Yes, I would agree with that, although what I am agreeing with is a bit vague and my own position is not fully formed as yet. My first thought is that it is the polar opposite of the post modern immanence and the post modernists might well just find it laughable.

In summary my current position is along the lines of what Kant said about the noumenon, as unknowable and therefore likewise it's role in our existence and the extent or not of our freedoms. But I would not agree that it is unknowable in principle, only that we can conclude that it is unknowable from the human condition or position at this time. Also I am of the opinion that it can be known through "transcendent insight", or it can be revealed through revelation and thus known by a simpleton, or uneducated person equally as to an educated person.

I am also of the opinion that the transcendent is the immanent and that to make the distinction is a category error, due to the human propensity to externalise and hence externalise the transcendent.

I certainly agree with you that the noumenon should not be thought of as "unknowable". I think Kant convincingly showed that we cannot think our way there using rationality and analysis, and that we should not assume that what we know regarding things as they are revealed to us by the senses, and our mathematical and general theoretical modeling of that revelation, can tell us anything about the ultimate nature of those things or whether 'ultimate nature' (which intuitively seems to makes sense to us even though we cannot precisely define it) is really even a coherent concept or not.

What about others ways of knowing the 'ultimate'? Mystical ways for example. Those ways do not deliver determinate kinds of knowledge (or at least they do not deliver inter-subjectively determinate kinds of knowledge). But I am often led back to the thought that we cannot have any certainty at all other than the sense of absolute certainty; and this does seem to be very strongly correlated with mystical 'knowledge' (as well as our knowledge of things in our everyday experience). When it comes to certain aspects of our experience, all doubt seems hopelessly contrived; merely a carping habit, a trivial artifact of our restless intellects.

I think on a certain definition of "immanent" I would agree with you; then transcendent and immanent described two sides of the one coin. For me this is related to the notion that the material world is a symbolic expression of the spiritual world. That idea seems very right to me lately.

But I am often led back to the thought that we cannot have any certainty at all other than the sense of absolute certainty; and this does seem to be very strongly correlated with mystical 'knowledge' (as well as our knowledge of things in our everyday experience).

Butting in here, but I'm in total agreement with this point - what I've experienced in my few 'mystical' moments had a certainty that is, literally, ineffable. Maybe clarity is the better word? All i know is they put my 'non-mystical' life into relief as a kind of excrescence, valid in-and-of-itself, but somehow derivative and blurred, like a game you started playing, and then forget you were playing, until the limits of the game began to seem like ultimate limits, beyond which nothing.

There's a line in Gravity's Rainbow, toward the end, which captures it so well:

"When something real is about to happen to you, you go toward it with a transparent surface parallel to your own front that hums and bisects both your ears, making eyes very alert. The light bends toward chalky blue. your skin aches. At last: something real.....moving now toward the kind of light where at last the apple is apple-colored. the knife cuts through the apple like a knife cutting an apple. Everything is where it is, no clearer than usual, but certainly more present. So much has be left behind now, so quickly."

I can very much relate to what you say; I liked your analogy of playing a game that you forget you are playing. Also a great passage from Pyncheon. I haven't read Gravity's Rainbow (although it's on my shelves) but I read V a very long time ago and enjoyed it. The one thing that seems to have stuck in my mind is the alligators in the sewers for some reason.

Yes we cannot think our way there (to the noumenon) in isolation. However it has occurred to me that there are at least two other routes, which if when crossed referenced and contemplated* through thought, enable one to go further.
Firstly the development of the realisation that one is acquainted with the noumenon by inhabiting the structures it forms, or generates. This can be viewed exoterically and esoterically. Exoterically one is constituted of bits and pieces of noumenon and through a form of communion equivalent perhaps to prayer or meditation, one knows it. Esoterically, one's being, mind, consciousness, experience and intellect are all expressions of the noumenon and can be known through the contemplation of the authorship of the noumenon, i.e. The equivalence of the fact that the style of an artist can be discerned in the character and technique of the brush strokes, which is like a signature of the artist. A signature which can be deciphered in any work they do, because it is their natural style.

Secondly through mysticism, which is a process in, or journey through, life in contemplation and practice of the principles of mysticism, which are found in the works of other Mystics, or discerned by one's self through contemplation.

Regarding intersubjective determinate knowledge of mysticism. It is communicated Esoterically in some literature, although it may be debatable whether this could be described as determinate. Also and I have practiced this myself, through direct verbal and body language communication with a fellow seaker, the verbal tradition. Also as I have said already I anticipate a determinate science of mysticism, but that it has not been written yet.

Regarding the transcendent and the immanent, in stating that they are the same, or perhaps facets of one coin, as you say. I include the idea that what is being addressed in this is something beyond our rational capacity and so making rational distinctions is in danger of identifying a dichotomy which isn't there. For me the transcendent/immanent is a multidimensional eternal presence within the self, which is accessible either through our common natural evolved faculties, although in a small measure. Or by a process of more direct access through the practice of some mystical or Yogic practice. Something which I would also say is limited by the evolutionary point of development of one's soul.


* I have developed a system of thought in the cross reference of different approaches which approximates by analogy the use of calculus in mathematics.

Yes your analogy of playing a game chimes for me. I have found that this process of loosing one's self in the "game" is an interesting phenomena and something which I have isolated and used in my day to day voyage of discovery in life, or questing, so to speak.

I would like to introduce the idea of the veil, if I may. A veil in mysticism and spirituality is some natural barrier or threashold demarking domains. For example for my cat, my world of intellectual thought is veiled from her experience. This veil consists in our differing levels of mental capacity, communication etc. For us the nature of the immanent may be veiled from our intellect.

Firstly the development of the realisation that one is acquainted with the noumenon by inhabiting the structures it forms, or generates. — Punshhh

I think I see what you are getting at here, but I would probably tend to say 'being the structures it forms, or generates' rather than "inhabiting...", because the idea of inhabiting seems to introduce a concept of separation; and, for me, the notion of acquaintance through separation seems to make sense only in the context of being acquainted with phenomena.

Firstly the development of the realisation that one is acquainted with the noumenon by inhabiting the structures it forms, or generates. This can be viewed exoterically and esoterically. Exoterically one is constituted of bits and pieces of noumenon and through a form of communion equivalent perhaps to prayer or meditation, one knows it. — Punshhh

Could you what explain a bit more what you mean here Punshhh? The difficulty I am having is with the notion of 'bits and pieces of noumenon'. I don't think the noumenon can be differentiated, anything differentiated is phenomenon.

This thread seems to have moved far from the issue of common presuppositions to be found among the Post-moderns (although I am sure that with a bit of good old-fashioned ingenuity what we are contemplating here could be tied back to it. ;)

As this gets deeper it is more difficult for me to explain using philosophical terminology, as I don't routinely use that for such explanations, so you will have to bare with me in the use of unauthodox phrases, metaphor and creative analogy.

By inhabiting I am referring to our conscious entity, our thinking rationalising self. It is, due to abstraction and lack of understanding of its position in the world, separate or veiled from its actual presence in the world. So in mystical contemplation it is necessary to acknowledge that the rational mind is apart from its subject of contemplation. Indeed that it is blinkered, veiled and in a sense is the obstruction to a clear sight of the world. And the rationalising self, which is doing the contemplation, is by its abstract nature seperate from the phenomena of its existence and is only able to contemplate phenomena(hence an obstruction in the contemplation of the noumenon). Mystical practice as I see it is a repeating of this kind of contemplation of difference, abstraction and inhabitation, in order to realise a lack of the same, in the rational mind. So one develops a, by analogy, climbing frame of matrix for the rational mind to see beyond the conditioned mind we are given by our peers.

By bits and pieces, I was referring to the predicament that while we are the noumenon, we don't apprehend it as it is, only in part(bits) and incomplete subjectively(pieces). For example the noumenon does presumably contain in its nature dimension, or extension and we see and understand this through seeing and knowing it in the world. But this is only a part of its nature and we only ever see a part, a part determined by our evolutionary inheritance as beings. So in a sense our world of experience is a mirroring of our nature.

I would say though that I don't think we can conclude that the noumenon is differentiated, or that it is as we might like to imagine it. A contemplation of its nature is another issue as I see it.

Yes I know this is straying from the OP, I am thinking of starting a new thread to discuss these ideas.

Thanks for your explanation Punshhh, it makes your position clearer to me. I think it would be a great idea to create a thread to discuss these ideas. I will certainly participate.
:)