:pray:

Do you think that full reflection is possible for a person who is inside a paradigm? — Astorre

I wouldn't want to try and proscribe what is and isn't possible for others. But suffice to note that historically, at least, many religious cultures were associated with renunciation of society and 'the world'. Those that sought to integrate with society were mediated through codes and rules to maintain the distinction between the sacred and the profane (Eliade). Part of the problem with modern culture is the way it tends to level out all those kinds of differences.

That said, I think it's quite possible to become critically aware of the way we as individuals have absorbed the prevailing attitudes from the culture around us. That was a big part of 60's counter-culture, whether it succeeded or not (see Theodore Roszak).

The split between the purely private and inner (reflection) and the socially constructed (paradigm) is artificial. — Joshs

Rather a sweeping statement. Buddhism originated as one of a number of Śramaṇa movements that rejected both society and the authority of the Vedas (another surviving example being Jainism). They were deliberately 'outside' or removed from the prevailing (or any) cultural paradigms, although it is true they went on to form new paradigms of their own. Nevertheless, there is always an element in Buddhism which remains outside paradigms of all kinds (śūnyatā as neither a mental nor social construct).

Many thanks, very insightful. I could benefit by reading more of Kierkegaard, difficult though his prose might be.

Historically, such a view of man seems to flow from voluntarist idealizations of freedom and power that first crop up in theology, not secular philosophy. That was originally the whole impetus for attempting to uproot the old metaphysics, and for the resurrection of empiricism itself; absolute divine will can brook no "natures" as a challenge to its freedom in willing. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is the central theme of Michael Allen Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity, which I read just as i started posting on Forums. Especially the substitution of the physical universe for the Divine.

...how notions of reason become wholly discursive, such that by Hume and Kant's day they can basically just write-off most of past thought (Eastern as well as Western) by asserting this fact about reason definitionally (i.e., dogmatically) and no one calls them out on it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, true! I'm interested in, but will probably never get around to actually studying, those neo-thomists who grapple with Kant - they're mostly French Jesuits, as I understand it. Also Bernard Lonergan. But Jacques Maritain, for one, while respecting Kant, also declared that the 'intuition of Being' escaped him. On the other hand, there's also Ian Hunter, who says that Kant's philosophy really amounted to an alternative religion - he has a forthcoming book, The Kantian Religion.



Aristotle does have a strong element of contemplative spirituality, though. I think this is what enabled the Muslim and Christian scholars to find in him such a kindred spirit.

But if happiness (εὐδαιμονία, eudomonia) consists in activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be activity in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be the virtue of the best part of us. Whether then this be the Intellect (νοῦς nous), or whatever else it be that is thought to rule and lead us by nature, and to have cognizance of what is noble and divine, either as being itself also actually divine, or as being relatively the divinest part of us, it is the activity of this part of us in accordance with the virtue proper to it that will constitute perfect happiness; and it has been stated already* that this activity is the activity of contemplation [θεωρητική, theoritikós) — The Nicomachean Ethics 1.1177a11

Can you give an example of a religion in the pre-scientific era addressing existential dilemmas? — Janus

That's what they were about, although the term 'existential dilemma' is very much a modern one. But they sought to situate humanity within the cosmic drama, either positively (orthodox Christianity) or negatively (gnosticism). That provided a reason for why we are as we are in terms other than physical causation.

I've always sought the cosmic dimension of philosophy, which is why I lean towards some form of religious spirituality. Apropos of which:

...we may be surrounded by objects, but even while cognizing them, reason is the origin of something that is neither reducible to nor derives from them in any sense. In other words, reason generates a cognition, and a cognition regarding nature is above nature. In a cognition, reason transcends nature in one of two ways: by rising above our natural cognition and making, for example, universal and necessarily claims in theoretical and practical matters not determined by nature, or by assuming an impersonal objective perspective that remains irreducible to the individual 'I'. — The Powers of Pure Reason: Kant and the Idea of Cosmic Philosophy

Note the resonance with the above quote from the Nicomachean Ethics.

Anyhow, I wouldn't say the "crisis of meaning" comes down to "too many choices," or "too much freedom," in the minds of critics at least, but rather something like: "all the myriad choices are bad, and I'd rather have fewer and good choices than an ever increasing menu of the inadequate," and "this is an ersatz freedom that simply amounts to freedom to become a bovine Last Man—when AI learns to mindlessly consume I'll have no purpose left," or something like that. To reduce it to anxiety over modernity is to ignore the strong positive thrust that often comes alongside it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

It’s my view that for the most part the “meaning crisis” is a case of too much freedom. For some, that freedom is crippling. It fits with my sense that we’re in a transition period where no single dominant worldview can readily function unless it’s imposed by authoritarian figures (MAGA?). But I might be wrong.

I’ve just rewatched Vervaeke’s opening lecture in his Meaning Crisis series. In his outlining of the problem, I don’t see anything he describes (increased cynicism, anger, futility, alienation, bullshit) that can’t be explained by capitalism and social media. Increasingly people live in bubbles of doubt, paranoia, and reactionary energy, so I can understand why some might struggle to find meaning, and why some academics believe there’s a meaning crisis that is more significant than our habitual questioning and despair. Within the current communication and technology frameworks, it’s easy for ambivalence to intensify into paranoia and extremism. The internet is a great place for doubts to be radicalised. The rest of us manage well enough with family, friends, work, hobbies, and planning for the future.

I’m not surprised to hear that Vervaeke comes from a fundamentalist background. Breaking away from that often leads people to try to build a system they can confidently believe in; one that preserves a sense of transcendence without the reductionism of fundamentalism.

I’m interested in your thoughts on this meaning crisis. Do you think that, if it exists, it’s because we’re in a transition period, still haunted by the old beliefs and struggling to adapt to new ways of understanding? What are projects like Vervaeke’s trying to accomplish? It feels to me like they’re trying to put the genie back in the bottle. But as someone who isn’t looking for his kind of answers, it’s perhaps easy for me to misread the material.

Do you think that full reflection is possible for a person who is inside a paradigm?
— Astorre

The same processes that embed individuals within social paradigms shape the nature and direction of ‘reflection’. The split between the purely private and inner (reflection) and the socially constructed (paradigm) is artificial. — Joshs

I think @Astorre is asking about something else, something along the lines of,
"If a person is fully committed to a particular worldview (or paradigm), can they critically examine said worldview/paradigm?"

Namely, a critical examination of a paradigm would require stepping out of that paradigm; but such stepping out would be in conflict with one's committment to said paradigm.

Do you have any openness to (radically?) changing your views? It certainly doesn't seem that way. — Janus

@Wayfarer has the attitude of an old swami, that's what the problem is, as far as a philosophy forum goes. It's not that people resent the idea of some "higher truth" per se. It's that those who claim to know the "higher truth" are a dime a dozen, but they refuse to acknowledge this, what to speak of upping their game.

But I shrink from saying ‘objectively true’, at the same time. That’s part of the dilemma. — Wayfarer

Then, clearly, you've still got some work to do.

The modern self is thus torn between scientific objectivity and moral subjectivity—between a world that seems devoid of meaning and a consciousness that cannot live without it. — Wayfarer

I have to agree.

See my very first post here, 2 years ago.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15012/human-beings-the-self-contradictory-animal/p1

We discovered long ago that our most intimate and trusted experiences of things, are not what they seem to be. Since then, the only progress that has been made is to further clarify this predicament.

To put it bluntly, do we know any wisdom besides the fact that "knowing" might be an absurdity?

I picture each person today as a boat, some with a makeshift rudder, some with a paddle, but mostly, utterly adrift. In the middle of a vast ocean, at night, with no moon or stars. Occassionally bumping into the other boats and sharing the predicament for a time. But that’s it.

Anything else in view seems artifice, and hollow upon inspection.

Philosophy has taken away all illusions of a port, or a compass, or a goal towards which to navigate. Science has only hidden the fact of the boat and the ocean and the darkness (showing us the atom and the galaxy instead, and with mirrors, smoke). Politics hides the very notion of illusion - lies for the sake of “your truth”, meaning “my power”. Religion, our original and once only hope, is only understood by a few per generation and practiced by fewer still.

I don’t think people want to believe their own eyes. We are mostly, like adolescents, and not in earnest or of good faith. Between East and West, Christ and the pagan, science and our base instincts, we already taught ourselves all we need to know to find meaning - all of the wisdom there will ever be is written somewhere, hidden in so many distant corners. But each new generation mostly rejects what little wisdom it happens upon, because we each want to build it for ourselves anew, as if we are each the only ones to discover this predicament or its resolution. We each think, if I don’t build my own wisdom, it cannot be trusted.

If we are in a transition period, and there is something new to be transitioned to, that new place will not forget anything past but will incorporate all of it. That is what I see. Western linear/logical philosophy needs to incorporate eastern circular/paradoxical immediacy, and vice versa. The trend is to reject all of it as not good enough. I personally it’s combination good enough.

People are too proud of their own suffering. Who can dare to tell you your suffering is insignificant? Who would dare admit that to himself? (But maybe suffering is neither good nor bad - God forbid!)

My conclusion is this: unfortunately, we cannot find meaning by ourselves. There either is no meaning (and the existentialists capped off the enlightenment correctly), or meaning must be given to us as a gift from God. Any other “meaning” is a game played to avoid meaningless.

We cannot forget death. We each die. Find meaning in death without God. (Rebirth is death and the end of rebirth is life, so that only confused the issue of death). Meaning that dies with me makes any such meaning, meaningless. To me. I’m too old to lie to myself anymore.

But I don’t want to leave it at that. There really is hope. There really is a source of meaning. It wants you to know. Persevere.

I’d be the last to deny it.

When traditions speak of “higher knowledge,” the term “higher” need not imply rank or authority - something that seems to push a lot of buttons! - but rather a difference in mode, scope, or reflexive awareness. In a psychological or developmental register, ‘higher’ can describe a more integrated or self-aware mode of cognition—what cognitive theorists might call ‘higher-order consciousness’ or ‘skilled cognition’. In a philosophical sense, it can mean a level of insight that grasps not just objects of knowledge but the conditions under which knowing itself arises, as in Plato’s distinction between opinion and understanding. That is metacognitive insight - insight into knowing how we know.

In early Buddhism, the corresponding term to ‘higher’ is ‘abhi’ This is found in abhidharma (‘higher dharmas’, the philosophical psychology of the Buddhist canon) and abhijnana (‘higher knowledge’, meditative attainment or insight.) In that context “higher” designates knowledge that is non-conceptual, direct, and liberating, escaping the ‘self-other’ dualities that underlie ordinary cognition.

Something similar can be found in phenomenology’s turn toward seeking insight into the structure of experience - Husserl’s epochē. Husserl’s wrote admiringly of Buddhist abhdharma .

However it has to be acknowledged that Buddhist (and in general, Indian) philosophy has a soteriological dimension (aimed at liberation or ‘salvation’), which is mainly absent in Western philosophy. And this is one of the reasons that any mention of ‘higher knowledge’ produces such a lot of pushback. ‘Ah, you mean religious’ And we all know that religious authority is something to be disdained. Why, it’s dogmatic!

But that reaction is also characteristic of the very division that this thread is about. It’s why I said that Western religion is one of the sources of this conflict. The emphasis on right belief or religious orthodoxy, and the exclusivism of the Western religious mind (‘no other God but me!’) has engendered these divisions at a pre-conscious level of awareness, and they condition many of the responses to the very idea of ‘higher truth’ or ‘higher awareness’. (This is one of the reasons that dharma has to be differentiated from religion, but that is for another thread.)

:100: Written in a kindred spirit, so to speak.

It’s my view that for the most part the “meaning crisis” is a case of too much freedom. For some, that freedom is crippling — Tom Storm

If you've crippled a bird's wings are they still free to fly away simply because you've opened the cage door?

If you've crippled a bird's wings are they still free to fly away simply because you've opened the cage door? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure, but a crippled bird still knows precisely where freedom lies.

I started out writing this OP as a kind of valedictory, as it is really one of the main themes I’ve been exploring through all these conversations. I’m nonplussed that it was received with such hostility when I think it is pretty well established theme in the history of ideas. I’m also getting tired of having the same arguments about the same things with the same people. It becomes a bit of a hamster wheel. — Wayfarer

I read this with a heavy heart. But consider: have you ever considered that what you're doing isn't just, or even primarily, an argument, but rather a manifestation of your experience, your lived and learned knowledge, into the world? Perhaps your argument "about the same things" is something more for many? For example, I admit, thanks to you, I've thought about a lot. What if the contribution you make is essentially gratitude to the world for allowing us to reflect on its metaphysical foundations? After all, your arguments also provide a good education and training for ordinary readers like me!

I had a bit of pique, but I got over it. I've been on this and previous forums for quite a few years now, and sometimes I feel I have become too habituated to it. Also that my interests are sometimes at odds with secular philosophy (although I'm not an overtly religious type) meaning that a certain kind of objection has come up again and again over this period, which got on my nerves.

But thank you very much for your words, they are very kind, and I appreciate it. I will continue to post here.

Namely, a critical examination of a paradigm would require stepping out of that paradigm; but such stepping out would be in conflict with one's committment to said paradigm. — baker

Yes, that's exactly how I put the question. And moreover, what needs to be done to "go beyond the boundaries," to see from the outside? Is it possible?

You can see Vervaeke kind of wrestling with religious questions - he's upfront about having been born into a fairly dysfunctional fundamentalist family and his rejection of that. But he dialogues with philosophers of religion and theologians - William Desmond, D C Schindler, many others. In his quest to articulate the meaning of 'wisdom' he does grapple with religious ideas, but from many different perspectives and traditions. — Wayfarer

What I mean to say is that Vervaeke seems to think that religions are—to put it plainly—wrong. Like Nietzsche, he seems to think that religions are fundamentally nihilistic, in that meaning and purpose can't be found in reality, and that religion’s binding power lies in shared fictions, collectively believed narratives that create trust, order, and meaning. The fiction is not a flaw; it’s the mechanism by which religion turns isolated individuals into cohesive communities.

That being the case, how could cohesive communities be bound by a "reality-oriented axis of value"?

In my view, this link between Galileo’s science, which, don’t forget, was the fulcrum of the Scientific Revolution, and Descartes’ mind/body dualism, are essential to what Vervaeke calls ‘the grammar of modernity’ and the sense that the world is basically meaningless. — Wayfarer

What I find is that Galileo's turn toward relativity marked a changed attitude in the discipline of physics, which removed the goal of truth. With his theory of relativity, Galileo demonstrated that physicists could represent the motions of objects from different inertial frames of reference, and each representation would be equally valid. This facilitated physicists immensely, because it removed the need to determine the truth in their representations of motions. So for example, the sun and stars could be represented as orbiting a fixed earth, or the earth could be represented as spinning within a fixed background, and each was an equally valid representation. Therefore the desire for truth is removed, as the physicist is free to model movements in whatever way serves the purpose.

Since then Einsteinian relativity was developed, and this is a relativistic way of representing motions which serves the purpose, with disregard for the truth. The problem though, is that in modern culture the tendency is to think of Einsteinian relativity as the truth. This is a significant problem because relativity is based in the principle that the truth doesn't matter in our representations of motion. So when the belief that relativity is the truth develops, then the attitude which follows is that the truth is that there is no truth. Notice, there is still an implicit "truth" here, as "there is no truth", so the attitude is self-contradictory. This self-contradicting attitude is evident in ontologies like model-dependent realism.

I don't think the objections are coming to terms with the argument. Again, the argument is, that since the Scientific Revolution, modern culture tends to see the world (or universe) in terms of a domain of objective forces which have no meaning or moral dimension, in which human life is kind of a fortuitous outcome of chance events. Prior to that, the Universe was imbued with symbolic and real meaning, in which the individual, no matter how lowly their station, was a participant. I mean, there's been enormous literature and commentary on this fact. I attempted in the OP to try and distill it the essentials of it. Those books I cited in the OP are among the examples, but there are many more. — Wayfarer

I think that the issue here is also related to our attitude toward truth. The common notion of truth, and realism are intertwined. If there is such a thing as "the way that things are", independent of human apprehension, then realism is the case, and there is an independent truth regardless of whether human beings apprehend it. However, "the way things are" is conceptual, a description of ideas, and "truth" is a correspondence between this conception and the reality. Therefore independent truth, and realism in general, requires a divinity like God to support it ontologically. Without human beings, something must support the concept of "the way things are".

It is not mere coincidence that the relativistic movement away from truth coincided with the movement away from God. Traditionally, God is Truth. But in moving away from God we also forfeit the other things you mention, which God provides the grounding for, "meaning" and "moral dimension". Because of this there is an inclination to maintain a vestige of realism. People claim natural rights, they claim objective truths, but they reject the ontological principles (God) which support these claims.

Especially the substitution of the physical universe for the Divine. — Wayfarer

This is the attitude which prioritizes utility as higher than truth. Instead of apprehending us lowly human beings as subject to the truth of the Divine, therefore seeking to determine that truth, we apprehend "the physical universe" as being at our service, there for us to use and abuse as we see fit. Our hypotheses and theories are not aimed at truth, they are created with the intent of facilitating that use and abuse.

When traditions speak of “higher knowledge,” the term “higher” need not imply rank or authority - something that seems to push a lot of buttons! - but rather a difference in mode, scope, or reflexive awareness. — Wayfarer

This I would say is the difference between directing our knowledge toward truth, and directing our knowledge toward using and abusing the physical universe. When physics turned from the desire for truth, to relativistic principles, as described above, the former was replaced by the latter. Now, "truth" has been replaced with "the capacity to predict" as the standard for knowledge.

Right, but it is not as though religion, as opposed to theocracy, has been "done away with" (in the West).I think that what the OP complains about...the disenchantment of Nature due to a supposed decline of reverence for nature is a furphy, a strawman.

There is a tendency in all transcendence-based eschatalogically motivated religions to disvalue this world as the source of suffering, the veil of illusion or the vale of tears in favour of an imagined perfect realm.

So it is not really a case of the disenchantment of Nature, but of the disenchantment of the transcendent accompanying a return to nature. This begins with Aristotle...think of Rafael's painting 'The School of Athens'...Plato points to the heavens and Aristotle points to the ground
.

[quoted="Tom Storm;1022700"]I’m not convinced that consumerism or the instrumentalisation of knowledge wouldn’t still be dominant even if the West had remained committed to Christianity.[/quote]

"And Man shall have dominion..."

Yes, that's exactly how I put the question. And moreover, what needs to be done to "go beyond the boundaries," to see from the outside? Is it possible? — Astorre

The key term is the 'the unconditioned'. It is a very elusive concept, if indeed a concept it is. But you find analogies in for example, in Hegel's 'absolute spirit' and in The One of Neoplatonism. Here is an open-access essay on The Unconditioned in Philosophy of Religion although it's rather technical.

My intuitive understanding is that the unconditioned is the goal of spiritual life. One of the Buddha's aphorisms, the Nibbana Sutta, is 'there is that which is unborn, unconditioned, unmade' which represents 'escape' from 'the born, the conditioned, the made' (ref). The goal of the Buddhist path is to realise or live in the light of the Unconditioned (which in Buddhism, is not cast in theistic terms.) It can only be approached through the 'way of negation' - the negating of mental constructions (vikalpa and vijnana) and intent concentration on what is - which is the basis of Buddhist mindfulness meditation.

In my view, the absence of any equivalent to the unconditioned is a conspicuous gap or lack in contemporary philosophy. You will find it in some of the existentialist schools (perhaps Gabriel Marcel?) but in analytic philosophy it is barely considered.

Episodes 8-10 in Awakening from the Meaning Crisis are about Buddhist 'awakening', mindfulness and related issues.

What I mean to say is that Vervaeke seems to think that religions are—to put it plainly—wrong — praxis

He doesn't say that at all, from what I've read and heard, which is a quite a lot. In the Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, he gives space to religious figures such as Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Tillich, to name a few - from a critical perspective, to be sure, but certainly not from the perspective of religions being wrong. If you can find anything from him which says that, I'll revise my view.

Now, "truth" has been replaced with "the capacity to predict" as the standard for knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is the critique of the 'instrumentalisation of reason' - that truth is what works, what achieves the means to an end, and so on.

He doesn't say that at all, from what I've read and heard, which is a quite a lot. In the Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, he gives space to religious figures such as Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Tillich, to name a few - from a critical perspective, to be sure, but certainly not from the perspective of religions being wrong. If you can find anything from him which says that, I'll revise my view. — Wayfarer

If he believes that one is right I assume he would be a devout member of that religion.

This leads to a question: is it possible to believe that religions are all not wrong, without believing that they are all right? Or is the idea that they are neither wrong not right, but are merely helpful or unhelpful stories? Then we might ask how a religion could be helpful or unhelpful.

If he believes that one is right I assume he would be a devout member of that religion. — praxis

Vervaeke doesn't see it that way. Maybe give some of his lectures a listen.

Been on a 3 hour Vervaeke kick. Interview with him about his atheism which he prefers to call “non-theism”. On reflection I've been unfair to Vervaeke. He's not nostalgic.

this leads to a question: is it possible to believe that religions are all not wrong, without believing that they are all right? Or is the idea that they are neither wrong not right, but are merely helpful or unhelpful stories? Then we might ask how a religion could be helpful or unhelpful. — Janus

Seems to me to be a more highbrow version of Alain de Botton’s Religion for Atheists thesis; the idea that we need to set aside space for reflection, a sense of the numinous, the cultivation of wisdom, and a connection to the sacred, which Vervaeke describes as something that awakens us to reality, awe, and a reconnection to life. I can see the appeal but I don't personally feel a need for it.

Nor do I. I believe I already have those things... conceited bastard that I am....

Anyway I think we all desire and/or need different things in order to cultivate wisdom, have a sense of the sacred and feel connected to life...there is no one size fits all...

I think most religion is more about feeling connected to the possibility of an afterlife than about feeling connected to life.

Also I watched about 30 of Vervaeke's lectures a few years ago and found myself waiting for something concrete which didn't arrive, so I gave up. I couldn't discover just what he was proposing.

Horkheimer argues that in this transformation, reason has been stripped of its substantive and ethical content; it has become a tool for calculation, efficiency, and control. This marks the “eclipse” of reason—the point at which rationality itself becomes irrational, serving domination rather than enlightenment, and leaving modern civilization powerful in its techniques but impoverished in meaning and purpose.

This rationality becomes blind, a Minotaur, a Frankenstein’s monster. Look at the leader of the free world we have now, a sad indictment of the progress of the human race. Just when we realise the depth of the omni crisis we are embarking on, the system comes up with a narcissistic manchild to lead the charge.

I’m with you all the way on this, I’ll illustrate what I mean with an anecdote. Once on my travels in India, I set myself a mission to get to a point where I could see Nanda Devi, across the valley of flowers (the highest and one of the most sacred, mountains in India). Whenever I mentioned what I was doing to local people they would go into a state of reverence, which I found disconcerting at first, as I thought they were somehow revering me, a modest traveller, wearing the same clothes as them and travelling on the same cheap buses as them. After a while I realised that the reverence was for a sense of pilgrimage, or for the mere mention of Nanda Devi. This resulted in a moment of great reverence, magic, wonder and joy, the likes of which I have never experienced in the West. I was explaining what I was doing to a young boy, I thought he probably wouldn’t have heard of Nanda Devi, he didn’t know what mountain it was at first, so I said it’s the mountain that often has a cloud hovering above it like a trail of long hair. Then he realised and immediately there was a sense of something sacred and revered. He knew the story about the goddess Nanda Devi with her trailing white hair. The whole group around us were in a state of wonder. I felt like a magician, a conjurer, while at the same time humbled and just as in awe as the rest of them. You could have cut the sense of mystery with a knife, it was so thick.

I realised on many occasions what the rationality of the world I lived in back home had done to us, by comparison.

Lovely story. I guess that is because, for them, the holy is still real, a source of solace, hope and wonder, in a way which for us it can't be.

I've been discussing 'reason' in another context, that of artificial intelligence (of which, by the way, I'm a dedicated user). But the point I've been trying to get at, and this is also what Horkheimer gets at, is the sense that reason 'goes all the way down' (compare Hegel 'the real is rational') . It doesn't mean that everything about existence is intelligible to human rationality - far from it! - but the sense that there are reasons for the way things are. Hence one of my favourite quotes from David Bentley Hart:

In the pre-modern vision of things, the cosmos had been seen as an inherently purposive structure of diverse but integrally inseparable rational relations — for instance, the Aristotelian aitia, which are conventionally translated as “causes,” but which are nothing like the uniform material “causes” of the mechanistic philosophy. And so the natural order was seen as a reality already akin to intellect. Hence the mind, rather than an anomalous tenant of an alien universe, was instead the most concentrated and luminous expression of nature’s deepest essence. This is why it could pass with such wanton liberty through the “veil of Isis” and ever deeper into nature’s inner mysteries.

I notice that in Western culture the very idea that rationality pervades the natural order is regarded as a sentimental throwback to a less enlightened time (oh, the irony). Again, that it is rational doesn't mean that it's always scientifically intelligible, but that it is meaningful, on a deep level, even if that is often a very difficult faith to maintain.

Here she is with her white hair.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CampingandHiking/comments/11ns3is/view_of_the_most_elusive_mountain_mount_nanda/

That is the critique of the 'instrumentalisation of reason' - that truth is what works, what achieves the means to an end, and so on. — Wayfarer

Yes, now do you see how this attitude relates to the statement about Horkheimer posted by Punshhh above?

"This marks the “eclipse” of reason—the point at which rationality itself becomes irrational, serving domination rather than enlightenment, and leaving modern civilization powerful in its techniques but impoverished in meaning and purpose."

It's an entrapment of the materialistic attitude of modern society. Focus on the means narrows, or limits the end, to that which we're good at. Narrowing the end is a restriction on freedom. That is the impoverishment of purpose.

Second, there’s the assumption that before we “took the wrong fork in the road,” everything was fine and that if only we hadn’t taken it, we would never have ended up in this mess. — Tom Storm

The very word "crisis" carries a negative connotation. It sounds like the loss of a familiar good. For example, illness is a health crisis, and death is a life crisis.

But what if "crisis" is something bad, but inevitable? For example, our civilization depends on oil, which is finite. When will it run out, will there be a crisis? I hope that by then, we'll be ready and have come up with something. If we take the finiteness of good as a rule, then when creating any system, we should also consider that it's a temporary solutiosolution.

It's funny, but when humanity is offered a new socio-political or social order, no one mentions that it's temporary. Doesn't it seem like we're being fooled every time, and the truth isn't being told?

By the way, I've never heard any advertising like this: this iPhone is the best temporary solution (until the next model comes out)

↪Joshs I’m interested in your thoughts on this meaning crisis. Do you think that, if it exists, it’s because we’re in a transition period, still haunted by the old beliefs and struggling to adapt to new ways of understanding? What are projects like Vervaeke’s trying to accomplish? It feels to me like they’re trying to put the genie back in the bottle. But as someone who isn’t looking for his kind of answers, it’s perhaps easy for me to misread the material. — Tom Storm

Vervaeke’s’Meaning Crisis’ project stems from a personal crisis he experienced in his 20’s. He grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home, but rejected that faith as an adult. He embraced science instead, but found that it only described what is the case rather than how to live, what Aristotle called phronesis and Buddhist traditions call wisdom. He found the answer to his meaning crisis by combining cognitive science, wisdom traditions (Buddhism, Stoicism, Neoplatonism) and meditative practices. This is what he teaches others in his meaning crisis courses.

So is the world in a meaning crisis? I would say only those who find themselves adrift with respect to former belief systems. This does not include those who are happy with their traditional religious beliefs. But what about the majorities in Europe, the U.K., Australia and other places who consider themselves atheists? While Varvaeke is coming late to the game, Europe has had lots of practice, with atheism having become a popular alternative to faith decades ago. I imagine many of those who consider themselves post-theistic existentialists find meaning in what they choose to do. In my own case I became an atheist at age 15 and transitioned immediately from religious faith to finding meaning in creating my own purposes.

I found embodied cognitive science, and later phenomenology, to be very helpful here, since they deal both with questions of how one should live and what is the case. Still, there are many like Vervaeke who grew up relying on a rigid belief system and found themselves in existential crisis when they abandoned that faith and had nothing to replace it with. The craving to replace one totalizing purpose with another is one explanation for the attraction of cults, and Verveake’s project does have some cult-like characteristics.

Hell of an interesting article you wrote my friend, indeed. As i understood the general idea of your idealism idea is that ideas (i'll stop) you are in agreement with an empirical, "self evident truth" -to call it something- that the physical reality does exist, but that the mind has "created" a reality or, rather, interpreted the physical reality to something arbitrary. Why would you say that humans are engineerd this way? Your efforts to try and create a non dualist systems are commendable, by the way.

And going back to the tread's OP objective; im trying to connect some dots here, but, could it be that the idealist origin of the way we interpret reality has something to do with our moral and phylosophical values having meaning? I mean, i can see that your argument could be that, since we have given a certain meaning to a reaity (i.e., given it order trough our brain), every assertion we make about anything has to be true from that interpretation.

In other words, we came, we saw a messy reality, we somehow ordered it trough perception and then, once it was ordered and categorized -arbitrarily- we started making and thinking made up things from a reality that was, again, arbitrarily categorized, which in turn means that

• A. Since we were the ones to categorize the world, non-physical truths will always have some subjectivity, because they stem from our perspectives
• B. To any person of group of persons who share, more or less, a perspective, a truth is true without having to give up its subjectivity.

Thus, would i be right to assume that the subjectivity of "truth" comes from the individual's own perception? (which may or may not be influenced by society) tell me if any of this is wrong because i feel it is...

It's an entrapment of the materialistic attitude of modern society. Focus on the means narrows, or limits the end, to that which we're good at. Narrowing the end is a restriction on freedom. That is the impoverishment of purpose.

Very much so.
Where are we going now? that science and reason are king?
We are blind.

Taylor provides an excellent framework for these issues and a solid deconstruction of the epistemic and metaphysical assumptions of the "closed-world system" (that reason is wholly discursive and instrumental often being one of its axiomatic assumptions). — Count Timothy von Icarus

There were a few comments that I wanted to make but, until I can find the time to do so, I just wanted to say that this whole post of yours, and not just the part where you respond to me, is one of the most enlightening ones I've read on TPF in the last 20 years.