Gospel of the Real
El Camino Real is the high road. It is ours. These are glad
tidings!
Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
Build a better road and the world will not have to beat a path to your
door. There is simply now the Gospel of the Real.
So where is the world in its regard of the Real? How do we find
out? Will Google work its magic?
The coherent gestalt of the Real is not easy to pin down. The point
of greatest general concern ought to be the reality of persons. This
would be the point on which Science would diverge most radically from public
sentiment. Philosophers argue mightily over the status of
folk-psychology. The status of persons is what is at stake.
I am not aware of any concerted postmodern view on the matter of
persons. One might think that they maintain an embarrassed silence and
just look the other way. Phenomenology is the intellectual bastion of
personhood. I suppose that postmodernity maintains an uneasy alliance
with phenomenology. Semiotics may be the wild card in this intellectual
stalemate. Humanistic psychology and existentialism also provide safe
harbors for persons.
Semiotics vs. AI might be the point of greatest cognitive dissonance with
regard to personal
identity (130,000 hits) [previously mentioned here,
here (w.r.t. the politics of human
nature) and here]. Not bad. Let's investigate.
Adding 'reductionism' yields only 1,200 hits:
'Parfit,
and the problem of personal identity in two philosophical traditions':
It is, therefore, refreshing to find two
significant new books treating persons and personal identity from the
perspectives of philosophy and Buddhist Studies, respectively, that defy
convention and intellectual taboo each by nodding in the other's direction.
Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons and Steven Collins' Selfless Persons are
concerned not only with personal identity, to be sure, but because it is a
central theme in both books and also their point of intersection, it will be
the focus of this essay. Reasons and Persons represents the radical
elaboration of a theory of persons derived ultimately from Locke, which holds
the facts of personal identity to be wholly explicable in terms of continuity
and connectedness, while Selfless Persons is a remarkably thorough analysis
and interpretation of the themes relating to the concept of persons in Theravada
Buddhist discourse.
------------------------------------------
[Parfit] asks that you consider in what sense,
if in any, you are the same person after a tele-transporter beams you to Mars.
Your terrestrial brain and body are destroyed and an exact replica appears a
few minutes later on the Red Planet. The replica has your memories,
intentions, habits, and tastes. He will carry out your projects, care for your
family, and so on. In short, he is continuous with you in all relevant
respects. But have you survived your tele-transportation? Parfit argues that
"this kind of continuity is just as good as ordinary continuity,"
and that, on certain criteria of personal identity at least, "my Replica
... would be me".
Derek's analysis ought to constitute a reductio ad absurdum for any
insubstantial view of persons.
The most familiar sort of Non-Reductionist
View is represented by the Cartesian doctrine of spiritual substance; but
there are other versions as well, for example, the Further Fact View, which
maintains that "though we are not separately existing entities,
personal identity is a further fact, which does not just consist in physical
and/or psychological continuity.
Rational agency and rationality proper are founded on personal
identity. There is no coherence outside of personal coherence.
Theism and personalism are logically inseparable. All identity is
necessarily founded on personal identity.
Take note of Chalmers' list
of sources.
I'm being sidetracked now onto The Identity Theory of Truth.
It
sounds not unlike direct realism.
[12/5]
I have not yet found a focus in the battle for the reality of the
self. There is a broad line of demarcation between humanistic and
behavioral psychology, but no real battle is in evidence. The two sides
manage to ignore one another.
Parfit, Lewis, and Sperry on Personal Identity
-- Eugene Marshall:
Imagine a person, John, will be subjected to a
fission operation where each hemisphere will be transplanted into the empty
skull of a new and different body. John’s body is disposed of
afterwards. We will call the resulting bodies John1 and John2. The
problem, as Parfit raised it, is this: how can John1 and John2 be identical
with John, but not with each other?
Aren't those philosophers clever? Analysis (surgery) is used to
defeat identity. I have a bit more faith in integrity. Let me
point out that the integrity of the self is transcendental: Self & Love
being the ultimate organizing principles of the cosmos. This matter was
broached in the context of autopoiesis and multiple
personality disorder. We are the multiple personalities of God, but
that does not reduce God, just as Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn do not reduce
Samuel Clemens. If you wish to perform experimental psycho-surgery on
God, well, good luck!
If personal identity is the foundation of reality, it would seem that
reality inhabits a slippery slope. That is the whole point. There
is a chain of being, but certainly not in any biological or Darwinian
sense. The holistic nature of being eludes all analysis and gives
comfort to skeptics and nihilists. That is the price one pays for this
stairway to heaven. What about the spiritually challenged? Is
there no handicapped entrance? Not to worry, salvation is
universal. So when you look around and notice that you are the last one
at the nihilists' keg party, just be sure to turn out the lights before you
leave.
On this same analogy, physicalism serves as grease on the stairway to
heaven. It can expedite passage in either direction, depending on one's
frame of mind. The chain of being is then not a stairway or even a chain
with discrete links. It is more like a fire pole. It is physics
that fills all the gaps. And it is God, too. How they manage this
joint effort is perhaps our Gordian knot. Surely the Monster Group gets
into this act, but don't ask me how, or from whence It came.
Reality does not provide us with a spiritual crutch. Believing in
one's own self is a struggle, as it was meant to be. Believing in God
makes that struggle rather more manageable in the long haul. The abyss
is an ever present reality. People do fall off the edge of the world,
every day. Fear does play a constructive role. The abyss is like
the wolf prowling on the edge of the herd. She keeps us on our
toes.
------------------------------------
Because of ontology's notorious slipperiness, the professionals
have, with good reason, largely abandoned these slopes. Now we have
amateur hour on the slopes. We are enjoying the ski party. How
long will it last? The party will last until things get serious.
When will that be? At about the time when the Eschaton starts making
noises off-stage. I'm trying to make all the noise I can, but Google is
not cooperating, is she? Does this make me a party pooper? If you
think this is a party, well, you ain't seen nuthin.
Speaking of which: slippery
ontology (1,200 hits) [and recall Computational Epistemology]:
Some Organizing Principles For A Unified Top-Level Ontology
-- Nicola Guarino (1997):
...it shows an open-minded attitude towards
the subtle distinctions of philosophy and the slippery issues of
natural language and commonsense. The philosophical field inspiring this
trend is that of formal ontology, which has been defined as "the
systematic, formal, axiomatic development of the logic of all forms and
modes of being". As such, formal ontology is a recent expression of
traditional ontology, intended as the branch of philosophy which deals with
the a priori nature of reality. In its current shape, formal ontology can be
seen as the confluence between a school of thought which has addressed
metaphysical problems within the mainstream of analytic philosophy, and
another school more closely related to phenomenology, in the tradition of
Brentano and Husserl.
Ain't the beer cold! The AI folk cannot stand on ceremony. They
have to go out in the trenches and wrestle ontology with their bare
hands.
Hanjo Glock, University of Reading, Title: Does
Ontology Exist? (COLLOQUIUM SERIES
THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2001)
Many early analytic philosophers regarded
ontology as a branch of metaphysics that is either trivial or meaningless.
But from the fifties onward, attitudes changed. Instead of having a good
laugh about Heidegger's 'The Nothing noths', analytic philosophers took up
ontology themselves, and with a vengeance. The war cry that philosophy
should concern itself with things instead of words, with reality instead of
concepts, has gained wide currency......
Quine, who has been the main inspiration behind
analytic ontology. Quine's naturalistic ontology purports to help science in
drawing up an inventory of the world. Through logical paraphrase it seeks to
identify and reduce the ontological commitments of our best scientific
theories. Against this programme I shall argue that Quine's conception of ontological
commitment is inadequate, and that his logical paraphrase cannot
contribute to the exploration of reality, but at most to the clarification of
our conceptual framework .
So the analytical folk preceded the AI folk. And, yes, it's time to
put those neo-ontologists in their place!
Ontological
commitment (2,700 hits):
Ted Sider is not
shy about his ontological commitments: Trenton Merricks, Objects and Persons
(2001):
Many otherwise reasonable philosophers are
impatient with ontology. These philosophers will probably have little time
for Objects and Persons, which claims that while there do exist "atoms
arranged statuewise", there do not exist statues; while there do exist
atoms arranged tablewise and atoms arranged chairwise, there exist no tables
and chairs.
Yes, I believe that chairs exist, but only as cosmic furniture: only
in virtue of their cosmological function in fulfilling God's love. So
that make us God's tools? Yes, and so is God ours. And, to some
non-negligible degree, I am the tool of my chair. This is just
functional relationalism; basic to any dynamic idealism. But does this
entail a downward causation relative to chairs? Yes. Chairs are
subjects of and to all sorts of causation, as are we.
Nihilist philosophers of Merricks' ilk [except for atoms & humans, as
noted below] forcefully remind us that any
ontological commitment at all is not a casual, piecemeal affair. If
chairs exist then as clearly as night follows day, so must God exist.
Are you able to resist this logic? Perhaps, then, you need some remedial
logic.
Merricks makes an exception to his causal
overdetermination argument for human beings. In addition to atoms
arranged human-wise, there also exist humans. On its face, this exception is
theoretically unsatisfying, all too convenient, and even tender-hearted. But
Merricks’s justification for the exception is interesting: humans have
causal powers beyond the causal powers of their micro-parts. Indeed, the
property consciousness, instantiated by human persons, does not even
globally supervene on microscopic physical properties, and it conveys
distinctive causal powers.
Vitalism and psychism are not about to go away.
I need to consider 'scientific
realism'. Does it imply an ontology broader than physicalism?
I gather that scientific realism is equivalent to naturalism in its commitment
to the ontology of the theories of science. There may be degrees of
commitment to particular ontologies, but this is not spelled out. My
question is the degree to which scientific realism is
anti-reductionist.
But see The Incompatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism.
Koons does not consider reduction, per se, but he points out that
scientific realism necessarily entails an irreducible normativity that is
incompatible with naturalism. A good point. [Apparently my
neurons have grown more
tolerant of Robert's pedagogy.]
Let me mention again
the Research
Project: Rationality and Non-Reductionism (van Tilburg University, NL).
Remind me to investigate this project. One participant is Dr.
M. V. P. Slors. Like the other participants , Slors struggles
mightily to placate both the emergentists and the reductionists. They
are of the school that all differences can be analyzed away. This, in
itself, constitutes a reductionist outlook. Is this philosophy or is it
arbitration? I think the latter. On second thought, I am also a
monist. We believe that all differences will be resolved in the
end. Instead of downward reduction, I anticipate and upward reduction
which is the hierogamos.
[12/6]
Continuing with "scientific
realism" & physicalism (400 hits):
I am finding no one remarking on the logical incompatibility of scientific
realism and physicalism. Are the philosophers asleep at the
switch? At the vary least, scientific realism entails the reality of
universals, beyond those entailed by physics.
The Deep Problem of Physicalism
-- Bryan Wesley Hall:
Many philosophers of mind attempt
to “explain away” the mental via the physical. This explanation has
had many permutations over the years. Barbara Montero, in her recent article
“The Body Problem,” makes the point that all of these physicalist
explanations require that one have a consistent and coherent definition of the
physical. If one does not have this definition, then any attempt at
explaining away the mental in terms of the physical is questionable.
-----------------------------------------
Hempel’s Dilemma: this dilemma has two horns.
The first horn of the dilemma states that if one defines the physical using
contemporary microphysical entities, then physicalism is probably false.
In every likelihood, the contemporary posits of microphysical science will
seem as abstruse to physicists one hundred years from now, as aether,
phlogiston, or Aristotelian elementals seem to us today. The second horn
of the dilemma states that if one defines the physical by reference to a
yet-to-be-completed microphysics, then our definition of the physical is
conceptually vacuous but trivially true.
After several decades, Hempel's dilemma still stands. Physicalism
remains logically vacuous. Why then does its ghost still haunt
the philosophy of science? It is because Scientism is still alive in the
land. Where is the silver spike that can be driven into the heart of
this Zombie? The Postmoderns have made a go at Zombie killing, but their
own notorious metaphysical indulgences (i.e. incoherent pluralism) render any
such attempts highly suspect.
A Kantian Critique of Scientific Realism
-- also by Bryan Hall:
Our purpose is to revisit the scientific
realist debate from a Kantian perspective. Kant was certainly not this
kind of scientific realist, and if his theory is shown to be damaging to the
scientific realist’s cause, then I believe the whole history of philosophy
that fell out of the scientific realist position becomes highly questionable.
This is particularly true of scientific essentialism. The purpose of
this paper is not to challenge scientific essentialism per se, but rather to
challenge the thinking that led up to the advent of scientific essentialism,
namely, scientific realism.
Neither physicalism nor scientific realism stand up to scrutiny.
Isn't it time to look elsewhere for coherence and rationality? In the
meantime, the postmoderns are content to wallow in their own
quagmire.
I am reminded that Physics is replete with abstract mathematical constructions
and universals. Also, like any realism, physicalism has to invoke
normative standards. If norms and abstractions are irreducibly entailed
by physicalism, then on what basis may anything of a mental nature be
excluded, even without appealing to the Quantum? How any version of
materialism ever achieved a status above that of moonshine will be the
enduring mystery of modernism.
Naturalism
: A Critical Analysis (Routledge Studies in Twentieth Century
Philosophy) by William
Lane Craig (Editor), J.
P. Moreland (Editor). Have I not already noted this title [here]?
It is reviewed here by the 'Infidels': Review of- Craig, William Lane, and Moreland, J.:
Of course, it can hardly be denied that there
are enthusiastic naturalists who fit the characterization offered by
Craig aThe next chapter illustrates the widespread confusion or conflation of
scientific materialism with science. Machines are described in anthropomorphic
terms which are then re-applied to human beings. Wallace gives examples from
journalistic articles and textbooks, but reserves his main analysis for the
philosophical conflations of John Searle, who does nevertheless reject some of
the more crass materialistic approaches to consciousness but cannot finally
extricate himself from its assumptions. This leads into the final chapter on
scientific materialism as an ideology, which begins with a masterly statement
of the overall view. If you disagree with this you must be either ignorant or
irrational! However, as Wallace repeatedly observes, the astonishing thing is
not materialism itself (as Crick maintained) but the fact that people 'so
enthusiastically embrace an unconfirmed speculative theory that utterly denies
the validity, even the very existence, of their personal, inner life' (p.161).
The ethical implications of such a view have proved disastrous in the past and
may do so againnd Moreland. Moreover, it is true that those naturalists are enemies of
theism. However, even if the collected essays manage to land some effective
blows on those naturalists, it does not follow that the cause of theism has
been advanced in the least.
Really, now! I'm certainly relieved to know that the Infidels are not
enthusiastic about naturalism. They have excellent reasons not to
be. The naturalists must be hurting if even the infidels are keeping
them at arms length!
[12/7]
Still on the topic of "scientific
realism" & physicalism:
The Taboo Of Subjectivity -- B. Alan Wallace, Oxford
New York, 2000, Reviewed
by David Lorimer:
Subtitled 'Towards a New Science of
Consciousness', this is a landmark book in consciousness studies in the
grand tradition of William James. Indeed it is the kind of book that James
would have written had he been updating his writings 100 years on.
A section on the ideology of scientific
materialism unpacks the key assumptions in a way not unlike the manifesto
contained in this issue: objectivism, monism, universalism, reductionism, the
closure principle and physicalism. While these may hold up for the world of
scientific materialism, they are lead to an impoverished understanding of
reality as a whole.
More generally, the sceptical approach of
science is not applied to its philosophical assumptions as these remain for
the most part unconscious.
The next chapter illustrates the widespread
confusion or conflation of scientific materialism with science. Machines are
described in anthropomorphic terms which are then re-applied to
human beings. Wallace gives examples from journalistic articles and textbooks,
but reserves his main analysis for the philosophical conflations of John
Searle, who does nevertheless reject some of the more crass materialistic
approaches to consciousness but cannot finally extricate himself from its
assumptions. This leads into the final chapter on scientific materialism as an
ideology, which begins with a masterly statement of the overall view. If you
disagree with this you must be either ignorant or irrational! However, as
Wallace repeatedly observes, the astonishing thing is not materialism itself
(as Crick maintained) but the fact that people 'so enthusiastically
embrace an unconfirmed speculative theory that utterly denies the validity,
even the very existence, of their personal, inner life'. The ethical
implications of such a view have proved disastrous in the past and may do so
again....
In his conclusion, Wallace suspects that
consciousness may be the cloud on the horizon at the end of the 20th century,
comparable to the ultraviolet catastrophe [physicists take note] at the
end of the 19th. From a contemplative perspective, the current scientific
world-view is fundamentally flawed since it has failed to take into account
the role and significance of consciousness in nature. He sees contemplation
playing a mediating empirical role between science and religion as they
overlap in the mind itself.
The natives are getting restless.
Nicholas Rescher appears on the
list. He is one of less than a handful of senior professional
philosophers in this country pursuing contemporary idealism. From his
incredibly voluminous list of publications, not a single one is posted as
being online. This is a major handicap. He does have a list of
94(!) books on Amazon. What little
I have seen of his work, I find murky. I have not been able to discern
any narrative of a world view. Lack of any narrative sensibility goes
with the analytic territory. But even an Umberto Eco can only project
his continental hermeneutic skill onto the past. The future remains a
blank slate for us non-materialists. I remain convinced that it is the
Eschaton that lurks beneath this deceptively placid surface. The
Eschaton is the telos of all narration. The closer that one
approaches to the metaphysical foundation of the Eschaton, the deeper is its
shadow. No narrative of less than biblical proportion can illuminate
that shadow. This is the eschatological barrier to all narration
of the future. The breaking of that barrier entails a Parousia.
It's that simple. The coherence we struggle for here is simply the Logos,
in all its historical singularity. While the Cat is away, we mice have
no choice but to keep on playing.
Nicholas Rescher,
Objectivity- The Obligations of Impersonal Reason Reviewed by
Scott Ryan:
Nicholas Rescher, probably the single most
prolific [!] author among contemporary philosophers, here provides a
sturdy defense of objectivity based on the primacy and inevitability of
practical reason.
Objectivity hinges on rationality -- as a
matter not simply of logical coherence, but also "of the
intelligent pursuit of circumstantially appropriate objectives." From
its requirements follows a sort of "rational economy," the
principles of which are very obviously objective and universal although they
may (and do) have different applications in different situations.
On this foundation, Rescher takes on a host
of contemporary critics of objectivity -- anthropologists, historicists,
sociologists of knowledge, personalists, feminists, Marxists and
class-interest theorists, post-modernists, and social activists. He finds
that each attack on objectivity involves a misconstruing of what it is all
about, and devotes the remainder of the volume to showing why this is the
case.
A 'rational economy' outside of a cosmological, eschatological
context would be throwing good money after bad. Coherence is not
sold retail.
As always, Rescher's presentation is clear and
cogent.
You recognize, of course, that my use of 'murky' for someone of Nicholas'
provenance is being relative in the extreme. He is fighting the good
fight. I'm just not sure that he is aware of Godzilla in the
wings. The awareness of that Presence must entail a new gestalt.
How can he be so close, and yet be so far? The only clue may lie in the
compulsive nature of his publishing, as if to keep the Monster at bay. I
am only two feet on the other side of that fence.
Now!, from the Helsinki Metaphysical Club (at the University of Helsinki,
'an open discussion and study group, which is primarily focused on the
investigation and advancement of Peircean philosophy and sign theory'),
we bring you:
EMERGENCE THEORIES AND PRAGMATIC REALISM
-- Charbel Niño El-Hani
& Sami Pihlström, Draft version,
February 2002. Comments welcome.
Please do not quote. (Shhhhhh........)
The re-emergence of the emergence debate is
related to the great development of the sciences of complexity,
interdisciplinary fields of research concerned with the complex properties
of life and mind, in the 1990s (Emmeche 1997). Another reason for the strong
comeback of this philosophical doctrine lies in the collapse of positivistic
reductionism and the related ideal of an unified science since the 1970s. We
can think of the fortunes of reductionism as inversely correlated with those
of emergentism, and, thus, the fading away of reductionism and the
enthronement of non-reductive materialism as a new orthodoxy would simply
amount to the resurgence of emergentism (Kim 1999:5). The revitalization of
the emergence debate is also related to a number of emergentist hypotheses
about mind and consciousness that have been proposed (e.g., Sperry 1969,
1983, 1991; Searle 1992; Baas 1996). The very term ‘emergence’ and its
derivatives have become popular in the context of computer models of
non-linear dynamical systems, complex systems research, Artificial Life,
consciousness studies etc. As the concept of emergence is increasingly used,
it becomes more and more important to keep the exact meaning of the central
ideas involved clear. Moreover, it is crucial to discuss in detail what
kinds of metaphysical commitments [?] are necessarily involved in
emergentist thinking, inasmuch as many scientists and philosophers still
think that emergentism is incompatible with basic metaphysical
commitments of the current scientific discourse. In fact, there are
now at least two different research programs dealing with the
notion of emergence (or, at any rate, using the term ‘emergence’), one
which is clearly materialist and naturalist, and another which aims
at the alleged synthesis of science and religion that some classical
emergentists, as Lloyd Morgan, dreamt about (Blitz 1992). Several examples
of papers affiliated with this latter research program can be found in
Zygon, a journal devoted to the examination of the relationships between
science and religion (e.g. Polkinghorne 1991; Peacocke 1991, 1993, 1994,
1999; Ashbrook 1996; see also Hasker 1999).
'Metaphysical commitments'? Eschatology, anyone?
In view of the difficulties faced by
supervenience physicalism as a non-reductive stance, we have to search for
alternative paths to the middle road between substance dualism and
reductionism that many philosophers find attractive. In this connection, it
is worth investigating if a combination of supervenience and emergence might
fulfill the double requirement of dependence and determination, on the one
hand, and non-reducibility, on the other.
'Middle road'? Is this metaphysics or arbitration? Is it the
thesis of pragmatism that truth is arbitrated?
Here we are getting close to what might be
labeled pragmatic pluralism regarding different approaches to the
human mind.
If you are going to be pluralistic you will have to include theism.
With God and Physics we have the irresistible force and the immovable
object. May the best One win! Atheistic pluralism in
oxymoronic. Sorry 'bout them apples, fellas. Mark my words, in the
End it will be idealism versus materialism.
...reminding scientists that the mind remains
psychological [...] even when its capacities are neurally or physiologically
explained.
Sure, Hani, as long as you are willing to eliminate all essences, you may
think whatever you please.
For some purposes it is better to employ the
standard physicalist notion of effective causation; for some others one may
adopt an ‘Aristotelian’ variant; for still others one might prefer a
non-causal account. This pluralism liberates us from the dilemma to which
Kim has led us, although, admittedly, some tensions do remain between the
positions we propose.
Good, then. On Sundays we can believe in God, and on the other days
we can be materialists. Will God cooperate? If She doesn't, will
just have to put Her in Her place. We'll keep Her in the kitchen for the
rest of the week. I wonder if God's love is always quite so
pragmatic. The mystics might be dubious on this score.
And then there was murkiness. And more murkiness.
Perhaps I'm forgetting though, that, despite or because of all their
Pragmatism, James are Peirce are generally considered to reside in the
idealist camp. Pragmatism then serves mainly as a smoke screen for their
idealism:
The tradition of pragmatism, in particular,
has strongly emphasized the practice- and discourse-embeddedness of the real
world and its properties that we take our discourses and theories to be
about. It is meaningless to speak about the reality of emergents absolutely
independently of human theories and conceptualizations.
Yes, keep your eyes on the shell with the pea.
This is not to deny that emergence is,
primarily, an ontological notion; rather, it is to say that ontology is not
clearly separable from epistemology, because it concerns a humanly
structured conceptualized reality.
If it walks like an idealist and talks like an idealist,.....
It is from Putnam that we adopt the
pragmatist idea that ontological commitments depend on the conceptual frameworks
within which they are made, frameworks which in turn depend on the human
purposes and interests they serve.
And which framework is God's, pray tell?
Well, are we getting the idea?
According to this pragmatist approach, not
even basic ontological notions such as existence have one fixed
metaphysically privileged meaning or use (see, e.g., Putnam 1990:96-97). Our
language and mind "penetrate so deeply into what we call ‘reality’
that the very project of representing ourselves as being ‘mappers’ of
something ‘language-independent’ is fatally compromised from the very
start". What counts as ‘objects’ or as ‘properties’ is as much
up to us as it is up to the world, partly depending on how we use these
words in the language-games within which our ontological structurings are
created.
This sounds like a fun game. Can God play, too?
[12/8]
The convoluted issue of emergence has effectively blurred the boundary
between ontology and epistemology. Scientific realism and naturalism are
thus beholden to the normativity and functionality essential to
epistemology. This is a big step toward idealism. Pragmatism, as
we have been shown, is a significant waypoint on this path.
----------------------------------------
The Biological Notion of Self and Non-self
by Alfred Tauber:
Without pursuing the ramifications of the
cognitive approach to immunity, it is still evident that this turn in
the language—“perception,” “memory,” “learning”—are in
service to a more elusive “knowing entity.” Thus hidden within
new formulations, the self still resides, reflecting a deep struggle
over the character of biology, one that has its roots in Bernard's original
understanding of autonomy, and now linked to our own more complex ecological
views of agency and determinism.
I just wanted to underscore the ontological travails of the
biologists. A travail which, evidently, they share with the organisms
they seek to know.
It is possible that biology will become the primary battleground of
contending metaphysical projects.
[12/9]
Presently I am listening to Nancey Murphy's presentation, 'Physicalist
Anthropology and Resurrection: How Much Can we Know?' at the Berkeley Eschatology, Immortality, and the Future of the Cosmos
conference (2001). Her limited web page at Fuller Theological is
accessed only through their search page:
Nancey Murphy joined the Fuller faculty in
1989. She is highly sought as a speaker at nationwide conferences on the
relationship between theology and science. Murphy also serves on the boards of
the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at Berkeley, and is a member
of the Planning Committee for conferences on science and theology, sponsored
by the Vatican Observatory..... {She] is an ordained
minister in the Church of the Brethren.
I would use Google: Nancey
Murphy.
'Nancey Murphy,
Supervenience and Causality' -- abstract by Lindsay Cullen
Nancey Murphy argues in Beyond Liberalism
& Fundamentalism, that a post-modern approach to metaphysics, based
on a non-reductive physicalism, will allow a fruitful bridging of the
gap between interventionist and immanentist views of God's interaction with
the world. This is achieved through her contention that there are causally
significant 'higher level' laws which can affect interactions and which are
neither constrained by, nor reducible to, lower level laws (such as the laws
of physics). Whilst her aim is to be applauded, her methodology is somewhat
flawed. In particular, her scientific defence of a non-reductive view is
shallow and unpersuasive, and her use of the philosophical concept of
supervenience is both eccentric and unhelpful. Thus her argument regarding
higher-level laws founders, taking with it her basis for a rapprochement
between 'liberals' and 'conservatives' on this particular topic.
To call herself a 'physicalist' distorts that term beyond
recognition. Why Nancey hangs onto that term is mainly to disclaim the
dualism to which her theological colleagues continue to maintain despite its
incoherence. The contrast with Cartesian dualism is why 'non-reductive
physicalism' remains current despite Kim's refutation of it as physical.
Non-theists of a non-reductive persuasion may call themselves
naturalists. Non-dualist theists, not willing to take the immaterialist
leap, are left with a serious problem of nomenclature, not to mention
logic.
A Brief Examination of Nancey Murphy's Nonreductive Physicalism
-- By Sean Choi
This paper will briefly examine Nancey Murphy's
"nonreductive physicalism" as she presents it in the book Whatever
Happened to the Soul? (Fortress Press, 1998). After presenting her view, I
will argue that Murphy's position is caught in the horns of the following
dilemma: either the mental causally overdetermines the physical, or the mental
is causally inert with respect to the physical. Since Murphy desires to save
mental causation, her nonreductive physicalism gets impaled on the horns of
this dilemma.
Yes, it's that simple. All of her disregard of logic
just to avoid idealism. When the philosophical barrier to idealism is
broken there will be a flood. Yes, it will be an eschatological flood of
biblical proportions.
In terms of the distinctions drawn above,
Murphy's "nonreductive physicalism" is a physicalist view in the
philosophy of mind which accepts ontological reductionism, but rejects
causal reductionism and reductive materialism. In her own words, "it
denies the existence of a nonmaterial entity, the mind (or soul) but does
not deny the existence of consciousness (a position in philosophy of mind
called eliminative materialism) or the significance of conscious states or
other mental (note the adjectival form) phenomena."
Her distinction between ontology and causality is remarkably
incoherent. If you're an anti-dualist and an anti-materialist, there
ain't much choice.
In summary, I have argued that given Murphy's
nonreductive physicalism and her desire to maintain mental causation, she is
stuck between the rock of causal overdetermination and the hard place of
mental epiphenomena. I tentatively conclude that since neither of these
positions are acceptable to her, it might serve her well to reevaluate her
nonreductive physicalism.
Well, Nancey, when are you going to bite the bullet? It
looks like your physicalism has got to go. Let's see then,
non-materialism & non-dualism = immaterialism. No? It looks
like it's time to bone up on Berkley, Nancey. Berkley (CTNS) is the Big
Game rival of Stanford, but this is more important.
CiS-St Edmunds Lecture series - MENTAL CAUSATION - Nancey Murphy
John Taylor: Response to Professor
Murphy's paper: Now, a non-reductive
physicalist is in some sense seeking to avoid the problems of dualism and
yet not veer towards a strongly reductionist position and one way in which
the intuition behind that gets going is the thought that mental properties,
even though they may be properties of a physical thing, are of a different
kind.
But if you're a non-reductive materialist, what
are you going to say about the causal efficacy of mental properties: do you
want to say that the mental can, in some sense, make an intervening difference
to the physical level. If you say that it seems that you've gone down the
route that the dualist goes down.
This is quite an acute dilemma which has
been pushed in a different variety of contexts in philosophy of mind
literature.
...do we really get round the problem, the
epiphenomenal question, by introducing the distinction between structural
and triggering causes?
Nancey Murphy: The concept of
structuring causes was employed in order to talk about how the brain gets
structured so that causal sequences realize or instantiate rational
sequences.
Nancey has taken a page from the book of Alexander: How to solve the Gordian
Knot.
All I really intended to do tonight is to
work on one tiny piece of the puzzle, how can you reconcile rationality with
causality. You've asked the big question about consciousness, which I don't
attempt to deal with. I think it's got to be left for farther down the road
when we know more about how the brain works. I am convinced, as a
physicalist, that somehow or other the activity of our brains gives rise to
consciousness, but I'm not at all sure that we'll ever have much subjective
sense of understanding how that happens.
I think that your interlocutors would settle for some objective
sense.
So all those questions are extremely
important ones; they've got to be worked on in the future but the fact that
I can't answer them now does not detract from the validity of the tiny
little first piece that I've done.
A tiny step for Nancey, a cosmic leap for humankind.
Nancey has the best intentions in the world of smoothing over the rough spots,
but the Eschaton is not quite in her league.
I believe that the notion of
self-transcendence is extremely important for understanding how we avoid
neurobiological determinism.
Janet Soskice: Every aspect of our
reality is created reality, and the big contrast in theology is not between
mind, spirit and body but between what is created and the One who creates,
that is the fundamental distinction and it is far more absolute than `things
that go bump in the night'.
What early theologians had to contend with was
various kinds of neoplatonists who did argue for an immortal soul and indeed
which participated in the divine - a chip off the divine block. Christianity
and Judaism did not believe that because they believed that the human being
was totally a creature,
But you need to emphasise creation: spirit is
created, soul is created, body is created; in one sense you could say they
are all material realities, that would be a direction you could take and be
consonant with historical Christianity.
Nancey Murphy: I think that adopting
physicalism is a very healthy thing for Christians because it establishes
the ontological dividing point just where it should be, which is
between God
and everything else, rather than half way up the great chain of being.
This last exchange explains a whole lot about just what us idealists are up
against, w.r.t. professional theologians. They would rather burn us monists
at
the stake, than have to grapple with the foundations of the world. Can
we blame them?
[12/10]
What we see happening with Nancey
Murphy (2,100 hits) may constitute a genuine phenomenon. Just off
the top, it may be a preliminary mainstream Christian reaction to the Tucson
Consciousness phenomenon of David
Chalmers (8,700 hits) provenance.
The mystics were effectively monopolizing the ample spiritual dimension of
the academically oriented consciousness movement, so I use the term 'reaction'
advisedly. The mystics are exploiting the intellectual concern with
consciousness to work their monistic magic. The Christian dualists are
beginning to react, finally.
The orthodox Christians have always felt extremely threatened by the
various monistic and pantheistic heresies that perennially threaten their
orthodoxy. It is fair to say that this conservative reaction was a
primary motivation behind that other phenomenon: the Inquisition, which, in
its turn, gave rise to Cartesian mind-body dualism and thus to the worldview
of Scientific materialism. But now that the Scientific materialists are
threatening to engulf the mind in their materialist maw, the non-materialists
are forced, with no small trepidation, to enter the fray.
The first out of the blocks were the mystics. They are an independent
lot, some of whom are willing to tilt at any given windmill. Our
orthodox prophetic brethren and sistren are rather more corporate and
reactionary in their modus operandi. Why? Well, they are
carrying a heavy prophetic burden. Theirs is the Eschaton. It's
not walk softly and carry a big stick. It's carry a big stick, and therefore
you darn well have to walk more cautiously. That is unless you have
designs on the second coming.
But when the prophetic types see that the mystics are, against all odds,
actually scoring points in the Mind Wars, they have to respond. Their
almost knee jerk response is to throw their lot in with the naturalists,
promoting a non-reductionist panpsychism as a stopgap against the dreaded
pantheism. This is where Nancey is. She is leading the troops in
this reaction.
Where then are the theistic idealists? Total
silence? One may trace this movement up from the ashes of the
Inquisition into Germany, England and then on to our fair, transcendental
shores. Since the first War, the transcendentalists have either vanished
or become speechless. The Twentieth Century was not at all kind to
idealists of any stripe. Will the Twenty-first be any more
hospitable? I guess we're about to find out.
My fervent hope is that Nancey & Co. will smoke out my fellow theistic
idealists, just as the pantheists succeeded in smoking out the theists.
Will Google work its magic through all this smoke? Will that radar show
any blips as my co-idealists find their stealthy way into this nascent
arena?
--------------------------
Perhaps Wolfhart
Pannenberg (1928- ) (3,400 hits) can shed some light on the matter, taking
my cue from Dramatic Theology as a Research Program.
Wolfhart emphasizes holism and hermeneutics as a bridge between the sciences
and humanities including theology.
For Pannenberg, the question whether the entire
history makes sense or whether there actually is a comprehensive totality
of meaning or truth is identical with the question about God.
Show me a coherentist and I'll show you a theistic idealist.
Therefore time is the condition and the measure
of the infinite's appearance in the finite, since the difference between
future and presence veils the barrier of the present and lets it shine in the
full light of the infinite, as long as its time lasts. Therefore a
definite manifestation of God is not possible until the end of history.
Furthermore, show me a coherentist and I'll show you an
eschatologist.
In the context of this understanding of science
and the world, it is important for Christian theology that Jesus acted in an
apocalyptic horizon, i.e. that he anticipated the end of the entire history of
mankind and the resurrection of all the
dead. Only in this context could he
talk about God as a reality determining the entire history. However, since
Jesus did not appear at the end of the world, but could only foresee the
totality, his proclamation remained only a subjective anticipation and
consequently problematic and hypothetical.
Pannenberg actually has - almost as the only
theologian - got involved in Hume's criticism in an open and honest way.
[...] As the bases for determining all concepts are completely different in
Hume's and Pannenberg's theory, both systems cannot be directly compared
with each other in Murphy's view: they are incommensurable. [...]
Moreover, Pannenberg's methodology is unworkable since it finally follows an
evolutionary view. In this way one could always describe afterwards only how
things have actually developed and there are no clear criteria which theory
should be chosen and preferred for the future.
In our view, Murphy's
criticism of Pannenberg is not convincing in important points. First of all,
the anticipation of the end of history is no longer a merely abstract or
even abstruse claim in our days. [...] Finally the epistemology of
Pannenberg is not incommensurable to Hume's epistemology, but just more
comprehensive, since it is not only "past-entailing", but
"past"- as well as - "future-entailing".
After her criticism of Pannenberg, Murphy
proposes an alternative method for theology and refers to Imre
Lakatos in this context.
"Neuro-Science and the Soul" -- a talk given by Dr. Nancey
Murphy, reviewed
by Norman Hall:
She warned her audience that she would make no
hard distinction between mind and soul, but would discuss the long-standing
question of the mind/soul as a single or dual entity. Most philosophers
and scientists, she admitted, are monists, now that neuroscience has completed
the Darwinian revolution, attributing mind to the brain, and not to any
immaterial entity.
So the resolution [according to Murphy] of the
problem posed by these multiple levels of description is not to be found in
the identity of the phenomenon described, but in "supervenience,"
which preserves both a non-reductionist description of the person, and allows
for divine action in the world of mental events.
To relate what she was saying to other trends
in modern theology, Murphy invoked the theology of Arthur Peacocke, who places
theology at the top of a hierarchy of sciences, calling it the most
encompassing of the sciences. Peacocke's position is not pantheistic
(wherein there is said to be but one reality, consisting of God identified as
world), but is one of "panentheism," wherein the world is in
God, but the divine reality must include more than the world. This, she
says, fits her "supervenience" concept, where there is more to the
mental than brain, that irreducible "more" being found on the social
level.
I am pleasantly surprised that Nancey looks with favor on
panentheism.
Nancey Murphy should be ashamed of herself for
trying to pull such an obvious piece of bait-and-switch flim-flam as she did
in her formula for the defeat of reductionism.
At least she has raised the ire of the 'godless' scientists.
The question for Nancey is that if it is OK for the mind-soul to be
supervenient on the body, is it OK for God to be supervenient on the
world? If not, does this not place God entirely beyond our reach,
and is that dualism the purpose of her 'physicalism'? The answer appears
to be, 'yes'. But this is not the thesis of Panentheism of the world in
God.
'Is
Science Good for the Soul? Then sings my psychophysical somatic unity!' --
Matt Donnelly (Christianity Today):
In recent years, Murphy has been saying that
human beings do not have a soul, at least not in the way that soul has
traditionally been defined—"the spiritual part of a human being that is
believed to survive death,"....
...throughout the history of the church,
philosophers have carried on esoteric debates about the precise nature of soul
that had little impact on believers in the pews. So what's new? What really
matters is that, as believers in Christ, we know that when we die, our souls
will not perish. [...] Right? Not exactly, says Murphy.
..."while
Christians are mostly consumed with opening yet newer rounds in their
century-and-a-half-old war with Charles Darwin, they have scarcely the
faintest idea that the new consciousness enthusiasm"—that is, the broad
consensus represented by secular thinkers such as Dennett, Pinker, and
Patricia and Paul Churchland and Christians such as Murphy and Jeeves—"is
by far the greater threat to the integrity of Christian belief." The case
against dualism, Guelzo suggested, has by no means been definitively made.
What is the case is that Nancey believes in the resurrection: we stay in
the grave 'til Judgment Day. But since she is an irrationalist about the
future, allegedly in deference to Darwinism, she can disavow all discussion of
this topic. This is a bizarre spiritual cocktail that Nancey is
brewing. All this to avoid what? A little coherence?
There is a great desire to protect the mystery of God. Any
transgression of the veil of God would be apocalyptic. Yes, that is my
point. All of this irrationality is by way of a spiritual
filibuster. But the show must go on.
While talk of conscious robots or cloned
humans may sound like science fiction, Christians must be prepared to engage
this brave new world by articulating a vision for the future of humanity
that combines scientific knowledge with biblical wisdom. The world is
watching. It remains to be seen how Christendom will respond.
Yes, it does remain to be see.
Books
& Culture Corner: "Daddy, What Is the Soul?" Does
the church have an answer?
By John Wilson 12/10/2001
(Christianity Today):
The same period has seen an explosion of
scholarly interest in "consciousness." There is a vast and steadily
growing literature in the field of consciousness studies,..."
Oddly, while all of this has been going on, the church hasn't paid much
attention. Sometimes it seems as if everyone but the church is talking
about the soul.
Perhaps the theologians are waking up and smelling the coffee.
'The
Methodological Equivalence of Design & Descent: Can There Be a Scientific
"Theory of Creation"?' by Stephen C. Meyer - Reprinted from The
Creation Hypothesis, ed. by J.P. Moreland (InterVarsity Press, 1994)
Most scientists who are theists also accept
this same conception of science. As Raymond Grizzle wrote in a prominent
evangelical scientific journal recently, "God cannot be part of a
scientific description. . . . [Further], any description that implies a
creator will probably also be looked at as improper by most scientists."
Nancey Murphy, a philosopher and Fuller Seminary professor, agrees. She wrote
recently in the same journal: "Science qua science seeks naturalistic
explanations for all natural processes. Christians and atheists alike must
pursue scientific questions in our era without invoking a Creator. . . .
Anyone who attributes the characteristics of living things to creative
intelligence has by definition stepped into the arena of either metaphysics or
theology."
However Christian intellectuals might go about
defending methodological naturalism, secular defenders of the principle assure
us that the prohibition against invoking God or creative intelligence is
anything but arbitrary. Instead, they assert that good independent reasons
exist for the conventional exclusion of such notions from all scientific
theories. Theories of design or creation do not, they say, meet objective
standards of scientific method and practice. Such theories do not explain by
reference to natural law, nor do they manifest a host of other features of
true scientific theories such as testability, observability and falsifiability.
Here we see a creationist taking on the theistic defenders of
naturalism. An intra-theistic debate on metaphysics cannot hurt the
cause of rational theism. Idealism finds itself somewhat in the middle
of this argument. The creationists take materialism rather too
seriously. We are confronted with contending dualisms: mind-body, and
Creator-creation. The creationists have so far avoided the mind-body
problem, but they are not taking the Deistic path of Murphy & Co.
This may be my final accusation against Nancey: she is a deist. Her
strict dualism allows no other view. Her favorable mention of
panentheism does not jibe with her other beliefs.
[12/11]
If truth be known, I'm not enamored with the soul. I am glad that Nancey is
sticking it to the theologians about the obsolescence of this, their pet
concept.
The soul, incongruously, has been the mainstay of both mysticism and
Cartesian materialism. Within those opposed systems the soul constitutes
the main barrier against coherence. Thus is the soul the great enemy of
idealism. If process philosophy has taught us anything, it ought to be
that the soul, along with God, is a process. We and God are all
creatures of the overriding process of love.
At most, the soul is a repository of potential energy, like a spring, a
spring weighted down by its accumulated karmic memories. Like a
compressed spring, it is inherently unstable. In its relaxation, it
returns to and is consumed by love. That is our salvation and our ecstasy.
God holds the key to our forgiveness. We cannot work it our by
ourselves, no matter how many lives we might spend. That is the key to
the Kingdom, and I would not be particularly surprised if it had something to
do with the cryptographic potential of the Monster
group. That extreme
mathematical object is essentially the memory, or 'soul', of the material
aspect of the world, which must overlap with each of our individual
memories. Topologically, all of Creation along with the Creator is held
together as a virtual chain of stitches. This is also reminiscent of the
coiling of the cosmic serpent. When the trumpet sounds....., well, you
get the picture.
This topological, non-atomic analysis of the soul is possible only in a
system that is monistic and coherent. This is also in agreement with the
holographic and fractal nature of reality. Our souls are the product of
a lengthy, historical process of symmetry breaking, as we see in the physics
of field theory. In the eschatological regime, we witness the reversal
of that symmetry breaking. These mechanical metaphors are only to be
used as analogical, conceptual aids. The actual processes are
metaphysical in nature.
The idea of an atomic soul is like a 'zeroth' approximation used in
calculating a physical process. As we move to higher order approximations,
the symmetry and topological continuity are restored. Theologians, not
surprisingly, are working with this 'zeroth' approximation of the soul.
They will have to be nudged repeatedly to get them off this mark, and onto a
more refined and coherent model of metaphysics. The first step is always
the most difficult. After that first big step to the next higher
approximation, all the other steps will come rather easily.
The postmodern anti-foundationalism is necessary to deconstruct our atomic
concept of the soul, so that a more coherent reconstruction of it may
begin.
-----------------------------
Time out for a little idealism:
it's always worthwhile to check the latest sources:
Pluralistic Idealism- Only Mind, Many Minds
-- Alan Anderson (1997). He
provides a synopsis of modern idealism. Alan participates in the New
Thought Movement, allegedly based on idealism
The
Personalist Forum is another bastion of contemporary idealism.
Borges, the Apologist for Idealism:
Marina Martin argues that Hume was an implicit idealist, and traces a complete
lineage.
Current Issues in Idealism,
eds. Paul Coates and
Daniel D.
Hutto (1997): just this blurb:
This collection of original papers, the only
current anthology on twentieth century idealism, shows the debate
between idealism and realism to be as important now as it was at the
beginning of the nineteenth century. It brings together an exciting range of
views by some of the most distinguished writers in the field.
Focused on the idealist/realist dispute,
contributors also discuss the relation of idealism to ethics, metaphysics
and epistemology. The volume also deals with the distinction between
ontological and conceptual forms of idealism, the place of idealism within
the analytic tradition of philosophy and the coherence of the
idealist/realist distinction.
The contributors include: Donald
Davidson,
Timothy Sprigge, Tom
Sorrell, Phillip
Ferreira, Leslie
Armour, Michele
Marsonet.
Not exactly a ground swell, not yet. Nicholas Rescher
is not a contributor, and none of his many articles is listed as online.
That Davidson is an idealist would be a surprise to me.
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ANGLO-AMERICAN IDEALISM
At the Olympic Centre for Philosophy and Culture and the
Municipality of Pyrgos of Elia, Greece, 20th-25th August 2003. It
sounds nice. Includes a long list of participants.
...and (iii) a discussion of the continuation
and revival of Anglo-American Idealism in the work of Dorothy Emmet, Errol E.
Harris, Rex Martin,
Peter P. Nicholson, Nicholas Rescher, Timothy Sprigge, and others.
The first two listed are no longer with us. Still no
groundswell. I see no linkage between this list of idealists and our
previous list of anti-reductionists.
Despite the paucity of these lists, I'm under the impression that, of the
philosophically active theists, most are also idealists of one sort or
another, and vice versa; Nancey Murphy being a very conspicuous
exception. This important fact of philosophical life has not registered
with the theistic community.
'Mereological Considerations in
Vasubandhu's "Proof of Idealism"'
by Matthew
Kapstein, University of Chicago, for the Studies
in Yogacara Buddhism seminar of the American
Academy of Religion (1998):
Vasubandhu, the founder of Buddhist
philosophical idealism, has been the object of considerable philological
research since the latter part of the 19th century. Historical data alone
justify the efforts that have been made, for, with the translation of his
works into Chinese, Tibetan and not a few other languages, Vasubandhu's
thought became, from about the 6th century onwards, a dominant force in
central and east Asian intellectual life.
It is instructive to ponder the
considerations which led Aristotle to shun idealism in favor of his
continuity-theory, and which led Vasubandhu to make just the opposite move.
For the Stagirite, the notion that a body might be "nothing but an
appearance" is patently absurd, and is tantamount to maintaining that
". . . its constituents are nothings, . . . it might both come-to-be
out of nothings and exist as a composite of nothings." If we
agree that this is not possibly correct, and reject atomism at the same
time, then we have no choice but to seek, with Aristotle, an alternative
theory of matter.
Vasubandhu, on the other hand, aims to
demonstrate that the atomic theory is both false and necessary: ". . .
atomic distinctions must be supposed; and there can be no simple atom."
Wherefore, matter is naught but ideal. Vasubandhu, if he is to make his
case, must demonstrate the truth of the premises of a simple modus tollens
argument: (1) If material things exist independently of the perceptions in
which they are given, then they must be atomic in composition. (2) But they
cannot be atomic in composition. Therefore, (3) material things do not exist
independently of the perceptions in which they are given.
[12/12]
My contention in these pages is that anti-reductionism entails
idealism. The arguments of Vasubandhu appear to be supporting this
view. But let's continue:
At this writing, I am not at all certain that
Vasubandhu's four counterexamples can be made to do the work demanded of them,
i.e. demonstrate that, on the assumption that matter is real, atomism
necessarily follows. They do, however, underscore several of the difficulties
which must be resolved by the continuity-theory, if it is to be made capable
of fully expressing our commonplace intuitions with respect to parts and
wholes.
Vasubandhu sought to prove idealism by
demonstrating, like Kant, that our concept of composite material wholes
necessarily entails there being simple, atomic substances; and that atomism is
false. In so doing, he, no less than the latter, underestimated the potential
strengths of the continuity-theory, and of the point-particle theory. It may
be asked: would even a fully successful argument of this type be sufficient to
demonstrate the truth of idealism?
It looks like I have to bone up on my Yogacara. I'll be using
materials from the above mentioned seminar.
I should have been investigating eastern idealism before this. I was
not aware of the analytic aspect of that tradition. As a coherentist, I
am not keen on the analytical; however, putting an analytical nail in the
coffin of materialism may prove very useful.
A major issue with Buddhism will be the reality of persons. I am not
an absolutist about souls. They exist in God's 'memory'. We'll see
how that works out with our Buddhist buddhies.
'External Objects Do Not Exist'
by Dan Lusthaus, Florida State University (1997):
Maatra ("only"), according to this
interpretation, acts as an approving affirmation of mind as the true
reality. However, the Yogacarin writings themselves argue something very
different. Consciousness (vijñaana) is not the ultimate reality or
solution, but rather the root problem. This problem emerges in ordinary
mental operations, and it can only be solved by bringing those operations to
an end.
Sounds like eschatology. Perhaps there are two minds: mundane and not
so mundane.
That the term vijñapti-maatra has been
valorised while no one would dream of valorizing the other -maatra compounds
is perhaps a testament to the pernicious persistence of bhaavaasava, the
compulsion to assert something existent to which one can cling. That is one
of two extremes from which the middle way is designed to steer us (nihilism
is the other). Yogacara is deeply concerned about the human propensity to
posit things we can appropriate.
Yogacara tends to be misinterpreted as a
form of metaphysical idealism primarily because its teachings are taken to
be ontological propositions rather than epistemological warnings about
karmic problems. The Yogacara focus on cognition and consciousness grew
out of its analysis of karma, and not for the sake of metaphysical
speculation. Two things should be clarified in order to explain why Yogacara is not metaphysical idealism: 1. The meaning of the word
"idealism" and 2. an important difference between the way Indian
and Western philosophers do philosophy.
OK, let's get down to business:
Tellingly no Indian Yogacara text ever claims
that the world is created by mind. What they do claim is that we
mistake our projected interpretations of the world for the world itself, i.e.,
we take our own mental constructions to be the world.
Are my buddhies drawing a line in the sand? Didn't someone already
say, 'A world is a world is a world.' Is there some
other world that I missed? If I were to save the world, which
world would I be saving? I can only do one. Is the world an
illusion? Of course, but it sure as heck ain't our illusion. It is
God's. Only a slight emendation. Of course, we are God's helpers:
like the elves at Christmas.
The arguments Yogacara deploys frequently
resemble those made by epistemological idealists. Recognizing those
affinities Western scholars early in the twentieth century compared Yogacara to Kant, and more recently scholars have begun to think that
Husserl's phenomenology comes even closer.
But there are also important differences
between those Western philosophers and Yogacara. The three most important
are: Kant and Husserl play down notions of causality, while Yogacara
developed complex systematic causal theories it deemed to be of the greatest
importance; there is no counterpart to either karma or enlightenment in the
Western theories, while these are the very raison d'être for all Yogacara
theory and practice; finally, the Western philosophies are designed to
afford the best possible access to an ontological realm (at least sufficient
to acknowledge its existence), while Yogacara is critical of that motive
in all its manifestations.
'Yogacara Buddhism
in China' by CHEN-KUO LIN:
Unhappy about some scholars, 'mainly from the
Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere', having challenged the Yogacara 'idealist'
ontology of 'nothing but cognition', in his paper entitled 'On the Problem
of the External world in Ch'eng wei shih lun', Lambert Schmithausen
vigorously argued that 'the existence of "extra-mental" material
(or other) entities' is rejected not only as objects of cognition but also
as such without any qualification. Although he might not have the final
word, Schmithausen's paper can be seen as one of the most significant
responses to the dispute initiated by Alex Wayman in the 1970s and espoused
by many scholars since, including Dan Lusthaus, who strongly challenged a
non-idealist interpretation.
[...] As expected, a sort of anti-idealist
stance is clearly demonstrable in Lusthaus' hermeneutics.
Yes, all this is just a bit confusing! Back to you, Dan:
In contrast to the cognitive karmic
dimension, Buddhism considered material elements karmically neutral. The
problem with material things is not their materiality, but the psychology of
appropriation - desiring, grasping, clinging, attachment - that permeates
our ideas and perceptions of such things. It is not the materiality of gold
that leads to problems, but rather our ideas about the value of gold and the
attitudes and actions we engage in as a result of those ideas.
The mind doesn't create the physical world,
but it produces the interpretative categories through which we know and
classify the physical world, and it does this so seamlessly that we mistake
our interpretations for the world itself. Those interpretations, which are
projections of our desires and anxieties, become obstructions preventing us
from seeing what is actually the case. In simple terms we are blinded by our
own self-interests, our own prejudices (which means what is already
prejudged), our desires. Unenlightened cognition is an appropriative act.
Yogacara does not speak about subjects and objects; instead it analyzes
perception in terms of graspers and what is grasped.
This sounds like a preachy version of Kant. How 'bout that Noumena?
The Noumena is the Unconscious. No? Let's not complicate things.
Dan does not say what the world is, all by its lonesome. Someone
terribly more crass than myself might say, 'Put up or shut up, Dan!'
'Conceptions of the
Absolute in Mahayana Buddhism and Shinran' by John
Paraskevopoulos:
In closing, I would like to reiterate the
great importance of an adequate and satisfying conception of the Absolute as
being indispensable to the Buddhist path. In a climate of increasing
scepticism and reductionism, especially in certain Buddhist scholarly
circles in the West, it is imperative that one does not lose sight of
the fact that without such concepts as Dharmakaya, Suchness, Nirvana,
Sunyata etc. being grounded in a true and existing reality which both transcends
and suffuses all things, Buddhism is left without any foundations and stands
on nothing, thereby losing all sapiential and soteriological
efficacy. In the attempt by some to make Buddhism more fashionable by denying
that it has anything much in common with views of ultimate reality in
other spiritual traditions, it does itself a great disservice in
failing to recognise clear parallels where they exist - parallels, indeed,
which should not surprise anyone. To speak of all these terms to
describe the Absolute as ‘symbolic’ in an attempt to somehow downgrade
the reality of the ultimate object of aspiration is sheer folly - of what
exactly are they symbols ? To be sure, these terms do not exhaust the
fathomless depth of the reality to which they refer but, on the other hand,
neither are they empty symbols created by us in order to fulfill some kind
of nostalgic and delusory quest for the Infinite which has no basis in the
true nature of things. A spiritual path which cannot offer any deliverance
from that which is finite, imperfect and illusory, to that which affords
eternal blessedness and liberation from suffering and the painful clutches
of samsaric existence, is simply not worthy of the name.
Soteriological? Now we're talking! Yes, those reductionists are
wont to run roughshod over almost everything. But what can they do about
those atoms? Those atoms are tough titties.
'The Theory of Evolutionary
Process as a Unifying Paradigm' by Frank Barr, MD
As Alfred North Whitehead (1929) has
facetiously pointed out: "Scientists, animated by the purpose of proving
they are purposeless, constitute an interesting subject for study."
Nirvana and Samsara Are Not the Same:
Adi Da Samraj
But both of these great conceptions have
frequently been reduced to popular ideas or beliefs and conventional ideals of
the beginner's mind and the earlier stages of life. Indeed, the larger
tradition of the Mahayana was specifically oriented toward this popular reductionism,
because it intended to be a popular religion rather than a "hard
school" reserved exclusively for those who were capable of the most
mature and advanced kind of practice. It is this aspect of the Mahayana that
represents a tendency to decline from the original attitude of the Buddhist
tradition, and it is this will to popularize Buddhist institutions that is the
seed of the false views or conventional reductionism I have just
described. Indeed, the pressures created by the needs of a popular
institutional system are what have created the greatest problems for all
esoteric and Transcendentalist traditions. The will to
"save" everyone (or to reduce the profound disciplines and
intuitions of the Way of Truth to a path that is acceptable even to those who
have neither the time nor the inclination to submit themselves to the Truth)
is the cause of all the most devastating compromises in philosophy. Of course,
the intention to serve and Help others also has undeniable merit, and so all
Teachers and traditions must struggle to serve humanity and yet retain the
authenticity of confinement to Truth.
Is Universalism that bad?