There is a kind of understanding that requires a transformation in the knower, that can only be known first-person. — Quixodian

So it might seem 'mystical or esoteric' in the absence of that. — Quixodian

You'd be wrong if you think I can't relate. I'm quite fascinated by the idea of the esoteric, which is after all the shadow cast by rationality. Structurally they are understood as a pair.

Let's look at the etymology.

"secret; intended to be communicated only to the initiated; profound," 1650s, from Latinized form of Greek esoterikos "belonging to an inner circle" (Lucian), from esotero "more within," ...

Does this inner circle advertise, argue for the same public scientific-rational recognition that it simultaneously claims is impossible ?

To me exclusivity and secrecy make more sense.

So, I think the answer is, 'very many', and I think it's directly related to the loss of the vertical dimension, the qualitative dimension. — Quixodian

I just meant 'meaning' in the tapwater sense that we are conceptual creatures. I would never deny that we need stories and symbols to mitigate the horror of life. As you probably recall, I think Joseph Campbell is great, and I reread a good chunk of Jung not long ago.

I think the ladder is within the abyss of the self. The kingdom of god is within. The usual stuff. But one doesn't argue this, or not primarily. Even in the grim Leviathan, Hobbes appeals to his reader to look within for evidence. Campbell and Jung hint carefully at things they can't actually say --- a muted post horn, an open storm thud.

One of the main tributaries of modern liberalism was, of course, Christianity. And Christianity 'levels the playing field' - it promises salvation for all (of course, on the condition that you believe in it.) Whereas philosophical spirituality, or spiritual philosophy, makes no such guarantee - it is one of the reasons that early Christianity eclipsed both philosophy and gnosticism, both of which were depicted as 'elitest' or 'intellectualist'. I think we've retained the emphasis on the uniqueness of every living soul, but without the original religious rationale for it - meaning that, in the sphere of ethics, or the qualitative dimension, we have a kind of view that all opinions about it are equal.

That reminds me of something we discussed previously, in an essay by Edward Conze about perennial philosophy - the belief that 'as far as worth-while knowledge is concerned not all men are equal, but that there is a hierarchy of persons, some of whom, through what they are, can know much more than others; that there is a hierarchy also of the levels of reality, some of which are more "real," because more exalted than others.' I think you will see versions of that in Joseph Campbell (and Jung and Hillman) but that there's a real tension between that and liberal democracies. I think that's why there is often a link between perennialism or traditionalism and right-wing political movements.

I'm certainly frustrated with a lot of what passes as philosophy in our society. — Quixodian

I can't imagine anything better than phenomenology at its best, though it's the job of the phenomenologist to try. Husserl, early Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty. All three are turned toward reality in its fullness, correcting scientism without embracing irrationalism. I can only think they don't interest you as much as they might because they aren't esoteric.

If you only mean that, as a philosopher, you are opposed to other philosophers, IMO that's just actual [ autonomous , critical ] philosophy -- as opposed to an Inner Circle 'philosophy' in which debate is no longer necessary.

Don't get me wrong. I like when people agree with me. I also want profound community.

All our turned toward reality in its fullness, correcting scientism without embracing irrationalism. I can only think they don't interest you as much as they might because they aren't esoteric. — plaque flag

I came into philosophy through the Adyar Bookshop.

I will say, Vervaeke’s lectures are bringing it all together for me - lashings of phenomenology, cognitive science, and sapiential wisdom teachings.

there's a real tension between that and liberal democracies. — Quixodian

Yes. An Inner Circle is potentially tyrannical --- like the Inner Party.

hat reminds me of something we discussed previously, in an essay by Edward Conze about perennial philosophy - the belief that 'as far as worth-while knowledge is concerned not all men are equal, but that there is a hierarchy of persons, some of whom, through what they are, can know much more than others; that there is a hierarchy also of the levels of reality, some of which are more "real," because more exalted than others.' — Quixodian

Well this is a rich issue. I'd say that almost no one believes in the actual equality of people but only (ideally, hopefully) in the framework of equality before the law. In a pluralistic society, everybody gets to talk themselves into a sense of the superiority of People Like Them to The Other People.

I do it too, of course, but part of what makes People Like Me so wonderful < grin > is that we can endure the sight of this inescapable elitist deepstructure and articulate it. I agree w/ Kojeve that philosophy is a journey of self-consciousness. To me, the 'psychoanalytic/shamanic' aspect of that, discussed more in Jung & Campbell, is 'integrating the shadow.' This is part of why Shakespeare is a great symbol. He is, as a single personality, an organized chaos of personalities. Is anything human alien to Shakespeare ?

in the sphere of ethics, or the qualitative dimension, we have a kind of view that all opinions about it are equal. — Quixodian

I'd say we just have [ or pretend to aspire to have ] equality before the law, individual rights.

In our polarized climate, is it 10% of the population that thinks another 10% is dangerously insane ? I think you miss / ignore the religious feeling in politics. The sacred is always with us.

I came into philosophy through the Adyar Bookshop. — Quixodian

Fair enough. A quick Googling has me saying that makes sense.

Another victim of the mighty Amazon.

Another victim of the mighty Amazon. — Quixodian

If you mean you spend lots of money on books there, I can relate.

The Adyar Bookshops had an unmistakable atmosphere, incense-scented, full of mystical tomes and tidings. Last surviving one in my city closed early 2000’s, as I say, victim of online retailing. But all the books that really meant something to me in my 20’s and 30’s came from there.

//correction, closed 2012, story here.//

Consider: rationality (logic) - quality (ideal) - energy (affect). It presents rationality as mutually fundamental, while also allowing for its limitations and doing away with humanism and its hubris without ‘suffocating’ our capacity. And it’s simultaneously dynamic, stable and symmetrical.
— Possibility

I'd be glad to hear more about this. I neglected it at first as I was caught up defending my 'flat' metaphor. — plaque flag

It’s something I’ve been working on, based on ontic-structural realism: relations without pre-existing relata. It draws from examining the underlying, original language structure and content of the Tao Te Ching in light of Rovelli’s RQM and Feldman Barrett’s Theory of Constructed Emotion, as well as (more loosely) the triadic structures in Kant (read through Darwin) and Peirce. More recently, Barad’s New Materialism has helped with aligning the QM aspects with phenomenological realism, cultural theory and post-humanism.

The wisdom of the Tao Te Ching is in aligning the structure of reality as we understand it with the logical grammatical structure of qualitative ideas in traditional Chinese language use. Every ideograph corresponds to a variable quality of idea, whose actual or real meaning in the text is derived from: a) its relative logical position to other ideas within the text’s structure, and b) the reader’s embodied interaction, as the sole source of energy. The Tao Te Ching instructs readers to be aware of and then put affect/desire (energy) aside to align their understanding of qualitative ideas in the world with the rational structure of the text, so that the energy of the world flows through them without obstruction. But because the English language is conceptual in nature, this timeless understanding gets lost in translation, as each translator’s embodied interaction is embedded into their words.

‘Rationality’, ‘quality’ and ‘energy’ here refer to purely qualitative ideas, and are therefore paradoxical in nature. Rationality is to separate reality into constituent parts, while asserting an interconnected whole. Quality is to recognise variability while alluding to an eternal ideal, and Energy is to acknowledge an inherent dynamism, while striving for stability. To use any other form in this description, however, would be to draw from either the pure rationality of the ontological structure, or from my own affected position, which would result in a performative contradiction.

Thank you. Sounds fascinating. It's so out of my typical discourse framework that I'll play it safe and just let it marinate in my mind for now. But I respect the boldness without pretending to understand it yet. We need 'biodiverity' and daring novel approaches.

I will say, Vervaeke’s lectures are bringing it all together for me - lashings of phenomenology, cognitive science, and sapiential wisdom teachings. — Quixodian

:up:

I love when lots of pieces come together. For me Brandom was the glue that helped me transcend dualism and clarify direct realism. Drama-fucking-turgical ontology. We need to simply listen to our own yapping mouths and realizing what we are doing--cease forgetting ourselves in the objects of the discussion and look at the ethical-inferential framework itself.

I feel like I'm finding a way to connect phenomenology's understanding of subjectivity as a 'private' perspective on the world (not a consciousness bubble closing us off) with 'Hegelian'/Wittgensteinian realizations that the linguistic self is more 'we' than 'me.'

For me wisdom teachings are important, but my 'pessimistic transcendent ' tendencies allow me to keep this personal existential decision separate. I need only address the larger framework of rationality for my own philosophical purposes. I need only sketch the necessity of an existential situation in general.

The Adyar Bookshops had an unmistakable atmosphere, incense-scented, full of mystical tomes and tidings. — Quixodian

Lakoff talks about the prototypical center of concepts. I'd say you fundamentally think of the sage when you think of the philosopher. I think of the pure mathematician who has to extend his language to include the poetic but still seeks to articulate basic structure with 'cold' objectivity.

As Russell said, mathematics has an austere beauty. And I like that in philosophy too, or at least in part of it. I always loved the title Being and Nothingness. As Derrida puts it, this is the transparent/white mythology, worn timeless with its lack of concrete reference, its effaced metaphoricity.

I should add that it's only flat in the sense that nothing is stacked on anything else. It's given as an entire blanket. Entities and categories get their meaning structurally, relationally. People still value things differently. But this need not appear in the logical structure. I'm intentionally leaving the details unspecified. I want to give only the skeleton, leave out everything that's contingent.

Any postulated higher beings would have to be justified in the rational conversation. Basically rationality itself is god in this basically humanist conception. But what humans are is largely what they determine themselves to be. — plaque flag

A few quick points about this:

Any logical structure consists of variables - some kind of differentiation - otherwise you’re talking a singularity, the unintelligible absolute, which can only be relation itself.

For a rational conversation, you need rationality (logical structure), an assumption of embodied intra-action, AND qualitative variability (difference).

To posit rationality as god precludes the embodied intra-action from ‘determining’ themselves to be rational.

Any logical structure consists of variables - some kind of differentiation - otherwise you’re talking a singularity, the unintelligible absolute, which can only be relation itself.

For a rational conversation, you need rationality (logical structure), an assumption of embodied intra-action, AND qualitative variability (difference).

To posit rationality as god precludes the embodied intra-action from ‘determining’ themselves to be rational. — Possibility

I can't pretend to understand all of what you've written, but in case it clarifies my own case, your claims here would have to be justified in the 'dramaturgical' ideal communication community (rationally). Your claims. My claims. A place/ stage of civilized collision. Synthetic-critical tradition embraced at the door by both of us, for either of us, as persons, to have leverage.

At least I can't see how you and me as discursive subjects can be reduced by discursive subjects subject to norms which transcend them both.

Problem is that there is no one rational understanding. Humanity is diverse.

Problem is that there is no one rational understanding. Humanity is diverse. — Janus

But do you see how that's self-cancelling relativism ? If you argue for it, then that's just 'your' logic, no ?

We don't need some perfectly determinate and final set of inferential and semantic norms to do science. Science is fundamentally social and cooperative. We consciously seek consensus with a kind of synthetic-critical method, a 'second order tradition' (Popper).

Your view (so far, on this thread) implies the denial of the possibility of [genuine ] philosophy.

nothing to do with relativism and it's not a matter of valid or consistent logic, it's a matter of presuppositions or premises. Valid argument can be mounted from any premise you like, soundness (in the case of metaphysical arguments at least) is undecidable. Also the diversity of opinion amongst humans is unarguable.

I'm not taliking about science, though, but metaphysics. That said, scientific theories cannot be proven; they remain forever defeasible.

Valid argument can be mounted from any premise you like, soundness (in the case of metaphysical arguments at least) is undecidable. — Janus

So is the nature of argument at least truly universal and binding on all humans ?

It seems to me that you are ultimately arguing that argument is not decisive. I hope you are offering more than the reminder that we could always be wrong, that life is not just about logic.

But this is all (to me) way too existential compared to what the OP cares about. The point is getting out of the mud of dualism and seeing that 'mental' and 'physical' entities are always already entangled in a single nexus.

Now flat and rationalist come together. We already explain going to the dentist (“physical”) in terms of a toothache (“mental”). We already explain hearing music (“mental”) in terms of hammers on strings (“physical”). We might explain going off the road by a hallucination and that hallucination by the ingestion of a drug. Given all of these typical inferential connections between the supposedly fundamental categories, the famous mental/physical dyad loses (or ought to lose ) its prestige. A single 'continuous' blanket ontology becomes possible, with the nonalienated immanent (even centrally located ) rational community as the spider on the web.

I would agree that an inconsistent argument is not a viable argument, for obvious reasons. Consistent or valid metaphysical arguments may be sound or unsound; that cannot be determined.

People cannot be forced to argue consistently, but if they don't they are, effectively, not arguing but merely asserting. The range of possible consistent arguments is limited only by the imagination. Is that universal enough for you?

It seems to me that you are ultimately arguing that argument is not decisive. — plaque flag

I am describing the human situation which shows that argument cannot be decisive. If you disagree you could offer some examples of arguments which definitively show themselves to be decisive.

I hope you are offering more than the reminder that we could always be wrong, that life is not just about logic. — plaque flag

If that's what you think I have been offering then I think you haven't read closely enough. I am not saying simply that we can always be wrong (which is pretty much true) but that metaphysical arguments cannot be shown to be right or wrong. You could refute that by giving one example of a demonstrably right or wrong metaphysical argument. Good luck...

Discursive thought is necessarily dualistic, but nonetheless dualistic thought can be more or less clear or muddy, consistent or inconsistent. Dualism as a metaphysical stance, despite its current unpopularity, cannot be shown to be right or wrong. I don't favour it myself, because it seems implausible to me, but I acknowledge that plausibility is an assessment which must remain subjective, depending as it does on the whole of each person's experience, acquired and accepted knowledge and understanding.

But do you see how that's self-cancelling relativism ? If you argue for it, then that's just 'your' logic, no ? — plaque flag

It hardly seems like self cancelling relativism to me - just a matter of the fact that people have different brains informed about different things. If I argue for it it won't be with 'just my logic', it will be with evidence that I am somewhat informed about. Recognition of that evidence might well inform your logic.

So why think it self-cancelling relativism?

Respectfully, what I'm hearing is platitudinal. To me it's such a truism that people think differently that I wouldn't think to mention it. This is a forum, right ? Where voices collide ? As mere cautionary platitude, it is not relativism, I agree. But it's also not relevant to the thread, which was potentially actually about something. I like your posts by the way, so I don't mean to come off rude. I'm just surprised with the detour here.

I like your posts by the way, so I don't mean to come off rude. — plaque flag

I saw what I responded to as platitudinal and surprising coming from you, so I engaged in conversational research. Don't worry about it. :cool: