From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Dec 12 2004 - 20:53:20 GMT
MSH and all MOQers:
Hey Mark, let the arbitration begin...
I have to start by saying that I knew nothing about mysticism when I first
read Kant and so it occured to me that I could very well be wrong in saying
he was not a mystic. Maybe I'll look into that. Anyway...
Sam Norton said:
Well, I think you're making a mistake here, and this is the absolute heart
of our disagreements. I
do not believe that we can simply say that Socrates was talking about the
same thing that
'philosophical mystics' today are talking about, without further explanation
and justification. You
think that we can, and so you bring in 'a gazillion ancient descriptions'
thinking that they support
your case, whereas I think that you have simply assumed your conclusions
before you start
investigating. Whenever I have challenged you to justify your position with
reference to the
tradition that I know a bit about, ie the Christian one, you've evaded the
issue (despite claiming
to be a Christian mystic yourself! That still astonishes me). Frankly I
think you know that you're
wrong on this and you're just afraid of exposing your assumptions to
scrutiny. Why don't we explore
Eckhart together, for example - he's even been given Pirsig's imprimatur, so
surely you can't be
that frightened of what you might discover? And if you claim to be a
Christian mystic, is there
anyone else who qualifies under that description with whom you would agree?
I don't care who you
pick, as long as it is pre-Kant, so let's say anyone before 1600. There are
lots to choose from. If
you continue to run away from this sort of serious engagement then I will be
confirmed in my
conclusion that you're argumentation is driven by fear not by a love of
truth.
dmb replies:
I'm not trying to evade your questions, honestly. It seems that you are not
getting the replies I have already written. Perhaps this explains why you
have ignored them. Are you telling me you did not read my answer to this
question already? Are you telling me that you never saw the post on the
distinction between religions of identity and religions of relationship and
Eckhart's (1260-1327) condemnation by the Church for asserting the former?
There were tons of posts along these lines. Or how about the ancients that
Scott brought to the table? Plotinus springs to mind. Did you not see the
posts in which I explain how they illuminate Pirsig's mysticism? Just tell
me if you really don't know which posts I refer to. I'm fairly certain that
I can find them and could post them again. I also want to say that the label
that bothers you so much, Christian mystic, is really not important to my
point. Clearly, that means something entirely different to you than it does
to me and apparently my claiming the label for myself has offended you
somehow. And now it seems to have become a distraction. See, I'm certainly
not denying that there is a long list of theologians and christian thinkers
who would vigorously disagree with everything I've been saying, as you have
yourself. In fact, as I understand it, the vast, vast majority would condemn
these ideas. And so I'm certainly not trying to appropriate that tradition
or make any claims that it supports my view. Quite the contrary. The people
who support my view would be burned at the stake for saying so. As I
understand it, Western culture is still quite biased against this view even
if we don't smell smoke. As I said before, this kind of mysticism has
existed as a kind of counter-cultural underground thing in the West. Thus
all of Pirsig's talk of contrarians who breath new dynamism into stale
static forms as such.
Sam said:
The thing is, I believe it to have been demonstrated without any possibility
of further ambiguity
that the way in which mysticism is understood by the William James strand is
radically different to
how it was understood prior to Schleiermacher within the Christian
tradition. I could be wrong, but
you haven't come close to demonstrating it yet. You keep on dismissing this
as the rantings of
someone whose understanding is compromised by a religious faith. Well, I
don't know what else there
is to say. If you bothered to study the matter, and break out of your
intellectual ghetto, you may
(or may not) perceive that certain arguments have Quality, others do not,
and you might learn
something as a result. You just seem to have discarded all the norms of
rational argumentation, ie
looking at the original texts, giving some respect to what people say who
have spent a long time
considering the texts, exploring the historical context, trying to establish
what the mystical
thinkers meant by the words they were using - all trying to assess what
makes sense according to
whatever flickering light of Quality exists in our own brains. Does none of
this carry any weight
with you? If it doesn't, I think I'd better stop.
dmb replies:
I'm having a hard time understanding this request. Aren't you asking me to
find support for my anti-authoritarian and anti-traditional views among the
tradtional authorities? See, the perennial philosophy, you might recall, is
based on reports from East and West, Ancient and Modern. Its much bigger and
broader and even pre-dates christianity as those many posts on the Sophists
tried to show. So if calling myself a christian mystic (where "christian"
merely modifies the noun) is offensive or distracting, then I'd be more than
happy to give it up. But I guess we'll just have to disagree about whether
or not I've "discarded all the norms of rational argumentation". Not only do
those things carry weight with me, I thought I was bringing all that to bear
in my posts. In fact you have twice tried to get me to STOP posting
supporting quotes from other philosphical mystics. What am I supposed to do
with that? Ask me to stop and then condemn me for not doing it? I guess
there must be some kind of misunderstanding here because that makes no
sense. When you say original texts are you talking about something in
particular like main works within the tradition? I guess we sorely need our
arbitrator on this matter. It seems to me that the burden of proof is always
upon the one making the assertion. That's why I tend to litter my posts with
examples and supporting quotes. But instead of bringing your position to the
table, you seem to be asking me study the matter and get out of the gettho
and take un-named thinkers seriously. Instead of offering support for your
view you seem to be demanding that I do some homework. That hardly seems
fair.
Sam wrote:
When you say 'one reads account after account' - who has been doing the
reading? If you have been
doing the reading, does this include the Christian mystics? If so, please
take up my challenge
above, and let us explore one mystic in depth, and see if your analysis and
description can be
sustained. I don't think you've bothered to read them yourself, and I think
you're dependent on - at
best - compromised third-hand selections for your information, as was
William James himself. Thing
is, I'm no expert either, but I have read _some_ of the tradition in the
original (eg Julian of
Norwich), and I've read a lot of secondary literature on the subject, and it
seems to me that you
simply haven't bothered to investigate people who disagree with you.
dmb writes:
Lots of people have been doing the reading, including me. You know the names
of these various readers already. And again, I think this request to find
Jamesian mysticism within the christian tradition is quite beside the point
and can't be done for reasons explained above. It very likely sounds like
I'm just bragging, but please listen because I'm making a serious point and
its not really even about ME. Its about empiricism and experience. I'm
telling you that the mystical experience is everywhere the same and have
brought have a dozen respectable scholars in support of that view. And all
these contributions are aimed at illuminating Pirsig's positions. That's all
about the shape and contours of concepts, about writing in a way that
connnects the ideas together and all that stuff. But I do not accept the
truth or validity of this position becasue of the reports of others even if
they are so widespread. No, its really more that I RECOGNIZE what these
accounts are describing because I've tasted it myself. This is not some
great achievement that makes me above tradion or anything like that. Its not
bragging about how enlightened I am. Honestly. But I'm telling you that I
KNOW this from first hand experience. The mystical experience is not just an
academic topic, its an experience that knocks your head off and when its
over you really have learned something. And its no magic trick that then I
can recognize it when other speak of going to the same place, if you will. I
know what its like to be in that teepee. I know what Pirsig is talking about
the same way lovers know what lovers know, etc. Now I should add that there
are also many accounts that are beyond me, that I do not recognize or only
vaguely recognize. And based on the reading I've done, this is becasue there
are deeper and deeper kinds of mystical experiences that can only be had by
well-trained spiritual athletes or gifted persons. And it may seem like an
unnecessary side-bar, but please hear this; The meaning of the christian
tradition, as I knew it from living in a christian country and growing up in
the church, only became apparent to me AFTER the mystical experience. It had
an "Oh, now I get it" kind of effect and the whole mythology was infused
power and meaning, a meaning that had very little to do with the static
interpretations I'd always heard. And that's why Pirsig's talk about the
guilded vines of dogma block out the light makes so much sense to me. It is
my personal experience that this is true. And I have to say that when ritual
is asserted to be mysticism, it looks very much like a light-blocking move
to me.
Sam said:
............you are using the traditional vocabulary of apophatic mysticism
with great confidence,
but I don't think you know what you are talking about. The point is that
when you use language to
say that something is NOT something else, you are still making an assertion,
you are still making a
conceptual claim. So the Christian mystics (for example) were moving beyond
that, making 'a negation
of the negation' to get the mind to shut up. You're still operating within
the system that they were
explicitly criticising. Again, I've asked you to explore these things, take
some time to investigate
what I was saying further, but you've never bothered. You've had three years
to do it - and if it's
not intellectual cowardice that has stopped you, what is it?
dmb says:
Again, it seems you want me to investigate certain things, like "the
negation of the negation", in order to save yourself the trouble of having
to explain what it is or why it matters. I mean, you've giving me a rather
clipped and cryptic phrase here. Am I supposed to know all about apophatic
mysticism because I've used terms they use? Why does that matter? Who are
these Christian mystics? These are really just rhetorical questions. I'm
trying demonstrate why your position is so unclear. Really, its hard to
investigate what you're saying when I don't know what you're saying. All I
know is that you mostly disagree with Pirsig on everything concerning
mysticism and religion, but I honestly could say why, except that you
believe the tradition is good. But I don't know why. Not really. In any
case, I think we can discuss this particular point without reference to
Pirsig or traditon or anything else.
The reason I am "still operating within the system" of words and concepts,
even while discussing that which is beyond words and concepts, is very
simple. Its the best we can do. Pirsig points this out early in Lila. This
is what he's talking about in saying metaphysics is degenerate. Bringing the
experience down to the level of intellect is immoral insofar as the reality
experienced cannot be captured by the smaller container, yet its all we
have. That's how we end up saying it can't be defined, only described as
undefinable and lots of seemingly paradoxical and contradictory language.
This is a valid issue and a real limitation of the intelllect, but it does
not mean that the mystical experience is conceptual. And, for Pete's sake
Sam, this is a discussion group after all. We're just gonna have to do our
silent meditation elsewhere. It makes no sense to do it here. This place is
for talking and I'm perfectly fine with that.
Finally, there is an issue that the arbitrator might want to ponder along
with this debate. Sam and I have a pretty major disagreement about the need
to defend Schleiermacher's view and find support within Christian tradition
for it. Sam seems to want to shift to debate over to places that seem to
have very little to do with the MOQ. I mean, let us not forget that it was
Pirsig who claimed to subscribe to the perennial philosophy, to
philosophical mysticism, to be anti-theistic and who views faith as a
willingness to believe falsehoods. I'm just trying to explain these things
to Sam, who seems to disagree with everything Pirsig says on the topic. And
Sam is free to do that, of course. But these requests of his give the
impression that Sam and I are not even discussing the same topic! As I
understand it, Pirsig is saying what many others are also saying and I'm
just trying to show how this view fits into the MOQ. It seems very clear to
me that a person simply can not understand the MOQ without understanding how
these Pirsigian positions all fit together. Instead, Sam seems to be happy
in defying every one of these positions in order to fit his idea of
mysticism in their stead. Sam rejects the perennial philosophy, rejects
philosophical mysticism, is offended by anti-theism and I still don't
understand what he means by faith, but he certainly disagrees with Pirsig
there too. These are difficult circumstances under which to converse. I
mean, how can we properly discuss philosophical mysticism when we apparently
can't even agree on the meaning of the key term "mysticism"? I think its
only fair that we, at least, BEGIN with Pirsig's definitions and
descriptions, not out of worship or because he's the last, best word on the
topic, but simply because we all have it in common and this is the MOQ
forum.
Thanks,
dmb
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