Right, but it is not as though religion, as opposed to theocracy, has been "done away with" (in the West). — Janus

Well in Europe that's probably more the case than in the US. Most non-muslim Europeans are secular nowadays. There have been concerted efforts to do away with it, from different groups over the past few centuries (bourgeois liberals, socialists, academia, hippies etc etc). And that's not to say they might not have had good reason to do so, but there hasn't really come anything in its place.

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 — Janus

Yes I agree with that I think. A lot of these analysis of the crisis of meaning gloss over the fact that Christianity might itself already have been a part of the problem. They kindof loosely equate Christianity with any religion, whereas it was already a very peculiar kind of departure from the mythological polytheistic religions that came before. Those did enchant the natural world by embellishing it, not by transcending it.

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

I think that's debatable. If you let poultry with clipped wings loose in the slaughterhouse so that they can walk to their own destruction they'll gladly acquiesce.

Been on a 3 hour Vervaeke kick. — Tom Storm

That's about three more hours than I've seen. I'm mostly familiar with the notion of a "meaning crisis" through the usual suspects, Nietzsche and his successors, Dostoevsky and later Russian writers like Pelevin, Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre (the slide into emotivism in ethics and aesthetics being a sort of special case of the meaning crisis thesis), William Stace, Bertrand Russell, the New Athiests, etc.

Pierre Hadot's approach to "spiritual exercises" and his focus on Epicureanism and Stoicism as more accessible to moderns, as well as the neo-stoic renaissance in the world of "tech culture" are also good concrete examples of the phenomena.

I would tend to agree with Charles Taylor though that the epistemic and metaphysical presuppositions that leave people "spun" open or closed to "transcendence" are themselves largely aesthetic (which is not to say unimportant; the idea that Beauty is of secondary importance is of course merely the presupposition of a particular sort of Enlightenment "world-view.") I think you can see this clearest in people from a solidly materialist atheist frame who nonetheless recoil from the difficulties of the "sheer mechanism" doctrines of the eliminativists and epiphenomenalists, and find themselves open to the notions of God in Spinoza, deflated versions of Hegel, or—most interesting to me—a sort of bizzaro-world reading of Neoplatonism where the One is a sort of "abstract principle" in the same sense that the law of gravity might be (suffice to say, I don't think this reading survives contact with the sources in question, which is why it is interesting that it arises at all, or why the material must be transformed as it is).

I can see the appeal but I don't personally feel a need for it. — Tom Storm

Right, but I would ask if to approach this primarily as a matter of "appeal," enjoyment, or usefulness, etc. is to simply refuse to step into the opposing frame, since it normally includes epistemic and metaphysical claims, and not merely claims about enjoyment or aesthetics. As a contrast, if one was told that one's brake pads had worn out, or that one's air conditioner was destroying the ozone layer, one should hardly reply: "I see the appeal of those claims, but I feel drawn to think otherwise." Or likewise, "I see the appeal of treating people of all races equally, but I find holding to stereotypes to be more illuminating for myself."

There is a similar difficulty in the whole, loose "transcendence industry" that spans areas of "mindfulness" to some elements of "outdoor education." There is a recognition of the importance of some elements of tradition, but given other commitments this tends to merely cash out as there being some sorts of more intellectual "pleasant experiences," sometimes of the sort that they help people develop "good character," "compassion" etc. (although what exactly these mean in modern contexts is another question). This seems to me to be a crucial issue with the contemporary reception of Aristotle vis-á-vis contemplation and the rational appetites. Are these just "pleasant experiences" (perhaps because they are "felt" to be deeply meaningful and even illuminative) or are they experiences of unique and potent epistemic import? This issue comes up with the Western reception of Hinduism and Indian praxis as well. A key question here is whether a faculty of co-natural or contemplative knowledge even exists, or if this is merely an illusion cast by sentiment. I do not think the answer is obvious.

It seems to me that the difficulty often lies in trying to access a foreign frame or "social imaginary" without actually leaving the dominant paradigm (which itself reduces core claims in the parallel visions to mere matters of "taste").

You’re seriously going to try and pin MAGA on ‘post-modernism’? — Joshs

I am not trying to "pin" anything on anyone, I am simply referring to a particularly influential clique in Trump's broader movement using the labels that are normally applied to them.

I think it's obviously false that 99.99% of Trump's influential supporters are "traditionalists" however, since many in the camp I am referring to are outspoken transhumanists or post-humanists, who see custom and tradition simply as tools, and who want to move beyond humanity itself. Likewise, "tradition" in the American context normally refers to Protestantism, or at least Christianity, and yet these folks tend to refer to Christians as "Christcucks" or Christ as a "Jew on a stick" (if they are even that polite).

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. — Pierre-Normand

I'm glad you found it helpful; I find this area fascinating. The big eye opener for me was seeing how much these broadly "aesthetic" or even "theological" (even for athiests, or maybe "world view" is a better term) inclinations end up driving notions of reason and truth, such that they actually end up playing a major role in epistemology and metaphysics that is often unacknowledged in post-Enlightenment thought precisely because it either still aspires to "dispassioned reason," or else adopts the standpoint of post-modern critique that nonetheless fails to transcend many of the presuppositions of the Enlightenment (this being a pet peeve of mine because then "critique" tends to butcher pre-modern Western and Eastern thought by reading the Enlightenment into it).

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.

-David Bentley Heart.
Not only this, but in that reverence, it’s inherent sense of community, people naturally become collegiate, eager to contribute towards the common good, and wish to give of themselves, for a greater good or purpose.

By contrast we have in Western society an unassailable reduction to science, material fact and monetary value. Meaning (the deeper meaning you are talking about) has nowhere to go, other than the satiation of personal desires, or the profit motive. This vacuum eventually becomes filled by the exploitative influences of manipulative agencies. Themselves devoid of meaning and purpose. The race to the bottom will take us into dark places like rule by oligarchs and the end of freedoms which during the 20th century we, in the West, took for granted.

I think it's obviously false that 99.99% of Trump's influential supporters are "traditionalists" however, since many in the camp I am referring to are outspoken transhumanists or post-humanists, who see custom and tradition simply as tools, and who want to move beyond humanity itself. Likewise, "tradition" in the American context normally refers to Protestantism, or at least Christianity, and yet these folks tend to refer to Christians as "Christcucks" or Christ as a "Jew on a stick" (if they are even that polite). — Count Timothy von Icarus

They are traditionalists relative to the kind of thinking that falls within the postmodern philosophical sphere. If one wants to be generous, one can point to Kierkegaard as the first postmodernist, or proto-postmodernist. By traditionalist I mean a perspective which is at least prior to Kierkegaard, Marx and Hegel. Please name specific figures associated with this alt-right trans or post-humanism (Curtis Yarvin, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel?) and I'll offer my take on where their philosophies belong on a historical spectrum. Elon Musk and Peter Theil’s advocacy of that old movement called ‘technocracy’ envisioning a rational, scientific society run by experts, can be traced back to the French Encyclopedists (Condorcet, Saint-Simon). Saint-Simon’s idea of a technocratic elite managing production and social welfare was revived almost verbatim by the 1930s technocracy movement.

The “meaning crisis” I’m referring to isn’t about a loss of morality or piety; it’s about the underlying ontology of modernity — the way the scientific worldview, as inherited from Galileo and Descartes, implicitly defines reality as value-free and mindless.

So the crisis isn’t a call to religion, but a call to re-examine the metaphysical assumptions we’ve inherited. — Wayfarer

I agree. Metaphysics was at one time discovered. It wasn’t merely invented. Maybe it was partly that we discovered ‘that we invent’. We reflected on knowing/sensing. We reflected on the natural as opposed to the artificial. The reflection became a real thing, an object itself to be re-reflected upon. That is meta-physics. A purely personal fruit in the universe.

For some reason, since Hume and Kant (and before them Galileo and Descartes), we think we can overlook this metaphysical elephant now sleeping on the floor in the middle of every room (‘room’ being a metaphor for ‘discussion’ or simply ‘statement about the world’.)

Before Galileo (which is an interesting pivot to drive this discussion), Philosophers and theologians became too enamored of the discovery of absolute truth, and let themselves, at times, confuse hypothetical imagination with divine revelation. The corrections of the enlightenment and existentialism were needed. However, the existentialists did their work too thoroughly. The enlightened became too enamored of linear reasoning and scientific method and the possibility of man alone, and post-modernists became too enamored of the space between the subject and everything else, turning everything else into a homogenous deconstructive mess of diversity begetting only change - the unmoored adrift world of only the eternal recurrence of disguised sameness - raw motion with nothing left to move.

But the way I see it, despite the passionate pleas of the enlightenment, the existential romantics and the postmodern, we have never stopped doing metaphysics. This should be meaningful to us.

This is not meant to refute Nietzsche or Buddha, but to recognize what they added to metaphysics and epistemology and ontology; these inquiries remain legitimate avenues to clarify even what Nietzsche said about the human condition and the possibility of knowledge and truth.

———

Essentially, paradox is not merely the undoing of logic, but one of its fruits. Paradoxes are fixed and in motion at the same time, and so the best examples of complete knowledge, not the worst. We need to persevere in this direction. We need to embrace the paradox with linear reason at the same time.

A tiny example is the following “God is dead” which for Nietzsche also says “there is a new God, namely power”. Or “there is no truth” which also says “there is truth that evades us always.”

These are not small differences. We’ve allowed ourselves in the west to think “there is no truth” must mean “there is nothing said when ‘truth’ is said”, and simply to ignore the nagging fact that by saying “there is no truth” we really mean “I humbly refute myself when I nevertheless assert that ‘I know no truth’.”

So on the one hand, the west doesn’t know how to understand and articulate the paradox, and that feeds the crisis of meaning (because paradox abounds with our absurd human activities). And on the other hand, there is now in the postmodern, an irrational fear and disdain for the totalitarian, the dogmatic and the absolute.

The solution of modernity has been to immediately dismiss anything hinting at being absolute, like the existentialists dismissed metaphysics as a basis for truth.

But if there is any such thing as the absolute at all, like the paradox, how could it truly be dismissed? The answer is, the same way it could be embraced - by an act of the subject. We can lie to ourselves or admit we are subject to the truth of ourselves. So the question becomes: were we lying to ourselves when we “discovered” metaphysics and were we relinquishing logic when we confronted the paradox, or are we lying now by dismissing metaphysics and ignoring the frustrating paradox as if they are nothing?

But refusing to take up and face the paradox, the absolute and the metaphysical, we do not obliterate them. Today, for many, when confronted by the metaphysical and the paradoxical we cover our eyes and ears. We bury our heads in the sand and say it is in order to seek the sky; but seeking the sky with our heads in the air is already a paradox, and it is just as metaphysical an exercise as finding the sand is, and the sky absolutely is not the sand so it is absolutely, truly, “the sky, not sand” all along. Postmodernism is a joke, an irony that refuses to see it is ironic. Most are not laughing, and those that do can’t see the absolute meaning that is a necessary component to finding something funny. (Perfect summation of my point here is the scene in the silly movie Evil Dead 2 where he cuts his own hand off because it is attacking him and says to his now severed hand, “who’s laughing now!?” We shouldn’t laugh at all because of the absolute nature of having a hand and losing a hand, but that is just hilarious, as recognized by the one who cut off his own hand.).

There need be nothing enslaving about embracing absolute truth, eternal meaning and the unconditioned. It is still only internalized by a subjective act of receipt and acceptance.

We can be both our own master and our own slave, at once. We can be a paradox, absolutely.

So, since the times of Nietzsche and the flames of post-modern secular, industrial, western nation-building, we have been fooling ourselves every time we attempt to refute the presence of the absolute. We mask something fixed when we consider only what is relative. But the fixed remains there all along.

We think we can behold “motion” without beholding “that which moves is, to itself, fixed and unmovable.” Without motion, nothing comes to be to be fixed; but without the fixed, motion itself ceases moving.

Absolute truthful meaning is. We can know it. So be it.

We are here to fix things in this cauldron of change called the universe. We are like gods. The fruit we bear is not merely from us. We are participants in something else.

“Why is there something and not nothing?” Put a pin in that, and just admit, “there is something.” This is absolute knowledge. But now, alongside the absolute, we have to ask “why is there something else and not merely something?”

I’ve given myself permission to accept these things and begin, and do not think anymore that accepting it is an ending.

The question becomes, where must we look to be fulfilled by it. The good news is we cannot avoid the absolute, the unconditioned, the meaningful in itself - but the bad news is we still have to find that which can match the depths of the subjective human longing.

In other words, the good news is, we can truly be right, but the bad news is, we can truly be wrong.

Thank you, that's an interesting take. Appreciated.

I can see the appeal but I don't personally feel a need for it.
— Tom Storm

Right, but I would ask if to approach this primarily as a matter of "appeal," enjoyment, or usefulness, etc. is to simply refuse to step into the opposing frame, since it normally includes epistemic and metaphysical claims, and not merely claims about enjoyment or aesthetics. As a contrast, if one was told that one's brake pads had worn out, or that one's air conditioner was destroying the ozone layer, one should hardly reply: "I see the appeal of those claims, but I feel drawn to think otherwise." Or likewise, "I see the appeal of treating people of all races equally, but I find holding to stereotypes to be more illuminating for myself." — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. I can see the appeal but I don't personally feel a need for it. I don’t personally find Vervaeke or Jordan Peterson (who has a similar approach) sufficiently compelling. I do enjoy Krishnamurti, however and could easily sit through a few hours of him. Perhaps it's because I am not sufficiently unhappy or restless to devote much time to deep discussions of meaning. I’m a fairly superficial, easily contented individual.

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. — Oppida

Thanks for the compliment! The way the mind interprets or constructs its sense of what is real is far from arbitrary. It is constrained in all kinds of ways - by the kinds of beings we are, the kinds of minds and sensory capabilities we have, and so on. Also by cultural factors. But the point is that what we typically take to be outside of or independent from us, is not truly so (which was Kant's major discovery). Science typically operates so as to eliminate subjective bias, which is an important and necessary step. But even so, the role of the subject or observer remains indispensable in deciding what to analyse, how to interpret the results - what the findings mean, in short. It is all too easily overlooked or neglected in the pursuit of the objective understanding (a principle basic to phenomenology).

As this OP says, the modern idea of 'the physical universe' grew out of Galileo and Descartes division between the primary (external, measurable) and secondary (internal, affective) attributes of bodies, and the corresponding distinction between matter (res extensa) and mind (res cogitans). These divisions deeply condition the way we think and see the world. That is the key idea.

Saint-Simon’s idea of a technocratic elite managing production and social welfare was revived almost verbatim by the 1930s technocracy movement. — Joshs

In which, for the benefit of those reading, Musk’s maternal grandfather, Joshua N. Haldemann, was an influential figure, founding a political movement called Technocracy that foreshadowed many of Elon Musk’s later ideas. Subject of a lot of coverage of late, see for example this article.

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

Religion can obviously be helpful (and right in its helpfulness)—too helpful in many many instances.

Helpful in regard to meaning?

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

From what I gather, Vervaeke holds that the former approach is wrong and the latter (psychological and phenomenological) is right.

Metaphysics was at one time discovered. It wasn’t merely invented. Maybe it was partly that we discovered ‘that we invent’. We reflected on knowing/sensing. — Fire Ologist

By Kant's time, metaphysics had become highly dogmatised and he rightly criticized it on those grounds. But I've found that the neo-Thomist philosophers are still able to make a coherent case for classical metaphysics. Nearly all of them are Catholics, of course, and that's not coincidental, because it provides the experiential dimension that academic metaphysics all too easily forgets.

I agree with your point that classical metaphysics, starting with Parmenides and Heraclitus, was a critical reflection on the nature of knowing. It wasn't simply dogmatic slogans and aphorisms. (see Eric S Perl Thinking Being.) The rejection of all of metaphysics too easily throws the baby out with the bathwater (murky though that water might be).

This is not meant to refute Nietzsche or Buddha, but to recognize what they added to metaphysics and epistemology and ontology. — Fire Ologist

It is often said that the Buddha rejected metaphysics. In a way, that is true - but on the other hand, the whole basis of the Buddha's teaching, the 'principle of dependent origination', is a metaphysic, although of a completely different kind to the Aristotelian.

But again, the crucial point is that it is always connected to experiential insight rather than dogma. (I first came to Kant through a 1950's textbook called The Central Philosophy of Buddhism, T R V Murti, which contains comparisons between Kant and Buddhism (reference) This book is nowadays criticized for its perceived eurocentrism but became a foundational text for me as it enabled me to synthesize Eastern and Western philosophy in a practical manner.)

But if there is any such thing as the absolute at all, like the paradox, how could it truly be dismissed? The answer is, the same way it could be embraced - by an act of the subject. — Fire Ologist

There is much confusion about 'philosophies of the absolute'. On the one hand, most modern and post-modern philosophy will dismiss any consideration of it. Those philosophies that do discuss it often seem cumbersome and obscure. Again my attitude has been influenced by Buddhism, which refuses to reify (make a thing of) any idea of the absolute. Why and how it does that is probably impossible to spell out, but suffice to say that what is required is more than an exercise in rational thought - hence the central role of zazen meditation in Zen Buddhism.

the good news is, we can truly be right, but the bad news is, we can truly be wrong — Fire Ologist

Because we are free to discover, or not to discover. But this is also why an 'ecology of practice' is necessary, which will nearly always end up being religious in nature.

I would tend to agree with Charles Taylor though that the epistemic and metaphysical presuppositions that leave people "spun" open or closed to "transcendence" are themselves largely aesthetic (which is not to say unimportant; the idea that Beauty is of secondary importance is of course merely the presupposition of a particular sort of Enlightenment "world-view.") I think you can see this clearest in people from a solidly materialist atheist frame who nonetheless recoil from the difficulties of the "sheer mechanism" doctrines of the eliminativists and epiphenomenalists, and find themselves open to the notions of God in Spinoza, deflated versions of Hegel, or—most interesting to me—a sort of bizzaro-world reading of Neoplatonism where the One is a sort of "abstract principle" in the same sense that the law of gravity might be (suffice to say, I don't think this reading survives contact with the sources in question, which is why it is interesting that it arises at all, or why the material must be transformed as it is). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I probably agree with Taylor on transcendence and have made similar points myself. We mostly settle on beliefs because they are emotionally satisfying. Interesting points about materialist atheists. I haven’t had contact with any folk like this for years, so I couldn’t say if you hit the mark. But isn’t one of the great cliches of our time the declaration, “I’m not religious but I’m spiritual. “ Spiritual here generally means an interest in crystals and swimming with dolphins. Or is that too harsh?

I'm mostly familiar with the notion of a "meaning crisis" through the usual suspects, Nietzsche and his successors, Dostoevsky and later Russian writers like Pelevin, Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre (the slide into emotivism in ethics and aesthetics being a sort of special case of the meaning crisis thesis), William Stace, Bertrand Russell, the New Athiests, etc.

Pierre Hadot's approach to "spiritual exercises" and his focus on Epicureanism and Stoicism as more accessible to moderns, as well as the neo-stoic renaissance in the world of "tech culture" are also good concrete examples of the phenomena.

I would tend to agree with Charles Taylor though that the epistemic and metaphysical presuppositions that leave people "spun" open or closed to "transcendence" are themselves largely aesthetic (which is not to say unimportant; the idea that Beauty is of secondary importance is of course merely the presupposition of a particular sort of Enlightenment "world-view.") I think you can see this clearest in people from a solidly materialist atheist frame who nonetheless recoil from the difficulties of the "sheer mechanism" doctrines of the eliminativists and epiphenomenalists, and find themselves open to the notions of God in Spinoza, deflated versions of Hegel, or—most interesting to me—a sort of bizzaro-world reading of Neoplatonism where the One is a sort of "abstract principle" in the same sense that the law of gravity might be (suffice to say, I don't think this reading survives contact with the sources in question, which is why it is interesting that it arises at all, or why the material must be transformed as it is). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Am I right to surmise that for you the history of Western philosophy since at least Descartes amounts to little more than a reshuffling of older theological concepts, and that you would not feel particularly intellectually or spiritually deprived if you had not been exposed to modern philosophy?

As it happens, as a subscriber to Vervaeke's mailing list, his most recent missive was about 'spiritual but not religious'.

I think he’s mostly right on this one. I like his framing of this traditional problem, and I agree that we’re often just reinforcing our own comfort, whatever we believe. Sometimes, there’s even comfort in discomfort.

Right, but I would ask if to approach this primarily as a matter of "appeal," enjoyment, or usefulness, etc. is to simply refuse to step into the opposing frame, since it normally includes epistemic and metaphysical claims, and not merely claims about enjoyment or aesthetics. As a contrast, if one was told that one's brake pads had worn out, or that one's air conditioner was destroying the ozone layer, one should hardly reply: "I see the appeal of those claims, but I feel drawn to think otherwise." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I realised I didn’t properly respond to this.

I suppose what I’m saying is that if Vervaeke were my mechanic and told me my brake pads were worn out, I’m not sure I’d trust his judgment and I’m fairly certain his proposed solution would be difficult to follow. So I’d probably get a second opinion. Of course, in a simple matter like this, it could readily be demonstrated empirically that the claim was true or not; I could see the worn pads for myself.

But comparing Vervaeke’s ambitious tour through contemporary psychology, world philosophy, cognitive science and religion, to a brake-pad problem doesn’t really fit. The epistemic and metaphysical claims involved are less ambitious.

In other words, I’m not sure I agree with Vervaeke that there is a meaning crisis in the way he describes it, nor do I find his proposed remedies particularly clear or convincing. I can, however, see how many unhappy or anxious people might find aspects of his work comforting or useful, much as others might be drawn to existentialism or the Catholic Church. I also think Vervaeke might particularly appeal to those who already believe that the West is going “to hell in a handbasket”. But not everyone is a customer for such a message, and a limited appetite for it does not necessarily indicate a personal deficiency.

As it happens, as a subscriber to Vervaeke's mailing list, his most recent missive was about 'spiritual but not religious'. — Wayfarer

I think Vervaeke forgot to address the pitfalls of groupthink and the fact that groups can reinforce comfort, avoid hard questions, and be quite defensive.

Spiritual but not religious sounds a lot like The Religion That Is Not a Religion. Sounds too much like it, I think, and that motivates the impulse to make them distinct—to mark the heretics.

Now I see the cultishness.

Taken together, these statements form a pattern:

• It is basically a “Religion of the Self.”
• By the Self, for the Self and in terms of the Self.

Please understand I am criticizing the underlying presuppositions of such a claim, not any persons who make this claim. I’ll qualify my criticism…

• By the self: The path is self-initiated and self-designed. It is separate from a lineage, a tradition, or a community of practice that carries epistemic or existential weight.

• For the self: The orientation is primarily inward (personal healing, empowerment, self-actualization). Others may benefit, but they are not the axis of concern.

• In terms of the self: The criteria for what is meaningful, true, or sacred are internal (intuition, resonance, felt-sense). There is nothing that contradicts, challenges, or exceeds the framework.

It is a religion reorganized around “me”.

So when someone identifies as "spiritual but not religious," they are often (though not always) enacting a spirituality that lacks any real other(s).

It bottoms out as being an isolated self attempting to be its own source of authority, value, and transformation.

This might be deviating from the OP, but there's something quite off about all this to me.

Why do many Easterners put their hands together (as Westerners do in prayer) and bow to one another to convey reverence? Is it not because they understand “the divine truth”, for lack of better concise terms, to dwell both within themselves just as much as it dwells within the other—this understanding being at least cultural?

Do we Westerners not see ourselves (the sacredness of our own being) in others as well? After all, this is key to sympathy, compassion, and the like. And is the mysticism-produced dictum from the Oracle of Delfi (the mouthpiece of Apollo, the giver of light and its related attributes), “know thyself”, to be interpreted as some type of egotism-reinforcing doctrine?

All this asked in more or less rhetorical fashion so as to express the view that of course the sacred dwells within us, in me just as much as in you and all others (in purely spiritual, incorporeal beings too, were such to exist). The so-called “divine truth” doesn’t ultimately reside spatially somewhere out there but, instead, within the very awareness upon which our total selfhood pivots. Not just mine or yours but everyone’s. Everything else is just representations, this in some ways akin to what Schopenhauer wrote about. Granted, some representations are deemed more pivotal than others in respect to the sacred, this relative to each culture (such as per Eliade’s take on a belief-structure’s axis mundi: the tree of life (be it depicted as an oak, a palm, or an evergreen) and Mount Olympus (where the Hellenistic deities gather) as well-enough known examples), but they are representations all the same. For one example of this, to deem a wooden cross hanging on the wall as the sacred rather than as a representation of the sacred (this from within a Christian frame of mind) is to be idolatrous, mistaking the symbol for its referent.

As to “spiritual but not religious”, all it seems to indicate is spirituality minus any of the associated rituals that pertain to any given religion. Maybe more to the point, those who so self-label tend to hold reverence for the divine without either beseeching or brownnosing greater spiritual powers to satisfy egotistic wants. (Example: praying one’s lungs out for that luxury car that will put all of one’s neighbors to shame, or some such.) An earnest naturalistic pantheist would therefore qualify as one possible example of “spiritual but not religious”: holding earnest reverence for the divinity of Nature—its reason and rhyme, so to speak—without engaging in any religious practice. And before anyone starts on this theism not being real, it can go hand in hand with the Stoic notions of Logos. And other examples can well be found.

And, as far as I can so far comprehend, none of the aforementioned in any way pivots on egotistic notions of the individual self, this as though any man is an island divorced from the cosmic and universal, to not mention other beings. Am I missing something in Vervaeke's perspectives on the matter?

Am I missing something in Vervaeke's perspectives on the matter? — javra

I think you're misunderstanding the intent of that particular message. Vervaeke would not dismiss nor deprecate any of what you've said in the preceeding paragraphs. Indeed, a large part of his work is restoring 'the sense of the sacred' (e.g. this course). And he's in respectful dialogue with diverse disciplines and traditions.

What that post is criticising is the kind of buffet-style syncretism where you choose the elements you think you want from the 'spiritual supermarket' and attempt to practice them or apply them by yourself. It seems feasible, especially with the abundance of educational resources on the Internet. But this can easily become, and often is, self-centred and self-seeking. Hence the importance of others - a spiritual community or companions on the path.

Vervaeke stresses both 'ecologies' and 'communities' of practice.

Ecology:

• It is plural (practices) and integrated (they support, check, balance one another). One practice alone (e.g. solitary meditation) is not sufficient
• It is purposefully arranged (there is a “logos”, a rationale) rather than just a random aggregation of habitual actions.
• It spans domains of being: cognitive/intellectual, embodied/somatic, imaginal/creative, relational/dialogical. His program describes four “domains”: Dialogue, Imaginal, Mindfulness, Embodiment.
• It addresses what Vervaeke calls “perennial problems” (structural, developmental, functional) that underlie our meaning-crisis (e.g., alienation, absurdity, reflexiveness gaps).
• It is pragmatic and lifeworld-oriented: not just theorising, but practising, training, habituating. Compare “having” (propositional knowledge) with “being” (skillful engagement).

Community:

• Practices are done together with others in fellowship and “mutual support” (i.e., not simply individual meditation or movement but relationally embedded).
• "practice, discussion, friendship”.
• Modern isolation undermines our ability to cultivate meaning and wisdom hence the requirment for communal practice environments or 'spiritual friendship' (Buddhist kalyāṇa-mitratā)

All of which rings true for me. For about ten years I was member of a Buddhist fellowship that met monthly or bi-monthly to present and discuss themes and practices. My practice has really gone downhill since that broke up.

Am I right to surmise that for you the history of Western philosophy since at least Descartes amounts to little more than a reshuffling of older theological concepts, and that you would not feel particularly intellectually or spiritually deprived if you had not been exposed to modern philosophy? — Joshs

That would be a pity, indeed, and I'll let @Count Timothy von Icarus answer this charge, but his post about voluntarism and what it is that modern Western philosophy tends to obscure also led me to recast what it is that the modern and contemporary philosophers who I admire accomplished.

When reading, say, Descartes, Hume or Kant, two salient approaches are possible (among dozens others). One is to read them proleptically as laying the groundwork for dealing with the new demands of the modern age through decluttering the views of their predecessors from dogmatic, superstitious and irrational elements. This may indeed be what they saw themselves as doing, not knowing where modernity would lead. Another way to read them is to view them as trying to create space in an enchanted world that remained more vivid to them than it does to us for newer social and scientific realities. Those are, for instance, the tasks endeavored by John McDowell regarding Kant, by David Wiggins regarding Hume, by Daniel Robinson regarding Descartes, and by both Putnam and Rorty (in different ways) regarding James, Peirce and Dewey.

The failures of, say, some contemporary virtue ethicists to recover Aristotle's conception of the good life, and of the ultimate good (which Count Timothy purportedly diagnosed) could be a result of them still hanging on to some voluntarist/dualistic modern tendencies to thin up notions of goodness, and keeping them separate from notions of truth. They may not be paying heed to what Putnam sees as a required "collapse" of the fact/value dichotomy.

Eudaimonia cannot survive the surgical operation that separates understanding what we are from what it is that we ought to be and do, and this can justifiably be viewed as a loss of immanence or transcendence depending on which side one locates themselves in Taylor's immanent frame.

I was an undergrad student alongside a fellow by the name of Harry Oldmeadow, who went on to become an independent scholar in the area of the perennialist philosophers.(He won the University Medal for his Honours Thesis. His brother, Peter, was one of my thesis supervisors in Buddhist Studies. They were both really good people, I don't know if they're still with us.) As you will probably both know, the perennial school was a kind of clique of academics and artists, notably René Guenon, Frithjof Schuon, and Ananda Coomaraswamy (among others), who extolled the 'philosophia perennis' (Liebniz' term) - that the various spiritual traditions of the classical period are diverse expressions of an underlying primordial wisdom tradition.

At the time, I was quite impressed by these scholars, although I never fully assimilated their books. But as time went on. I don't feel their ouevre has worn that well (ironic, considering the subject matter). Some of those associated with them, notably Julius Evola, became associated with reactionary fascism. (In his later years in Bloomington, Indiana, Schuon became embroiled in controversy over ritual gatherings that included nudity and were alleged to involve minors — allegations that were investigated and ultimately dismissed. It did tarnish his reputation though.)

In any case, the point I'm making is that expressed in the title of a critical book about it - Against the Modern World, Mark Sedgwick (his blog). I have discovered there was quite a lot of common ground between the perennialists and reactionary politics, which I don't want to be associated with. (I was also dismayed to learn that Steve Bannon used to quote Guenon.) Neverthelss, I really do understand why one can be 'against the modern world' and the way in which the post-Enlightenment project can be seen as a kind of degenerate age (the 'Kali Yuga' in the perennialist terminology, taken from a Hindu myth.) I don't necessarily agree with it, or endorse it, but I can see the logic. Guenon might be considered an eccentric, but I don't think that's all he was.

(There's something similar in some of the current French cultural critics - Rémi Brague for example - a more temperate and academically grounded critic of modernity who situates his analysis within the Western philosophical tradition itself.)

@Wayfarer I interpret the take home message of your post to be that, when assessing the value of the Enlightenment project itself, and what lens it provides for recovering the views of the ancients, one can go Bannon's way or Taylor's way. And we've both seemingly chosen to go the same way :wink:

I’d hate to associate myself with Steve Bannon :yikes: I’d much rather Charles Taylor.

I’d hate to associate myself with Steve Bannon :yikes: I’d much rather Charles Taylor. — Wayfarer

I never doubted it for a second.

I interpret the take home message of your post to be that, when assessing the value of the Enlightenment project itself, and what lens it provides for recovering the views of the ancients, one can go Bannon's way or Taylor's way. And we've both seemingly chosen to go the same way :wink: — Pierre-Normand

Are they the only two ways?

I have discovered there was quite a lot of common ground between the perennialists and reactionary politics, which I don't want to be associated with. (I was also dismayed to learn that Steve Bannon used to quote Guenon. — Wayfarer

David Bentley Hart is disparaging of perennialism and proudly announces himself a syncretist. That’s not always the best path either - religious appropriation and incoherence being the most obvious. No doubt Hart would be a fastidious exemplar.

The failures of, say, some contemporary virtue ethicists to recover Aristotle's conception of the good life, and of the ultimate good — Pierre-Normand

Do you count Nussbaum as one of those failures?

Eudaimonia cannot survive the surgical operation that separates understanding what we are from what it is that we ought to be and do, and this can justifiably be viewed as a loss of immanence or transcendence depending on which side one locates themselves in Taylor's immanent frame. — Pierre-Normand

What’s your foundation for eudaimonia? It often strikes me that the most vociferous groups in the human flourishing space are secular moralists of the Sam Harris kind.

How would we demonstrate (in your words) what we are from, what it is that we ought to be and do?

Do you count Nussbaum as one of those failures? — Tom Storm

I honestly can't say since I haven't read much of Nussbaum. But I was content here to point at one identifiable tendency of contemporary Western philosophy that could account for what @Count Timothy von Icarus had perceived as a thinning of our conceptions of the good in some virtue-theoretic accounts, which is a tendency that I view Hilary Putnam and John McDowell, for instance, as fighting against, in general.

What’s your foundation for eudaimonia? It often strikes me that the most vociferous groups in the human flourishing space are secular moralists of the Sam Harris kind.

I view Sam Harris's account of "the moral landscape" to be completely incoherent and so grossly misinformed as not being worthy of much attention, although it can be fun, sometimes, to debunk some if his misconceptions.

How would we demonstrate (in your words) what we are from, what it is that we ought to be and do?

It's possible you didn't parse my sentence correctly. There was no comma after "from" in my statement: "Eudaimonia cannot survive the surgical operation that separates understanding what we are from what it is that we ought to be and do[...]"

My claim was purely negative. It was reiterating Putnam's point (to be distinguished from Harris' insistence for collapsing values into the folds of "scientific" facts) that you can't derive what makes a human life good (or an action just) from some sort of factual/scientific investigation into what "objectively" is the case about us.

Regarding foundations for eudaimonia, I am also, like Putnam and Rorty, an anti-foundationalist. It would require much work, though, for me to unpack a positive account here. (There is a very rough sketch here of what I view the be the interdependence between understanding what we are and what it is that we ought to do, in the context of reasoning about human rights. Are they natural/given, willed/instituted, or both?)

It's possible you didn't parse my sentence correctly. There was no comma after "from" in my statement: — Pierre-Normand

Ha! I'm not sure why that's there.

I view Sam Harris's account of "the moral landscape" to be completely incoherent and so grossly misinformed as not being worthy of much attention, — Pierre-Normand

People seem to love or hate The Moral Landscape.

My claim was purely negative. It was reiterating Putnam's point (to be distinguished from Harris' insistence for collapsing values into the folds of "scientific" facts) that you can't derive what makes a human life good (or an action just) from some sort of factual/scientific investigation into what "objectively" is the case about us. — Pierre-Normand

Got it. I’ve never been overly preoccupied by the is-ought problem. I know Rorty regarded the fact/value distinction as ill-founded. Presumably, it becomes more pressing if one views metaphysics as the ultimate grounding for normative claims, but not if, like Rorty, you see moral reasoning as just form of human conversation, where moral “oughts” emerge from the ways we live together rather than from some deeper metaphysical truth. He might agree with Harris about that point as both seem to be telos free.

Regarding foundations for eudaimonia, I am also, like Putnam and Rorty, an anti-foundationalist. — Pierre-Normand

I’ve found Rorty pretty interesting on this, and I’ve enjoyed some of the Putnam lectures I’ve heard. I have anti-foundationalist intuitions.

Is it your view that Alasdair MacIntyre is right or wrong when he argues (in After Virtue) that facts about human nature already imply norms about how people ought to treat each other, and that the is–ought problem only arises if you remove teleology from the conversation? Interesting: I guess I haven’t really thought much about this until recently.

MacIntyre, as we know, arrives there through Aristotle, while Rorty comes at it via pragmatism and anti-essentialism. It fascinates me that MacIntyre sees the structure of human nature, its inherent purposes, as providing the basis for moral norms, whereas Rorty takes the oposite approach, grounding morality in social practices rather than any inherent human purpose. Which one you endorse will depend on what you believe in - like most philosophy. Thoughts?

Is it your view that Alasdair MacIntyre is right or wrong when he argues (in After Virtue) that facts about human nature already imply norms about how people ought to treat each other, and that the is–ought problem only arises if you remove teleology from the conversation? — Tom Storm

I never read After Virtue but always wanted to (and own it). Maybe I will end up only agreeing with MacIntyre in parts. That's because, on the one hand, I don't think we can dispense with the concept of the teleological organisation of our human natural and social forms of life. Social practices, like biological processes, are inherently teleologically organized, and the two (natural and social) are deeply intertwined (my word, not ChatGPT's!) in the concept of Bildung, formation, acculturation, what Aristotle calls second-nature. I view eudaimonia in rational animals like us to be an outgrowth of flourishing in non-rational sentient animals that experience suffering and well-being. And, on the second hand, I view this teleology to be immanent to our form of life and not pointing towards something external or transcendent.

Interesting. I'm not sure I believe in human nature, but I’m open to changing. I can see how Rorty’s notion of solidarity is a tempting alternative, and in some ways it mimics the role of a telos. Solidarity does give direction to moral thought: it tells us to care for others, expand empathy, reduce cruelty. But it doesn’t claim that this is necessary in the way a telos would. Nussbaum, by contrast, in her Aristotelian Capabilities Approach identifies certain human capabilities that are essential for a person to live a fully human life; essential for flourishing. I understand the attraction of this, but I struggle to get behind notions of universal capabilities. They sound so middle class and well-meaning. But I'm clogging this thread up with unrelated bullshit. Sorry @Wayfarer.