If you think of it psychologically, consciousness, as sensation, is prior to the abstraction of being and of the recognition of the external world as external.

"Being" presupposes non-being, it's an incoherent concept otherwise, but consciousness as simply sensation precedes any such distinctions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

All of this seems confused. Consciousness is not simply sensation, and being is not simply an abstraction — any more than life is an abstraction. But if it is, then so’s consciousness and sensation.

Merely proclaiming that consciousness = sensation, and sensation is prior to all abstractions, is only shifting definitions. Besides, one (or something) has to “be” before it senses anything whatever.

That being is “incoherent” has quite a history. Heidegger has useful things to say about it. It’s a tricky term, but not at all incoherent. We use it and interpret it constantly, even if there’s no agreed technical definition. Likewise “energy” isn’t incoherent, although it has several definitions — including a technical one in physics. I know what people mean when they say it in context, although if pressed it would be perhaps more difficult to pin down.

Like I said, this is thinking of it psychologically. My 11 month old son experiences sensation, he does not have any concept of being as such. Such a concept necessarily implies an understanding of non-being, the idea that one can meaningfully specify "that which does not exist." Otherwise "being" applies equally to all things and is contentless.

My friends' toddler children also seem to lack any sense of being as a concept. A similar thing seems to crop up when stroke victims describe their experiences. When I recall deep sleep dreams, they are generally in a strange way linguistic and repetitive, but also contentless.

Sensation is prior to other parts of consciousness because presumably infants in the womb, dogs, toads, etc. experience sensation. Being doesn't come into it in that a dog's sensation probably lacks any distinction between what it experiences and remembers experiencing and things' existence or non-existence "of themselves."

The whole concept of appearances versus reality requires that one have been fooled by their senses before. Otherwise, wouldn't the naive point of view be "what you see is what there is." Sort of how babies lack object permanence. How does a baby in the womb have a concept of what is and what is not? But they appear to have sensation.

Being" presupposes non-being, it's an incoherent concept otherwise, but consciousness as simply sensation precedes any such distinctions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Heidegger hammers this home in "What is Metaphysics.". The advantage of his account is that it doesn't position us in some unobtainable position beyond our own subjectivity.

Right. The dominant schema used for this issue has been to posit two distinct modes of being, the subjective and objective. The subjective is said to emerge from the objective.

In this view, objective being must preceed or be simultaneous with subjective being, as there can be no entity without objective being that has subjective being.

The main problem I see with this schema is that there is a strong tendency to describe the objective world in terms of what it would "look like" for a subjective observer that, contradictorily, lacks objective being. This is the "view from nowhere," "view from everywhere," or "God's eye view."

The problem with it is practical, not necessarily philosophical. For example, it took so long for physicists to propose an adequate solution for Maxwell's Demon because they kept uncritically positing a demon that can observe and store information in memory without possessing any physical/objective memory storage medium. This problem shows up everywhere when we talk about "fundemental differences/information" instead of relative indiscernibility based on which system is interacting with which other. Example: enzymes can generally not distinguish between a chemical composed of isotopes and one that is not. For their interactions, these differences do not exist.

IMO, there is something missing in this schema. It takes abstractions that exist as part of mental life to be more fundamental than the rest of mental life. However, these abstractions are just parts of mental life, formed from subjective observation and reasoning. A full explanation needs to also explain how the reasoning subject constructs the model and the bridge between the model of the objective that is an element of subjective life and the external world simpliciter. In general, I think this requires subsuming the subjective and objective into a larger whole, not one subsuming the other, as in physicalism and many forms of idealism.

However, assuming the primacy of one or the other is certainly pragmatically useful (see most models in the natural sciences, phenomenology, some aspects of psychology, etc.).

Strange that Jung of all people accepts such a standard metaphysical view. — Mikie

I think that Jung makes that statement in the context of seeing psychology as a departure from the framework of 'rationalist philosophies'. In On the Nature of the Psyche, he wrote extensively upon the resistance against accepting models of the mind involving unconscious processes. Here are some of his remarks concerning German Idealism:

The soul was a tacit assumption that seemed to be known in every detail. With the discovery of a possible unconscious psychic realm, man had the opportunity to embark upon a adventure of the spirit, and one might have expected that a passionate interest would be turned in this direction. Not only was this not the case at all, but there arose on all sides an outcry against such an hypothesis. Nobody drew the conclusion that if the subject of knowledge, the psych, were in fact a veiled for of existence not immediately accessible to consciousness, then all our knowledge must be incomplete, and moreover to a degree that we cannot determine. The validity of conscious knowledge was questioned in an altogether different and more menacing way than it had ever been by the critical procedures of epistemology. The latter put certain bounds to human knowledge in general, from which post-Kantian German Idealism struggled to emancipate itself; but natural science and common sense accommodated themselves to without much difficulty, if they condescended to notice it at all. Philosophy fought against it in the interests of an antiquated pretension of the human mind to be able to pull itself up by its own bootstraps and know things outside the range of human understanding. The victory of Hegel over Kant dealt the gravest blow to reason and to the further development of the German and, ultimately, of the European mind, all the more dangerous as Hegel was a psychologist in disguise who projected great truths out of the subjective sphere into a cosmos he himself had created. We know how far Hegel's influence extends today.....

Hegel offered a solution of the problem raised by epistemological criticism in that he gave ideas a chance to prove their unknown power of autonomy.They induced that hybris of reason which led to Nietzsche's superman and hence to the catastrophe that bear the name of Germany. Not only artists, but philosophers too, are sometimes prophets.....

The peculiar high-flown language Hegel uses bears out this view: it is reminiscent of the megalomanic language of schizophrenics, who us terrific spellbounding words to reduce the transcendent to subjective form, to give the banalities the charm of novelty, or pass off commonplaces as searching wisdom. So bombastic a terminology is symptom of weakness, ineptitude, and lack of substance. But that does not prevent the latest German philosophy from using the same crackpot power-word and pretending it is not unintentional psychology. — Jung, On the Nature of the Psyche, 358

Okay, Carl, now tell us how you really feel.

The separation Jung is making here is surely worthy of being challenged. I brought it up to note that he explicitly acknowledges what he is departing from rather than making a replacement narrative.

The OP plainly doesn't want to go down this road so I'll leave it at that. — Wayfarer

Really? I thought we were right on target. Still, I think I said all I had to say anyway.

[Edit] I see @Mikie's later comment now.

In that case the Tao is being as a whole — existence. The individuated beings (things) that we differentiate in perception have as much existence an anything else, as beings. — Mikie

It wouldn’t exist as a linguistic entity— but animals interact with apples all the time. They seem to differentiate between them and what we call rocks just fine. — Mikie

I think the difference you and I are having is a metaphysical not a factual one. There's no need for us to get into a back and forth, but here are two quotes from the Tao Te Ching that lay out my understanding of how Taoists see this. Both are from Ellen Marie Chen's translation. The ten thousand things represent the multiplicity of things, i.e. distinctions. Being applies to them. Non-being represents the Tao, the undivided unity.

Verse 1:
Non-being, to name the origin of heaven and earth;
Being, to name the mother of ten thousand things.

Verse 40
Returning is the movement of Tao.
Weak is the functioning of Tao.
Ten thousand things under heaven are born of being.
Being is born of non-being.

As I said, we don't have to take this any further. I don't want to distract from your discussion.

In general, I think this requires subsuming the subjective and objective into a larger whole, not one subsuming the other, as in physicalism and many forms of idealism.

However, assuming the primacy of one or the other is certainly pragmatically useful (see most models in the natural sciences, phenomenology, some aspects of psychology, etc.). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Phenomenology may appear to subsume the objective within the subjective, but it redefines subjective such that it becomes merely one pole of an indissociable interaction. It is this interaction which is primary, not a pre-constituted ideal subject.

Like I said, this is thinking of it psychologically. My 11 month old son experiences sensation, he does not have any concept of being as such. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But he “is,” and has a preontological understanding of being (a Heidegger phrase) or pre-theoretical concept of being. He may not have a great concept of life either. Doesn’t mean he’s not alive— even from a psychological point of view.

Likewise we don’t cease to be simply because we haven’t abstracted its meaning.



It’s not a distraction, but I agree we don’t have to continue on. I’ll leave it by saying that I find Taoism fascinating, but am no expert on it. Appreciate the quotes.

Yeah— maybe you can take it from here. It’s not off topic, in my view, but wasn’t what I wanted to get into the weeds about myself. I was more interested in those defending Jung.



He may claim he’s departing from rationalism, although I don’t get that from the text you cited — but in any case, I think many people probably think they’re rebelling against Descartes in some way, but end up talking exactly like him when it comes down to it. Jung seems to be no exception. Appreciate the attempt— maybe I’m missing something.

IMO, there is something missing in this schema. It takes abstractions that exist as part of mental life to be more fundamental than the rest of mental life. However, these abstractions are just parts of mental life, formed from subjective observation and reasoning. A full explanation needs to also explain how the reasoning subject constructs the model and the bridge between the model of the objective that is an element of subjective life and the external world simpliciter. In general,I think this requires subsuming the subjective and objective into a larger whole, not one subsuming the other, as in physicalism and many forms of idealism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The bolded part would be an exit from philosophy into mysticism a la Wittgenstein. Right?

I meant to say he is departing from the domain of rationalist explanation but not negating them. He rejects Nietzsche's rejection of 'laws of nature', for instance. So, Jung does talk like Descartes in many registers but is exploring what is underneath him at the same time.

Jung cannot speak of 'psychologists in disguise' without philosophers who aren't doing that. Perhaps he is trying to have his cake and eat it too.

The main problem I see with this schema is that there is a strong tendency to describe the objective world in terms of what it would "look like" for a subjective observer that, contradictorily, lacks objective being. This is the "view from nowhere," "view from everywhere," or "God's eye view." — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up: This point is also made in The Hidden Self:

What is more, most of the natural sciences try to represent the results of their investigations as though these had come into existence without man’s intervention, in such a way that the collaboration of the psyche – an indispensable factor – remains invisible. (An exception to this is modern physics, which recognizes that the observed is not independent of the observer.) So in this respect, too, science conveys a picture of the world from which a real human psyche appears to be excluded – the very antithesis of the “humanities.” — Carl Jung

This is why a lot of what is paraded around by the media prophets of scientism as secular humanism is anything but humanistic. (It's also why books about 'quantum consciousness' have come into existence.)

The victory of Hegel over Kant dealt the gravest blow to reason and to the further development of the German and, ultimately, of the European mind, all the more dangerous as Hegel was a psychologist in disguise who projected great truths out of the subjective sphere into a cosmos he himself had created - Jung, On the Nature of the Psyche, 358 — "

I have read some articles suggesting that Kant and Schopenhauer anticipate Freud's discovery of the unconscious - which seems fairly obvious when you think about it. For Kant, much of what we think we know is determined by categorial structures that lie beneath the threshold of conscious awareness. For Schopenhauer, transcendence can be sought through art as a symbolic form of the Sublime. Whereas Hegel attempts to explain everything, to make it all explicit, but in so doing, 'projected great truths out of the subjective sphere into a cosmos he himself had created.' It seems a sound analysis to me.



The differentiation of Being and things is also explicit in Heidegger:

The formidable task that Heidegger sets himself in Being and Time is to respond to the question ‘What is Being’? This ‘Question of Being’ has a long heritage in the Western philosophical tradition, but for Heidegger, to merely ask what is Being? is problematic, as that emphasis tends to objectify Being as a ‘thing' – that is to say, it separates off ‘Being’ (whatever it is) from the questioner of Being. ” — Heidegger's Ways of Being

Bolds added. I see the effort to equate being with the simply existent as an attempt to short-circuit the whole question of 'the meaning of being'.

One motivation for suggesting that mind or consciousness precedes being is the view that it seems impossible that consciousness emerges from systems the components of which are severally non-conscious. However it seems to me there is a similar problem with putting consciousness as primary, namely his hard to see how extension, locality, differentiation and so on can emerge from consciousness alone — bert1

There is a theme in the perennial philosophies, 'nature knows herself in the human' - the 'human as microcosm' of the Hermetics, the 'primordial human' of the Rg Veda. I think this is much nearer Jung's point. The various creation mythologies can then be read as a symbolic representation of the emergence of intentionality ('breathes life into clay'). The mistake of materialism is to assume that this is consequential rather than causal.

Quoting a secondary source in no way refutes H's conspicuous use of the terms which I pointed out; also, your post doesn't even address how your idiosyncratic usage of "being", as @Jamal has argued, is justified in public discourse.

your idiosyncratic usage of "being" — 180 Proof

I say that beings are subjects of experience, which is a simple fact. As for the various meanings of the verb 'to be', it's a different matter, but it's not relevant to the question implied in the OP.

I have read some articles suggesting that Kant and Schopenhauer anticipate Freud's discovery of the unconscious - which seems fairly obvious when you think about it. For Kant, much of what we think we know is determined by categorial structures that lie beneath the threshold of conscious awareness. For Schopenhauer, transcendence can be sought through art as a symbolic form of the Sublime. Whereas Hegel attempts to explain everything, to make it all explicit, but in so doing, 'projected great truths out of the subjective sphere into a cosmos he himself had created.' It seems a sound analysis to me. — Wayfarer

Yes, Kant and Schopenhauer presented an underlying scaffold that undergirds conscious experience. On the other hand, they would have shot beer through their nostrils if told there was a collective unconscious.

I think there is a truth in Jung's criticism of Hegel. With some aspects of Jung's psychology, I wonder if he is not guilty of the same charge. I also wonder if there is a way to see that Hegel established a framework that permits the logos of Jung. The master's appentice.....

How far removed would the conception of a collective unconscious be from Schopenhauer's conception of 'the Will'? I doesn't strike me as much of an incongruity.

That is an interesting idea. I feel it is incumbent upon you to compare them side by side. Otherwise, my response would be a rebuttal in search of a thesis.

At the very least, would you accept the idea is completely foreign to Kant?

I say that beings are subjects of experience, which is a simple fact. — Wayfarer

So "simple" that you can demonstrate this and yet haven't bothered to – why? Just because you keep saying it doesn't make your definition a "fact". :roll:

At the very least, would you accept the idea is completely foreign to Kant? — Paine

It's certainly not articulated by Kant, I would agree with that. But then, if you adapt the idea of the collective unconscious, it's not difficult to see, for example, mythologies as being an expression of it.

Btw, on an adjacent topic which you might be more willing – able – to answer directly: the conception that is most consistent with your metaphysical outlook / commitment is

A. The universe emerged from intelligence.

B. Intelligence/s emerged from the universe.

C. The universe emerged from 'infinite' intelligence, then 'finite' intelligence/s emerged from the universe.

D. The universe itself is intelligent.

E. Either the universe or intelligence or both are illusions (maya).

As a naturalist I find that B is most consistent internally as well as with all that we know scientifically – publicly – so for about narure.

your post doesn't even address how your idiosyncratic usage of "being", as Jamal has argued, is justified in public discourse. — 180 Proof

I say that beings are subjects of experience, which is a simple fact. As for the various meanings of the verb 'to be', it's a different matter, but it's not relevant to the question implied in the OP. — Wayfarer

I don't get it. Words can mean different things in different contexts. Using "being" in reference to a sentient or conscious entity, e.g. human being, is perfectly reasonable in philosophy or everyday speech. Whether or not that particular usage is relevant to this particular discussion is another matter.

As a naturalist I find that B is most consistent internally as well as with all that we know scientifically – publicly – about narure so far. — 180 Proof

Of course. But what I keep trying, and failing, to explain to you, is basically summarised by this point that I've already posted, from Jung, in the essay we're discussing:

What is more, most of the natural sciences try to represent the results of their investigations as though these had come into existence without man’s intervention, in such a way that the collaboration of the psyche – an indispensable factor – remains invisible. (An exception to this is modern physics, which recognizes that the observed is not independent of the observer.) So in this respect, too, science conveys a picture of the world from which a real human psyche appears to be excluded – the very antithesis of the “humanities.” — Carl Jung

Most naturalism falls into this trap - it thinks that 'the universe' would exist just as it is, were there no subject to experience it. But it doesn't see the way in which 'the subject' actually brings the Universe into being through providing the perspective within which the very ideas of 'existence' and 'non-existence' are meaningful in the first place. 'Materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets himself', said Schopenhauer. This is why I keep saying that the naturalist view depends on the framework of conscious experience within which it is formulated and which precedes it, but then it pretends that it is seeing reality as it is, as if it has entirely cut off the subjective, rather than just bracketing it out. This is 'the blind spot of science'.



What is needed is a change of perspective, something like a gestalt shift, which is more than a matter of propositional knowledge.

Using "being" in reference to a sentient or conscious entity, e.g. human being, is perfectly reasonable in philosophy or everyday speech. — T Clark

Of course. That's what I've said. 'A being' is a subject of experience. The verb 'to be' has many other meanings, including 'whatever exists'. That is the sense in which Mikie and Jamal believe it should be used, but I'm saying it is not adequate to interpret the meaning of the word 'being' as is used in the quotation from Carl Jung.

I say that beings are subjects of experience, which is a simple fact — Wayfarer

Looks like I failed again.

You're using the word in the common modern way in conversations about metaphysics, where others are using it in the traditional philosophical sense. This causes confusion. You are not entitled to say to people in a philosophical conversation that, hey, by the way, trees are not beings because they are not subjects of experience.

Imagine joining a zoology forum and saying, "in my opinion, the word 'primate' refers only to apes."

Maybe an even better analogy would be to say, "in my opinion, the word 'animal' refers only to mammals."

The verb 'to be' has many other meanings, including 'whatever exists'. That is the sense in which Mikie and Jamal believe it should be used — Wayfarer

Use it how you like, but make it clear if you're not using it in the way it's used in traditional metaphysics.

Use it how you like, but make it clear if you're not using it in the way it's used in traditional metaphysics. — Jamal

Whereas you are?

I can say that rocks are beings and also say they're conscious, — Jamal

I don't understand your point.

Of course. — Wayfarer

So you can't even honestly reply without a wall of quoted texts to this poll . Pathetic. :shade:

:up:


@universeness @ucarr

I can say that rocks are beings and also say they're conscious — Jamal

I was showing that when philosophers say that everything that can be said to be is a being (which should be obvious), they are not advancing a metaphysical view. They can equally say that rocks and other non-human beings are conscious as say that all beings are material or whatever. It's neutral.

I was showing that when philosophers say that everything that can be said to be is a being (which should be obvious), they are not advancing a metaphysical view. — Jamal

This discussion has really gone off the deep end. Arguments about definitions are almost universal here on the forum. The definition of "being" that @Wayfarer is using can be perfectly reasonable in both everyday and philosophical discussions, depending on context. I admit he looks at things differently than I generally do, but I see things differently from many people here. I don't understand why you've being so aggressive.

The definition of "being" that Wayfarer is using can be perfectly reasonable in both everyday and philosophical discussions, depending on context. — T Clark

Yes, I agree.

The problem is that his use is often not in fact reasonable in context. I've demonstrated this in my posts. You might be interested in reading them.

Aristotle, Aquinas, Heidegger, and many others use the term to mean anything that is, i.e., anything that can be said to be. Nobody has to follow them in this usage, of course, but @Wayfarer actually attempts to correct people who use the word in this traditional way, by saying that, actually, only sentient individuals are beings.

Can you see the problem? Can you see that if you say to Aristotle "hey, actually only sentient individuals are beings", you're not making a philosophical point, but just refusing to use Aristotle's terminology and expressing your refusal in a misleadingly substantive statement?