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We now approach the third book of the Laws of Plato. Plato leaves aside drinking parties and instead begins to search for the "first origin and transformation of political regimes." To do that he attempts to find a starting point within the continuum of history. He invokes the destructive forces of nature to prepare that beginning. He takes the myths of great floods that destroy all but a handfull of mankind as the means of reducing human kind to the bare essentials of their nature. Those essentials are seen as present in mountain herdsmen -- or nomads.

The utter destruction of civilization is the means of purifying men of the ills they now suffer. History is seen as cyclical, and the cycle of accumulation of culture is balanced by the loss of everything through global disaster. In this way the time line of history is divided into epochs. This follows the outlines of the generative and destructive theory of Empedocles to a certain extent. Once we recognize the epochal structure, then we begin to wonder if the novum will appear as well; and sure enough, in the very next speeches we hear...

Won't we assert that all tools were destroyed, and that if some serious and important part of an art -- whether politics or some other sort of wisdom -- had been discovered, all these things would have perished at the time? For otherwise, best of men, if these things had remained through all time as thoroughly ordered as they are today, how could anything new ever have been discovered.

In other words, for tens upon tens of thousands of years these things were unknown to man at that time, and only within the past one or two thousand years have they been brought to light, some by Daedalus, others by Orpheus, and others by Palahedes; the things that pertain to music by Marsyas and Olympus, the things that pertain to the lyre by Amphion; and very many other arts by other men -- just yesterday or the day before, so to speak.

Here Plato discusses the novum or "bringing new things to light" in terms of great inventors and cultural founders. The rationale he gives for the cultural destruction is, that if things remained ordered as they are now, then new things could not be discovered. So right here the inner relation between the novum and the epoch is posited explicitly. Because we know new things are discovered, then epochs must occur in which the way is cleared for rediscovery. Discovery is always remembering what was known before and lost. Losing and finding against gives a basic structure to manifestation as seen by Plato here in the Laws. Cycles of losing and finding are continuously revolving through history.

Plato mentions first Daedalus among his seven inventors, or cultural founders. Daedalus created the Labyrinth for Minos. It is of interest that Plato names him before Orpheus who lived by his magical music. The third inventor was Palamedes who is said to have invented the alphabet. Fourth comes Marsyas who challenged Apollo to a musical duel and was flayed alive when he lost. Fifth was Olympos who was associated with Marsyas and invented some melodies. Sixth was Amphion who also was involved in music and built the walls of Thebes by moving stones with his music. Seventh is Epimenides who invented a drug that would cure hunger based on some statements by Heisod.

Here musical invention far outnumbers all other types, as we might expect, from the importance Plato places on music. The invention of tools and alphabet, as well as drugs, are the only other inventions that rate a mention.

TABLE 9 Great inventors mentioned by Plato
Inventors	Invention	Note
Daedalus	Labyrinth	Labyrinth, tools
Orpheus	Music	Challenged Dionysus and Worshiped Apollo
Palmedes	Alphabet
Marsylas	Music	Challenged Apollo
Olympos	Music
Amphion	Music	Built walls with music
Epimedies	Drug	Cured Hunger

If the novum and epoch are represented here in Plato's cyclical representation of cultural emergence, we can also see how the paris of ephemeron and holoid are represented as well. The destruction of the civilized city produces the wholeness of the basic human situation in which the virtues are forced upon man by the necessity of coping with catastrophe. This is the fundamental Indo-European theme of sacrifice where this time a city is sacrificed in order to take man back to the fundamental virtues. So we see here that the ephemeron (destruction) produces the holoid (the whole of virtue) within the cycle of the epochs within which new things appear as remembrances.

Plato then speaks of the city re-emerging in stages. In the first stage all civil war and war between cities were destroyed along with the opponents. Why?

It appears, then, that the natural disaster made these simple people forget all the arts of war. Thus, the natural disaster stands against and cancels out the propensity for war in human beings.

Through destruction of civilization people have regained their natural wholeness. It is clear that this episode of destruction harkens back to the Indo-European concept of sacrifice. However, Plato goes on to explain how this wholeness regained breaks down, stage by stage, until we regain the arts of civilization and warfare again becomes rampant. In this first stage the political regime that appears is the dynasty based on parental power. Law itself does not exist at this stage but pure authority. Plato shows that this form of government naturally gives rise to a wide variety of different styles of governance. These patterns are compared to flocks of birds. They are natural patterns which appear through reproduction and spontaneous social behavior.

In the second stage some of the people turn to farming and begin to erect defensive walls to protect themselves from wild beasts¹. In these larger assemblies the natural patterning of the variety of dynasties must be ironed out. In this Plato sees the origin of legislation. The lawgivers consider the variety and pick a standard for all to live by.

The third stage is signified by the founding of Dardania which was a precursor to Ilium. In this stage cities fight each other as in the war recounted in the Iliad against Troy. Even after winning the war, the Acheans returning home ten years later faced a whole new set of hardships. Many were exiled, and those were forced to fight to retake their own homelands. Thus, the Acheans became Doreans.

The fourth city is that set up by the Doreans. It was represented by a triple kingdom made up of Argus, Messne, and Lacediamon. Each of the kings were brothers, or the twin sons of a deceased brother, as in the case of Lacediumon. The first two cities fell, while the third survived to become Sparta and to have a very long continuous history without tyranny. The three cities had a mutual pact in which the two would fight the third if the pact was broken by any one of them. This kind of dynamic balance of powers against each other is seen also in Atlantis. However, in spite of pacts, the first two cities fell and only the third persisted. Plato points out three reasons for that survival.

These three organs of government were balanced against each other, making it moderate and allowing it to survive. This is the form of the fourth city which has internal structure which can be discerned and which is balanced.

In this genetic series of cities we are watching a novum, or new thing, coming into existence. It occurs in four stages. The conditions for emergence are artificially produced by the convenient "natural disaster." The cooked-up natural disaster returns men to their wholeness, although it is never made clear how this occurs. In that wholeness natural power relations appertaining to the family appear. These have a great variety which, when a crucial threshold is reached, must be suppressed by the selection of some customs over others by a lawgiver. At the next threshold the city can make war or be besieged. It has sufficient internal unity to appear as an adversary to other cities. This is the stage where Hoplite warfare might come into existence as a means of protecting the city. In the final stage one particular city discovers how to remain in power for a long time by achieving a balanced internal power structure. However, others would say that Sparta's real innovation was having slaves do the farming so that the citizens were free to wage war continuously, unlike their neighbors. Be that as it may, in Sparta the authority was first split between the two monarchs. The twin Kings reflect the Indo-European mythos of the divine twins. The twins were more often associated with the agricultural class, but there are many stories of twin brothers who were kings. Especially of interest is the myth of saving the kidnapped sister which will be explored later. The power of these kings is further attenuated by the existence of the Gerousia.

Its purpose was to correct the "swollen authority" of the Kings by setting up a body which would have an equal weight with them on important matters. The Gerousia consisted of twenty-eight members (with the two kings added ex officiis), all over sixty years of age, and selected by popular acclaim on the basis of their "virtue." The division of powers that resulted, as we se it in historical times, was real indeed.²

They had the right to convoke the assembly; they had control of foreign relations; they had oversight over internal affairs, with power to punish; they supervised the agoge; they could -- and sometimes did -- bring a king to trial and see him heavily punished, sometimes even deposed. In short, their powers were such to make their office something of a tyranny. But there were also definite checks on their power. They were limited to one year in office, they could not act as individuals but only as a group, and they were subject to an accounting before their successors at the end of their year. [p57-58]

It appears that the kings exerted external power and the ephors exerted internal control. External control was a tyranny as was internal control. But one was continuous and hereditary, while the other was based on yearly intervals. The council stood between these two tyrannies as a mediator. They were the elders who advised the kings and whose judgement was made binding on the kings. This structure, which was historical, is itself very interesting. It gives the image of a series of symmetry breakings which produces a stable form of government based on counterpoising balance of separate elements. First the single king breaks into two. Then this breaks into 28 members of the council of which the kings are ex officiis members. Then finally, there emerges an internal administrative power in which five must act as one in a yearly cycle. Thus, unity is appropriated internally while the external power remains divided.

The kings are in charge of external warfare and thus harkens back to city three which appears as an agent on the world stage. The ephors represent the internal administrative authority which harkens back to city number one which has internal control by parents who are concerned about the welfare of their children. The council of wise men remind us of city two in which the lawgiver selects from the variety produced by all the different clans. So in the structure of the fourth city the prior phases seem to be recapitulated.

If we look back to Plato's inventors, we immediately see that the pattern of the fully emerged city can be likened to the labyrinth invented by Daedalus. It is a complex pattern, and in the case of Sparta, its secret is the long period of continuous existence without tyranny. The minotaur is the tyrant of the Labyrinth who kills the children offered by Athens. In the case of Sparta, the Labyrinth is empty. There is no tyrant at the center. Instead, the Labyrinth itself has a certain "form" which allows it to continue functioning without collapsing even though there is no tyrant at the center keeping it together. In fact, we can look back to Orpheus and other musical inventors who understood how to create harmony. The balanced city also has a harmony and produces a different type of music. But that music appears because of the arrangement of things. In the case of the city, it is the arrangement of the centers of power. They are like the letters of the alphabet. They are irreducible atoms of power that appear in a particular constellation. It is the combinations of these atoms which generates the political dynamics within the fourth city. Finally, there is the herb that prevents hunger.

Hesiod (Works and Days 41) praised the diet of hallow and asphodel, saying that its advantages are unknown to corrupt kings and judges who take bribes. Epimenides apparently interpreted this as a covert indication of the ingredients for a drug that would abolish hunger, or the need to eat. He is said to have proceeded to invent and use such a drug. ³

When the Labyrinth of the city is without a single tyrant and it is making the music of political harmony by the interaction of the nodes of power in a moderate dance, then the virtue that was man's after the flood reappears, and this is like a herb that prevents hunger of all its citizens which is produced by the corruption of kings and judges who take bribes. The city functions on a particular threshold of complexity, but is self-organizing because it lacks the tyrant which is the despotic organizer of man. The city is autopoietic -- self-producing. It appears between the extremes of too much control by the tyrant and too much freedom on the part of the citizens. It is a balance of centripetal and centrifugal forces within the polis. Plato goes on to describe these forces in terms of the political structure of Persia and Athens. This axis of freedom verses determination shows the extremes which the autopoietic system moderates. The Persians enter into tyranny because they are too concerned with city three and its external wars, and not enough concerned with city one and the training of their own sons and the regulation of their households. The Athenians were enslaved by their fear of a larger enemy. Because of that they became very close knit and free with each other as if they were close kin. In this case it was awe that served as the lawgiver to a second city which unfortunately did not keep control of its music. We can see that it is the earlier stages of the city in which these two imperfect examples of extremes have gone wrong.

When we look at the city which has emerged in the Stranger's discourse, we see that it inhabits a matrix defined by the novum-epoch on the one hand and the holoid-ephemeron on the other. However, we can also see the other elements of Primordial Being as well. For instance, it is clear that the emergence of the city is an essencing forth which moves through specific genetic phases taking on a different internal structure and displaying different constellations of attributes at each phase. Also, it is clear that the city exists as an organization of the substrate of biological human individuals who are eventities. These myriad arising and perishing eventities swarm to make up the continuously present eventity of the city itself. The city is an illusory continuity built on the actual substrate of individuals embedded in spacetime. It is an organization of those individuals which appears as a dance at a particular geographical location. Plato shows the city as a gathering of individuals and clans. First, the family appears and by a natural process proliferates. Then the families gather, and one way of acting is chosen from all the variety. Here we see the appearance of the integra. The city has itself a particular style which occurs through selection of the best from all the family styles. These styles appear as the five meta-tropes:

TABLE 10 The excesses of the Persians and the Athenians.
Athenians	Cities	Persians
	I Home, alphabet, variety	Persian tyrant -- neglected children and household
Athens -- Awe forged freedom but musical.	II Music
	III External war; Hunger	Persian tyrant spent all time at war
	IV Moderate, autopoietic, labyrinth without tyrant at center

The lawgiver selects the images like costumes, arts, and music. He selects the moods around which the individual lives will revolve. He selects the forms which will channel the energies of the people, whether in daily affairs or in terms of ritualized action. He selects which things will be where within the city. The lawgiver selects a whole series of metonymical juxtapositions. Finally, he selects the fundamental likenesses which will serve as patterning templates out of the whole range of possible likenesses. This selection process gives the city its particular character beyond the constellation of essential attributes that exist in every city. This is the production of the integra -- a unique coherence of essential and accidental attributes.

We can also see the holon arising within the city because the city is a whole series of subgroups of individuals. These subgroups have whole/part relations where they are parts looking down from the whole of the city but are themselves wholes, like organs of a body, which are partially self-organizing when viewed from the point of view of the individual. The holon is a series of part/whole facets within the whole of the city. Their constellation is the structure and organization of the city which continues to change dynamically as the city evolves. Within any autopoietic unity there is a whole series of these subgroups which change over time. In the stranger's account of sparta we see these subgroupings in the council and the ephors, each which come into existence at particular times in the history of the city state.

The city itself is holoidal and appears as an autopoietic unity. As a holoid, it interpenetrates so that each part mirrors all the others like facets of a gem. This means that the city is like a hologram in which each part carries a partial image of the whole, just like the interference pattern of the hologram. When the city gels into a unity, it is this interpenetration that underlies its ability to self-organize. It can self-organize because its self is distributed and embodies in all the parts as a generalized other (G.H. Mead). Self-organization and autopoietic unity can only exist on the basis of interpenetration of the holoid. In that interpenetration it is the differences between individuals in the city that allow them to all ultimately be one. The source of variety production that exists in the family has been harnessed, and variety becomes the differences that make a difference (G. Bateson). That allows continual internal differentiation which is also whole and encompassed by the city. The harnessing of variety production goes through the stages posited by the stranger. Variety production goes through the selection, and then it interacts with other cities which are also variety producers and selectors. This interaction with other cities fuses the city into a single unit on the basis of a need to survive. Finally, the fused city differentiates a political regime internally for self maintenance. It is truly a complete city when it has the power through internal differentiation to organize itself.

TABLE 11

Stages

Differences

Harmony

Stage Four

Internal political structure

Autopoietic based on interpenetration

Stage Three

Rivalry between cities

Interaction

Stage Two

Selection (difference that makes a difference)

Logical distinction

Stage One

Family dynasty produces variety

Mutual support

Stages of development of the real city. {FIGURE XI 140}

Stages	Differences	Harmony
Stage Four	Internal political structure	Autopoietic based on interpenetration
Stage Three	Rivalry between cities	Interaction
Stage Two	Selection (difference that makes a difference)	Logical distinction
Stage One	Family dynasty produces variety	Mutual support

This is why Plato says that he is really talking about the internal structure of the individual self when he talks about the city. The individual self is a partial imprint of the patterning of the city due to interpenetration. Thus, the two structures being holoidal are essentially the SAME.

So we see that in the emergence of the intersubjective structure of the city the entire organization of Primordial Being is exemplified. It is as if the city were an embodiment of the structure of Primordial Being. And here we are speaking of a real city -- Sparta -- not an ideal city. The ideal city appears on the basis of the ideal continuity of speech. It exemplifies the move from Primordial Being to an abstract and ideal or Conceptual Being which was founded by Parmenides. Conceptual Being fuses the sub-components of Being into a single substance. It produces an illusory continuity in which reality, truth and identity are united. It is on this continuity that Plato's ideal cities are founded. We are about to transition to the construction of one of these ideal cities. But it is worthy to note that in the genesis of the real city there is a very clear model of the elements of Primordial Being, and that there is a very clear phasing of the real city's emergence. In many ways we should pay more attention to this real city's emergence than the production of Plato's invisible cities. For the real city points to the constitution of the substrate upon which the invisible cities glide. When the ideal city destabilizes, we will inevitably be thrown back to this substrate. In fact, it is only when the Conceptual Being is called into question that the other forms of Being arise that appear in modern ontology. But they are not new productions. In fact, they were always there in the substrate which was glossed over since Parmenides' time up until the time of Husserl and Heidegger when the substrate appeared again as an object of inquiry. But we should never think that these other meta-levels of being are new. They were embedded in the substrate below Conceptual Being from the beginning. To uncover them, all we need do is ask the question of how new things come into existence. In this case the model of emergence of the novel is the city. It emerges in four distinct phases. This discontinuity between the stages of emergence is what must be questioned in order to see clearly these meta levels of Being in action here.

The field out of which the first city arises is that of utter destruction. On this field we see a few scattered families of herdsmen or nomads who are likened to Cyclops. This analogy to the Cyclops is interesting because of our modern understanding of Cyclopedian vision⁵. If you randomize a pattern and present it to each eye as randomized, the brain will reconstruct the pattern hidden in the two separate random fields. The stranger has already told us that the remnant peoples are the most virtuous -- they magically retain the whole of virtue. Thus, there is an analogy between the randomization of the pattern that makes the Cyclopedian vision apparent and the destruction undergone by these nomad that they survived. Somehow destruction makes the primal wholeness of people re-appear which is corrupted by the cities. This primal wholeness is embedded in the body like Cyclopedian vision. Also, the family structures which arise are based on the reproductive necessities. Thus, in the first city which is really nomadic existence, it is the body which is primary. The whole body and the social structures related to the whole body stand out against the desolation and destruction which is its background. This difference between the destructive context of the ephemeron and the holoidal body is the first difference that arises. Another way in which Cyclopedian vision appears is in randomized pictures that one stares through in order to see the three dimensional objects embedded in them. These are difficult to see at first. One must stare through the randomized field, and some how the visual field organizes the background, and suddenly the figures pop out. Once this occurs, you can look at the figures within the holographic presentation as long as the gestalt is maintained by vision. Here the staring through the randomized field reminds us of the Cyclops living on the top of the mountains when the flood comes. By staring off into the distance, as if toward the tops of the mountains, one sees the organization which is Cyclopedian, within the destruction or randomization. It is not just a coincidence that this kind of vision is named after the Cyclopses. It shows that the field itself has a deep unity we are usually not aware of which, as if we really had one eye instead of two. Plato is saying something similar, which is that if you disorganize society through a natural disaster, then the deep unity of human experience becomes clearer, and that exemplifies the Good, the whole of virtue.

The second difference that arises occurs when these families move close to each other and form walls to protect themselves from wild beasts. We might add that these walls also protect them from other nomads which form marauding bands. Within the enclosures the variety of the people so brought together is made more homogeneous as certain social forms prevail over others. The second difference is between uncontrolled variety production and intersubjectively selected variants which give a city a fabric of culture through the spread of certain ways of doing things.

The third difference occurs when one city competes with another in trade and war. This fuses the city into a single agent, as the Stranger says, through their mutual awe or fear of destruction. Here the city is opaque. It is a single agent among other cities. The difference here is between any one city and its rivals.

The fourth difference occurs when the city begins to consciously organize itself and becomes a caldron of political action which attempts to save itself from internal and external threats through prior planning. Sparta is the example given which was unusually successful because of its moderation between tyranny and freedom. The fourth difference is the internal differentiation of the city itself in both space and time and in terms of power relations.

The fifth difference is that which appears both at the beginning and end of the cycle. The real city that embodies Primordial Being fuses into an ideal city that exemplifies Conceptual Being, or on the other hand, the real city is destroyed by natural disorder like the recently rediscovered Iram, mentioned in Quran, or through being engulfed in war. It is war that is the most likely destroyer of cities. But because of their geographical fixity, natural disaster can also be an important factor. So there is a difference between the real city and its destruction or its idealization. In fact, destruction and idealization are nihilistic opposites that amount to the same thing. Idealization, if realized, amounts to totalitarian imposition of unnatural forms on the city that destroy it as surely as any natural disaster. The city is organic, and ideological changes distort that organic ordering, just as they distort themselves. Thus, the fifth difference is between the real city and the destroyed or idealized city that is the utterly nihilistic city. A city is a value structure which holds human beings together. When that value structure is destroyed, either by the imposition of a single overriding value like communism or capitalism as ideologies, or by the interference outside influences, the city itself loses its value and vanishes. We see this when the city states are fused into nation states. The value structure of the cities is fragile and stands against the nihilism which renders them meaningless, either because they no longer support life or because they lose their autonomy.

These five differences are seen by Plato as differences that make a difference in the emergence of the city. They differentiate the states of growth of the city. It is on these differences we must focus if we are to see the different meta-levels of Being at work. Primordial Being is composed of the relations between truth, reality and identity. We permuted them to get the basic elements of Primordial Being:

However, in that process we did not focus on the differences which appear between the components of Primordial Being or their permuted elements. Instead we took for granted our ability to differentiate these different aspects of Primordial Being. By taking this structure of Primordial Being and temporalizing/spatializing it (the city changes as it moves through time while it becomes more fixed spaitally), Plato causes these differences to become more prominent features. Plato produces a series of five differences that define the stages of the emergence of the intersubjective field -- i.e. the city. The differences are of different logical types. The stages of unfolding of the intersubjective field is a series of symmetry breakings. The primary symmetry is that of Conceptual Being. Conceptual Being produces illusory continuity via the functioning of ideation controlled by the categories (they arise in Aristotle). It is a symmetry because it allows smooth movement in every conceptual direction. Ideas are forms that do not change under transformations. Ideas give us the possibility of change and changelessness at the same time. When the symmetry of the illusory continuity breaks, it reveals the real city beneath the gloss. The breaking of symmetry involves the dialectic between the nihilistic opposites of ideology and destruction. The real city appears beneath the gloss of pure presence where everything seems perfectly available. The breakdowns in the real city cause the focus to shift to the ready-to-hand from the present-at-hand. We see the machinery underlying the generation of illusory continuity -- the mechanisms of ideation. The first and fifth differences define this transaction. The real city stands between the nihilistic opposites of utter destruction and idealization. If destruction occurs, then we get nomads on a field of destruction. If idealization occurs, then we get the continuation of illusion and glossing. Thus, the first difference is a transformation of the fifth difference as we move from one nihilistic opposite to the other. The ideational continuity always is a gloss over the destruction of the real city. The ideational continuity is a destructive parasite on the intersubjective structures of mutual consciousness. It slowly destroys the underling real city just as corporations destroy communities and neighbors as well as families. The nomads of our time, which are the result of this destructive side effect of ideation, are the myriads of homeless in America.

When the real city or the supporting intersubjective structure appears, we see it as having four distinct phases that are capped on either end by distinctions one and five that are actually the same distinctions that separate the presence-at-hand of illusory continuity from the ready-to-hand substructure. The whole real city is within the ready-to-hand modality. But we find that this ready-to-hand real city is genetically differentiated. So the distinctions between the phases of the real city must be of a different logical type from the ready-to-hand real-city itself. We notice that cities four and five basically represent the internal and external distinctions in relation to other cities and its own parts.

The real city is continually in process. It moves through the stages of emergence, and its internal and external relations are continuously changing. Cities one and two express the movement from separation to gatheredness, while cities three and four express the internal and external relations. Thus all these distinctions are of the same logical type, expressing the process of the real city through time and in space and in terms of movements of centers of power. So we see here that distinctions three and four, as well as two, are of the same logical type expressing process.

But let us not forget that there is a difference between distinctions three and four in relation to distinction two. This difference is between internal and external suppression of variety. Variety is suppressed by the lawgiver before internal and external differences can arise. The lawgiver appears like the minotaur in the center of the labyrinth of the city. The minotaur destroys the sacrificial victims (children) that enter his maze like the lawgiver destroys variety by imposing customs and laws that are deemed best. The maze has internal structure and an external perimeter. The victims become lost in the maze and are destroyed by the minotaur who knows the pattern of the maze. Only Theseus, with the magical thread, can enter the labyrinth to kill the monster that lurks inside. Therefore, there is a difference here that is of great interest. It is a difference between the suppression of variety (difference) and the creation of internal and external differences on the basis of that suppression of natural variety. This gives us the idea that the artificial suppression of variety of city two is in nihilistic opposition with the creation of artificial internal and external difference. This meta-difference raises to another meta-level of Being which Merleau-Ponty called Hyper-Being. Hyper Being is the cancellation of Process Being and Nothingness. Here, instead, we have the cancellation of the artificial distinctions imposed in process Being with the artificial, suppression of differences. This tells us that the Processes of the real city are themselves artificial and that the suppression of variety and the creation of artificial distinction between power centers within the city or between cities cancel. The point is that both the suppression of variety and the production of internal and external distinctions are of the same logical type so that when we move up to the next meta-level, these cancel and a new type of Being becomes apparent. At this new meta-level the essence of manifestation, which is purely immanent, appears. This is the unconscious of manifestation. It was identified by Michael Henry and was called by Heidegger Being (crossed out). This is the level that Derrida's DifferAnce appears. The essence of manifestation is hidden behind the cancellation of Process Being and Nothingness. Here we might call it the Minotaur at the center of the Labyrinth. The Minotaur is the hidden agent in the depths of the city-maze. The Minotaur understands the structure of the city-maze as it is constructed of artificial suppressions of variety and artificial differences. It is the work of a master craftsman such as Daedalus who produces its complex form and the means of its unraveling. The thread and the maze are opposites. When they are brought together by Theseus, the power of the Minotaur is destroyed. The maze is the pattern of artificial differences (internal and external) that are so complex and confusing. The thread is the artificial unity produced by the lawgiver who suppresses natural variety. When these cancel with each other, the essence of manifestation, or the unconscious aspects of manifestation, becomes one with both the sameness and differences. After this cancelation occurs, what is left is what Merleau-Ponty calls Wild Being, and Deleuze and Guattari call the fundamental schizophrenia underlying society. This is pure variety production within the nomadic families. The cornucopia of variety production is the opposite or inverse of the essence of manifestation. When these cancel, there is only emptiness left.

So we see that although all the distinctions within the process of the real city are of the same logical type, we are still moving to deeper and deeper meta-levels as we proceed back through the phases of the emergence of the city. The city of the lawgiver suppresses differences so that artificial differences can arise. This action of suppressing differences sets the stage for the creation of artificial differences, and also shows the subtle influence of the essence of manifestation on the nihilistic opposites of suppression and creation of artificial difference. Again as we travel back to city one, we see the wholeness of the nomads (Cyclops) and the production of differences based on the body which reminds us of Wild Being with its emphasis on the phenomenology of the body. Here the production of variety, fundamental schizophrenia, is seen as nihilistically opposite the essence of manifestation, so that when these two cancel, the real city vanishes completely, and all that remains is emptiness.

The real city stands opposed to the nomads who are seen as variety producers. The real city stands against the flow of the cornucopia of variety. This clearly shows us that Being is in operation because Being is a subtle clinging to existence. The real city attempts to hold on to things and keep their possessions in their grasp. In order to hold on, they suppress natural variety and create artificial distinctions. But this view of the nomads as natural variety producers is a projection on the nomads. The city people see the nomads going with the flow of nature, and they attempt to hang on to one place -- the geographical location of their city. The city dwellers attempt to hang on to each other instead of dispersing to the four winds. The city dweller is attempting to hang on statically to his place and his possessions. The nomad has already perfected dynamic clinging which allows him to use the horse in warfare and to track his herds. The nomadic culture probably has little more variety than that of city folks. But the nomads have learned to live with variety, using dynamic clinging in a way the city folks have forgotten. In Indo-European society the dialectical relation between nomadic outcasts and the city folks always existed below the surface. The city folks would go into the wilderness and become nomads in order to learn the art of dynamic clinging. Earlier, Plato mentioned the secret service. The Spartan society was most dedicated to this regime. They would separate boys from their families from an early age in order to teach them to deal with hardship. They forced their youth to become outcasts in order to instill in them the virtues of the nomadic life. Thus, it is not so much variety production verses variety suppression that is at stake, as much as the difference between static and dynamic clinging. That the nomads are a cornucopia of variety is only the view of the lawgiver who is engaged in suppressing variety. The truth is that human beings, whether nomadic or settled, are variety producers on the same scale. Within the city active suppression is a possibility that does not exist in nomadic societies.

So we have seen that the four kinds of meta-Being exist in the differences that define the real city. The four kinds of meta-Being mark the stages of emergence of the city as an artificial structure within the intersubjective arena. When any new thing comes into existence, it must pass through these four stages of Being. This is to say that the real city is the kernel of the Western intersubjective arena or worldview. It comes into existence, going through the same states as anything that emerges within that arena. When a new thing comes into existence in the Western uni-verse, it must go through these four states. A genuine emergence will go through all four stages. Artificial emergences will go though less than four. The city is a genuine emergence. It represents the rule of the law of man tyrannizing himself. It represents the production of the basis for the idealized city in which men live within a world created out of Conceptual Being. After Plato and Aristotle the substrate of the real city was lost. Christians later built heavenly cities on the same mold as Plato's ideal cities. However, by returning to Plato, we can see the archeological remains of the real city underneath his second best city, and in those remains we can see the coming into Being of the city as an intersubjective structure that projects the uni-verse through the operation of ideation which is structured by the categories.

That there are four meta-levels of Being, and that every emergent event within the intersubjective arena posited by the Western worldview must go through these four stages that the city itself goes through, is a fundamental finding in ontology. The Western uni-versal worldview has a specific structure which we can understand, and on the basis of that understanding we can unravel the deep structure of our worldview lost in the mists of time. Plato goes to the depths of our worldview in his exposition of the emergence of the real city. It was necessary for him to found the ideal cities which exist in the ephemeral world of pure ideas. But once the ideal cities were founded, then the real city is forgotten because the heavenly labyrinth is so much more interesting. But for us it is the real city that is of greatest import because it shows the sub-structure of the ideal city that has become important again in our own times as the concept of Being has fragmented. It is necessary to see this fragmented structure there in the foundation of the ideal city right at the beginning of our metaphysical tradition. We must not think that the fragmentation is new. It is, in fact, just a reappearance of the faults that were always there in the clay feet of Conceptual Being. Primordial Being allowed natural difference between the components of Being to arise. Conceptual Being attempted to suppress that difference and fuse the components of Being (reality, truth, and identity) into a single unified and continuous concept which became the foundation for intersubjective projection of the uni-verse via ideation controlled by the categories. However, here we see again the theme of suppressing the natural variety of Primordial Being to create a single Conceptual Being, and then the erection of artificial differences in this case of the categories that underlie ideation. The nomads were the ones who produced Primordial Being as their linguistic project over the aeons as the Indo-Europeans wandered the steppes. It was only in the city once we traversed from the mytho-poeitc to the metaphysical epochs that first the Apeiron and then Conceptual Being arose as the means of forging a universe out of the pluriverse in which the nomads lived. But both the pluriverse of the nomads and the projection of Primordial Being AND the uni-verse of the city dwellers with its single fused metaphysical principle are part of a single onto-mythological system which is the root of the Western worldview. It is necessary to go back into time to understand the nomadic vision in order to fully appreciate the inner workings of the worldview we have today. This book will attempt this journey, but only after it has fully established that the fragmented meta-levels of Being were known at least implicitly to our metaphysical fore fathers, and are not new concepts, only discovered in modern ontology. Unless these are ancient remnants of the genesis of our worldview, we will not be able to trace them back to show how our worldview unfolded through the stages of its symmetry breaking.

Our worldview is like a meta-city. When Plato describes the genesis of the real city, he is describing how an intersubjective structure is built up which is the basis of the projection of the uni-verse. Our worldview is an unfolding of the potentials of this real city as it is transformed into the ideal city. But our worldview is also rooted in nomadic intersubjective structures, so that there is in Plato's description a crucial transformation of our worldview. We will first go forward into the idealized city, and then after that, go back to attempt to understand the nomadic roots of our worldview.