Treatise on Eldari Dichotemic Philosophies by Ardeth Nomen

To speak of Eldari philosophy is, first and foremost, to speak of the very act of speaking, and of speech itself as the fundamental substance of being. Truth is made manifest through speech, and being is disclosed as an element of language itself. Thus, speaking of philosophy without linguistics is impossible. This combination is already accounted for in the very word the Eldar have for this discipline: Vashe'el'vesh, generally translated translated by the Eldari into Mittelseean Common as 'science,' is derived from the syllables 'vashen,' meaning 'to speak,' 'ele,' meaning 'of', 'about', 'from', or 'against', and 'vesh', 'speech'. Further, it is important to note that in Eldari script, the very design of the characters is meant to imply a certain truth status, and in that script, there is an implication that both the speech and the speaking being done of, about, for, or against it are the speaking of truth. The notion is further complicated in that 'ele' means not only 'of' in the sense of 'about', but also in the sense of 'from.' Thus, yet another accurate translation of Vashe'el'vesh would be the apparently redundant 'speech from speech'. From this it can certainly be gleaned that it is difficult to speak of this speaking of speech. On frequently encounters redundancies, contradictions, and paradoxes, but these are the very core of the discipline itself. Such notions are called Deas'han in Eldari, generally translatef as 'dichotomies'.

The most fundamental dichotomy of Eldari philosophy is that of Viknu and Skygg. Viknu is a syllable implying existence, intellect, luminosity, and fatherhood. Skygg implies its opposite, nothingness, carnality, darkness, and motherhood. Interestingly, the character for both terms is the same, though each imply a different ontological status. The voicing of Viknu is that of fantasy, the voicing of Skygg corresponding to truth. In Eldari philosophy, it is understood that the shared character implies an interdependency. Each term only mantains its meaning insofar as they are distiguishable from each other. Venee writes:


 * "To speak of Viknu without Skygg would be to not speak of Viknu at all. Like heat and cold, life and death, man and woman, each only refers to a difference, measurable as truth, which determines the perimeters of the known. Without Skygg there is no Viknu. It is of interest to all that nature [Skygg] does not demonstrate reciprocity on her part, for Skygg bursts forth even up and against the law [Viknu]."

-More to come-