From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Feb 06 2005 - 19:39:57 GMT
Scott and all MOQers:
dmb said:
I'd like to remind you that epistemological pluralism came BEFORE the
limited
empiricism of the enlightenment, BEFORE Modernity and SOM. ...it is NOT that
Pirsig or Wilber have expanded the meaning of the word "empiricism" so much
as Modern SOM has collapsed it.
Scott replied to dmb:
Actually (I went back to re-read what he said in Eye to Eye -- p. 42-43)),
Wilber restricts his use of "empirical" to the Eye of the senses. And he
does so for the same reason I do -- because it has a clear meaning if used
to refer to sense experience, but results in ambiguity if it is extended to
cover all experience.
dmb replies:
No. No, he doesn't. I won't even try to explain it again. Instead, I will
simply offer Wilber in his own words. The readers can be the jury, Wilber
the only witness, I'll be the silent prosecutor this time, except to list
the charges leveled against Scott, which is that he has a serious reading
comprehension problem resulting in false conclusions, such as the one above
where he claims Wilber, like himself, "restricts his use of 'empirical' to
the eye of the senses." Let the testimony begin...
Ken Wilber explains...
"Moving from the profoundly important notion that all knowledge must be
ultimately grounded in experience, many classical empiricists collaspsed
this to the absurd notion that all knowledge must be reduced to, and derived
from, colored patches. The myth of the given, the brain-dead flatland stare,
the monological gaze, the modern nightmare: with this impoverished
empiricism, we can have little sympathy.
This dual meaning of 'empirisism' - very broad and very narrow - is actually
reflected in the extensive confusion about the scientific method itself, and
whether it must be 'empirical' or not. For the enduring strength of science
- the reason it can indeed plop a person on the moon - is that it always
attempts, as best it can, to rest its assertions on EVIDENCE and EXPERIENCE.
But sensory experience is only one of severaal different but equally
legitimate types of experience, which is presicely why mathematics - seen
only inwardly, with the mind's eye - is still considered scientific (in
fact, is usually considered extremely scientific!)."
"As G.Spencer Brown said, its very like baking a pie; you follow the recipe
(the injunction), you bake the pie, and tehn you actually taste it. To the
question, 'What does pie taste like", we can only give the recipe to those
who inquire and let them taste it for themselves.
Likewise with the existence of Spirit: we CANNOT theoretically or verbally
or philosophicall or rationally or mentally describe the answer in any other
ultimately satisfactory fashion except to say; ENGAGE THE INJUNCTION. If you
want to KNOW this, you must DO this. Any other appraoch and we would be
trying to use the eye of the mind to see or state that which can be seen
only with the eye of contemplation, and thus we would have nothing but
metaphysics in the very worst sense - statements without evidence.
Thus; take up the injunction or paradigm of meditation; polish and practice
that cognitive tool until awareness learns to discern the incredibly subtle
phenomena of spiritual data; chech your observatons with others who have
done so, much as mathematicians will check their interior proofs with others
who have completed the injunctions; and thus confirm or reject your results.
And in the verification of that transcendental data, the existence of Spirit
will become radiantly clear - at least as clear as rocks are to the eye of
flesh and geometry is to the eye of the mind.
We have ssen that authentic spirituality is not the product of the eye of
flesh and its sensory empiricism, not the eye of mind and its rational
empirisicm, but only, finally, the eye of contemplation and its spiritual
empirisim (religious experience, spiritual illumination, or satori, by
whatever name).
In the West, since Kant - and since the differentiations of modernity -
religion (and metaphysics in general) has fallen on hard times. I maintain
that it has done so precisely because it attempted to do with the eye of the
mind that which can only be done with the eye of contemplation. Because the
mind could not actually deliver the metaphysical goods, and yet kept loudly
claiming that it could, somebody was bound to blow the whistle and demand
real evidence. Kant made the demand, and metaphysics collasped - and rightly
so, in its typical form."
"When an American Indian goes into isolation and fasts in order to achieve a
vision, the vision he seeks in not a romantic understanding of the surface
beauty of the world. (Its not seen with the eye of flesh) Neither is it a
vision of the world's classic intellectual form. (Its not seen with the eye
of the mind) It is something else. Since this whole metaphysics had started
with an attempt to explain Indian mysticism (Seen with the eye of
contemplation.) Phaedrus finally abandoned this classic-romatic split as a
choice for the primary division of the MOQ. The division he finally setttled
was one he didn't really choose..."
"Scholars usually take Plotinus's system to be primarily a form of
philosophy of 'metaphysics': the various levels, particularly the higher
ones, are imagined to be some sort of theoretical contructs that are
deduced, logically or postulated, speculatively, to account for existence
and manifestation. But in fact these systems are, through and through, from
top to bottom, the results of actual comtemplative apprehensions and direct
developmental phenomenolgy. The higher levels of these systems connot be
experienced or deduced RATIONALLY, and nobody from Plotinus to Aurobindo
thinks they can. However, AFTER THE FACT, of direct and repeated
experiential disclosures, they can be rationall reconstructed and presented
as a 'system'. But the 'system', so called, has been discovered, not
deduced, and checked against direct experience in a community of the
like-minded and like-spirited. (Its no accident that Inge refers to
Plotinus's spiritality as being based on 'experimental verification'. -
'faith begins as an experiement and ends as an experience.) Not a single
component of these systems is hidden to experience or nestled safely away in
a 'metaphysical' domain that cannot be checked cognitively with the
appropriate tools... In short, they follow all three strands of valid
knowledge accumulation - and one can 'dismiss' these higher levels of
development only on the same grounds that the Churchmen refused to look
through Galileo's telescope; dogmatic stubbornness tells them that there's
nothing to see." Ken Wilber
Scott:
I fail to see how this or anything further you say answers my objection. The
way we accept or reject mystical reports is different from the way we accept
or reject claims made on the basis of sense experience (which is in turn
different from the way we verify mathematical proofs). That does not mean
one throws out mystical reports. I am merely saying that we should keep the
word "empirical" to mean that verification can be done through the senses in
order to keep the two situations distinct.
dmb replies:
Yes, I agree. You fail to see. That's what's making me crazy. That's the
charge against you here, Scott. Let the deliberations begin....
Thanks,
dmb
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