Is this Socrates as variously encountered through Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes (probably not the latter I assume), and then "reconstructed?" Or the Socrates of the Platonic corpus? — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's a mythical Socrates that suits my purpose here. Long tradition of that.

And possibly also it's Socrates stating his creed about how wisdom is to found: in dialectic, not in armchair inquiry. — J

I don't know that Socrates would say that any wisdom emerged from those conversations, not as a product of them, not as "we talked about justice for a few hours and together we figured it out." But if you have all these conversations and nothing comes of them, you can reach some kind of conclusion based on that experience ... Different thing.

All I can say is that I think philosophy must be a sort of dialogue. We don't do research to test the ideas we come up with, on our own or in conversation, so it's not like the sciences, not even like mathematics. (An idea for a proof is not a proof.)

What that means exactly, I'm not sure, and whether that dialogue "produces results" is not clear to me.

But we have only each other to talk to. The animals listen, and they respond certainly, but you can't talk with them, not really. Many people pray, some even believe God speaks to them ― I don't know if people who have that experience consider it similar to the way we talk amongst ourselves.

There's an old story I love about two rabbis arguing over some point and God Himself appears and takes the side of one of them in the debate! The other objects, and tells God He's out-of-order, that this is for them to hash out. God agrees with him, more or less apologizes for butting in, and withdraws.

We have only each other to talk to, whether it leads it to anything, whether we hope it does, we're all the company we have.

Philosophy is a peculiar discipline: it's almost entirely conversation. It's not much like science, for the most part, because you don't do research — Srap Tasmaner

Great philosophy is very much concerned with research. The fact that it does not partake of anscientific method of research doesn’t invalidate philosophical methods as less rigorous , ungrounded or mere conversation. On
the contrary, it is precisely through the phenomenological research of writers like Husserl that we are able to understand why scientific method cannot ground itself , and why philosophy can avail itself of methods of research that are in a significant sense more precise than empirical methods of investigation.

we still sit around and talk, and a lot of it is rehashing the same old disagreements we've always had. When the kids visit, they're either bemused or bewildered that almost nothing has changed — Srap Tasmaner

Philosophy doesn’t simply rehash old disagreements, it reveals how the most supposedly ‘cutting edge’ sciences recycle and rehash old philosophical themes without being aware of it. After showing how the old themes are still driving scientific and cultural understandings in other fields, philosophy then offers alternative ways of thinking. Philosophy thereby demonstrates what science, with its historical nearsightedness, cannot, which is that the progress in thought never simply abandons its past , but reinterprets it such that a certain thread of continuity runs through the history of thought.

. . . or that contemporary philosophers in general are not interested in mankind’s search for meaning?
— Joshs

Perhaps that task has been relocated in psychology and psychiatry. Or where its been for eons, religion — jgill

It’s true that if one wants to put forth a theory of meaning, one can choose from a range of conventional vocabularies under the rubric of ‘psychology’, whereas that option was not available before the 19th century. But empirical psychology and psychiatry can never replace the rigor of philosophy’s mode of questioning. That is why many philosophers put forth both a philosophy and a psychology, showing how the psychology is a naive form of philosophizing. Examples include Merleau-Ponty, Nietzsche, Husserl, Eugene Gendlin and George Kelly.

aporia as a possible gateway to something better. — J

Aporia means impasse, the opposite of a gateway.

the Socrates (or Plato) of the Republic — J

A major key to understanding the Republic is the making of images, including the image of a transcendent realm of Forms. Or, in other words, philosophical poiesis.

Here we specifically examine the difference between knowledge and "how it looks to us." — J

In the Republic after Socrates presents the image of the Forms Glaucon wants Socrates to tell them what the Forms themselves are. Socrates responds:

You will no longer be able to follow, dear Glaucon, although there won’t be any lack of eagerness on my part. But you would no longer seeing an image of what we are saying, but the truth itself, at least as it looks to me. Whether it really is so or not cannot be properly insisted on.(emphasis added)
— 533a

I see him advocating a positive doctrine about knowledge that is meant to be independent of what Athenians, or anyone else, think of it. — J

He does advocate a positive doctrine but it is made to persuade the Athenians not would be philosophers.

One of the reasons I posted that, was that I've been mulling this over for the past few days: — Srap Tasmaner

Well I would say that the Socratic examination of opinion is all about the transcendence of opinion. This is the common view, and the way Fooloso reads Plato looks to be idiosyncratic. Or are we trying to talk about Socrates apart from Plato?

have I completely mischaracterized Socrates, who swore up and down that he did not inquire into the heavens and the earth like some others, but only asked people questions? — Srap Tasmaner

Socrates is very interested in the human good (and Plato in The Good), but I don't see the human good as separate from reality. For example, Socrates examines opinions in inquiring about Justice, but it's not as if he is looking at opinions about justice instead of justice.

Now if someone wants to push the image of Socrates-as-skeptic, that's fine, but skepticism is not the same thing as Plato's dialogues or philosophy. If Socrates is to be reduced to a know-nothing skeptic, then we are talking only about one small part of philosophy. If it were the whole of philosophy then perhaps philosophers would be primarily interested in what "has already been said."

In any case, I find it exceedingly odd that none of Socrates' followers do the "Socrates-as-mere-skeptic" thing, and that in the most important and last moments of his life we do not see that aspect emphasized. I find it hard to read Socrates that way.

But the Socrates (or Plato) of the Republic is doing more than this. Here we specifically examine the difference between knowledge and "how it looks to us." Our modern talk about convergence etc. would be foreign to Plato, but I see him advocating a positive doctrine about knowledge that is meant to be independent of what Athenians, or anyone else, think of it.

Right, and this goes right along with the psychology presented in the Republic, the Phaedrus, etc. The rational part of the soul has proper authority because it can unify the soul, and move past what merely "appears to be good," (appetitive) or "is said to be good," (spirited/passions) in search of what is "truly good." There is here, on the one hand, the idea of self-transcendence, which we can find in much of the classical tradition and Hegel, Kierkegaard, etc., the move beyond the "given" and "what we already are." In the other, the idea of unity as the principle of self-determination and even the ground for beings (plural; the "One and the Many") that would become a cornerstone of the Aristotlean tradition, and much else.

But Plato's presentation flows from his thoughts on language and conception of images. The seventh letter is very helpful here because he "talks shop" about this directly, and explains why he doesn't present things in a sort of dissertation or set of doctrines, or even in the more constrained dialectical of how Aristotle develops his arguments.

An interesting thing here is Plato's appeal to "a long time spent living together," in a certain manner. One of the things that really sets modern philosophy apart from ancient and medieval philosophy (or from popular contemporary philosophy in the New Age movement or older religions) is that practice has largely dropped out of the picture. At least, I don't know of philosophy conferences where people go to fast, meditate, engage in group chanting, sit vigils, etc.

In a lot of ways, medieval philosophy seems most like contemporary philosophy (as opposed to ancient or early modern epochs) because it was also very academic and involved a great deal of rigorous training. Moreover, it has the heavy focus on commentary, the production of commentary, and its defense. But then when it comes to practice it's sort of the polar opposite, because in the earlier period a great deal of the thinkers are monastics whose entire lives revolve around practice.

I don't have any strong conclusions to draw from this, I just think it's an interesting difference, particularly because so much contemporary philosophy also seems to focus on similar ideas vis-á-vis the medievals, particularly phenomenology and semiotics.

Well, that's a broader academia problem, and I think it is often even worse in other fields... — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep. But I'm wondering, "What is the corrective?" Contemplation? Truth over disputatiousness?

I like some of the late Thomas Hopko's ideas on this, who I believe was in your Church. One paraphrase is in my bio, "Don't label him; say he's wrong. And don't just say he's wrong; say why. And don't just say why; say what you think is right." That puts a nice ceiling on disputatiousness. Elsewhere he says that one should never give their opinion unless they are asked or have a duty to do so (this is reminiscent of something like the desert fathers - a kind of spiritual practice). Then elsewhere he says something to the effect, "Showing that your brother is wrong does not make you right. Showing that your brother is a sinner does not make you righteous." Perhaps those can function as a starting point for correctives.

But then when it comes to practice it's sort of the polar opposite, because in the earlier period a great deal of the thinkers are monastics whose entire lives revolve around practice. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Or also active Orders (Dominicans, Franciscans), or geographically centered thought-movements (University of Paris, University of Naples, etc.).

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I think Socrates and most philosophers since are committed to the idea that there is an ideal convergence point, involving rational inquiry, where we can reach consensus based on what is the case, not simply on "how it looks to us." — J

But the Socrates (or Plato) of the Republic is doing more than this. Here we specifically examine the difference between knowledge and "how it looks to us." Our modern talk about convergence etc. would be foreign to Plato, but I see him advocating a positive doctrine about knowledge that is meant to be independent of what Athenians, or anyone else, think of it. — J

Good points. :up:

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You seem to have come around on this:

Great philosophy is very much concerned with research. The fact that it does not partake of anscientific method of research doesn’t invalidate philosophical methods as less rigorous , ungrounded or mere conversation — Joshs

(The point was never that we shouldn't read others.)

We have only each other to talk to, whether it leads it to anything, whether we hope it does, we're all the company we have. — Srap Tasmaner

This is an odd thing to say in the context of Socrates, is it not? Socrates paid more heed to his daimon than to any man.

I'm not even sure it makes sense to say, "Philosophy is about conversation, not reality, because it is rooted in Socratic skepticism." First, all conversation is about something, and that "something" is some kind of reality. If someone is not interested in any realities then they will apparently not have conversations. In a similar way, a hardened skeptic would not engage in philosophical conversation at all. The one who engages in philosophical conversation must at least believe that his interlocutor has the ability to shed light and show him something new and previously unknown (or vice versa).

historically philosophers have inquired into reality in a way similar to but deeper than what we now call "science," and if they did talk about what someone else has already said, it was only in service to this inquiry into reality. — Leontiskos

I rather like to think that philosophy is concerned with reality as lived. It's in that sense that it is concerned with the nature and meaning of being rather than the study of what can be objectively assessess and measured. Which is why I'm sceptical of the suggestion that philosophy and science are the same in essence. Since the advent of a specifically modern science, with Newton and Galileo, there has been a difference in principle, grounded in the primacy of the objective. (It's not coincidental that the earliest known use of the term 'objective' in our modern sense is from 1654 (source))

There is a Buddhist Sanskrit term, yathābhūtam, meaning 'to see truly,' with the connotation of knowing what is truly so. Parallels can be found in Latin and Greek philosophy, notably veritas and aletheia, the latter meaning 'unconcealment'—a concept central to Heidegger's philosophy. Another term is sapientia (or the related English terms sapience and sapiential), which denotes wisdom imbued with a moral or ethical dimension.

What these terms share is their connection to a form of knowing that transcends simple factual correctness, emphasizing lived wisdom and integrity. They suggest a union of understanding and way of life, a dimension often omitted in the modern notion of objectivity. A distinction can be drawn between the detachment that characterised sagacity in that sense, and the neutrality associated with modern scientific objectivity (although I think that is probably where it originated).

This is the common view, and the way Fooloso reads Plato looks to be idiosyncratic. — Leontiskos

It is not at all idiosyncratic. There are many highly regarded scholars who support this view. Stanley Rosen and Seth Benardete have led a generation of Plato scholars to part ways with the common views. Anyone paying attention to the scholarship for the last fifty years or more knows that that there have been significant changes in the way Plato has been interpreted. See, for example, Christopher Rowe's Methodologies for Reading Plato for a good overview.

The rational part of the soul has proper authority because it can unify the soul, and move past what merely "appears to be good," (appetitive) or "is said to be good," (spirited/passions) in search of what is "truly good." — Count Timothy von Icarus

See my earlier response to J:

In the Republic after Socrates presents the image of the Forms Glaucon wants Socrates to tell them what the Forms themselves are. Socrates responds:

You will no longer be able to follow, dear Glaucon, although there won’t be any lack of eagerness on my part. But you would no longer seeing an image of what we are saying, butthe truth itself, at least as it looks to me. Whether it really is so or not cannot be properly insisted on.(emphasis added)
— 533a — Fooloso4

- Well, thrash metal was not idiosyncratic if we limit ourselves to the 1980's, but I am thinking in terms of centuries and millennia. It helps prevent one from falling into fads.

He does advocate a positive doctrine but it is made to persuade the Athenians not would be philosophers. — Fooloso4

We must have different passages in mind. I'm thinking of Books VI and VII. If the divided line isn't for would-be philosophers, I can't imagine who else it's for.

aporia as a possible gateway to something better.
— J

Aporia means impasse, the opposite of a gateway. — Fooloso4

Yes, or perhaps perplexity, which is why the idea that we are meant to go through aporia is so enticing. I suppose we could view Socrates as trying to block rational thought at these points of aporia, but I'm not sure that's his purpose; I think the aporiae still promise a path forward. We could look at specific dialogues for that, but we'd need a new OP.

A major key to understanding the Republic is the making of images — Fooloso4

I agree that's the case with the form of the city image itself, which we know is constructed in the Republic in order to be a picture of the human soul.

In the Republic after Socrates presents the image of the Forms Glaucon wants Socrates to tell them what the Forms themselves are. Socrates responds:

You will no longer be able to follow, dear Glaucon, although there won’t be any lack of eagerness on my part. But you would no longer seeing an image of what we are saying, but the truth itself, at least as it looks to me. Whether it really is so or not cannot be properly insisted on.(emphasis added)
— 533a — Fooloso4

Hmm. I don't see this as being about the Forms themselves. In 532d, Glaucon is asking to be told what "the character of the power of the dialectic is, and, then, into exactly what forms it is divided; and finally what are its ways." Socrates says he can't present the truth of this particular form -- that is, the dialectic -- without using images. And yet, in the next sentence after your quote, he says. "But that there is some such thing to see must be insisted on." So at best this is equivocal about the dialectic, and doesn't really seem to speak to the overall doctrine of the Forms at all.

With that said, we both know Plato well enough to be aware that, like the Bible, you can find support for diametrically opposed positions depending on what you quote!

but I am thinking in terms of centuries and millennia. It helps prevent one from falling into fads. — Leontiskos

I agree. These scholars are well versed in the centuries and millennia. In fact they often point to the centuries and millennia of commentary in order to see beyond what you refer to as "the common view". I think it telling that you dismiss the work being done as a "fad" without having actually read any of it. Careful reading that does not treat a dialogue as if it is dressed up discourse is not a fad.

Anyone paying attention to the scholarship for the last fifty years or more knows that that there have been significant changes in the way Plato has been interpreted — Fooloso4

But isn't it also possible that traditionalist interpretation of Plato - the mystical side of Plato, if you like - has been deprecated by secular culture? Today's culture often deprecates metaphysical claims, especially those that verge on mysticism or spirituality. The Platonic Forms, for instance, are easier to treat as intellectual constructs or pedagogical devices rather than ontological realities when seen through a secular lens. Plato couldn't really be talking about the reality of such non-empirical states or abstractions, could he? There's no conceptual space for that in the naturalist worldview. (Enter Gerson.)

The scholars who have influenced my work attend to the texts themselves, not to secular culture or metaphysical assumptions. They take seriously Socrates' notion of human wisdom. Not being divine beings they do not presume to know anything about matters of divine wisdom or a reality that transcends reality hear and now in our comfy cave.

As pointed out, the texts lend themselves to a variety of interpretations. That is part of their inexhaustible nature. But nevertheless

The introductory section of Parmenides’ philosophical poem begins, “The mares that carry me as far as my spirit [θυμὸς] aspires escorted me …” (B 1.1– 2). He then describes his chariot-ride to “the gates of night and day,” (B 1.11) the opening of these gates by Justice, his passage though them, and his reception by a Goddess, perhaps Justice herself. The introduction concludes with her telling him, “It is needful that you learn all things [πάντα], whether the untrembling heart of well-rounded truth or the opinions of mortals in which is no true belief” (B 1.28–30). From the outset, then, we are engaged with the urgent drive of the inmost center of the self, the θυμὸς, toward its uttermost desire, the apprehension of being as a whole, “all things.” Since the rest of the poem is presented as the speech of the Goddess, this grasp of the whole is received as a gift, a revelation from the divine. The very first full-fledged metaphysician in the western tradition, then, experiences his understanding of Being in religious terms, as an encounter with divinity. — Eric J Perl, Thinking Being, p13

I presume at least a trace of this revelation will be preserved in the subsequent tradition.

Today's culture often deprecates metaphysical claims, especially those that verge on mysticism or spirituality. — Wayfarer

Not being divine beings they do not presume to know anything about matters of divine wisdom or a reality that transcends reality hear and now in our comfy cave. — Fooloso4

You sort of walked into that one, Wayfarer. :wink: I think the grammatical and spelling mistakes are an indicator of what your thesis does to Fooloso's temperament. :grin:

It’s because there’s a kind of unspoken prohibition on certain topics or attitudes in the consensus view. I’m reminded of a clause in the founding charter of the Royal Society of London, which explicitly prohibited the consideration of ‘metaphysik’ on the grounds that it was in the province of churchmen, not natural philosophy as such (and in those days, one really had to stay in one’s lane.)

(I learned of Eric Perl’s book Thinking Being from John Vervaeke’s lecture series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. As you know, he is attempting to critique some of these naturalist assumptions from within a naturalistic perspective and what he has called ‘transcendent naturalism’.)

I’m reminded of a clause in the founding charter of the Royal Society of London, which explicitly prohibited the consideration of ‘metaphysik’ on the grounds that it was in the province of churchmen, not natural philosophy as such (and in those days, one really had to stay in one’s lane.) — Wayfarer

That doesn't surprise me, but it is interesting.

(I learned of Eric Perl’s book Thinking Being from John Vervaeke’s lecture series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. As you know, he is attempting to critique some of these naturalist assumptions from within a naturalistic perspective and what he has called ‘transcendent naturalism’.) — Wayfarer

Yep, I like Vervaeke. Though I don't know him too well.

The excerpt from Perl is relevant to @J's interest in Kimhi, who also takes a point of departure from Parmenides' Poem. The context Perl gives is helpful.

If the divided line isn't for would-be philosophers, I can't imagine who else it's for. — J

The lowest level of the divided line is not transcended or abandoned. It is our abode, the city, the cave. In the Phaedo Socrates calls Forms hypothesis. In the dialectic of the Republic too the Forms are hypothetical, and remain so unless or until one is able to free themself from hypothesis. In the dialogue Socrates is clear in stating that he has not done so.

In none of the dialogues do we find someone who has attained divine knowledge. Philosophy is, according to the Symposium, the desire for wisdom. They do not possess wisdom. The philosophers of the Republic stand in opposition to the philosophers of the Symposium.

... the idea that we are meant to go through aporia is so enticing. — J

Yes. And her Plato rivals the best of the poets in inflaming Eros. In this case the desire to be wise.

I suppose we could view Socrates as trying to block rational thought at these points of aporia, but I'm not sure that's his purpose — J

It is not that he blocks rational thought but that it has reached its limit.

We could look at specific dialogues for that, but we'd need a new OP. — J

If you do a search of the forum you will see that I started several threads that do just that.

I don't see this as being about the Forms themselves. — J

It is about knowledge of the forms, or lack of such knowledge.

But that there is some such thing to see must be insisted on. — J

He continues:

And should we not also insist that the power of dialectic alone would reveal this, to someone with experience in what we have been describing just now, and that this is not possible in any other way?

To which Glaucon agrees. Why does Glaucon agrees? Certainly not because this is something he knows. And Socrates does not know it either. He knows only how it looks to him. Why does Socrates insist? I think it is because he thinks that holding this opinion is better than the alternatives. It is a moment in the movement of dialectic, that is:

... making the hypotheses not beginnings but really hypotheses - that is, steppingstones and springboards - in order to reach what is free from hypothesis at the beginning of the whole.

They have not reached that point and will not reach it. They are thinking dialectically, via hypothesis.

With that said, we both know Plato well enough to be aware that, like the Bible, you can find support for diametrically opposed positions depending on what you quote! — J

Yes, but the goal is not simply to support a position but to consider different positions in order to find the one that seems best. But we may not always find one that seems best, and so, we leave things open and continue to think.

Which is why I'm sceptical of the suggestion that philosophy and science are the same in essence. — Wayfarer

I guess I don't see science and scientific objectivity as separate from philosophical virtue, even in the realm of "reality as lived." It seems like a lot of the same virtues underlie both philosophy and science.

For example, the sage and the psychologist hopefully possess scientific virtues of objectivity and neutrality. As you say, there seems to be a connection between wisdom-detachment and scientific neutrality. The way Buddhism is associated with a scientific aura is perhaps on point, for the Buddhist is often seen as bringing a scientific rigor to psychological introspection (and the same would hold of the desert fathers).

I think the grammatical and spelling mistakes are an indicator of what your thesis does to Fooloso's temperament. — Leontiskos

Wayfarer and I go way back. We often disagree, but not always. I consider him a friend. We have often recommended books and papers to each other. I know his positions well, and he knows mine.

Your comment about temperament seems to be projection. Both Wayfarer and I understand that the nature of philosophy involves dispute, but we also understand that there is a difference between disputes over matters of interpretation and personal attacks.

Why thanks, that means a lot, coming from you. :pray:

I guess I don't see science and scientific objectivity as separate from philosophical virtue, even in the realm of "reality as lived." It seems like a lot of the same virtues underlie both philosophy and science. — Leontiskos

Surely. I suppose a traditionalist way of putting it, would be the relationship of scientia and sapientia, which don’t conflict, but have a different focus. It’s one of the things I admire in Aquinas, with this view that science and faith can’t be ultimately in conflict, although that itself would be considered contentious nowadays by a good many people. It’s more that in the case of philosophical spirituality, the subject and the object of study are the same.

Surely. I suppose a traditionalist way of putting it, would be the relationship of scientia and sapientia, which don’t conflict, but have a different focus. It’s one of the things I admire in Aquinas, with this view that science and faith can’t be ultimately in conflict — Wayfarer

Yep. :up:

-

we also understand that there is a difference between disputes over matters of interpretation and personal attacks. — Fooloso4

Well, there is also gate-keeping and axe-grinding:

It’s because there’s a kind of unspoken prohibition on certain topics or attitudes in the consensus view. I’m reminded of a clause in the founding charter of the Royal Society of London, which explicitly prohibited the consideration of ‘metaphysik’ on the grounds that it was in the province of churchmen, not natural philosophy as such (and in those days, one really had to stay in one’s lane.) — Wayfarer

But to be fair, in this case Wayfarer asked you about metaphysics and mysticism.

The conflict, if it is a conflict, between secular and sacred readings of traditional and pre-modern culture, is also a factor in Buddhist modernism. It's a sort of tectonic plate.

By the way Book 1 of Awakening from the Meaning Crisis has just been published.

The conflict, if it is a conflict, between secular and sacred readings of traditional and pre-modern culture, is also a factor in Buddhist modernism. It's a sort of tectonic plate. — Wayfarer

Interesting. Do you have a link to an article?

By the way Book 1 of Awakening from the Meaning Crisis has just been published. — Wayfarer

:up:

It’s because there’s a kind of unspoken prohibition on certain topics or attitudes in the consensus view. — Wayfarer

Interesting conversation.

I liken it all to a jigsaw puzzle. Some like Parmenides worked to put the puzzle together, not seeing the pieces once he saw the whole picture, while today we are told the pieces are all there is to talk about and must not talk about any whole picture. And the consensus today is that we aren’t being scientists anymore when we think we see a whole. (We can’t even do metaphysics if we try, as if we should not trust our own experience, because of the limitations of grammar). But we will never be able to escape the whole picture. It keeps calling us to look at it. We sit, severed from the whole and that is how we know it is there. Somewhere. Some of us will always love to know, to experience truth. Buddhists would have us empty out even the science and the metaphysics to experience truth, and let the whole be whole, where none of the pieces even exist anymore. That is a better way, to move beyond metaphysics, not balk from it before we might experience the whole; try as post modernism may, we will never be convinced to remain here with only puzzle pieces as if there isn’t already a whole and maybe one we can come to know, to be with.

I doubt this makes much sense but good convo.

Do you have a link to an article? — Leontiskos

Facing the Great Divide, Bhikkhu Bodhi.

Beyond Scientific Materialism and Religious Belief, Akinko Weber.

Some like Parmenides worked to put the puzzle together, not seeing the pieces once he saw the whole picture, while today we are told the pieces are all there is to talk about and must not talk about any whole picture. And the consensus today is that we aren’t being scientists anymore when we think we see a whole. — Fire Ologist

There really is such a thing as 'the unitive vision', alluded to by Parmenides. Also a recent book by a philosophically-inclined physicist, Heinrich Päs, The One: How an Ancient Idea Holds the Future of Physics. (I haven't read it but I've listened to him expound on the ideas in an interview.) There's actually more than a few mystically-inclined physicists (much to the chagrin of physicalists).

Buddhists would have us empty out even the science and the metaphysics to experience truth, and let the whole be whole, where none of the pieces even exist anymore. — Fire Ologist

Well, śūnyatā is often misinterpreted as a kind of monstrous void, but in reality it's much nearer to the phenomenological epochē of Husserl (who commented favourably on Buddhist Abhidharma.) I like to think of it as 'going beyond the word processing department' i.e. going beyond the part of your brain that encodes everything in language and discursive ideation (which in my case is always a very busy place.)