have the key to unlocking the mysteries of the ultimate framework for all that exists. “the scientific worldview is based on a distorted perception of rationality. It assumes in all of our efforts to understand we rely upon the construction of hypotheses and the subsequent activity of either proving or discarding them experimentally. Trial-and-error procedures of this type are useful, but they are not appropriate everywhere. They help us to understand the universe [the specific frame of reference of the natural sciences or at least physics]. But the human being and our understanding of meaning are not found in the universe; we do not wise up except by drawing nearer to understanding spirit [specific intellectual, historical, and artistic frames of reference] or meaning [specific systems of sense-making and sense-giving]”(143). This view of science and the philosophy of naturalism as the sole key to complete understanding of everything “is a modern version of fetishism” (151), “the creation of representations of an all-inclusive, all-controlling and ordering world principle” (154).
As I understand Gabriel, looking for a single and ultimate frame of reference, whether based in naturalism, or in fundamentalist religion, or even an invented quasi-religious system, is a form of intellectual fetishism where we turn a single frame of reference into an absolute and all-encompassing approach to the multiplicity of occurrences.
Gabriel finds two antidotes to the pathology of intellectual fetishism (see 162 ff). The first antidote is art. Art often plays against its context or frame of reference by exposing its own frames of reference in a recursive or self-reflexive manner. So art is one way of remedying the tendency to seek a single frame of reference through the artist using the work of art as a means to display the very frame of reference used in the work of art (see Chapter VI, “The Meaning of Art,” 184 ff.). The second antidote is Television: certain shows are ‘shows about nothing,’ and so show how meanings occur in everyday humdrum living where there is no ultimate framework for providing the meaning—no over-arching story-line or plot with some final wrap-up (see Chapter VII, “Closing Credits: Television,” 209 ff.)
I return now to Gabriel’s answers to the four main questions arising from his argument against the traditional quest for an ultimate frame of reference for all occurrences: 1. What sort of object is a frame of reference? It is an intellectual system for providing sense or meaning for specific kinds of occurrences. 2. How and why does anything exist at all? To be is to have meaning within a specific frame of reference. 3. Where are we if we are nowhere with respect to an ultimate frame of reference? We make various frames of reference for providing meaningful occurrences—we are the meaning-makers for all with which we interact, including our selves. 4. How do we find meanings in a world of relative frames of references? “We live together in infinitely many fields of sense which we are always rendering intelligible in new ways. What more could we want?” (208).
In this last quotation I let slip in one of Gabriel's key technical terms, ‘fields of sense,’ which I think is now clear in its meaning—intellectual frames of reference for providing meaning to whatever crosses our path. However, I cannot resist answering Gabriel’s challenge to the critically-minded reader of what more we could want than living with temporary and relative fields of sense. The more we could want, within the frame of reference of the outlook provided by Gabriel in his bold book, is to be reflexively self-critical of all our various frames of reference, our fields of sense, in such a way that we could develop more integrated and complete outlooks on what crosses our paths without turning one or another outlook into an intellectual fetish.
