Since the myth of the given is playing a key role in some of these discussions it might be prudent to determine what it is and is not based on the the person who formulated it, Sellar, and those who intepreted it and then accepted, modified or rejected it, including Wilber. In a preliminary internet search I came upon the following aritlce which I’ll explore in which Husserl and Rorty both reject aspects of it. This should be good (at least for me), given Rorty’s general pomo and pragmatist orientations.
Rorty and Husserl on Realism, Idealism and Intersubjective Solidarity
http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~davidt/Rorty.html
August 13th, 2006 at 9:41 am Andy said: “As arguments like this suggest, the myth of the given is not really the solid orienting generalization, accepted by all right-thinking theorists today, that Wilber makes it out to be. There are some very prominent philosophers who don’t buy it, e.g., John Searle. Suppose we were to accept Searle’s view that atoms, cells, etc., in forms as we know them pre-existed us.â€Â
The myth of the given does not posit that the physical universe did not exist prior to our perception of it, nor does Wilber’s intepretation of it. The myth of the given is the following, from the Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind, http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/sellars.html#myth
Foundationalism in epistemology might be defined as the thesis that all of our knowledge rests on a foundation of indubitable truths about sensory experience. Such a philosophy can be found in the works of C. D. Broad and C. I. Lewis and was widely accepted throughout the first half of the 20th century. Sellars’s best known piece of writing, “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind†(EPM), first published in 1956, is in part a critique of this doctrine. There Sellars refers to this doctrine as the myth of given.
Sellars’s critique can be understood as resting on a distinction between the materials of sense and the inputs to the processes of reason. The inputs to the processes of reason are conceptualizations. We may react to sensory experiences with such conceptualizations, but the sensory experiences and the conceptualizations are not the same thing. Inasmuch as there is always the possibility that our conceptualizations are mistaken in some manner, there can be no foundation of indubitable truths about sensory experience such as the foundationalist imagines.
Edward, I responded to this in the original thread, which Ray started. I don’t disagree with this definition of the myth of the given, and I think my original post fairly represented it, and the challenge to it by post-moderns. In Wilber’s IS, the final version of which I have read, he makes it quite clear that while he doesn’t reject the notion of a physical universe of some sort, atoms, molecules, etc., are a different story. They came into existence, according to this view, only with fairly modern human civilizations.
But if atoms, molecules, etc., did not originally exist, what did? Wilber says that “everything is perspective”, a sort of Whitehead plus intersubjectivity position that sees everything as events situated in some context. This might be a good starting point for continuing this thread. Does he mean the physical universe is composed of perspectives? I think so. But what are these perspectives? They sound like interiorities to me, but in the 4Q model, they must have exteriors associated with them. Yet to some extent the exteriors only come into existence upon being perceived. Thus the exterior called an atom only came into existence when humans of a certain level evolved.
This comes back to my original question. If atoms and so on are just conceptualizations, what are the primordial perspectives cum exteriors that evolved into us? Is this view coherent? After all, evolution only came into existence as a conceptualization a few centuries ago (or depending on your view, maybe a little earlier), and of course the idea of quadrants is very recent. If these things were not in existence earlier, how did what exist get to us?
Hi Edward, you say:
“But you see, you make the dualistic assumption that the map and territory can be known separately. Whereas Wilber, with his holonic and AQAL theory, suggests that the map is the simultaneous intersubjective performance of the territory. It’s not that the territory or primal experience comes first and then we intepret it, they both happen simultaneoulsy in tetra-enaction.”
I would add that what you are saying here is only true for what Wilber called ‘the leading edge’. For the ‘rest of us’ the Kosmic Habits are already laid down which is hard reality for us. Even if we would have an intersubjective remapping of that reality/territory it would only work when the Kosmic Habits are still very fresh. Old Kosmic Habits like atoms are unchanging reality for us and so yes our knowing of them can come later then their coming into existence.
But that is if you follow Wilber in this.
To Andy Smith: Does Wilber really say “everything is perspective”? If so, he may have to deal with the problem of the incoherence of strong perspectivism – generated by applying strong perspectivism to the statement “everything is perspective”. For more on this, please see “Nietzsche’s Perspectivism” by Hales and Welshon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0252068661/ref=sr_11_1/002-8440657-6500858?ie=UTF8) . As far as I know, Nietzsche was the first person to formulate strong perspectivism. Hales and Welshon show that a kind of weak perspectivism does not have the incoherence problem at the cost of robbing perspectivism of some of its appeal.
Also, the problem of “primordial perspectives cum exteriors that evolved into us”, is that it risks absolutizing time via evolution (unless you mean a kind of timeless evolution). An opponent can deny evolution or time as basic.
Anand: I’m very sympathetic to what you say. Wilber, as always, is hard to pin down, but he has definitely said at points that everything is perspective.
One of the reasons, it seems to me, that Wilber needed to skip ontology as a given in Wilber 5 is one he doesn’t mention or is not aware of. His theory of the given (yes he believes in givens) is for the UL based on prehension, a term he takes from Whitehead (see excerpt A). He says that what we experience in this moment as a subject, in the next moment is part of our experience as an object. Added to that objectified part is a part of the experience that is new and creative (include and transcend).
This means that part of our experience is given and formed by our past experience. The trick is that I (as subject) then can perceive my experience of the previous moment as an object. So my experience is partly new and partly formed by my previous experience which enters my present experience as an object.
What he doesn’t mention is that this has a profound impact upon ontology. This is because being cannot be changed into an object! If you objectify being it loses its phenomenological quality of being. Being can only be experienced in the now. That‘s why one of the names used interchangeably with being is presence (etymologically connected to the word present).
So being can only be experienced in that part of the experience that is new and fresh, not in the given part that comes from the past (as a previous experience). And the being that was part of your previous experience has to be lost, according to this theory. This meant for Wilber that ontology as a given needed to be skipped, it has no place in the framework of the model of prehension that Wilber is using in his Kosmic Habits model.
But does that indeed mean that ontology can never be seen as a given, or does it just mean that Wilber’s model is not accurate? We can answer that question by looking at our own experience. If we have had full and total experiences of being, which (almost) completely filled our present experience then Wilber’s theory is false, or at least partly false. Because then there cannot be an objectified part of your experience based on the past.
I know I have had such experiences, but I am of course open to comments on this.
Another way we can take a look at Wilber’s theory of givens, ontology, prehension and Kosmic Karma in the UL is to make the difference between ego and being. If we look through the lens of Wilber’s theory (roughly speaking) ego is that part which is given to us in our present experience as objectified past by prehension. Ego is formed and developed by object relations which are based on past experiences and are taken into the present moment as objectified structures in our experience. Being, as I showed in my previous post, is only present in our experience in the now.
When we ‘develop’ into the transpersonal realms by definition the ego part of our experience gets less and less and the being part more and more. A completely enlightened person with no ego would then have no objectified parts given from the past into his present experience. Such a man or woman would have no karma according to Wilber’s theory, which is congruent with most Hindu and Buddhist teachings on this subject. His experience would only be ‘formed’ by being which is not given from the past.
So does this mean that ontology is the pregiven here? Yes and no. Being is not given to his experience from the past by prehension. It is given in the now, so there is no ‘pre’ here in the sense of time. Being is outside of time, (in)forming the experience in the now. And in that way, yes it is pregiven.
In this sense Wilber is right to skip ontology as a pregiven within his limited way of explaining karma within time. The problem is that it is not the whole story since ontology is based outside of time as most writers on this subject will tell you.
Of course a science of the senses will not be able to prove this, and I am not either. Wilber speaks of a spiritual science, but then limits this spiritual science to reconstructive inquiries. This means that we inquire into past facts and objects from the present, looking backwards. This will obviously also not work because it stays within the limited timeframe of past and future, ignoring the eternal now which is one of the bases of ontology.
What we need is a science that is based on inquiry in the present. To prove the above theory you need enough people that have reached these realms of enlightenment and can repeat the findings of each other by inquiry in the now. Humanity is not at this level (yet).
Marko, As to being and time, the absolute and the relative, they are not of the same order. AQAL and holons are of the relative and being is of the absolute. Ken makes this clear time and again (and out of time). He always insists that to experience the ultimate we must go beyond the relative realm with meditative or contemplative practice. As just one sample here’s a quote from Excerpt G, Part II:
“Not so absolute truth, about which literally and radically NOTHING may be accurately said in a noncontradictory fashion (including that one; if that statement is true, it is false). The great transcendental dialecticiansâ€â€from Nagarjuna to Kantâ€â€have thoroughly demolished any such attempts, showing that every single one of the attempts to categorize ultimate reality (as, for example, by saying it is a quantum energy potential) turns on itself and dissolves in ad absurdum or ad infinitum regresses. They are not saying that Spirit does not exist, but simply that any finite statement about the infinite will categorically not workâ€â€not in the same way that statements about relative or conventional truth will work. Spirit can be known, but not said; seen, but not spoken; pointed out, but not described; realized, but not reiterated. Conventional truths are known by science; absolute truth is known by satori. They simply are not the same thing.”
By the way, pomos like Derrida say the same thing: They are not saying that Spirit does not exist, but simply that any finite statement about the infinite will categorically not work
In fact one of the criticisms of Derrida and other pomoers is that they do not have a “practice” to get one to this spirit or being beyond time. Wrong again. Deconstruction is a practice, for it requires one, like in meditative training, to observe the relative self in it’s machinations until it is deconstructed or dissolved into the productive void from which emerges the causal witness. Granted they don’t use that terminology but Benedikter shows the correlations.
Regarding Excerpt A and Whitehead’s prehensive unification, the following is a quote from the referenced link in Excerpt A on how Ken includes an aspect of Whitehead’s ideas but rejects other aspects. You can see from the quote how Ken weaves spirit or being into it. Whether it works or not is of course open to debate.
From “Appendix A: My Criticism of Whitehead as True But Partial” in “Do Critics Misrepresent My Position”:
http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/misc/critics_04.cfm#appendix
My suggestion, then, is that instead of taking “I prehend the rock” (or “I prehend the concept”) and pushing that down into the atoms of experience, we instead take the four quadrants and push those all the way down to the atoms of experience. In other words, the paradigm of prehension is not “I see the red patch,” but rather, “I and the red patch arise in the space created (in part) by intersubjectivity, and once I and the red patch have arisen, then I see the patch in an immediate prehension.” And ultimately, that intersubjectivity itself can exist–that is, subjects can participate in each other’s immediate presence–because the agency of each subject opens directly onto nondual Spirit or pure Emptiness, so that, as I often put it, the agency of each holon acts as an opening or clearing in which other holons can manifest to each other, and that opening or clearing itself is (in part) a product of the four quadrants, so that a holon’s culture (LL quadrant) is always already an intrinsic part of the holon’s prehension of any objects. This is my attempt to include, all the way down, the enduring insights of the great postmodern writers, writers that, in Whitehead’s time, were really just becoming well-known and well-respected.
Thus, I maintain (as explained in SES and elsewhere) that this four-quadrant space “goes all the way down”–because interiors and exteriors go all the way down, and so do singular and plural. This does not particularly contradict anything Whitehead said, but it is a richer, fuller, and more integral expression of the very nature of real occasions, which is not “Left-Hand subject prehends Right-Hand objects,” but “All four quadrants arise mutually, the end result of which includes a subject prehending an object (physical, emotional, conceptual, etc.).”
Thus, even in Whitehead’s notions of concrescence and prehensive unification, I do not detect a vivid understanding of strong intersubjectivity. Rather, using a merely Whiteheadian process philosophy, one must construct intersubjectivity (and true dialogical experience) from a repeated application of prehensive unifications and concrescences, all of which are to some degree after the fact. I believe this hampers Whiteheadian process philosophy from becoming a truly integral philosophy. By adopting a quadratic, instead of limited dialogical, approach, I am not denying Whitehead but enriching him.
Hi Edward, Thanks for your comment. I agree with everything you said. Both that the absolute cannot be caught in a finite statement and the (important) practice of deconstruction. Only I was not speaking about the absolute but about ontological layers that are manifesting out of the absolute.
I’m confused then Marko, for it there are ontologoical “layers” of being then how are they not relative to each other and hence not absolute being per se as you describe it?
Hi Edward, some traditional teachings like Kabalah and Sufism have the view that Being manifests in various and delineated levels – which are similar to the dimensions of Being in neoplatonic philosophy – each real and objective on its own level.
Modern teachings like those of Aurobindo and Almaas have similar dimensions of Being and Hinduism speaks of Brahman, which can be seen as a level of Being. All of those teachings would differentiate this level from the Absolute or Parabrahman which is beyond Being.
Some of these teachings would say that these levels of Being are merely degrees of subtlety, others say that each of these levels is distinct and objectively delineatable.
Buddhism denies the existence of these levels stating that we are either aware of Buddha nature or not. I have also not found something similar in Wilber’s system. If I had to place these levels in his system I would place them between the subtle and the causal.
PS I was just reading the long and detailed endnote Ken Wilber wrote specifically about the involutionary givens, endnote 26 of Excerpt A:
http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/kosmos/excerptA/notes-3.cfm
But, it seems that Berge would not touch Sri Aurobindo even with a barge pole.
THE LIFE DIVINE Sri Aurobindo
2.1.13: Exclusive Concentration of Consciousness-Force and the Ignorance
In this chapter, Sri Aurobindo attempts to resolve an age-old metaphysical question in absolute speculative fashion with remarkable success. It is interesting to note that this piece of philosophical wizardry has resonance in Heidegger’s Unconcealment.
Exclusive Concentration and Unconcealment http://savitrieralearningforum.blogspot.com/2005/11/exclusive-concentration-and.html
You’re right Tusar, I’m not interested in Aurobindo or other “metaphysical” systems as Wilber defines them. And it’s not that I’m unfamiliar with them. Although I’m unfamiliar with Aurobindo I studied a hermetic and qabalistic tradition for about 10 years before being initiated into an Order. I was an initiate of this Order for another 5 years and attained a fairly high degree of initiation. So I’m aware of kabbalistic (or as we used it, qabalistic) levels of ontology. I just no longer accept that worldview as my own.
So, better rename the blog as Closed Integral, if you are so hostile to Sri Aurobindo and that too without studying anything about him. Even Wilber won’t like to take such a rigid stand. If you are so enamoured of Postmodernism, may I add that The Mother and Sri Aurobindo are the first Post-modernists.
Just because I don’t have an interest in studying Aurobindo doesn’t mean I’m closed to his ideas or his relevant and valuable insights. Nor does it mean this forum is closed to them. It’s just not my interest to accept his view in toto or to study him in depth. Your and Aurobindo’s views are welcome here but expect them to be questioned. And by all means continue to question mine.
Tusar, I started to read the referenced chapter in The Life Divine but I don’t understand it. In your blog you noted that it related to Heidegger’s unconcealment, so perhaps you can explain this to me. Thanks.
[Edward Berge Says: August 15th, 2006 at 1:02 pm I’m confused then Marko, for it there are ontologoical “layers†of being then how are they not relative to each other and hence not absolute being per se as you describe it? ]
Oh Great! Finally, your resistance melted. In the cited Chapter, Sri Aurobindo has answered to your aforesaid confusion with all philosophical rigorousness. And may I say it in all sincerity that this has not been done in any other philosophy, theology, or theosophy. You are an earnest seeker of Truth and endowed with abundant intelligence. The Life Divine is written for people like you. There is no better joy than to discover its treasures by reading it at a slow pace. Bon voyage!
I consider Wilber’s not including meta-physical ontological levels of being into his theory a missed chance in being truly integral. And because of that I support the essays Alan is writing, although I would not want integral to be composed of only Aurobindo, of course.
I like Wilber’s theories very much, but on the transpersonal level there is so much more out there, then what he integrates; Buddhism, Plotinus, some yoga, a little Kasmir shaivism, Ramana Maharshi (but where is the great Nisargadatta?), some Aurobindo, some Christian mystics, that’s about it.
Take for instance Sufism, a mayor and very rich transpersonal developmental oriented movement. It includes both the personal (the lataif, pearl etc) and impersonal spiritual realms, where Wilber only includes the impersonal.
It has what Wilber lately calls both vertical and horizontal development; ruh or spirit and nafs or soul/self which both have there developmental path. Spirit from the lataif all the way to the Absolute and self roughly from animal like self, via blaming self towards secure self, contented self and pure, angelic self.
Sufi theory includes states, stages and adds a third called station. That is when a stage becomes permanently availble. And had this terminology long before Wilber. Also the Sufi’s have the three perpectives of God Wilber has been speaking about; I, you and it perspectives. And I could go on and on.
So including Sufi theory and brilliant and very wide (span) and deep theorists like Ibn Arabi or even modern Sufis like Idries Shah would be very enriching for the transpersonal parts of Integral theory.
I guess the problem lies in lack of time, which is why Integral Theory cannot be a one man show like it seems to be with Wilber and – more importantly – centralizing Buddhism and its emptiness doctrine which automaticly decides which theories are and which are not included (or stripped a lot like f.i. Aurobindo) when they are not congruent with Buddhism. For me that is not what integral means and also not what Wilber tells us he believes integral means.
PS I wanted to post this as a new subject/category but could not find how to do this. Can somebody tell me that? Thanks.
Edward wrote:
August 16th, 2006 at 6:18 am e
You’re right Tusar, I’m not interested in Aurobindo or other “metaphysical†systems as Wilber defines them. And it’s not that I’m unfamiliar with them.
And I have already deconstructed Wilber and his so-called post-metaphysics in part 2 of my essay on Integral World, and refuted his understanding of Sri Aurobindo in the first section of part 3
So unless any Wilberians can comprehensively refute my arguments (and I am open to any such discussion), in adopting a superior attitude to all the world’s spiritual and esoteric traditions they have to be open to the possibility that they are building a house on foundations of sand
I studied a hermetic and qabalistic tradition for about 10 years before being initiated into an Order. I was an initiate of this Order for another 5 years and attained a fairly high degree of initiation. So I’m aware of kabbalistic (or as we used it, qabalistic) levels of ontology. I just no longer accept that worldview as my own.
That’s interesting Edward! I have to admit I am surprised but also very impressed to hear that!
Hermetic Kabbalah/Qabalah (I guess you mean a Golden Dawn inspired approach, or some offshoot e.g. O.T.O. or more specifically the A.A.) is a highly practical system that uses very ideosyncratic approach, highly formalised thoughtforms and so on (the same with Tantra, Tibetan Buddhism etc btw, all these systems are very similar). These systems of occultism, especially in Gnosticism, Merkavah, Hermetic Kabbalah, Magick, etc, are based on the idea of getting past guardians, ascending to inner worlds etc. But according to the Mother all these experiences are 90% subjective:
So it’s not surprising that you made the transition to Wilberism, since the Wilberian dismissal of what he calls “metaphysics” actually fits in well with the arbitrary nature of these worldviews and experiences. It might also be suggested that the highly intellectualised Wilberian system with all its waves and states and stages, is at least superfically a lot like Hermetic Kabbalistic cosmology with all its subdivisions.
Wilber however made a mistake that most occultists don’t. He thinks that (apart from the actual experience which he tries to artificially abstarct, see Ferrer Revisioning Transpersonal Theory for the refutation of this) it is all culturally determined (mind you, teher are some occultists who do adopt this view, but most acknowledge the validity of supra-physical realities). But just because our experience is mostly subjective, that doesn’t mean that these ontological realities in themselves are!
As the Mother says a little later in that same talk
This is why I argue that Wilber is a physicalist, he is unable to conceive of ontological levels, entities, forces, and soon taht are totally supra-physical. And I don’t mean the Absolute Reality (which is neither physical nor supra-physical nor both nor neither, as Nagarjuna showed long ago). I mean other (supra-physical) ontological worlds or realities.
Tusar wrote:
August 16th, 2006 at 8:04 am
So, better rename the blog as Closed Integral, if you are so hostile to Sri Aurobindo and that too without studying anything about him
Edward wrote:
August 16th, 2006 at 9:40 am
Just because I don’t have an interest in studying Aurobindo doesn’t mean I’m closed to his ideas or his relevant and valuable insights. Nor does it mean this forum is closed to them. It’s just not my interest to accept his view in toto or to study him in depth.
Indeed, this forum is open to all ideas and insights (and if ever it became otherwise, I would leave pretty quick!). No-one has censored me for example. So I for one will keep posting Aurobindonian and other insights here!
And I certainly won’t condem anyone for not being interested in Sri Aurobindo, or for that matter for not being interested in any other spiritual or integral teaching. Everyone has to follow their own path, their own Inner Guide.
…Aurobindo’s views are welcome here but expect them to be questioned.
Questioning is good, but they have to be valid arguments! I myself don’t consider any of Wilber’s “post-metaphysics” to be valid for reasons explained in my essay on Integral World. Others may and have a right to disagree, but then the burden of proof is on them to show why Wilber’s critique of all spiritual teachers and teachings that preceeded him should be taken seriously.
And by all means continue to question mine.
And mine as well.
On reading Sri Aurobindo:
It is my experience (others may differ) that Sri Aurobindo cannot be understood or appreciated by merely reading him intellectually (and again, this is my criticism of Wilber’s approach). It is necessary to go behind the words, to use the words as gateways for the Soul. I find reading even a few sentences or paragraphs from The Synthesis of Yoga to be extremely powerful. But if you try to read him like you would Wilber, or Heidegger, or another philosopher, you’ll just get the surface meaning. This is fine if the subject is a purely mental philosophy (as it may be here) but it is not the whole picture. It is necessary to contact the spiritual transmission behind that. And that goes for every spiritual teaching – Lao-tze, Plotinus, Kshemaraja, everyone.
It is also very interesting, as Edward pointed out, that Roland Benedikter has discovered a spiritual tendency in the later thoughts of a number of senior postmodernist thinkers. Benedikter is a big admirer of Sri Aurobindo as well.
Marko says:
I consider Wilber’s not including meta-physical ontological levels of being into his theory a missed chance in being truly integral. And because of that I support the. essays Alan is writing, although I would not want integral to be composed of only Aurobindo, of course.
Hi Marko
I admit I have become a strong Aurobindo polemicist of late, but that is only because there needs to be a counter-balance to Wilberism, and I feel that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother best fit the bill.
I’m writing another essay which I’ll probably post on my blog giving all the reasons for my preachiness
However, I certainly agree with you Marko that integral shouldn’t just mean Aurobindo. Integral has to go beyond any one teacher, but include them all. The reason I am using Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as my primary reference points is because they have, to my understanding, the most integral and all-encompassing system of all. i.e. they are the only ones I know of who talk about the practicalities of the integral divine (in their terminology supramental) transformation and the divinisation of matter itself and the world as a whole, as opposed to individual dibvinisation and liberation, or even an individual divinisation of the body that leaves the rest of the world unchanged.
I concede however that my knowledge of various traditions are limited, so if anyone can point me to another teaching that says the same I will certainly add it as another primary refernce point in my essay in progress
Hi Alan,
I saw the index of your new essay on your blog; it looks interesting. And I want to encourage you to give it a try to include more sources then Aurobindo and the Mother as sources for the different topics you are writing on. Looking at your Kheper site I would think you should be able to do that. The thing is, that to not be discarded as just writing on Aurobindo, you need a wider range of sources. Otherwise the counterbalance to Ken Wilber in the integral world you want to present will be more limited.
This doesn’t mean you couldn’t keep Aurobindo and the Mother as your main reference point, does it? And true, I also don’t know of other teachings that write about the divinisation of matter, only about the body, but as I looked at the index of your essay, that was just one of many subjects you were going to write on. I will certainly look forward to reading the essay when it is finished.
Marko said:
The thing is, that to not be discarded as just writing on Aurobindo, you need a wider range of sources. Otherwise the counterbalance to Ken Wilber in the integral world you want to present will be more limited.
Yes, very true! I’ll definitely follow your advice!
btw Marko I’d love to have you review my essay before I submit it to Integral World. If you’re interested, could you contact me (you can get my email from my blogger user profile)
cheers
alan